Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

"Enjoy yourself in those dusty old archives," said Pitt humorously.

"Nothing stirs my blood more than finding a new angle on history in a forgotten log or letter. Except of course the taste of fine wine. Or a gourmet meal prepared by a great chef."

"Of course," Pitt said, smiling to himself as he pictured Perlmutter's great girth, which was a direct result of excessive indulgence in food and drink.

"I will call should I turn up anything of interest."

"Thank you." Pitt hung up the phone as Sally Morse called from the balcony above that dinner was ready. He shouted an acknowledgment but did not immediately leave the Pullman car and walk up the staircase.

Now that he was removed from any role in the operation to stop Curtis Merlin Zale, the murderous Viper organization and the Cerberus cartel, Pitt felt lost, without direction. It was not his nature to sit powerless on the outside looking in. He had run out of road- and he wished to high heaven that he had turned off earlier and turned down one he'd overlooked.

45

The Cerberus offices in Washington were housed in a large mansion that had been built for a wealthy senator from California in 1910. Set on ten acres on the fringe of Bethesda and surrounded by a high vine-covered brick wall, the mansion-turned-office-building did not contain spartan offices for the conglomerate's engineers, scientists or geologists. The four floors of lavish suites were filled with corporate attorneys, political analysts, high-level lobbyists and influential former senators and congressmen, all working to increase Zale's grip on the United States government.

At one o'clock in the morning, a van advertising an electrical contractor pulled up to the gate and was passed through. Security was tight. Two guards manned the house at the front gate while two more patrolled the grounds with attack dogs. The van eased to a stop in a parking slot near the front door. A large black man walked toward the entrance with a long box containing fluorescent light tubes. He signed in at the guard-reception desk and took an elevator to the fourth floor, where he stepped across a teak floor covered with expensive handwoven Persian rugs. There was no secretary in the foyer of the large office at the end of the hallway. She had left for home an hour earlier. He passed her empty desk and entered a spacious office whose door was open.

Curtis Merlin Zale was seated in a huge leather executive chair studying a geologist's seismic reports on a previously undiscovered oil and gas field in Idaho. He did not look up as the electrician entered. Instead of installing the light tubes, the electrician boldly sat down in a chair in front of the desk. Only then did Zale look up into the dark sinister eyes of Omo Kanai.

"Was your distrust validated?" asked Kanai.

Zale smiled smugly. "The unsuspecting fish took the bait."

"May I ask who?"

"Sally Morse of Yukon Oil. I began to doubt her dedication to the cause when she raised questions over our plan to ram the supertanker into the heart of San Francisco."

"Do you think she talked to authorities?"

"I'm certain of it. Her plane did not return to Alaska but flew to Washington."

"A loose cannon in the capital could be dangerous."

Zale shook his head. "She has no documentation. Only her word. Nothing can be proved. Little does she suspect that she did us a great service by turning renegade and defecting."

"If she testifies before Congress . . . ," said Kanai, without finishing his thought.

"If you handle your end, she'll have an accident before she can be interrogated."

"Has the government put her in a safe house?"

"Our sources inside the Justice Department say they have no knowledge of her whereabouts."

"Any idea where she can be found?"

Zale shrugged. "None at the moment. She must be hiding with private parties."

"Then she won't be easy to find," said Kanai.

"I'll locate her for you," said Zale confidently. "I have more than a hundred of our people looking for her. It's only a question of hours."

"When is she due to testify before the committee?"

"Not for another three days."

Kanai appeared satisfied.

"I assume all is in readiness," Zale said. "There can be no oversight, no unforeseen problems."