"Are you going back to Washington?"
"I haven't received my marching orders yet," he replied, "but I suspect they came with my pals, Giordino and Gunn. And you? Where will the needs of the service send you?"
"My home office is in San Francisco. I assume that's where they'll want me."
He moved forward and took her in his arms, kissing her gently on the forehead. "Next time we meet," he said softly, tenderly touching his fingertips to her cut and swollen lips, "I'll kiss you full on the mouth."
"Are you a good kisser?"
"Girls come from miles around to kiss me."
"If there is a next time," she murmured softly, "I'll return the favor."
Then she was walking with Simmons to a waiting car. Pitt stood alone by the forlorn Chris-Craft and watched until the car rounded a streetcorner. He was standing there when Giordino and Gunn came bounding across the dock, shouting like madmen.
They had remained in the air until the runabout was safely tied to the town dock. Seeing an INS helicopter sitting in a field about a mile north of town, Giordino would have none of it. He set the NUMA helicopter down in a parking lot less than a block from the dock, much to the annoyance of a deputy sheriff, who threatened him with arrest. Giordino pacified him by claiming they were scouting locations for a Hollywood production company and promised they would recommend Grapevine as the perfect backdrop for a new big-budget horror movie. Suitably charmed by NUMA's most renowned con artist, the deputy insisted on driving Giordino and Rudi Gunn to the dock.
Standing only five feet four inches but with shoulders nearly as wide as he was tall, Giordino lifted Pitt off his feet in a great bear hug. "What is it with you?" he said, elated to see Pitt alive. "Every time I let you out of my sight you get into trouble."
"Natural instinct, I guess," Pitt grunted while being crushed.
Gunn was more sedate. He simply put his hand on Pitt's shoulder. "Good to see you again, Dirk."
"I've missed you, Rudi," said Pitt, taking a deep breath after Giordino released him.
"Who were those guys in the ultralights?" asked Giordino.
"Smugglers of illegal aliens."
Giordino stared down at the bullet holes in the Chris-Craft. "You ruined a perfectly good boat."
Pitt also studied the shattered windshield, the splintered engine hatch, the holes stitched across the bow, the wisp of dark smoke rising from the engine compartment. "If you'd arrived two seconds later, Admiral Sandecker would be stuck with the chore of writing my eulogy."
"When we flew over Foley's cabin, the place was swarming with guys in black ninja suits. Naturally thinking the worst, I shoved the throttles to the board and we took off after you. After finding you being strafed by a bunch of shady characters flying ultralights, we just naturally crashed the party."
"And saved a dozen lives," Pitt added. "But where in hell did you come from? The last I heard you were in Hawaii and Rudi was in Washington."
"Lucky for you," said Gunn, "Admiral Sandecker was handed a priority project by the President. As much as he disliked cutting off your rest and recuperation, he ordered Giordino and me to meet in Seattle. We both arrived last night, then borrowed a helicopter at the NUMA marine-science center at Bremerton to come pick you up. After you called the admiral this morning and told him what you'd discovered and that you were making a run for it down the river, Al and I took off and dashed across the Olympic Peninsula in forty minutes flat."
"That Machiavellian old sea dog sent you thousands of miles just to put me back to work?" Pitt asked in mild amazement.
Gunn smiled. "He told me that he was reasonably certain that if he'd called himself, you'd have uttered unrepeatable words over the phone."
"Tha
t old man knows me pretty well," Pitt admitted.
"You've had a rough time," said Gunn sympathetically. "
erhaps I can talk him into letting you lay low for a few days longer."
"Not a bad idea," Giordino added candidly. "You look like the rat the cat dragged in."
"Some vacation," Pitt said finally. "I hope I never have another like it. I'd like to think of it as being over."
Gunn motioned toward the edge of the dock. "The helicopter isn't far. Think you can make it okay?"
"There are a few things I'd like to take care of before you rush me off," Pitt said, giving both men a cold eye. "First, I'd like to get Sam Foley's Chris-Craft to the nearest boat yard for repairs and an engine overhaul. Second, it might be nice if we found a doctor who wouldn't ask a lot of questions while he attends to a gunshot wound in my hip. And third, I'm starved. I'm not going anywhere until I've been fed breakfast."