Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

"You should have told me about the photographs. I could have saved you many a sleepless night."

"I thought I could handle it," she said, avoiding his eyes. "Women should be able to stand alone."

70

He put his arm around her and led her to his car. "There are times when even a dedicated feminist needs a chauvinist to lean on."

As Loren slid into the passenger seat, Pitt noticed a small slip of paper under one of his windshield wipers. At first he thought it was only an advertising flyer and was about to throw it away, but curiosity won out and he glanced at it. The message was written in a precise hand.

dear mr. pitt,

I would be most grateful if you would call this number (555-5971) at

your earliest convenience.

Thank you, dale jarvis

Instinctively Pitt looked up and down the crowded sidewalk, trying vainly to make the mysterious messenger. It was a hopeless chore. There were nearly eighty people within a hundred-yard radius; any one might have slipped the paper onto his car while he was confronting Daggat.

"Do you know a Dale Jarvis?" he asked Loren.

She thought a moment. "Can't say the name is familiar. Why?"

"It appears," Pitt said pensively, "that he left me a love note."

49

The chilly winter air seeped through the seams of the truck bed and stabbed Lusana's skin. He was lying on his stomach, his hands and legs tightly bound to his sides. The metal ribs of the floor jarred his head with every bump the stiffly sprung truck took from the road. Lusana's senses were hardly functioning. The hood over his head closed out all light and left him disoriented, and the loss of circulation had turned his body numb.

His last memory was of the smiling face of the flight captain in the first-class hospitality bar at the airport. The few lucid thoughts he had had since then ended on the same image.

"I'm Captain Mutaapo," the tall, slender pilot had said. He was a balding middle-aged black man, but his smile made his face youthful. He wore the dark-green uniform of BEZA-Mozambique Airlines, with an abundance of gold braid entwining the lower sleeves. "A representative from my government has requested me to ensure a safe and secure flight for you, Mr. Lusana."

"Precautions were necessary for entering the United States," Lusana had said, "but I seriously doubt I am in any danger on a departing flight surrounded by American tourists."

"Nonetheless, sir, you are my responsibility, as well as the one hundred and fifty other passengers. I must ask if you foresee any problems that may endanger lives."

"None, Captain, I assure you."

"Good." Mutaapo's teeth flashed. "Let's drink to a smooth and comfortable flight. What will be your pleasure, sir?"

"A martini, straight up with a twist, thank you."

Stupidity, Lusana thought as the truck rumbled over a railroad crossing. Too late it dawned on him that commercial-airline pilots cannot take alcohol twenty-four hours before a flight. Too late he realized that his drink had been drugged. The bogus flight captain's smile seemed frozen in time before it slowly clouded and dissolved into nothingness.

Lusana could not measure the hours or the days. He had no way of knowing that he was kept in a constant state of stupor by frequent injections of a mild sedative. Unfamiliar faces appeared and reappeared as the hood was temporarily removed, their features floating in an ethereal haze before blackness closed in once more.

The truck braked to a halt and he heard muffled voices. Then the driver shifted gears and moved forward, stopping again in less than a mile.

Lusana heard the rear doors open and he felt two pairs of hands pick him up roughly and carry his numbed body up some kind of ramp. Strange sounds came out of the darkness. The blast of a distant air horn. Metallic clanging, as though steel doors were being opened and slammed shut. He also detected the smells of fresh paint and oil.

He was unceremoniously dumped on another hard floor and left there as his bearers faded out of earshot. The next thing he sensed was the rope's being cut from his body. Then the hood was removed. The only light came from a small incandescent red bulb on one wall.

For nearly a full minute Lusana lay there motionless while the circulation slowly awakened his agonized limbs. He screwed up his eyes and squinted. It appeared to him that he was on the bridge of a ship. The red glow from above revealed a helm and large console dotted with multicolored lights that reflected off a long row of square windows embedded in three of four gray walls.

Above Lusana, still holding the hood in his hand, was a huge mass of a man. Looking like a distorted giant, from Lusana's prone position on the deck, the man stared down from a kindly face and smiled. Lusana was not taken in. He well knew that most hardened killers flashed angelic expressions before slitting their victims' throats. And yet the face on this man seemed strangely innocent of bloodthirsty intent. Instead, he exuded a detached sort of curiosity.

"You are Hiram Lusana." The deep bass voice echoed against the steel bulkheads.