Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

"Got your crew set up, Curt?" Thompson asked jovially.

Mayo leaned back, pushed a baseball cap to the rear of a head forested with billowy silver hair and gazed up through orange tinted glasses. "I don't see anything worth capturing for posterity."

Sarcasm ran off Thompson like rainwater down a spout. "In five minutes the President is going to step from his house, walk to the barn and start up a tractor."

"Bravo," Mayo grunted. "What does he do for an encore?"

Mayo's voice had a resonance to it that made a symphonic kettledrum sound like a bongo: deep, booming, with every word enunciated with the sharpness of a bayonet.

"He is going to drive back and forth across the field with a mower and cut the grass."

"That's alfalfa, city slicker."

"N"atever," Thompson acknowledged with a good-natured shrug.

"Anyway, I thought it would be a good chance to roll tape on him in the rural environment he loves best."

Mayo leveled his gaze into Thompson's eyes, searching for a flicker of deception. "What's going down, Sonny?"

" Sorry? "

"Why the hide-and-seek? The President hasn't put in an appearance for over a week."

Thompson stared back, his nut-brown eyes unreadable. "He's been extremely busy, catching up on his homework away from the pressures of Washington."

Mayo wasn't satisfied. "I've never known a President to go this long without facing the cameras."

"Nothing devious about it," said Thompson. "At the moment, he has nothing of national interest to say-"

"Has he been sick or something?"

"Far from it. He's as fit as one of his champion bulls. You'll see."

Thompson saw through the verbal ambush and moved on along the fence, priming the other news people, slapping backs and shaking hands.

Mayo watched him with interest for a few moments before he reluctantly rose out of the chair and assembled his crew.

Norm Mitchell, a loose, ambling scarecrow, set up his vineo camera on a tripod, aiming it toward the back porch of the President's farmhouse, while the beefy sound man, whose name was Rocky Montrose, connected the recording equipment on a small folding table. Mayo stood with one booted foot on a strand of barbed wire, holding a microphone.

"Where do you want to stand for your commentary?" asked Mitchell.

"I'll stay off camera," answered Mayo. "How far do you make it to the house and barn?"

Mitchell sighted through a pocket range finder. "About a hundred and ten yards from here to the house. Maybe ninety to the barn."

"How close can you bring him in?"

Mitchell leaned over the camera's eyepiece and lengthened the zoom lens, using the rear screen door for a reference. "I can frame him with a couple of feet to spare."

"I want a tight close-UP.

"That means a two-X converter to double the range."

"Put it on."

Mitchell gave him a questioning look. "I can't promise you sharp detail. At that distance, we'll be giving up resolution and depth of field."

"No problem," said Mayo. "We're not going for air time."