Dirk Pitt - 06 - Night Probe! by Clive Cussler

Author:Clive Cussler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thriller
Published: 2010-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

Dirk Pitt 6 - Night Probe!

Part V

THE MANHATTAN LIMITED

MAY 1989

QUEBEC, CANADA

The roar of the jet engines diminished soon after the Boeing 757 lifted from the runway of the Quebec airport. When the no smoking sign blinked out, Heidi loosened her seat belt, readjusted the leg that was encased in an ankle-to-thigh cast to a comfortable position and looked out the window.

Below, the long ribbon that was the St. Lawrence sparkled in the sun and then fell away behind as the plane curved south toward New York.

Her thoughts wandered over the events of the past several days in a kaleidoscope of blurred images. The shock and the pain that followed the explosion beneath the Ocean Venturer. The considerate attention of the surgeon and sailors on board the Phoenix-her leg-cast carried more drawings than a tattoo parlor sample book. The doctors and nurses in the Rimouski hospital where they had treated a dislocated shoulder, and laughed good-heartedly at her sorry attempts to speak French. They all seemed like distant figures out of a dream, and she felt saddened at knowing she might never see them again.

She did not notice a man slide into the aisle seat beside her until he touched her arm.

“Hello, Heidi.”

She looked into the face of Brian Shaw and was too startled to speak.

“I know what you must think,” he said softly, “but I had to talk to you.”

Heidi's initial surprise quickly turned to scorn. “What hole did you crawl from?”

He could see her face flush with anger. “I can't deny it was a cold, calculated seduction. For that, I'm sorry.”

“All in the line of duty,” she said sarcastically. “Bedding down a woman to extract information and then using it to murder twelve innocent men. In my book, Mr. Shaw, you stink.”

He was silent for a moment. American women, he mused, have an entirely different way of expressing themselves from that of British women. “A regrettable and completely senseless tragedy,” he said. “I want you, and especially Dirk Pitt, to know I was not responsible for what happened.”

“You've lied before. Why break your streak?”

“Pitt will believe me when you tell him it was Foss Gly who set off the explosives.”

“Foss Gly?”

“Pitt knows the name.”

She looked at him skeptically. “You could have stated your case with a phone call. Why are you really here? To pump more information out of me? To learn if we recovered the treaty copy from the Empress of Ireland?”

“You did not find the treaty,” he said with finality. “You're shooting in the dark.”

“I know that Pitt left Washington for New York and the search on the Hudson River still goes on. That's proof enough.”

“You haven't told me what you want,” she persisted.

He looked at her, his eyes intent. “You're to deliver a message from my prime minister to your president.”

She glared back at him. “You're crazy.”

“Not the least. On the face of it, Her Majesty's government is not supposed to be aware of what yours is about and it's too early in the game for a direct confrontation.

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