Night Probe! - Night Probe! Part 67
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Night Probe! Part 67

"The moment of truth," he said pontifically.

Moon picked up a nearby telephone and established a direct line to the President. Sandecker moved in closer and peered intently over Galasso's shoulder. Pitt's features were expressionless, cold and strangely remote.

The thin, fragile flap was lifted cautiously by degrees and laid back.

They had dared to confront the impossible and their only reward was disillusionment, followed by a crushing bitterness.

The indifferent river had seeped into the oilcloth and turned the British copy of the North American Treaty into a paste like unreadable mush.

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. Because the situation is too delicate for two friendly nations to go through ordinary diplomatic channels, all communications must be handled in a roundabout fashion. It's not an uncommon practice; in fact, the Russians are particularly fond of it."

"But I can't just call up the President," she said, bewildered.

"No need. Just relay the message to Alan Mercier. He'll take it from there."

"The national security adviser?"

Shaw nodded. "The same."

Heidi looked lost. "What do I tell him?"

"You're simply to say that Britain will not give up one of its Commonwealth nations because of a scrap of paper. And we will conduct a strong military defense against any incursion from outside the nation's borders."

"Are you suggesting a showdown between America and ..."

"You'd win, of course, but it would be the end of the Atlantic Alliance and NATO. The Prime Minister is hoping your country won't pay that high a price to take over Canada."

"Take over Canada," she repeated. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it? Why else are your people pulling out all stops to find a treaty copy?"

"There must be other reasons."

"Perhaps." He hesitated as he took her hand in his. "But somehow I don't think so."

"So the train lies buried under the fallen bridge," said Pitt. Glen Chase nodded. "Everything points in that direction."

"The only place it could be," added Giordino.

Pitt leaned over the railing of the catwalk that hung across the beam of the salvage barge. He watched the long projecting arm of the crane arc around and release a dripping mass of rusting girders into the main hold. Then it swung back and dipped its claw back into the river.

"At this rate it will take a week before we can probe the bottom."