Night Probe! - Cussler Clive (онлайн книги бесплатно полные txt) 📗

Then his heart stopped. A cardiologist would say that's impossible. But his heart stopped as he stared paralyzed at a reflection in the window.

Behind him, the cadaver with the derby in the revolving chair was straightening to a stiff-backed position. Then the hideous thing lowered the newspaper from its face and smiled at Shaw.

"You won't find what you're looking for in there," Dirk Pitt said, nodding at the travel bag.

Shaw would never deny that he'd been rattled out of his wits. He sagged into a chair, waiting for his heart to pump again. He could see now that Pitt wore an old coat over a black wet suit. When he finally collected his senses, he said, "You have a disconcerting way of announcing your presence."

Pitt added to the dim illumination by turning on his dive light and then nonchalantly turned his attention back to the old newspaper. "I always knew I was born eighty years too late. Here's a used Stutz Bearcat Speedster with low mileage for only six hundred and seventy-five dollars."

Shaw had used up all his emotional reactions in the past twelve hours and was hardly in the mood for idle levity. "How did you manage to get in here?" he demanded more than asked.

Pitt continued to study the classified automobile ads as he answered. "Swam in through the escape shaft. Ran out of air and almost drowned, Would have too if I hadn't lucked onto a pocket of stale air under an old submerged rock crusher. One more breath enabled me to break into a side tunnel."

Shaw motioned around the coach. "What happened here?"

Pitt pointed toward the two men at the table. "The man with the travel case is, or rather was, Richard Essex, undersecretary of state. The other man was Clement Massey. Beside Massey is a farewell letter to his wife. It tells the whole tragic story."

Shaw picked up the letter and squinted at the faded ink. "So this fellow Massey here was a train robber."

"Yes, he was after a gold shipment."

"I saw it. Enough there to buy the Bank of England."

"Massey's plan was incredibly complex for its time. He and his men flagged the train at an abandoned junction called Mondragon Hook. There they forced the engineer to switch the Manhattan Limited onto an old rail spur and into the quarry before any of the passengers realized what was happening."

"Judging by this, he got more than he bargained for."

"In more ways than one," Pitt agreed. "Overpowering the guards went off without a hitch. That part of the plan had been well rehearsed. But the four army security guards who were escorting Essex and the treaty to Washington came as a rude surprise. When the gunfire died away, the guards were all dead or wounded and Massey was minus three of his own men."

"Apparently it didn't stop him," said Shaw, reading on.

"No, he went ahead and faked the Deauville-Hudson bridge accident; then he returned to the quarry and set off black powder charges that sealed off the entrance. Now he had all the time in the world to unload the gold and flee out the escape exit."

"How was that possible if it was filled with water?"

"The best laid plans, etcetera," said Pitt. "The escape shaft runs on a higher level than the deep end of the quarry where the original flooding occurred. When Massey hijacked the Manhattan Limited, the way out was still dry. But after he blew the entrance, the shock waves opened underground fissures and water seepage gushed into the shaft and cut off any chance of escape, condemning everyone to a slow, horrifying death."

"The poor devils," said Shaw. "Must have taken them weeks to perish from cold and starvation."

"Strange how Massey and Essex sat down at the same table to die together," Pitt mused aloud. "I wonder what they found in common at the end?"

Shaw set his flashlight so that its beam illuminated Pitt. "Tell me, Mr. Pitt. Did you come alone?"

"Yes, my diving partner turned back."

"I must assume you have the treaty."

Pitt gazed at Shaw over the top of the paper, his green eyes inscrutable. "You assume correctly."

Shaw slipped his hand from a pocket and aimed the.25 caliber Beretta. "Then I'm afraid you must give it to me."

"So you can burn it?"

Shaw nodded silently.

"Sorry," Pitt said calmly.

"I don't think you fully comprehend the situation."

"It's obvious you have a gun."

"And you haven't," Shaw said confidently.

Pitt shrugged. "I admit it didn't occur to me to bring one."

"The treaty, Mr. Pitt, if you please."

"Finders keepers, Mr. Shaw."

Shaw exhaled a breath in a long silent sigh. "I owe you my life, so it would be most inconsiderate of me to kill you. However, the treaty copy means far more to my country than the personal debt between us."

"Your copy was destroyed on the Empress of Ireland," Pitt said slowly. "This one belongs to the United States."

"Perhaps, but Canada belongs to Britain. And we don't intend to give it up."

"The empire can't last forever."

"India, Egypt and Burma, to name a few, were never ours to keep," said Shaw. "But Canada was settled and built by the British."

"You forget your history, Shaw. The French were there first. Then the British. After you came the immigrants: the Germans, the Poles, the Scandinavians and even the Americans who moved north into the western provinces. Your government held the reins by maintaining a power structure run by people who were either born or educated in England. The same is true of your Commonwealth countries. Local government and large corporations may be managed by native employees, but the men who make the major decisions are sent out by London."

"A system that has proven most efficient."

"Geography and distance will eventually defeat that system," said Pitt. "No government can indefinitely rule another thousands of miles away."

"If Canada leaves the Commonwealth, so might Australia or New Zealand, or even Scotland and Wales. I can think of nothing more distressing."

"Who can say where national boundaries will lie a thousand years from now. Better yet, who the hell cares?"

"I care, Mr. Pitt. Please hand over the treaty." Pitt did not respond, but turned his head, listening. The sounds of voices faintly echoed from one of the tunnels. "Your friends have followed me down the air vent," said Shaw. "Time has run out."

"You kill me, and they'll kill you."

"Forgive me, Mr. Pitt." The gun muzzle pointed directly between Pitt's eyes.

A deafening, ringing clap shattered the silent gloom of the cavern. Not the sharp, cracking report of a small-caliber Beretta, but rather the booming bark of a 7.63 Mauser automatic. Shaw's head snapped to one side and he hung limp in his chair.

Pitt regarded the smoldering hole in the center of his newspaper for a moment, then rose to his feet, laid the Mauser on the table and eased Shaw to a prone position on the floor.

He looked up as Giordino charged through the door like a bull in heat, an assault rifle held out in front of him. Giordino jerked to a halt and stared fascinated at the derby still perched on Pitt's head. Then he noticed Shaw. "Dead?"

"My bullet creased his skull. The old guy is tough. After a nasty headache and couple of stitches, he'll probably come gunning for my hide."

"Where'd you find a weapon?"