He hurried over and opened it so there was no suspicious hesitation. The ship’s first officer bowed slightly and smiled.
“Mr. Gruber, is it? Very sorry to bother you, but we’re making a routine inspection of the fire sprinklers. Do you mind if we enter?”
“Why, sure,” Pitt said obligingly. “No problem with me, but my wife’s in the shower.”
The officer nodded to the stewardess who eased past Pitt and made a show of checking the overhead sprinkler heads. Then she pointed to the bathroom door. “May I?”
“Go on in,” said Pitt good-naturedly. “She won’t mind.”
The stewardess opened the door and was enveloped in a cloud of steam. Pitt went over and leaned in the bathroom. “Hey, luv, our steward lady wants to check the fire sprinkler. All right with you?”
As the cloud began dissipating through the door, the stewardess saw a huge stringy mop of hair and a pair of heavy browed eyes peeking around the shower curtain.
“All right by me,” came Loren’s voice. “And could you bring us a couple of extra towels when you think of it?”
The stewardess simply nodded and said, “I’ll be back with the towels shortly.”
Pitt casually munched on a canapé and offered one to the first officer, who gave a polite shake of his head.
“Does my heart good to see you people so interested in the safety of the passengers,” said Pitt.
“Merely doing our duty,” said the first officer, looking curiously at the half-eaten stack of hors d’oeuvres. “I see you also enjoy our shipboard cuisine.”
“My wife and I love appetizers,” said Pitt. “We’d rather eat these than a main course.”
The stewardess came out of the bathroom and said something to the first officer. The only word Pitt made out was “nyet.”
“Sorry to have troubled you,” said the first officer courteously.
“Any time,” replied Pitt.
As soon as the door lock clicked, Pitt rushed to the bathroom. “Everybody stay just as you are,” he ordered. “Don’t move.” Then he reclined on a bunk and stuffed his mouth with caviar on thin toast.
Two minutes later the door suddenly popped open and the stewardess burst through like a bulldozer, her eyes darting around the cabin.
“Can I help you?” Pitt mumbled with a full mouth.
“I brought the towels,” she said.
“Just throw them on the bathroom sink,” Pitt said indifferently.
She did precisely that and left the cabin, throwing Pitt a smile that was genuine and devoid of any suspicion.
He waited another two minutes, then opened the door a crack and peered into the passageway. The search crew was entering a cabin near the end of the passageway. He returned to the bathroom, reached in and turned off the water.
Whoever coined the phrase They look like drowned rats must have had the poor souls huddled together in that pocket-sized shower in mind. Their fingertips were beginning to shrivel and all their clothing was soaked through.
Giordino came out first and hurled his sopping wig in the sink. Loren climbed off his back and immediately began drying her hair. Pitt helped Moran to his feet and half carried Larimer to a bunk.
“A wise move,” said Pitt to Loren, kissing her on the nape of the neck. “Asking for more towels.”
“It struck me as the thing to do.”
“Are we safe now?” asked Moran. “Will they be back?”
“We won’t be in the clear till we’re off the ship,” said Pitt. “And we can count on their paying an encore visit. When they come up dry on this search, they’ll redouble their efforts for a second.”
“Got any more brilliant escape tricks up your sleeve, Houdini?” asked Giordino.
“Yes,” Pitt replied, sure as the devil. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
57
The second engineer moved along a catwalk between the massive fuel tanks that towered two decks above him. He was running a routine maintenance check for any trace of leakage in the pipes that transferred the oil to the boilers that provided steam for the Leonid Andreyev’s27,000-horsepower turbines.
He whistled to himself, his only accompaniment coming from the hum of the turbo-generators beyond the forward bulkhead. Every so often he wiped a rag around a pipe fitting or valve, nodding in satisfaction when it came away clean.
Suddenly he stopped and cocked an ear. The sound of metal striking against metal came from a narrow walkway leading off to his right. Curious, he walked slowly, quietly along the dimly lit access. At the end, where the walkway turned and passed between the fuel tanks and the inner plates of the hull, he paused and peered into the gloom.
A figure in a steward’s uniform appeared to be attaching something to the side of the fuel tank. The second engineer approached, stepping softly, until he was only ten feet away.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
The steward slowly turned and straightened. The engineer could see he was Oriental. The white uniform was soiled with grime, and a seaman’s duffel bag lay open behind him on the walkway. The steward flashed a wide smile and made no effort to reply.
The engineer moved a few steps closer. “You’re not supposed to be here. This area is off limits to the passenger service crew.”
Still no answer.
Then the engineer noticed a strange misshapen lump pressed against the side of the fuel tank. Two strands of copper wire ran from it to a clock mechanism beside the duffel bag.
“A bomb!” he blurted in shock. “You’re planting a damn bomb!”
He swung around and began running wildly down the walkway, shouting. He’d taken no more than five steps when the narrow steel confines echoed with a noise like twin handclaps in quick succession, and the hollow-point bullets from a silenced automatic tore into the back of his head.
The obligatory toasts were voiced and the glasses of iced vodka downed and quickly refilled. Pokofsky did the honors from the liquor cabinet in his cabin, avoiding the cold, piercing gaze of the man seated on a leather sofa.
Geidar Ombrikov, chief of the KGB residency in Havana, was not in a congenial mood. “Your report won’t sit well with my superiors,” he said. “An agent lost under your command will be considered a clear case of negligence.”
“This is a cruise ship,” Pokofsky said, his face reddening in resentment. “She was designed and placed in service for the purpose of bringing in hard Western currency for the Soviet treasury. We are not a floating headquarters for the Committee for State Security.”
“Then how do you explain the ten agents our foreign directorate assigned on board your vessel to monitor the conversations of the passengers?”
“I try not to think about it.”
“You should,” Ombrikov said in a threatening tone.
“I have enough to keep me busy running this ship,” Pokofsky said quickly. “There aren’t enough hours in my day to include intelligence gathering too.”
“Still, you should have taken better precautions. If the American politicians escape and tell their story, the horrendous repercussions will have a disastrous effect on our foreign relations.”
Pokofsky set his vodka on the liquor cabinet without touching it. “There is no place they can hide for long on this ship. They will be back in our hands inside the hour.”
“I do hope so,” said Ombrikov acidly. “Their Navy will begin to wonder why a Soviet cruise liner is drifting around off their precious Cuban base and send out a patrol.”
“They wouldn’t dare board the Leonid Andreyev.”
“No, but my small pleasure boat is flying the United States flag. They won’t hesitate to come aboard for an inspection.”
“She’s an interesting old boat,” Pokofsky said, trying to change the subject. “Where did you find her?”
“A personal loan from our friend Castro,” Ombrikov replied. “She used to belong to the author Ernest Hemingway.”