But the office complex wasn’t empty. He heard two men conversing down the corridor, so he headed the other direction, toward the entrance. He checked the office where he and Summer had first been held, but the room was empty. Summer, he suspected, was no longer in the building.
The voices grew louder, so Pitt ducked into Díaz’s open office and closed the door behind him. He stepped to the wall map showing the Florida Straits. The chart had three circles marked in red and green. The smallest he recognized as the location where the Alta had sunk. With a sense of dread, he saw that the two red circles were farther offshore, near the center of the strait. They could only be the next thermal vents targeted for destruction and they were in the worst possible location.
At the center of the Florida Straits, the Florida Current was in high gear, generating a northeast flow in excess of three knots. Pitt knew counterclockwise gyres spun off the current, cycling water to the eastern Florida shoreline. He followed the path of the Florida Current as it curled up the coast to join the Gulf Stream. Miami Beach appeared on the map barely a hundred miles away. The miners couldn’t have picked a worse location if they’d intentionally tried to commit environmental sabotage.
With a sinking feeling, Pitt envisioned the invisible tide of death. If the thermal vents were blown and the mercury release was of the expected magnitude, the devastation would be wholesale. Contaminated waters, dead marine life, and extinguished fish stocks could plague the entire East Coast. It would make the BP oil spill look like a minor nuisance.
He briefly perused the desk, spotting a calendar with several handwritten notations. An entry marked the imminent arrival of a vessel named Algonquin. Below the ship’s name was the notation “250 tons at 45 % yield.”
Pitt rifled through the desk drawers, finding only routine paperwork and a crude obsidian knife. He palmed the knife when he heard voices outside the door.
The voices receded, and he stepped to the shelf of artifacts. The collection of clay pots, stone carvings, and gold jewelry was stacked high. A mahogany paddle sat on the top shelf, a reproduction, Pitt presumed, of one used with the Aztec canoe. At the far end of the shelf, he noticed a framed drawing of a page from a Mesoamerican codex.
Picking it up, Pitt saw that it showed a man in a green feather headdress lying facedown. In the background, two men wearing eagle-beaked head coverings were loading a chest into a small canoe. Pitt gazed at the drawing for a long while, then considered the half stone next to it.
“Well, I’ll be…” he muttered, patting the stone in understanding. “No wonder the big fuss.”
He put the stone out of his mind, focusing on locating Summer and figuring a way to halt the blasting of the thermal vents. But first he had to find his way out of the building. As far as he could tell, there was only one entrance. It was sure to be guarded.
Pitt opened the door to Díaz’s office and listened. The corridor was silent, the back-office occupants having apparently left the building.
Testing the waters, he stepped into the hall and made his way toward the foyer. He froze after seeing an armed guard standing by the front receptionist desk, looking out the window. There was too much distance to approach undetected, so Pitt backtracked down the hall — with an idea.
He returned to Díaz’s office and studied the phone. It was an older executive model with push buttons for multiple lines. Pitt lifted the receiver and began pushing the buttons until a ringing erupted from the front reception. He set the receiver on the desk, moved to the shelf, and removed the mahogany paddle.
Pitt stepped into the hall and crept toward the foyer. The phone continued ringing at the reception desk as the guard paced its perimeter with a look of annoyance. After five minutes, the irritation became too great and he picked up the receiver. “Hola? Hola?”
When there was no response, he slammed down the receiver. Detecting a movement behind him, he spun around to find Pitt in a home run swing with the paddle. It struck him on the side of the head, knocking him onto the receptionist desk. He sprang forward in a daze, only to collect another blow to the opposite side of his skull that laid him out.
Pitt grabbed the limp body and dragged it to the locked closet. Pulling him inside, he removed the man’s camouflage jacket and pants and slipped them on over his own clothes. He locked the man in the closet and made his way to the front of the building, grabbing the soldier’s AK-47 for good measure.
He peered outside, finding the immediate area quiet. Treading cautiously out of the building, Pitt moved in a frantic hunt to find his daughter.
50
Admiral Raphael Semmes awoke with a start. His ears prickled at a distant sound and he let out a low growl.
The twenty-pound tabby cat rose from his floor pillow, stretched his legs, and hopped onto a king-sized bed. Approaching his sleeping master, he brushed his whiskers against the man’s cheeks and began meowing.
St. Julien Perlmutter roused from a dream and pushed the cat from his face. “What is it, Admiral?”
The cat responded with a loud meow, then hopped off the bed and waited near the doorway. Perlmutter took notice and dragged himself out of bed. His cat wasn’t prone to feeble neediness. Indeed, he had proven himself something of a fine house guard. Once, he had alerted Perlmutter to a forgotten strudel burning in the oven. Another time, he garnered his owner’s attention when some neighborhood kids tried to take his vintage Rolls-Royce for a joyride.
Pulling on a robe and slippers, Perlmutter walked to the door, then hesitated when he heard a sound downstairs. From a display shelf above his dresser, he pulled down a large marlinespike. Nearly the size of a nightstick, the polished metal pin had been used by seamen during the age of sail to splice heavy ropes. With his de facto weapon, Perlmutter stepped down the stairs as quietly as his large frame could muster.
At the base of the stairs, he saw the glow of a penlight coming from his study. He stepped to the doorway and was reaching for the light switch when Admiral Semmes meowed loudly. The penlight’s beam swung to the doorway, shining in Perlmutter’s eyes.
He shielded his eyes from the light. “What’s going on here?” the marine historian boomed.
He heard a scurrying of papers, so he reached once more for the light switch.
Before he could flick the switch, a heavy book was flung at him and struck the side of his face.
Perlmutter shook off the blow and charged into the dark room, shouting, “Heathen!”
The penlight blinked off, but Perlmutter stepped toward its source and swung the marlinespike in front of him in a wide arc. He cut only air, then was struck hard by a body blow to the side.
He reacted with a swipe of his free hand, clasping the jacket of the black-clad robber. Perlmutter yanked and the man flew into him. He was barely half Perlmutter’s size and squirmed like a snake.
Perlmutter brought the marlinespike around and jabbed the blunt end into the man’s ribs, causing a sharp cry. He tried to put his weight to use by grasping the man in a bear hug, but the intruder slipped free and retaliated with a kick to Perlmutter’s knee.
Perlmutter buckled and staggered back, stepping on the tail of his cat. Admiral Semmes shrieked and clawed the floor as Perlmutter tried to dance clear. His feet became entangled and he tripped to one side. His head caught a corner of his desk and he crashed to the floor as the intruder bolted out the front door.