As Porter climbed the steps into the spacious cabin and the heavy door closed behind him he entered the world of the KGB from which there was no escape. In the light of his present situation his scheme seemed even more hare-brained than it had when he had outlined it to a horrified and disbelieving Adrienne.
The logistics had been easy enough to plan, but difficult to execute. The Neptune, avoiding the major sea lanes, sailed across the central Pacific, then made a dog-leg north to Hawaii, the largest and southernmost island in the chain that comprised the state of the same name. After staying out of sight of land it moved closer, finally casting anchor in the roads outside the port of Hilo, a sleepy provincial city of about 25,000 population.
From the deck of the ship the towering volcanoes of the island were plainly visible, smoke rising from several of them. The volcanoes were a major tourist attraction, but all flights in small aircraft from Honolulu had been cancelled for the day, a variety of excuses having been made to disgruntled customers.
Meanwhile a group of thirty-two technical experts, computer operators, scientists, and underwater salvage authorities who had travelled separately to the Presidio, the old US Army base in San Francisco, had been flown in a military aircraft to Honolulu, where they had been taken direct to Pearl Harbor, the Navy base.
There another, smaller aeroplane awaited them, this one a seaplane, and they transferred to it without delay. The trickiest aspect of the operation was its timing, and constant radio contact was maintained between Pearl Harbor and the Neptune. There were no breakdowns in the communications, and no snags developed.
Minutes before the ship dropped anchor the seaplane took off, 140 and a short time later it came down in the water a few hundred feet from the Neptune, casting up a spray before it taxied to the starboard side of the vessel, where a metal ladder had already been lowered.
Franklin Richards stood at the head of the gangway to welcome his associates on board.
The seaplane took off again, the Neptune weighed anchor then sailed out of sight of land as she headed south around Hawaii before turning westward again. The entire operation in the Hilo roads had taken less than an hour.
Adrienne Howard stood on the aft passenger deck overlooking the cavernous, tarpaulin-covered container compartment and gazed out at the ship’s wake as she steadily increased her speed. Beside her was the Deacon, who had accompanied the seaplane party.
‘We had no problems,’ he said. ‘We were clean all the way. I checked all the surveillance reports myself before we left the Presidio and nobody except our own people tailed any member of the group.’
‘So far so good, then.’ Adrienne was silent for a moment. ‘We’re pretty much cut off from the world, you know, with no one on board permitted to send or receive messages. Have you heard any news about Porter?’
‘Not a word. He’s vanished from the face of the earth, and so has the Wing girl. A very neat disappearing act.’
‘I felt sure he’d handle it.’ She tried not to show her concern. ‘The word was leaked that Porter resigned from the Corporation, I suppose?’
‘Oh, yes. At least a dozen guys came to me with the story, so I’m sure the Russians picked it up. Was that the intention?’
Adrienne made no reply.
‘Look,’ the Deacon said. ‘I’ve been in this business long enough not to stick my nose into places it doesn’t belong. But I can’t buy some cockeyed fairy tale that Porter has quit the Corporation. Not in the middle of Project Neptune. He isn’t the sort who’d walk out.’
‘I just hope,’ Adrienne said, ‘that the KGB believes the story. For Project Neptune’s sake. For mine. And for Porter’s.’
Ten
The caviare was great, if one happened to like caviare, but Porter didn’t. And the Russian version of champagne was so gaseous that he belched for a couple of hours after drinking only two glasses, so he didn’t try that experiment again. He asked the barrel-chested steward and the equally husky stewardess to bring him whatever they ate. Thereafter he subsisted on bortsch laden with raw onions, a pungent salami, and black bread, which he washed down with kvass, a beverage similar to beer with a slightly sour flavour all its own.
Nancy winced whenever he leaned close to say something to her, and he couldn’t blame her. The odours of garlic and onions must have made his breath repellent, but at least his need to simulate the role of an adoring lover was eased somewhat, and that was all to the good. Porter realized that Nancy was beginning to rub his nerves raw, and small wonder.
Familiarity was dulling the fine edge of his pleasure in their sex relationship, and they had little else in common. She was a two-faced bitch who wouldn’t hesitate to serve up his head on a platter, complete with an apple stuffed in his mouth, if it would serve her own interests. So he was worried about her primary loyalties, other than to herself.
She was still in the employ of the Russians, of course; that much was clear. But he had no idea where she stood with the Chinese, and that worried him. If Peking got wind of his defection to the KGB, he felt certain immediate steps would be taken to prevent the consummation of that marriage. The Chinese might have reasons to dislike the Corporation, but their hatred of the Russians verged on the pathological, and they could be nasty. More vindictive than any other people he had ever known in the business.
The trouble, he reflected as the aircraft flew high over the Pacific Ocean cloud cover, was that he was growing too damned old and tired for this kind of work. His luck had held out for a long time, largely because of his own vigilance, but his joints ached after sitting for hours in the cramped seat, and that was a signal telling him to pack it in.
Nancy was dozing in the seat beside him, and as he glanced at her it occurred to him that her make-up was almost never smudged. She wore it like a mask, and he wondered what might be behind it. Nothing, probably, except the narcissism and greed that enabled her to sell her services, her body, and what there was of her soul to the highest bidder of the moment. There had been a time when he would have felt mildly sorry for her, but that day was long past. Pity was an emotion that a field agent didn’t dare feel, and the mere fact that he allowed himself to think in such terms was an indication that he was far over the hill.
Porter wished he could believe, with Voltaire’s Pangloss, that this was the best of all possible worlds. In that case he’d go off somewhere with Adrienne Howard. Not to a rose-covered cottage, which would make a sophisticated couple ill. Oh, they could go to the Cornwall coast for a few weeks of fishing occasionally; she’d sit still for that. Basically, however, they’d do best in an apartment hotel some place in the sun, an establishment where all services were provided. He couldn’t imagine himself mowing a lawn, drying dishes or repairing a leak in a washbasin. His life hadn’t prepared him for such an existence, nor was Adrienne the domestic type.
He wasn’t ready to admit that he was in love with her. That was going a bit too far. But the only kind of person with whom he could settle down in relative peace was one who took murder, mayhem and chicanery as normal, everyday occurrences. The same was true of her, and they could share their nightmares. Ordinary people simply wouldn’t understand what made a field agent tick. Not that he or Adrienne knew, either, but at least they would be bound together by mutual sympathy, and it was far better than trying to live alone. A few retired agents had tried it, and tranquillity had so undone them that they had climbed back into harness. No agent really retired until they closed the lid of his coffin.