"& Dirgo, Craig - Dirk Pitt - Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cussler Clive)

Min Koryo, though frail and ancient, still had eyes that burned withevil. "Thank you, Qin Shang. But it cost me a horrible death. If yourecall, I was sent hurtling down the elevator shaft of the World TradeCenter from the hundredth floor."

Arthur Dorsett, as ugly as any man created, grinned through yellowteeth. "Consider yourself lucky. After Pitt crushed my throat, he leftme to be consumed by molten lava."

Foss Gly spread his huge hands expansively. "After beating me with abaseball bat, he jammed his finger in my eye socket clear through to mybrain."

Tupac Amaru, the Peruvian terrorist, scoffed. "At 8 least he didn'tshoot off your genitals before killing you in total darkness deep in anunderwater cave."

Yves Massarde, immaculately dressed in a white dinner jacket with ayellow rose in the lapel, stared vacantly into the bubbles rising in hischampagne glass and wondered aloud, "How could Pitt be even more brutaland vicious than the worst crew of villains ever created?"

The gray-haired stranger leaned between Gly and Qin Shang and said, "Itwas easy."

Before any of the men could say a word, he quickly resumed his coursethrough the partygoers, moving toward the far wall where an old railroadPullman car sat on a short section of track leading to nowhere.

The gold lettering on the steel sides read MANHATAN LIMITED The lightsinside had been wired into the main junction box, and the opulentinterior was as brightly lit as when the car rolled over the tracksbetween New York and Quebec. Mannequins were artfully arranged in whatwas once called the parlor. At one table two men sat as if dining whilea porter in a white uniform stood and served.

A distinguished, impeccably dressed man in his seventies sat in aVictorian velvet chair. Next to him on the couch was an attractivewoman half his age with ash-blond hair. She wore the uniform of a navalofficer, and despite the fact that she was sitting down, it was easy toimagine her standing at a height of six feet.

"I'm sitting in the very same chair where Pitt bounced a bullet off myhead," said the elderly man with a British inflection.

"Does he still call you Brian Shaw?" asked Heidi Milligan.

"Yes, but I'm certain he saw right through me."

"He never stopped suspecting you of being James Bond," said Heidi.

The older man reached over, took Heidi's hand, and kissed it. "Thatwill forever be our little secret."

The gray-haired intruder smiled to himself, then slipped away beforebeing noticed.

Inside the old Ford Trimotor airplane, seated in an antique wickerbasket chair, a man dressed in Levi's with long blond hair tied in aponytail peered into the monitor of a laptop computer.

"Surfing the Internet while a party's in high gear?" said the intruder."That's antisocial."

Hiram Yaeger looked up at the stranger standing in the fuselageentrance. One of the overhead lights was above and to the rear of hisvisitor, and he squinted while attempting to recognize the face of theman who spoke. The stranger was tall, nearly six feet, three inches,with a slight paunch brought about by age. His hair had grayed over theyears, as had the beard covering only his chin. His skin was tannedfrom the sun.

He was probably in his middle sixties, Yaeger estimated, but he lookedyounger. The stranger wore a faint grin on his lips, but it was hiseyes that gripped Yaeger's attention. They were a mysterious bluegreenwith a light that twinkled from deep inside. The face was that of a manwho might have been a ship's captain in a past life, or a prospector,maybe even an explorer.

"Dirk asked me to look up data on a lost ship", Yaeger finallyexplained. "I could wait until working hours, but I'm not much of aparty animal, so I thought I'd get a head start on the project."

"What ship?" the gray-haired man asked.

"The Waratah.

"Ah, yes, the passenger ship that vanished with nearly three hundredpeople off the west coast of South Africa in 1909."

Yaeger was impressed. "You know your ships."

"The Waratah was found by a NUMA South African team several years ago,"stated the intruder matter-of-factly.