"Heard what?"

"A Sheriff Eagan from Telluride, Colorado, called Admiral Sandecker only an hour ago. The prisoners were found dead."

"d.a.m.n!" Pitt snapped irritably. "I expressly told the sheriff to search them for cyanide pills."

"Nothing so mundane as poison. According to Eagan, a bomb was smuggled into their jail cell. They were blown to pieces, along with a deputy who was on guard nearby."

"Life is cheap to these people," Pitt said acidly.

"So I gathered."

"What's the next step?"

"The admiral is sending you on a deep-sea geological project in the middle of the Pacific, where you'll be reasonably safe from any more a.s.sa.s.sination attempts."

Pitt grinned slyly. "I won't go."

"He knew you'd say that." Gunn grinned back. "Besides, you're too important in the investigation to send off to the boondocks. As it stands, you've had more contact with this group than anyone else, and lived to tell about it. High-level investigators want to talk to you. Eight o'clock in the morning ..." He paused to hand Pitt a slip of paper. "Here's the address. Be there. Drive your car into the open garage and wait for instructions."

"Are James Bond and Jack Ryan coming, too?"

Gunn made a wry face. "Funny." He finished off the iced tea and walked outside onto the balcony overlooking the fabulous collection below. "That's interesting."

"What?"

"You referred to the a.s.sa.s.sins as being from the Fourth Empire."

"Their words, not mine."

"The n.a.z.is called their hideous dreamworld the Third Reich."

"Most all the old n.a.z.is are dead, thankfully," said Pitt. "The Third Reich died with them."

"Did you ever take a course in German?" inquired Gunn.

Pitt shook his head. "The only words I know are ja, nein, and auf Wiedersehen."

"Then you don't know that the English for 'Third Reich' is 'Third Empire.' "

Pitt went taut. "You're not suggesting they're a bunch of neo-n.a.z.is?"

Gunn was about to reply when a great whoosh sound came, like a jet fighter using its afterburner, and was followed immediately by an earsplitting screech of metal and a streak of orange flame that flashed across the interior of the hangar before disappearing through the far wall. Two seconds later, an explosion rattled the hangar and shook the wrought-iron balcony. Dust fell from the metal roof and settled on the shiny cars, dulling their bright paint. A weird silence trailed the fading rumble from the explosion.

Then came the rattle of prolonged gunfire, followed quickly by another, more muted explosion. Both men stood frozen, gripping the balcony railing.

Pitt found words first. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" he hissed.

"What in G.o.d's name was that?" asked Gunn in shock.

"d.a.m.n them. They fired a missile into my hangar. The only thing that saved us from being blasted to shreds was that it didn't explode. The warhead smashed through one thin corrugated wall and out the other without the detonator in its nose striking a heavy structural beam."

The door burst open and the two security guards came running onto the floor of the hangar, pulling to a halt beneath the spiral staircase. "Are you injured?" asked one.

"I believe the word is shaken," said Pitt. "Where did it come from?"

"A handheld launcher fired from a helicopter," answered the guard. "Sorry we let it get so close. We were conned by the markings-it was supposed to be from a local television station. We did fire on it, however, and bring it down. It crashed in the river."

"Nice work," said Pitt sincerely.

"Your friends certainly don't spare any expense, do they?"

"They obviously have money to burn."

The guard turned to his partner. "We're going to have to increase our perimeter." Then he looked around the hangar. "Any damage?" he asked Pitt.

"Only a couple of holes in the walls big enough to fly kites through."

"We'll see that they're repaired immediately. Anything else?"

"Yes," Pitt said, becoming even more angered as he stared at the coating of dust on his expensive cars. "Please call in a cleaning crew."

"Maybe you should reconsider that project in the Pacific," said Gunn.

Pitt seemed not to have heard him. "Fourth Reich, Fourth Empire, whoever they are, they've made a very serious mistake."

"Oh?" said Gunn, looking curiously at his trembling hands as if they belonged to someone else. "What mistake is that?"

Pitt was staring up at the gaping, jagged holes in his hangar's walls. There was a cold malignity glaring out of his opaline green eyes, a malignity Gunn had seen on at least four other occasions, and he shivered involuntarily.

"So far, the bad guys have had all the fun," said Pitt, his mouth twisted in a crooked grin. "Now it's my turn."

13

PITT WATCHED HIS SECURITY-CAMERA tapes before going to bed and saw that the guards had done their homework. Using maps of the airport's underground drainage system, they'd found a large concrete pipe eight feet in diameter that carried away the rain and melted snow runoff from the airport's run-ways, taxiways, and terminal areas. The drainage pipe ran within ninety feet of Pitt's hangar. At a maintenance access, unseen in the high weeds, the guards had set up a well-camouflaged observation post.

Pitt considered walking over and offering them coffee and sandwiches, but it was only a pa.s.sing thought. The last thing he needed to do was compromise their security cover.

He had just dressed and finished a quick breakfast when a truck loaded with materials to repair the holes in the hangar stopped on the road outside. An unmarked van pulled up behind the truck and several women in coveralls stepped out. The security guards did not reveal their presence, but Pitt knew they were closely observing the scene. One of the workmen walked over to him.

"Mr. Pitt?"

"Yes."

"We'll get in, make the repairs, clean up the mess and get out as fast as we can."

Pitt watched in awe as men began unloading old rusting corrugated sheets that nearly matched those on the hangar walls. "Where did you find those?" he asked, pointing.