Pitt set off toward the carts, followed by Giordino, who could not tear his eyes from the ships. "This place is too vast to cover on foot," said Pitt. "Me, I'd rather ride."

The battery-operated carts looked to be available to any worker who wanted to requisition one. Several were parked around a large charging unit, cords running to sockets beneath the front seats. Pitt pulled the plug on the first one in line. Throwing the electrical spools and paint cans in the rear cargo bed of the cart, they climbed onto the front seat. Pitt turned the ignition key and set off as though it were a procedure he had executed at the yard for years.

They drove past a long string of warehouses until they came to the tall building that held the shipyard offices. The entrance of the second dock extended from the road along the sh.o.r.e. The second floating leviathan that was moored alongside had a more austere appearance than the one that was expected to carry its residents into a new world. This vessel was designed to carry agricultural cargo. Various species of trees and shrubbery were hauled aboard in big trailers that were pulled up wide cargo ramps into the hull. Hundreds of long cylindrical containers, labeled "Plant Seed," were stacked on the dock waiting to be loaded aboard. A long convoy of farm equipment, trucks and tractors of different sizes, harvest combines, plows, and every other piece of machinery imaginable was driven inside the cavernous hull.

"These people mean to launch a new world order on a grand scale," Pitt said, still trying to absorb the immensity of it all.

"What do you want to bet one of the other ships is carrying two of every kind of animal?"

"I won't bet," Pitt replied curtly. "I just hope they had the foresight to leave the flies, mosquitoes, and venomous reptiles behind."

Giordino spread his lips to make some suitable comeback, thought better of it, and stepped out of the cart, as Pitt parked it beside the steps leading into the modern, gla.s.s-walled office building. Retrieving the electrical cable and paint cans, they walked inside and approached a long counter manned by two security guards. Giordino flashed his most sociable smile and spoke softly in Spanish to one of the guards.

The guard simply nodded and threw a thumb in the direction of the elevators. "What line did you feed him this time?" queried Pitt, as they stepped inside, but not before he peered with one eye around the elevator door and spied one guard pick up a phone and speak excitedly. Then he stepped back and the doors closed.

"I said we were ordered by one of the Wolfs to make electrical repairs behind a wall in the penthouse suite on the tenth floor, then mend and repaint the wall when we were finished. He didn't give me the least argument."

Pitt scanned the elevator for TV cameras but found none. It's almost as if they have no fear of covert actions, he thought. Or else they know we're here and have laid a trap. He might have been whistling in the dark, but he didn't trust the Wolfs as far as he could throw that floating monstrosity outside. He also sensed that the guards in the lobby had been expecting them.

"Time for an ingenious scheme," he said.

Giordino looked at him. "Plan C?"

"We'll stop on the fifth floor to throw off the guards who are probably monitoring our movements. But we remain inside and send the elevator up to the penthouse, while we climb through the roof and ride up the rest of the way."

"Not half bad," said Giordino, pressing the b.u.t.ton to stop the elevator on the fifth floor.

"Okay," said Pitt. "Hold me on your shoulders while I climb through the ceiling." But Pitt made no move. Though he did not detect the presence of TV cameras, Pitt was dead sure the elevator contained listening devices. He stood quietly still and grinned darkly at Giordino.

Giordino immediately understood and pulled out his P-10 automatic. "d.a.m.n, you're heavy," he grunted.

"Give me your hand and I'll pull you up," Pitt said quietly, as he gripped the old .45 Colt in his right hand. Remaining inside the elevator, they stood on opposite sides of the doors and pressed themselves into the corners.

The doors opened, and three guards, wearing identical coveralls, black with matching stocking caps on their heads, rushed inside, handguns drawn, eyes staring up at the open maintenance door in the ceiling. Pitt stuck out his leg and tripped the third man, who fell against the first two, sending them all sprawling in a tangled heap on the floor. Then he punched the door-close b.u.t.ton, waited until they descended several feet, and pressed the red emergency stop b.u.t.ton, freezing the elevator between floors.

Giordino had expertly clubbed two of the guards on the head with the b.u.t.t of his automatic before they could recover, then held the muzzle against the forehead of the third and snarled in Spanish, "Drop your gun or go brain-dead."

The guard was as tough and coldly efficient as the mercenaries they had encountered in the Pandora Mine. Pitt tensed, sensing the guard might attempt a lightning move to get in the first shot. But the man detected the cold look of composure in Pitt's eyes and recognized a deadly threat. Knowing the slightest flick of his eyes would bring a bullet smashing into his head, he wisely dropped his gun onto the elevator floor, the same model Para-Ordnance that Giordino was pressing between his eyes.

"You clowns are going nowhere!" the guard spat in English.

"Well, well," said Pitt. "What have we here? Another mercenary hit man like we met in Colorado. Karl Wolf must pay you guys handsome wages to murder and die for him."

"Give up, pal. You're the one who's going to die."

"You people have a nasty habit of repeating the same old song." Pitt pointed his old Colt an inch from the guard's left eye until it was lined up to fire across his face. "Dr. O'Connell and her daughter. Where are they held?" Pitt wasn't trying to imitate the rattle of a diamondback, but he gave a pretty good impression of it. "Talk or I pull the trigger. You'll probably live, but you won't have any eyeb.a.l.l.s to see with. Now, then, where are they?"

Pitt was tough, but he wasn't s.a.d.i.s.tic. The look on his twisted face and the malice in his eyes was enough to fool the guard into thinking a madman was about to blow his eyes out. "They're confined on one of the great ships."

"Which ship?" demanded Pitt. "There are four of them."

"I don't know, I swear I don't know."

"He's lying," said Giordino, his tone cold enough to freeze oil.

"The truth," Pitt said menacingly, "or I'll blast both your eyeb.a.l.l.s into the far wall." He pulled back the hammer of the Colt and pressed the muzzle against the edge of the guard's right eye in line with the left.

The guard's face did not transform from defiance to pure fright, but still, staring from eyes filled with loathing, he gasped, "The Ulrich Wolf. They're being held on the Ulrich Wolf."

"Which ship is that?"

"The ship-city that will carry the people of the Fourth Empire to sea after the cataclysm."

"It would take two years to search a ship that size," Pitt pressured. "Give a more exact location or go blind. Quickly!"

"Level Six, K Section. I don't know which residence."

"He's still lying," said Giordino coa.r.s.ely. "Pull the trigger, but wait till I look away. I can't stand to see blood spray all over the furniture."

"Then kill me and get it over with," the guard growled.

"Where do the Wolfs find murdering sc.u.m like you?"

"Why would you care?"

"You're American. He didn't hire you off the street, so you must have come out of the military, an elite force, unless I miss my guess. Your loyalty to the Wolf family goes far beyond rationality. Why?"

"Giving my life for the Fourth Empire is an honor. I'm repaid by knowing, as we all are, that my wife and sons will be safely onboard the Ulrich Wolf when the rest of the world is devastated."

"So that's your insurance policy."

"He has a human family?" Giordino said in amazement. "I'd have sworn he curls up and lays eggs."

"What good is a bank account with a billion dollars when the world's population is about to perish?"

"I hate a pessimist," said Giordino, as he swung the barrel of his automatic against the nape of the mercenary's neck, dropping him unconscious onto the inert bodies of his comrades. In almost the same instant a series of alarms began to sound throughout the building. "That tears it. We'll have to shoot our way out of town."

"Style and sophistication," Pitt said, seemingly unconcerned. "Always style and sophistication."

Six minutes later, the elevator stopped at the lobby level and the door opened. On the floor of the lobby, nearly two dozen men, with automatic weapons raised and aimed into the elevator, stood and knelt in the firing position.

Two men in the black coverall uniforms of security guards, with stocking caps pulled down almost to their eyes, raised their hands and shouted with lowered heads in both English and Spanish. "Do not shoot. We have killed two of the intruders!" Then they dragged two bodies dressed in orange coveralls by the feet out onto the lobby's marble floor and unceremoniously dumped them. "There are others who were working from the inside," Giordino said excitedly. "They've barricaded themselves on the tenth floor."

"Where is Max?" inquired a guard who acted as if he was in command.

Pitt, his arm over his face as if wiping away perspiration, turned and pointed upward. Giordino said, "We had to leave him. He was wounded in the fight. Hurry, send for a doctor."

The well-trained security force rapidly broke down into two units, one heading into the elevator, the other rushing up the emergency fire stairs. Pitt and Giordino knelt over the two unconscious guards they had pulled from the elevator and made a show of examining them, until they saw an opportunity to walk quietly from the lobby through the front doors.