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"There is one other thing, sir," said the first officer. "The Americans must have received help."
"They didn't break out by themselves?" Pokofsky asked in surprise.
"Not possible. Two old men in a weakened condition and one woman could never have overpowered two security people and murdered a professional KGB man."
"Damn!" Pokofsky cursed. He rammed a fist into a palm in exasperation, compounded equally by anxiety and anger. "This complicates matters."
"Could the CIA have sneaked onboard?"
"I hardly think so. If the United States government remotely suspected their government leaders were held on the Leonin Andreyev, their Navy would be converging on us like mad bears.
See for yourself; no ships, no aircraft, and the Guantanamo Bay naval station is only forty miles away."
"Then who?" asked the first officer. "Certainly none of our crew.
"It can only be a passenger," Pokofsky surmised. He fell silent, thinking. Utter stillness fell on the bridge. At last he looked up and began issuing orders. "Collect every available officer and form five-man search parties. Divine up the ship in sections from keel to sun deck. Alert the security guards and enlist the stewards. If questioned by the passengers, make up a believable pretext for entering their cabins. Changing the bed linen, repairing plumbing, inspecting fire equipment, any story that fits the situation. Say or do nothing that will cause suspicion among the passengers or set them to asking embarrassing questions. Be as subtle as possible and refrain from violence, but recapture the Smith woman and the two men quickly."
"What about Suvorov's body?"
Pokofsky didn't hesitate. "Arrange a fitting tribute to our comrade from the KGB," he said sarcastically. "As soon as it's dark, throw him overboard with the garbage."
"Yes, sir," the first officer acknowledged with a smile and hurried away.
Pokofsky picked up a bullhorn from a bulkhead rack and stepped out on the'bridge wing. The small pleasure boat was drifting about fifty yards away.
"Are you in distress?" he asked, his voice booming over the water.
A man with a squat body and the skin tone of an old wallet cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted back. "We have people who are quite ill. I suspect ptomaine poisoning. May we come aboard and use your medical facilities?"
"By all means," Pokofsky replied. "Come alongside. I'll drop the gangway."
Pitt watched the mini-drama with interest, seeing through the sham. Two men and a woman struggled up the metal stairway, clutching their midriffs and pretending they were in the throes of abdominal agony. He rated them two stars for their performance.
After a suitable length of time for pseudodoctoring, he reasoned, Loren, Moran and Larimer would have taken their pl
aces in the pleasure boat. He also knew full well the captain would not resume the cruise until the ship was scoured and the congressmen apprehended.
He left the railing and mingled with the other passengers, who soon returned to their deck chairs and tables around the swimming pools and cocktail bars. He took the elevator down to his deck. As the doors opened and he stepped out into the passageway, he rubbed shoulders with a steward who was entering.
Pitt idly noticed the steward was Asian, probably Mongolian if he was serving on a Russian ship. He brushed past and continued to his cabin.
The steward stared at Pitt curiously. Then his expression turned to blank astonishment as he watched Pitt walk away. He was still standing there gawking when the door closed and the elevator rose without him.
Pitt rounded the corner of the passageway and spied a ship's officer with several crewmen waiting outside a cabin three down and across from his. None of them displayed their usual shipboard conviviality. Their expressions looked deadly earnest. He fished in his pocket for the cabin key while watching out of the corner of one eye. In a few moments, a stewardess came out and said a few words in Russian to the officer and shook her head. Then they moved toward the next cabin and knocked.
Pitt quickly entered and closed the door. The tiny enclosure looked like a scene out of a Marx Brothers movie. Loren was perched on the upper pullman bunk while Moran and Larimer shared the lower. All three were ravenously attacking a tray of hors d'oeuvres that Giordino had smuggled from the dining-room buffet table.
Giordino, seated on a small chair, half in the bathroom, threw an offhand wave. "See anything interesting?"
"The Cuban connection arrived," Pitt answered. "They're drifting alongside, standing by to exchange passengers."
"The bastards will have a long wait," said Giordino.
"Try four minutes. That's how long before we'll all be chained and tossed on a boat bound for Havana."
"They can't help but find us," Larimer uttered in a hollow voice.
Pitt had seen many such washed-out men-the waxen skin, the eyes that once blazed with authority now empty, the vagrant thoughts.
