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The elevator rose like a rocket and Pitts ears popped three times before it slowed and the doors finally opened onto the richly furnished anteroom of Bougainville Maritime Lines inc.
Before he stepped out, Casio paused and reprogrammed the elevator circuitry with his transmitter. Then he turned and stepped out onto the thick carpet.
"We're here to speak with Min Koryo," Casio announced mundanely.
The woman eyed them suspiciously, particularly Pitt, and opened a leather-bound journal. "I see nothing in Madame Bougainville's schedule that shows any appointments this evening."
Casio's face furrowed into his best hurt look. "Are you sure?"
he asked, leaning over the desk and peering at the appointment book.
She pointed at the blank page. "Nothing is written in-" Casio chopped her across the nape of the neck with the edge of his palm, and she fell forward, head and shoulders striking the desktop. Then he reached inside her blouse and extracted a vestpocket .25-caliber automatic pistol.
"Never know it to look at her," he explained, "but she's a security guard."
Casio tossed the gun to Pitt and took off down a corridor hung with paintings of the Bougainville Maritime fleet. Pitt recognized the Pilottown, and his weary expression hardened. He followed the brawny private investigator up an intricately carved rosewood circular staircase to the living quarters above. At the top of the landing Casio met another ravishing Asian woman who was leaving a bathroom.
She was wearing silk lounging pajamas with a kimono top.
Her eyes winened and in a lightning reflex she lashed out with one foot at Casio's groin. He anticipated the thrust and shifted his weight ever so slightly, catching the blow on the side of his thigh.
Then she flashed into the classic judo position and hurled several rapid cuts at his head.
She would have done more damage to an oak tree. Casio shook off her attack, crouched and sprung like an offensive back coming off the line. She spun to her left in an impressive display of feline grace but was knocked off balance by his shoulder. Then Casio straightened and smashed through her defense with a vicious left hook that nearly tore off her head. Her feet left the floor and she flew into a five-foot-high Sung Dynasty vase, breaking it into dust.
"You certainly have a way with women," Pitt remarked casually.
"Lucky for us there's still a few things we can do better than they can."
Casio motioned toward a large double door carved with dragons and quietly opened it. Min Koryo was propped up in her spacious bed, browsing through a pile of audit reports. For a moment the two men stood mute and unmoving, waiting for her to look up and acknowledge their intrusion. She looked so pathetic, so fragile, that any other trespassers might have wavered. But not Pitt and Casio.
Finally she lifted her reading glasses and gazed at them, showing no apprehension or fright. Her eyes were fixed in frank curiosity.
"Who are you?" she asked simply.
"My name is Sal Casio. I'm a private investigator."
"And the other man?"
Pitt stepped from the shadows and stood under the glow from the spotlights above the bed. "I believe you know me."
There was a faint flicker of surprise in her voice, but nothing else. "Mr. Dirk Pitt."
"Yes."
"Why have you come?"
"You are a slimy parasite who sucked the life out of untold innocent people to build your filthy empire. You're responsible for the death of a personal friend of mine and also for that of Sal's daughter. You tried to kill me, and you ask why I'm here?"
" You are mistaken, Mr. Pitt. I am guilty of nothing so criminal.
My hands are unstained."
" A play on words. You live in your museum of Oriental artifacts, shielded from the outside world, while your grandson did your dirty work for you."
/> :'You say I am the cause of your friend's death?"
"She was killed by the nerve agent you stole from the government and left on the Pilottown."
