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Jes
sie shook her head. "None."
"I saw them. There wasn't much left to identify."
"The corpse lying in the morgue was more muscular than Raymond," explained Jessie. "Also, he'd been wearing an imitation of a Cartier wristwatch. One of those cheap replicas made in Taiwan. I'd given my husband an expensive original on our first anniversary."
"I've made a few calls on my own," added Sandecker. "The Miami coroner backed Jessie's judgment.
Physical characteristics of the bodies in the morgue didn't match the three men who took off in the Prosperteer."
Pitt looked from Sandecker to Jessie LeBaron, realizing he was getting involved in something he had wished to avoid-- the emotional entanglements complicating any project that depended on solid research, practical engineering, and razor-sharp organization.
"Bodies and clothes switched," said Pitt. "Personal jewelry replaced with fakes. Any thoughts on a motive, Mrs. LeBaron?"
"I don't know what to think."
"Did you know that between the time the blimp vanished and when it reappeared in Key Biscayne the gas bags inside the hull would have had to be reinflated with helium?"
She opened her purse, took out a Kleenex, and daintily dabbed at her nose, to give her something to do with her hands. "After the police released the Prosperteer, my husband's crew chief inspected every inch of her. I have his report, if you care to see it. You're very perceptive. He found that the gas bags had been refilled. Not with helium, but with hydrogen."
Pitt looked up in surprise. "Hydrogen? That hasn't been used in airships since the Hindenburg burned."
"Not to worry," said Sandecker. "The Prosperteer's gas bags have been refilled with helium."
"So what's going down?" Pitt asked cautiously.
Sandecker gave him a hard look. "I hear you want to go after the Cyclops."
"It's no secret," answered Pitt.
"You'd have to do it on your own time without NUMA personnel and equipment. Congress would eat me alive if they learned I sanctioned a treasure hunt with government funds."
"I'm aware of that."
"Will you listen to another proposal?"
"I'll listen."
"I'm not going to hand you a lot of double-talk about doing me a great service by keeping this conversation to yourself. If it gets out I go down the drain, but that's my problem. True?"
"If you say so, yes."
"You were scheduled to direct a survey of the sea floor in the Bering Sea off the Aleutians next month.
I'll bring in Jack Harris from the deep-ocean mining project to replace you. To head off any questions or later investigations or bureaucratic wrongdoing, we'll sever your connections with NUMA. As of now, you're on leave of absence until you find Raymond LeBaron."
"Find Raymond LeBaron," Pitt repeated sarcastically. "A piece of cake. The trail is two weeks cold and getting colder by the hour. No motive, no leads, not one clue to why he vanished, who did it, and how. Impossible is an understatement."
"Will you at least give it a try?" asked Sandecker.
Pitt stared at the teakwood planking that made up the floor of the admiral's office, his eyes seeing a tropical sea two thousand miles away. He disliked becoming linked with a riddle without being able to calculate at the very least an approximate solution. He knew Sandecker knew that he would accept the challenge. Chasing after an unknown over the next horizon was a lure Pitt could never resist.
"If I take this on, I'd need NUMA's best scientific team to man a first-rate research vessel. The resources and political clout to back me up. Military support in case of trouble."
"Dirk, my hands are tied. I can offer you nothing."
"What?"
