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Deirdre sat up, startled, and lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the sun. "Are your sources reliable? I personally hired the best investigators, former Secret Service agents, to keep her under surveillance."
"It's confirmed. They bungled their assignment and lost her after a wild ride through the countryside."
"Maeve isn't smart enough to lose professional investigators."
"From what I've been told, she had help." Her lips twisted into a scowl. "Let me guess Dirk Pitt."
Dorsett nodded. "The man is everywhere. Boudicca had him in her grasp at our Kunghit Island mine, but he slipped through her fingers."
"I sensed he was dangerous when he saved Maeve. I should have known how dangerous when he interrupted my plans to be airlifted off the Polar Queen by our helicopter after I set the ship on a collision course toward the rocks. I thought we were rid of him after that. I never imagined he would pop up without warning at our Canadian operation."
Dorsett motioned to a pretty little Chinese girl who was standing by a column supporting the roof over the veranda. She was dressed in a silk dress with long slits up the sides. "Bring me a gin," he ordered.
"Make it a tall one. I don't like skimpy drinks."
Deirdre held up a tall, empty glass. "Another rum collins."
The girl hurried off to bring the drinks. Deirdre caught her father eyeing the girl's backside and rolled her eyes. "Really, Daddy. You should know better than to bed the hired help. The world expects better from a man of your wealth and status."
"There are some things that go beyond class," he said sternly.
"What do we do about Maeve? She's obviously enlisted Dirk Pitt and his friends from NUMA to help her retrieve the twins."
Dorsett pulled his attention from the departing Chinese servant. "He may be a resourceful man, but he won't find Gladiator Island as easy to penetrate as our Kunghit Island property."
"Maeve knows the island better than any of us. She'll find a way."
"Even if they make it ashore"-he lifted a finger and pointed through the arched door of the courtyard in the general direction of the mines-"they'll never get within two hundred meters of the house."
Deirdre smiled diabolically. "Preparing a warm welcome seems most appropriate."
"No warm welcome, my darling daughter, not here, not on Gladiator Island."
"You have an ulterior plan." It was more statement than question.
He nodded. "Through Maeve, they will, no doubt, devise a scheme to infiltrate our security.
Unfortunately for them, they won't have the opportunity of exercising it."
"I don't understand."
"We cut them off at the pass, as the Americans are fond of saying, before they touch our shore."
"A perceptive man, my father." She stood up and hugged him, inhaling his smell. Even when she was a little girl he had smelled of expensive cologne, a special brand he imported from Germany, a musky, no-nonsense smell that reminded her of leather briefcases, the indefinable scent of a corporation boardroom and the wool of an expensive business suit.
He reluctantly pushed her away, angry at a growing feeling of desire for his own flesh and blood. "I want you to coordinate the mission. As usual, Boudicca will expedite."
"I'll bet my share of Dorsett Consolidated you know where to find them." She smiled archly at him.
"What is our timetable?"
"I suspect that Mr. Pitt and Maeve have already left Washington."
Her eyes squinted at him under the sun. "So soon?"
"Since Maeve hasn't been seen at her house, nor has Pitt set foot in his NUMA office for the past two days, it goes without saying that they are together and on their way here for the twins."
"Tell me where to set a trap for them," she said, a sparkle of the feline hunter in her eyes, certain her father had the answer. "An airport or hotel in Honolulu, Auckland or Sydney?"
