AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She looked at him questioningly for a moment, then nodded. "I'm sure we'll meet again."
The train slowed to a stop, and Pitt and Giordino disembarked. They
walked from the boarding platform into an antechamber with corridors leading off like wagon wheel spokes into a vast labyrinth.
"Now which way?" asked Giordino.
"We go dead amidships and follow the signs to the K Section," Pitt said, as he set off into the center corridor. "We want to avoid the security office like the plague."
Walking along what seemed to be an endless corridor, they passed numbered doors, several of them open while the rooms were being furnished. They looked in and saw spacious living quarters on a par with luxury condominiums. Pitt could understand now why the guard had referred to them as residences.
The plan was for the occupants to live as comfortably as possible during the long wait before they could establish their community on what was left of the earth after the comet's collision.
Paintings were spaced every thirty feet along the walls between the doors to the residences. Giordino stopped briefly and examined a landscape in vivid colors. He leaned close and peered at the artist's scrawled name.
"No way can this be a Van Gogh," he said skeptically. "It must be a forgery or a reproduction."
"It's genuine," said Pitt, with conviction. He motioned toward the other art hanging on the walls. "These works doubtless come from the museums and the private collections of Holocaust victims that were looted by the Nazis during World War Two."
"How charitable of them to save art treasures that never belonged to them."
"The Wolfs plan to carry the great masterworks to the promised land."
How could the Wolfs be so positive that the second coming of the comet would strike the earth? Pitt wondered. Why wasn't it possible the comet would miss again, as it had nine thousand years before?
There were no ready answers, but once he and Giordino could escape the shipyard with Pat and her daughter, he was determined to find solutions.
After what Giordino estimated as a quarter of a mile, they came to a large door marked "Security, Level K." They hurried past and finally came to a tastefully decorated reception area with tables, chairs, and sofas in front of a large fireplace. It could have passed for a lobby in any five-star hotel. A man and a woman dressed in green coveralls sat behind a counter beneath a large painting of Noah's Ark.
"Somebody in authority must have a color-code mania," Giordino muttered under his breath.
"Ask them where the American epigraphist, who is deciphering the ancient descriptions, is confined,"
Pitt instructed.
"How in hell would I know what èpigraphist' is in Spanish?"
"Fake it."
Giordino rolled his eyes and approached the counter in front of the woman, thinking she might be more helpful.
"We've been sent to move Dr. O'Connell and her daughter to another part of the ship," he said softly, in an attempt to muffle his American accent.
The woman, attractive in a mannish sort of way, with a pale complexion and her hair swept back in a bun, looked up at Giordino and noted his security uniform. "Why wasn't I notified earlier that she was scheduled to be moved?"
"I was told only ten minutes ago myself."
"I should verify this request," said the woman in an official tone.
"Better yet, my superior is on his way. I suggest you wait and settle the matter with him."
She nodded. "Yes, I'll do that."
"Meanwhile, you might point out the residence where she is being held, so we can prepare her for the move."
"You don't know?" the woman asked, suspicion growing in her mind.
"How could we?" Giordino asked innocently, "since she is under your charge as section leader. My partner and I are simply paying you the courtesy of checking with you rather than just going in and taking her. Now, tell me where she is and we'll wait until my superior shows with the proper authority, if that will make you sleep easier."
