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Pitt didn't answer but, seeing that it was clear, he took off running down a long hallway. The doors on either side had locked latches. He stopped in front of the third door and turned to Giordino. "This is your specialty," he said, stepping aside.
Giordino shot him a testy look, then leaned back and kicked the door half off its hinges. Then he lunged with one shoulder and finished the job. Unable to withstand the muscular Italian's onslaught, the door fell flat on the floor with a loud thud.
Pitt stepped inside and found a man and a woman sitting upright in bed, frozen in shocked silence at the sight of the strangers, their faces expressing icy fear.
"Forgive the intrusion," Pitt said softly, "but we need a place to hide." As he spoke, Giordino was already setting the door back in place.
"Where are you going to take us?" the woman asked in near panic with a heavy German guttural accent as she pulled up the covers around the top of her nightgown. Round, flushed face with wide brown eyes, silver hair pulled back in a bun, she looked like the grandmother she probably was. Though it was buried under a sheet and light blanket, Pitt could see that her body would never fit into a size sixteen dress.
"Noplace. We're not who you think."
"But you're one of them."
"No, ma'am," said Pitt, trying to ease her terror. "We are not employees of Odyssey."
"Then who in God's name are you?" asked the man, slowly recovering. The man in the bed rose in an old-fashioned nightshirt and threw on an equally old-fashioned chenille bathrobe. Just the opposite of what Pitt assumed was his wife, he was quite tall and thin as a yardstick. His thick gray hair stood at least three inches above Pitt's. White facial skin, a sharp pyramid of a nose and tight lips decorated with a pencil-thin mustache defined his face.
"My name is Dirk Pitt. My friend is Al Giordino. We work for the United States government and are here to learn why the existence of this facility is such a well-guarded secret."
"How did you get on the island?" asked the woman.
"From the water," Pitt replied, without detail. "We entered your building after creating a little diversion that drew away the guards." As he spoke, the sound of approaching sirens could be heard echoing down the corridor through the building's still-open front entrance. "I've never known anyone who could ignore watching a good fire."
"Why did you choose our room?"
"Pure chance, nothing more."
"If you will kindly oblige us," said Giordino, "we'd like to spend the night. We'll be gone come the dawn."
The woman studied Giordino, her eyes traveling up and down his white jumpsuit, with a look of suspicion. "You're not a woman."
Giordino responded with a wide smile. "Thankfully, no, but how I came to be in a female Odyssey uniform is a long and boring story."
"Why should we believe you?"
"I can't give you a reason in the world."
"Do you mind telling us why you're confined inside this building?" queried Pitt.
"Forgive us," said the woman, coming back on track. "My husband and I are terribly confused. He is Dr. Claus Lowenhardt, and I am his wife, Dr. Hilda Lowenhardt. We are only locked in at night. During the day we work under heavy guard in the laboratories."
Pitt was amused at the formality of the introductions. "How did you come to be here?"
"We were doing research at the Technical Research Institution in Aachen, Germany, when agents working for a Mr. Specter representing the Odyssey Corporation requested that we come to work for them as consultants. My wife and I were only two out of forty of the top scientists in our field who were lured away from their laboratories by offers of an immense amount of money and promises of funding for our projects after we were finished here and returned home. We were told we were flying to Canada, but they lied. When our plane landed, we found ourselves on this island in the middle of nowhere. Since then, we have all virtually worked as slaves."
"How long ago?"
"Five years."
"What type of research were you forced to conduct?"
"Our academic discipline is in the science of fuel cell energy."
"Is this why this facility was constructed, to conduct experiments on fuel cells?"
Claus Lowenhardt nodded. "Odyssey began construction nearly six years ago."
"What about outside contact?"
