The men around Kelly looked at each other, then at Pitt. They looked in silence with curiosity written on their faces. Von Hummel wiped his brow for the fiftieth time and Sir Eric Marks rubbed his hand across his lips and nodded at Kelly, a movement that did not go unnoticed by Pitt. Swinging the sash around his waist semicomily, Pitt walked over to the table and poured himself another glass of the Rouche, a last drink for the road, because he knew Kelly never meant for him to leave the house through the front door.

"You guessed that?" Kelly said in an even voice.

"Hardly," Pitt said. "After you've had three attempts on your life, you kind of get to know these things."

"The hydroplane!" Rondheim snapped savagely.

"You know what happened to it?"

Pitt sat down and sipped the brandy. If he had to die, at least he had the satisfaction of knowing he held the stage at the end.

"Terribly sloppy of you, my dear Oskar, or should I say the late captain of your last boat. You should have seen the look on his face just before my Molotov cocktail hit him."

"You damned queer!" Rondheim said, his voice shaking with fury. "You lying faggot!"

"Sticks and stones, my dear Oskar," Pitt said carelessly. "Think what you may. One thing is certain. Due to your negligence, you'll never see your hydroplane and crew again."

"Can't you see what he's trying to do?" Rondheim took a step toward Pitt. "He's trying to turn us against each other."

"That will do!" Kelly's tone was cold, his eyes commanding. "Please go on, Major."

"You're very kind." Pitt downed his brandy and poured another. What the hell, he thought, might as well deaden whatever pain. that was coming. "Poor Oskar also bumbled the second attempt. I don't have to go into the sorry details, but I'm sure you're aware that his two feeble-brained assassins are talking like women on a party line right this minute to agents of the National Intelligence Agency."

"Damn!" Kelly spun around to Rondheim. "is that true?"

"My men never talk." Rondheim glared at Pitt.

"They know what will happen to their relatives if they do. Besides, they know nothing."

"Let us hope you're right," Kelly said heavily. He came and stood over Pitt, staring with a strangely expressionless gaze that was more disturbing than any display of animosity could ever have been. "This game has gone far enough, Major."

"Too bad. I was just getting warmed up, just getting to the good part."

"It isn't necessary."

"Neither was killing Dr. Hunnewell," Pitt said. His voice was unnaturally calm. "A terrible, terrible mistake, a sad miscalculation. Doubly so, since the good doctor was a key member of Hermit Limited."

For perhaps ten shocked, incredulous seconds Pitt let his words soak in as he sat nonchalantly in an armchair, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other, the very picture of relaxed boredom. Not so Rondheim and the other members of Hermit Limited. Their faces were as uncomprehending as if each had just come home and found his wife in bed with another man. Kelly's eyes widened and his breath seemed to stop. Then slowly he began to gain control again, calm, quiet, the professional businessman, saying nothing until the right words formed in his mind.

"Your computers must have blown a fuse," Pitt continued. "Admiral Sandecker and I were on to Dr. Hunnewell right from the start." Pitt lied, knowing there was no way Kelly or Rondheim could prove otherwise. "You wouldn't be interested in how or why."

"You are mistaken, Major," Kelly said impatiently.

"We would be most interested."

Pitt took a deep breath and made the plunge, "Actually our first tipoff came when Dr. Len Matajic was rescued-"

"No! That cannot be," Rondheim gasped.

Pitt gave silent thanks to Sandecker for his wild plan to resurrect the ghosts of Matajic and O'Riley. The opportunity was handed to him on a silver platter, and he could see no reason not to use it to kill time.

"Pick up the phone and ask the overseas operator for Room 409 at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington. I suggest you request person-to-person; your call will go through faster."

"That will not be necessary," Kelly said. "I have no reason to doubt you."

"Suit yourself," Pitt said carelessly, fighting to keep a straight face, laying his bluff successfully. "As I started to say, when Dr. Matajic was rescued, he described the Lax and its crew in vivid detail.

He wasn't fooled for a minute by the alterations to the superstructure. But, of course, you know all this. Your people monitored his message to Admiral Sandecker."

"And then?"

"Don't you see? The rest was simple deduction.

Thanks to Matajic's description, it didn't take any great effort to trace the ship's whereabouts from the time it disappeared with Kristjan Fyrie to when it moored on the iceberg where Matajic had his research station." Pitt smiled. "Because of Dr. Matajic's powers of observation-the crew's suntans hardly spelled a fishing trip in North Atlantic waters-Admiral Sandecker was able to figure the Lax's previous course along the South American coast. He then began to suspect Dr. Hunnewell.

Rather clever of the admiral now that I look back on it.) "Go on, go on," Kelly urged.

"Well, obviously the Lax had been utilizing the undersea probe to find new mineral deposits. And just as obviously, with Fyrie and his engineers dead, Dr. Hunnewell, the co-inventor of the probe, was the only one around who knew how to operate it."

"You are exceedingly well informed," Kelly said wryly. "But that hardly constitutes proof."

Pitt was on tricky ground. So far he had been able to skirt around the National Intelligence Agency's involvement in Hermit Limited. And Kelly had yet to be baited into offering any further information. It's time, he amusedly told himself, to tell the truth.

"Proof?" Okay, will you accept the words of a dying man," Straight from the horse's mouth. The man in question is Dr. Hunnewell himself."

"I don't believe it."

"His last words before he died in my arms were: 'God save thee.' "

"What are you talking about?" Rondheim shouted.

"What are you trying to do?"

"I meant to thank you for that, Oskar," Pitt said coldly. "Hunnewell knew who his murderer was-the man who gave the order for his death. He tried to quote from 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." It was all there, wasn't it? You quoted it yourself: 'Why look'st thou so? With my crossbow I shot the Albatross.' Your trademark, Oskar, the red albatross. That's what Hunnewell meant. 'For all averr'd I had kill'd the bird That made the breeze to blow.' You killed the man who helped you probe the sea floor." Pitt was feeling cocky now; the warmth from the brandy was spreading comfortingly through his body. "I can't match your memory for quoting the verse verbatim, but if my memory serves me correctly, the Ancient Mariner and his ship of ghosts were met by a hermit near the end-another tie-in. Yes, it was all in the verse. Hunnewell pointed the finger of guilt with his dying breath and you, Oskar, stood up and unwittingly pleaded guilty."

"You sent your arrow in the right direction, Major Pitt." Kelly idly stared at the smoke from his cigar. "But you aimed at the wrong man. I gave the order for Dr. Hunnewell's death. Oskar merely carried it through."