"Are we dropping Al off at his condo in Alexandria?" she asked.

Pitt nodded. "Then we can head for the hangar and clean up. The admiral wants us in his office by noon."

Loren looked down at the clock on the instrument panel. The hands read: 10:25. Frowning as she expertly, smoothly, shifted through the gears, she said caustically, "No time to relax before going back to work? After what the four of you have been through, isn't he crowding you a bit?"

"You know as well as I that beneath his sandpaper exterior beats the heart of a considerate man. He wouldn't insist on a deadline unless it was important."

"Still," Loren said, as the car was waved through the armed security guard at the airport gate, "he could have given you twenty-four hours to rejuvenate."

"We'll know soon enough what's on his mind," Pitt muttered, doing his best to keep from dozing off.

Fifteen minutes later, Loren drove up to the gated condominium complex where Giordino lived. A bachelor who had yet to marry, he seemed in no hurry to take the big step, preferring to spread his frosting on the cake, as he put it. Loren had seldom seen him with the same lady twice. She had introduced him to her lady friends, who all found him charming and interesting, but after a while he always drifted off to someone else. Pitt always likened him to a prospector wandering a tropical paradise for gold but never finding it on the beach under the palm trees.

Giordino retrieved his duffel bag and waved. "See you again soon… too soon."

The drive to Pitt's aircraft hangar apartment at one deserted end of Ronald Reagan National Airport was traffic-free. Again, they were waved through a security gate when the guard recognized Pitt. Loren stopped at the old hangar once used by a long-extinct airline in the nineteen thirties and forties. Pitt had purchased it to store his old-car collection and remodeled the upper offices into an apartment. Dirk and Summer lived on the main floor that also housed his fifty-car collection, a pair of old aircraft and a railroad Pullman car that he'd found in a cave in New York.

Loren braked the Marmon in front of the main door as Pitt used his remote to disengage his complicated alarm system. Then the door raised and she drove inside and parked in the middle of the incredible array of beautiful old classic automobiles dating from the earliest, a 1918 V-8 Cadillac, to a 1955 Rolls-Royce Hooper-bodied Silver Dawn. Sitting on a white epoxy floor and illuminated by skylights above, the old cars radiated a dazzling rainbow of colors.

Dirk and Summer retired to their separate compartments in the Pullman car while Pitt and Loren went up to his apartment, where he showered and shaved as she fixed a light brunch for the four of them. Thirty minutes later, Pitt exited his bedroom, dressed in casual slacks and golf shirt. He sat down at his kitchen table as Loren handed him a Ramos Fizz.

"Have you ever heard of a big corporation called Odyssey?" he asked Loren out of the blue.

She looked at him for a moment. "Yes, I'm on a congressional committee that has looked into its operations. It's not an agenda that's being covered by the news media. What do you know about our investigation?"

He shrugged casually. "Absolutely nothing. I wasn't aware of your congressional involvement with Specter."

"The corporation's nebulous founder? Then why did you ask?"

"Curiosity. Nothing more. Specter owned the hotel Al and I helped save from being carried onto the rocks by Hurricane Lizzie."

"Other than the fact he heads a vast scientific research facility in Nicaragua and is involved with huge construction projects and mining operations around the world, very little is known about him. Some of his international dealings are legitimate, others are very shady."

"What are his projects in the U.S.?"

"Water canals through the southwest deserts and a few dams. That's the extent of it."

"What sort of scientific research projects does Odyssey conduct?" Pitt asked.

Loren shrugged. "Their activities are heavily veiled, and since their facility is in Nicaragua, they aren't bound by any laws to report their experiments. Rumor has it they're involved with fuel cell research, but no one knows for certain. Our intelligence people don't see Odyssey as a priority investigation."

"And their construction operations?"

"Mostly underground vaults and warehouse excavation," answered Loren. "The CIA has heard rumors that he's hollowed out caverns for clandestine nuclear and biological weapons manufactured in countries such as North Korea, but there's no proof. A number of their projects are with the Chinese, who want their military research programs and weapons supplies kept secret. Odyssey seems to have made a specialty of building below-the-surface vault warehouses that hide military activity and arms assembly plants from spy satellites."

"Yet Specter built and operated a floating hotel."

"A toy he uses to entertain clients," explained Loren. "He's only in the resort business for the fun of it."

"Who is Specter? The operation's manager for the Ocean Wanderer had nothing good to say about him."

"He must not like his job."

"Not that. He told me he would no longer work for Specter, because he ran from the hotel and flew off in his private plane before the hurricane struck, abandoning the guests and employees, not caring whether they might all die."

"Specter is a very mysterious person. Probably the only corporate executive officer of a giant business who doesn't have a personal publicity agent or public relations firm. He's never given an interview and is rarely seen in public. There are no records of his history, family or schooling."

"Not even a birth record?"

Loren shook her head. "No record of his birth has been found in the U.S. or in any other nation's archives around the world. His true identity has yet to be revealed despite the best efforts of our intelligence agencies. The FBI tried to get a handle on him a few years ago, but came up empty. There are no revealing photographs because his face is always covered by a scarf and heavy sunglasses. They tried to obtain fingerprints, but he wears gloves. Even his closest business aides have never seen his face. All that is obvious is that he is very obese, probably weighing more than four hundred pounds."

"Nobody's life or business can remain that veiled."

Loren made a helpless gesture with her hands.

Pitt poured himself a cup of coffee. "Where are his corporate headquarters located?"

"Brazil," replied Loren. "He also has a huge office center in Panama. And because he has made a large investment in the country, the president of the republic made him a citizen. He also appointed Specter as a director of the Panama Canal Authority."

"So what is the justification for your congressional probe?" asked Pitt.

"His dealings with the Chinese. Specter's connection with the People's Republic of China's is a long-standing relationship that goes back fifteen years. As a director of the Canal Authority, he was instrumental in helping the Hong Kong — based Whampoa Limited company, which is tied in with the People's Liberation Army, to obtain a twenty-five-year option for control of the canal's Atlantic and Pacific Ocean ports of Balboa and Cristobal. Whampoa will also be in charge of all loading and unloading of ship cargoes, and the railroad that transports cargo between the ports, and will soon begin construction on a new suspension bridge that will be used to truck oversized cargo containers north and south over the Canal Zone."