Still no answer. The driver ignored Giordino and steered the car as if he was a robot.

"What do you think?" Giordino muttered. "Should we stick an ice pick in his ear at the next stoplight and hijack the car?"

"How do we know he's actually with the Secret Service?" said Pitt.

The driver's face remained impassive as reflected in the rearview mirror. He reached an arm over his shoulder with his hand displaying his Secret Service identification.

Giordino peered at the ID. "He's genuine. He has to be with a name like Otis McGonigle."

"I'm glad it's not the White House," Pitt said, yawning as if bored. "The people inside are so drab and dreary. And what's worse, they think the country will go to the dogs without them."

"Especially those toadies who protect the president," Giordino added.

"You mean those deadheads who stand around with little radios in their ears wearing sunglasses that went out of fashion thirty years ago?"

"The same."

Still no response, not even a twitch of irritation.

Pitt and Giordino gave up trying to get a rise out of the agent and sat quietly for the rest of the trip. McGonigle stopped at a heavy iron gate. A guard in the uniform of the White House police recognized the driver, stepped into his guardhouse and pressed a switch. The gate swung open and the car rolled down a ramp into a tunnel. Pitt was familiar with the tunnels deep beneath Washington that led into most of the government buildings around the Capitol. Former President Clinton had often used them during his forays around the city nightspots.

After what Pitt estimated was nearly a mile, McGonigle stopped the car in front of an elevator, got out and opened the rear door.

"Okay, gentlemen, we've arrived."

"He talked," Giordino said, looking around the tunnel. "But how? I don't see his ventriloquist."

"You guys will never get hired at the Comedy Club," muttered McGonigle, refusing to be drawn in. He stood aside as the doors opened. "I'll await your return with bated breath."

"I don't know why, but I like you," Giordino said, slapping the agent on the back as he stepped into the elevator. He failed to see the response as the door closed before the agent could react.

The elevator did not go up, but descended for what seemed a quarter of a mile before it slowed and the doors noiselessly slid open. Here they found an armed Marine standing in dress uniform beside a steel door. He carefully checked Pitt and Giordino, comparing their faces with photographs. Satisfied, he pressed a code on the side of the door and stood aside as it swung open. He merely motioned for them to enter, without speaking.

They found themselves in a long conference room with enough technical communications equipment to support a major war room. TV monitors and visual displays of maps and photographs covered three walls. Sandecker rose from a chair and greeted them.

"Well, you two have really opened a Pandora's box this time."

"I hope the results of our investigation proved useful," said Pitt modestly.

"Useful is a major understatement." He turned as a tall, gray-haired man in a black pin-striped suit with a red tie approached. "I believe you know the president's security advisor, Max Seymour."

Pitt shook the outstretched hand. "I've met him on occasion at my father's Saturday-afternoon barbecues."

"Senator Pitt and I go back a long way," said Seymour warmly. "How is your lovely mother?"

"Except for arthritis, she's doing fine," replied Pitt.

Sandecker quickly made the introductions of the other three men standing around one end of the long table. Jack Martin, White House science advisor; Jim Hecht, assistant director of the CIA; and General Arnold Stack, whose exact job at the Pentagon was never fully revealed. They all sat down as Sandecker asked Pitt to report on what he and Giordino found in the tunnels and at the Odyssey development center on Isle de Ometepe.

After a secretary announced that her recorder was on and receiving, Pitt started off first, trading off every few minutes with Giordino, filling in what the other overlooked. They described the broad spectrum of events and scenes they had witnessed, enhanced by their conclusions. No questions interrupted their report until they wrapped up by telling of their escape off the island with the Lowenhardts and the murderous woman from Odyssey.

The president's men took a few moments to digest the enormity of the looming disaster. Max Seymour looked across the table with an icy smile on his face at Jim Hecht of the CIA. "Seems like your people dropped the ball on this one, Jim."

Hecht shrugged uncomfortably. "No directives were received from the White House to investigate. We saw little cause to send in operatives because our satellite photos showed no indication of a major construction project that could prove detrimental to the security of the United States."

"And the development facility on Ometepe?"

"We checked it," answered Hecht, becoming annoyed with Seymour's questions, "and found it was engaging in alternative power research. Our analysts saw nothing that revealed Odyssey was researching and developing weapons of death or destruction. So we moved on, since our main objective is observing and analyzing the Republic of China's penetration into Central America, in particular, the Canal Zone."

Jack Martin said, "I find it troubling that our best scientific efforts are still years away from producing an efficient fuel cell power system. Not only did Odyssey make an astonishing technical breakthrough, but the Red Chinese are already manufacturing millions of units."

"We can't lead the world in everything, every time," said General Stack. He nodded at Pitt and Giordino. "What you're telling us is that Odyssey lured away a number of the world's leading scientists who were conducting research into fuel cells, took them to the facility in Nicaragua and then coerced them into developing a practical and efficient product."

Pitt nodded. "That is correct."

"I can name at least four of our own scientists who left their research laboratories at universities and quietly disappeared," said Martin.

Hecht looked at Pitt. "Are you certain the Lowenhardts will cooperate and give us the technical data we require to re-create their advance in nitrogen fuel cells?"

"They agreed up and down the line after I promised them that their children would be flown under guard to the United States for a family reunion and protected from now on."

"Good thinking," said Sandecker with a glint in his eyes, "even if you did step beyond your authority."

"It seemed the honorable thing to do," Pitt came back, with a sly grin.

Jack Martin doodled on a notepad. "As soon as they've recovered from their ordeal and are rested, we'll begin interviewing them." He gazed at Pitt across the table. "What did they tell you about the cell's inner workings?"

"Only that after they determined that hydrogen was impractical as a fuel they began experimenting with nitrogen because it makes up seventy-eight percent of Earth's air. By drawing it out of the atmosphere along with oxygen, they ingeniously created a fuel cell that was self-sustaining and powered by natural gases, with only pure water as waste. According to Claus they engineered an ingeniously simple unit with less than eight parts. It was this simplicity that enabled the Chinese to produce so many units so quickly."