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Prevlov leaned forward, his eyes half-closed in wary speculation "My name?" his voice was barely above a murmur "You know my name?"

"Fair is fair," Pitt answered "I know as much about you as you know about me"

"You're even cleverer than I was led to believe," Prevlov said "You've discovered my identity-an astute piece of perception On that I coe you do not possess Beyond "

"I wonder Perhaps I can enlighten you further with a bit of local folklore"

"I have no patience for fairy tales," Prevlov said He et on about the business of persuading Adreater efforts, I would be rateful"

The guard, a talltoward Dana once ht no ed Pitt's jacket tightly around her shoulders and stared at the knife, numbed beyond fear

"Too bad you're not big on fairy tales," Pitt said conversationally "This is one you'd have enjoyed It's all about a pair of bu characters called Silver and Gold"

Prevlov glanced at hiuard back "You have ive you five minutes to prove your point"

"It won't take long," Pitt said He paused to rub the eye that had caked closed fro blood "Now then, once upon a tiineers who discovered that spying could be a lucrative sideline So they shed all qualents in every sense of the word, concentrating their talents on obtaining classified data about Ah hidden channels to Moscow Silver and Gold earned their money, make no mistake Over the past two years, there wasn't a NUMA project the Russians didn't have knowledge of down to the tiniest detail Then, when the Titanic's salvage caence-- your departree of chicanery, you found yourself with not one, but two men in your e Ae techniques There was, of course, another vital consideration, but even you weren't aware of it at the time

"Silver and Gold," Pitt went on, "sent regular reports concerning the raising of the wreck through an ingenious er, a device that can transmit underwater sound waves siht on to it when the Capricorn's sonar man detected the transmissions, but instead I dismissed it as loose debris caused by a deep water current knocking about the Titanic The fact that soes never entered our heads Nobody bothered to decipher the rando under a set of hydrophones on board the Mikhail Kurkov"

Pitt paused and glanced about the dining saloon He had everyone's attention "We didn't begin to smell either rat until Henry Munk felt the need for a poorly timed call of nature On his way back to the head at the aft end of the Sappho II, he heard the pinging device in operation and investigated; he caught one of the agents in the act Your man probably tried to lie his way out of it, but Henry Munk was an instruer when he saw one and quickly figured the ga curiosity Munk had to be silenced, and he was, from a blow to the base of the skull by one of Woodson's camera tripods This created an aard situation for the ainst the alternator housing to make it look like an accident However, the fish didn't take the bait Woodson was suspicious; I was suspicious; and to top it off, Doc Bailey found the bruise on Munk's neck But since there was no way of proving who the killer was, I decided to string along with the accident story until I could scratch up enough evidence to point an accusing finger Later, I went back and searched the subhtly used and very bent ca device where our friendly neighborhood spy had, ironically, hidden thee locker Certain that it was a waste of tierprints-I didn't need a bolt fro with a professional-I left the tripod and the pinger exactly as I found them I took the chance that it would only be a an contacting the Mikhail Kurkov again So I waited"

"A fascinating story," Prevlov said "But very circumstantial Absolute proof would have been impossible to come by"

Pitt sh a process of elimination I was relatively sure the killer had to be one of the threetheir rest period I then alternated the Sappho II's crew schedule every few days so that two of the below on the wreck When our sonar er, I had Munk's murderer"

"Who is it, Pitt?" Spencer asked grimly "There are ten of us here Was it one of us?"

Pitt locked eyes for an instant with Prevlov and then turned suddenly and nodded at one of the weary men huddled under the lamps