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:'Concerns your friend Dirk Pitt"

"So happen to Dirk?" Loren asked anxiously

" Persons unknown blew up his car Lucky for hi toward it when he stopped to talk to a friend According to District police, another couple of minutes and they'd have swept him up with a broom"

Everything caught up and ja too fast for her to accept The mad events splashed behind her eyes in a co up a backwoods bed quilt The searasped the only thread that seemed to hold

" Sal, listen carefully Call Dirk and tell hi sound flooded her eardrum "Can you hear me, Sal?"

The only reply to Loren's question was the interference She swung around to coone

Instead, there were two stewards, or rather trestlers in stewards' uniforms, and the first officer He opened the door to her booth and bowed curtly

'Will you please coresswoman Smith The captain would like to talk to you"

THE PILOT SET THE HELICOPTER on the ground at a small airport on the Isle of Palh the standard shutdown procedure, running the engine at low RPM's until it cooled down Then he climbed out, lined up one of the rotor blades and tied it to the tail boom

His back and ar exercises as he walked to a s pad He unlocked the door and stepped inside

A stranger sat in the tiny lobby area casually reading a newspaper To the pilot he looked to be either Chinese or Japanese

The newspaper was lowered, revealing a shotgun with a pistol grip and twin sawed-off barrels that ended barely four inches in front of the shells

"What do you want?" asked the pilot stupidly

"Information?"

"You're in the wrong place," said the pilot, instinctively raising his hands "We're a helicopter ambulance service, not a library"