She looked at him, annoyed with him for his arrogant charm, feeling that he was testing her somehow. "Have you ever seen someone who came in contact with Nerve Agent S?"

"No."

"It's not a pretty sight. They literally drown in their own blood as their internal membranes burst. Every body orifice bleeds like a river. Then the corpse turns black."

"You're very descriptive."

"It's all a game to you," she lashed out. "it's not a game to me."

He didn't reply. He simply nodded downward at the Catawba looming through the pilot's windshield. "We're landing."

The pilot noted that the ship had turned bow-on to the wind from the fluttered ensign on the halyards. He eased the helicopter over the stern, hovered a few moments and set down on the pad.

The rotor blades had hardly swung to a stop when two figures dressed from head to toe in astronaut-looking suits approached while unfolding a circular plastic tube about five feet in diameter that looked like a huge umbilical cord. They secured it around the exit door and gave three knocks. Pitt undin the latches and swung the door inward. The men outside passed him cloth hoods with see-through lenses and gloves.

"Best put them on," commanded a muffled voice.

Pitt prodded Giordino awake and handed him a hood and pair of gloves.

"What in hell are these?" Giordino mumbled, emerging from the cobwebs.

"Welcome gifts from the sanitation department."

Two more crewmen appeared in the plastic tunnel and took their gear. Giordino, still half asleep, stumbled from the helicopter.

Pitt hesitated and stared into Mendoza's eyes.

"What's my reward if I find your poison in forty-eight hours?"

"What do you want it to be?"

"Are you as hard as you pretend?"

"Harder, Mr. Pitt, much harder."

"Then you decide."

He gave her a rakish smile and was gone.

THE CARS THAT MADE up the presidential motorcade were lined in a row beside the South Portico of the White House. As soon as the Secret Service detail was in position, Oscar Lucas spoke into a tiny microphone whose wire looped around the watch on his wrist and ran up the sleeve of his coat.

"Tell the Boss, we're ready."

Three minutes later the President, accompanied by Fawcett, walked briskly down the steps and entered the presidential limousine. Lucas joined them and the cars moved out through the southwest gate.

The President relaxed into the leather of the rear seat and inly stared out the window at the passing buildings. Fawcett sat with an open attache' case on his lap and made a series of notes inside the top folder. After a few minutes of silence, he sighed, snapped the case shut and set it on the floor.

"There it is, arguments from both sides of the fence, statistics, CIA projections, and the latest reports from your economic council on Communist bloc debts. Everything you should need to sell Larimer and Moran on your way of thinking."