"No, but he took quite a beating on the last project. When I saw him a few days ago, he looked like death warmed over. He needs more time to mend."

"Pitt is a fast healer," Sandecker said confidently. "A challenge is just what he needs to get back into the swim of things. Track him down and tell him it's essential he contact me immediately."

"I don't know where to reach him," Gunn said vaguely. "After you gave him a month's leave, he just took off without saying where he was going."

"He's in Washington State, up to his old tricks at a place called Orion Lake."

Gunn looked at the admiral suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

"Hiram Yaeger sent him a truckload of underwater gear," said Sandecker, his eyes glinting like a fox's. "Hiram thought he did it on the sly, but word has a funny way of filtering up to my office."

"Not much goes on around NUMA that you don't know about."

"The only mystery I haven't solved is how Al Giordino smokes my expensive Nicaraguan cigars when I never find any missing."

"Did it ever occur to you that you both might have the same source?"

"Impossible," snorted Sandecker. "My cigars are rolled by a family who are close friends of mine in Managua. Giordino couldn't possibly know them. And while we're on the subject, where is Giordino?"

"Lying on a beach in Hawaii," answered Gunn. "He decided it was as good a time as any to take a vacation until Dirk got back in the saddle again."

"Those two are usually as thick as thieves. It's a rare moment when they're not causing mischief together."

"You want me to brief Al on the situation and then send him out to Orion Lake to bring Dirk back to Washington?"

Sandecker nodded. "A good idea. Pitt will listen to Giordino. You go along as backup. Knowing Dirk, if I called and ordered him to report back to work, he'd hang up the phone."

"You're absolutely right, Admiral," Gunn said, smiling. "That's exactly what he would do."

JULIA LEE'S THOUGHTS, CERTAIN BELIEFS RATHER, CENTERED around an overwhelming sense of defeat. Deep down, she knew she had botched her mission. She had made the wrong moves, said the wrong things. There was a feeling of emptiness, shrouded by despair in her mind. She had learned much about the smugglers' operation. There were ashes in her mouth as she realized that it was all for nothing. The vital information she had obtained might never be passed on to the Immigration and Naturalization Service so they could apprehend the smugglers.

She felt a sea of pain from her sadistically inflicted injuries, sick and empty and debased. She was also deathly tired and hungry. Her self-assurance had gotten the better of her. She failed by not acting meek and subjugated. By using the skills taught her during her training as a special INS agent and given enough time, she could have easily escaped her captors before being submitted to a life of rape. Now it was too late. Julia was too badly hurt to make an all-out physical effort. It was all she could do to stand upright without getting dizzy and losing her balance before falling to her knees.