"You're running on a tight time schedule, and you're running scared. Under our feet, beneath this dock, rests a hundred and thirty tons of heroin—loaded into the sub at Shanghai and carried across the Indian Ocean and through the Suez Canal by a Minerva Lines freighter. I have to hand it to you; anyone else would have tried to sneak the heroin into the United States through the back door without fanfare. Not so Bruno von Till. BBD&O together with J. Walter Thompson and all the other agencies on Madison Avenue couldn't have created a more professional job of advertising the Queen Artemisia's illegal cargo and final destination. It was shrewd thinking. Even though INTERPOL agents have finally unriddled your underwater transportation, it makes little difference. All their eyes are still trained on the Queen Artemisia. Do you follow me?"

They stood mute and offered no affirmative or negative reply.

"As Darius has undoubtedly informed you," Pitt went on, "Inspector Zacynthus and the Bureau of Narcotics are currently wasting their time and efforts in preparing a trap for the ship when it reaches Chicago. I shudder to think of the four-letter words that will fall on Lake Michigan when they discover nothing but the ship's crew wearing their best actor's smiles and the holds filled with nothing but the cocoa from Ceylon."

Pitt paused and shifted his throbbing leg to a more comfortable position. He noticed that Knight and Thomas had joined Woodson below the hatch. Then he continued.

"It must be a great source of satisfaction to know that INTERPOL has taken your bait, hook, line and sinker. They're totally unaware that the sub and the heroin were dropped here last night in order to be transferred to the next Minerva Lines ship that happens past; which, by the way, should be the Queen Jocasta, bound for New Orleans with a cargo of Turkish tobacco and due to drop anchor a mile offshore in approximately ten minutes. That's why you're running scared, von Till. Time has caught up with you, and you have to gamble on a rendezvous with your ship in broad daylight."

"You have a vivid imagination," von Till said contemptuously. But Pitt could see the lines of concern in the old man's face. "There is absolutely no way you can prove your wild theories."

Pitt ignored his words. He said: "Why should I bother? I'm going to die in a few minutes anyway."

"You have a point, Major," von Till said slowly. "I compliment you. Your perception is excellent. I see no harm in admitting that you are correct in everything you have said, with one exception: the Queen Jocasta will not dock in New Orleans. At the last minute, it will alter course for Galveston, Texas."