She turned and noticed him. "May I help you?" The voice was cool, the big hazel eyes unfriendly. Pitt admitted to himself that he had to go along with her icy greeting. The white turtleneck sweater, the green California sport coat, the handkerchief casually fluffed from the breast pocket hardly categorized him as an executive or important Washington bureaucrat.

"I would like to see the Director of the Bureau."

"I'm sorry," she said, turning back to her typewriter. "The Director is extremely busy and cannot see anyone."

Contempt and anger began to mount in Pitt. "Inspector Zacynthus made an appointment for me—"

"Inspector Zacynthus' office is on the fourth floor," the girl droned mechanically.

A gunshot couldn't have received more attention than the resounding bang from Pitt's cane as he slammed it on top of the receptionist's desk. The typists' eyes burst wide, and their hands froze above keyboards, sending the anteroom into a sudden dead silence. Her face drained of all color, the large-chested blond stared up at Pitt, a fear mushrooming inside her.

"OK, dearheart," Pitt said menacingly. "You get up off your well-rounded little bottom and you go and inform the Director that Major Dirk Pitt is waiting to keep the appointment set by Inspector Zacynthus."

"Pitt…Major Pitt from NUMA," the blond gasped. "Oh I'm sorry, sir. But I thought—"

"Yes, I know," Pitt offered. "I'm out of uniform."

The blond jumped from her desk, snagging a stocking in her haste. "Right this way, Major. They're expecting you."

Pitt grinned at her, grinned at the other girls sitting awed in their chairs, felt self-satisfied at the admiring expressions from all twenty-four eyes, the bovine, adoring gaze reserved for celebrities and movie stars. It inflated his male ego.

"Keep typing, girls," he said good-naturedly. "Mustn't keep the Bureau waiting for all those letters and reports."

The blond led him down a long hallway, slowing her pace every so often to allow him to catch up. She halted and rapped on a walnut-stained door. "Major Pitt," she announced, and then stood aside to let him pass through.

Three men rose as he walked into the room. The fourth, Giordino, remained comfortably anchored to a long leather couch.

"I thought I'd never see the day," he said. "Dirk Pitt hobbling around on a cane."

"Just practicing for my senile years," Pitt retorted.

A short, red-haired man with a zeppelin-shaped cigar stashed jauntily between his lips came over and shook Pitt's hand. "Welcome back, Dirk. Congratulations on a great job in the Aegean."

Pitt stared into the griffin-featured face of Admiral James Sandecker, the crusty chief of the National Underwater Marine Agency.

"Thank you, Admiral. Any word on the Teaser yet?"