He shrugged, smiling wryly. "OK, I'll give it to you from beginning to end, but please feel free to stare at me like I'm crazy; I'll understand."

In the heat-tortured cabin, the steel walls almost too hot to touch, Pitt told his story. He held nothing back, not even a thin belief that Teri had somehow betrayed him to von Till. Lewis nodded thoughtfully on occasion but made no comment; his mind seemed to linger elsewhere, returning only when Pitt graphically described an event. Giordino paced the small cubicle unhurriedly, leaning slightly against the slow rolling of the ship.

When Pitt finished, no one spoke. Ten seconds passed, twenty, then thirty. The atmosphere had turned humid from perspiration and rapidly became stale from cigar and cigarette smoke.

"I know," Pitt said a little tiredly. "It sounds like a fairy tale and makes very little sense. But, that's exactly the way it happened, I left nothing out."

"Daniel in the lion's den," Lewis said flatly, without inflection. "I admit, what you've told us seems farfetched, but the facts have a strange way of bearing you out." He pulled a handkerchief from a hip pocket and dabbed it across his forehead. "You were correct in predicting that the antique plane would attack this ship, and you even knew when."

"Von Till supplied me with a hint. The rest was conjecture."

"I can't figure the weird set-up," said Giordino. "Using an old biplane to shoot up the sea and landscape merely to get rid of the First Attempt seems overly complicated."

"Not really," said Pitt. "It soon became obvious to von Till that his sabotage attempts on the scientific operations of NUMA's expedition were not succeeding according to plan."

"What crossed him up?" Giordino inquired.

"Gunn was stubborn." Pitt grinned evenly. "In spite of what he thought were accidents and setbacks due to natural causes, he refused to weigh anchor and give up."

"Good for him," Lewis grunted, and cleared his throat to speak, but Pitt went on unruffled.

"Von Till had to find another direction. Using the old aircraft was a stroke of genius. If he had sent a modern jet fighter to attack Brady Field, all hell would have broken out in the form of an international crisis. The Greek government, the Russians, the Arabs; all would have become involved, and this whole island would have been teeming with military personnel on emergency alert. No, von Till was smart: the antique Albatros caused our government some embarrassment and cost the Air Force a few million dollars, but spared everyone a diplomatic mess and an armed conflict."

"Very interesting, Major." Lewis' voice was flat, skeptical. "Very interesting…and most instructional. But would you mind answering a question that's been nagging the back of my mind?"

"What is it, sir?" It was the first time Pitt had addressed Lewis as sir, and he found it strangely distasteful.