“Did anyone come aboard?” Pitt asked.
“There was no danger of that,” Zacynthus replied.
“A boarding party would have looked too damned suspicious to a passing patrol boat. The fishermen merely stood off and signaled us to detach the sub. Interesting piece of machinery, that sub. The Navy engineers who studied it coming across the Atlantic were quite impressed.”
“What made it so unique?” “It was fully automatic.”
“A drone?” Pitt asked incredulously.
“Yes, another one of von Till’s clever innovations. You see, if the sub had an accident or was detected by the Harbor Patrol before it reached the cannery there was no way in hell it could be traced or connected to Minerva Lines. And without a crew there would be no one to interrogate.”
Pitt was intrigued. “Then it was controlled by one of the fishing boats.”
Zacynthus nodded. “Right up the middle of the harbor’s main channel and under the pilings of the cannery. Only this trip the sub carried several uninvited stowaways: myself and ten marines on loan from the Mediterranean Tenth Fleet I might add that the cannery was surrounded by thirty of the Bureau’s best agents.”
“If Galveston had more than one cannery,” Giordino said thoughtfully, “you’d have been in big trouble.”
Zacynthus grinned knowingly. “As a matter of fact, Galveston boasts a total of four canneries, all located on pilings over the water.”
Giordino didn’t have to ask the obvious question. It was written all over his face.
“I’ll put your mind at ease,” Zacynthus said. “The Bureau’s Gulf Ports Department had each cannery under surveillance for two weeks before the Queen Jocasta’s arrival. The tip-off came when one of them received a shipment of sugar.”
Pitt raised an eyebrow. “Sugar?”
“Sugar,” the Director offered, “is often used to adulterate the heroin and boost the quantity. By the time pure heroin is cut by the middle man and cut again by the dealer, the original supply is increased by a substantial amount.”
Pitt thought for a moment “So the one hundred and thirty tons was only a beginning?”
“It could have been the beginning,” Zacynthus answered, "if it wasn’t for you, old friend. You’re the only one who saw through von Till’s plan. If you and Giordino hadn’t arrived at Thasos when you did, the rest of us would be sitting up in Chicago about now, forming a daisy chain and kicking each other into Lake Michigan.”
Pitt grinned. “Write it off to luck.”
“Call it what you will,” Zacynthus retorted. “As things stand at the moment, we have over thirty of the biggest illegal drug importers in the country waiting for indictment, including everyone connected with the trucking company that transported the goods. And that’s only the half of it. When we searched the cannery office we found a book with the names of nearly two thousand dealers from New York to Los Angeles. For the Bureau it was comparable to a prospector discovering the mother lode.”
Giordino let out a long whistle. “It’s going to be a bad year for the addicts.”
“That’s right,” Zacynthus said. “Now that their main source is dried up, and the local law enforcement agencies are rounding up the dealers, the users are about to face the worst drug famine to come along in the last twenty years.”
Pitt’s eyes left the zoom and gazed out the window, seeing nothing. “There is just one more question.”
Zacynthus looked at him. “Yes?’
Pitt didn’t reply immediately. He fiddled with his cane a moment. “What became of our old friend? I’ve seen no mention of him in the newspapers.”
“Before I answer you, take a look at these.” Zacynthus pulled a pair of photographs from a briefcase and laid them in front of Pitt side by side on the desk.
Pitt leaned over and studied them carefully. The first was a snapshot of a light-haired man who wore the uniform of a German naval officer He was caught in a relaxed pose, standing on the bridge of a ship and peering out to sea, his hands resting carelessly on a pair of binoculars that hung around his neck The face in the second photograph stared back at Pitt with the familiar leer of a shaven-skulled Erich von Stroheim. A huge white dog stood at the lower half of the picture, crouched as if ready to spring. An involuntary chill crept through Pitt’s body as he remembered— remembered all too vividly.
“There doesn’t seem to be much of a resemblance.”
Zacynthus nodded. “Admiral Heibert did a remarkable job—scars, birthmarks, even his dental fillings matched von Till’s.”
“what about fingerprints?"
“Impossible to prove anything. There were no known records of von Till’s prints, and Helbert had his altered by surgery.”
Pitt sat back puzzled. “Then how can we be sure—”