Vixen 03

"My God, he's turned blue."

"Another five minutes down there and he would have entered hypothermia."

"Hypothermia?" asked Steiger, stripping off Pitt's jacket.

"Profound body-heat loss." explained Giordino. "I've known divers who died from it."

"I am not… repeat… am not ready for a coroner's slab," Pitt managed between shivers.

The wet suit was peeled off and they rubbed Pitt vigorously with towels and wrapped him in heavy wool blankets. The feeling slowly came back to his limbs and the warm sun added to his sensual comfort by penetrating his skin. He sipped hot coffee from a Thermos jug, knowing its rejuvenating benefits were more psychological than physiological.

"You were a fool," Giordino said, more out of concern than anger. "You damned near killed yourself by staying down too long. The water must be near freezing at that depth."

"What did you find down there?" Steiger asked anxiously.

Pitt sat up, pushing the last of the fog from his head. "A folder. I had a folder."

Giordino held it up. "You still do. It was clutched in your left hand like a vise."

"And a small metal plate?"

"I have it," said Steiger. "It fell out of your sleeve."

Pitt relaxed against the side of the boat and took another swallow of the steaming coffee. "The cargo cabin is filled with large canisters — stainless steel, judging by the negligible degree of corrosion. What they contain is anybody's guess. There were no markings on them."

"How are they shaped?" asked Giordino.

" Cylindrical."

Steiger looked thoughtful. "I can't imagine what kind of military cargo would call for the protection of stainless-steel canisters." Then his mind shifted gear and he looked at Pitt piercingly. "What of the crew? Was there any sign of the crew?"

"What's left of them is still strapped in their seats."

Giordino gently pried open one end of the vinyl folder.

"The papers may be readable. I think I can separate and dry them back at the cabin."

"Probably the flight plan," said Steiger. "A few of the old die-hard Air Force pilots still prefer that particular type of folder to the newer, plastic ones for holding their paperwork."

"Maybe it will tell us what the crew was doing that far off course."

"I for one hope so," said Steiger. "I want all the facts in hand and the mystery neatly gift wrapped before I drop it on a desk at the Pentagon."

"Ah… Steiger."

The colonel looked at Pitt questioningly.

"I hate to bear tidings that will screw up your well-laid plans, but there's more than meets the eye concerning the enigma of Air Force 03 — much more."

"We've found the wreck intact, haven't we?" Steiger fought to keep his voice down. He was not to be denied a moment of triumph. "The answers lie only a few yards away. Now it's only a matter of salvaging the remains from the lake. What else is there?"

"A rather unpleasant dilemma none of us counted on."

"What dilemma?"

"I'm afraid," Pitt said quietly, "that we also have a murder on our hands."

10

Giordino spread the contents of the folder on the kitchen table. There were six sheets in all. The small aluminum plate Pitt had found in the pocket of the pilot was simmering in a solution Giordino had concocted to bring out the traces of etching in the metal.

Pitt and Steiger stood before a crackling fire and sipped coffee. The fireplace was built of native rock; its heat warmed the entire room.

"You realize the enormous consequences of what you're suggesting?" Steiger asked. "You're conjuring up a serious crime out of thin air, without a shred of evidence… "

"Stick it in your ear," Pitt said. "You act as though I'm accusing the entire United States Air Force of murder. I am accusing no one. Granted, the evidence is circumstantial, but I'll stake my life's savings that a forensic pathologist will bear me out. The skeleton in the cargo hold did not die thirtyfour years ago with the original crew."

"How can you be sure?"

"Several items don't jibe. To begin with, our unaccounted-for passenger still has flesh on his bones. The others were stripped clean decades ago. This indicates, to me at least, that he died long after the crash. Also, he was tied hand and foot to the cargo tiedown rings. With a little imagination you could almost envision the earmarks for an old-fashioned gangland slaying."

"You're begi

"The whole scene-reeks of it. One mystery ties illogically to another."

"Okay, let's take what we know to be true," said Steiger. "The aircraft with serial number 75403 exists not where it is supposed to. But nonetheless it exists.

"And I think we can safely assume the original crew sits down there in the wreck," Steiger continued. "As to the extra body, perhaps the report neglected to mention his status. He might have been a last-minute assignment: a backup engineer or even a mechanic who strapped himself to the cargo rings just before the crash."

"Then how do you justify a difference in uniform? He was wearing khakis, not Air Force blues."

"I can't answer that anymore than you can say for certain that he was murdered long after the crash."

"There lies the catch," Pitt said evenly.

"I've got a solid idea who our uninvited guest is. And if I'm right, his demise by person or persons unknown becomes a fundamental certainty."

Steiger's eyebrows raised. "I'm listening," he murmured. "Who do you have in mind?"

"The man who built this cabin. His name was Charlie Smith, Congresswoman Loren Smith's father."

Steiger sat there silently for a few moments, digesting the enormity of Pitt's statement. Finally he said, "What proof can you offer?"

"Quite literally bits and pieces. I have it on good authority that Charlie Smith's obituary says that he was blown to smithereens in an explosion of his own making. All that was ever found were a boot and one thumb. A nice touch, don't you think? Very neat and precise. I must keep it in mind the next time I want to do somebody in. Set off a blast, then as soon as the dust settles throw a recognizable piece of footwear and a slice of the victim's most identifiable anatomy at the edge of the smoking crater. Friends later identify the boot and the sheriff's department can't miss with a positive ID once they pull a print from the thumb. In the meantime I've buried the rest of the body where hopefully it will never be found. My victim's death goes down as an accident and I go merrily on my way."

"You're telling me the skeleton in the aircraft was missing a boot and a thumb?"

Pitt merely nodded an affirmative.

At half past nine Giordino was ready. He started by lecturing Pitt and Steiger as he would a class of high-school chemistry students. "As you can see, after more, than three decades of submersion.' the vinyl cover, because it's inorganic, is virtually as good as new, but the paper — inside has nearly returned to pulp. Originally the contents were mimeographed — a common process prior to the miracle of Xerox. The ink, I'm sorry to say, has all but disappeared, and no laboratory on earth can bring it back, even under supermagnification. Three of the sheets are hopeless cases. Nothing vaguely legible remains. The fourth looks like it might have contained weather information. A few words here and there refer to winds, altitudes, and atmospheric temperatures. The only sentence I can partially decipher says 'Skies clearing beyond Western slopes.' "