Vixen 03

Loren felt the hairs on the back of her neck stiffen. Daggat was leering at her. It was all there in his expression: he was no stranger to the contents of the envelope. She struggled to contain the sickness that was rising in her throat, suddenly realizing that Felicia Collins had sold her out to Lusana's cause. Silently she cursed her stupidity in allowing herself to be set up as naively as a teenage runaway with a big-city pimp.

"Congresswoman Smith?" Daggat said, prompting her.

There was no out. Daggat controlled her now. She lowered her eyes and trembled.

"Mr. Chairman," she said in total defeat, "I withdraw my objection."

Barbara Gore, at forty-three, still cut the figure of a Vogue fashion model. She remained trim and had shapely legs, and her high-cheekboned features had yet to flesh with age. She had once had an affair with Dale Jarvis, but that had long since passed through the sexual phase, and now she was simply a good friend as well as his personal secretary.

She sat across from his desk, those beautiful legs crossed at an angle comfortable only to women and showy to the male eye. Jarvis, however, took no notice of them. He sat engrossed in dictation. After a while he abruptly broke off and began probing through a mountainous batch of highly classified reports.

"Perhaps if you tell me what it is you're looking for," Barbara said patiently, "I can help you."

"A status check on all existing battleships. I was promised delivery for today."

She sighed and reached into the pile and extracted a stapled sheaf of blue papers. "Been on your desk since eight this morning." There were times when Barbara was moved to exasperation over Jarvis's sloppy work habits, but she had long ago learned to accept his idiosyncrasies and flow with the tide.

"What does it say?"

"What do you want it to say?" she asked. "You haven't bothered to tell me what you're after."

"I want to buy a battleship., of course. Who has one for sale?"

Barbara shot him a dour expression and studied the blue papers. "I'm afraid you're out of luck. The Soviet Union has one left, which is used to train naval cadets. France has long since scrapped hers. Same with Great Britain, even though she still keeps one on the rolls for the sake of tradition."

"The United States?"

"Five of them have been preserved as memorials."

"What are their present locations?"

"They're enshrined in the states they were named after: North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, and Massachusetts."

"You said five."

"The Missouri is maintained by the Navy in Bremerton, Washington. Oh, I almost forgot: the Arizona is still sentimentally kept on naval rolls as a commissioned ship."

Jarvis put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "I seem to recall the battlewagons Wisconsin and Iowa were tied up at the Philadelphia Navy Yard a few years back."

"Good memory," said Barbar a. "According to the report, the Wisconsin went to the ship-breakers in 1984."

"And the Iowa?"

"Sold for scrap."

Jarvis rose and walked to the window. He looked out, hands in pockets, for several moments. Then he said, "The Wild Rose folder."

As if reading his thoughts, Barbara pointed to its cover. "I have it."

"Send it over to John Gossard in the Africa Section and tell him the operation made damn fine reading."

"Is that all?"

Jarvis turned. "Yes," he said pensively. "All things considered, that's all there was to it."

At the same moment, a small doubleender whaleboat dropped anchor a hundred yards off Walnut Point, Virginia, and swung slowly around until its bow split the incoming tide. Patrick Fawkes unfolded a worn old deck chair and erected it on the narrow stern deck, barely fitting the ends between the bulwarks. Next he propped a fishing pole against the helm and threw its hookless line over the side.

He had just opened a picnic basket and was lifting out a large wedge of Cheshire cheese and a bottle of Cutty Sark when a tub towing three heavily laden trash scows acknowledged him with a passing signal blast from its whistle. Fawkes waved back and braced his feet as the wash from the plodding vessels rocked his little whaleboat. Fawkes noted the time of the tug's passing in a notebook.

The battered deck chair creaked in protest as he lowered his huge body onto its cushioned slats. Then he ate a cut of the Cheshire and took a swig from the bottle.

Every commercial ship or pleasure boat that passed by the seemingly drowsing fisherman was sketched into the notebook. The time of their appearance, heading, and speed were also recorded. One sighting interested Fawkes more than most. He kept a pair of binoculars trained on a Navy missile destroyer until it disappeared beyond the land point, carefully observing the empty missile mounts and the relaxed attitude of the deck crew.

Toward late evening a light shower began to splatter against the scarred and paintcracked deck. Fawkes loved the rain. During storms at sea he'd often stood and faced their furies on his ship's bridge wing, later upbraiding his junior officers who preferred hot tea and the creature comforts of the control room. Even now, Fawkes ignored the shelter of a small cabin and elected to remain on deck, do

He felt good; the rain cleansed the air in his lungs, the thick richness of the cheese filled his belly, and the scotch made his veins fairly glow. He allowed his mind to roam free, and soon it began flashing images of his lost family. The smells of his farm in Natal came to his nostrils and the sound of Myrna's voice calling him to di

Four hours later he jerked his thoughts back to reality as the tug, its tow of scows now empty, came into view on a return heading. Quickly he stood and jotted down the number and position of the navigation lights. Then Fawkes weighed anchor, started the engine, and eased into the wake of the last scow in line as it slipped by.

41

The snow was falling heavily at Table Lake, Colorado, when the NUMA salvage divers, immune to the frigid water in their thermal suits, finished cutting away the wings and tail of Vixen 03. Then they manhandled two huge cradle slings under the mutilated fuselage.

Admiral Bass and Abe Steiger arrived, followed by an Air Force-blue truck carrying several shivering airmen of the Remains Identity and Recovery Team along with five coffins.

At ten A.M. everyone was assembled and Pitt waved his arms at the crane operators. Slowly the cables hanging from the floating derricks to beneath the wind-rippled surface of the lake tightened and quivered as the power-unit operators increased the tension. The derricks listed a few degrees with the strain and creaked at their bolted joints. Then, abruptly, as though a great weight had fallen from their unseen clutches, they straightened.

"She's broken free of the mud," Pitt a

In confirmation, Giordino, standing at his side, wearing radio earphones, nodded. "Divers report she is on her way up."

"Tell whoever is operating the cradle sling around the nose section to keep it low. We don't want the canisters spilling out of the hole in the tail."

Giordino relayed Pitt's orders through a tiny microphone attached to his headphones.

The freezing mountain air was heavy with tension; every man stood motionless, numb with anticipation, his eyes locked on the water between the derricks. The only sounds came from the exhaust of the lift engines. They were a hard-bitten salvage crew, and yet no matter how many wrecks they had reclaimed from the sea, the same old tentacles of excitement during a lift operation never failed to wring their emotions dry.