Vixen 03

by Clive Cussler

  Pitt turned to Steiger. "Colonel Abe Steiger, may I present Al Giordino, my sometimes able assistant and always chief bellyacher, of the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

  Giordino and Steiger sized each other up like two professional fighters. Except for Steiger's cleanly shaved head and Semitic features, and Giordino's mischievous Italian grin and curly mop of black hair, they could have passed for brothers. They were built exactly alike: same height, same weight, even the muscles that fought to escape their clothing seemed poured from the same mold.

  Giordino extended his hand.

  "Colonel, I hope you and I never get mad at each other."

  "The feeling is mutual," Steiger said, smiling warmly.

  "Did you bring the equipment I specified?" asked Pitt.

  Giordino nodded. "It took some conniving. If the admiral finds out about your little back-door project, he'll throw one of his renowned temper tantrums."

  "Admiral?" Steiger queried. "I don't see how the Navy enters into this."

  "They don't," Pitt answered. "Admiral James Sandecker, retired, happens to be Chief Director of NUMA. He has this Scrooge hangup: he frowns on clandestine expenditures by the hired help that aren't included in the agency's fiscal budget."

  Steiger's eyebrows rose with sudden realization. "Are you saying that you had Giordino take a government aircraft at government expense halfway across the country without authorization, not to mention a stolen cargo of equipment?"

  "Something like that, yes."

  "We're really quite good at it," Giordino said, deadpan.

  "Saves enormous time," said Pitt unconcernedly. "Bureaucratic red tape can be such a bore."

  "This is incredible," said Steiger softly. "I'll probably be court-martialed as an accomplice."

  "Not if we get away with it," Pitt said. "Now then, if you two will untie the cargo, I'll back the Jeep up to the airplane." With that he walked toward the parking lot.

  Steiger watched him for a moment and then turned to Giordino. "Have you known him long?"

  "Since the first grade. I was the class bully. When Dirk moved into the neighborhood and showed up for his first day at school, I worked him over pretty good."

  "You showed him who was boss?"

  "Not exactly." Giordino reached up and opened the cargo door. "After I bloodied his nose and blackened one eye, he got up off the ground and kicked me in the crotch. I walked lopsided for a week."

  "You make him sound devious."

  "Let's just say that Pitt has a ton of balls, the brains to go with them, and an uncanny knack for knocking the shit out of any obstacle, man made or otherwise, that gets in his way. He is a soft touch for.kids and animals, and helps little old ladies up escalators. To my knowledge, he's never stolen a dime in his life nor used his sly talents for personal gain. Beyond all that, he's one helluva guy."

  "Do you think he might have gone too far this time?"

  "You mean his stock in a nonexistent aircraft?"

  Steiger nodded.

  "If Pitt tells you there's a Santa Claus, hang your stocking on the mantel, because you better believe it."

  Pitt crouched on his knees in an aluminum rowboat and fine-tuned the TV monitor. Steiger sat toward the bow and struggled with the oars. Giordino was in another boat, about twenty feet forward, nearly hidden behind a pile of battery-powered transmitters.

  14

  As he rowed, he kept a wary eye on the cable that crept over the stern and disappeared into the water. At the other end was a TV camera enclosed in a watertight case.

  "Wake me when a good horror movie comes on," Giordino said, yawning, across the water.

  "Keep rowing," Steiger grunted. "I'm beginning to gain on you."

  Pitt did not join in the idle banter. His concentration was focused on the screen. A frigid afternoon breeze rolled down the mountain slopes and turned the glassy surface of the lake into a mild chop, making it difficult for Giordino's and Steiger's aching arms to keep the two boats on an even course.

  Since early morning the only objects that had strayed past the monitor were scattered mounds of rocks embedded in the muddy bottom, rotting remains of long-dead trees whose leafless branches seemed to clutch at the passing camera, and a few startled rainbow trout who gave the intruding camera a respectable berth.

  "Wouldn't it have been easier to conduct a search with scuba equipment?" Steiger said, cutting into Pitt's fixed scrutiny.

  Pitt rubbed his strained eyes with the palms of his hands. "TV is far more efficient. Also, the lake is two hundred feet deep in spots. A diver's bottom time at that depth is measured in mere minutes. Add to that the fact that fifty feet beneath the surface the water turns almost to freezing and you have one damned uncomfortable situation. A man would be lucky if his body could withstand the cold more than ten minutes."

  "And if we find something?"

  "Then I'll put on a wet suit and go over the side for a look-see, but not one second before."

  Something materialized on the monitor and Pitt leaned forward for a closer look, shielding the outside light with a black cloth.

  "I think we just picked up Giordino's horror movie," he said.

  "What is it?" Steiger demanded excitedly.

  "Looks like an old log cabin."

  "A log cabin?"

  "See for yourself."

  Steiger bent around Pitt's shoulder and gazed at the screen. The camera, one hundred forty feet below the boats, relayed through the icy water a picture of what seemed to be a distorted structure. The sun's wavering light through the choppy surface and the hazy visibility at that depth combined to give it a ghostlike image.

  "How in the world did that get there?" asked a bewildered Steiger.

  "No great secret," said Pitt. "Table Lake is man made. The state dammed up the stream that flows through this valley in 1945. An abandoned lumber mill that stood near the old streambed was submerged when the water rose. The cabin we see must have been one of the old bunkhouses."

  Giordino rowed back for a look. "All that's missing is a 'for sale' sign."

  "Amazingly well preserved," murmured Steiger.

  "Thanks to the near-freezing fresh water," Pitt added. Then, "So much for the local tourist attraction. Shall we continue?"

  "How much longer?" Giordino asked him. "I could use some liquid nourishment, preferably the kind that comes out of a bottle."

  "It'll be dark in a couple of hours," said Steiger. "I make a motion we call it a day."

  "You win my vote." Giordino looked across at Pitt. "How about it, Captain Bligh? Shall I reel in the camera?"

  "No, keep it dangling. We'll troll it back to the dock."

  Giordino awkwardly turned his boat a hundred eighty degrees and began pulling for home.

  "I think your theory has about shot its wad," said Steiger. "We've been over the center of the lake twice and all we have to show for it is a bundle of sore muscles and a picture of a tumbledown shack. Face the inevitable, Pitt: there's nothing of interest in this lake but fish." Steiger paused and nodded at the television equipment. "And speaking of the denizens of the deep-what a fisherman wouldn't give to own a rig like this."

  Pitt looked up at Steiger thoughtfully. "Al, make for the old man on your left who's casting on the shore."

  Giordino twisted around and noted the direction Pitt indicated. He nodded silently and altered his course. Steiger followed suit.

  A few more minutes' rowing brought the boats within hailing distance of an elderly angler who was expertly laying a fly beside a massive boulder that protruded from the lake's surface. He looked up and tipped his fly-festooned hat at Pitt's greeting.

  "Having any luck?"

  "That's not very original," Steiger mumbled.

  "Business is a mite slow today," answered the angler.

  "Do you fish Table Lake often?"

  "Off and on for twenty-two years."

  "Can you tell me what part of the lake eats the most bait?"

  "Come again?"

 
; "Is there a section of Table Lake where fishermen frequently lose their lures?"

  "Over toward the dam there's a submerged log that does a pretty good job of it."

  "What depth?"

  "Eight, maybe twelve feet."

  "I'm looking for a spot that's deeper, much deeper," said Pitt.

  The old angler thought a moment. "Up toward the big marsh at the north end of the lake there's this big hole. Lost two of my best spinners in it last summer while trolling deep. A lot of the big fish swim deep during hot weather. I don't recommend trying your luck there, though. Not unless you own part interest in a tackle shop."

  "Much obliged for your help," Pitt said, and waved. "Good luck!"

  "Same to you," said the old angler. He went back to his casting and within a few moments his pole arched with a strong bite.

  "You heard, Al?"

  Giordino looked longingly at the dock and then at the lake's north end, a quarter of a mile away. Resigning himself to the chore, he raised the camera to keep it from creeping into the lake bed and then adjusted his gloves and took up the oars again. Steiger gave Pitt a four-letter stare but raised the white flag.

  A half hour of fighting a gusting cross chop passed with agonizing slowness. Steiger and Giordino went about their labor in 15

  silence; Giordino on blind faith in Pitt's judgment, Steiger because he was damned if he'd let Giordino outendure him. Pitt stayed glued to the monitor, every so often calling out depth adjustments to Giordino.

  The bottom of Table Lake began to rise the closer to the marsh they rowed. Then, abruptly, the silt and weed began dropping away, and the water darkened. They halted to lower the camera and then resumed the stroke.

  They had moved only a few yards when a curved object edged onto the screen. The form was not sharply defined; nor did it have a natural contour.

  "Stop rowing!" Pitt ordered tersely.

  Steiger slumped on his seat, grateful for the break, but Giordino looked piercingly across the narrow distance separating the two boats. He'd heard that tone of voice from Pitt before.

  Down in the cold depths the camera slowly drifted closer to the object materializing on the monitor. Pitt sat as though turned to oak as a large white star on a dark-blue background crept into his view. He waited for the camera to continue its probe, the inside of his mouth as dry as Kansas dust.

  Giordino had rowed over and was holding the two boats together. Steiger became aware of the tension, raised his head, and looked inquir-ingly at Pitt.

  "You got something?"

  "An aircraft with military markings," Pitt said, controlling the excitement he felt.

  Steiger crawled astern and peered unbelievingly into the monitor. The camera had floated over the wing and was now falling back along the fuselage. A square port came into view as above it the words MILITARY AIR transport SERVICE marched by.

  "Sweet Jesus!" Giordino gasped. "A MATS transport."

  "Can you tell what model?" Steiger asked feverishly.

  Pitt shook his head. "Not yet. The camera angle missed the more easily identifiable engines and nose section. It came across the left wing tip and, as you can see, is now moving toward the tail."

  "The serial number should be painted on the vertical stabilizer," Steiger said softly, as though in prayer.

  They sat absorbed as the unearthly scene unfolded below. The plane had settled deeply in the mud. The fuselage had cracked open aft of the wings, the tail section twisted on a slight angle.

  Giordino gently dipped his oars and towed the camera on a new course, correcting its vie wing field. The resolution was so clear that they could almost make out the flush rivets in the aluminum skin. It was all so strange and incongruous. It was difficult for them to accept the image the television equipment relayed to their eyes.

  Then they held their breaths as the stenciled serial number on the vertical stabilizer began entering from stage right. Pitt zoomed in the camera lens ever so slightly so there would be no mistaking the aircraft's identification. First a 7, then a 5, and a 4, followed by 03. For a moment Steiger stared at Pitt; the shattering effect of what he now knew to be true but was unable to accept turned his eyes as glazed as those of a somnam-bulist.

  "My God, it's 03. But that's impossible."

  "What you see is what you get," said Pitt.

  Giordino reached over and shook Pitt's hand. "Never a doubt, partner."

  "Your confidence in me is duly noted," Pitt said.

  "Where do we go from here?"

  "Drop a marker buoy over the side and we'll call it a day. Tomorrow morning we'll go down and see what we can find inside the wreck."

  Steiger sat there, shaking his head and repeating, "It's not supposed to be here . . . it's not supposed to be here."

  Pitt smiled. "Apparently the good colonel refuses to trust his own eyes."

  "It's not that," Giordino said. "Steiger has this psychological problem."

  "Problem?"

  "Yeah, he doesn't believe in Santa Claus."

  In spite of the chilling morning air, Pitt was sweating inside the wet suit. He checked his breathing regulator, gave the thumbs-up sign to Giordino, and dropped over the side of the boat.

  The icy water, surging between his skin and the interior lining of his three-sixteenths-inch-thick neoprene suit, felt like an electric shock. He hung suspended just below the surface for several moments, suffering the stabbing agony, waiting for his body heat to warm the entrapped water layer. When the temperature became bearable, he cleared his ears and kicked his fins, descending into an eerie world where wind and air were unknown. The line from the marker buoy angled off into the beckoning depths and he swam along beside it.

  The bottom seemed to rise up and meet him. His right fin trailed through the mud before he leveled off, creating a gray cloud that mushroomed like smoke from an oil-tank explosion.

  Pitt checked the depth gauge on his wrist. It read one hundred forty feet. That meant approximately ten minutes' bottom time without worrying about decompression.

  His primary enemy was the water temperature. The icy pressure would drastically affect his concentration and performance. His body heat would soon be drained by the cold, pushing his endurance beyond its borders and into the realm of excessive fatigue.

  Visibility was no more than eight feet, but that factor did not hinder him. The marker buoy had missed the sunken plane by mere inches and he had but to extend a hand and touch the metal surface. Pitt had wondered what sensations would course through him.

  He was certain fear and apprehension would raise their tentacles. But they did not appear. Instead, he felt a strange sense of accomplishment. It was as though he'd come to the end of a long and exhausting journey.

  He swam over the engines, the blades of their propellers gracefully bent backward, like the curled petals of an iris, the finned cylinder heads never to feel the heat of combustion again. He swam past the windows of the cockpit. The glass was still intact but coated with slime, cutting off any view of the interior.

  Pitt noted that he had used up nearly two minutes of his bottom time. He quickly kicked around to the shattered opening of the main fuselage, squeezed through, and switched on his dive light.

  The first things his eyes distinguished in the somber gloom were large silver canisters. Their tie-down straps had broken in the 16

  crash and they lay jumbled about the cargo-cabin floor. Carefully he snaked in and around them and glided through the open door to the control cabin.

  There were four skeletons sitting in their assigned seats, held in their grotesque positions by nylon seat belts. The navigator's bony fingers were still clenched; the one at the engineer's panel leaned backward, its skull cocked to one side.

  Pitt moved forward, more than a touch of fear and revulsion in his chest. The bubbles from his air regulator cascaded upward and mingled in one corner of the cockpit's ceiling. What made the scene all the more unearthly was the fact that although the flesh of the bodies was gone, the clothes remai
ned. The icy-cold water had held back the rotting process over the decades, and the crew sat as properly uniformed as at the instant they had all died.

  The copilot sat stiffly upright, his jaws open in what Pitt imagined to be a ghostly scream. The pilot drooped forward, his head almost touching the instrument panel. A small metal plate protruded from his breast pocket, and Pitt gently retrieved it, pushing the small rectangle up one of the sleeves of his wet suit. A vinyl folder hung from a pocket next to the pilot's seat, and Pitt took that also.

  A glance at his watch told him his time was up. He didn't need an engraved invitation to head for the surface and the friendly rays of the sun. The cold was beginning to seep into his blood and mist his mind. He could have sworn the skeletons had all turned and were staring at him through the empty sockets of their skulls.

  He hurriedly backed out of the cockpit and turned around when space permitted in the cargo cabin. It was then he spied a skeletal foot behind one of the canisters. The body that belonged to the foot was secured by straps to several of the cargo tie-down rings.

  Unlike the remains of the crew forward, this one still had remnants of flesh adhering to its bones.

  Pitt fought the bile rising in his throat and studied more closely what was once a living, breathing man. The uniform was not Air Force blue but rather a khaki similar to the old Army issue. He went through the pockets, but they were bare.

  An alarm began to go off in his head. His arms and legs were losing all feeling and turning stiff from the relentless cold, and his movements came as though he were immersed in syrup. If he did not get some warmth to his body soon, the ancient aircraft would claim another victim. His mind was fogged and for a brief moment he felt the sharp knife of panic as he became confused and lost his sense of direction. Then he spotted his air bubbles, trailing from the cargo cabin and ascending toward the surface.

  With great relief he turned from the skeleton and followed the bubbles into open water. Ten feet from the surface he could see the bottom of the boat as it wavered in the refracted light like an object in a surrealistic film. He could even make out Giordino's seemingly disembodied head peering over one side.