Vixen 03 Part 15

"He must have hooked the oxygen tank while fis.h.i.+ng. Possessing an inquisitive mind, he probably dragged the area and wrenched the already broken nose gear loose from the wreckage."

"The expression on his face must have been priceless when the gear popped to the surface," Giordino said, smiling.

"Even if I accept Smith's murder," said Steiger, "I fail to see a motive."

Pitt raised his eyes and looked at Steiger. "There is always a motive for taking a man's life."

"The cargo," Giordino blurted, incredulous at his own realization. "It was a highly cla.s.sified flight. It stands to reason that whatever Vixen 03 was transporting was worth a great deal to somebody. Worth enough to kill for."

Steiger shook his head. "If the cargo is so valuable, why wasn't it salvaged by Smith or his supposed killer? According to Pitt here, it's still down there."

"And sealed tight," Pitt added. "As near as I could tell, the canisters have never been opened."

Giordino cleared his throat. "Next question."

"Shoot."

"What's inside the canisters?"

"You had to ask," said Pitt. "Well, one conjecture bears consideration. Take an aircraft carrying cylindrical canisters on a secret mission somewhere in the Pacific Ocean in January of 1954-"

"Of course," interrupted Giordino. "Nuclear-bomb tests were being held at Bikini at that time."

Steiger rose to his feet and stood motionlessly. "Are you implying that Vixen 03 was transporting nuclear warheads?"

"I am not implying anything," Pitt said casually. "I am merely offering a possibility, and an intriguing one at that. Why else would the Air Force put the lid on a missing plane and throw up a smoke screen of misleading information to cloud the disappearance? Why else would a flight crew risk almost certain death to ride down a crippled aircraft in the mountains instead of taking to their parachutes and allowing it to crash, perhaps in or near a populated area?"

"There's one vital point that sinks your theory: the government would have never given up searching for a lost cargo of nuclear warheads."

"I admit you have me there. It does seem odd that enough destruction to obliterate half the country would be left to litter the environment."

Suddenly Steiger wrinkled his nose. "What is that G.o.dawful stench?"

Giordino hurriedly rose and moved over to the stove. "I think the metal tag is done."

"What are you boiling it in?"

"A combination of vinegar and baking soda. They're all I could find that would do the trick."

"Are you sure it will bring out the etching?"

"Couldn't say. I'm not a chemist. Won't hurt it, though."

Steiger threw up his hands in exasperation and turned to Pitt. "I knew

I should have saved this stuff for professional lab technicians."

Giordino calmly ignored Steiger's remark and delicately lifted the plate out of the boiling water with two forks and patted it dry with a dish towel. Then he held it up to the light, turning it at different angles.

"What do you see?" Pitt asked.

Giordino set the small aluminum plate down on the table in front of them. He inhaled deeply, his features taking on a grave expression.

"A symbol," he said tensely. "The symbol for radioactivity."

Part 2

Operation Wild Rose

Natal, South Africa-October 1988

To the casual eye the great trunk of the dead baobab tree looked like one of a thousand others spread about the northeast coastal plain of Natal Province, South Africa. There was no way of telling why it had died or how long ago. It stood in a kind of grotesque beauty, its leafless branches clutching at an azure sky with gnarled, woody fingers while its rotting bark crumbled into a medicinal-smelling humus on the ground. There was, however, one startling difference that set this dead baobab tree apart from the others: its trunk was hollowed out and a man crouched inside, intently peering through a small aperture with a pair of binoculars.

It was an ideal hiding place, blueprinted from some long-forgotten manual on guerrilla warfare. Marcus Somala, section leader of the African Army of Revolution, was proud of his handiwork. Two hours was all it had taken him the previous night to scoop out the spongy core of the tree and stealthily scatter the debris deep within the encircling brush. Once comfortably settled inside, he did not have to wait long for his concealment to pa.s.s its first test.

Shortly after dawn a black field-worker from the farm that Somala was

observing wandered by, hesitated, and then relieved himself against the baobab. Somala watched, smiling inwardly. He felt an impulse to slip the blade of his long curved Moroccan knife out the sight hole and slice off the worker's p.e.n.i.s. The impulse was to Somala an amusing one, nothing more. He did not indulge himself with stupid actions. He was a professional soldier and a dedicated revolutionist, a seasoned veteran of nearly a hundred raids. He was proud to serve in the front line of the crusade to eradicate the last vestige of the Anglo cancer from the African continent.

Ten days had pa.s.sed since he led his ten-man section team from their base camp in Mozambique over the border into Natal. They had moved only at night, skirting the known paths of the police security patrols and hiding in the bushveld from the helicopters of the South African Defence Force. It had been a grueling trek. The October spring in the Southern Hemisphere was unusually cool, and the underbrush seemed eternally clammy from constant rains.

When at last they had reached the small farming towns.h.i.+p of Umkono, Somala stationed his men according to the plan given him by his Vietnamese adviser. Each man was to scout a farm or military facility for five days, gathering information for future raids. Somala had a.s.signed the Fawkes farm to himself.

After the field-worker had ambled off to begin his day's labor, Somala refocused his binoculars and scanned the Fawkes spread. The majority of the cleared acreage, waging a constant battle against the encroaching sea of surrounding bush and gra.s.sland, was planted in sugarcane. The remainder was mostly pasture for small herds of beef and dairy cattle with a bit of tea and tobacco thrown in. There was also a garden plot behind the main house, containing vegetables for the personal consumption of the Fawkes family.

A stone barn was used to store the cattle feed and crop fertilizers. It stood apart from a huge shed that covered the trucks and farm equipment. A quarter of a mile beyond, situated beside a meandering stream, was a compound that housed a community of what Somala guessed to be nearly fifty workers and their families, along with their cattle and goats.

The Fawkes house-more of an estate, actually-dominated the crest of a hill and was neatly landscaped by rows of gladiola and fire lilies edging a closely cropped lawn. The picturesque scene was spoiled by a ten-foot chain-link fence topped by several strands of barbed wire that guarded the house on all four sides.

Somala studied the barrier closely. It was a stout fence. The support

poles were thick and were no doubt buried deep in encased concrete. Nothing short of a tank could penetrate that mesh, he calculated. He s.h.i.+fted his gla.s.ses until a solidly muscled man with a repeating rifle strapped to a shoulder came into view. The guard leaned casually against a small wooden shelter that stood next to a gate. Guards could be surprised and easily disposed of, Somala mused, but it was the thin lines leading from the fence to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house that diluted his confidence. He didn't require the presence of an electrical engineer to tell him the fence was connected to a generator. He could only speculate as to the strength of the voltage that surged invisibly through the chain link. He noted also that one of the wires led into the guard's shelter. That meant a switch had to be thrown by a guard whenever the gate was opened, and this was the Achilles' heel of the Fawkes defense.

Pleased at his discovery, Somala settled down inside his blind and watched and waited.

Captain Patrick McKenzie Fawkes, Royal Navy retired, paced the floor of his veranda with the same intensity he had once exhibited on the deck of a s.h.i.+p when approaching home port. He was a giant of a man, standing a shade over six feet six in his bare feet and supporting a frame that exceeded two hundred eighty pounds. His eyes were somber gray, tinted dark as the water of the North Sea under a November storm. Every sand-colored strand of hair was brushed neatly in place, as were the whitening filaments of his King George V beard. Fawkes might have pa.s.sed for an Aberdeen sea captain, which is exactly what he was before becoming a Natal farmer.

"Two days!" he exclaimed in a booming Scots accent. "I canna afford to take two days away from the farm. It's inhuman; aye, that's what it is, inhuman." Miraculously, the tea in the cup he waved refused to slop over the brim.

"If the Minister of Defence personally asked to meet with you, the least you can do is oblige."