Vixen 03

47

It was a difficult choice. Dale Jarvis wavered between the Dutch apple pie and the calorieladen lemon meringue. Throwing diet to the winds, he took both and set them on his tray along with a cup of tea. Then he paid the girl at the computer register and sat at a table along one wall of the spacious cafeteria in the NSA headquarters complex at Fort Meade, Maryland.

"One of these days you're going to bust your gut."

Jarvis paused and looked up into the solemn face of Jack Ravenfoot, head of the agency's domestic division. Ravenfoot was all muscle and bone, the only full-blooded Cheyenne in Washington who had a Phi Beta Kappa key from Yale and held the retired rank of commodore.

"I'd rather consume fattening, savory goodies than that salted buffalo jerky and boiled prairie gopher you call food."

Ravenfoot stared up at the ceiling. "Come to think of it, I haven't had prairie gopher good prairie gopher, that is — since the victory celebration after Little Big Horn."

"You guys really know how to stick it to a paleface where it hurts," Jarvis said, grinning. "Pull up a chair."

Ravenfoot remained standing. "No thanks. I've got a meeting in five minutes. While I've got you, John Gossard, in the Africa Section, mentioned that you had a handle on some far-out project dealing with battleships."

Jarvis slowly chewed a piece of the apple pie. "Battleship, singular. What's on your mind?"

"An old friend from my Navy days, James Sandecker — "

"The director of NUMA?" Jarvis said, interrupting.

"The same. He asked me to track down a particular load of old sixteen-inch naval shells."

"And you thought of me."

"Battleships mounted sixteen-inch guns," said Ravenfoot. "I should know. I was executive officer aboard the New Jersey during the Vietnam orgy."

"Any idea what Sandecker wants them for?" asked Jarvis.

"He claims a team of his scientists want to drop them on Pacific coral formations."

Jarvis halted between bites. "He what?"

"They're conducting seismological tests. It seems armor-piercing shells dropped from a plane at two thousand feet on coral make a rumble nearly identical to an earthquake!"

"I should think ground explosives would achieve the same purpose."

Ravenfoot shrugged. "I can't argue the point. I'm no seismologist."

Jarvis dug into the lemon meringue. "I see nothing of interest to the evaluation section or, for that matter, a sinister design to the admiral's request. Where does Sandecker figure these special shells are stored?"

"The AAR has them."

Jarvis took a sip of his tea and patted his mouth with a napkin. "Why deal with the AAR when old naval ordnance can be picked up at most any surplus-arms dealer?"

"An experimental type developed near the end of the Korean war and never fired in anger. Sandecker says they work far better than the standard projectile." Ravenfoot leaned on the backrest of a chair. "I checked with Gossard on the AAR Involvement. He thinks Sandecker is mistaken. The guerrillas need those shells like a high jumper needs gallstones — his exact words. It's his guess that the shells NUMA wants are rusting in a naval depot somewhere."

"And if the AAR actually possessed the shells, how would Sandecker deal with them?"

"Make them a trade, I suppose, or buy the shells at an inflated price. After all, it's only taxpayer money."

Jarvis sat back and poked his fork at the meringue. He wasn't hungry anymore. "I'd like to talk to Sandecker. Do you mind?"

"Be my guest. You'd probably do better working through his special-projects director, though. He's the guy who's heading up the search."

"What's his name?"

"Dirk Pitt."

"The fellow who raised the Titanic a few months back?"

"The same." Ravenfoot held up his wristwatch and noted the time. "I have to run along. If you get a lead on those shells, I'd appreciate a call. Jim Sandecker is an old friend. I still owe him a favor or two."

"Count on it."

Jarvis sat for several minutes after Ravenfoot left, poking his fork idly at the pie. Then he rose and walked back to his office, lost in thought.

Barbara Gore knew the instant her boss stepped through the door that his intuition was working overtime. She had seen that haunted look of deep concentration too many times not to recognize it. Without waiting to be asked, she picked up her pad and pencil and followed Jarvis into his private office. Then she sat down, crossed her rnagnificent legs, and waited patiently.

He stayed on his feet and stared at the wall. Then he turned slowly and his eyes came back in focus. "Call Gossard and set up a meeting with his Africa Section staff, and tell him I'd like another look at the Operation Wild Rose folder."

"You've changed your mind? There may be something to it after all?"

He didn't answer immediately. "Maybe, just maybe."

"Anything else?"

"Yes, ask the ID department to send up whatever they have on Admiral James Sandecker and a Dirk Pitt."

"Aren't they with NUMA

Jarvis nodded.

Barbara gave him a questioning look. "Surely you don't think there is a connection."

"Too early to tell," said Jarvis thoughtfully. "You might say that I'm picking up loose threads to see if they run to the same spool."