Vixen 03

51

As Pitt drove through the rain, Jarvis seemed mesmerized by the failing windshield wipers. Finally his eyes focused and he made a casual gesture at the road ahead. "I make the next town to be Lexington Park."

"Another four miles," Pitt said without turning.

"There is an all-night gas station on the outskirts," Jarvis continued. "Pull up at the pay phone."

Minutes later the headlights picked out the Lexington Park city-limits sign. In less than a mile, around a sweeping curve, a brightly lit service station beckoned through the soggy night. Pitt turned in the driveway and parked beside an outside phone booth.

The station attendant sat warm and dry inside the office, his feet propped up on an old oil-burning stove. He put down his magazine and for two or three minutes watched Pitt and Jarvis suspiciously through waterstreaked windows. Then, satisfied they weren't acting like holdup men, he returned to his reading. The pay phone's light blinked out and Jarvis hurriedly ducked back into the passenger seat.

"Any late word?" Pitt asked.

Jarvis nodded. "My staff has uncovered a piece of discouraging information."

"Bad news and dismal weather go hand in hand," Pitt said.

"The Iowa was stricken from Navy rolls and auctioned as surplus. The winning bidder was an outfit called the Walvis Bay Investment Corporation."

"I've never heard of it."

"The corporation is a financial front for the African Army of Revolution."

Pitt gave a slight twist of the wheel to avoid a deep puddle in the road. "Is it possible Lusana pulled the rug from under the South African Defence Ministry's pipe dreams by outbidding them for the ship?"

"I doubt it." Jarvis shivered from the damp cold and held his hands over the dashboard's defroster vents. "I'm convinced the South African Defence Ministry bought the Iowa, handling the transaction under the guise of Walvis Bay Investment."

"You don't think Lusana is wise?"

"He has no way of knowing," said Jarvis. "It's common policy to keep the bidders' names confidential upon request."

"Christ." Pitt muttered. "the sale of the warheads by Phalanx Arms to the AAR… "

"With a little more digging," Jarvis said, his voice strained, "I'm afraid we'll find that Lusana and the AAR had nothing to do with that deal either."

"That's the Forbes shipyard dead ahead," Pitt said.

The high chain-link fence enclosing the shipyard met and began paralleling the road. At the main gate Pitt braked to a stop in front of a cable that stretched across the entrance. Nothing of the ship could be seen through the falling rain. Even the huge derricks were lost in the blackness. The guard was at Pitt's door almost before he rolled the window down.

"May I help you, gentlemen?" he asked courteously.

Jarvis leaned across Pitt and displayed his credentials. "We'd like to confirm the Iowa's presence in the shipyard."

"You can take it from me. sir, she's down at the dock. Been there refitting close to six months."

Pitt and Jarvis exchanged worried looks at the word "refitting."

"My orders are to admit no one without a pass or proper authority from company officials." the guard continued. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait until morning to take a tour of the ship."

Jarvis's face flushed with anger. But before he could launch an official tirade, another car pulled up and a man wearing a dinner jacket emerged.

"Problems, O'Shea?" he said.

"These gentlemen want to enter the yard," answered the guard, "but they don't have passes."

Jarvis swung out of the car and met the stranger halfway. "My name is Jarvis, director of the National Security Agency. My friend is Dirk Pitt; he's with NUMA. It's a matter of highest priority that we inspect the Iowa."

"At three o'clock in the morning?" muttered the confused man, studying Jarvis's identification under the floodlights. Then he turned to the guard.

"They're okay; let them through." He faced Jarvis again. "The way to the dock is a bit tricky. I'd better come along. By the way, I'm Metz, Lou Metz, superintendent of the shipyard."

Metz went back to his car and said something to a woman sitting on the passenger side. "My wife," he explained, hunching into Pitt's backseat. "Tonight is our anniversary. We were on our way home from celebrating and I happened to drop by the yard to pick up some blueprints."

O'Shea unhooked the barrier cable and dropped it to the wet ground. He motioned to Pitt to hold while he leaned in the window. "If you see that bus driver, Mr. Metz, ask him what's delaying his departure."

Metz looked puzzled. "Bus driver?"

"Came through about seven o'clock this evening carrying a load of about seventy black guys. They were headed for the Iowa."

"You let them through?" Metz asked incredulously.

"They all had proper passes, including the driver of the truck, who followed them in."

"Fawkes!" Metz snapped angrily. "What's that crazy Scott up to now?"

Pitt shifted into drive and steered the car into the yard. "Who's Fawkes?" he asked.

"Captain Patrick McKenzie Fawkes," Metz said. "Royal Navy retired. He made no secret of the fact that some black terrorist bunch hired him to refit the ship. The man is nuttier than a cashew factory."

Jarvis turned and faced Metz. "How so?"

"Fawkes has driven me and my crew up the bulkheads giving the entire vessel a major face-lift. He's made us strip her down next to nothing and replace half the superstructure with wood."

"The Iowa was never designed to float like a cork," said Pitt. "If her buoyancy and gravity centers are drastically altered, she could capsize in a heavy storm."

"Tell me about it," Metz grunted. "I've argued with that stubborn bastard for months. I might as well have farted at a hurricane for all the good it did me. He even demanded we remove two perfectly good General Electric geared turbine engines and seal their shafts." He paused and tapped Pitt on the shoulder. "Turn right at the next pile of steel plating and then swing a left at the derrick's rail tracks."

The temperature had dropped and the rain was becoming an icy sheet. Two large boxlike shadows materialized under the headlights. "The bus and truck," announced Pitt. He parked the car but left the motor running and the lights on.

"No sign of the drivers." said Jarvis.

Pitt took a flashlight from the car's door pocket and got out. Jarvis followed, but Metz hurried off into the night without saying a word. Pitt aimed the beam through the bus windows and into the back of the truck. They were both empty.

Pitt and Jarvis skirted the deserted vehicles and found Metz standing stock still, hands clenched at his sides. His evening jacket was soaked and his hair plastered to his scalp. He looked like a resurrected drowning victim.

"The Iowa?" Jarvis asked.

Metz spastically waved his arms at the dark. "Shagged ass."

"Shagged… what?"

"That damned Scot has sailed her away!"

Jesus, are you sure?"

Metz's face and his voice were alive with a desperate kind of urgency. "I don't misplace battleships. This is where she's been moored during the refit." Suddenly he spotted something and ran over to the edge of the dock. "My God, look at that! The mooring lines are still tied to the dock bollards. The crazy idiots cast off their lines from the ship. It's as though they never intend to moor her again."

Jarvis leaned over and stared down at where the heavy lines disappeared into the inky water. "My fault. Criminal negligence not to have believed the handwriting on the wall."

"We still can't be certain they're actually going through with an attack," Pitt said.

Jarvis shook his head. "They're going to do it; you can count on that." Tiredly, he rested his weight against a piling. "If only they'd given us a date and a target."

"The date was there all the time," said Pitt.

Jarvis looked at him questioningly and waited.

"You said the idea behind the attack was to motivate sympathy for the South African whites and provoke American anger against the black revolutionaries," Pitt continued. "What more perfect day than today?"

"It is now five minutes past twelve on Wednesday morning." Jarvis's voice was tense. "I make nothing eventful out of that."

"The originators of Operation Wild Rose have a superb sense of timing," said Pitt in a dry, ironic tone. "Today is also December the seventh, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor."