Текст книги "Vixen 03"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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3

At three o'clock in the morning Pitt was wide awake. As he lay in bed with Loren snuggled against him and stared through the picture windows at the silhouetted mountains, his mind was throwing images inside his skull like a kaleidoscope. The last piece of what had turned out to be a perfectly credible puzzle refused to fit in its slot. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east when Pitt eased out of bed, pulled on a pair of shorts, and quietly stepped outside.

Loren's old jeep was sitting in the driveway. He reached in, took a flashlight from the glove compartment, and entered the garage. He pulled the drop cloth aside and studied the oxygen tank. Its shape was cylindrical, measuring, Pitt guessed, slightly more than one yard in length by eighteen inches in diameter. Its surface was scratched an dented, but it was the condition of the fittings that attracted his interest. After several minutes he turned his attention to the nose gear.

The twin wheels were joined by a common axle that was attached at their hubs like the head of a T to the center shaft. The tires were doughnut shaped and their treads relatively unworn. They stood roughly three feet high and, amazingly, still contained air.

The garage door creaked. Pitt turned and watched Loren peek into the darkened cavern. He shined the light on her.

She was wearing only a blue nylon peignoir. Her hair was tousled and her face reflected a mixture of fear and uncertainty.

"Is that you, Dirk?"

"No," he said, smiling in the dark. "It's your friendly mountain milkman."

She heaved a sigh of relief, came forward, and gripped his arm for security. "A comedian you're not. What are you doing down here, anyway?"

"Something bugged me about these things." He pointed the beam of light at the aircraft fragments. "Now I know what it was."

Loren stood and shivered in that dirty, dusty garage beneath the silent cabin. "You're making a big deal over nothing_," she murmured. "You said it yourself.. the Rafertys had a logical explanation for how this useless junk got here. Dad probably picked it up at some salvage yard."

"I'm not so sure," Pitt said.

"He was always buying up old scrap," she argued. "Look around you; the place is full of his weird, half-finished inventions."

"Half finished, yes. But at least he built something from the other trash. The oxygen tank and the nose gear he never touched. Why?"

"Nothing mysterious about that. Dad most likely was killed before he got around to them."

"Possibly."

"That's settled, then," she said firmly. "Let's get back to bed before I freeze to death."

"Sorry. I'm not through here yet."

"What's left to see?"

"Call it a pebble in the shoe of logic," he said. "Look here, at the fittings on the tank."

She leaned over his shoulder. "They're broken. What did you expect."

"If this was removed from an obsolete aircraft at a salvage yard, the mounting brackets and the fittings to the lines would have been disconnected with wrenches or cut with either a torch or heavy shears. These were twisted and wrenched apart by great force. Same goes for the nose gear. The strut was bent and severed just below the hydraulic shock absorber. Strange thing though: the break did not happen all at once. You can see that most of the ragged edge is weathered and corroded, while a small section at the top still has a new look to it. Seems as if the main damage and the final break occurred years apart."

"So what does all that prove?"

"Nothing earth shattering. But it does indicate that these pieces did not come from an aircraft-salvage yard or a surplus store."

"Now are you satisfied?"

"Not entirely." He easily lifted the oxygen tank, carried it outside, and deposited it in the jeep. "I can't manage the nose gear by myself. You'll have to give me a hand."

"What are you up to?"

"You said we were driving down the mountains into Denver for a shopping spree."

"So?"

"So while you're buying out the town, I'll haul this stuff over to Stapleton Airport and find somebody who can identify the aircraft it came from."

"Pitt," she said, "you're not a Sherlock Holmes. Why go to all this trouble?"

"Something to do. I'm bored. You've got your congressional mail to keep you busy. I'm tired of talking to trees all day."

"You have my undivided attention nights."

"Man cannot live by sex alone."

She watched in mute fascination as he scrounged two long boards and propped them on the lowered tailgate of the jeep.

"Ready?" he asked.

"I'm not exactly dressed for the occasion," she said, a chill in her voice and goose bumps on her skin.

"Then take off that thing so you won't get it dirty."

As if in a dream, she hung her peignoir on a nail, mystified as to why women instinctively indulge men in their juvenile idiosyncrasies. Then the two of them – Pitt in his shorts, Congresswoman Loren Smith in the nude – heaved and grunted the dusty nose gear up the makeshift ramp into the back of the jeep.

While Pitt chained up the tailgate, Loren stood in the dawn's early light and gazed down at the dirt and grease smudged across her thighs and stomach and wondered what it was that possessed her to take a mad lover.

4

Harvey Dolan, principal maintenance inspector for the Air Carrier District Office of the FAA, lifted his glasses to the light and, detecting no smears, clamped them on a pyramid-shaped nose.

"Found them in the mountains, you say?"

"About thirty miles northwest of Leadville, in the Sawatch range," Pitt answered. He had to speak loudly to be heard above the roar of the forklift that was carrying the nose gear and oxygen tank from the Jeep through the huge, yawning door of the FAA inspection hangar.

"Not much to go on," said Dolan.

"But you can offer an educated guess."

Dolan shrugged noncommittally. "You might compare it to a policeman who's found a small lost child wandering the streets. The cop can see it's a boy with two arms and two legs, approximately two years old. The kid's clothes are J. C. Penney, and his shoes are Buster Browns. He says his first name is Joey, but he doesn't know his surname, address, or phone number. We're in the same boat, Mr. Pitt, as that cop."

"Could you translate your analogue into factual detail?" Pitt asked, smiling.

"Please observe," Dolan said with a professional flourish. He produced a ball-point pen from a breast pocket and probed it about like a pointer. "We have before us the frontal landing gear of an aircraft, an aircraft that weighed in the neighborhood of seventy or eighty thousand pounds. It was a propeller-driven craft, because the tires were not constructed for the stresses of a high-speed jet landing. Also, the strut design is of a type that has not been built since the nineteen fifties. Therefore, its age is somewhere between thirty and forty-five years. The tires came from Goodyear and the wheels from Rantoul Engineering, in Chicago. As to the make of the aircraft and its owner, however, I'm afraid there isn't too much to go on."

"So it ends here." Pitt said.

"You throw in the towel too early," said Dolan. "There is a perfectly legible serial number on the strut. If we can determine the type of ship this particular nose-gear model was designed for, then it becomes a simple matter of tracing the strut's number through the manufacturer and establishing the parent aircraft."

"You make it sound easy."

"Any other fragments?"

"Only what you see."

"How did you come to bring them here?"

"I figured that if anybody could identify them, it would be the Federal Aviation Administration."

"Putting us on the spot, huh?" Dolan said, grinning.

"No malice intended," Pitt said, grinning back.

"Not much to go on," Dolan said, "but you never can tell; we might get lucky."

He made a thumbs-down motion toward a spot circled with red paint on the concrete floor. The forklift operator nodded and lowered the pallet holding the parts. Then he wheeled the forklift backward, cut a ninetydegree right turn, and clanked off toward another corner of the hangar.

Dolan picked up the oxygen tank, turned it over in his hands in the manner of a connoisseur admiring a Grecian vase, and then set it down. "No way in hell to trace this," he said flatly. "Standardized tanks like this are still produced by several manufacturers for any one of twenty different aircraft models."

Dolan began to warm to his task. He got down on his knees and examined every square inch of the nose gear. At one point he had Pitt help him roll it to a new position.

Five minutes went by and he didn't utter a word.

Pitt finally broke the silence. "Does it tell you anything?"

"A great deal." Dolan straightened up. "But not, unfortunately, the jackpot answer."

"The odds favor the proverbial wildgoose chase," said Pitt. "I don't feel right putting you to all this trouble."

"Nonsense," Dolan assured him. "This is what John Q. Public pays me for. The FAA has dozens of missing aircraft on file whose fates have never been solved. Any time we have an opportunity to mark a case closed, we jump at it."

"How do we go about laying our fingers on the make of aircraft?"

"Ordinarily I'd call in research technicians from our engineering division. But I think I'll take a stab in the dark and try a shortcut. Phil Devine, maintenance chief over at United Airlines, is a walking encyclopedia on aircraft. If anyone can tell us at a glance, he can."

"He's that good?" asked Pitt.

"Take my word for it," Dolan said with a knowing smile. "He's that good."

"A photographer you ain't. Your lighting is lousy."

A nonfiltered cigarette dangled from the lips of Phil Devine as he studied the Polaroid pictures Dolan had taken of the nose gear. Devine was a W C. Fields-type character – heavy through the middle, with a slow, whining voice.

"I didn't come here for an art review," replied Dolan. "Can you put a make on the gear or not?"

"It looks vaguely familiar, kind of like the assembly off an old B-twenty-nine."

"That's not good enough."

"What do you expect from a bunch of fuzzy pictures – an absolute. irrefutable ID?"

"I had hoped for something like that, yes," Dolan replied, unruffled.

Pitt was beginning to wonder if he was about to referee a fight. Devine read the uneasy look in his eyes.

"Relax, Mr. Pitt," he said, and smiled. "Harvey and I have a standing rule: we're never civil to each other during working hours. However, as soon as five o'clock rolls around, we cut the hard-assing and go out and have a beer together."

"Which I usually pay for," Dolan injected dryly.

"You government guys are in a better position to moonlight," Devine fired back.

"About the nose gear Pitt said, probing quietly.

"Oh yeah, I think I might dig up something." Devine rose heavily from behind his desk and opened a closet filled from floor to ceiling with thick black-vinyl-bound books. "Old maintenance manuals." he explained. "I'm probably the only nut in commercial aviation who hangs on to them." He went directly to one volume buried among the mass and began thumbing through its pages. After a minute he found what he was looking for and passed the open book across the desk. "That close enough for you?"

Pitt and Dolan leaned forward and examined an exploded-view line drawing of a nose-gear assembly.

"The wheel castings, parts_, and dimensions" – Dolan tapped the page with his finger – "they're one and the same."

"What aircraft?" asked Pitt.

"Boeing Stratocruiser," answered Devine. "Actually I wasn't that far off when I guessed a B-twenty-nine. The Stratocruiser was based on the bomber's design. The Air Force version was designated a C-ninety-seven."

Pitt turned to the front of the manual and found a picture of the plane in flight. A strange-looking aircraft: its two-deck fuselage had the configuration of a great doublebellied whale.

"I recall seeing these as a boy," Pitt said. "Pan American used them."

"So did United," said Devine. "We flew them on the Hawaii run. She was a damned fine airplane."

"Now What?" Pitt turned to Dolan.

"Now I send the nose gear's serial number to Boeing, in Seattle, along with a request to match it with the parent aircraft. I'll also make a call to the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, who will tell me if they show any lost commercial Stratocruisers over the continental United States."

"And if one turns up missing.

"The FAA will launch an official investigation into the mystery," Dolan said. "And then we'll see what turns up."

5

Pitt spent the next two days in a chartered helicopter, crisscrossing the mountains in everwidening search-grid patterns. Twice he and the pilot spotted crash sites, but they turned out to be marked and known wrecks. After several hours in the air – his buttocks numb from sitting, the rest of his body exhausted from the engine's vibration and from the buffeting by surging drafts and crosswinds – he was genuinely thankful when Loren's cabin came into view and the pilot set the copier down in a nearby meadow.

The skids sank into the soft brown grass and the blades ceased their thump and idled to a stop. Pitt unclasped his safety belt, opened the door, and climbed out, luxuriating in a series of muscle stretches.

"Same time tomorrow, Mr. Pitt?" The pilot had an Oklahoma twang, and a shortcropped haircut to go with it.

Pitt nodded. "We'll angle south and try the lower end of the valley."

"You figuring on skipping the slopes above timberline?"

"If a plane crashed in the open, it wouldn't go missing for thirty years."

"You can never tell. I remember an Air Force jet trainer that smacked the side of a mountain down in the San Juans. The impact caused an avalanche and the plane's debris was buried. The victims are still under the rock."

"I suppose that's a remote possibility," Pitt said wearily.

"If you want my opinion, sir, that's the only possibility." The pilot paused to blow his nose. "A small, light plane might fall through the trees and become hidden till eternity but not a four-engine airliner. No way pine and aspen could conceal wreckage that size. And even if it did happen, some hunter would have surely stumbled on it by now."

"I'm open to any theory that pans out," said Pitt. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Loren running across the meadow from the cabin. He slammed the door and waved off the pilot, turning and not bothering to look back as the engine whined into life. The craft lifted and droned over the tops of the surrounding trees.

Loren leaped into his arms, breathless from her dash in the thin air. She looked alive and vibrant in tight white slacks and red turtleneck sweater. Her elegantly molded face seemed to glow in the lateafternoon sun, the slanted light heightening the effect by tinting her skin to gold. He twirled her around and pressed his tongue through her lips, staring into a pair of liquid violet eyes that stared right back. It never failed to amuse Pitt that Loren forever kept her eyes open when kissing or making love, claiming that she didn't want to miss anything.

At last she came up for air and pushed him away, wrinkling her nose. "Whew, you stink."

"Sorry about that, but sitting behind the plastic bubble of a helicopter all day is like dehydrating in a greenhouse."

"You don't have to make excuses. There's something about a masculine musk smell that turns women on. Of course, the fact that you also reek of gas and oil doesn't help any."

"Then I shall immediately pass Go and proceed to the shower."

She glanced at her watch. "Later. If we hurry, you might still catch him."

"Catch who?"

"Harvey Dolan. He called."

"How? You have no telephone."

"All I know is a forest ranger came by and said you were supposed to call Dolan at his office. It was important."

"Where do we find a phone?"

"Where else? The Rafertys'."

Lee was in town, but Maxine was only too happy to show Pitt to the telephone. She sat him down at an old-fashioned rolltop desk and handed him the receiver. The operator was efficient, and in less than ten seconds Dolan was on the other end of the line.

"Where in hell do you get off calling me collect?" he grumbled.

"The government can afford it," Pitt said. "How did you get word to me?"

"The citizen-band radio in my car. I bounced a signal from the public-communications satellite to a ranger station in the White River National Forest and asked them to relay the message."

"What have you got?"

"Some good news and some not-so-good news."

"Lay it on me in that order."

"The good news is, I heard from Boeing. The nose gear was installed as original equipment on air-frame number 75403. The notso-good news is, that particular aircraft went to the military."

"The Air Force got her."

"It looks that way. At any rate, the National Transportation Safety Board has no record of a missing commercial Stratocruiser. I'm afraid that's as far as I can take it. From here on in, if you wish to pursue your investigation as a private citizen, you'll have to go through the military. Their air safety is out of our jurisdiction."

"I'll do that-," Pitt replied. "If nothing else, to settle any fantasies I have about ghostly aircraft."

"I hoped you'd say something like that," said Dolan. "So I took the liberty of sending a request – in your name, of course – for the current status of Boeing 75403 to the Inspector General for Safety at Norton Air Force Base, in California. A Colonel Abe Steiger will contact you as soon as he finds something."

"This Steiger, what's his function?"

"Basically he's my military counterpart. He conducts investigations into the causes of Air Force flying accidents in the Western region."

"Then we'll soon have the answer to the riddle."

"It would seem so."

"What's your opinion, Dolan?" Pitt asked. "Your honest opinion."

"Well…" Dolan began cautiously. "I won't lie to you, Pitt. Personally, I think your missing aircraft will turn up in the records of some wheeler-dealer who trades in government-surplus salvage."

"And I thought we had the beginnings of a beautiful friendship."

"You wanted the truth. I gave it to you."

"Seriously, Harvey, I'm grateful for all your help. Next time I come to Denver, I'll pop for lunch."

"I never turn down a free feed."

"Good. I'll look forward to it."

"Before you hang up" – Dolan took a deep breath – "if I'm right, and there's a down-to-earth reason for the nose gear being in Miss Smith's garage, what then?"

"I have this strange feeling that isn't the case," Pitt replied.

Dolan set the receiver back in its cradle, sat and stared at it. A strange chill crept up his back and turned his skin to gooseflesh. Pitt's voice had sounded as though it came from a tomb.

6

Loren cleared away the supper dishes and carried a tray with two mugs of steaming coffee out to the balcony. Pitt was sitting tilted back in a chair with his feet propped on the railing. Despite the cool September evening air, he wore a short-sleeved sweater.

"Coffee?" Loren asked.

As if in a trance, he turned and looked up at her. "What?" Then, murmuring, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come out."

The violet eyes studied him. "You're like a man possessed," she said suddenly, without quite knowing why.

"Could be I'm going psycho," he said, smiling faintly. "I'm beginning to see aircraft wreckage in my every thought."

She passed him one cup and cradled the other in her hands, soaking up its warmth. "That stupid old junk of Dad's. That's all you've had on your mind since we've been here. You've blown its significance out of all proportion."

"I can't make any sense out of it either." He paused and sipped the coffee. "Call it the Pitt curse; I can't drop a problem until I find a workable solution." He turned toward her. "Does that sound odd?"

"I suppose some people are compelled to find answers to the unknown."

He continued to speak in an introspective way. "This isn't the first time I've had a strong intuitive feeling about something."

Are you always right?"

He shrugged and grinned. "To be honest, my ratio of success is about one in five."

"And if it is proven that Dad's salvage did not come off an airplane that crashed near here, what then?"

"Then I forget it and reenter the mundane world of practicality."

A kind of stillness settled upon them and Loren came over and sank into his lap, trying to absorb his body heat in the cool breeze that drifted down from the mountains.

"We still have twelve more hours before we board a plane back to Washington. I don't want anything to spoil our last night alone. Please' let's go in now and go to bed."

Pitt smiled and kissed her eyes tenderly. He balanced her weight in both arms and rose from the chair, lifting her as easily as he would a large stuffed doll. Then he carried her inside the cabin.

He wisely decided that now was not the time to tell her that she would be returning to the nation's capital alone, that he would stay behind and continue his search.