Pitt's eyes intently followed the diagrams Folsom began drawing on a blackboard. The diving program, the air tanks, the ships on the surface, and the sunken ironclad all took shape in conjunction with Folsom's running commentary on the planned lift operation.
To all appearances, Pitt seemed keenly interested, but nothing he saw was relayed to his memory cells; his mind was two thousand miles away, deep in a Colorado lake.
Just as Folsom was describing the proposed towing procedure once the wreck reached sunlight for the first time in 125 years, a Visalia crewman poked his head through the hatchway and gestured toward Pitt.
"There's a shore-to-ship call for you, sir."
Pitt nodded, reached behind him, and picked up a phone sitting on a bulkhead shelf.
41
"This is Pitt."
"You're harder to track down than the abominable snowman," said a voice through the background static.
"Who is this?"
"Talk about shabby treatment," said the voice sarcastically, "I slave over a messy desk until three in the morning doing you a favor and you don't even remember my name."
"I'm sorry, Paul," Pitt said, laughing, "but your voice sounds about two octaves higher over the radiophone."
Paul Buckner, a longtime pal of Pitt's and an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lowered his pitch to his belt buckle.
"There, is that any better?"
"Much. Got any answers for me?"
"Everything you asked for, and then some."
"I'm listening."
"Well, to start with, the rank of the man you think authorized the flight orders for Vixen 03 obviously was not correct."
"But 'General' was the only title that fit."
"Ain't necessarily so. The title was a seven-letter word. All that was readable was the fifth character, which was an^?. Quite naturally, it was assumed that since Vixen 03 was an Air Force plane piloted by an Air Force crew, its flight orders could only be authorized by an Air Force officer."
"So tell me something I don't know."
"Okay, wiseass, I admit it threw me, too, particularly the part where a search through Air Force personnel files failed to find any name that matched up with the known characters of our mystery officer's name. Then it occurred to me: 'admiral' is also a seven letter word, and its fifth character is also an R."
Pitt felt as though the reigning heavyweight champion had suddenly rammed a right hand into his lower gut. "Admiral"-the word ricocheted through his mind. Nobody had thought to consider that an Air Force plane might have been carrying naval hardware.
Then a sobering thought brought Pitt back to earth.
"A name?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer. "Were you able to come up with a name?"
"All very elementary for a prying mind like mine. The first name was easy. Six letters with three known, two blanks with LT
followed by another blank and then an R. That gave me 'Walter.' Now comes the piece de resistance: the surname. Four letters beginning with B and ending with 5. And, since 'Bullshit' didn't fit and I already had the guy's rank and first name, a computer search through Bureau files and Navy records quickly made a match: 'Admiral Walter Horatio Bass.' "
Pitt probed further. "If Bass was an admiral back in 1954, he must be either past eighty years old or dead-most likely dead."
"Pessimism will get you nowhere," said Buckner. "Bass was a whiz kid. I read his file. It's most impressive.. He got his first star when he was still thirty-eight years old. For a while it looked like he was headed for Naval Chief of Staff. But then he must have pulled a no-no or mouthed off to a superior, because he was suddenly transferred and placed in command of a minor boondocks fleet base in the Indian Ocean, which is like being exiled to the Gobi Desert to an ambitious naval officer. He then retired in October of 1959. He'll be seventy-seven next December."
"Are you telling me Bass is still around?" asked Pitt.
"He's listed on the Navy's retirement rolls."