Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

Her return smile was thin and formal. She spun the register around for him and he signed it.

"Room fourteen. Up the stairs a

nd three doors to your left, Mr. Pitt."

She had read his name upside down as he signed it. "I'm Heidi Milligan. If you need anything, just push the buzzer by your door.

I'll get the message sooner or later. I hope you won't mind carrying your own luggage up."

"I'll manage. Is the admiral handy? I'd like to talk to him about . . . about antiques."

She pointed through a double screen door at the end of the lobby. "You'll find him down by the duck pond, clearing away lily pads."

Pitt nodded and headed in the direction Heidi Milligan had indicated. The door opened onto a footpath that meandered down a gently sloping hill. Admiral Bass had wisely chosen not to landscape Anchorage House. The surrounding grounds had been left to nature and were covered with pines and late-blooming wildflowers. For a moment Pitt forgot his mission and soaked up the scenic quiet that hemmed in the trail to the pond.

He found an elderly man, in hip boots and brandishing a pitchfork, aggressively attacking a circular growth of water lilies about eight feet from shore. The admiral was a big man and he threw the tangled root stocks onto the bank with the ease of someone thirty years younger. He wore no hat under the Virginia sun and the sweat rolled free from his bald head and trickled off the ends of his nose and chin.

"Admiral Walter Bass?" Pitt said, hailing him.

The pitchfork stopped in mid-throw. "Yes, I'm Walter Bass."

"Sir, my name is Dirk Pitt, and I wonder if I might have a word with you?"

"Sure, go right ahead," said Bass, finishing the toss. "Pardon me if I keep after these damned weeds, but I want to clear out as much as I can before dinner. If I didn't do this at least twice a week before winter, they'd choke off the whole pond come spring."

Pitt stepped back as a flying wad of tuberous stems and heart-shaped leaves splattered at his feet. To him, at least, it was an awkward situation, and he wasn't sure how to handle it. The admiral's back was to him, and Pitt hesitated. He took a deep breath and plunged. "I'd like to ask you several questions concerning an aircraft with the code designation Vixen 03."

Bass kept at his labor without a pause, but the whitened knuckles around the handle of the pitchfork did not go unnoticed by Pitt.

"Vixen 03," he said, and shrugged. "Doesn't ring a bell. Should it?"

"It was a Military Air Transport Service plane that vanished back in 1954."

"That was a long time ago." Bass stared vacantly at the water. "No, I can't recall any connection with a MATS aircraft," he said finally. "Not surprising, though. I was a surface officer throughout my thirty years in the Navy. Heavy ordnance was my specialty."

"Do you recall ever meeting a major in the Air Force by the name of Vylander?"

"Vylander?" Bass shook his head. "Can't say as I have." Then he looked at Pitt speculatively. "What was your name again? Why are you asking me these questions?"

"My name is Dirk Pitt," he said again. "I'm with the National Underwater and Marine Agency. I found some old papers that stated you were the officer who authorized Vixen 03's flight orders."

"There must be a mistake."

"Perhaps," said Pitt. "Maybe the mystery will be cleared up when the wreck of the aircraft is raised and thoroughly inspected."

"I thought you said it vanished."

"I discovered the wreckage," Pitt answered.

Pitt studied Bass closely for any discernible reaction. There was none. He decided to leave the admiral alone to collect his thoughts.

"I'm sorry to have troubled you, Admiral. I must have gotten my signals mixed."

Pitt turned and began walking up the path back to the inn. He'd covered nearly fifty feet when Bass yelled after him.

"Mr. Pitt!"

Pitt turned. "Yes?"