Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

"Are you staying at the inn?"

"Until tomorrow morning. Then I must be on my way."

The admiral nodded. When Pitt reached the pines bordering Anchorage House, he took another look toward the pond. Admiral Bass was calmly forking the lily pads onto the bank, as if their brief conversation had simply been about crops and the weather.

32

Pitt enjoyed a leisurely dinner with the other guests at the inn. The dining room had been designed in the style of an eighteenth-43

century country tavern, with old flintlock rifles, pewter drinking cups, and weathered farm implements hanging on the walls and rafters.

The food was about as homemade as any Pitt had ever tasted. He ate two helpings each of the fried chicken, brandied carrots, baked corn, and sweet potatoes, and barely had room for the three-inch-thick wedge of apple pie.

Heidi moved about the tables, serving coffee and making small talk with the guests. Pitt noted that most were of social-security age. Younger couples, he mused, probably found the peaceful serenity of a country inn boring. He finished an Irish coffee and stepped out onto the porch. A full moon rose in the east and turned the pines to silver. He eased into a vacant bentwood rocker and propped his feet on the porch railing and waited for Admiral Bass to make the next move.

The moon had arched overhead nearly twenty degrees when Heidi came out and wandered slowly in his direction. She stood in back of him for a moment and then said, "There is no moon so bright as a Virginia moon."

"You won't get an argument from me," said Pitt.

"Did you enjoy your dinner?"

"I'm afraid my eyes were bigger than my stomach. I gorged myself. My compliments to your chef. His down-home cooking style is poetry to the palate."

Heidi's smile went from friendly to beautiful in the glow of the moon. "She'll be happy to hear it."

Pitt made a helpless gesture. "A lifetime of chauvinistic tendencies is hard to suppress."

She settled her tightly packed bottom on the railing and faced him, her expression suddenly turning serious. "Tell me, Mr. Pitt, why did you come to Anchorage House?"

Pitt stopped rocking and stared squarely into her eyes. "Is this a survey to check the effectiveness of your advertising or are you just plain inquisitive?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry, but Walter seemed very upset when he returned from the pond this evening. I thought that maybe-"

"You think it was because of something I said," Pitt said, finishing for her.

"I don't know."

"Are you related to the admiral?"

It was the magic question, for she began talking about herself. She was a lieutenant commander in the Navy; she was assigned to the Norfolk Navy Yard; she had enlisted out of Wellesley College and had eleven years to go to retirement; her ex-husband had been a colonel in the Marines and had ordered her about like a recruit; she'd had a hysterec-tomy, so no children; no, she was not related to the admiral; she had met him when he was a guest lecturer at a Naval College seminar, and she came down to Anchorage House whenever she could sneak off from her duties; she made no bones about the fact that she and Bass had a May-December affair going. Just when it was getting interesting, she stopped and peered at her watch.

"I'd better run along and see to the other guests." She smiled, and again that transformation. "If you get tired of just sitting, I suggest you take a stroll to the top of the rise beside the inn. You'll find a lovely view of the lights of Lexington."

Her tone, it seemed to Pitt, was more one of command than of suggestion.

Heidi had been only half right. The view from the rise was not only lovely: it was breathtaking. The moon illuminated the entire valley and the streetlights of the town twinkled like a distant galaxy. Pitt had been standing there only a minute when he became aware of a presence behind him.

"Admiral Bass?" he inquired casually.

"Please raise your hands and do not turn around," Bass ordered brusquely.

Pitt did as he was told.

Bass did not make a full body search but instead slipped out Pitt's wallet and beamed a flashlight on its contents. After a few moments he clicked off the light and returned the wallet to Pitt's pocket.

"You may lower your hands, Mr. Pitt, and turn aroun

d if you wish."