Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

"Ah yes," Mapes said. "If you had been holding a concealed gun on me, my hands would have remained on the wheel. A normal gesture. Then, as we were waved through and your attention was lulled by the guard's opening the gate, his teammate would have discreetly stepped behind the car and blown your head off."

"I'm glad you remembered to raise your hands."

"You're most observant, Mr. Pitt," said Mapes. "However, you force me to issue a new signal to the gate guards."

"I'm crushed you don't trust me to keep your secret."

Mapes did not reply to Pitt's sarcasm. He kept his eyes on a narrow asphalt road that passed between semingly endless rows of Quonset huts. After about a mile they came to an open field crammed with heavily armored tanks in various states of rust and disrepair. A small army of mechanics was busily crawling over ten of the massive vehicles that had been parked in formation beside the road.

"How many acres do you have?" Pitt asked.

"Five thousand," Mapes replied. "You're looking at the world's sixth-largest army in terms of equipment. Phalanx Arms also ranks seventh as an air force."

Mapes turned the car onto a dirt road that paralleled several bunkers set into a hillside, and stopped in front of one marked ARSENAL 6. He slid from behind the wheel and pull

ed a single key from his pocket, inserted it in a large brass lock, and pulled the catch free. Then he swung open a pair of steel doors and flipped on the light switch.

Inside the cavelike bunker, thousands of ammunition cases and crates containing a vast variety of shell sizes lay stacked in a tunnel that seemed to stretch into infinity. Pitt had never seen so much potential destruction heaped in one place.

Mapes motioned toward a golf cart. "No need to raise blisters walking. This storage area runs underground for nearly two miles."

The arsenal was cold and the hum from the electric cart seemed to hang in the damp air. Mapes turned into a side tunnel and slowed down. He held a map up to the light and studied it. "Beginning here and ending about a hundred yards down is the last store of sixteen-inch naval shells in the world. They're obsolete because only battleships can use them, and there is not a single operational battleship left. The gas shells I bought from Raferty should be stacked in an area near the middle."

"I see no sign of their canisters," said Pitt.

Mapes shrugged. "Business is business. Stainless-steel canisters are worth money. I sold them to a chemical company."

65

"Your supply seems endless. It might take hours to dig them out."

"No," replied Mapes. "The gas shells were assigned to Lot Six." He stepped from the cart and walked amid the sea of projectiles for about fifty paces and then pointed. "Yes, here they are." He carefully stepped through a narrow access and stopped.

Pitt remained in the main aisle, but even under the dull glow of the overhead lights he could detect a blank expression on Mapes's face.

"Problem?"

Mapes paused, shaking his head. "I don't understand it. I find only four. There should be eight."

Pitt stiffened. "They must be around somewhere."

"You start looking from the other end, beginning at Lot Thirty," Mapes ordered. "I'll go back to Lot One and begin there."

After forty minutes they met in the middle. Mapes's eyes reflected a bewildered look. He held out his hands in a helpless gesture.

"Nothing."

"Dammit, Mapes!" Pitt shouted, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. "You must have sold them!"

"No!" he protested. "They were a bad buy. I miscalculated. Every government I pitched was afraid to be the first to use gas since Vietnam."

"Okay, four down, four to go," Pitt said, pulling his emotions back under control. "Where do we go from here?"

Mapes seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment. "The inventory ... we'll check inventory records against sales."

Mapes used a call phone at the tunnel entrance to alert his office. When he and Pitt got back, the Phalanx Arms accountant had laid out the records on his desk. Mapes flipped through the ledgered pages swiftly. It took him less than ten minutes to find the answer.

"I was wrong," he said quietly.