Metz went back to his car and said something to a woman sitting on the passenger side. "My wife," he explained, hunching into Pitt's backseat. "Tonight is our anniversary. We were on our way home from celebrating and I happened to drop by the yard to pick up some blueprints."
O'Shea unhooked the barrier cable and dropped it to the wet ground. He motioned to Pitt to hold while he leaned in the window.
"If you see that bus driver, Mr. Metz, ask him what's delaying his departure."
Metz looked puzzled. "Bus driver?"
"Came through about seven o'clock this evening carrying a load of about seventy black guys. They were headed for the Iowa."
"You let them through?" Metz asked incredulously.
"They all had proper passes, including the driver of the truck, who followed them in."
"Fawkes!" Metz snapped angrily. "What's that crazy Scot up to now?"
Pitt shifted into drive and steered the car into the yard. "Who's Fawkes?" he asked.
"Captain Patrick McKenzie Fawkes," Metz said. "Royal Navy retired. He made no secret of the fact that some black terrorist bunch hired him to refit the ship. The man is nuttier than a cashew factory."
Jarvis turned and faced Metz. "How so?"
"Fawkes has driven me and my crew up the bulkheads giving the ent
ire vessel a major facelift. He's made us strip her down next to nothing and replace half the superstructure with wood."
"The/owa was never designed to float like a cork," said Pitt. "If her buoyancy and gravity centers are drastically altered, she could capsize in a heavy storm."
"Tell me about it," Metz grunted. "I've argued with that stubborn bastard for months. I might as well have farted at a hurricane for all the good it did me. He even demanded we remove two perfectly good General Electric geared turbine engines and seal their shafts." He paused and tapped Pitt on the shoulder. "Turn right at the next pile of steel plating and then swing a left at the derrick's rail tracks."
The temperature had dropped and the rain was becoming an icy sheet. Two large boxlike shadows materialized under the headlights. "The bus and truck," announced Pitt. He parked the car but left the motor running and the lights on.
"No sign of the drivers," said Jarvis.
Pitt took a flashlight from the car's door pocket and got out. Jarvis followed, but Metz hurried off into the night without saying a word. Pitt aimed the beam through the bus windows and into the back of the truck. They were both empty.
Pitt and Jarvis skirted the deserted vehicles and found Metz standing stock still, hands clenched at his sides. His evening jacket was soaked and his hair plastered to his scalp. He looked like a resurrected drowning victim.
"The Iowa?" Jarvis asked.
Metz spastically waved his arms at the dark. "Shagged ass."
"Shagged . . . what?"
"That damned Scot has sailed her away!"
"Jesus, are you sure?"
Metz's face and his voice were alive with a desperate kind of urgency. "I don't misplace battleships. This is where she's been moored during the refit." Suddenly he spotted something and ran over to the edge of the dock. "My God, look at that! The mooring lines are still tied to the dock bollards. The crazy idiots cast off their lines from the ship. It's as though they never intend to moor her again."
Jarvis leaned over and stared down at where the heavy lines disappeared into the inky water. "My fault. Criminal negligence not to have believed the handwriting on the wall."
"We still can't be certain they're actually going through with an at-tack," Pitt said.
Jarvis shook his head. "They're going to do it; you can count on that." Tiredly, he rested his weight against a piling. "If only they'd given us a date and a target."
"The date was there all the time," said Pitt.
Jarvis looked at him questioningly and waited.