Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

"Fire as you bear, Mr. Shaba."

"Aye, sir."

Buried in the seventeen-hundred-ton steel turret, black South African gunners sweated and loaded the gaping breeches, shouting and cursing in tune with the clanging hoist machinery, while five decks below, the magazine crew sent up the shells and the silk bags containing the pow-der. First the conical-nosed twenty-seven-hundred-pound armor-piercing projectile was shoved into the breech's throat by a power rammer, followed by the powder charge, weighing six hundred pounds. Next the huge downswing carrier breech was twisted shut, providing a gas-tight seal. Then, on command, the great gun spat its devastating vehemence and recoiled four feet into its steel lair.

Fourteen miles away, Donald Fisk was attending the injured truck driver as the incoming freight thundered down from the sky and smashed into the Lincoln Memorial. In one thousandth of a second the hollow ballistic cone on the projectile disintegrated as it crashed into the white marble. Then the heavy slug of hardened steel behind punched its way deep into the memorial and exploded.

To Fisk it seemed the thirty-six Doric columns peeled outward like the petals of a flower before crumbling to the manicured 84

landscape. Then the roof and inner walls collapsed as great chunks of marble bounced down the steps like children's wooden blocks and a violent burst of white dust spiraled heavenward.

As the rumble of the explosion trailed off across Washington, Fisk slowly rose to his feet in numbed bewilderment.

"What happened?" shouted the blinded truck driver. "For God's sake, tell me what's happening!"

"Don't panic," said Fisk. "There's been another explosion."

The driver grimaced and clenched his teeth in agony. Nearly thirty splinters of glass had buried themselves in his face. One eye was filled with congealing blood; the other was gone, sliced through to the retina.

Fisk took off his sweatshirt and pressed it in the driver's hands. "Twist, tear, or bite it if you must to stand the pain, but keep your hands away from your face. I'm going to leave you for a few moments." He paused as his ears caught the distant sound of approaching sirens. "The police are coming. An ambulance will be right behind them."

The truck driver nodded and sat on the curb, wadding the shirt in a ball and squeezing the cloth until his knuckles turned ivory.

Fisk ran across the traffic circle, strangely ill at ease without something to cover his naked chest. Dodging the jagged chunks of marble that littered the memorial's stairway, he trotted up to what had once been the doorway facing the mall's reflecting pool.

Suddenly he stiffened, and stopped in astonishment.

There, amid the vast pile of rubble and the settling dust, the figure of Abraham Lincoln sat virtually unscathed. The walls and roof of the structure had somehow parted as they crumbled, crashing around, but not upon, the nineteen-foot statue.

Unmarred and unchipped, the hauntingly melancholy face of Lincoln still gazed downward solemnly, into infinity.

60

General Higgins slammed the phone receiver into its cradle. It was his first show of temper. "We missed the spotter," he said bitterly. "Our monitor units zeroed his location, but he'd flown the coop by the time our nearest patrol arrived."

"Obviously a mobile unit," said Timothy March. "With three out of four cars on the road carrying a CB radio, identifying the bastard will be next to impossible."

"Our special-forces team and the city police are setting up roadblocks at key intersections around the Capitol area," said Higgins.

"If we can keep the spotter out of visual contact of his targets, he won't be able to report range corrections to the ship. Then Fawkes will be firing blind."

The President's eyes were locked on the viewing screen, staring sadly at the enlarged satellite picture of the demolished Lincoln Memorial. "Shrewd planning on their part," he muttered. "A few dead would mean little more than a newspaper headline to most Americans. But destroy a revered national monument and you touch everyone. Rest assured, gentlemen, by this evening a lot of mad Americans are going to seek a way to vent their anger."

"If the next shell contains the QD . . ." Jarvis's voice trailed off.

"It's like playing Russian roulette," March said. "Two shells fired. That means the odds are down to two out of thirty-six."

Higgins looked across the table at Admiral Kemper. "What do you figure as the Iowa's rate of fire?"

"The time span between shells one and two was four minutes, ten seconds," Kemper answered. "Slow by half compared to former wartime efficiency, but respectable in view of forty-year-old obsolete equipment and a skeleton crew."

"What puzzles me," said March, "is why Fawkes is only using the turret's center gun. He seems to be making no attempt to operate the other two."

"He's going by the book," said Kemper. "Conserving his strength by firing one shell at a time for effect. He got lucky on the second shot and found his target. Next time he gets the range you can bet he'll uncork all three barrels."

The phone in front of Higgins buzzed. He picked it up, listened for a moment, his expression grim. "The third round is on its way."

The satellite camera pulled back to show a two-mile radius around the White House. Everyone's eyes roamed over the bird's-eye view of the city, fearful that this projectile held the Quick Death organism while at the same time trying to guess which landmark was the target. Then came a geysering explosion that pulverized a fifty-foot section of sidewalk and two trees on the north side of Constitution Avenue.