Raise the Titanic! (Dirk Pitt 4)

"When was he discharged?"

"They called it 'mustering out' in those days," McPatrick said knowledgeably. "Hobart left the Army in October of 1901."

"Is that your last record of him?"

"No, his widow is still drawing a pension-"

"Hold on," Seagram interrupted. "Hobart's widow is still living?"

"She cashes her fifty dollars and forty cents' pension check every month, like clockwork."

"She must be over ninety years old. Isn't that a little unusual, paying a pension to the widow of a Spanish American War veteran? You'd think most of them would be pushing up tombstones by now."

"Oh hell no, we still carry nearly a hundred Civil War widows on the pension rolls. None were even born when Grant took Richmond. May and December marriages between sweet young things and old toothless Grand Army of the Republic vets were quite ordinary in those days."

"I thought a widow was eligible for pension only if she was living at the time her husband was killed in battle."

"Not necessarily," McPatrick said. "The government pays widows' pensions under two categories. One is for service-oriented death. That, of course, includes death in battle, or fatal sickness or injury inflicted while serving between certain required dates as set by Congress. The second is non-service death. Take yourself, for example. You served with the Navy during the Vietnam war between the required dates set for that particular conflict. That makes your wife, or any future wife, eligible for a small pension should you be run over by a truck forty years from now."

"I'll make a note of that in my will," Seagram said, uneasy in the knowledge that his service record was where any desk jockey in the Pentagon could lay his hands on it. "Getting back to Hobart."

"Now we come to an odd oversight on the part of Army records."

"Oversight?"

"Hobart's service forms fail to mention re-enlistment, yet he is recorded as `died in the service of his country'. No mention of the cause, only the date . . . November 17, 1911."

Seagram suddenly straightened in his chair. "I have it on good authority that Jake Hobart died a civilian on February 10, 1912."

"Like I said, there's no mention of cause of death. But I assure you, Hobart died a soldier, not a civilian, on November 17. I have a letter in his file dated July 25, 1912, from Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War under President Taft, ordering the Army to award Sergeant Jason Hobart's wife full widow's pension for the rest of her natural life. How Hobart rated the personal interest of the Secretary of War is a mystery, but it leaves little doubt of our man's status. Only a soldier in high standing would have received that kind of preferential treatment, certainly not a coal miner."

"He wasn't a coal miner," Seagram snapped.

"Well, whatever."

"Do you have an address for Mrs. Hobart?"

"I have it here somewhere." McPatrick hesitated a moment. "Mrs. Adeline Hobart, 261-B Calle Aragon, Laguna H

ills, California. She's in that big senior citizens development down the coast from L.A."

"That about covers it," Seagram said. "I appreciate your help in this matter, Major."

"I hate to say this, Mr. Seagram, but I think we've got two different men here."

"I think perhaps you're right," Seagram replied. "It looks as though I might be on the wrong track."

"If I can be of any further help, please don't hesitate to call me."

"I'll do that," Seagram grunted. "Thanks again."

After he hung up, he dropped his head in his hands and slouched in the chair. He sat that way not moving for perhaps two full minutes. Then he laid his hands on the desk and smiled a wide, smug grin.

Two different men very well could have existed with the same surname and birth year who worked in the same state at the same occupation. That part of the puzzle might have been a coincidence. But not the connection, the glorious 365-to-l longshot connection that mysteriously tied the two men together and made them one. Hobart's recorded death and the old newspaper found by Sid Koplin in the Bednaya Mountain mine bore the same date November 17, 1911.

He pushed the intercom switch for his secretary. "Barbara, put through a call to Mel Donner at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver."

"Any message if he isn't in?"