Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

They had moved only a few yards when a curved object edged onto the screen. The form was not sharply defined; nor did it have a natural contour.

"Stop rowing!" Pitt ordered tersely.

Steiger slumped on his seat, grateful for the break, but Giordino looked piercingly across the narrow distance separating the two boats. He'd heard that tone of voice from Pitt before.

Down in the cold depths the camera slowly drifted closer to the object materializing on the monitor. Pitt sat as though turned to oak as a large white star on a dark-blue background crept into his view. He waited for the camera to continue its probe, the inside of his mouth as dry as Kansas dust.

Giordino had rowed over and was holding the two boats together. Steiger became aware of the tension, raised his head, and looked inquir-ingly at Pitt.

"You got something?"

"An aircraft with military markings," Pitt said, controlling the excitement he felt.

Steiger crawled astern and peered unbelievingly into the monitor. The camera had floated over the wing and was now falling back along the fuselage. A square port came into view as above it the words MILITARY AIR transport SERVICE marched by.

"Sweet Jesus!" Giordino gasped. "A MATS transport."

"Can you tell what model?" Steiger asked feverishly.

Pitt shook his head. "Not yet. The camera angle missed the more easily identifiable engines and nose section. It came across the left wing tip and, as you can see, is now moving toward the tail."

"The serial number should be painted on the vertical stabilizer," Steiger said softly, as though in prayer.

They sat absorbed as the unearthly scene unfolded below. The plane had settled deeply in the mud. The fuselage had cracked open aft of the wings, the tail section twisted on a slight angle.

Giordino gently dipped his oars and towed the camera on a new course, correcting its vie wing field. The resolution was so clear that they could almost make out the flush rivets in the aluminum skin. It was all so strange and incongruous. It was difficult for them to accept the image the television equipment relayed to their eyes.

Then they held their breaths as the stenciled serial number on the vertical stabilizer began entering from stage right. Pitt zoomed in the camera lens ever so slightly so there would be no mistaking the aircraft's identification. First a 7, then a 5, and a 4, followed by 03. For a moment Steiger stared at Pitt; the shattering effect of what he now knew to be true but was unable to accept turned his eyes as glazed as those of a somnam-bulist.

"My God, it's 03. But that's impossible."

"What you see is what you get," said Pitt.

Giordino reached over and shook Pitt's hand. "Never a doubt, partner."

"Your confidence in me is duly noted," Pitt said.

"Where do we go from here?"

"Drop a marker buoy over the side and we'll call it a day. Tomorrow morning we'll go down and see what we can find inside the wreck."

Steiger sat there, shaking his head and repeating, "It's not supposed to be here . . . it's not supposed to be here."

Pitt smiled. "Apparently the good colonel refuses to trust his own eyes."

"It's not that," Giordino said. "Steiger has this psychological problem."

"Problem?"

"Yeah, he doesn't believe in Santa Claus."

In spite of the chilling morning air, Pitt was sweating inside the wet suit. He checked his breathing regulator, gave the thumbs-up sign to Giordino, and dropped over the side of the boat.

The icy water, surging between his skin and the interior lining of his three-sixteenths-inch-thick neoprene suit, felt like an electric shock. He hung suspended just below the surface for several moments, suffering the stabbing agony, waiting for his body heat to warm the entrapped water layer. When the temperature became bearable, he cleared his ears and kicked his fins, descending into an eerie world where wind and air were unknown. The line from the marker buoy angled off into the beckoning depths and he swam along beside it.

The bottom seemed to rise up and meet him. His right fin trailed through the mud before he leveled off, creating a gray cloud that mushroomed like smoke from an oil-tank explosion.

Pitt checked the depth gauge on his wrist. It read one hundred forty feet. That meant approximately ten minutes' bottom time without worrying about decompression.