"Then you're off the investigation."
"I am if I wish to retire a general."
"They leaned on you?"
"They didn't have to. It was written in their eyes."
"What happens now?"
Steiger looked at Pitt steadily. "I was hoping you might go it alone."
Their eyes locked.
"You want me to raise the aircraft from Table Lake?"
"Why not? My God, you salvaged the Titanic from thirteen thousand feet in the middle of the Atlantic. A Stratocruiser in a landlocked lake should be child's play for a man of your talents."
"Very flattering. But you forget, I'm not my own boss. Raising Vixen 03 will take a crew of twenty men, several truckloads of equipment, a minimum of two weeks, and a budget of nearly four hundred thousand dollars. I can't swing that on my own, and Admiral San decker would never give NUMA's blessing to a project that size without solid assurance of additional government funding."
"Then what about simply bringing up one of the canisters and Smith's remains for positive identification?"
"And find ourselves holding the proverbial bag?"
"It's worth a try," Steiger said, excitement rising in his tone. "You can fly back to Colorado tomorrow. In the meantime I'll authorize a contract to retrieve the crew's bodies. That will get you off the hook with the Pentagon and NUMA."
Pitt shook his head. "Sorry, but you'll have to take a rain check. Sandecker assigned me to oversee the raising of a Union ironclad that sank off the Georgia coast during the Civil War." He paused to check his watch. "I'm scheduled to board a flight for Savannah in six hours."
Steiger sighed and his shoulders sagged. "Perhaps you can give it a go at a later date."
"Wrap up the contract and keep it on ice. I'll sneak off to Colorado the first chance I get. That's a promise."
"Have you told Congresswoman Smith about her father yet?"
"Truthfully, I haven't had the guts."
"A nagging doubt you could be wrong?"
"That's part of it."
A vacant expression clouded Abe Steiger's face. "Jesus, what a mess." He downed the double martini in one throw and then stared at the glass sadly.
The waitress returned with menus and they ordered. Steiger absently watched her backside as she swayed into the kitchen.
37
"Instead of sitting here, beating out my brains over an old mystery nobody cares about, I should be concentrating on getting back to California and the wife and kids."
"How many?"
"Kids? Eight, all told. Five boys and three girls."
"You must be Catholic."
Steiger smiled. "With a name like Abraham Levi Steiger? You've got to be kidding."
"By the way, you neglected to mention how the brass explained away Vixen 03's flight plan."
"General O'Keefe found the original. It didn't jibe with our analysis of the one from the wreck."