Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

the engine, and eased into the wake of the last scow in line as it slipped by.

41

The snow was falling heavily at Table Lake, Colorado, when the NUMA salvage divers, immune to the frigid water in their thermal suits, finished cutting away the wings and tail of Vixen 03. Then they manhandled two huge cradle slings under the mutilated fuselage.

Admiral Bass and Abe Steiger arrived, followed by an Air Force-blue truck carrying several shivering airmen of the Remains Identity and Recovery Team along with five coffins.

At ten a.m. everyone was assembled and Pitt waved his arms at the crane operators. Slowly the cables hanging from the floating derricks to beneath the wind-rippled surface of the lake tightened and quivered as the power-unit operators increased the tension.

The derricks listed a few degrees with the strain and creaked at their bolted joints. Then, abruptly, as though a great weight had fallen from their unseen clutches, they straightened.

"She's broken free of the mud," Pitt announced.

In confirmation, Giordino, standing at his side, wearing radio earphones, nodded. "Divers report she is on her way up."

"Tell whoever is operating the cradle sling around the nose section to keep it low. We don't want the canisters spilling out of the hole in the tail."

Giordino relayed Pitt's orders through a tiny microphone attached to his headphones.

The freezing mountain air was heavy with tension; every man stood motionless, numb with anticipation, his eyes locked on the water between the derricks. The only sounds came from the exhaust of the lift engines. They were a hard-bitten salvage crew, and yet no matter how many wrecks they had reclaimed from the sea, the same old tentacles of excitement during a lift operation never failed to wring their emotions dry.

Admiral Bass found himself reliving that snowy night so many years ago. To him it seemed all but impossible to associate the image of Major Raymond Vylander in his memory with the fleshless bones he knew to be inside the wreck's cockpit. He moved closer to the water's edge until it lapped at his shoes, and he began to experience a burning sensation in his mid-chest and left shoulder.

Then the water under the cables swirled from blue to muddy brown, and the curved roof of Vixen 03 arched into the daylight for the first time in thirty-four years. The once-shiny aluminum skin had corroded to a whitish gray and was streaked by slimy bottom weed. As the cranes lifted her higher into the air, the silt-laden water cascaded from the open wound at the rear of the fuselage.

The blue and yellow insignia that ran across the top of the fuselage appeared surprisingly sharp, and the words military AIR

transport service were still quite legible. Vixen 03 no longer resembled an airplane. It was easier to picture her as a huge dead whale whose fins and tail had been clipped. The severed and twisted control cables, electrical wiring, and hydraulic lines dangling from the gaping wounds could be imagined as entrails.

Abe Steiger was the first to break the hushed quiet.

"Odds are that's the cause of her crash," he said, pointing at the gash in the cargo cabin just aft of the cockpit. "She must have thrown a prop blade."

Bass stared at the ominous evidence, making no comment. The pain in his chest became more intense. With great force of will he put it from his mind while unconsciously massaging the ache on the inside of his left arm. He tried to peer through the plane's windshield glass, but the years of accumulated silt blocked out all view. The cranes had lifted the fuselage ten feet above the lake's surface when a thought struck him and he turned and gazed at Pitt questioningly.

"I see no provisions for a makeshift barge. How do you expect to carry the wreckage to shore?"

Pitt grinned. "This is where we send for a sky hook, Admiral." He gestured at Giordino. "Okay, signal Dumbo."

Within two minutes, like some great pterodactyl flushed from its Mesozoic nest, an ungainly structured helicopter soared over the treetops, its two big rotors pounding the thin mountain air with peculiar-sounding thumps.

The pilot hovered the giant helicopter above the moored cranes. Two hooks gradually unreeled from the gaping belly and were rapidly attached to the hoist cradles by the derrick crews. Then the pilot took up the strain of the full weight and the connectors from the crane cables slackened and were released. The Dumbo clawed at the air, its turbines struggling under the massive load.

Very tenderly, as if maneuvering a cargo of fragile crystal, the pilot eased Vixen 03 toward shore.

Pitt and the others turned their backs as a cloud of spray, kicked up by the rotor blades, swirled in from the lake. Giordino, ignoring the gusting wetness, moved to where the pilot could plainly see him, motioning

with his hands while directing the lowering operation over the earphone transmitter.

Five minutes was all it took for the Dumbo to release its load and disappear again over the trees. Then they all stood there staring, no one making a move for the wreckage. Steiger murmured a command to his Air Force detail and they smartly marched to the truck and began unloading the coffins, setting them on the ground in an orderly row. One of Pitt's men produced a ladder and propped it against the exposed rear of the upper cargo deck. Pitt remained silent and indicated with his hand that Admiral Bass be the first to enter the aircraft.

Once inside, Bass made his way around the canisters to the control-cabin doorway. He stood immobile for several seconds, looking pale and very ill. '•

"Are you all right, sir?" Pitt asked, coming up behind him.

The voice that answered was remote and far away. "I can't seem to bring myself to look at them."

"It would serve no purpose," said Pitt gently.