Pitt could make out something now-a blackening color in the twisted shroud lines above the projectile. The invisible beam had locked in and was melting the nylon strands. How many were there? he wondered" perhaps as many as fifty.
"She's overheating!" Two words and a skipped heartbeat. "Too cold in here with that hatch open," Weir yelled. "The coolant tubes have frozen up."
Weir's eyes returned to the telescopic sight. Pitt could see several lines parting, their charred ends snapping horizontally and lashing out in the airstream. The acrid smell of burning insulation began to invade the cabin.
"The tube won't take much more," said Weir.
Another half-dozen shroud lines burned free, but the rest remained taut and undamaged. Weir suddenly straightened up and tore off his smoldering gloves.
"God, I'm sorry!" he shouted. "The tube is gone!"
The Quick Death projectile still hung ominously beneath the Minerva.
Thirty seconds dragged by while Pitt lay there, staring at the deadly projectile swinging through the sky. There was no expression on his face, just a peculiar preoccupation. Then he broke the silence.
"We've lost the laser," he announced without elaboration.
"Damn, damn, damn!" Steiger snarled. "Where did our luck go?" His voice was almost savage in bitterness and frustration.
"So now?" Admiral Sandecker asked calmly. , "You break off and put that turkey in a dive," Pitt answered.
"A what?"
"The last card in the deck. Head into a dive. When you build up sufficient g-forces, pull up. Maybe Abe's luck will change and your unwanted passenger will drop free."
"It'll be sticky," said Steiger. "I'll have to do it on instruments. I can't see shit with the canopy covering the windshield."
"We'll stay with you," Giordino said.
"Don't come too close or you'll catch our cold," Steiger replied. He eased the helicopter clear of the chase plane. "Let's pray this baby isn't constipated." Then he pushed the control stick forward.
The Minerva tipped over and down on a seventy-degree angle. Sandecker braced his feet against the base of Steiger's seat and clawed for a handhold. To the men watching in rapt fascination from the Catlin, the helicopter's nose pointed straight at the sea.
"Ease your angle of descent," said Pitt. "The projectile is beginning to trail back toward your tail rotor."
96
"I read you," said Steiger, his words tense and strained. "It's like jumping off a building with your eyes closed."
"You're looking good," Pitt said reassuringly. "Not too fast. Pass seven g-factors and you lose your rotor blades."
"Wouldn't think of it."
Four thousand feet.
Giordino did not attempt to match Steiger foot for foot. He lagged behind, keeping the Catlin in a shallow banking dive, corkscrewing down behind the Minerva. Dr. Weir, his job finished, groped toward the warmth of the control cabin.
The sharp tilt to the helicopter's cabin floor made Admiral Sandecker feel as though he were standing with his back against a wall. Steiger's eyes danced from the altimeter to the airspeed indicator to the gauge showing the artificial horizon and back again.
Three thousand feet.
Pitt could see that the canopy of the parachute was flapping danger-ously near the twirling rotor, but he remained silent. Steiger had enough on his mind, he reasoned, without hearing another dire warning. He watched as the sea rushed up to meet the Minerva.
Steiger began to experience a mounting vibration. The wind noise was picking up as his speed increased. For a fleeting second he considered holding the stick in position and ending the torment. But then, for the first time that day, he thought of his wife and children, and his desire to see them again stoked a fierce determination to live.
"Abe, now!" Pitt's command boomed over his earphones. "Pull out!"
Steiger hauled back on the stick.
Two thousand feet.
The Minerva shuddered from the tremendous gravitational drag that attacked every rivet of her structure. She hung poised as the projectile, reacting to the force like a weight at the end of a giant pendulum, arched outward. The surviving shroud lines that had withstood the laser's beam tautened like banjo strings. In twos and threes they began to fray.
Just as the Quick Death projectile looked as though it was going to whip back and smash the helicopter, it tore free and dropped away.
"She's gone!" shouted Pitt.
Steiger was too drained to reply. Fighting the blackness framing his vision from the sudden pull-out, Sandecker struggled to his knees and shook Steiger by the shoulder.
"Make for that cruise ship," he said in a very tired and very relieved voice.
Pitt did not watch the Minerva as it veered off and headed toward safety. He watched the projectile until its blue skin blended against the blue of the rolling water and faded from sight.
Designed for a descent rate of eighteen feet per second, the projectile hurtled past one thousand feet without blowing off its warhead. The detonation mechanism lagged until it was too late. At nearly three hundred sixty feet per second the biological organism, carrying its threat of agony and mass extinction, plunged into the waiting arms of the abysmal sea.
Pitt was still watching when the tiny white scar from the splash was closed over by the relentless swells.
There is something heartsickening about seeing a proud ship die. The President felt deeply moved, his eyes centered on the billowing pillars of smoke rolling from the Iowa as the fireboats edged close to the inferno in a futile effort to extinguish the flames.
He sat with Timothy March and Dale Jarvis, the Joint Chiefs having returned to their respective offices in the Pentagon to begin launching the expected investigations, dictating the expected reports, and issuing the expected directives. In a few hours the shock would wear off and the news media would start shouting for blood, anyone's blood.
The President had settled on a course of action. The public outcry had to be softened. Nothing would be gained by proclaiming the raid as another day of infamy. The pieces were to be swept under the carpet of confusion as delicately as possible.
"Word has just come in that Admiral Bass has died at Bethesda Naval Hospital," Jarvis announced softly.
"He must have been a strong man to have carried the terrible burden of the Quick Death's secret all these years," said the President.
"That's the end of it, then," March murmured.*
"There is still Rongelo Island," said Jarvis.
"Yes," the President said, nodding wearily, "there is still that."
"We cannot allow any trace of the organism to remain."
The President looked at Jarvis. "What do you propose?"
"Erase the island from the map," Jarvis replied.
"Impossible," said March. "The Soviets would raise holy hell if we set off a bomb. The moratorium on aboveground nuclear tests has been respected by both nations for two decades."
A thin smile touched Jarvis's lips. "The Chinese have yet to sign the pact."
"So?"
"So we take apage from Operation Wild Rose," explained Jarvis. "We send one of our missile-carrying subs as close as we dare to the Chinese mainland, then order it to launch a nuclear warhead at Rongelo Island."
March and the President exchanged thoughtful glances. Then they turned to Jarvis, waiting for the rest of it.
"As long as American preparations for a test are nonexistent and none of our surface ships or aircraft are within two thousand miles of the blast area, there is no tangible evidence the Russians can use to build a case against us. On the other hand, their spy satellites cannot help but record the missile trajectory as originating from Chinese territory."
"We might pull it off if we played shadylike," said March, warming to the scheme. "The Chinese would, of course, deny any involvement. And after the usual nasty accusations from the Kremlin, our own State Department, and the other outraged nations, condemning Peking, the episode would die and be mostly forgotten inside two weeks."
>
The President stared into space as he battled with his conscience. For the first time in nearly eight years he felt the total vulnerability of his office. The armor of power was filled with hairline cracks that could burst apart when struck by the unanticipated.
At last, with the exertion of a man twice his age, he rose from his chair.
"I pray to God," he said, his eyes filled with sadness, "I am the last man in history who willfully orders a nuclear strike."
Then he turned and slowly made his way toward the elevator that would take him up to the White House.
97
Fool's Mate
Umkono, South Africa-January 1989
The heat from the early-morning sun made itself felt as two men gently slipped the cradle ropes through their hands and lowered the wooden box to the floor of the grave. Then the ropes were pulled free, making a soft rustling sound as they snaked around the sharp, unsanded edges of the coffin.
"Sure you don't want me to fill it in?" asked an ebony-skinned gravedigger as he coiled the rope around a sinewy shoulder.
"Thanks, I'll take care of it," Pitt said, holding out several South African rand notes.
"No pay," said the gravedigger. "The captain was a friend. I could dig a hundred graves and never repay the kindness he rained upon my family when he was alive."
Pitt nodded in understanding. "I'll borrow your shovel."
The digger obliged, shook Pitt's hand vigorously, and flashed an enormous smile. Then with a wave he set foot over a narrow path that led from the cemetery to the village.
Pitt looked around. The landscape was lush but harsh. Steam from the damp undergrowth wisped above the plants as the sun rose higher in the sky. He rubbed a sleeve over his sweat-soaked forehead and stretched out under a mimosa tree, studying its blossoming yellow fluffy balls and long white thorns and listening to the honking of hornbills in the distance. Then he turned his attention back to the large granite stone sitting at the head of the grave site.
HERE LIE THE FAMILY FAWKES
Patrick McKenzie
Myrna Clarissa
Patrick McKenzie, Jr.
Jennifer Louise
Joined together for
all eternity
1988
A prophetic man, the captain, Pitt thought. The stone had been carved in its entirety months before Fawkes's death on board the Iowa. He brushed away a vagrant ant and dozed for the next two hours. He was awakened by the sound of a car.
The uniformed driver, a sergeant, braked the Bentley, slipped from behind the wheel, and opened the rear door. Colonel Joris Zeegler stepped out, followed by Defence Minister Pieter De Vaal.
"Seems peaceful enough," said De Vaal.
"This sector has been quiet since the Fawkes massacre," Zeegler replied. "I believe the grave is this way, sir."
Pitt rose to his feet and brushed himself off as they approached. "It was good of you gentlemen to come so far," he said, extending his hand.
"No great effort, I assure you," De Vaal said arrogantly. He ignored Pitt's outstretched hand and sat irreverently on the Fawkes headstone. "By coincidence, Colonel Zeegler had arranged an inspection tour of northern Natal Province. A short detour, a brief stop-off in the schedule. No harm done."
"This won't take long," said Pitt, casually checking his dark glasses for smudges. "Did you know Captain Fawkes?"
"I appreciate the fact your rather strange request to meet me in a rural cemetery came down from high sources in your government, but I want it understood that I'm here out of courtesy, not to answer questions."
"Understood," Pitt said.
"Yes, I once met Captain Fawkes." De Vaal gazed into space. "Back in October, I believe it was. Soon after his family were murdered. I expressed my condolences on behalf of the Defence Ministry."
"Did he accept your offer to command the raid on Washington?"
De Vaal didn't bat an eye. "Pure rot. The man was mentally unbalanced by the death of his wife and children. He planned and conducted the raid entirely on his own."
"Did he?"
"My position and rank do not have to tolerate rudeness." De Vaal came to his feet. "Good day, Mr. Pitt."
Pitt let him walk nearly twenty feet before he said, "Operation Wild Rose, Minister. Our intelligence people knew about it almost from the beginning."
De Vaal stopped in midstride, turned, and looked at Pitt. "They knew?" He walked back until he was standing face to face with the man from NUMA. "They knew about Wild Rose?"
"That shouldn't surprise you, of all people," Pitt said affably. "After all, it was you who leaked it to them."
De Vaal's haughty composure cracked and he looked to Zeegler for support. The colonel's eyes were unblinking and his face was as hard as stone. "Preposterous," De Vaal said. "You're making a wild accusation based on the wind."
"I admit to a few holes in the net," said Pitt. "But I came into the game late. A neat scheme, and whatever the outcome, you won, Minister. The plan was never meant to succeed. Blaming the AAR for the raid in order to drum up sympathy for the South African white minority was a smoke screen. The real purpose was to embarrass and topple Prime Minister Koertsmann's party so the Defence Ministry could have an excuse for stepping in with a new military government headed by none other than Pieter De Vaal."
"Why are you doing this?" De Vaal said savagely. "What do you hope to gain?"
"I don't like to see traitors prosper," Pitt retorted. "Incidentally, how much did you and Emma salt away? Three, four, five million dollars?"
"You're chasing shadows, Pitt. Colonel Zeegler, here, can tell you. Emma was a paid agent for the AAR."
"Emma sold doctored reports from your Defence Ministry files to any black revolutionary sucker enough to pay for them and split the take with you. A most lucrative side venture, De Vaal."
"I do not have to stand here and listen to this garbage," the Minister hissed. He nodded at Zeegler and gestured toward the waiting Bentley.
98
Zeegler did not move. "I'm sorry, Minister, but I think Mr. Pitt should be heard out."
De Vaal was nearly choking with rage. "You have served me for ten years, Joris. You well know I punish insubordination to the extreme."
"I'm aware of that, sir, but I think we should stay, particularly in light of the circumstances." Zeegler pointed toward a black man who was threading his way between the gravestones. He wore a grim, determined face and was dressed in the uniform of the AAR.
A long, curved Moroccan knife was gripped loosely in one hand.
"The fourth actor in the drama," said Pitt. "Permit me to introduce Thomas Machita, the new leader of the African Army of Revolution."
Though the Minister's entourage carried no weapons, Zeegler stood unconcerned. De Vaal spun and shouted to his chauffeur while gesturing wildly at Machita. "Sergeant! Shoot him! For God's sake, shoot him!"
The sergeant looked through De Vaal, as though the Minister were transparent. De Vaal turned to Zeegler, his eyes sick with a mounting fear. "Joris, what goes on?"
Zeegler did not answer; his face was an emotionless void.
Pitt pointed into the open grave. "It was Captain Fawkes who blew the whistle on your shifty act. He may have been unhinged by the death of his family and blinded by revenge, but it struck him that he had been horribly and pitifully duped when you sent Emma to kill him. A necessary part of your plan. Captured alive, he might have revealed your direct involvement. Also, you couldn't take the chance he could somehow become wise that it was you who masterminded the attack on his farm."
"No!" The word scratched from De Vaal's throat.
"Captain Patrick McKenzie Fawkes was the only man in South Africa who could pull off Wild Rose. You ordered the murders of his wife and children knowing a grief-stricken man would seek retribution. The massacre was a stroke of cunning. Even your own people at the Ministry were at a loss to connect the raiders with any known insurgent organization. It never dawned on them their boss sneaked in a team of black merc
enaries from Angola."
De Vaal's eyes registered stunned desperation. "How is it possible you know all this?"
"Like any good intelligence officer, Colonel Zeegler kept investigating until he ran down the truth," Pitt said. "Also, as do most sea captains,
Fool's Mate I 283
Fawkes kept a log. I was there when Emma tried to kill him. Fawkes saved my life before the ship blew up. But not before inserting his log, along with a few added notes about you, into a watertight tobacco pouch and slipping it under my shirt. The pages made damned interesting reading, especially to the President and the director of the NSA.
"By the way," Pitt continued, "that phony message you sent implicat-ing Prime Minister Koertsmann was never really taken at face value. The White House was satisfied that Operation Wild Rose was conceived and conducted behind his back. Thus, your oily scheme to take over your own government was blown to dust. In the end Fawkes did you in, even if it was posthumously. The other details were supplied by Major Machita, who agreed to bury the hatchet with Colonel Zeegler long enough to put you away.
As to my presence, I asked for and received the role of master of ceremonies because of my debt to Captain Fawkes."
De Vaal stared at Pitt, his features set in defeat. Then he turned to Zeegler. "Joris, you arranged for my betrayal?"
"No man stands with a traitor."
"If ever a man deserved to die, De Vaal, it is you," said Machita. The hatred seemed to seep from his pores.
De Vaal ignored Machita. "You cannot simply execute a man of my station. The law demands a trial."
"It is Prime Minister Koertsmann's wish that there be no scandal." Zeegler spoke without looking his chief in the eye. "He suggested you die in the line of duty."
"That would make me a martyr." A tiny degree of confidence restored De Vaal's composure. "Can you see me as a martyr?"
"No, sir. That's why he agreed to my proposal that you turn up missing. Better you become a forgotten mystery than a national hero."
Too late, De Vaal caught the glint of steel as Machita's knife arched up between his groin and navel. The Defence Minister's eyes bulged in shock. He tried to speak; his mouth moved slackly, but the only sound that came was an animallike gasp. A red stain spread across his uniform.