Vixen 03 Part 39

Felicia s.h.i.+vered as her skin suddenly went cold. "For G.o.d's sake, Frederick, drop this stupid scheme of yours before it gets out of hand."

"I don't think so," Daggat said, smiling a sinister smile. "I do what I think best for the country."

"You mean you do what you think best for Frederick Daggat."

He took her by the arm and led her from the office. "When you have time to reconsider, you'll come to find that I was right." He turned off the lights. "Now then, let's grab some dinner, and afterward we'll prepare Loren Smith's love nest for her one and only visit."

Admiral James Sandecker was a short, feisty character with flaming red hair and plenty of gall. When his retirement from the Navy was forced upon him, he used his considerable congressional influence to connive his way into the job of chief director of the then-fledgling National Underwater and Marine Agency. It was a match that was ordained for success from the start. In seven short years Sandecker had taken an insignificant eighty-person agency and built it into a ma.s.sive organization of five thousand scientists and employees supported by an annual

budget that exceeded four hundred million dollars.

He was accused by his enemies of being a grandstander, of launching oceanic projects that garnered more publicity than scientific data. His supporters applauded his flair for making the field of oceanography as popular as s.p.a.ce science. Whatever his a.s.sets or liabilities, Admiral Sandecker was as solidly entrenched at NUMA as J. Edgar Hoover had been at the FBI.

He drained the last swallow from a bottle of Seven-Up, sucked on the stub of a giant cigar, and looked into the unsmiling faces of Admiral Walter Ba.s.s, Colonel Abe Steiger, Al Giordino, and Dirk Pitt.

"The part I find hard to swallow," he continued, "is the total lack of interest on the part of the Pentagon. It would seem logical-to me, at any rate-that Colonel Steiger's report on the discovery of Vixen 03 complete with photos would have shocked the h.e.l.l out of them. And yet the colonel has told us his superiors acted as though the whole episode was best dropped and forgotten."

"There is a bona fide reason behind their indifference," Ba.s.s answered impa.s.sively. "Generals O'Keefe and Burgdorf are ignorant of the link between Vixen 03 and the QD project because none is recorded."

"How can that be?"

"What was learned after the deaths of Dr. Vetterly and his scientists motivated everyone who knew of QD's ghastly power to bury every sc.r.a.p of evidence and erase all memories of its existence so that it could not be resurrected ever again."

"You mean you suppressed an entire defense project under the noses of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?" Sandecker said incredulously.

"By direct order from President Eisenhower I was to state in my reports to the Joint Chiefs that the experiment had backfired and the formulation of QD had died along with Dr. Vetterly."

"And they swallowed the story?"

"They had no reason not to," said Ba.s.s. "Besides the President, Secretary of Defense Wilson, and myself and a handful of scientists, no one else knew exactly what Vetterly had discovered. As far as the Joint Chiefs were concerned, the project was simply another low-budget experiment within the ugly realm of chemical-biological warfare. They suffered no qualms; nor did they ask embarra.s.sing questions before writing it off as a failure."

"What was the purpose of circ.u.mventing the armed-forces power structure?"

"Eisenhower was an old soldier who abhorred ma.s.s-kill weapons." Ba.s.s seemed to shrivel in his chair while he collected his thoughts. "I am the last surviving member of the Quick Death Team," he continued slowly. "Unhappily, the secret will not die with me, as I had once hoped, because Mr. Pitt, here, accidentally discovered a long-lost source of the disease strain. I did not bare the facts then-nor will I now-to the men who run the Pentagon, for fear that they would consider recovering Vixen 03's cargo and storing it, in the name of national defense, against the day it might be unleashed against a future enemy."

"But surely if it came down to protecting our country ..." Sandecker protested.

Ba.s.s shook his head. "I don't think you understand the true horror of the Quick Death organism, Admiral. Nothing known can impede its deadly effects. Allow me to cite an ill.u.s.tration: if five ounces of QD were delivered over Manhattan Island, the organism would seek out and kill ninety-eight percent of the population within four hours. And no one, gentlemen, no human, could set foot on the island for over three centuries. Future generations could only stand on the New Jersey sh.o.r.e and watch the once-mighty buildings erode and crumble over the bones of their former inhabitants."

The other men around the table paled; their blood ran cold. For a while no one spoke. They sat frozen, visualizing a city entombing three million corpses. It was Pitt who finally broke the uneasy silence.

"The people in Brooklyn and the Bronx-they would not be affected?"

"QD organisms spread in colonies. Strangely, they do not travel by human contact or by the wind. They tend to stay localized. Of course, if enough of the biological agent were delivered by aircraft or rockets, theoretically blanketing all of North America, the entire continent would become barren of all human life until the year 2300."

"Is there nothing that can kill QD?" asked Steiger.

"H-two-oh," answered Ba.s.s. "The organism can only exist in an atmosphere with a high gaseous-oxygen content. You might say it suffocates when immersed in water, just as we do."

"It strikes me as odd that Vetterly was the only one who knew how to produce it." This from Pitt.

Ba.s.s smiled thinly. "I would have never permitted one man to keep the critical data to himself."

"So you destroyed the doctor's records."

"I also falsified all orders and paperwork I could lay my hands on that related to the project, which included, by the way, the original flight plan of Vixen 03."

Steiger sat back and sighed with apparent relief. "At least that's one part of the puzzle that won't bug me any longer."

"But surely the project left tracks," Sandecker said spe3ulatively.

"Skeletons still lie on Rongelo Island," said Pitt. "And what keeps unsuspecting fishermen or yachtsmen off its beaches?"

"I'll answer your question in reverse," said Ba.s.s. "First, all nautical charts of that area designate Rongelo Island as a dumping ground for hydrogen cyanide. The sh.o.r.es are also ringed with buoys warning of danger."

"Hydrogen cyanide," Giordino repeated. "Sounds like bad medicine."

"Truly. It is a blood agent that interferes with all respiration. In certain doses it causes almost immediate death. This is spelled out on the charts and in six languages on signs attached to the buoys." Ba.s.s paused and pulled out a handkerchief and patted the sweat that gleamed on his bald head. "Also, what few records that remain dealing with the QD project are lying deep in a Pentagon high-security vault that contains doc.u.ments cla.s.sified as FEO."

"FEO?"

" 'Future eyes only,' " Ba.s.s explained. "Each file is sealed and marked with a date when it can be opened. Even the President lacks the power to examine a doc.u.ment's contents before the specified time. It has been referred to as the closet where our nation's skeletons are kept. The file on Amelia Earhart, UFOs, the truth behind the government's insistence on the swine-flu shots in the mid-seventies, political scandals that make the old Watergate stories seem like Boy Scout adventures. They're all there. The QD-project file, for example, cannot be opened until the year 2550. By then, President Eisenhower hoped, our descendants would fail to glean its true implications."

The other men in the NUMA conference room had never heard of the Future Eyes Only file, and they were astonished.

"I suppose the next obvious question," said Pitt, "is why, Admiral, are you taking us into your confidence?"

"I requested this meeting to clear the air on Vixen 03 because I find myself in the position of having to trust someone to recover the QD in the aircraft and destroy it."

"You're asking a great deal," Sandecker said. He relit another cigar and puffed it to life. "If the Pentagon gets wind of this, we could all be branded as traitors."

"A disagreeable possibility that cannot be overlooked," admitted Ba.s.s. "Our only comfort would be in knowing that public and moral opinion stand on our side."

"Somehow I've never quite been able to picture myself as a savior to mankind," Giordino mumbled.

Steiger looked steadily at Ba.s.s, perhaps seeing his Air Force career going up in smoke for the second time in as many weeks. "I get the feeling your choice of accomplices is backed by mad logic, Admiral. Myself, for instance-where do I fit in with the recovery of Vixen 03?"

Ba.s.s's tight smile loosened. "Believe it or not, Colonel, you're the critical man on the team. Your report alerted the Air Force to the existence of the aircraft. Fortunately, someone high in government found it inconvenient to pursue the matter further. Your job will be to see that any Pentagon interest remains negative."

There was understanding on Pitt's face now. "Okay, so Admiral Sandecker bankrolls the overall effort with NUMA resources while Giordino and I handle the actual salvage work. How do you intend to destroy QD's lethal properties once we raise the canisters?"

"We deep-six the warheads in the ocean," Ba.s.s replied without hesitation. "In time, as their exterior surface erodes, the water will neutralize the disease strain."

Pitt turned to Sandecker and found himself saying, "I can transfer Jack Folsom and his crew from the Chenago job and have them on site at Table Lake with all necessary equipment inside forty-eight hours."

Admiral Sandecker was a realist. His choice was clear. He had known Ba.s.s well enough not to write off the old man as an alarmist. Every head angled toward the fiery little director of NUMA. He seemed lost in the blue cigar smoke that curled to the ceiling. Then at last he nodded.

"All right, gentlemen, we go."