“Where there’s a will,” Pitt said. “What then, Lee? Once the canister was removed, it was obvious to an ex-Navy man and a former demolitions expert that you were looking at a prize that could have only warmed the cockles of an old battleship admiral’s heart. But what was the value at today’s prices? What was the demand for an outdated naval shell, except for scrap?”

Lee Raferty casually resumed filing the rough edges of the pipe. “Pretty slick guesswork, Mr. Pitt. I admit it. Not one hundred percent, mind you, but a passing grade. You underestimated a pair of foxy veterans, though. Hell, we knew them things in the canisters weren’t

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armor-piercing projectiles the minute we laid eyes on one. Took Charlie all of ten minutes to peg it as a poison-gas carrier.”

Pitt was stunned. Two old men had made fools of them all. “How?” he asked tersely.

“Outwardly it looked like standard naval ordnance, but we saw it was rigged the same as a star shell. You know the kind: after reaching a preset altitude, a parachute is released while a small explosive charge splits the head, igniting a wad of phosphorus. Except this devil was set to unleash a bundle of tiny bomblets filled with lethal gas instead.”

“Charlie figured they contained gas merely by looking at it?”

“He discovered the parachute-escape-hatch cover. That gave him his first clue. Then he came around front, dismantled the head, disconnected the charge, and peeked inside.”

“Dear God!” Pitt murmured in near despair. “Charlie opened the warhead?”

“So what’s the big deal? Charlie was a master at demolitions.”

Pitt took a deep breath and pitched the obvious question. “What did you do with the warheads?”

“The way I saw it, it was finders, keepers.”

“Where are they?” Pitt demanded.

“We sold them.”

“You what?” he gasped. “To whom?”

“The Phalanx Arms Corporation, in Newark, New Jersey. They buy and sell weapons on an international front. I contacted the vice-president, a screwy sort of duck, looks more like a hardware peddler than a death merchant. Name’s Orville Mapes. Anyway, he flew out to Colorado, checked over the projectile, and offered us five thousand bucks for every one we could ship to his warehouse. No questions asked.”

“I can guess the rest,” Pitt said. “It occurred to Charlie that if those shells were detonated, he would be responsible for thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths. You were more callous, Lee. The money meant more to you than conscience. You two argued, then fought, and Charlie lost. You hid his body in the sunken aircraft. Then you set off a few sticks of dynamite, tossed a boot and his thumb in the debris, and cried all the way to his funeral.”