“Okay,” Steiger said. “The post commander says there is a small private airfield about eight hundred yards long a mile south of town.”

“Twice what a Catlin requires,” Pitt said.

“Any luck at your end?”

“The curator at the British Imperial War Museum said the shell they purchased from Phalanx for a World War Two naval exhibit is definitely armor piercing.”

“Leaving the African Army of Revolution holding the other two QD warheads.”

“Thereby hangs a tale,” Pitt said.

“What earthly purpose are heavy naval shells in the African jungle?”

“Our riddle for the day,” said Pitt, rubbing his reddened eyes. “At least we’re temporarily blessed with the fact that they’re no longer in our backyard.”

“Where do we go from here?” asked Steiger. “We can’t very well tell a pack of terrorists they’ve got to give back the most horrendous weapon of all time.”

“The first item on the agenda,” said Pitt, “is to pinpoint the warheads.

194 VIXEN 03p>

On that score Admiral Sandecker has persuaded an old Navy buddy at the National Security Agency to do some digging.”

“Sounds touchy. Those guys are no dummies. They might ask some embarrassing questions.”

“Not likely,” said Pitt confidently. “The admiral came up with a classic cover story. I almost bought it myself.”

47

It was a difficult choice. Dale Jarvis wavered between the Dutch apple pie and the calorie-laden lemon meringue. Throwing diet to the winds, he took both and set them on his tray along with a cup of tea. Then he paid the girl at the computer register and sat at a table along one wall of the spacious cafeteria in the NSA headquarters complex at Fort Meade, Maryland.

“One of these days you’re going to bust your gut.” Jarvis paused and looked up into the solemn face of Jack Ravenfoot, head of the agency’s domestic division. Ravenfoot was all muscle and bone, the only full-blooded Cheyenne in Washington who had a Phi Beta Kappa key from Yale and held the retired rank of commodore.

“I’d rather consume fattening, savory goodies than that salted buffalo jerky and boiled prairie gopher you call food.”

Ravenfoot stared up at the ceiling. “Come to think of it, I haven’t had prairie gopher-good prairie gopher, that is-since the victory celebration after Little Big Horn.”

“You guys really know how to stick it to a paleface where it hurts,” Jarvis said, grinning. “Pull up a chair.”

Ravenfoot remained standing. “No thanks. I’ve got a meeting in five minutes. While I’ve got you, John Gossard, in the Africa Section, mentioned that you had a handle on some far-out project dealing with battleships.”

Jarvis slowly chewed a piece of the apple pie. “Battleship, singular. What’s on your mind?”

“An old friend from my Navy days, James Sandecker-“

“The director of NUMA?” Jarvis said, interrupting.

“The same. He asked me to track down a particular load of old sixteen-inch naval shells.”

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