“Number-two turret and all its fire-control equipment is still in place,” Pitt said. “According to Metz, the Iowa can lob a salvo of two-thousand-pound shells twenty miles into a rain barrel.”

Sandecker concentrated his attention on lighting a large cigar. Satisfied that it was properly stoked, he blew a cloud of blue smoke at the ceiling and rapped the map with his knuckles. “Your plan is crazy, Dirk. We’re meddling in a conflict way over our heads.”

“We can’t sit here and piss and moan,” said Pitt. “The President will be persuaded by the Pentagon strategists either to blow the Iowa out of the water, more likely than not spreading the QD to the winds, or to send out a boarding party to capture the gas shells, with the idea of incorporating them into the Army’s arsenal.”

“But what good is a plague organism that can’t be controlled?” asked Steiger.

” Ypu can bet every biologist in the country will be funded to search for an antidote,” Pitt replied. “If one makes a breakthrough, then someday, somewhere, a general or an admiral may panic and give the order for its dispersal. Me, I don’t want to grow old knowing I had an opportunity to save countless lives but failed to act.”

“Pretty speech,” said Sandecker. “I’m in total agreement, but the three of us are hardly in a position to compete with the Defense Department in a race to recover the two remaining QD warheads.”

“If we could sneak a man on board the Iowa first, a man who could disarm the firing mechanism of the projectiles and dump the organism pellets over the side into the water …” Pitt let his thought linger.

“And you are that man?” ventured Sandecker.

“Of us three, I’m the best qualified.”

“Aren’t you forgetting me, mister?” Steiger said acidly.

“If all else fails, we’ll need a good man at the controls of the helicopter. Sorry, Abe, but I can’t fly one, so you’re elected.”

“Since you put it that way,” replied Steiger with a wry smile, “how can I refuse?”

“The trick is to ferret out the Iowa before the boys at Defense,” said Sandecker. “Not a likely event, since they have the advantage of satellite reconnaissance.”

“What if we know exactly where the Iowa is headed?” Pitt said, grinning.

“How?” grunted a skeptical Steiger.

230 VIXEN 03p>

“The draft was the giveaway,” answered Pitt. “There’s only one waterway within Fawkes’s steaming distance that would require a draft of no more than twenty-two feet.”

Sandecker and Steiger stood silent and expressionless, waiting for Pitt to unravel the knot.

“The Capital,” Pitt said with a certain finality. “Fawkes is going to run the Iowa up the Potomac River and hit Washington.”

Fawkes’s arms ached and the sweat of intense concentration rolled

down his weathered face and trickled into his beard. But for his arm