“No great mystery. Sometime during the aircraft’s service life the gear assembly was probably replaced with a new one. It’s not an uncommon occurrence. The mechanics found a flaw in the structure. A hard landing cracked the strut. Perhaps it was damaged while being towed. There are a dozen different reasons that would require a replacement.” “Do the maintenance records show a replacement?”

Vixen 03 I 35

“No, they do not.”

“Isn’t that a bit peculiar?”

“Irregular, maybe, but not peculiar. Air Force maintenance personnel are noted for their skill at mechanical repair, not for administrative bookkeeping.”

“This also states that no traces of the aircraft or its crew ever turned

up”

“I’ll concede a puzzler on that score. The records indicate the search was an extensive one, much larger than the normal air-sea rescue procedures called for by the book. And yet, combined units of the Air Force and Navy drew a big fat zero.” Steiger nodded thanks as Pitt handed him a steaming cup of coffee. “However, these things happen. Our files are crammed with aircraft that have flown into oblivion.”

” ‘Flown into oblivion.’ That’s very poetic.” There was no concealing the cynicism in Pitt’s voice.

Steiger ignored the tone and sipped at his coffee. “To an air-safety investigator, every unsolved crash is a thorn in the flesh. We’re like doctors who occasionally lose a patient on the operating table. The ones that get away keep us awake nights.”

“And 03?” asked Pitt evenly. “Does that one keep you awake?”

“You’re asking me about an accident that occurred when I was four years old. I can’t relate to it. As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Pitt, and as far as the Air Force is concerned, the disappearance of 03 is a closed book. She’s lying on the bottom of the sea for all eternity and the secret behind the tragedy lies with her.”

Pitt looked at Steiger for a moment, then refilled the man’s coffee cup. “You’re wrong, Colonel Steiger, dead wrong. There is an answer and it’s not three thousand miles from here.”

After breakfast Pitt and Steiger went their separate ways-Pitt to probe a deep ravine that had been too narrow for the helicopter to enter, Steiger to find a stream in which to pan gold. The weather was crisp. A few soft clouds hovered over the mountaintops and the temperature stood in the low sixties.

It was past noon when Pitt climbed out of the ravine and headed back toward the cabin. He took a faintly marked trail that meandered through the trees and came out on the shore of Table Lake. A mile along the waterline he met a stream that emptied out of the lake, and he followed it until he ran into Steiger.

The colonel was contentedly sitting on a flat rock in the middle of the

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Vixen 03

I 37

current, swishing a large metal pan around in the water.