“I am not implying anything,” Pitt said casually. “I am merely offering a possibility, and an intriguing one at that. Why else would the Air Force put the lid on a missing plane and throw up a smoke screen of misleading information to cloud the disappearance? Why else would a flight crew risk almost certain death to ride down a crippled aircraft in the mountains instead of taking to their parachutes and allowing it to crash, perhaps in or near a populated area?”

“There’s one vital point that sinks your theory: the government would have never given up searching for a lost cargo of nuclear warheads.”

“I admit you have me there. It does seem odd that enough destruction to obliterate half the country would be left to litter the environment.”

Suddenly Steiger wrinkled his nose. “What is that godawful stench?”

Giordino hurriedly rose and moved over to the stove. “I think the metal tag is done.”

“What are you boiling it in?”

“A combination of vinegar and baking soda. They’re all I could find that would do the trick.”

“Are you sure it will bring out the etching?”

“Couldn’t say. I’m not a chemist. Won’t hurt it, though.”

Steiger threw up his hands in exasperation and turned to Pitt. “I knew

Vixen 03 I 53

I should have saved this stuff for professional lab technicians.”

Giordino calmly ignored Steiger’s remark and delicately lifted the plate out of the boiling water with two forks and patted it dry with a dish towel. Then he held it up to the light, turning it at different angles.

“What do you see?” Pitt asked.

Giordino set the small aluminum plate down on the table in front of them. He inhaled deeply, his features taking on a grave expression.

“A symbol,” he said tensely. “The symbol for radioactivity.”

2

Operation Wild Rose

11

Natal, South Africa-October 1988

To the casual eye the great trunk of the dead baobab tree looked like one of a thousand others spread about the northeast coastal plain of Natal Province, South Africa. There was no way of telling why it had died or how long ago. It stood in a kind of grotesque beauty, its leafless branches clutching at an azure sky with gnarled, woody fingers while its rotting bark crumbled into a medicinal-smelling humus on the ground. There was, however, one startling difference that set this dead baobab tree apart from the others: its trunk was hollowed out and a man crouched inside, intently peering through a small aperture with a pair of binoculars.