Her tone, it seemed to Pitt, was more one of command than of suggestion.

Heidi had been only half right. The view from the rise was not only lovely: it was breathtaking. The moon illuminated the entire valley and the streetlights of the town twinkled like a distant galaxy. Pitt had been standing there only a minute when he became aware of a presence behind him.

“Admiral Bass?” he inquired casually.

“Please raise your hands and do not turn around,” Bass ordered brusquely.

Pitt did as he was told.

Bass did not make a full body search but instead slipped out Pitt’s wallet and beamed a flashlight on its contents. After a few moments he clicked off the light and returned the wallet to Pitt’s pocket.

“You may lower your hands, Mr. Pitt, and turn around if you wish.”

“Any reason for the melodramatics?” Pitt tilted his head at the revolver poised in Bass’s left hand.

“It seems you’ve exhumed an excessive amount of information about a subject that belongs buried. I had to be certain of your identity.”

“Then you’re satisfied that I’m who I say I am?”

“Yes, I called your boss at NUMA. Jim Sandecker served under my command in the Pacific during World War Two. He gave me an impressive list of your credentials. He also wanted to know what you were doing in Virginia when you were supposed to be on a salvage tender off the coast of Georgia.”

128 p>

VIXEN 03

“I’ve not made Admiral Sandecker privy to my findings.”

“Which, as you claimed earlier, at the pond, were the remains of Vixen 03.”

“She exists, Admiral. I’ve touched her.”

Bass’s eyes flashed with hostility. “You’re not only bluffing, Mr. Pitt, but you’re also lying. I demand to know why.”

“My case is not built on lies,” said Pitt evenly. “I have two other reputable witnesses and videotaped pictures as proof.”

A look of incomprehension shadowed Bass’s face. “Impossible! She disappeared over the ocean. We spent months searching for her and didn’t find a trace.”

“You looked in the wrong place, Admiral. Vixen 03 lies under a mountain lake in Colorado.”

Bass’s tough facade seemed to dissolve, and in the moonlight Pitt suddenly saw him as a tired, worn old man. The admiral lowered the pistol and swayed drunkenly toward a bench at the edge of the overlook. Pitt reached out a hand to steady him.

Bass nodded thanks and sank onto the bench. “I suppose it had to happen someday. I wasn’t fool enough to think the secret could last forever.” He looked up and clutched Pitt’s arm. “The cargo. What of the cargo?”

“The canisters have broken their moorings, but otherwise they seemed reasonably intact.”

“Thank God for that, at least,” sighed Bass. “Colorado, you say. The Rocky Mountains. So Major Vylander and his crew never made it out of the state.”

“The flight originated in Colorado?” asked Pitt.