Pitt smiled and kissed her eyes tenderly. He balanced her weight in both arms and rose from the chair, lifting her as easily as he would a large stuffed doll. Then he carried her inside the cabin.
He wisely decided that now was not the time to tell her that she would be returning to the nation's capital alone, that he would stay behind and continue his search.
7
Two evenings later, a subdued Pitt sat at the cabin's dining table and scrutinized a spread of topographical maps. He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. All he had to show for his effort was a distraught girl friend and a hefty bill from the company that had rented him the helicopter.
The sound of feet thudded up the stairs to the front balcony, and soon a head that was completely shaved and a face with friendly hazel eyes and an enormous Kaiser Wilhelm mustache peered through the window in the Dutch door.
"Hello, the house," hailed the voice that seemed to come from a pair of size-twelve boots.
"Come in," Pitt answered without rising.
The man's body was squat and barrelchested and must have sagged the scales, Pitt judged, at close to two hundred twenty pounds. The stranger shoved out a beefy hand.
"You must be Pitt."
"Yes., I'm Pitt."
"Good. I found you on the first try. I was afraid of taking a wrong turn in the dark. I'm Abe Steiger."
"Colonel Steiger?"
"Forget the title. As you can see, I came dressed like an old pack rat."
"I hardly expected you to answer my inquiry in person. A letter would have done just as well."
Steiger gave a wide grin. "The fact of the matter is, I wasn't about to let the price of a stamp cheat me out of a prospecting trip."
"A prospecting trip?"
"I'm killing two birds with the same stone, so to speak. One, I'm scheduled to speak next week at Chanute Air Force Base, in Illinois, on aircraft safety. Two, you're sitting in the heart of Colorado mining country, and since I have a raving fetish for prospecting, I took the liberty of stopping over in hopes of getting in a little gold panning before continuing on to my lecture."
"You're more than welcome to bunk with me. I'm baching it at the moment anyway."
"Mr. Pitt, I accept your hospitality."
"Did you bring any luggage?"
"Outside, in a rented car."
"Bring it in and I'll fix some coffee
Then, as an afterthought, "Would you like some supper?"
"Thanks, but I had a bite with Harvey Dolan before I drove up."
"You saw the nose gear, then."
Steiger nodded and produced an old leather briefcase. He unzipped the sides and passed Pitt a stapled folder. "The status report on Air Force Boeing C-ninety-seven, number 75403, commanded by a Major Vylander. You might as well go over it while I unpack. If you have any questions., just holler."
After Steiger was settled in a spare bedroom. he joined Pitt at the table. "Does that resolve your curiosity?"
Pitt looked up over the folder. "This report states that 03 vanished over the Pacific during a routine flight between California and Hawaii during January of 19 5 4."
"That's what Air Force records show."
"How do you explain the presence of the nose gear here in Colorado?"
"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?"
"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.
quality they share."
'I fail to see the connection," said Steiger. "When installed in the aircraft, they work under two entirely different flow systems, one gas and the other hydraulic."
"Yes, but take them off the aircraft and they both have one characteristic in common."
"Which is?"
Pitt gazed at Steiger and smiled and smiled. Then he spoke the magic words.
"They float."
8
Alongside most sleek executive jets, the Catlin M-200 came off like a flying toad. Also slower in flight, it had one redeeming quality that was unmatched by any other airplane its size: the Catlin was designed to land and take off in impossible places with cargo loads twice its own weight.
The sun gleamed on the aquamarine color scheme adorning the plane's fuselage as the pilot expertly banked the craft and settled it onto the narrow asphalt strip of the Lake County airport outside Leadville. It came to an abrupt halt with nearly two thousand feet to spare and then turned and taxied toward the area where Pitt and Steiger waited As it neared, the letters NUMA could be clearly distinguished on the side. The Catlin rolled to a stop, the engines were shut down, and a minute later the pilot climbed down and approached the two men.
"Thanks a lot, buddy," he said, and grimaced at Pitt.
"For what, a carefree all-expenses-paid vacation in the Rockies?"
"No, for prodding me out of the sack with a madcap redhead in the middle of the night to assemble a cargo and fly it out here from Washington."
Pitt turned to Steiger. "Colonel Abe Steiger, may I present AI Giordino, my sometimes able assistant and always chief bellyacher, of the National Underwater and Marine Agency."
Giordino and Steiger sized each other up like two professional fighters. Except for Steiger's cleanly shaved head and Semitic features, and Giordino's mischievous Italian grin and curly map of black hair, they could have passed for brothers. They were built exactly alike: same height, same weight, even the muscles that fought to escape their clothing seemed poured from the same mold. Giordino extended his hand.