Vixen 03 Part 51

"Five thousand," Mapes replied. "You're looking at the world's sixth-largest army in terms of equipment. Phalanx Arms also ranks seventh as an air force."

Mapes turned the car onto a dirt road that paralleled several bunkers set into a hillside, and stopped in front of one marked a.r.s.eNAL 6. He slid from behind the wheel and pulled a single key from his pocket, inserted it in a large bra.s.s lock, and pulled the catch free. Then he swung open a pair of steel doors and flipped on the light switch.

Inside the cavelike bunker, thousands of ammunition cases and crates containing a vast variety of sh.e.l.l sizes lay stacked in a tunnel that seemed to stretch into infinity. Pitt had never seen so much potential destruction heaped in one place.

Mapes motioned toward a golf cart. "No need to raise blisters walking. This storage area runs underground for nearly two miles."

The a.r.s.enal was cold and the hum from the electric cart seemed to hang in the damp air. Mapes turned into a side tunnel and slowed down. He held a map up to the light and studied it. "Beginning here and ending about a hundred yards down is the last store of sixteen-inch naval sh.e.l.ls in the world. They're obsolete because only battleships can use them, and there is not a single operational battleship left. The gas sh.e.l.ls I bought from Raferty should be stacked in an area near the middle."

"I see no sign of their canisters," said Pitt.

Mapes shrugged. "Business is business. Stainless-steel canisters are worth money. I sold them to a chemical company."

"Your supply seems endless. It might take hours to dig them out."

"No," replied Mapes. "The gas sh.e.l.ls were a.s.signed to Lot Six." He stepped from the cart and walked amid the sea of projectiles for about fifty paces and then pointed. "Yes, here they are." He carefully stepped through a narrow access and stopped.

Pitt remained in the main aisle, but even under the dull glow of the overhead lights he could detect a blank expression on Mapes's face.

"Problem?"

Mapes paused, shaking his head. "I don't understand it. I find only four. There should be eight."

Pitt stiffened. "They must be around somewhere."

"You start looking from the other end, beginning at Lot Thirty," Mapes ordered. "I'll go back to Lot One and begin there."

After forty minutes they met in the middle. Mapes's eyes reflected a bewildered look. He held out his hands in a helpless gesture.

"Nothing."

"Dammit, Mapes!" Pitt shouted, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. "You must have sold them!"

"No!" he protested. "They were a bad buy. I miscalculated. Every government I pitched was afraid to be the first to use gas since Vietnam."

"Okay, four down, four to go," Pitt said, pulling his emotions back under control. "Where do we go from here?"

Mapes seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment. "The inventory ... we'll check inventory records against sales."

Mapes used a call phone at the tunnel entrance to alert his office. When he and Pitt got back, the Phalanx Arms accountant had laid out the records on his desk. Mapes flipped through the ledgered pages swiftly. It took him less than ten minutes to find the answer.

"I was wrong," he said quietly.

Pitt remained silent, waiting, his hands clasped.

"The missing gas sh.e.l.ls were sold."

Pitt was still silent, but there was murder in his eyes.

"A mistake," Mapes said thinly. "The a.r.s.enal crew took the sh.e.l.ls from the wrong lot number. The original shipping order called for the removal of forty pieces of heavy naval ordnance from Lot Sixteen. I can only a.s.sume that the first digit, the one, did not emerge on the shipping crew's carbon copy, and they simply read it as Lot Six."

"I think it appropriate to say, Mapes, that you run a sloppy ship." Pitt's fingers bit into the flesh of his hands. "What name is on the purchase order?"

"I'm afraid there were three orders filled during the same month."

G.o.d, Pitt thought, why is it nothing ever comes easy? "I'll take a list of the buyers."

"I hope you appreciate my position," said Mapes. The clipped business tone was back. "If my customers got wind of the fact I disclosed their arms sales ... I think you understand why this matter must remain confidential."

"Frankly, Mapes, I'd like to stuff you in one of your own cannon and pull the lanyard. Now give me that list before I yank the Attorney General and Congress down around your ears."

A faint pallor clouded Mapes's face. He took up a pen and wrote the names of the buyers on a pad. Then he tore off the paper and handed it to Pitt.

One sh.e.l.l had been ordered by the British Imperial War Museum, in London. Two had gone to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Dayton City Post 9974, Oklahoma. The remaining thirty-seven were purchased by an agent representing the African Army of Revolution. No address was given.

Pitt slipped the paper into his pocket and rose to his feet. "I'll send a team of men to remove the other gas sh.e.l.ls in the tunnel," he said coldly. He detested Mapes, detested everything the fat little death merchant stood for. Pitt couldn't bring himself to leave without one final shot.

"Mapes?"

"Yes?"

A thousand insults swirled in Pitt's mind, but he could not sort out any one in particular. Finally, as Mapes's expectant expression turned to puzzlement, Pitt spoke.

"How many men did your merchandise kill and maim last year, and the year before that?"

"I do not concern myself with what others do with my goods," Mapes said offhandedly.

"If one of those gas sh.e.l.ls went off, you'd be responsible for perhaps millions of deaths."

"Millions, Mr. Pitt?" Mapes's eyes hardened. "To me the term is merely a statistic."

Steiger set the Spook F-140 jet fighter down lightly on the airstrip at Sheppard Air Force Base, outside Wichita Falls, Texas. After checking in with the flight-operations officer, he signed out a car from the base motor pool and drove north across the Red River into Oklahoma. He turned onto State Highway Fifty-three and pulled over to the side of the road; he felt a sudden urge to relieve himself. Though it was a few minutes past one in the afternoon, no car, no sign of life, was visible for miles.

Steiger could not remember seeing such flat and desolate farm country. The wind-swept landscape was barren except for a distant shed and an abandoned hay rake. It was a depressing sight. If someone had placed a gun in Steiger's hand, he'd have been tempted to shoot himself out of sheer melancholy. He zipped up his fly and returned to the car.

Soon a water tower appeared beside the arrow-straight road and grew larger through the windshield. Then a small town with precious few trees materialized and he pa.s.sed a sign welcoming him to Dayton City, Queen City of the Wheat Belt. He pulled into a dingy old gas station that still sported gla.s.s tanks above its pumps.

An elderly man in mechanic's coveralls emerged from a grease pit and shuffled up to the pa.s.senger window. "Can I help ya?"

"I'm looking for VFW Post Ninety-nine seventy-four," said Steiger.

"If yer speakin' at the luncheon, yer late," admonished the old man.

"I'm here on other business," Steiger said, smiling.

The Oklahoman was unimpressed. He took an oily rag from his pocket and wiped his equally oily hands. "Go to the stop sign in the middle of town and turn left. Ya can't miss it."

Steiger followed the instructions and pulled into the gravel parking lot of a building strikingly modern compared to others in the town. Several cars were leaving the area, trailing clouds of red dust behind their b.u.mpers. The luncheon was over, Steiger surmised. He entered and stood for a moment at the edge of a large room with a hardwood floor. The dishes on several tables still bore the wreckage of fried chicken. A group of three men noticed his presence and waved. A tall, gangly individual about fifty years of age and at least six feet five inches tall separated from the rest and sauntered over to Steiger. He had a ruddy face and short-clipped shiny hair parted down the middle. He offered his hand.