Vixen 03 Part 31

Daggat turned. "You know her?"

"Loren and I were high-school cla.s.smates. We still get together from time to time." A hardness came over Felicia's face that had not been there before. "You have something evil on your crafty mind, Frederick. What is it?"

"I've got to have Congresswoman Smith's support if I am to push through my bill to send arms and aid to the AAR."

"Would you like me to talk to Loren? Lobby on Hiram's behalf?"

"That and more."

She tried to read his thoughts. "More?"

"I want you to get something on her. Something I can use to twist her to our way of thinking."

Felicia stared at him, stunned. "Blackmail Loren? You don't know what you're asking. I can't spy on a good friend. No way."

"Your choice is clear: a girlish school friends.h.i.+p in exchange for the freedom of millions of our brothers and sisters who are enslaved by a tyrannical government."

"And if I can't dig any dirt?" Felicia said, searching for an out. "It's no secret her political career is unblemished."

"n.o.body is perfect."

"What would I look for?"

"Loren Smith is an attractive single woman. She must have a s.e.x life."

"What if she does?" Felicia argued. "Every single girl has her share of love affairs. And as long as she has no husband, you can't manufacture a scandal out of adultery."

Daggat smiled. "How astute of you. We shall do exactly that- manufacture a scandal."

"Loren deserves better."

"If she throws her support to our cause, she needn't worry about her secrets' going public."

Felicia bit her lip. "No, I will not stab a friend in the back. Besides, Hiram would never pardon such a malignity."

Daggat refused to play her game. "Indeed? You may have slept with the savior of Africa, but I doubt if you ever truly read the man beneath the skin. Look up his past sometime. Hiram Lusana makes Al Capone and Jesse James look like sissies. It gets thrown in my face every time I stand up for him." Then Daggat's eyes narrowed. "Aren't you forgetting how he literally sold you to me?"

"I haven't forgotten."

Felicia turned away and stared out the window.

Daggat squeezed her hand. "Don't worry," he said, smiling. "Nothing will happen that will leave any scars."

She raised his hand and kissed it, but she didn't believe his words, not for an instant.

Unlike her famous parent s.h.i.+p the Monitor, the Chenago was virtually unknown to all but a handful of naval historians. Commissioned during June of 1862 in New York, she was immediately ordered to join the Union fleet blockading the entrance to Savannah. The unfortunate Chenago never had a chance to fire her guns: an hour away from her a.s.signed station she met a heavy sea and foundered, entombing her entire crew of forty-two men ninety feet below the waves.

Pitt sat in the conference room of the NUMA salvage s.h.i.+p Visalia and studied a stack of underwater photos taken by divers of the Chenago's grave. Jack Folsom, the brawny salvagemaster, chewed a ma.s.sive wad of gum and looked on, waiting for the inevitable questions.

Pitt didn't disappoint him.

"Is the hull still intact?"

Folsom s.h.i.+fted the gum. "No noticeable transverse cracks that we can tell. Can't see it all, of course, since seven feet of keel is under the seafloor and the interior is filled with a yard of sand. But I'm guessing that chances of a longitudinal break are slim. I'll lay odds that we can lift her irt one piece."

"What method do you propose?"

"Dollinger variable air tanks," answered Folsom. "Sink them in pairs beside the hulk. Then attach and fill with air. Same basic principle that hoisted the old submarine F-four after she sank off Hawaii way back in 1915."

"You'll have to use suction pumps to remove the sand. The lighter she is, the less chance she'll pull apart. The thick iron plate seems to have stood up well, but the heavy oak planking behind has long since rotted away its strength."

"We can also remove the guns," said Folsom. "They're accessible."

Pitt examined a copy of the Chenago's original designs. The Monitor's familiar shape contained just one circular gun turret, but the Chenago possessed two, one at each end of her hull. From within both turrets extended twin thirty-centimeter Dahlgren smoothbore cannon, weighing several tons apiece.

"The Dollinger tanks," said Pitt, suddenly thoughtful, "how efficient are they for lifting sunken aircraft?"

Folsom stopped in mid-chew and stared at Pitt. "How big?"

"A hundred and seventy or eighty thousand pounds, including cargo."

"How deep?"

"One hundred forty feet."

Pitt could almost hear the gears whirring in Folsom's brain. Finally the salvagemaster resumed chewing and said, "I'd recommend derricks."

"Derricks?"

"Two of them on stable platforms could easily lift that much weight," said Folsom. "Besides, an aircraft is a fragile piece of hardware. If you used the Dollinger tanks and they got the least bit out of synchronization during the lift, they could tear the plane apart." He paused and looked at Pitt questioningly. "Why all the hypothetical questions?"

Pitt smiled a pondering smile. "You never know when we might have to bring up an airplane."

Folsom shrugged. "So much for fantasy. Now then, getting back to the Chenago ..."

Pitt's eyes intently followed the diagrams Folsom began drawing on a blackboard. The diving program, the air tanks, the s.h.i.+ps on the surface, and the sunken ironclad all took shape in conjunction with Folsom's running commentary on the planned lift operation. To all appearances, Pitt seemed keenly interested, but nothing he saw was relayed to his memory cells; his mind was two thousand miles away, deep in a Colorado lake.

Just as Folsom was describing the proposed towing procedure once the wreck reached sunlight for the first time in 125 years, a Visalia crewman poked his head through the hatchway and gestured toward Pitt.

"There's a sh.o.r.e-to-s.h.i.+p call for you, sir."

Pitt nodded, reached behind him, and picked up a phone sitting on a bulkhead shelf.

"This is Pitt."

"You're harder to track down than the abominable snowman," said a voice through the background static.

"Who is this?"