Clive Cussler: Vixen 03

From the Publisher:
1954. Vixen 03 is down. The plane, bound for the Pacific carrying thirty-six Doomsday bombs - canisters armed with quick-death germs of unbelievable potency - vanishes. Vixen has in fact crashed into an ice-covered lake in Colorado.

1988. Dirk Pitt, who heroically raised the Titanic, discovers the wreckage of Vixen 03. But two deadly canisters are missing. They're in the hands of a terrorist group. Their lethal mission: to sail a battleship seventy-five miles up the Potomac and blast Washington, D.C., to kingdom come. Only Dirk can stop them.

Clive Cussler: Vixen 03. Bantam Books, ISBN: 0553273906 (November, 1990), 384 p., $7.99.