Iceberg Page 10

  Sandecker toyed with the cigar. "I suppose you know what you're talking about, Major?"

  "Hell, no . . . sir," Pitt answered. "Without the facts, I'm guessing. But you and Hunnewell didn't guess. There wasn't the slightest doubt in your minds that the derelict was the Lax, a ship that had been listed as missing for over a year. You had absolute proof.

  How or where it came from I can't say, but you had it."

  Pitts green eyes blazed into Sandecker's. "At this point my crystal ball gets foggy. I was surprised, but Hunnewell was genuinely stunned when we found that the Lax was burned to junk. This factor wasn't in the script, was it, Admiral? In fact, everything, including your wellplanned scheme, began to go down the drain. Someone you didn't count on was working against you. Someone with resources you or whatever agency in our government that is cooperating with you never considered.

  "You lost control. Even the Russians were thrown off the track. You're up against a shrewd mind, Admiral. And the message is written in neon lights, this guy doesn't play for ice cream and cake at birthday parties.

  He kills people like an exterminator kills tetes. The name of the game as advertised is zirconium. I don't buy it. People might kill one or two persons for a fortune, but not in wholesale lots. Hunnewell was your friend for many years, Admiral, mine for only a few days, and I lost him. He was my responsibility and I failed. His contributions to society outstrip anything I'm capable of. Better I'd have died on that beach'instead of him."

  Sandecker showed no reaction to any of this. His unblinking eyes never left Pitts face as he sat behind the desk thoughtfully tapping the fingers of his right hand on the glass top. Then he stood up, came around the desk and put his hands on Pitts shoulders.

  "Bullshit!" he said quietly but firmly. "It was a miracle you both made it to shore. There isn't a bookmaker in the world who would give odds on an unarmed helicopter knocking a machine-gun-toting jet out of the sky. I'm the one to blame. I had a hint of what was going to happen and I wasn't smart enough to read the cards. I didn't deal you in on the action because it wasn't necessary. You were the best man I could lay my hands on for a tricky chauffeur job. As soon as you got Hunnewell here to Reykjavik, I was going to put you on the next flight back to California." He paused to check his watch. "There's an Air Force reconnaissance jet leaving for Tyler Field, New Jersey, in one hour and six minutes. You can make connections for the West Coast when you get there."

  "No, thanks, Admiral." Pitt rose from the chair and walked to the window, staring over the city's peaked and sun-splashed roofs. "I've heard that Icelandic women are coolly beautiful. I'd like to see for myself."

  "I can make that an order."

  "No good, sir. I understand what you're trying to do, and I'm grateful. The first attempt on my life and Hunnewell's was only half successful. The second was much more elaborate and cunning and was reserved for me alone. The third should be a masterpiece. I'd like to stick around and see how it's going to be staged."

  "Sorry, Dirk." Sandecker was back on friendly terms again. "I'm not going to throw your life away with the wave of a hand.

  Before I stand at your graveside, I'll have you locked up and standing in front of a court-martial for willful destruction of government property."

  Pitt smiled. "I've been meaning to talk to you about service regulations, Admiral." He came across the room and casually sat on the edge of the desk. "For the past year and a half, I have faithfully carried out all directives issued from your office. I've questioned none of them. However, the time has come, the walk in, to get a few facts straight. Number one: if it was possible-and it isn't-for you to court-martial me, I doubt if the Air Force would take it lightly if one of their officers was tried by a naval court. Second, and most important: NUMA is not the bridge of the flagship of the fleet. Therefore, you are not my commanding officer.

  “You are simply my boss-no more, no less. If my insubordination infuriates your senses and naval traditions, then you have no other choice but to fire me. That's the way it is, Admiral, and we both know it."

  For several seconds Sandecker made no comment, but his eyes glinted with a strange sort of amusement.

  32

  Then he threw back his head and began to laugh, a roaring, deep laugh that filled the room from carpet to ceiling. "God! If there is anything worse than a cocky Dirk Pitt, I hope it becomes infected with syphilis and rots in hell." He returned to the chair behind the desk and sat down, hands clasped behind his head. "OK, Dirk, I'll put you in at first string, but you'll be required to play straight ball, no fancy independent plays. Agreed?"

  "You're the boss."

  Sandecker winced noticeably. "Okay, out of respect for your ah . . . superior, suppose you give me the whole story from the beginning. I've read the written words, now I want to hear it orally, direct from the horse's mouth." He peered at Pitt with an expression that dared argument. "Shall we commence?"

  Sandecker heard Pitt out, then said: " 'God save thee,' that's what he said?"

  "That's all he said. Then he was gone. I'd hoped Dr. Hunnewell might have offered me a clue to the whereabouts of the Lax between the time it vanished and the time it became inbedded in the iceberg, but he volunteered nothing except a historical sketch of Kristjan Fyrie and a lecture on zirconium."

  He did as he was told. I didn't want you involved "That was two days ago. Now I'm involved up to my neck." Pitt leaned over the desk toward the older man. "Let's have it, You sly old fox. What in hell is going on?"

  Sandecker grinned. "For your sake, I'm going to take that as a compliment." He pulled out a bottom drawer and propped his feet on it.

  "I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for."

  "I don't have the vaguest idea, but tell me anyway.

  "All right then." Sandecker leaned back in his swivel chair and puffed several times on his cigar. "This is what took place as far as it goes-too many pieces are missing for even a fifty percent glimpse at the overall picture. About a year and a half ago, Fyrie's scientists successfully designed and constructed a nuclear undersea probe that could identify fifteen to twenty different mineral elements on the ocean floor. The p e opera y posing elements to neutrons given off by a laboratory-produced element called celtinium-279. When activated by the neutrons, the elements on the ocean's bottom gave off gamma rays, which were then analyzed and counted by a tiny detector on the probe. During tests off Iceland, the probe detected and measured mineral samples of manganese, gold, nickel, titanium, and zirconium-the zirconium in huge and unheard-of amounts."

  "I think I see. Without the probe, the zirconium could never be found again," Pitt said thoughtfully.

  "The prize then is not the rare elements, but rather the probe itself."

  "Yes, the probe opens a vast and untapped frontier for undersea mining. Whoever owns it won't control the world, of course, but possession could lead to a direct reshuffling of private financial empires and a healthy shot in the arm for the treasury of any country with a continental shelf containing a rich storehouse of minerals."

  Pitt was silent for a few moments. "God, is it worth all the killing?"

  Sandecker hesitated. "It depends upon how bad somebody wants it. There are men who wouldn't kill for every cent in the world, and there are others who wouldn't hesitate to slit a throat for the price of a meal."

  "In Washington, you informed me that Fyrie and his scientific team were on their way to the U.S. to open negotiations with our defense contractors. I take it that was a little white lie?"

  Sandecker smiled. "Yes, that was actually an understatement. Fyrie was scheduled to meet with the President and present him with the probe." He looked at Pitt, and then said more Positively: "I was the first One Fyrie notified when the tests on the probe proved successful. I don't know what Hunnewell told you about Fyrie, but he was a visionary a gentle man who wouldn't step on an ant or a flower. He knew the far reaching good the probe would bring to mankind; he also knew what unscrupulous interests would do to exPloit it
once the probe fell into their hands, so he decided to turn it over to the nation that he 'was certain would make beneficial and charitable use of its potential-so much noble crap in my book. But you have to give the do-gooders of the earth credit; they make an honest stab at helping the rest of us ungrateful rabble."

  His face looked pained. "A goddamned shame. Kristjan Fyrie would be alive this minute if he'd been rotten and selfish."

  Pitt grinned knowingly. It was a well-advertised fact that Admiral Sandecker, in spite of his boiler-plate exterior, was at hart a humanitarian, and he rarely disguised his disgust and hatred for greed-driven industrialists-an outspoken trait that didn't exactly make him in great demand as a guest at society dinner parties.

  "Isn't it possible," Pitt asked, "for American engineers to develop our own probe?"

  "Yes, in fact we already have one, but compared with Fyrie's probe, it operates with all the efficiency of a bicycle next to a sportscar. His people made a breakthrough that is ten years ahead of anything we or the Russians are currently developing."

  "Any ideason who stole the probe?"

  Sandecker shook his head. "None. It's obviously a well-financed organization. Beyond that we're playing blindman's buff in a swamp."

  "Which country would have the necessary resources to-"

  "You can forget that speculation," Sandecker interrupted. "The National Intelligence Agency is Positive no foreign government is in the act. Even the Chinese would think twice before killing two dozen people over an innocent, nondestructive scientific instrument. No, it's got to be a private motive. For what purpose besides financial gain," he shrugged helplessly, "we can't even guess."

  "All right, so the mysterious organization has the probe, so they strike a bonanza on the sea floor. How do they raise it?"

  "They can't," Sandecker replied. "Not without highly technical equipment."

  "It doesn't make sense. If they've had the probe over a year, what good has it done them?"

  "They've put the probe to good use all right," Sandecker said seriously, "testing every square foot of the continental shelf on the Atlantic shore of North and South America. And they used the Lax to do it."

  33

  Pitt stared at him curiously. "The Lax? I don't follow."

  "Do you remember Dr. Len Matajic and his assistant Sandecker flicked an ash into the wastebasket. “Jack O'Riley?"

  Pitt frowned, recalling. "I airdropped supplies . to them three months ago when they set up camp on an ice floe in Baffin Bay. Dr. Matajic was studying currents below a depth of ten thousand feet, trying to prove a pet theory of his that a deep layer of warm water had the capacity to melt the Pole if only one percent of it could be diverted upward."

  "What was the last you heard of them?"

  Pitt shrugged. "I left for the Oceanlab Project in California as soon as they began routine housekeeping. Why ask me? You planned and coordinated their expedition.

  "Yes, I planned the expedition," Sandecker repeated slowly. He screwed the knuckles of his index fingers into his eyes, then pushed the hands together and folded them. "Matajic and O'Riley are dead. The plane bringing them back from the ice floe crashed in the sea.No trace was found."

  "Strange, I hadn't heard. It must have just happened."

  Sandecker put another match to his cigar. "A month ago yesterday, to be exact."

  Pitt stared at him. "Why the secrecy? Nothing was mentioned in broadcast about their ac'ident. As your special projects director, I should have been one of the first to be informed."

  "Only one other man besides myself was aware of their deaths-the radio operator who took their last message. I've made no announcement because I couldn't try to bring them back from their watery grave."

  "Sorry, Admiral," Pitt said. "You've lost me completely.”

  "All right then," Sandecker said heavily. "Five weeks ago I received a signal from Matajic. Seems O'Riley, while on a scouting trek, spotted a fishing trawler that had moored to the north end of their ice floe. Not being socially aggressive, he returned to base and informed Matajic. Then together, they trolled back and paid a friendly call on the fishermen to determine if they needed assistance. An odd bunch, Matajic said.

  The ship flew the flag of Iceland, yet most of the crew were Arabs, while the rest represented at least six different countries including the United Sates. It seems a bearing had burned out in their diesel engine. Rather than drift around while repairs were made, they decided to tie up on the ice flow to let the crew stretch their legs. "Nothing suspicious in that," Pitt commented.

  "The captain and crew invited Matajic and O'Riley on board for dinner," Sandecker continued. "This courteous act seemed harmless enough at the time. Later, it was seen as an obvious attempt to avoid suspicion. By sheer coincidence, it backfired."

  "SO Our two scientists were also on the list to see something they shouldn't have."

  "You guessed it. Some years previously, Kristjan Fyrie had entertained Dr. Hunnewell and Dr. Matajic aboard his yacht. The exterior of the trawler had been altered, Of course, but the instant Matajic stepped into the main salon, he recognized the ship as the Lax.

  If he had said nothing, e and O'Riley might have been alive today. Unfortunately, he innocently asked why the proud and plush Lax that he remembered had been converted into a common fishing trawler. It was an honest question, but one that had cruel consequences."

  "They could have been murdered then and there and their bodies weighted and dropped into the sea-no one would have ever known."

  "It's one thing for a ship to go down at sea with all hands. The newspapers forgot the Lax one week after it disappeared. But two men and a government research station, not likely. The press would have exaggerated and harped on the enigma of the abandoned ice station for years. No, if Matajic and O'Riley had to be eliminated, there were less conspicuous methods."

  "Shooting an unarmed plane out of the air without telltale witnesses, for example?"

  "That appears to be the pattern," Sandecker said softly. "It wasn't until our two scientists had returned to their base camp that Matajic began to have doubts. The captain of the trawler had simply passed his command off as a sister ship to Fyrie's Lax. It was a possibility, Matajic told himself. But if the ship earned its keep as a fishing trawler, where were the fish? Even the distinct aroma had been missing. He got on the radio and contacted me at NUMA headquarters, told me the story along with his suspicions, and suggested that the Coast Guard make a routine investigation of the trawler. I ordered them to stand by while I sent a supply plane north to return them to Washington as quickly as possible to make a detailed report." Sandecker tapped the cigar ashes into the wastebasket again, a grim expression on his face. "I was too late. The captain of the trawler must have monitored Matajic's message. The pilot made it to the ice floe and picked them up. After that, the three of them vanished."

  Sandecker reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out a worn and folded piece -of paper. "This is Matajic's last message."

  Pitt took the paper from the admiral's hand and unfolded it across the desk. It read: MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

  THE BASTARD'S ATTACKING. BLACK. NUMBER ONE ENGINE IS . . . The words abruptly ended.

  "Enter the black jet."

  "Exactly. With his only witnesses out of the way, the captain's problem 'was now the Coast Guard, whom he was sure would show up at any moment."

  Pitt looked at Sandecker speculatively. "But the Coast Guard didn't come. They were never invited.

  You've yet to fully explain why you maintained silence even after you were certain three of NUMA's men were killed, murdered like cattle by a group of traveling butchers."

  "At the time I didn't really know." The vagueness wasn't like Sandecker. Normally he was as decisive and direct as a bolt of lightning- "I suppose I didn't want the sons-Of-bitches responsible to have the satisfaction of knowing how successful they 34

  werl thought it best to let them wonder. It's snatching at leaves in a hurricane, I admit, but it's just bare
ly possible they might make an unplanned move, a mistake that will give us a slim lead to their identity when and if I resurrect the ghosts of Matajic and O'Riley. "How did you handle the search party?"

  "I notified all search and rescue units in the Northern Command that a valuable piece of equipment had fallen off of a NUMA research ship and was floating around lost. I gave Out have taken and waited for a the course the Plane would sighting report. There was none." Sandecker waved his cigar to indicate helplessness. "I also waited in vain for the sighting of a trawler matching the hull design of the Lax. It too had evaporated."

  "That's why you were dead sure it was the Lax under the iceberg."

  "Let's just say I was eighty percent certain," Sandecker said. "I also did a bit Of checking with every port authority between Buenos Aires and Goose Bay, Labrador. Twelve Ports recorded the entry and departure of an Icelandic fishing trawler matching the Lax's altered superstructure. For what it's worth, it went under the name of Surtsey. Surtsey, by the way, is Icelandic for 'submarine,."

  "I see." Pitt groped for a cigarette and then remembered that he was wearing a stranger's clothes. "A northern fisherman would hardly troll so close within territorial waters. Working the undersea probe is the only credible explanation."

  "It's as if we were presented with a pregnant rabbit," Sandecker grunted. "One solution leaves us with a new brood of unfathomable puzzles."

  "Are you in contact with COmmander Koski?"

  "Yes. The Catawaba is standing by the derelict while a team of investigators combs it thoroughly. In fact, I received a signal from them just before you struggled from bed. Three of the bodies were positively established as Fyrie's crew. The rest were too badly burned to identify."

  "Like an Edgar Allan Poe ghost story. Fyrie and his people and the Lax disappear into the sea. Nearly a year later the Lax turns up at one of our research stations with a different crew. Then soon after that, the same ship becomes a burned-out derelict in an iceberg with the remains of Fyrie and the original crew on board. The more I dwell on it, the more I kick myself for not catching that Air Force jet to Tyler Field."