Clive Cussler - Iceberg

He keeps twitching and ruining any chance for a neat stitch job." Jonsson winked and then spoke in Icelandic. "These Americans are like children when it comes to pain."

The fraudulent policeman laughed and nudged the doctor with his elbow. Then he walked around in front of Pitt, bent down and gripped Pitts head with both hands on the temples. "Come, come, Major Pitt, a few stitches are nothing. What if the good doctor had to amputate your-" It was all over in less than four seconds-silently.

With seeming indifference and nonchalance, Pitt reached up his hands and grabbed the blond man around the wrists. Surprise showed for a brief instant in the stranger's face, then true shock as Jonsson clamped a heavy gauze pad over his mouth and jammed a syringe against his neck in the same movement. ne shock gave way to terror, and he moaned in his throat, a moan that could not be heard because Pitt was loudly cursing Jonsson for a nonexistent sewing operation. The eyes above the white gauze began to lose focus, and the man made a desperate effort to hurl himself backward, but his wrists were held solidly in the vise of Pitts grip.

Then the eyes turned upward and he quietly collapsed into Jonsson's arms.

Pitt quickly knelt down and pulled a service revolver from the unconscious man's belt holster and stepped softly to the door. As soundless as he was swift, he lined up the gun and jerked open the door, swinging it all the way to its stop. For a second the touth-looking brute with the spectacles sat there in stunned immobility, staring at Pitt in the doorway. Then his hand shot to his holster.

"Freeze!" Pitt ordered.

The command was ignored, and a shot blasted through the small waiting room. There are many who claim the hand is quicker than the eye, but there are few who will take the stand that the hand is quicker than a speeding bullet. The gun flew from the bogus policeman's hand as Pitts shell tore into the wooden grip, taking a thumb along with it.

Never before had Pitt seen such dazed uncomprehension and shocked 1). in the paid killer stared at the bloody half-inch stump where his thumb had been. Pitt made to lower his gun, but raised and aimed it again as he caught the look on his opponent's face-mouth tightened to a thin white line, black hatred glaring out from the squinting eyes behind the glasses.

"Shoot me, Major, quickly, cleanly here!" He tapped his chest with his uninjured hand.

"Well, well, so you speak English. My compliments, you never gave me the slightest hint that you understood any of the conversation."

"Shoot me!" The words seemed to echo in the little room and in Pitts ears for an interminable time.

"Why rush things? There's every possibility you'll hang for murdering Sergeant Amarson anyway." Pitt pulled the hammer of the revolver back for single-action g. "I take it I'm safe in assuming you did kill?"

"Yes, the sergeant is dead. Now please do the same for me." The eyes were cold, yet pleading.

"You're pretty anxious to get yourself planted."

Jonsson looked but said nothing. Totally off balance, he struggled to graspr a new set of circumstances, a complete reversal of all his previous values. As a doctor, he couldn't just stand there and watch an injured man bleed profusely without aid.

"Let me take care of the hand," Jonsson volunteered.

"Stay behind me and don't move," Pitt said. "Any man who wants to die is more dangerous than a cornered rat."

"But good Lord, man, you cannot stand there and gloat over his pain," Jonsson protested.

Pitt ignored Jonsson. "Okay, four eyes, I'll make a deal with you. The next bullet goes through your heart if you tell me the name of the man who pays your salary."

The animal-like eyes behind the glasses never left Pitts face. He shook his head silently and said nothing.

"This isn't wartime, friend. You're not betraying your god or country. Loyalty to an employer is hardly worth your life."

"You will kill me, Major. I shall make you kill me." He advanced toward Pitt.

"I'll give you credit," Pitt said. "You're a persistent bastard."

He pulled the trigger and the revolver roared again, the.38 bullet smashing into the burly character's left leg just above the knee.

Rarely had Pitt seen such disbelief in a human face. The paid killer slowly sank to the floor, his left hand clutching his torn left leg, trying to stem the blood flow, his right hand lying motionless on the tile, surrounded by a growing pool of red.

It seems our friend has nothing to say," Pitt said.

He pulled back the hammer to fire again.

"Please do not kill him," Jonsson pleaded. "His life is not worth the burden on your soul. I beg you, Major, let me have the gun. He can cause no further harm."

Pitt hesitated several moments, torn between compassion and revenge. Then, slowly, he handed the revolver to Jonsson and nodded. Jonsson took it and put his hand on Pitts shoulder as if in secret understanding.

"I am heartbroken that countrymen of mine should cause so much grief and pain to so many," the doctor said with weariness in his voice. "I will take care of these two and contact the authorities immediately. You go with Mundsson to Reykjavik and rest. You have a nasty-looking head wound, but it won't prove serious unless You aggravate it. Stay in bed for at least two days. That is a direct order from your doctor."

"There appears to be a slight obstacle to your prescription." Pitt smiled crookedly and pointed through the front doorway. "You were one hundred percent correct about creating excitement in the village." He nodded in the direction of the road where at least twenty villagers stood silently holding every type of weapon from telescopic rifles to small-bore shotguns, all aimed steadily at the door of Jonsson's cottage. Mundsson was resting his gun easily in the crook of one arm, one foot solidly on the second doorstep, his son Biarni slightly off to one side with an old Mauser bolt-action rifle.

Pitt held both hands out where they could easily be seen. "I think now is an appropriate time, Doctor, to give me a recommendation. 'nese good townspeople aren't sure who plays the good guys or the bad guys."

Jonsson stepped past Pitt and spoke for several minutes in Icelandic. When he finished, the guns began to lower one by one and several of the villagers drifted toward their homes while a few lingered on the road to await further developments. Jonsson extended his hand, and Pitt gripped it.

"I fervently hope you meet with success in finding the man responsible for the terrible number of senseless murders," Jonsson said. "If you should meet him, I fear for your life. You are not a killer. If you were, two men would lie dead in my home. Your concern for life, I fear, will be your defeat. I beg you, my friend, do not hesitate when the moment arrives. God and luck go with you."

Pitt threw a last salute at Dr. Jonsson and turned and stepped down the front steps to the road. Bjarni held the passenger door of the Land Rover open for him. The seat was firm and the backrest stiff, but Pitt could not have cared less; his entire body was numb. He sat there as Mundsson started the engine and shifted through the gears, steering the truck over a stretch of smooth, narrow pavement toward Reykjavik. Pitt could have easily drifted off into a dead sleep, but somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind a spark refused to go out. Something that he saw, something that was said, an undistinguishable something refused to let his mind slow down and rest. It was like a song he couldn't quite recall whose title was on the tip of his tongue.

Finally, he gave it up and dozed off.

Time after time, the exact number became lost, Pitt struggled up from the bottom of the rolling surf and staggered onto the beach dragging Hunnewell. Time after time, he bandaged the oceanographer's arm only to slide into darkness again. Desperately, every time the event ran through his brain like an image from a film projector, he tried to hang onto those fleeting moments of consciousness, only to lose out to the inevitable fact that nothing can change the past. It was a nightmare, he thought vaguely as he tried to tear himself away from the bloodstained beach. He gathered his strength and with a mighty effort forced his eyes open, expecting to see an empty bedroom. The bedroom was there all right, but it wasn't empty.