Clive Cussler - Iceberg

"What is it doing here? Rondheim surely can't be hard up for dock space."

"Who cares," Pitt said, a wide grin stretching his features. "As long as the keys are in the ignition, I suggest we take it and run before the guard changes his mind." The admiral needed no persuasion. When it came to indulging in devious games to achieve-in his mind-an honest purpose, he was sneaky to a fault.

Squaring his battered hat, he lost no time in issuing the first order of his new command.

"Cast off the lines, Major. I'm anxious to see what these Sterlings can do."

Precisely one minute later, the guard came running down the pier waving his arms like a crazy man. It was too late. Pitt stood on the deck and waved back good naturedly as Sandecker, happy as a child with a new toy, gunned the engines and steered the deceptivelooking boat out into Reykjavik harbor.

The boat was named The Grimsi, and her tiny squared wheelhouse, perched just five feet from the stern, made her look as though she rode in the opposite direction than her builder had intended when he laid her keel. She was a very old boat-as old as the antique compass mounted beside the helm. Her mahogany deck planks were worn smooth, but still lay strong and true, and smelled strongly of the sea. At the pier she had looked an old ungainly bathtub from her broadbeamed, stubby shape, but when the mighty Sterlings mumbled through their exhaust, her bow lifted from the water like a sea gull soaring into the wind. She seemed to delight in being carried along without effort or trouble in a buoyant sort of way.

Sandecker eased the throttles back a notch above idle and took The Grimsi on a slow, leisurely tour of Reykjavik harbor. The admiral might have been standing on the bridge of a battle cruiser from the regulation smile on his face. He was back in his element, and he was enjoying every minute of it. To an interested observer his passengers looked like ordinary tourists on a chartered cruise-Tidi sunning herself and aiming a camera at everything in sight, and Pitt drawing furiously on a sketch pad. Before leaving the harbor they tied up at a bait boat and purchased two buckets of herring.

Then, after an animated conversation with the bait fishermen, they cast off and headed toward the sea.

As soon as they rounded a rocky point and lost sight of the harbor, Sandecker eased open the throttles and slowly pushed The Grimsi to 30 knots. it was a strange sight indeed to see the ungainly hull skipping over the waves like a Gold Cup hydroplane. The waves began to melt together as The Grimsi increased speed and lost them behind her swirling wake. Pitt found a chart of the coast and laid it on a small shelf beside Sandecker.

"It's right about here." Pitt tapped a spot on the map with a pencil. "Twenty miles southeast of Keflavik."

Sandecker nodded. "An hour and a half, no more. Not the way she moves. Take a look. The throttles are still a good two inches from their stops."

"The weather looks perfect. I hope it holds."

"No clouds in any direction. It's usually calm around the southern end of Iceland this time of year. The worst we can look forward to is meeting a bit of fog. It usually rolls in during the late afternoon."

Pitt sat down, propped his feet on the doorway and gazed out at the rocky coastline. "At least we don't have to worry about fuel."

"What do the gauges read?"

"About two-thirds full."

Sandecker's mind clicked like a Burroughs adding machine. "Ample for our purpose. No reason to conserve, particularly since Rondheim is footing the bill."

With a smug, satisfied expression on his face, he jammed the throttles against their stops.

The Grimsi sat down on her stern and took off across the blue wrinkled sea, her bow splitting two giant sheets of spray. Sandecker's timing left something to be desired. Tidi was cautiously climbing the ladder from the galley, balancing a tray laden with three cups of coffee when the admiral opened up the Sterlings. The sudden acceleration caught her totally off guard and the tray flew into the air and she vanished into the galley as though jerked backward by an invisible hand. Neither Pitt nor Sandecker caught the vaudevillian fall.

Thirty seconds later she reappeared in the wheelhouse, her head thrown back in anger. her hair stringy with dampness, her blouse stained brown by coffee.

"Admiral James Sandecker," she shouted, the highpitched voice drowning out the roar of the Sterlings.

"When we get back to our hotel, you can just add the cost of a new blouse and a trip to the hairdresser on your expense account."

Sandecker and Pitt stared at Tidi and then at each other in utter uncomprehension. "I could have scalded myself into a hospital," Tidi continued. "If you want me to act as your stewardess on this voyage, I suggest you show a little more consideration." With that, she whirled and disappeared into the galley.

Sandecker's eyebrows came together. "What in hell was that all about?"

Pitt shrugged. "Women rarely offer an explanation."

"She's too young for menopause," Sandecker mumbled. "Must be on her period."

Mentally applauding, Pitt said, "Either way, it's going to cost you a blouse and a ' Tidi's hairdo."

It took Tidi ten minutes to make another small pot of coffee. Considering the dip of The Grimsi's keel as it soared over and smacked the crests of the swells, it was a professional feat of dexterity that she managed to climb into the wheelhouse without spilling a drop from the three cups she clutched with dogged determination.

Pitt couldn't help smiling as he sipped the coffee and watched the indigo blue water pass under the old boat.

Then he thought of Hunnewell, of Fyrie, of Matajic, of O'Riley, and he wasn't smiting any longer.

He still wasn't smiling as he watched the stylus the fathometer's graph zigzag across the paper, measuring the sea floor. The bottom showed at one hundred and thirty feet. He wasn't smiling now because somewhere down there in the depths was an airplane with a dead crew, and he had to find it. If luck played into his hands, the fathometer would register an irregular hump on its chart.

He took his cross bearings on the cliffs and hoped for the best.

"Are you sure of your search pattern?" Sandecker asked.

"Twenty percent certain, eighty percent guesswork," Pitt answered.

"I could have lowered the odds if I had the Ulysses as a checkpoint."

"Sorry, I didn't know yesterday what you had in mind. My formal request for salvage was acted upon only a few hours after you crashed. The Air Force airsea rescue squadron on Keflavik picked your craft out of the surf with one of their giant helicopters. You have to give them credit. They're an efficient lot."

"Their eagerness is going to cost us," Pitt said.

Sandecker paused to make a course change. "Have you checked the diving gear?"

"Yes, it's all accounted for. Remind me to buy those State Department people at the consulate a drink when we get back. Dressing up and playing bait fishermen took a bit of doing on such short notice.

To anyone gawking through a pair of navy binoculars it could have only looked like an innocent encounter. The diving gear was slipped on board so smoothly and inconspicuously while you were going through the routine of bait buying that I almost missed detecting the transfer from ten feet away."

"I don't like the action. Diving alone invites danger, and danger invites death. I'll have you know I'm not in the habit of going against my own orders and allowing one of my men to dive in unknown waters without the proper precautions." Sandecker shifted from one foot to the other. He was going against his better judgment, and the discomfort showed clearly in his expression. "What do you hope to find down there besides a broken airplane and bloated bodies? How do you know someone hasn't already beaten us to it?"