Clive Cussler - Iceberg

"The connection is the boat we're standing on."

"You'll have to do better than that," Sandecker said impatiently.

Pitt sat down on a bench over a life preserver locker and lit a cigarette. "The best plans of mice and men. Rondheim planned well, but he overlooked the thousand-to-one chance that we would swipe his boat.

We wondered why The Grimsi was tied to the Fyrie dock… It was there to follow us. Shortly after we were to cast off and begin cruising the harbor in the luxury of the cabin cruiser, his crew would have appeared on the dock and eased this nondescript fishing boat into our wake to keep an eye on us. If we had acted suspiciously once we were at sea, there'd have been no way to shake them. The cabin cruiser's top speed probably stands near twenty knots. We know The Grimsi's to be closer to forty."

"The expressions on a few faces must have been priceless," Sandecker said, smiling.

"Panic undoubtedly reigned for a while," Pitt agreed, "until Rondheim could figure out an alternate plan. I give him credit, he's a smart bastard. He's been more suspicious of our actions than we thought. Still, he wasn't completely sure of what we were up to. The clincher came when we borrowed the wrong boat quite by accident. After the shock wore off, he guessed, mistakenly, that we were wise to him and took it on purpose to screw him up. But he now knew where we were headed."

"The black jet," Sandecker said positively. "Feed us to the fish after we pinpointed its exact position.

That was the idea?"

Pitt shook his head. "I don't think it was his original intention to eliminate us. We had him fooled on the diving equipment. He assumed we would try to find the wreck from the surface and then come back later for the underwater recovery."

"What changed his mind?"

"The lookout on the beach."

"But where did he pop from?"

"Reykjavik by car." Pitt inhaled and held the smoke before letting it out and continuing. "Having us tailed by air was no problem except that eventually losing us in an Icelandic fog bank was a foregone conclusion. He simply ordered one of his men to drive across the Keflavik peninsula and wait for us to show. When we obliged, the lookout followed us along the coast road and stopped when we anchored. Everything looked innocent enough through his binoculars, but like Rondheim, we took too much for granted and overlooked one minor point."

"We couldn't have," Sandecker protested. "Every precaution was considered. Whoever was watching would have needed the Mount Palomar telescope to tell Tidi was masquerading in your clothes."

"True. But if the sun caught them where they broke surface, any Japanese seven by fifty glasses could have picked up my air bubbles."

"Damn!" Sandecker snapped. "They're hardly noticeable close up, but at a distance in a calm sea with the sun just right-" He hesitated.

"The lookout then contacted Rondheim by radiophone in his car, most likely-and told him we were diving on the wreck. Rondheim's back was to the wall now. We had to be stopped before we discovered something vital to his game. He had to lay his hands on a boat capable of matching The Grimsi's speed and then some. Enter the hydroplane."

"And the something vital to his game?" Sandecker probed.

"We know now it wasn't the aircraft or its crew.

All trace of identity was erased. That leaves the cargo."

"The models?"

"The models," Pitt repeated. "They represent more than just a hobby. They have a definite purpose."

"And how do you intend to find out what in hell they're good for?"

"Simple." Pitt grinned cunningly. "Rondheim will tell us. We drop them off with the consulate boys on the bait boat and then we sail right up to the Fyrie dock as if nothing happened. Rondheim will be so hungry to know if we've discovered anything. I'm counting on him to make a careless move. Then we'll shove it to him where it hurts most."

It was four o'clock when they tied up to the Fyrie dock.

The ramp was deserted, the dockmaster and the guard obvious by their absence. Pitt and Sandecker weren't fooled. They knew their every move had been studied the second The Grimsi rounded the harbor breakwater.

Before he followed Tidi and Sandecker away from the forlorn and battered little boat, Pitt left a note on the helm.

SORRY ABOUT THE MESS. WE WERE ATTACKED BY A SWARM OF RED-NECKED FUZZWORTS. PUT THE REPAIRS ON OUR TAB.

He signed it Admiral James Sandecker.

Twenty minutes later they reached the consulate.

The young staff members who played such professional roles as bait fishermen beat them by five minutes and had already locked the two models away in the consul's vault. Sandecker thanked them warmly and promised to replace the diving gear Pitt had been forced to jettison with the best that U.S. Divers manufactured.

Pitt then quickly showered and changed clothes and took a taxi to the airport at Keflavik.

His black Volvo cab soon left the smokeless, city behind. its meter humming headed onto the narrow — asphalt belt that was the coastal road to the Keflavik airport. To his right stretched the Atlantic, at this moment as blue as the Aegean waters of the Grecian Isles. The wind was rising off the sea, and he could see a small fleet of fishing boats running for the harbor, pushed by the relentless swells. His left side took in the green countryside, rolling in an uneven furrowed pattern, dotted by grazing cattle and Iceland's famous long-maned ponies.

As the beauty of the scenery flashed by, Pitt began to think about the Vikings, those dirty, hard-drinking love-a-fight men who ravaged every civilized shore they set foot on, and who had been romanticized beyond all exaggeration and embellishment in legends handed down through the centuries. They had landed in Iceland, flourished and then disappeared. But the tradition of the Norsemen was not forgotten in Iceland, where the hard, sea-toughened men went out every day in storm or fog to harvest the fish that fed the nation and its economy.

Pitts thoughts were soon jolted back to reality by the voice of the cab driver as they passed through the gates of the airport.

"Do you wish to go to the main terminal, sir?"

"No, the maintenance hangars."

The driver thought a moment. "Sorry, sir. They are on the edge of the field beyond the passenger terminal. Only authorized cars are permitted on the flight line."

There was something about the cab driver's accent that intrigued Pitt. Then it came to him. There was an unmistakable American midwestern quality about it.

"Let's give it a try, shall we?"

The driver shrugged and pulled the cab up to the flight line gate and stopped where a tall, thin, grayhaired man in a blue uniform stepped from the same austere, white-painted guard shack that seemed to sit by gates everywhere. He touched his fingers to his cap brim in a friendly salute. Pitt rolled down the window, leaned out, and showed his Air Force I.D.

"Major Dirk Pitt," he snapped in an official tone, introducing himself. "I'm on urgent business for the United States government and must get to the commercial maintenance hangar for nonscheduled aircraft."

The guard looked at him blankly undl he bed and then, smiling dumbly, shrugged.

The cab driver stepped from behind the steering wheel. "He doesn't understand English, Major. Allow me to translate for you."

Without waiting for an acknowledgment, the driver put an arm around the guard and gently walked him away from the car toward the gate, tag rapidly but gesturing gracefully as he rattled off a flow of words in Icelandic. It was the first chance that Pitt had a good look at his helpmate.

The driver was medium height, just under six foot, not more than twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, with straw-colored hair and the light skin that usually goes with it. If Pitt had passed him on the street, he would have pegged him as a jor assistant executive, three years out of university, eager to make his mark in his father-in-law's bank.