Clive Cussler: Iceberg

"While I explain our presence, I must ask you to set an immediate course for this position."

Koski took the paper without reading its contents.

"Forgive me, Dr. Hunnewell, I am not in a position to grant your request. The only order I have from the Commandant's Headquarters is to take aboard two passengers. Nothing was mentioned about giving you carte blanche to run my ship."

"You don't understand."

Koski stared piercingly over his coffee mug at Hunnewell. "That, Doctor, is the understatement of the day. Just what is your capacity? Why are you here?"

"Put your mind at ease, Commander. I'm not an enemy agent out to sabotage your precious ship. My PhD. is in oceanography, and I'm currently employed by the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

"No offense," Koski said equably. "But that still leaves one question unanswered."

"Perhaps I can help clear the air." The new voice came soft but firm with an authoritative resonance.

Koski stiffened in his chair and turned to a figure who leaned negligently against the doorway-a tall, well-proportioned figure. The oak-tanned face, the hard, almost cruel features, the penetrating green eyes suggested that this wasn't a man to step on. Clad in a blue Air Force flight jacket and uniform, watchful yet detached, he offered Koski a condescending grin.

"Ah, there you are," Hunnewell said loudly.

"Commander Koski, may I present Major Dirk Pitt, Special Projects Director for NUMA."

"Pitt?" Koski echoed flatly. He glanced at Dover and lifted an eyebrow. Dover only shrugged and looked uncomfortable. "By any chance the same Pitt who broke up that underwater smuggling business in Greece last year?"

"There were at least ten other people who deserve the lion's share of the credit," Pitt said.

"An Air Force officer working in oceanogaphic programs," said Dover, "a little out of your element, aren't you, Major?"

The lines around Pitts eyes etched into a smile.

"No more than all the Navy men who have gone to the moon.

"You have a valid point," Koski conceded.

Brady appeared and served the coffee and cocoa.

He left and returned again, setting down a tray of sandwiches before retreating for the last time.

Koski began to feel uneasy in earnest now. A scientist from a prominent government agency-not good.

An officer in another branch of the service with a reputation for dangerous escapades-bad news. But the combination of the two, sitting there on the other side of the table telling him what to do and where to goabsolute plague.

"As I was saying, Commander," Hunnewell said impatiently. "We must get to that position I gave you as quickly as possible."

"No," Koski said bluntly. "I'm sorry if my attitude seems hard-nosed, but you must agree, I'm perfectly within my rights in refusing your demands. As captain of this ship, the only orders I'm obliged to obey come from either Coast Guard District Headquarters in New York or the Commandant's office in Washington." He paused to pour-himself another cup of coffee. "And my orders were to take on two passengers, nothing more. I have obeyed, and now I'm resuming my original patrol course."

Pitts eyes weighed Koski's granite features as a metallurgist might test a shaft of high-grade steel, probing for a flaw.

Suddenly he straightened up and cautiously walked over to the galley door and glanced in. Brady was busy pouring a bulky sack of potatoes into a huge steaming pot. Then Pitt, still cautiously, turned and scrutinized the alleyway outside the messroom. He could see his little game was working; Koski and Dover were exchanging confused looks between taking in his movements. Finally, seeming satisfied there were no eavesdroppers, Pitt moved to the table and sat down, leaning close to the two Coast Guard officers, lowering his voice to a murmur.

"Okay, gentlemen, here's the story. The position Dr. Hunnewell gave you is the approximate location of an extremely important iceberg."

Koski colored slightly, but managed to keep a straight face. "And what, if I may ask without sounding stupid, Major, do you class as an important iceberg?"

Pitt paused for effect. "One that has the remains of a ship imbedded under its mantle. A Russian trawler, to be exact, crammed with the latest and most sophisticated electronic detection gear Soviet science has yet devised. Not to mention the codes and data for their entire Western Hemisphere surveillance program."

Koski didn't even blink. Without taking his eyes off Pitt, he took a pouch from under his jacket and calmly began loading his corncob.

"Six months ago," Pitt continued, "a Russian traller, bearing the name Novgorod, rode just a few mil off the Greenland coast and kept watching other activities at the U.S. Air Force missile base on Disko Island.

Aerial photographs showed that the Novgorod carried every electronic reception antenna in the book, and then some. The Russians played it cool, the trawler and crew, thirty-five highly trained men, and yes, women too never strayed within Greenland's territorial limits.

She even got to be a welcome sight to our pilots, who used her as a checkpoint during poor weather. Most Russian spy ships are relieved of duty every thirty days, but this one maintained its position for a solid three months. The Department of Naval Intelligence began to wonder at the long delay. Then one stormy morning, the Novgorod was gone. It was nearly three weeks before her relief ship appeared. This time lag compounded the mystery-the Russians, up to then, had never broken their habit of relieving a spy ship until another one appeared on station."

Pitt paused to tap his cigarette in an ashtray.

"There are only two routes the Novgorod would have taken home to mother Russia. One was to Leningrad via the Baltic Sea, and the other was through the Barnets Sea to Murmansk. The British and Norwegians have assured us the Novgorod took neither. In short, somewhere between Greenland and the European coast, the Novgorod disappeared with all hands."

Koski put down his mug and stared thoughtfully at its stained bottom. "It strikes me a bit strange that the Coast Guard was never notified. I know for a fact that we've received no report of a missing Russian trawler."

"It struck Washington a bit strange too. Why would the Russians keep the Novgorod's loss a secret? The only logical answer is they didn't want any trace of their most advanced spy ship found by a Western nation."

Koski's lips twisted in a sarcastic grin. "You're asking me to buy a Soviet spy ship locked in an iceberg?

Come now, Major, I gave up on fairy tales when I discovered there was no Oz over the rainbow or a pot of gold under it."

Pitt matched Koski's grin. "Be that as it may, it was olie of your own patrol planes that spotted a ship matching the outline of a trawler in an iceberg at 47036'N-43017'W."

"It's true," Koski said coldly, "the Catawaba is the closest rescue ship to that position, but why haven't my orders to check it out come direct from District Command in New York?"

"Cloak and dagger stuff," Pitt answered. "The last thing the boys in Washington wanted was a public announcement going out over the radio. Fortunately, the pilot of the aircraft who spotted the berg waited until he landed before making a detailed location report. The idea, of course, is to go over the trawler before the Russians have a chance to catch on. I think you can appreciate, Commander, how invaluable any secret information concerning the Soviet spy fleet is to our government."

"It would seem more practical to place investigators on the iceberg who are skilled in electronics and intelligence interpretation." The subtle change in Koski's tone could hardly be called a softening, but it was there. "If you don't mind my saying so, a pilot and an oceanographer don't make sense."