Clive Cussler: Iceberg

"Partly for the same reason I'm standing here in this ridiculous wolf suit," Pitt said grimly. "I volunteered for your little manhunt for two reasons. One, I've got a score to even with Rondheim and Kelly, no more, no less.

Second, I'm still Special Projects Director for NUMA, and as such, my primary duty is to obtain the plans for Fyrie's undersea mineral probe. That's why I conned Kirsti-she knows where the blueprints are hidden. Boy something I shouldn't have, it gave me a wedge, to her."

Kippmann nodded. "Now I understand." He sat on a desk and toyed with a letter opener.

I have Kelly and his group in custody, I'll r to you and Admiral Sandecker for quesgood enough," Pitt snapped. "If you want my cooperation as an identifying witness, then promise me a few minutes alone with Rondheim-And full and complete custody of Kirsti Fyrie."

"Impossible!"

"What does Rondheim's future physical condition mean to you?"

"If I turned my back so you could kick him in the teeth, I couldn't let you have Kirsti Fyrie."

"You could," Pitt said positively. "Mostly because she isn't yours to give. If you're lucky, you might pin an accomplice charge on her. But that might strain our relations with Iceland, in event that wouldn't make our State Department exactly jump for joy."

"You're wasting your breath," Kippmann said impatiently. "She will be convicted of murder along with all the rest."

"Yours is not to convict, yours is to apprehend and arrest." Kippmann shook his head. "You don't understand-" He broke off as the door opened wide. Lazard stood framed in the doorway, his face ashen.

Kippmann stared at him curiously. "Dan, what is it?" Lazard wiped his brow and slumped into an empty chair. "De Croix and Castile have suddenly changed their planned excursion. They've shaken their escort and disappeared somewhere in the park. God only knows what can happen before we find them."

Frowning, baffled, Kippmann's face expressed a moment of utter uncomprehension. "Christ!" he exploded. "How could it happen? How could you lose them with half the federal agents in the state guarding their party?"

"There are twenty thousand people out there in the park right this minute," Lazard tone. "It doesn't take any great magician to replace two of them. feat of cleverness to Croix and Castile bitched. He shrugged helplessly. "Deal about our heavy security precautions from the second they stepped through the main gate. They went to the john together and gave us the slip by ducking out a side window, just like a pair of kids."

Pitt stood up. "Quickly, do you have their tour and scheduled stops?"

Lazard stared at him for a moment. "Yes, here, each amusement and exhibit and their time schedules." He handed Pitt a Xeroxed sheet of paper.

Pitt rapidly glanced at the schedule. Then a slow grin cut his face as he turned to Kippmann. "You'd better send me into the game, coach."y 'Major," Kippmann said unhappily. "I have the feeling I'm about to be blackmailed.

"As they say during campus riots, why won't you meet our demands?"

The slump of Kippmann's shoulders displayed as sure a sign of defeat as if he'd waved a white flag. He stared at Pitt. The eyes that stared back were disconcertingly steady.

Kippmann nodded. "Rondheim and Miss Fyrie are yours- They're staying in the Disneyland Hotel across the street. Adjoining rooms, 605 and 607."

"And Kelly, Marks, Von Hummel and the rest?"

"They're all there- Hermit Limited reserved the entire sixth floor." Kippmann rubbed his face uncomfortably. "Just what do you have in mind?"

"Rest easy. Five minutes with Rondheim. Then You can have him. Kirsti Fyrie I keep. Call her a little bonus from the N.I.A. too. Kippmann gave up completely. "You win. Now where are De Croix and Castile?"

"The obvious." Pitt smiled at Kippmann and Lazard.

The most obvious place where any two men who passed their childhood near the Spanish Main would head."

"God, you've hit it," Lazard said almost bitterly.

"The last stop on the schedule-The Pirates of the Caribbean."

Next to the cleverly engineered apparitions in the Disneyland Haunted House, The Pirates of the Caribbean is the most popular attraction in the world-famous park. Constructed on two underground levels that occupy nearly two acres'. the quarter-of-a-mile boat ride carries awed passengers through a maze of tunnels and vast rooms decorated as roving pirate ships and pillaged seaside towns, manned by almost a hundred lifelike figures that not only match the best of Madame Tussaud's, but who also sing, dance and loot.

Pitt was the last one up the entrance ramp to the landing where the attendants assist the paying customers into the boats at the start of the fifteen-minute excursion. The fifty or sixty people waiting in line waved to Pitt and made smiling remarks about his costume as he made his way behind Kippmann and Lazard. He waved back, wondering what the expressions on their faces would be if he were to suddenly whip off his wolf's mask and display his bandaged face. He could see at least ten small children who would never again want the Three Little Pigs read at bedtime.

Lazard grasped the managing attendant by the arm. "Quickly. you must stop the boats."

The attendant, a blond, lanky boy no more than twenty years of age, simply stood there in mute uncomprehension.

Lazard, obviously a man who disliked wasted conversation, moved hurriedly across the landing to the controls, disengaged the underwater traction chain that pulled the excursion boats, set the handbrake and turned to face the stunned boy again.

"Two men, two men together, have they taken the ride?"

"Don't know for sure, sir. There… there's been so many. I can't recall them all-" Kippmann stepped in front of Lazard and showed the boy the photographs of Castile and De Croix. "Do you recognize these men?"

The boy's eyes widened. "Yes, sir, now I remember." Then a frown spread across his youthful face.

"But they weren't alone. There were two other men with them."

"Four!" Kippmann shouted, turning about thirty heads. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir." The boy nodded his head violently.

"I'm positive. The boat holds eight people. The first four seats held a man and woman with two kids. The men in the photographs took the rear seats with two other men."

Pitt arrived just then, his breath coming in short pants, his hand clutching the handrail as he fought off the pain and exhaustion. "Was one of them a big guy with a bald head, hairy hands? A-nd the other, red-faced with a huge mustache and shgulders like an ape?"

The boy stared dumbly for a moment at Pitts disguise. Then his expression took on a half smile "You hit them exactly. A real pair. Like tough-looking Mutt and Jeff characters."

Pitt turned to Kippmann and Lazard. "Gentlemen," he said, his voice slightly muffled under the rubber wolf's head, "I think we've just missed our boat."

"For God's sake!" Kippmann murmured in exasperation. "We can't just stand here."

"No." Lazard shook his head. "We can't do that."

He nodded at the boy. "Call extension 309. Tell whoever answers that Lazard has relocated the missing party in The Pirates of the Caribbean. Tell them it's a red situation-the hunters are in there too." He turned back to Kippmann and Pitt. "The three of us can work along the catwalks and the backdrops until we reach them, and only hope we're not too late."

"How many boats ago did they board?" Pitt asked the boy.

The dazed boy could only stammer. "I… "Ten, maybe twelve. They should be sitting about between the building and — "

"This way!" Lazard almost snapped the words.

He disappeared through a doorway at the end of the landing marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

As they moved into the blackness that cloaked the mechanical workings of the pirates, the sound of voices from the passengers of the stalled boats could be beard murmuring throughout the cavernous amusement ride.