Clive Cussler: Iceberg

Pitt did a juggling act with the binoculars and the helicopter's controls while fighting to keep the engine vibration from jiggling the iceberg out of focus.

"Can you make out the red dye?" Hunnewell asked anxiously.

"Like a stripe of strawberry in the middle of a scoop of vanilla ice cream."

"I can't understand it." Hunnewell shook his head.

"That berg shouldn't be there. By every known law of current and drift, it should be floating at least ninety miles to the southeast."

But it was there, resting on the sharp horizon line, a massive towering hunk of ice, beautifully carved by nature, grotesquely marred by manmade chemicals. Before Pitt could lower the binoculars, the ice crystals on the berg caught the sun and reflected the brilliance into his eyes, the intensity blasting through the lenses. Temporarily blinded, he gained altitude and altered course a few degrees to remove the glare. It was nearly a full minute before the skyrockets behind his eyeballs finally faded away.

Then suddenly Pitt became aware of a dun, almost imperceptible shadow in the water. He hardly had time to distinguish the dark shape as the helicopter skimmed over the blue swells, not three hundred feet beneath the landing skids. The iceberg was still a good seven miles away when he swung around in a great half circle toward the east and the Catawaba.

"What in hell's the matter with you?" Hunnewell demanded.

Pitt ignored the question. "I'm afraid we have uninvited guests."

"Nonsense! There isn't a ship or another aircraft in sight."

"They're coming to the party through the basement."

Hunnewell's eyebrows raised questioningly. Then he slowly slumped back in the seat. "A submarine?"

"A submarine."

"It is quite possible it may be one of ours."

"Sorry, Dog that's wishful thinking."

"Then the Russians beat us to it." Hunnewell's Mouth twisted. "Dear God, we're too late."

"Not yet." Pitt turned the helicopter into another circling arc, this time back toward the iceberg. "We can be standing on the ice in four minutes. It will take the sub at least a half hour to reach the berg. With any luck we can find what we came for and get the hell out before their crew lands."

"That's cutting it a bit fine." Hunnewell didn't sound very confident. "When the Russians see us run. 9 about on the berg, they won't come unarmed, you know?"

"I'd be surprised if they didn't. Actually, the captain of that Russian sub has enough weapons at his command to blast us to pieces anytime he has the inclination. But I'm betting he won't take the chance."

"What has he got to lose?"

"Nothing. But he gains the repercussions of a mr-e fat international incident. Any commander worth a ruble in his position will be certain we're in constant radio contact with our home base, notifying them of his sub's position and ready to scream bloody murder at the first shot. This side of the Atlantic is our stomping grounds, and he knows it. He's too far from Moscow to play the role of a block bully."

"All right, all right," Hunnewell said. "Go ahead and set us down. I suppose even getting shot at is better than sitting another minute in this tooth-jarring niixmaster."

Pitt said no more. He made the approach and set the helicopter down without any difficulty on a small flat area of ice no more than twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide. Then, before the rotor blades had come to a final stop, he and Hunnewell jumped from the cockpit and stood on the silent iceberg wondering when the Russian submarine would surface, wondering what they would find beneath the shroud of ice that separated them from the cold unfriendly waters. They could see no life, feel no life. Their cheeks were touched lightly by a frigid breeze, but apart from that there was nothing, nothing at all.

The tense minutes passed in total silence, minutes before Pitt could bring himself to say anything that was important. When at last he did, his voice sounded to him like a vague whisper. y whisper? he thought.

Hunnewell was probing the ice thirty feet away, the Russian submarine, now riding motionless on the surface, lay a quarter of a mile from the northern edge of the iceberg. Finally, Pitt managed to attract Hunnewell's attention with a voice that was still hushed by the cathedral-like silence.

"Time's running out, Doc." It still seemed he might be overheard, though the Russians couldn't have picked UP his words had he shouted at the top of his voice.

"I'm not blind," Hunnewell snapped. "How long before they get here?"

"By the time they set a dinghy in the water, row in from the sub and step ashore-four hundred yards if it's an inch-it'll take-them between fifteen and twenty minutes."

"We've no damned time to lose," Hunnewell said impatiently.

"Any luck yet?"

"Nothing!" Hunnewell boomed back. "The derelict must be deeper than I thought." He rami-ned the probe feverishly into the ice. "It's here; it's got to be here. A hundred-and-twenty-five-foot vessel couldn't have disappeared."

"Maybe the Coast Guard saw a phantom ship.

Hunnewell paused to adjust his sunglasses. "The ice patrol crew might have been fooled by their eyes, but not by their radar equipment."

Pitt moved closer to the open door of the helicopter. His gaze swung to Hunnewell, then back to the sub, and a second later he was peering through the binoculars. He studied the tiny figures that were erupting from the hatches of the low-silhouetted submarine and scrambling hurriedly across the sea-splashed deck. In less than three minutes, a large six-man dinghy was inrated, dropped beside the hull and boarded by a group of men carrying an assortment of automatic weapons.

Then an indistinct popping sound came over the rolling blue water.

The sound was enough-enough for Pitt to drastically cut his original time estimate.

"They're coming. Five, maybe six of them; can't tell for sure."

"Are they armed?" Hunnewell's query sounded urgent. "To the teeth."

"My God, man!" Hunnewell shouted irritably.

"Don't just stand there and gawk. Help me search for the derelict."

"Forget it." Pitts tone was unhurried. "They'll be here in another five minutes."

"Five minutes? You said-"

"I didn't count on their dinghy having an outboard motor."

Hunnewell stared stricken at the submarine. "How did the Russians find out about the derelict? How could they have possibly known the location?"

"No great feat," Pitt answered. "One of their KGB agents in Washington undoubtedly got hold of the Coast Guard's sighting report-it's hardly a classified secret-and then dispatched every fishing trawler and submarine they had in this part of the Atlantic to search the ice field. It's an unfortunate coincidence for us, but a lucky one for them that we both discovered the iceberg at the same moment."

"It looks as if we've thrown the ball game," Hunnewell said bleakly. "They've won, and we've lost.

Dammit, if we could only locate the derelict's hull, we could at least destroy it with thermite bombs and keep it out of the Russians' hands."

"To the victor goes the spoils," Pitt murmured. "All one million tons of the finest, purest, genuine Greenland ice in the Atlantic Ocean."

Hunnewell was puzzled, but said nothing. Pitts apparent indifference made no sense.

"Tell me, Dog" Pitt continued. "What's today's date?"

"The date?" Hunnewell said dazedly. "It's Wednesday, March twenty-eighth."

"We're early," Pitt said. "Three days early for April Fools'Day."

Hunnewell's voice was flat and hard. "This is hardly the, time or place for levity."

"Why not? Somebody's played a tremendous joke on us and on those clowns out there." Pitt gestured toward the rapidly approaching landing party. "You, 1, the Russians, we're all starring in the greatest laugh riot ever to hit the North Atlantic. The climax of the final act comes when we all learn that there is no derelict in this iceberg." He paused to exhale a cloud of smoke.