Clive Cussler - Treasure

Ammar paused only long enough to give orders for one of his men to bring up the rear with the prisoners. He set off up the narrow-gauge tracks at a half-run, the other members of his hijacking force trailing behind in single file.

growing fear and uncertainty swelled inside Ammar's mind. If the helicopter was destroyed, there could be no escape, no place to hide on the barren island. The American Special Forces would hunt them down one by one, or leave them either to freeze or starve to death.

Ammar was determined to survive if for no other reason than to kill Yazid and find the devil who was responsible for hounding him to Santa Inez Island and devastating his intricate plans.

The sounds of the battle increased and reverberated down the mountain.

He was panting heavily from the exertion of running uphill, but he gritted his teeth and increased his pace.

Captain Machado was standing in the wheelhouse when he heard, felt, really, the muted detonation on the glacier. He stiffened for a moment, listening, but the only sound was the light tick of a large eight-day clock above the bridge windows.

Then his face suddenly paled. The glacier, he thought, it must be ready to break off.

Machado hurried to the communications room and found one of his men staring dumbly at the teletype.

He looked up blankly at Machado's entr heard an explosion." ance. "I thought I Suspicion unfolded inside Machado's gut. "Have you seen the radioman or the Egyptian leader?"

"I've seen no one."

"No Arabs at all?"

"Not in the past hour." The radar operator paused. "I haven't seen any of them since I left the dining salon and came on duty. They should be guarding the prisoners and patrolling the outside decks, since those are the jobs they stupidly volunteered for."

Machado studied the empty chair at the radio thoughtfully. "Maybe they weren't so stupid."

He stepped to the counter in front of the helm and looked through the narrow view culs in the plastic sheeting directly in front of the bridge windows. There was enough daylight now to clearly see the forward part of the ship.

His eyes found several wide tears in the plastic. Too late he saw the ropes running from the top of the glacier down through the openings. Too late he swung around to voice an alarm over the ship's communication system.

He came to a dead stop before he uttered a sound.

There was a man standing in the doorway.

A man who wore all-black dress; hands and what little face that showed through the ski mask were also blackened. Nightvision goggles hung around his neck. He wore a large bulletproof chest piece with several pockets and clips holding both fragmentation and stun grenades, three murderous-looking knives and a number of other killing devices.

Machado's eyes suddenly squinted. "Who are you?" he demanded, knowing full well he was staring at death.

As he spoke he made a lightning snatch of a nine-millimeter automatic pistol from a shoulder holster and snapped off a shot.

Machado was good. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and Bat Masterson would have been proud of him. His shot struck the intruder square in the center of the chest.

With older bulletproof vests, the pure force behind the blow could snap a rib or stop a heart. The vests worn by the SOF men, however, were the latest state of the art. They could even stop a 308 NATO round and distribute the impact so it left only a bruse.

Dillenger shuddered slightly from the bullet, took one step back and pulled the trigger of his Heckler & Koch, all in the same motion.

Machado wore a vest too, but the older model. Dillenger's burst tore through and riddled his chest. His spine arched like a tightly strung bow and he staggered backward, falling against the Captain's chair before dropping to the deck '

The Mexican guard raised his arms and shouted, "Don't fire! I am unarmed-"

Dillenger's short burst into the throat cut off the Mexican's plea, knocking him into the ship's compass binnacle, where he hung suspended like a limp rag doll.

"Don't move or I'll shoot," Dillenger said belatedly.

Sergeant Foster stepped around the Major and looked down at the dead terrorist. "He's dead, sir."

"I warned him," Dillenger said casually as he slipped another clip into his weapon.

Foster kicked the body over on its stomach with his boot. A long bayonet knife slipped out of a sheath below the collar and rattled on the deck. "Intuition, Major?" asked Foster.

"I never trust a man who says he's unarmed-"

Suddenly Dillenger stopped and listened. Both men heard it at the same time and looked at each other, puzzled.

"What in hell is that?" asked Foster,

"They were a good thirty years before my time, but I'd swear that's a whistle from an old steam locomotive."

"Sounds like it's coming down the mountain from the old mine."

"I thought it was abandoned."

The NUMA people were to wait there until the ship was secure .

"Why would they stoke up an old locomotive?"

"I don't know." Dillenger paused and stared distantly, a sudden certainty growing within him. "Unless . . . they're trying to tell us something."

The detonation on the glacier caught Hollis and The team by surprise.

His team entered the dining salon immediately after a wild shootout.

His dive team had sliced their way through the plastic and found a tight passage between the fake cargo containers. They had passed wanly through a doorway into an empty bar and lounge outside the dining salon, fanned out, dodging pillars and four men covering the stairs and two elevators, and surprised Machado's Mexican terrorist team.

All but one terrorist was down. He still stood where he'd been hit, hate and vague astonishment reflected in his dying eyes. Then his body collapsed and he fell to the carpet, staining its rich, thick pile a deep crimson.

Hollis and his team advanced, warily stepping over and around the bodies. A blood-chilling of the ice wall sounded throughout the ship, rattling the few undamaged bottles and glasses behind an ornate bar.

The Special Operations men stared uneasily at one another and at their Colonel, but they stood firm and ready.

"Major Dillenger's team must have missed one," Hollis mused calmly.

"No hostages here, sir," said one of his men. "All appear to be terrorists."

Hollis studied several of the lifeless faces. None of them looked like they came from the Middle East. Must be the crew from the General Bravo, he thought.

He turned away and pulled a copy of the ship's deck layout from a pocket and studied it briefly, while he talked into his radio.

"Major, report your status."

"Met light resistance so far," replied Dillenger. "Have only accounted for four hijackers. The bridge is secure and we've released over a hundred crew members who were locked in the baggage hold. Sorry we didn't find all the charges."

"Good work. You did well to disarm enough to keep the glacier from collapsing. I'm heading for the master staterooms to free the passengers. Request the engine-room crew return to their station and restore power. We don't dare hang around under the ice cliff a minute longer than we have to. Watch yourselves. We took out another sixteen hijackers, all Latins. There must be another twenty Arabs still on the ship."

"They may be on shore, sir."

"Why do you say that?"

"We heard a whistle from a locomotive a couple of minutes ago. I ordered one of my men to climb the radar mast and check it out. He reported a train rolling down the mountain like a bowling ball. He also observed it run off a nearby pier that was crowded with two dozen terrorists."

"Forget it for now. Let's rescue the hostages first and see to the shore when we've secured the ship."

"Acknowledged."

Hollis led his men up the grand staircase and moved, quiet as a whisper, into the hallway separating the staterooms. Suddenly they froze in position as one of the elevators hummed and rose from the deck below.