Raise the Titanic! (Dirk Pitt 4)

"Just laying the groundwork." Koplin shot Donner a disapproving stare, his tone icy. "If I may continue without interruption-"

"Of course," Seagram said. He pulled his chair strategically between the bed and Donner. "It's your game, Sid. We'll play by your rules."

"Thank you." Koplin shifted his body. "Geographically, the island is quite interesting. A description of the faulting and uplifting of rocks that were once sediments formed under an ancient sea could fill several textbooks. Mineralogically, the magmatic paragenesis is barren."

"Would you mind translating that?"

Koplin grinned. "The origin and geological occurrence of a mineral is called its paragenesis. Magma, on the other hand, is the source of all matter; a liquid rock heated under pressure which turns solid to form igneous rock, perhaps better known as basalt or granite."

"Fascinating," Donner said dryly. "Then what you're stating is that Novaya Zemlya is void of minerals."

"You are singularly perceptive, Mr. Donner," Koplin said.

"But how did you find traces of byzanium?" Seagram asked.

"On the thirteenth day, I was poking around the north slope of Bednaya Mountain and ran onto a waste dump."'

"Waste dump?"

"A pile of rocks that had been removed during the excavation of a mine shaft. This particular dump happened to have minute traces of byzanium ore."

The expressions on his interrogators' faces suddenly went sober.

"The shaft entrance was cunningly obscured," Koplin continued. "It took me the better part of the afternoon to figure which slope it was on."

"One minute, Sid." Seagram touched Koplin's arm. "Are you saying the entrance to this mine was purposely concealed?"

"An old Spanish trick. The opening was filled until it was even with the natural slope of the hill."

"Wouldn't the waste dump have been on a direct line from the entrance?" Donner asked.

"Under normal circumstances, yes. But in this case they were spaced over a hundred yards apart, separated by a gradual arc that ran around the mountain's slope to the west."

"But you did discover the entrance?" Donner went on.

"The rails and ties for the ore cars had been removed and the track bed covered over, but I managed to trace its outline by moving off about fifteen hundred yards and studying the mountain's slope through binoculars. What you couldn't see when you were standing on top of it became quite clear from that distance. The exact location of the mine was then easy to determine."

"Who would go to all that trouble to hide an abandoned mine in the Arctic?" Seagram asked no one in particular. "There's no method or logic to it."

"You're only half right, Gene," Koplin said. "The logic, I fear, remains an enigma; but t

he method was brilliantly executed by professionals-Coloradans." The word came slowly, almost reverently. "They were the men who excavated the Bednaya Mountain mine. The muckers, the blasters, the jiggers, the drillers, the Cornishmen, the Irishmen, Germans, and Swedes. Not Russians, but men who emigrated to the United States and became the legendary hard-rock miners of the Colorado Rockies. How they came to be on the icy slopes of Bednaya Mountain is anybody's guess, but these were the men who came and mined the byzanium and then vanished into the obscurity of the Arctic."

The sterile blankness of total incomprehension flooded Seagram's face. He turned to Donner and was met by the same expression. "It sounds crazy, absolutely crazy."

" `Crazy'?" Koplin echoed. "Maybe, but no less true."

"You seem pretty confident," Donner muttered.

"Granted. I lost the tangible proof during my pursuit by the security guard; you have only my word on it, but why doubt it? As a scientist, I only report facts, and I have no devious motive behind a lie. So, if I were you, gentlemen, I would simply accept my word as genuine."

"As I said, it's your game." Seagram smiled faintly.

"You mentioned tangible evidence." Donner was calm and coldly efficient.

"After I penetrated the mine shaft-the loose rock came away in my hands, and I had only to scoop out a three-foot tunnel-the first thing my head collided with in the darkness was a string of ore cars. The strike of my fourth match illuminated an old pair of oil lamps. They both had fuel and lit on the third try." The faded blue eyes seemed to stare at something beyond the hospital room wall. "It was an unnerving scene that danced under the lamp's glow, mining tools neatly stacked in their racks, empty ore cars standing on rusting eight-gauge rails, drilling equipment ready to attack the rock-it was as though the mine was waiting for the incoming shift to sort the ore and run the waste to the dump."

"Could you say whether it looked as if someone left in a hurry?"