Iceberg (Dirk Pitt 3)

"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 ramined the probe feverishly into the ice. "It's here; it's got to be here. A hundredand-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 answ

ered. "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.

"As a matter of fact, there never was one."

Total incomprehension and the meager beginnings of hope touched Hunnewell. "Go on," he prompted.

"Besides radar contact, the Crew of the patrol plane reported that they sighed the outline of a ship in the ice, yet we saw nothing before we touched down.