Iceberg (Dirk Pitt 3)

"A fog bank-rolling in from the south."

"How long?"

"Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes."

"Not much time."

"Enough . . . enough for a quick dive."

Minutes later Pitt had slipped into his gear and dropped over the side. Down again into a world where there is no sound, no wind; down where air is not known. He cleared his ears and kicked his fins hard and descended, his muscles cold and aching, his brain still sluggish from sleep.

He swam silently, effortlessly, as though suspended by a wire through the great fluid backdrop. He swam through the darkening colors, the bluegreen now changing slowly to a soft gray. He swam with no sense of direction, save for what his instinct and the landmarks on the bottom told him. Then he found it.

His heart began pounding like a bass drum as he approached the plane cautiously, knowing from experience that once he entered the tangled wreckage, every movement would be a menace.

He flippered around to the shattered opening of the fuselage eight feet aft of the wings and was greeted by a small rosefish, no more than six inches long. Its orance-red scales contrasted vividly with the dark background and fluoresced in the dim light like a tiny Christmas tree ornament. It stared at Pitt for a moment from one beady eye set solidly under a spiny head. then began darting back and forth in front of his face mask as he entered the plane.

As soon as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, they met with a jumbled mess of seats, broken from their moorings on the floor, and wooden boxes floating in confusion against the ceiling. Tugging two of the boxes toward the opening, he pushed them out and watched until they lifted free on their way toward the surface.

45

Then he spied a glove with its finger sockets still encasing a man's hand. The body attached by a greenish arm to the hand was jammed between the seats in the lower corner of the main cabin. Pitt pulled the corpse out and searched its clothing. He must have been the one who fired the machine gun from the doorway, Pitt reasoned.

The head wasn't a pretty sight; it had been smashed to semiliquid paste, the gray matter and skull fragments straggling in reddish tentacles away from the center mass and swaying in unison with the current. The pockets of the torn black overalls covering the remains held nothing but a screwdriver.

Pitt shoved the screwdriver under his weigbtbelt then, half swimming, half gliding, he entered the cockpit. Except for a broken windshield on the copilot's side, the heart of the aircraft appeared empty and undamaged. But then he happened to look up at his air bubbles rising to the overhead panel and travelin(Y like a shyer snake in search of an escape exit. They eventually ran together and clustered in one corner, encircling another corpse, pushed up there by internal gases expanding under the decomposing flesh.

The dead pilot wore the same type of black overalls. A quick search revealed nothing; the pockets were empty. The little rosefish wiggled past Pitt and begin nibbling on the bulging right eye of the pilot. Panting heavily, Pitt pushed the body upward out of the way.

He fought an urge to vomit into his mouthpiece and waited until he regained control of his breathing again.

He glanced at the Doxa watch. He had only been down for nine minutes, not the ninety his imagination suggested. There was little time left. Quickly he groped around the small enclosure, looking for a log book, a maintenance or check-out list, anything with printing on it. The cockpit kept its secret well. There was no record of any kind. Not even a sticker with the aircraft's call letters adhering to the face of the radio transmitter.

It was like leavin(, the womb, being born again, when he emerged from the plane. The open water was darker now than when he had entered. After checking the tail section, he kicked over to the starboard engine.

No hope here; it was almost totally buried in the bottom silt. He got lucky on the port engine. Not only was it easily accessible, but the cowling had broken off, leaving the turbine casing bare for inspection. But fate wasn't playing the game. He discovered the area where the identification plate should have been. It was gone.

Only the four little brass screws that once held it remained, neatly set in their threads.

Pitt slammed his fist against the casing in frustration. It was useless to look further. He knew all identifying marks on instruments, electrical components, and other mechanical units on the plane would be erased.

Silently he cursed the brim behind the thoroughness. It seemed uncanny that one man could have considered and planned for every conceivable contingency. In spite of the near freezing water, trickles of sweat rolled down his face under the mask. His mind was turning aimlessly, posing problems and questions, but impotert to come up with solutions. Without thinking!, without controlled effort, his eyes began following the antics of the rosefish. It had trailed him from the cockpit and was cavorting around a silver object a few feet beyond the bow of the plane. Pitt kept his eyes on the little fish for nearly thirty seconds, aware of nothing except the sound of his exhaust bubbles, before he finally reacted and recognized the long silver tube as the hydraulic shock absorber of the nose wheel.

Swiftly he was over it, studying the cylinder carefully. The crash had torn it from the support strut and, together with the tire and wheel, had thrown the assembly out from under the nose section. It was the same story. The manufacturer's serial number had been filed from the aluminum housing. Then, as he was about to head toward the surface, he threw a last quick look down.

On the end section of the housing where the hydraulic tubing had pulled from its connection, Pitt spotted a small marking: two roughly gouged letters in the metal-SC. Taking the screwdriver from his weightbelt, he etched his initials next to the other marking. The depth of his DP matched that of the SC.

Okay. No sense in hanging around, he reasoned.

His air was becoming difficult to inhale-the signal that his tank was getting low. He pulled his reserve valve and moved upward. The rosefish followed him until he turned and waved his hand in its path, sending the little marine creature scurrying behind a friendly rock. Pitt smiled and nodded. His playful companion would have to find a new friend.

Pitt arched on his back at fifty feet, looking directly up at where the surface should have been, trying to get his bearings in relation to The Grimsi. The light was equal in all directions, only his ascending bubbles indicated the direction of his native element. It slowly began to get lighter, but it was still much darker than when he dropped off The Grimsi's side. Pitts anxious head broke water, to be engulfed by a thick cloak of fog. God, he thought, this soup makes it impossible to find the boat. To strike out for shore would have been at best a four-to-one gamble.

Pitt unshouldered his airtank harness, tied it to his already unhooked weightbelt, and let them fall together to the bottom.

46

Now he could float comfortably, thanks to the buoyancy of his rubber wet suit.