Iceberg (Dirk Pitt 3)

"Pick up the phone and ask the overseas operator for Room 409 at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington. I suggest you request person-to-person; your call will go through faster."

"That will not be necessary," Kelly said. "I have no reason to doubt you."

"Suit yourself," Pitt said carelessly, fighting to keep a straight face, laying his bluff successfully. "As I started to say, when Dr. Matajic was rescued, he described the Lax and its crew in vivid detail.

He wasn't fooled for a minute by the alterations to the superstructure. But, of course, you know all this. Your people monitored his message to Admiral Sandecker."

"And then?"

"Don't you see? The rest was simple deduction.

Thanks to Matajic's description, it didn't take any great effort to trace the ship's whereabouts from the time it disappeared with Kristjan Fyrie to when it moored on the iceberg where Matajic had his research station." Pitt smiled. "Because of Dr.

Matajic's powers of observation-the crew's suntans hardly spelled a fishing trip in North Atlantic waters-Admiral Sandecker was able to figure the Lax's previous course along the South American coast. He then began to suspect Dr. Hunnewell.

Rather clever of the admiral now that I look back on it.) "Go on, go on," Kelly urged.

"Well, obviously the Lax had been utilizing the undersea probe to find new mineral deposits. And just as obviously, with Fyrie and his engineers dead, Dr. Hunnewell, the co-inventor of the probe, was the only one around who knew how to operate it."

"You are exceedingly well informed," Kelly said wryly. "But that hardly constitutes proof."

70

Pitt was on tricky ground. So far he had been able to skirt around the National Intelligence Agency's involvement in Hermit Limited. And Kelly had yet to be baited into offering any further information. It's time, he amusedly told himself, to tell the truth.

"Proof?" Okay, will you accept the words of a dying man," Straight from the horse's mouth. The man in question is Dr.

Hunnewell himself."

"I don't believe it."

"His last words before he died in my arms were: 'God save thee.' "

"What are you talking about?" Rondheim shouted.

"What are you trying to do?"

"I meant to thank you for that, Oskar," Pitt said coldly. "Hunnewell knew who his murderer was-the man who gave the order for his death. He tried to quote from 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." It was all there, wasn't it? You quoted it yourself:

'Why look'st thou so? With my crossbow I shot the Albatross.' Your trademark, Oskar, the red albatross. That's what Hunnewell meant. 'For all averr'd I had kill'd the bird That made the breeze to blow.' You killed the man who helped you probe the sea floor." Pitt was feeling cocky now; the warmth from the brandy was spreading comfortingly through his body. "I can't match your memory for quoting the verse verbatim, but if my memory serves me correctly, the Ancient Mariner and his ship of ghosts were met by a hermit near the end-another tie-in. Yes, it was all in the verse. Hunnewell pointed the finger of guilt with his dying breath and you, Oskar, stood up and unwittingly pleaded guilty."

"You sent your arrow in the right direction, Major Pitt." Kelly idly stared at the smoke from his cigar. "But you aimed at the wrong man. I gave the order for Dr. Hunnewell's death. Oskar merely carried it through."

"For what purpose?"

"Dr. Hunnewell was beginning to have second thoughts about Hermit Limited's methods of operation-quite old-fashioned thoughts really: thou shall not kill and all that. He threatened to expose our entire organization unless we closed down our assassination department. A condition that was impossible to accept if we were to have any chance for ultimate success.

Therefore, Dr. Hunnewell had to be discharged from the firm."

"Another business principle, of course."

Kelly smiled. is that."

"An I had to be swept under the carpet because I was a witness." Pitt said as if answering a question.

Kelly simply nodded.

"But the undersea probe?" Pitt asked. "With Hunnewell and Fyrie-the goose who laid the golden egg is dead, who is left with the knowledge to build a secondgeneration model?"