Iceberg (Dirk Pitt 3)

"Rondheim's men caught me snooping around the Albatross docks. Before I had a chance to uncover anything, they hustled me off to Rondheim's house and threw me in with these other gentlemen."

Pitt made a move toward Lillie. "You're in pretty rough shape. Let's have a look."

Impatiently Lillie waved him back.

"Hear me out. Then get the hell away from here and get help. No one is in immediate danger of dying from their injuries-Rondheim saw to that. Our primary peril is exposure. The temperature is under forty degrees now. in another few hours it Will 75

be freezing.

After that, the cold and the shock will take the first of us. By morning there will be nothing in this goddamn ravine but frozen bodies."

"Rondheim saw to that? I'm afraid-"

"You don't get it" You're slow on the trigger, Major Pitt. It's obvious, the carnage you see here was never caused by accident.

Immediately after our sadistic friend Rondheim beat you to a pulp, we were each given a heavy dose of Nembutal and then, very coldly and methodically, he and his men took us one at a time and fractured whatever bones they thought were necessary to make it appear as though we were all injured in the crash of the helicopter."

Pitt stared at Lillie but said nothing. Totally off balance, his mind was in a whirlpool of disbelief, his thought desperately seeking to sort out a set of circumstances that defied comprehension. The way he felt, he would have been prepared to believe anything, but Lillie's words were too macabre, too monstrous to consider.

"My God, it's not possible." Pitt screwed his eyes shut and shook his head in slow frustration. "It has to be some kind of insane nightmare."

"Nothing insane about the reason," Lillie assured him. "There is a method to Kelly's and Rondheim's madness."

"How can you be sure?"

"I'm sure-I was the last one they put under the drug-I overheard Kelly explaining to Sir Eric Marks how this whole unreal tragedy was conceived by Hermit Limited's computers."

"But for what purpose? Why the savagery? Kelly could have simply put us on another aircraft and dropped it over the ocean without a trace, with no chance for survivors."

"Computers are a hard lot they only deal in cold facts," Lillie murmured wearily. "To their respective governments, the men suffering around us are important figures. You were at Rondheim's little party. You heard Kelly explain why they had to die-their deaths are meant to be a diversion, to buy time and to grab headlines and the attention of world leaders while Hermit Limited pulls off its coup without international interference."

Pitts eyes narrowed. "That doesn't explain away the sadistic cruelty."

"No, it doesn't," Lillie admitted. "However, in Kelly's eyes the end justifies the means. A disappearance at sea was probably fed into the computer's banks but undoubtedly rejected in favor of a sounder plan."

"Like producing the bodies at an opportune time."

"In a sense, yes," Lillie said slowly. "World focus on a disappearance at sea would have faded in a week or ten days-the search would have obviously been called off since no one could live long floating in the frigid North Atlantic."

"Of course," Pitt nodded. "The vanishing act of the Lax was an ideal example."

"Exactly. Kelly and his rich friends need all the time they can buy to become entrenched in whatever country it is they intend to take over. The longer our State Department is diverted by the loss of high-ranking diplomats, the harder it will be when they get around to PUtting the screws on Hermit Limited's operations."

"This way, Kelly can have the advantage of an extended search." Pitts voice was quiet but positive. "And when hope begins to grow dim, he can arrange for an Icelander to stumble accidentally on the crash site and the bodies. And Kelly can reap the advantage of an extra two weeks while the world mourns and government leaders are concentrating on speeches at the funeral processions."

"Every alternative was neatly considered. We were all supposedly on a flight to Rondheim's northern estate for a day of salmon fishing. His group, the Hermit Limited bunch, were going to come on the next flight. At least, that's the story that will be handed out."

"What's to stop someone from accidentally discovering us at any moment?" Tidi asked, gently dabbing a trickle of blood from Pitts swollen mouth.

"It's fairly obvious," Pitt said, thoughtfully surveying the immediate surroundings. "We can't be Seen unless that someone is standing practically on top of us.

Add to that the fact we're probably in the most uninhabited area of Iceland, and the odds of being found begin to stretch to infinity."

"Now you can clearly see the picture," Lillie said.

"The helicopter had to be placed in the narrow confines of the ravine and then destroyed because it could not have been purposely crashed with any degree of accuracy-a perfect undetectable location. A search plane directly overhead could have no more than a second to spot the debris, a million-to-one chance at best. The next step was to scatter our bodies around the area.

Then, after two or three weeks of decomposition, the most a competent coroner could determine is that some of us died from injuries sustained from the phony crash and the rest from exposure and shock."