Iceberg (Dirk Pitt 3)

God, Pitt thought through the haze, why don't those mechanical bastards sing something else? Like a diagnostic specialist, he carefully explored his bruised body-the areas of pain, the position of his arms and legs in the flame-sparkled water. His ribs felt as if they were burning inside his chest, the fire spreading into his back and shoulders. Pulling himself onto the landing, Pitt stood up unsteadily, swayed and only kept erect by using the cutlass as a cane, somewhat bewildered to find the hilt still imbedded tightly in his right hand.

He crouched on one knee, fighting to catch his breath, waiting for his heart to slow down to a reasonably nominal rate and scanned the make-believe set, his eyes trying desperately to pierce the darkness beyond the flaming half light. The bridge was empty, the third pirate was gone, and the boat was just disappearing around a curve into the next gallery. He turned in the 97

opposite direction just in time to see another sightseeing boat approaching up the canal.

All these things he noted mechanically, without consciously classifying their significance. All he could think of was that a killer was somewhere close by, disguised as one of the pirates. He felt helpless, the mannequins all began to look alike, and the action on the bridge had happened with such speed that he hadn't been able to perceive any details of the man's costume.

Almost frantically, he tried to plan the next step.

There was no more chance in the world for surprise on his part-the human pirate knew what Pitt looked like, while he was helpless to detect the real from the fake and had now lost the opportunity to move first. Even as these thoughts flashed through Pitts mind, he knew he must act.

A second later, he was half running, half stumbling along the quay, gasping at every step as waves of pain shot through every tendon of his body. He burst through a black curtain and into the next stage set. It had a huge domed chamber dimly lit for a nighttime scene.

Built into the far wall, a scaleddown version of a pirate's corsair ship, complete with dummy crew and Jolly Roger rippling in a breeze urged on by a hidden electric fan, fired stimulated broadsides from replica cannon across fifty feet of water and over the heads of the people in the excursion boat at a miniature fortress sitting high atop a jagged cliff on the opposite side of the cavernous chamber.

It was too dark to make out any details on the excursion boat. Pitt could detect no movement at the stern and he felt certain that Kippmann and Lazard had everything under their command. Everything, that is, that was within their reach. As his eye, began to penetrate the heavy darkness, of the simulated nighttime harbor between the ship and the fortress, he saw that the bodies in the boat were all huddled below the sides of the hull.

He was about halfway up the maintenance ramp to the deck of the corsair ship when he knew why, when he heard a strange sound, the almost silent thump of a gun with a silencer. And then suddenly he was standing in back of a form in a pirate costume who was holding something in his hand and pointing it at the little boat in the water.

Pitt looked at him curiously, with only a detached sort of interest. He raised the cutlass and brought the flat side of the blade down on the pirate's wrist.

The gun dropped from the man's wristover the railing and into the water below. The pirate swung around, the white hair falling from under a scarlet bandanna that was knotted around his head, the cold blue-gray eyes flashing with anger and frustration, the lines about the mouth deeply etched. He searched the comical figure that had so coolly killed two of his comrades. His voice was hard and metallic.

"It seems I am your prisoner."

Pitt wasn't fooled for an instant. The words were only a stall, a curtain to shield the lighg move that would surely come. The man behind the voice was dangerous and he was playing for high stakes. But Pitt had more than an edged weapon-he had a newly found strength that was suddenly coursing through his body like a gathering tidal wave. He began to smile.

"Ah-so it is you, Oskar."

Pitt paused significantly, watching Rondheim like a cat. Holding Hermit Limited's chief executioner on the end of the cutlass. Pitt pulled off the rubber wolf's head. Rondheim's face was still set and hard, but the eyes betrayed total incomprehension. Pitt dropped the mask, bracing himself for the moment he had planned for but never really believed would happen. Slowly, he unwrapped the bandages with one hand, letting the gauze fall to the deck in little unraveled piles, building the suspense. When he finished, he gazed steadily at Rondheim and stood back. Rondheim's lips began to work in a half-formed question and dazed expression spread across his features.

"Sorry you can't recall the face, Oskar," Pitt said quietly. "But you didn't leave a great deal to recognize.

Rondheim stared at the swollen eyes, the bruised and puffed lips, the sutures that laced the cheekbones and eyebrows, and then his mouth fell open and in a whisper he breathed, "Pitt!"

Pitt nodded.

"It's not possible," Rondheim gasped.

Pitt laughed. "I apologize for ruining your day, but it just goes to prove that you can't always trust a computer."

Rondheim looked at Pitt long and searchingly.

"And the others?"

"With one exception, they're all alive and mending the broken bones you so generously dispensed." Pitt focused his gaze beyond Rondheim's shoulder and saw that the excursion boat was safely entering the next gallery.

"Then it's back to you and me again, Major. Under conditions more favorable to you than those I enjoyed in the gym. But don't get your hopes up." A sort of smile twisted the tight lips. "fairies are no match for men."

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"I agree," Pitt returned. He hurled the cutlass over Rondheim's head into the water

and stood back. He looked down and examined his hands. They would have to do the job. He took several slow deep breaths, ran his hands through his wet hair, rubbed them roughly on the sides of his costume and then gave a final flex to his fingers. He was ready.

"I misled you, Oskar. Round one was an unequal contest. You had the numbers, the planning and the initiative from the beginning. How are you alone, Oskar, without your paid help to prop your victims? How are you when you're on strange ground? You still have time to escape. Nothing stands between you and a chance for freedom except me.

But there's the rub, , Oskar. You have to get by me."