Treasure (Dirk Pitt 9)

He popped his release and the parachute collapsed before it could be caught by the wind. He didn't bother to roll it up and hide it in the ice for later retrieval. There was no time to waste. The taxpayers would have to eat the lost chute.

"This is Dillenger. I'm down. Home in on my position."

He pulled a plastic whistle from a pocket of his coat and blew through it once every ten seconds while facing in a different direction. for the first few minutes there was nobody to be seen.

Then, slowly, the first of his men appeared and jogged toward him. They had been widely scattered. Their progress across the uneven surface of the glacier took them far longer than Dillenger had anticipated.

Soon the others straggled in. One man had suffered a broken shoulder, another had cracked an ankle. His sergeant favored a wrist Dillenger suspected was broken, but the man carried on as though it was little more than a slight sprain, and Dillenger needed him too badly to write him off.

He turned to the two injured men. "You won't be able to keep up with the rest of us, but follow along in our tracks as best you can. Just make sure your lights are hooded." Then Dillenger nodded at his sergeant, Jack Foster. "Let's rope together and move out, Sergeant.

I'll take the lead."

Foster gave a brief salute and began checking the team.

The going was treacherous across the broken ice surface, yet they moved along at an easy dogtrot. Dillenger had no fear of falling into an open lead; the line around his waist was anchored to enough beef and brawn to lift a truck off the ground. Twice he called for a brief stop to catch his bearings, and then they were off again.

They crawled over jagged ice ridges and one open lead that all but defeated them. They wasted seven minutes before an ice grapnel bit in the opposite side and the lightest man on the team crossed hand over hand to secure the grip. Another ten minutes was gone before the last man made it over.

A sense of urgency mushroomed inside Dillenger. His team was down two seven men and they were falling farther and farther b

ehind the timetable. He sullenly regretted not taking Giordino's unsolicited advice and doubling his estimated time from air drop to attack.

He prayed the dive team wasn't waiting, freezing to death in the water beneath the Flamborough's hull. He tried repeatedly to signal Hollis and apprise the Colonel of his tardy situation, but there was no reply.

The first faint traces of dawn were breaking behind him, revealing the surface of the glacier. There was a numbing desolation about it, a terrifying strangeness. He could also see the faint glimmering of the fjordand suddenly he realized why there was a communications breakdown.

Hollis could see the ship clearly now without the infrared scope. And if a hijacker with a keen eye had looked in the right direction, he'd have spied the shadows of the inflatable boats outlined against the dark gray water. Hollis hardly dared breathe as the distance narrowed.

Hoping against hope, Hollis never let up on his plea for radio communications with Dillenger. "Shark to Falcon, please respond." He was about to try for the hundredth time when Dillenger's voice abruptly boomed through his earpiece.

"This is Falcon, go ahead."

"You're late!" Hollis hissed quietly. "Why didn't you respond to my calls?"

"Just now came within range. We were out of horizontal sight of you.

Our signals couldn't penetrate the ice wall."

"Are you in position?"

"Negative," Dillenger said flatly. "We've stumbled on a delicate situation which will take a while to correct."

"What do you call delicate?"

"A string of explosives in an ice fracture behind the glacial front, armed and ready to be detonated by radio signal."

"How long to disarm?"

"Could take an hour just to find them all."

"You've got five minutes," Hollis said quickly. "We can't wait any longer or we'll be dead."

"We'll all be dead if the charges go off and the ice wall falls on the ship."

"We'll gamble on surprise to stop the terrorists from detonating. Make it fast. My boats can be discovered at any moment."

"I can just make out your shadows from the glacial rim."