Iceberg (Dirk Pitt 3)

Hunnewell shook his head. "No way. It's a scientific fact, you can't smell an inorganic substance inside a block of ice from the outside."

"The old proboscis never lies." The midday warmth was beginning to overcome the cold, so Pitt unzipped his flight jacket.

"There must be a leak in the ice."

14

"You and your educated nose," Hunnewell said acidly. "I suggest you stop playing bloodhound and start placing the thermite charges. The only way we're going to get inside the wreck is by melting the ice mantle."

"We'll be taking a risk."

"Trust me," Hunnewell said mildly. "I'm not about to split the berg al)d lose the derelict, the helicopter, and ourselves as well. I intend to begin with small loads and work our way down by degrees."

"I wasn't thinking of the iceberg. I was thinking of the wrecked ship. There's a damn good chance the fuel tanks have ruptured and allowed diesel oil to slosh the entire length of the keel. If we miscalculate and ignite as much as a drop, the whole derelict goes up in one fiery puff."

Hunnewell stamped his foot on the hard-packed ice. "How do you expect to get through that-with an ice pick.

"Dr. Hunnewell," Pitt said quietly, "I won't argue the fact that your name is known far and

wide for your hyper-scientific intellect. However, like most superbrains, your mental depth for practical, everyday runof-the-mill matters is sadly lacking.

Thermite charges, ice picks, you say. Why bother with complex and muscle-exerting sclemes when we can simply perform an open sesame routine?"

"You're standing on glacial ice," Hunnewell said.

"It's hard and it's solid. You can't walk through it."

"Sorry, my friend, you're dead wrong," Pitt said.

Hunnewell eyed him suspiciously. "Prove it!"

"What I'm getting at is, the labor has already been done. Our Machiavelli and his merry band of busy helpers have obviously been here before us." He pointed dramatically up-ward. "Please observe."

Hunnewell lifted a quizzical eyebrow and looked upward and intently studied the broad face of the steep ice slope. Along the outer edges and near the lower base, only a few yards from where Pitt and Hunnewell stood, the ice was smooth and even. But beginning at the summit and working downward into the middle of the slope, the ice was as pockmarked as the backside of the moon.

"Well now," Hunnewell murmured, "it does appear that someone went to a lot of trouble to remove the Ice Patrol's red, dye stain." He gave a long expressionless look at the towering ice pinnacle, then turned back to Pitt. "Why would someone chip the stain out by hand when they could have easily erased all trace with explosives?"

"I can't answer that," Pitt said. "Maybe they were afraid of cracking the berg, or maybe they didn't have explosives, who can say? However, I'll lay a month's wage that our clever little pals did more than merely chip ice. They most certainly found a way to enter the derelict."

"So all we do now is look for a flashing sign that says enter here." Hunnewell's tone was sarcastic. He wasn't used to being outguessed, and his expression showed that he didn't like it.

"A soft spot in the ice would be more appropriate."

"I suppose," Hunnewell said, "you're suggesting a camouflaged cover over some sort of ice tunnel."

"The thought had crossed my mind."

The doctor peered over the top of his glasses at Pitt. "Let's get on with it then. If we stand around here theorizing much longer, my testicles will probably get an acute case of frostbite."

It shouldn't have been all that difficult, not by a long shot, yet it didn't go as easily as Pitt had figured.

The unpredictable occurred when Hunnewell lost his footing on the slope and slid helplessly toward a steep ledge that dropped into the icy sea. He fell forward, desperately clawing at the ice, his nails scratching and bending painfully backward through the hard surface.

He slowed momentarily, but not enough. His fall happened so abruptly that his ankles were already scraping the edge of the thirty-foot drop before he thought of shouting for help.

Pitt had been busily prying up a chunk of loose ice when he heard the cry. He swung around, took in Hunnewell's deteriorating plight, had a lightning impression of how impossible rescue would be once the doctor had fallen into the freezing water, and in one swift movement tore off his flight jacket and flung himself across the slop in a flying leap, feet first, legs lifted crazily in the air.

To Hunnewell's panic-flooded brain, Pitts move looked like an act of pure madness. "Oh, God, no, no," he shouted. But there was nothing he could do but watch Pitt hurtle toward him like a bobsled. There might have been a chance, he thought, if Pitt had stayed on the berg. Now it seemed certain that both men would die in the freezing salt water together. Twenty-five minutes, Commander Koski's words flashed through his head, twenty-five minutes was all a man had to remain alive in forty-degree water-and with all the time in the world they never could have pulled themselves back onto the sheer sides of the iceberg.