Iceberg (Dirk Pitt 3)

Cashman merely nodded. Deftly he jockeyed the Tin Goose on a hundredand-eighty-degree turn until it faced into the wind at the far side of the meadow. Then he shoved the three throttles forward and sent the lumbering old airliner bouncing and shuddering on its way, ever closer to the fence on the opposite end of the field, no more than three hundred feet away.

As they lurched past the front of Golfur Andursson's little house with the plane's tail wheel still glued to the ground, Pitt began to have a vague idea of what Charles Lindbergh's thoughts must have been when he urged his heavily laden Spirit of St.

Louis off the muddy runway of Roosevelt Field back in 1927. It seemed impossible to Pitt that any aircraft short of a helicopter or light two-seater could leave the earth in so small a space. He shot a fast look at Cashman and saw only icy calmness and total relaxation. Cashman was indifferently whistling a tune, but Pitt couldn't quite make out the melody above the roar of the trio of two-hundredhorsepower engines.

There was no doubt, Pitt reflected. Cashman certainly displayed the image of a man who knew how to handle a plane, especially this one.

84

With two-thirds of the meadow gone, Cashman eased the control column forward and lifted the tail wheel and then pulled back, floating the plane a few feet above the turf. Then to Pitts horror, Cashman suddenly dropped the trimotor back hard on the ground no more than fifty feet in front of the fence. Pitts horror turned to amazement as Cashman jerked the controls back against his chest and literally bounced the old Tin Goose over the fence and threw it into the air.

"Where in hell did you learn that little trick?" Pitt said, exhaling a great sigh of relief. It was then he recognized the tune Cashman was whistling as the theme from the old movie, "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines."

"Used to be a crop duster in Oklahoma," Cashman replied.

"How did you wind up as a mechanic in the Air Force?"

"One day the junker ah was flyin' developed a nasty cough. Plowed up a farmer's pasture and butchered his champion beef sire years before its time. Everybody in the county was out to sue me. Ah was flat broke so ah split the scene and enlisted."

Pitt couldn't help smiling as he peered through the windshield at the river two hundred feet below. From that height he could easily spot the sloping ridge where Andursson had found him. He saw something now he didn't expect to find. Almost imperceptibly, he became aware of a long even line against the landscape that trailed off toward the south. He pushed open the little side window and looked again. It was there all right: the dark shade of green against the lighter tinted tundra.

His footprints, where they had sunk into the soft vegetation, had left a path that was easy to follow as the white line down the center of a highway.

Pitt caught Cashman's eye and motioned earthward. "To the south. Follow that dark trail to the south."

Cashman banked the plane and stared for a moment out the side window. Then he cocked his head in acknowledgment and turned the nose of the trimotor southward. Fifteen minutes later he could only wonder at the unerring trail Pitt had made during his trek to the river. Except for a few occasional deviations around rough or uneven ground, the manmade mark on the earth was almost as straight as a plumb line. Fifteen minutes, that was all the old antique needed to cover the same distance that had taken Pitt several hours.

"I have it now," Pit shouted. "There, that cracklike depression where my path ends."

"Where do you want me to set her down, Major?"

"Parallel to the ran of the ravine. There's a flat area running about five hundred feet east and west."

The sky was darkening by the moment-darkening with the mist of falling snow. Even as Cashman made his landing approach, the first flakes began dotting the windshield, streaking to the edges of the glass before being blown into the sky by the airstream.

Pitts race had been won, but only by the barest of margines.

Cashman made a safe landing, a smooth landing considering the rugged terrain and the difficult wind conditions. He timed his run so that the cabin door of the trimotor ended up within ten yards of the steep drop-off.

The wheels had hardly rolled to a halt when Pitt leaped from the plane and was stumbling, sliding to the bottom of the ravine. Behind him, Hull's men began methodically unloading supplies and arranging them on the dampening ground. Two of the paramedics uncoiled ropes and threw them down the slopes in preparation of bringing up the survivors.

Pitt ignored all this. He had one driving desire: to be the first into that chilling pit of hell.

He came upon Lillie still stretched out on his back with Tidi huddled over him, his head cradled in her arms. She was talking to Lillie, saying words Pitt couldn't understand, her voice no more than a weak, hoarse whisper; she seemed to be trying her best to smile, but her lips barely curved in a pitiful grimace and there was little pleasantry in either the voice or the eyes. Pitt walked up behind her and gently touched her wetstreaked hair.

"It seems you two have become rather close friends."

Tidi twisted around and stared dazedly at the figure standing over her. "Good Lord, you've come back."

She reached out and touched his hand. "I thought I heard an airplane. Oh, God, this is wonderful, you've come back."

"Yes," Pitt smiled faintly, then nodded at Lillie.

"How is he?"

"I don't know," she said wearily. "I just don't know. He slipped into unconsciousness about half an hour ago."

Pitt knelt down and listened to Lillie's breathing. it was slow and steady. "He'll make it. This guy has guts ten miles long.