Arctic Drift (Dirk Pitt 20)

“Affirmative. Please keep us advised.”

“Will do. You boys having any luck down there?”

“We sure are, but it has all been bad. We’ve got Rover on the leash and are about to try for the captain’s cabin.”

“How are you doing on power?”

Pitt eyed a bank of dials and meters overhead. “We’re good for another ninety minutes on the bottom, and we’ll probably need it all.”

“Roger. We’ll look for you up top in less than two. Narwhal out.”

Pitt stared at the dark abyss beyond the submersible, contemplating the icebreaker on the surface above. Were they in fact monitoring the Narwhal ? His gut told him so with certainty. It wouldn’t be his first encounter with the forces of Mitchell Goyette, he now knew. And what of Clay Zak? Could it be possible that Goyette’s thug was aboard the icebreaker?

Giordino nudged him back to the task at hand.

“Ready to move aft.”

“The clock is ticking,” Pitt said quietly. “Let’s get it done.”

65

A DENSE, ICY FOG CREPT ACROSS THE OTOK AS dusk settled over Victoria Strait. The Narwhal was long lost from physical view, and Zak searched for her on the radarscope, finding the research ship as a narrow smudge on the top of the screen. Across the bridge, the icebreaker’s captain paced back and forth, having grown bored with holding his ship stationary for the past few hours.

But the captain saw no signs of boredom in Zak’s face. On the contrary, there was an odd intensity about him. Like in the moment before an assassination, he was fully alert, his senses in high gear. While he had murdered many times before, he had never done so on a large scale. It was a test of cunning, he liked to think, that made his blood run fast. It gave him a sensation of invincibility, inflated by the knowledge that he had always come out on top.

“Bring us to within eight kilometers of the Narwhal,” he finally directed the captain. “And do so nice and easy.”

The captain engaged the helm and brought the ship and attached barge around on a southerly heading. Aided by the swift-moving current, the icebreaker ran just above idle, covering the distance in less than an hour. Reaching the new position, the captain swung his bow around to the current in order to remain stationary.

“Eight kilometers and holding,” he reported to Zak.

Zak eyed the gloomy darkness outside the bridge window and creased his lips in satisfaction.

“Prepare to release the barge at my command,” he said.

The captain stared at him as if he were insane.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“You heard me. We are going to release the barge.”

“That’s a ten-million-dollar vessel. In this fog and current, there’s no way we’ll be able to tie back up to her. She’ll rip her hull open on some ice or run aground on the islands. Either way, Mr. Goyette will have my head.”

Zak shook his head with a thin smile. “She won’t be traveling very far. As for Goyette, please recall the signed letter I gave you in Kugluktuk giving me complete authority while I’m aboard this ship. Believe me, he will consider it a small price to pay to eliminate a problem that could cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Besides,” he added with a conniving grin, “isn’t that what marine insurance is for?”

The captain reluctantly ordered his deckhands to the stern of the ship to man the towlines. The men waited in the cold while Zak ran down to his cabin, then returned to the bridge carrying his leather satchel. At Zak’s command, the captain reversed power and backed down on the barge until the thick towlines fell slack in the water. The deckhands released a lock plate, then heaved the looped ends of the towlines up and off the stern bollards. The men watched morbidly as the lines slid down the stern and disappeared into the black water below.

When the bridge received an all-clear signal, the captain pulled the ship forward, then came around the barge’s starboard flank at Zak’s urging. The dark mass of the barge could barely be seen a few yards away as the fog continued to thicken. Zak reached into his satchel and pulled out a high-frequency radio transmitter, then stepped out onto the bridge wing. Extending a small antenna, he powered on the device and immediately pushed a red TRANSMIT button.

The radio signal only had to travel a short distance to trigger the detonator cap planted on the stern of the barge. Less than a second later, the dynamite charge ignited.

The explosion was neither loud nor visually impressive, just a resounding pop that reverberated within the barge, followed by a light puff of smoke that rose from the rear deck. Zak observed the scene for just a few seconds, then returned to the warmth of the bridge, putting the transmitter back into his bag.

“I don’t like having the blood of those men on my hands,” the captain grumbled.

“But you have it all wrong, Captain. The loss of the barge was quite accidental.”

The captain simply stared at Zak with a look of dismay.