Iceberg

Chapter 2

Of all the oceans, only the Atlantic is totally unpredictable. The Pacific, the Indian, even the Arctic each have their personal idiosyncrasies, but all have one trait in common: they seldom fail to provide a hint of their coming moods. Not so the Atlantic, especially north of the 15th parallel of latitude. In a matter of a few hours a glassy calm sea might be transformed into a foamwhipped cauldron instigated by a Force 12 hurricane, or there are times when the Atlantic's fickle nature works in reverse. Heavy winds, heavy seas during the night may give every indication of an impending storm, yet when the dawn comes, there is nothing to see but an azure n=or beneath an empty sky. And so it was for the men on the Catawaba as the new sun found them cruising comfortably over a peaceful seascape.

Pitt woke slowly, his eyes coming into focus on the rear of a pair of extra-large white shorts, amply filled by Dover, who was bending over a small basin brushing his teeth.

"You've never looked lovelier," Pitt said.

Dover turned around, the toothbrush poised over his bottom left molars. "Huh?"

"I said, good morning!"

Dover merely nodded, mumbled something incoherent through the toothpaste, and turned back to the basin.

Pitt sat up and listened. The hum of engines was still there, and the only other mechanical sound came from the rush of warm air through the ventilator. The motion of the ship seemed so smooth, it was almost imperceptible.

"I don't wish to appear a rude host, Major," Dover said, smiling, "but I suggest you blossom from that sack. We should be within range of your search area in another hour and a half."

Pitt threw off the blankets and stood up. "First things first. How is your establishment classed when it comes to breakfast?"

"A two-star Michelin rating," Dover said cheerfully. "I'll even treat."

Pitt had a fast wash, decided against a shave, and quickly slipped into his flight clothes. He followed Dover into the passageway, wondering how a man as large as the lieutenant could wander around the ship without running his head into low bulkheads at least ten times a day.

They had just finished a breakfast that Pitt figured would have cost at least five dollars in any of the better hotels when a seaman came up and said that Commander Koski wanted to see them in the bridge control room. Dover followed him, with Pitt lagging a few steps behind carrying a cup of coffee. The commander and Hunnewell were crouched over a chart table as they entered the room.

Koski looked up. The outthrust jaw no longer set like the bow of an icebreaker, and the intense blue eyes seemed almost tranquil.

"Good morning, Major. Are you enjoying your stay?"

"The accommodations are a bit cramped, but the food is superb."

The hard but genuine smile came on. "What do you think of our little electronic wonderland?"

Pitt made a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree scan of the control room. It was like something out of a science fiction space movie. From floor to ceiling the four steel bulkheads stood buried behind a mechanical avalanche of computers, television monitors, and instrumented consoles. Endless rows of technically labeled switches and knobs crisscrossed the equipment, garnished by enough colored indicator lights to fin a casino marque Las Vegas.

"Very impressive," Pitt said casually, sipping his coffee. "Air-search radar and surface-search radar scanners. the latest Loran-type navigational equipment of medium, high and ultra-high frequencies, not to mention computerized navigational plotting." Pitt spoke with the nonchalant air of a public relations director employed by the boatyard that laid the Catawaba's keel.

"The Catawaba comes equipped from the factory with more extensive oceanographic, communications, navigational, aerological and plotting equipment than any ship its size in the world. Basically, Commander, your vessel is designed to remain in midocean under any atmospheric conditions as a weather station, to conduct search and rescue operations, and to assist in oceanographic research work. I might add that she is manned by seventeen officers and one hundred sixty enlisted men, and cost between twelve and thirteen million dollars to build at the Northgate Shipyards in Wilmington, Delaware."

Koski, Dover and all the other men in the bridge control room, with the exception of Hunnewell, who remained intent on the chart, froze. If Pitt had been the first Martian to visit earth, he couldn't have possibly been the object of more incredulous apprehensiveness.

"Don't be surprised, gentlemen," Pitt said, feeling the warmth of self-satisfaction. "I make it a habit to do my homework."

"I see," Koski said grimly. It was obvious that he didn't see. "Perhaps you might give us a clue as to why you've studied your lessons so diligently."

Pitt shrugged. "As I've said, it's a habit."

"An irritating one at that." Koski looked at Pitt with a hint of uneasiness. "I wonder if you're really what you say you are."

"Dr. Hunnewell and I are bona fide," Pitt said reassuringly.

"We'll know for certain in approximately two minutes, Major." Koski's tone suddenly turned cynical. "I like to do my homework too."

"You don't trust me," Pitt said dryly. "A pity. Your mental anxiety is all for nothing. Dr. Hunnewell and I have no intent, or the means, for that matter, of endangering the safety of your ship or crew."

"You've given me no opportunity for trust." Koski's eyes were bleak, his voice icy. "You carry no written orders, I've received no radio signals regarding your authority, nothing… nothing but a vague message from Coast Guard Headquarters announcing your arrival. I might point out that anyone with a know'ledge of our call signal could have sent that communication."

"Nothing's impossible," Pitt said. He couldn't help but admire Koski's perception. The commander had struck the nail precisely on the head.

"If you're playing a shady game, Major, I want no part of it-I, Koski broke off to accept a signal form from a seaman, and studied it carefully, taking his time about it. A strange considering look crossed his face. Then he frowned as he passed the sheet across to Pitt. "It seems that you're a never-ending source of surprise."

If Pitt didn't look uncomfortable, he certainly felt it. The,ohous exposure had been a long time coming, and he d had plenty of time to prepare. Unfortunately, he hadn't come up with a plausible back-up story. Pitt quickly decided there was little he couldd do but take the form from the commander's hand and appear unconcerned. It said: "Regarding your inquiry of Dr. William Hunnewell and Major Dirk Pitt, Dr. Hunnewell's credentials are of the highest caliber. He is Director of the California Institute of Oceanography. Major Pitt is indeed Special Projects Director for NUMA. He also is the son of Senator George Pitt. These men are engaged in oceanographic research vital to the interests Of the goverdment and are to be extended every assistance and courtesy, Also, inform Major Pitt that Admiral Sandecker requests that the major beware of frigid women." It was signed by the Commandant of the Coast Guard.

"The defense rests,"' Pitt said, savoring each syllable to the hilt. Sandecker, the old fox, had used his influence to finagle the Coast Guard Commandant into playing the game. Pitt let out a deep breath and handed the message form back to Koski. l "It must be nice to have friends in high places, Koski said, a touch of anger in his voice.

"It helps on occasion."

"I have no choice but to be satisfied," Koski said heavily. "That last part, if I'm not infringing upon some sacred trust, was code'3"

"No great secret," Pitt answered. "It's only Admiral Sandecker's sly way of telling Dr. Hunnewell and me to continue on to Iceland after our investigation of the iceberg."

Koski stood there for a moment not saying anything. He shook his head slowly in puzzlement and was still shaking it when Hunnewell thumped his fist on the chart table.

"There it is, gentlemen. The precise location of our ghost ship-give or take a few square miles." Hunnewell was magnificent. If he had been aware of the tension a few moments before, he showed absolutely no evidence of it. He folded the chart and shoved it into the pocket of his windbreaker. "Major Pitt, I think it best if we take off as soon as possible."

"Whatever you say, Dog" Pitt said agreeably. "I can have the chopper warmed up and ready to go in ten minutes."

"Good." Hunnewell nodded. "We're now in the area where the berg was sighted by the patrol plane.

According to my calculations, at the present rate of drift, the iceberg should reach the edge of the Gulf Stream sometime tomorrow. If the ice patrol's estimate of the size is correct, the berg is already melting to the tune of a thousand tons an hour. When it hits the warmer water of the Gulf Stream, it won't last ten days.

The only unanswered question is when Will the derelict be released from the ice? Conceivably it could already be lost; hopefully it's still there and will be for a few more days."

"What do you figure for the flight distance?" Pitt asked.

"Approximately ninety miles to the general vicinity," Hunnewell answered.

Koski looked up at Pitt. "As Soon as you take off, I'll reduce speed to one third and maintain a heading of one-zero-six degrees. How long do you make it before we rendezvous?"

"Three and a half hours should do the job," Pitt replied.

Koski looked thoughtful. "Four hours-after four hours I'm coming into the icepack after you."

"Thank you, Commander," Pitt said. "Believe me when I say I'm grateful for your concern."

Koski believed him. "Are you certain I can't bring the Catawaba in closer to Your search area? if you should have an accident on the berg or have to dive in the sea, I doubt if I could reach you in time. In forty-degree water a man in full clothing only has a life expectancy Of twenty-five minutes."

"We'll have to risk it." Pitt took a final sip of his coffee and stared idly at the empty cup. "The Russians might already smell a rat if one of their trawlers has sighted your Coast Guard vessel Sunday cruising in an area outside its regular patrol station. That's why the end run with the helicopter. We can stay low enough to avoid any radar scanner and still be tough to sight visually. Time is important also. A copter can get in and out of the Novgorod's location in one tenth the time it would take the Catawaba."

"Okay." Koski sighed.

"It's your show. Just see that you're back on the landing platform by… he hesitated looking at his watch "no later than 1030." Then he grinned. "If you're a good boy and arrive on time, I'll have a fifth Of Johnnie Walker waiting." Pitt laughed. "Now that's what I call one hell of an incentive."

"I don't like it," Hunnewell shouted above the racket of the helicopter's engine exhaust. "We should have sighted something by now."

Pitt looked at his watch. "Timewise, we're in good shape. Still over two hours to go."

"Can't you go higher? If we double our range of vision, we'd double our chances of detecting the iceberg."

Pitt shook his head. "No can do. We'd also double the possibility of our own detection. It's safer if we stay at a hundred and fifty feet."

"We must find it today," Hunnewell said, an anxious expression on his cherub face. "Tomorrow may be too late for a second try." He studied the chart draped across his knees for a moment then picked up a pair of binoculars and focused off to the north at several icebergs floating together in a cluster.

"Have you noticed any bergs that come close to matching the description we're looking for?" Pitt asked.

"We crossed one about an hour ago that passed the size and configuration requirements, but there was no red dye on its walls." Hunnewell swung the binoculars, scanning a flat restless ocean studded with hundreds of massive icebergs, some broken and jagged, others rounded and smooth, like paper-white geometric solids thrown haphazardly over the blue sea.

"My ego is shattered," Hunnewell said mournfully" Never since my high school trigonometr-j class have my calculations been so far off."

"Perhaps a change in wind direction blew the berg on a different course."

"Hardly," Hunnewell grunted. "An iceberg's underwater mass is seven times the size of what shows on the surface. Nothing but an ocean current has the slightest effect on its movement. It can easily move with the current against a twenty-knot wind."

"An irresistible force and an immovable object rolled up into one lump."

"That and much moreamned near indestructible." Hunnewell talked as he peered through the glasses. "Of course, they break up and melt soon after drifting south into warmer waters. But during their passage to the Gulf Stream, they bow neither to storm nor man. Glacier icebergs have been blasted by torpedoes, eight-inch naval guns, massive doses of thermite bombs, and tons of coal dust to soak up the sun and speed up the melting process. The results were comparable to the damage a herd of elephants might suffer after a slingshot bombardment by a tribe of anemic pygmies."

Pitt went into a steep bank, dodging around the sheer sides of a high-pinnacled berg-a maneuver that had Hunnewell clutching his stomach.

He checked the chart again. Two hundred square miles covered and nothing achieved. He said: "Let's try due north for fifteen minutes. Then head back east to the edge of the ice pack. Then south for ten minutes before we cut west again."

"One graduated box pattern to the north coming up," Pitt said. He tilted the controls slightly, holding the helicopter in a side-swinging movement until the compass read zero degrees.

The minutes wore on and multiplied and the fatigue began to show in the deepening lines around Hunnewell's eyes. "How's the gas situation?"

"That's the least of our worries," Pitt replied. "The elements we're short on at the moment are time and optimism.

"Might as well admit it," Hunnewell said wearily.

"I ran out of the latter a quarter of an hour ago."

Pitt gripped Hunnewell's arm. "Hang in there, Dog" he said encouragingly. "Our elusive iceberg may be just around the next corner."

"If it is, it's defied every drift pattern in the book."

"The red dye marker. Could be it washed away in the storm yesterday?"

"Fortunately no. The dye contains calcium chloride, a necessary ingredient for deep penetration-takes weeks, sometimes months for the stain to melt away."

"That leaves us with one other possibility."

"I know what you're thinking," Hunnewell said flatly. "A-nd you can perish the thought. I've worked closely off an(I on with the Coast Guard for over thirty years, and I've never known them to mistake an ice position sighting."

"That's it then. A million-ton chunk of ice evaporated mt" Pitot left the sentence unfinished, partly because the helicopter was beginning to drift off course, partly because he glimpsed something. Hunnewell suddenly stiffened in his seat and leaned forward, the binoculars jammed against his eye sockets.

"I have it," Hunnewell cried.

Pitt didn't wait for a command; he dipped the helicopter and headed toward the direction indicated by Hunnewell's binoculars.

Hunnewell passed the glasses to Pitt. "Here, take a peek and tell me these old eyes aren't picking up a mirage."

Pitt did a juggling act with the binoculars and the helicopter's controls while fighting to keep the engine vibration from jiggling the iceberg out of focus.

"Can you make out the red dye?" Hunnewell asked anxiously.

"Like a stripe of strawberry in the middle of a scoop of vanilla ice cream."

"I can't understand it." Hunnewell shook his head.

"That berg shouldn't be there. By every known law of current and drift, it should be floating at least ninety miles to the southeast."

But it was there, resting on the sharp horizon line, a massive towering hunk of ice, beautifully carved by nature, grotesquely marred by manmade chemicals. Before Pitt could lower the binoculars, the ice crystals on the berg caught the sun and reflected the brilliance into his eyes, the intensity blasting through the lenses. Temporarily blinded, he gained altitude and altered course a few degrees to remove the glare. It was nearly a full minute before the skyrockets behind his eyeballs finally faded away.

Then suddenly Pitt became aware of a dun, almost imperceptible shadow in the water. He hardly had time to distinguish the dark shape as the helicopter skimmed over the blue swells, not three hundred feet beneath the landing skids. The iceberg was still a good seven miles away when he swung around in a great half circle toward the east and the Catawaba.

"What in hell's the matter with you?" Hunnewell demanded.

Pitt ignored the question. "I'm afraid we have uninvited guests."

"Nonsense! There isn't a ship or another aircraft in sight."

"They're coming to the party through the basement."

Hunnewell's eyebrows raised questioningly. Then he slowly slumped back in the seat. "A submarine?"

"A submarine."

"It is quite possible it may be one of ours."

"Sorry, Dog that's wishful thinking."

"Then the Russians beat us to it." Hunnewell's Mouth twisted. "Dear God, we're too late."

"Not yet." Pitt turned the helicopter into another circling arc, this time back toward the iceberg. "We can be standing on the ice in four minutes. It will take the sub at least a half hour to reach the berg. With any luck we can find what we came for and get the hell out before their crew lands."

"That's cutting it a bit fine." Hunnewell didn't sound very confident. "When the Russians see us run. 9 about on the berg, they won't come unarmed, you know?"

"I'd be surprised if they didn't. Actually, the captain of that Russian sub has enough weapons at his command to blast us to pieces anytime he has the inclination. But I'm betting he won't take the chance."

"What has he got to lose?"

"Nothing. But he gains the repercussions of a mr-e fat international incident. Any commander worth a ruble in his position will be certain we're in constant radio contact with our home base, notifying them of his sub's position and ready to scream bloody murder at the first shot. This side of the Atlantic is our stomping grounds, and he knows it. He's too far from Moscow to play the role of a block bully."

"All right, all right," Hunnewell said. "Go ahead and set us down. I suppose even getting shot at is better than sitting another minute in this tooth-jarring niixmaster."

Pitt said no more. He made the approach and set the helicopter down without any difficulty on a small flat area of ice no more than twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide. Then, before the rotor blades had come to a final stop, he and Hunnewell jumped from the cockpit and stood on the silent iceberg wondering when the Russian submarine would surface, wondering what they would find beneath the shroud of ice that separated them from the cold unfriendly waters. They could see no life, feel no life. Their cheeks were touched lightly by a frigid breeze, but apart from that there was nothing, nothing at all.