Treasure

"So Yazid has yet to make a triumphal takeover."

Ibn nodded and his expression turned grave. "There is another news item. Yazid has announced that the cruise ships crew and passengers still live, and he will personally negotiate with the terrorists and arrange for the release of everyone. He has gone so far as to offer his life in exchange for Senator George Pitt to impress the Americans."

A numbing, paralyzing rage swelled within Ammar, sharpening his senses and opening his thoughts like envelopes inside his mind. After a few moments, he looked at Ibn.

"By Allah, the Judas goat has led us to slaughter," he said incredulously. "Yazid has sold out the mission."

Ibn nodded in agreement. "Yazid has used and betrayed you. "

"That explains why he stalled off ordering me to kill Hasan, Kamil and the rest. He wanted them unharmed until Machado and his scum could remove you and me and our people."

"What do Yazid and Topiltzin gain by keeping the hostages alive?" asked Ibn.

"By playing the saviors of two presidents, the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations and an important United States politician, Yazid and Topiltzin will gain the admiration of international leaders. They automatically become stronger while their opponents lose ground. They are then free to assume the reigns of their governments in peaceful takeovers, widening their power base and increasing their benevolent images in the eyes of the world."

Ibn bent his head in resignation. "So we've been thrown to the vultures."

Ammar nodded. "Yazid meant for us to die from the beginning to guarantee our silence on this and other missions we've performed for him,"

"What of Captain Machado and his Mexican crew? What happens to them after they've eliminated us?"

"Topiltzin would see to it they vanished after their return to Mexico."

"They would have to escape the ship and island first."

"Yes," Annnar replied thoughtfully. He paced the communications room angrily. "It seems I badly underestimated Yazid's cunning. I was smug in thinking Machado was impotent because he knew nothing of our arrangements for escaping to a safe airfield in Argentina. But thanks to Yazid, our Mexican comrade has implemented his own departure plans."

"Then why hasn't he murdered us by now?"

"Because Yazid and Topiltzin won't give him the order until they're ready to act out their sham negotiations for the hostage release."

Suddenly Ammar turned and gripped the shoulder of the radio man, who quickly removed his headphones. "Have you'received any unusual messages directed to the ship?"

The Egyptian communications expert looked curious. "Strange you should ask. Our Latin friends have been in and out of here every ten minutes, asking the same question. I thought they must be stupid. any acknowledgment to a direct transmission would be intercepted by American-European intelligence listening facilities. They'd fix our position within seconds."

"So you've intercepted nothing suspicious."

The Arab communications man shook his head. "Even if I did, any message would certainly be in code."

"Shut down the equipment. Make the Mexicans think you're still listening for something. Whenever they ask about an incoming message, play dumb and keep saying you've heard nothing."

Ibn stared at him expectantly. "My instructions, Sideiman?"

"Keep a sharp watch on Machado's crew. Get them off balance by acting friendly. Open the lounge bar and invite them to drink. Give the worst guard duty to our men, so the Latins can relax. This will lower their defenses."

"Shall we kill them before they kill us?"

"No," said Ammar, a flicker of sadistic pleasure in his eyes.

"We'll leave that job to the glacier."

"Can't be less than a million icebergs down there," said Gior dino bleakly. "Be easier picking a midget headwaiter out of a colony of penguins. This could take days."

Colonel Hollis was in the same mood. "There has to be one matching the Lady Flamborough's contour and dimensions.

Keep looking."

"Bear in mind," said Gunn, "Antarctic bergs tend to be flat.

The superstructure under the plastic shroud will give the ship a multipinnacle shape."

Dillenger's eye was enlarged four times its size through a magnifying glass. "The definition is amazing," he muttered.

"Be even better when we see what's on the other side of those clouds."

They were all grouped around a small table in the communications compartment of the Sounder, examining a huge color photo from the Casper. The aerial reconnaissance film had been processed and sent through the survey ship's laser receiver less than forty minutes after the aircraft landed.

The well-defined detail showed a sea of bergs broken away from the Larsen Ice Shelf on the eastern side of the peninsula, while hundreds more could be distinguished near glaciers off Graham Land to the west.

Pitts concentration was aimed elsewhere. He sat off to one side, studying a large nautical chart draped across his lap. Once in a while he looked up, listening, but did not contribute to the conversation.

Hollis turned to Captain Stewart, who stood next to the receiver, wearing a headset with attached microphone. "When can we expect the Casper's infrared photo?"

Stewart raised a hand as a signal not to interrupt. He pressed the headset against his ears, listening to a voice at CIA headquarters in Washington. Then he nodded toward Hollis. "The photo lab at Langley says they'll begin transmitting in half a minute."

Hollis paced the small compartment like a cat listening for the sound of a can opener. He paused and stared curiously at Pitt, who was unconcernedly measuring distances with a pair of dividers.

The Colonel had learned a great deal about the man from NUMA in the past few hours, not from Pitt himself, but from the men on the ship. They talked of him as though he were some kind of walking legend.

"Coming through now," announced Stewart. He removed the headset and waited patiently for the newspaper-size photo to emerge from the receiver. As soon as it rolled free, he carried it over and placed it on the table. Then everyone began scrutinizing the shoreline around the upper end of the peninsula.

"The technicians at the CIA photo lab have computer-converted the specially sensitive film to a thermogram," explained Stewart. "The differences of infrared radiation are revealed in various colors. Black represents the coldest temperatures. Dark blue, light blue, green, yellow and red form an increasingly warmer scale to white, the hottest."

"What reading can we expect from the Lady Flamborough?" asked Dillenger.

"Somewhere in the upper end between yellow and red."

"Closer to a dark blue," Pitt broke in.

Everyone turned and glared at him as though he'd sneezed during a chess match.

"That being the case she won't stand out," Hollis protested. "We'd never find her."

"Heat radiation from the engines and generators will show as plain as a golf ball on a green," Gunn argued.

"Not if the engineering room was shut down."

"You can't mean a dead ship?" Dillenger asked in disbelief.

Pitt nodded. He stared at the others with a passing casual gaze that was more disturbing than if he had thrown a wet blanket over the enthusiasm of a breakthrough.

He smiled and said, "What we have here is a persistent urge to underrate the coach on the other team."

The five men looked at each other and then back at Pitt, waiting for some kind of explanation.

Pitt laid his nautical charts aside and rose from his chair. He walked to the table, picked up the infrared photo and folded it in half, revealing only the lower tip of Chile.

"Now then," Pitt continued, "haven't you noticed that every time the ship went through a change of appearance or altered course, it came immediately after one of our satellites passed overhead."

"Another example of precise planning," said Gunn. "The orbits of scientific data-gathering satellites are tracked by half the countries of the world. The information is as readily attainable as phases of the moon."

"Okay, so the hijack leader knew the orbiting schedules and guessed when the satellite cameras were aimed in his direction," said Hollis. "So what?"

"So he covered all avenues and shut down power to prevent detection by infrared photography. And, most important, to keep the warmth from melting the thin layer of ice coating the plastic shroud."

Four out of five found Pitts theory quite plausible. The holdout was Gunn. He was the fastest intellect in the bunch. He saw the flaw before anyone else.

"You're forgetting the subzero temperatures around the peninsula," said Gunn. "No power, no heat. Everyone on the ship would freeze to death in a few hours. You might say the hijackers were committing suicide at the same time they murdered their prisoners."

"Rudi makes good sense," Giordino said. "They couldn't survive without some degree of warmth and protective clothing."

Pitt smiled like a lottery winner. "I agree with Rudi one hundred percent."

"You're driving in circles," said Hollis in aggravation. "Make sense."

"Nothing complicated: The Lady Flamborough didn't enter the Antarctic."

"Didn't enter the Antarctic," repeated Hollis mechanically. "Face the facts, man. The last satellite photo of the ship showed her halfway between Cape Horn and the tip of the peninsula, steaming hell-bent to the south."

"She had no place else to go," protested Dillenger.

Pitt tapped a finger on the ragged mass of islands scattered around the Straits of Magellan. "Want to bet?"

Hollis stood frowning, baffled for a moment. And then he caught on. His confusion vanished and total understanding beamed in his eyes. "She doubled back," he said flatly.

"Rudi had the key," Pitt acknowledged. "The hijackers weren't about to commit suicide, nor were they going to risk detection by infrared photos. They never had any intention of heading into the ice pack.

Instead, they cut northwest and skirted the barren islands above Cape Horn."

Gunn looked relieved. "The temperatures are not nearly as severe around Tierra del Fuego. Everyone on board would be damned uncomfortable without warmth, but they'd survive."

"Then why the iceberg scam?" queried Giordino.

"To appear as if they calved from a glacier."

"Calved, like in cow?"

"Calving is the breaking away of an ice mass from an ice front or wall,"

Gunn clarified.

Giordino stared down at the infrared photo. "Glaciers this far north?"

"Several flow down the mountains and meet the sea within eight hundred kilometers from where we're docked here in Punta Arenas," replied Pitt.

"Where do you'reckon she is?" Hollis asked.

Pitt took a chart showing the desolate fringe islands west of Tierra del Fuego. "Two possibilities within the Lady Flamborough's sailing range since she was last spotted by satellite." He paused to place an X beside two names on the chart. "Directly south of here, glaciers flow from Mounts Italia and S ento."

Hollis said, "They're off the beaten track all right."

"But too close to the oil fields," said Pitt. "A low-flying oil-company survey plane might notice the phony ice cover.

Me, if I was calling the plays for the hijackers, I'd head another hundred and sixty kilometers northwest. Which would put them near a glacier on Santa Inez Island."

Dillenger studied the small island's irregular shoreline on the chart for a moment. He glanced at the colored photograph, but the southern foot of Chile was blotted by clouds. He pushed it aside and peered through the magnifying glass at the upper half of the infrared image Pitt had folded to condense the search region.

After a few seconds he looked up in wonder and delight. "Unless Mother Nature makes icebergs with a pointed bow and a rounded stern, I think we've found our phantom ship."

Hollis took the glass from his subordinate and examined the tiny oblong shape. "It's the right contour all right. And as Pitt said, there's no sign of heat radiation. She's reading almost as cold as the glacier.

Not quite pure black, but a very dark blue."

Gunn leaned in. "Yes, I see. The glacier flows into a fjord that empties in a bay crowded with small islands. One or two medium-size bergs, broken from the glacial wall. No more. The water is reasonably free of ice." He paused, a curious expression in the eyes behind the glasses. "I wonder how they moored the Lady Flamborough directly under the glacier's forward wall."

Pitts eyes narrowed. "Let me have a look." He squeezed between Dillenger and Gunn, bent over and gazed through the powerful glass.

After a time he straightened, his face clouded with a rising anger.

"What do you see?" asked Captain Stewart.

"They mean for every one to die."

Stewart looked at the others, puzzled. "How does he know?"

"When an ice slab fractures off the glacier and falls on the ship,"

Giordino said stonily, "she'll be shoved under the water and mashed into the bottom. No trace of her would ever be found."

Dillenger gave Pitt a hard look. "After all the lost opportunities, do you think they finally intend to murder the crew and passengers?"

"I do."

"Why not before now?"

"The myriad of deceptions was a stall for time. Whoever ordered the hijacking had reasons for keeping Presidents Hasan and De Lorenzo alive.

I can't tell you why-"

"I can," said Hollis. "Akhmad Yazid is the instigator. He planned to take control of Egypt soon after it was announced that President Hasan and U.N. SecretaryGeneral Hala Kamil were abducted and presumed killed by unknown terrorists at sea. After he and his close supporters established a solid power base, he would claim his agents had found the ship, and then act the benevolent man of God and negotiate the hostages'

release."

"Crafty bastard," murmured Giordino. "A Nobel Peace Prize candidate for sure if he saved President De Lorenzo and Senator Pitt as a bonus."

"Naturally, Yazid would see that Hasan and Kamil met with an unfortunate accident on their return to Egypt."

"And he'd still come out pure as the driven snow," Giordino grunted.

"A grand sting," admitted Pitt. "Yet, according to the latest news reports, the military has remained neutral, and Hasan's cabinet has refused to resign and fold the present government.

Hollis nodded. "Yes, throwing Yazid's carefully calculated schedule out the window."

"So he's plotted himself into a corner," said Pitt. "End of stalling tactics, end of masquerades; this time around he has to send the Lady Flamborough into oblivion, or face the very real threat of intelligence sources ferreting out his role in the operation. "

"A theory with no leaks," agreed Hollis.

"So while we stand here the hijack leader is playing Russian Roulette with the glacier," said Gunn in a low voice. "He and his terrorist tewn may have already abandoned the ship and escaped by boat or helicopter, leaving the crew and passengers confined below, helpless."

"Could be we've missed the boat," Dillenger speculated somberly.

Hollis didn't see it that way. He scribbled a number on a slip of paper and handed it to Stewart. "Captain, please signal my communications officer on this frequency. Tell him the Major and I are returning to the airfield and to assemble the men for an immediate briefing."

"We'd like to go along," said Pitt with quiet determination. Hollis shook his head. "No way. You're civilians. You've had no assault training. Your request is out of line."

"My father is on that ship."

"I'm sorry," he said, but didn't sound it. "WMark it off to tough luck."

Pitt looked at Hollis, and his eyes were very cold. "One call to Washington and I could queer your entire service career."

Hollis's mouth tightened. "You get your kicks making threats, Mr.

Pitt?" He took a step forward. "We're not playing touch football here.

A lot of bodies are going to mess the decks of that ship in the next twelve hours. If my men and I do our jobs the way we've been trained, a thousand phone calls to the White House and Congress won't make a damn."

He took another step toward Pitt. "I know more rotten tricks than you'd learn in a lifetime. I could tear you to shreds with my bare hands '

No one in the room saw the movement, saw where it came from. One instant Pitt was standing casually with his arms at his sides, the next he was pressing the muzzle of a Colt forty-five-caliber automatic into Hollis's groin.

Dillenger crouched as if ready to spring. That was as far as he got.

Giordino came from behind and pinned the Major's arms to his sides in a bear hug that clamped like a steel trap.

"I won't bore you with our credentials," Pitt said calmly. "Take my word. Rudi, Al and I have enough experience to hold our own in a shooting war. I promise we won't interfere. I presume you'll lead your Special Operations Forces against the Lady Flamborough in a combined air and sea assault. We'll stay out of your way and follow from the land side."

Hollis was far from frightened, but he was dazed. He couldn't begin to imagine how Pitt produced a large-caliber weapon with such lightning speed.

"Dirk is asking little of you, Colonel," said Gunn in a patient tone. "I suggest you demonstrate a small degree of mature logic and go along."

"I don't believe for a second you'd murder me," growled Hollis at Pitt.

"No, but I can guarantee you won't have a very productive sex life."

"Who are you people? Are you with the company?"

"The CIA?" said Giordino. "No, we didn't qualify. So we enlisted with NUMA instead,"

Hollis shook his head. "I don't understand any of this."

"You don't have to," said Pitt. "Is it a deal?"

Hollis considered for half a second. Then he leaned forward until his nose was only a few millimeters from Pitts and spoke as would a drill instructor to a raw recruit. "I'll see you weirdos are airlifted by an Osprey to within ten kilometers of the ship. No closer, or we'll lose the element of surprise. from there you can damn well hike in. If I'm lucky, you won't arrive until it's all over."

"Fair enough," Pitt agreed.

Hollis backed off then. He looked at Giordino and snapped, "I'd be grateful if you'd release my second in command."

Then he refaced Pitt. "We're shoving off, now. In fact, if you don't leave with Major Dillenger and me, you ain't going. Because, five minutes after boarding my command aircraft, our entire assault team will be airborne. "

Pitt eased the automatic from Hollis's groin. "We'll be right behind you."

"I'll tag along with the Major," said Giordino, giving Dillenger a friendly pat on the back. "Great minds run in the same channels."

Dillenger gave him a sour look indeed. "Yours might run in a gutter but mine don't."

The room cleared out in fifteen seconds. Pitt hurried to his cabin and snatched up a tote bag. He made a quick trip to the bridge and conversed with Captain Stewart.

"How long for the Sounder to reach Santa Inez?"

Stewart stepped into the chart room and made a quick calculation.

"Pushing throttles to the stops, our diesels should put us off the glacier in nine or ten hours."

"Do it," Pitt ordered. "We'll look for you around dawn."

Stewart shook Pitts hand. "You take care, you hear?"

"I'll try not to get my feet wet."

One of the ship's scientists stepped over from the bridge counter. He was black, medium height, and wore a stern expression that looked as if it was chiseled there. His name Clayton Findley, and he spoke in a deep, rich bass voice.

"Excuse me for eavesdropping, gentlemen, but I could have sworn you mentioned Santa Inez Island."

Pitt nodded. "Yes, that's right."

"There's an old zinc mine near the glacier. Closed down when Chile halted government-subsidized production."

"You're familiar with the island?" Pitt asked in surprise.

Findley nodded. "I was chief geologist of an Arizona mining company who thought they might make the army pay through efficient, cost-cutting operations. They sent me down along with a couple of engineers to make a survey. Spent three months in that hell hole. We found the ore grade about played out. Soon after, the mine was shuttered and the equipment abandoned."

:'How are you with a rifle?"

'I've hunted some."

Pitt took him by the arm. "Clayton, my friend, you are a gift from the gods."

Clayton Findley did indeed prove to be a godsend.

While Hollis bnefed his men inside an unused warehouse, Pitt, Gunn and Giordino helped Findley sculpt a diorama of Santa Inez Island from mud scooped beside the airport's runway on an old Ping-Pong table. He refreshed his memory of what he'd forgottened from Pitts nautical chart.

He hardened the miniature landscape with a portable heater and highlighted the features with cans of spray paint scrounged by one of Hollis's men. Gray for the rocky terrain, white for the snow and ice of the glacier. He even molded a scale model of the Lady Flamborough and set it at the foot of the glacier. At last he stood back and admired his handiwork.

"That," he said confidently, "is Santa Inez."

Hollis interrupted his briefing and gathered his men around the table.

Everyone stared at the diorama in thoughtful silence for a few moments.

The island was shaped like the center piece of a jigsaw puzzle produced by a drunken cutter. The ragged shoreline was a mine of spurs and hooks, gashed by barbed fjords and gnarled bays. It backed on the Straits of MageUan to the east and faced the Pacific Ocean to the west.

It was dead ground, not fit for a graveyard, 65 kilometers wide by 95

kilometers in length and peaked by Mount Wharton 1,320 meters high.

Beaches and flat ground were virtually nonexistent. The lowlying mountains rose like rockbound ships, their steep slopes falling in forlorn agony to meet the cold sea.

The ancient glacier sat like a saddle on the island. It was the result of cold and overcast summers that did not melt the ice. Barren escarpments of solid rock flanked the frigid mass, standing in sullen silence as the glacier gouged its irresistible passage toward the water where it calved section after section the way a butcher slices sausage.

Few areas of the world were more hostile to man. The entire island chain of the Magellans was uninhabited by permanent settlers. Through the centuries, men had come and gone leaving behind wrathful names like Break Neck Peninsula, Deceit Island, Calamity Bay, Desolation Isle and Port Famine. It was a hard place. The only vegetation that survived was stunted, twisted evergreens that merged with kind of a scrubby heath.

Findley swept a hand over the model. "Imagine a barren landscape with snow at the higher altitudes, and you pretty much get a picture of the real thing."

Hollis nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Findley. We're much obliged."

"Glad to help."

"All right, let's get down to the hard facts. Major Dillenger will lead the air-drop force, while I'll be in command of the dive team."

Hollis paused briefly to scan the faces of his men. They were lean, hard, purposeful-looking men dressed entirely in black. They were a tough breed of fighters who had survived torturous survival training to earn the distinction of serving with the elite Special Operations Force.

A hell of a team, Hollis thought proudly to himself. The best in the world.

"We've trained long and hard for ship seizures at night," he continued.

"But none where we've given away so many advantages to the enemy. We lack critical intelligence information, the weather conditions are miserable, and we're faced with a glacier that can shatter at any minute. Perplexing problems, tough problems that stand in the way of success. Before we launch our assault in a few hours, we want as many answers as possible. If you see a grave flaw in the operation, sing out. So let's begin."

"Island inhabitants?" Dillenger asked Findley straight away.

"None after we closed the mine."

"Weather conditions?"

"Rains almost constantly It's one of the most heavily watered regions on the continent. You rarely see the sun. Temperatures this time of year run a few degrees below freezing. winds are constant and can get violent at times. The willdchill factor is a bitch, and it's almost certain to be raining."

Dillenger gave Hollis a grave look. "We don't stand a prayer of a pinpoint air drop at night."

Hollis appeared grim. "We'll have to go in with the minichoppers and scale down with ropes."

"You brought helicopters?" asked Gunn incredulously. "I didn't think they had the speed and range-2'

-To fly this far so fast," Hollis finished. "Their military designation has too many letters and digits to memorize. We call them Carrier Pigeons. Small, compact, they carry a pilot in an enclosed cockpit and two men on the outside. Comes equipped with an infrared dome and silenced tail rotors. They can be broken down or assembled in fifteen minutes. One of our C-140s can transport six of them."

"You have another problem," said Pitt.

"Go ahead."

"The Lady Flamborough's navigation radar can be tuned for aircraft. Your Carrier Pigeons may have low profiles, but they can be read on a screen in time for the hijackers to prepare a nasty reception party."

"So much for surprise from the air," said Dillenger morosely.

Hollis looked at Findley. "any adverse conditions we should know about for an assault from the fjord?"

Findley smiled faintly. "You should have an easier time than the Major.

You'll enjoy the advantage of frost smoke."

"Frost smoke?"

"Foglike clouds formed from the contact of cold air with warmer water near the glacial wall. It can rise anywhere from two to ten meters.

Combined with the certain rain, your dive team should be cloaked from the time they begin their approach until they climb onto the decks."

"One of us gets a bit of luck after all," said Dillenger.

Hollis nabbed his chin thoughtfully. "We're not dealing with a textbook operation here. It could Turn real messy if the air drop is a foul-up.

All surprise would be lost, and without it the twenty-man dive team isn't strong enough to engage forty armed hijackers without support."

"Since it's suicidal for your men to parachute onto the ship," said Pitt, "why not drop them farther up the glacier?

from there they can make their way to the edge, and then rappel down ropes onto the main deck."

"We'd be looking at an easy descent," agreed Dillenger. The ice wall is above the ship's superstructure and near enough for us to clear the gap."

Hollis nodded and said, "The thought crossed my mind. any one see an obstacle with this tactict'

"Your biggest danger, as I see it," said Gunn, "is the glacier itself.

It can have an endless labyrinth of crevasses and treacherous snow crusts that give way under a man's weight. You'll have to take it slow and damned careful crossing it."

"any other comment?" There was none. Hollis gave a side glance to Dillenger. "How much time will you'require from air drop to attack readiness?"

"It would help if I knew wind velocity and direction."

"Nine days out of ten it blows from the southeast," answered Findley.

"Average velocity is about ten kilometers an hour, but it can easily gust to a hundred."

Dillenger stared pensively for a few moments at the small mountains rising behind the glacier. He tried to visualize the scene at night, sense the severity of the wind. He ticked off the time inside his head.

Then he looked up.

"Forty to forty-five minutes from air drop to ship assault."

"Pardon me for telling you your job, Major," said Pitt. "But you're cutting it too fine."

Findley nodded. "I agree. I've hiked the glacier on many occasions.

The ice ridges make it slow going."

In a smooth, greased movement, Dillenger pulled a long, wicked-looking Bowie knife, angled between hilt and blade, from a sheath behind his back and used the spiked tip as a pointer. 'The way I see it, we'll make our jump on the backside of the mountain to the right of the glacier. This should hide our C-140 transport from the ship's radar.

Using the preveiling winds, which hopefully will run true to pattern, we'll glide our 'stealth parachutes' around the mountain for seven kilometers, landing within one kilometer from the glacier's forward wall.

Time from jump until we regroup on the ice, I'd judge eighteen minutes.

Time to walk to glacier's edge; another twenty minutes. Six more minutes to prepare repel operation. Total time; forty-four minutes."

"I'd double it if I were you," said Giordino disapprovingly. "You'll have a hell of a time meeting a deadline if some of your men fall in a crevasse. The dive team won't be aware of the delay."

Hollis shot Al a look he usually reserved for war protesters. "This isn't World War One, Mr. Giordino. We don't have to synchronize watches before we go over the top. Each man is custom-fitted with a miniaturized radio receiver in his ear and a microphone inside his ski mask. No matter whether Major Dillenger and his team are late or mine is early, so long as we are in constant communication, we can coordinate a joint assault-"

"One other thing," Pitt broke in. "I assume your weapons are silenced."

"They are," Hollis assured him. "Why?"

"One burst from an unsilenced machine gun could bring down the wall of the glacier."

"I can't speak for the hijackers."

"Then you better kill them quick," muttered Giordino.

"We don't train to take terrorists as prisoners," Hollis said with a cold, ominous grin. "Now then, if our visitors can restrain their criticisms, are there any questions?"

Dive-team leader Richard Banning raised his hand. "Sir?"

"Henning?"

"Will we be approaching the ship underwater or on the surface?"

Hollis simply used a ballpoint pen as a pointer. He tapped it on a small island in the fjord that was behind a point of land and out of sight from the ship. "Our team will be ferried by Pigeon Carrier to this island. Distance to the Lady Flamborough is about three kilometers. The water is too cold for a swim that far, so we'll stay dry and move in by rubber boats. If Mr. Findley is correct about the frost smoke, we should be able to approach without detection. If it's dissipated, we'll enter the water two hundred meters away and dive until we reach the hull."

"A lot of balls will be iced if we have to wait very long for Major Dillenger's team to get in place."

A small wave of laughter echoed from the eighty men gathered around the table.

Hollis sighed and gave a broad smile. "I don't intend to freeze mine.

We'll give the Major an ample head start."

Gunn raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Gunn," Hollis said wearily. "What's on your mind now? Did I forget something?"

"Just curiosity, Colonel. How will you know if the hijackers somehow get wind of the assault and lay a trap?"

"One of our aircraft is filled with advanced electronic-surveillance equipment. It will fly a circular pattern seven Miles above the Lady Flamborough, detecting any radio transmissions sent by the hijackers to their collaborators outside the region. They'd scream like madmen if they thought a Special Operations Force was closing the net around them.

The Communications men and translators can intercept all transmissions and alert us in plenty of time."

Pitt made a casual motion with one hand.

"Yes, Mr. Pitt."

"I hope you haven't forgotten the NUMA party." Hollis lifted an eyebrow.

"No, I haven't forgotten." He turned to the geologist. "Mr. Findley, where did you say the old abandoned mine was located?"

"I neglected to place it," replied Findley matter-of-factly. "But since you're interested-" He paused and placed a match cover on the side of a small mount overlooking the glacier and the fjord. "She sits here, about two and a half kilometers from the forward edge of the glacier and the ship."

Hollis turned to Pitt- "That's where you'll be. You can serve as an observation post."

"Some observation post," grumbled Giordino- "In the dark and rain and sleet, we'd be lucky to see our own shoelaces."

"CozY and safe and out of harm's way," Pitt said pontifically. "We may light a fire in the stove and have ourselves a picnic."

"You do that," Hollis said with some satisfaction. He looked around at the assembled men. "Well, gentlemen, I won't bore you with a gung ho pep talk. Let's just do our jobs and save some lives."

"And will just one for the Gipper," Giordino muttered. "What did you say?"

"Al was saying what an honor it was to be part of an elite fighting force," said Pitt.

Hollis gave Giordino a stare that would cut glass. "Special Operations Forces do not give out honorary memberships. You civilians will stay back out of the way." Hollis turned to Dillenger. "If any of these NUMA people attempt to set foot on the ship before I give permission, shoot them. That's an order."

"A pleasure," Dillenger grinned sharkishly.

Giordino shrugged. "They certainily know how to vent wrath around here."

Pitt did not share Giordino's caustic mood. He understood perfectly Hollis's position. His men were professional, a team. He gazed around at them, big, quiet men, ranged in a mugh circle around the model. None was over twenty-five.

As he stared into their faces he couldn't help wondering which ones were going to die in a few short hours.

"How much longer?" Machado asked Ammar as he sprawled on Captain Collins's settee.

With no ship's power, the Captain's cabin was dimly lit by four flashlights strategically hung from the ceiling. Ammar shrugged indifferently while he read from the Koran. "You spend more time in the communications room than I do. You tell me."

Machado made a spitting gesture at the deck. "I am sick of waiting around like a pregnant duck. I say shoot the lot of them and get the hell away from this barren purgatory.

Ammar looked at his peer in the business of murder. Machado was sloppy in his habits. His hair was oily and his fingernails wedged with dirt.

One whiff at two paces was enough to recognize he seldom bathed. Ammar respected Machado as a dangerous threat, but beyond that there was only disgust.

Machado rolled off the settee to his feet and restlessly roamed the cabin before settling in a chair. "We should have received instructions twenty-four hours ago," he said. "Topiltzin is not one to hesitate."

"Neither is Akhmad Yazid," said Ammar while keeping his eyes focused on the Koran. "He and Allah will provide."

"Provide what? Helicopters, a ship, a submarine, before we're discovered? You know the answer, my Egyptian friend, yet you sit like your Sphinx."

Ammar turned a page without looking up. "Tomorrow at this time you and your men will be safely back in Mexico."

"What guarantee can you give we won't all be sacrificed for the good of the cause?"

"Yazid and Topiltzin cannot risk our capture by international commando forces," Ammar said wearily, "for fear we might talk under torture.

Their blossoming empires would be chipped to pieces if one of us revealed their involvement. Trust me, arrangements have been made for our escape. You must be patient."

"What arrangements?"

"You'll learn that part of the plan as soon as instructions arrive concerning the fate of our hostages."

The deep-dyed falsehood was beginning to fray at the edges. Machado might see the light at any time. As long as one of Ammar's men operated the ship's communications network, no signals were received while the radio was set on the wrong frequency. Yazid, and probably Topiltzin too, Ammar thought, must be sweating if they thought he had ignored the original plan and murdered everyone on board, instead of keeping them alive for propaganda purposes.

"Why not act on our own, lock them all below, sink the ship and be done with it?" Machado's voice came thick with exasperation.

"Killing the entire British crew, the American Senator and other non-Mexican or Egyptian nationals would not be wise. You may enjoy the excitement and constant intrigue of being the object of an international manhunt, Captain. Me, I'd prefer to live out my life in comfortable convenience."

"Stupid to leave witnesses."

The fool had no idea how right he was, Ammar thought. He sighed and laid down the Koran. "Your only concern is President De Lorenzo. Mine is President Hasan and Hala Kamil. Our relationship ends there."

Machado stood and crossed the cabin, jerking open the door. "We better hear something damned quick," he grumbled nastily. "I can't keep my men in check much longer. They have this growing urge to place me in charge of the mission."

Ammar smiled agreeably. "Noon . . . if we haven't heard from our leaders by noon, I will Turn over command to you."

Machado's eyes widened for an instant in suspicion. "You'd agree to step down and place me in charge?"

"Why not? I've accomplished what I set out to do. Except for the disposition of President Hasan and Miss Kamil, my job is finished. I'll gladly hand the final headaches to you."

Machado suddenly grinned the devil's own grin. "I'm going to hold you to that promise, Egyptian. Then maybe I'll see the face behind the mask." Then he stepped outside.

The door latch had hardly clicked after Machado's depamm when Ammar removed the miniature radio from under his coat and pressed the transmit switch.

"Ibn?"

"Yes, Suleiinan Aziz?"

"Your location?"

"On the stern."

"How many on shore?"

"Six have been ferried to the old mine pier. There are fifteen of us left on board, including you. The going is slow. We only have one

-man boat. The large eight-man inflatable was slashed beyond repair."

"Sabotage?"

"It could only be the handiwork of Machado's men."

"Have they caused any more problems?"

"Not yet. The cold keeps them off the outside decks. Most are sitting in the lounge drinking tequila from the bar. The rest are sleeping. You were wise to instruct our men to become friendly with them. Their discipline has loosened considerably."

"The charges?"

"All explosives have been placed in a line running parallel with the glacier's face. The detonation should bring down the entire frontal wall on the ship."

"How soon before our withdrawal can be completed?"

"The use of paddles makes for slow going under a heavy ebb tide. We can't use the boat's motor for fear of alerting Machado's men. I'd estimate another forty-five minutes to clear everyone off the ship."

"We must be safely away before daylight."

"Everyone will do their utmost, Suiek= Aziz."

"Can they run the ferry operation without you?"

:'Yes."

'Bring one man and meet me at Hasan's cabin."

"We're going to execute them?"

"No," replied Anunar. "We're taking them with us."

Ammar switched off the radio and slipped the Koran into a pocket of his coat.

His betrayal by Akhmad Yazid would be revenged. He was going to enjoy seeing his magnificent plan Turn to shambles. Ammar had no intention of carrying through with the original operation, knowing Machado had been hired to kill him and his hijack team. He was angered more by the loss of his fee than by being stabbed in the back.

Therefore, he reasoned, he would keep Hasan and Kamfl alive, and yes, De Lorenzo too, at least temporarily, as bargaining chips. He might recoup after all by turning the tables and throwing all guilt on Yazid and Topiltzin.

He needed time to think and create a new plan. But first things first.

He had to sneak his hostages off the ship before Machado and his motley crew caught on to his sleight of hand.

Hala's heart sank when the door opened and the hijacker's leader stepped into the cabin suite. She stared at him for a moment, seeing only the eyes behind the ridiculous mask and the machine gun casually held in one hand, and wondered with female curiosity what kind of man he might be under different circumstances.

He entered and spoke in a quiet but fearsome voice. "You will all come with me."

Hala trembled and lowered her gaze to the floor, angry at herself for showing fear.

Senator Pitt was not intimidated. He jumped to his feet and crossed the cabin in long strides, stopping only when the toes of his shoes nearly touched Ammar's.

"Where are you taking us and for what purpose?" the Senator demanded. .

"I am not sitting in front of one of your camel-witt,--d Senate investigation committees," said Ammar icily. "Do not cross examine me.

"We have a right to know," the Senator insisted firmly.

"You have no rights!" snaPPed Amnw. He roughly pushed the Senator aside and moved into the room, his gaze taking in the pale, apprehensive faces.

You're going for a little boat ride, followed by a short journey by train. My men will pass out blankets to ward off the damp chill."

They all looked at him as if he was crazy but none argued.

With a dreadful feeling of hopelessness, Hala slowly helped President Hasan to his feet. she was tired of living under the constant threat of death. She felt as though she no longer cared.

And yet, something within her, a spark, a will to defy, still smoldered.

The fearlessness of a soldier going into battle who knows he is going to die and has nothing to lose by fighting to the end slowly crept over her. She was determined to survive.

Captain Machado entered the communication room and found it empty. At first he thought Ammar,s radio operator had taken a brief break for a call of nawm, but he looked 'm the head and found it empty too.

Machado stared at the radio panel for a long moment, his eyes strained and red from lack of sleep, his face showing a puzzled expression. He stepped onto the bridge and approached one of his own crewmen who was peering into the radarscope.

"Where is the radio operator?" he asked.

The radar observer turned and shrugged. ,i haven't seen him, Captain.

Isn't he in the communications room?"

"No, the place is deserted."

"Would you like me to check with the Arab leader?"

Machado shook his head slowly, not quite able to get a grip on the Egyptian radio operator's disappearance. "Find Jorge Delgado and bring him here. He knows radios. Better us than the stupid Arabs to oversee the communications."

While they were talking, neither man noticed the strong blip that appeared on the radarscope, indicating a low-flying aircraft passing over the center of the island.

Even if they had been alert, there was no detecting the radar-invisible

"stealth parachutes" of Dillenger's Special Forces team as they opened them and began gliding toward the glacier.

Pitt sat in the Spartan confines of the tilt-rotor osprey. The bullet-shaped craft lifted off the ground like a helicopter but flew like a plane at speeds in excess of six hundred kilo meters per hour. He was wide-awake; only a dead man could sleep in those aluminum seats with ultrathin pads for cushions, the weather turbulence, and the engine noise that roared through the barest of soundproofing. Only a dead man, that is, except Giordino. He was deflated like a life-size balloon figurethere was no other description for it-with just enough air to give it form. Every few minutes, as if his brain was set on an automatic timer, he changed position without cracking an eye or missing a breath.

"How does he do it?" asked Findley in frank amazement.

"It's in the genes," Pitt answered.

Gunn shook his head admiringly. "I've seen him sleep in the damdest contortions in the darndest places, and I still can't believe it when I see it."

The young copilot turned and peered around the back of his seat.

"Doesn't exactly suffer from stress syndrome, does he?"

Pitt and the others laughed and then became quiet, all wishing they didn't have to leave the cozy warmth of the aircraft for the icy nightmare outside. Pitt relaxed as best he could. He felt some measure of satisfaction. Though he was not included in the assault-better to leave that to trained professionals in the art of hostage rescue-he was positioned close enough to tag along on the heels of Hollis and his SOF

teams, and he had every intention of following Dillenger's men down the scaling ropes after the attack was launched.

Pitt sensed no foreboding premonition nor imagined any omen of death. He did not doubt for an instant his father was alive. He couldn't explain it, even to himself, but he felt the Senator's presence. The two had a tight bond over the years. They could almost read each other's minds.

"We'll be at your landing point in six minutes," announced the pilot with a cheerfulness that made Pitt cringe.

The pilot seemed blissfully unconcerned at flying over jagged, snowcapped peaks he couldn't see. All that was visible through the windshield was the flash of sleet slamming the glass, and the darkness beyond.

"How do you know where we are?" asked Pitt.

The pilot, a laid-back Burt Reynolds type, shrugged lazily. "All in the wrists," he quipped.

Pitt leaned forward and peered over the pilot's shoulder. No hands were on the controls. The pilot was sitting with his arms folded, staring at a small screen that looked like a video game. Only the Osprey's nose showed at the bottom of the graphic display, while the flashing picture was rifled with mountains and valleys that hurtled past under the simulated aircraft. In a split-screen panel in an upper corner, distances and altitudes appeared in red digital numbers.

"Untouched by human hands," said Pitt. "The computer is replacing everyone."

"Lucky for us they haven't developed a knack for sex.1' The pilot laughed. He reached out and made a slight adjustment with a tuning knob. " and radar scanners read the ground and the computer converts it to three-demensional display. I plug in the auto pilot, and while the aircraft darts around the terrain like a Los Angeles Raiders running back, I think about such wondrous subjects as the Congressional budget and our State Department's foreign policy."

"That's news to me," muttered the copilot wryly.

"Without our little electronic guide here," the pilot continued, undaunted, "we'd still be sitting on the ground at Punta Arenas waiting for daylight and clearing weather-" A chime

sound issued from the display screen, and the pilot stiffened.

"We're coming up on our programmed landing site. You better get your people ready to disembark."

"What were your instructions from Colonel Hollis for dropping us off?"

"Just to set you down behind the mountain summit above the mine to hide from the cruise ship's radar. You'll have to hoof it the rest of the way."

Pitt turned to Findley. 11 any problem on your end?"

Findley smiled. "I know that mountain like my wife's bottom, every nook and crack. The summit is only two kilometers from the mine entrance.

An easy walk down the slope. I could do it blindfolded."

"from what I see of this rotten weather," Pitt muttered darkly, "that's exactly what you'll have to do."

The howl of the wind replaced the whine from the Osprey's turbines as the NUMA crew quickly exited through the cargo hatch. There was no time wasted, no words spoken, only a silent farewell wave to the pilots.

Within a minute, the four men, carrying only two tote bags, were bent into the sleet and trudging up the rocky slope toward the mountain's summit.

Findley silently took the lead. Visibility was almost as bad On the ground as it was in the air. The flashlight in Findley's hand was one degree above useless. The flaying sleet reflected the flashlight's beam, revealing the broken terrain no more than one or two meters ahead.

In no way did they remotely resemble an elite assault team. They carried no visible weapons. No two wore the same type Of Clothing to ward off the cold. Pitt had on gray ski togs; Giordino wore dark blue. Gunn was lost in an orange survival suit that looked two sizes too large. Findley was outfitted like a Canadian lumbe ack complete with a woolly Basque stocking cap pulled low over his ears. The only items they had in common were yellow-lensed ski goggles.

The wind was blowing at about twenty kilometers per hour, Pitt estimated-bitter but bearable. The rocky, uneven surface was sliPPery from the wet, and they slid and stumbled, frequently losing their balance and falling heavily.

Every few minutes they had to wipe the buildup of sleet from their goggles. Soon, from the front, they looked like snowmen, while their backs were quite dry.

Findley raked the ground ahead with his flashlight, dodging large boulders and sparse, grotesque shrubs. He knew he had reached the summit when he stepped onto an outcrop of bare rock and was struck by the full force of the wind.

"Not much further," he said over the howl of the wind. "Downhill all the way."

"Too bad we can't rent a toboggan," said Giordino gloomily.

Pitt pulled back his glove and peered at the luminous hands of his old Doxa dive watch. The assault was set for 0-five hundred. Twenty-eight minutes away. They were running late.

"Let's make time," he shouted. "I don't want to miss the party."

They made good time for the next fifteen minutes. The mountain's slope became more gradual, and Findley found a narrow, winding track that led to the mine. Farther downhill the stunted pines became thicker, the rock became smaller, looser, and their boots were able to get a better grip.

Thankfully, the driving wind and sleet began to ease up. Holes in the clouds appeared and stars became visible. They were able to see now without the hindrance of the goggles.

Findley grew more confident of his surroundings as a high ore talking materialized in the blackness. He skirted the pile and swung onto a small, narrow-gauge railroad track and began following it into the dark.

He was about to turn and shout "We're here," but was cut off. Pitt suddenly and unexpectedly reached out, grabbed the back of Findley's collar and jerked him to a halt so abruptly his feet flew out from under him, and he crashed on his buttocks. As he fell, Pitt snatched the flashlight and switched it off.

"What in Hell?"

"Quiet!" Pitt rasped sharply.

"You hear something?" asked Gunn softly.

"No, I smell a familiar odor."

odor?"

"Lamb. Somebody is barbecuing a leg of lamb."

They all leaned their heads back and sniffed the air

"By God, you're right," murmured Giordino. "I do smell lamb on a grill."

Pitt helped Findley to his feet- "Appears that someone has jumped your claim."

"they must be dumber than a toad if they think there's any ore worth processing around here."

"I doubt they're excavating for zinc."

Giordino moved off to one side. "Before you doused the light, I saw a glint over here somewhere." He moved one foot around in a semicircle. It struck an object that clinked, and he picked it up. He turned so he was facing away from the Mine and flicked on a tiny penlight. "A bottle of ChAteau Margaux 1966-for hardrock miners, these guys have real style."

"Odd goings-on here," said Findley. "Whoever moved in isn't getting their hands dirty."

"Lamb and vintage Bordeaux must have come from the Lady Flamborough,"

Gunn concluded.

"How far away are we from where the glacier meets the fjord?" Pitt asked Findley.

"The glacier itself is only about five hundred meters to the north. The wall facing the fjord is slightly less than two kilometers west."

"How was the ore transi3reported?"

Findley gestured in the direction of the fjord. "By this narrow-gauge railroad-The tracks run from the mine entrance to the ore crusher, then down to the dock, where the Ore was loaded on ships."

"You never said anythipg about a dock."

"NobodY asked." Findley shrugged. "A small loading pier.

The pilings extend into a cove slightly off to one side of the glacier."

"Approximate distance from the ship?"

"A baseball outfielder with a good arm could lob a ball from the dock against the hull."

"I should have seen it," Pitt murmured bitterly. "I missed it, everyone missed it."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Findley,

"The terrorists' support team," answered Pitt. The hijackers on the ship need an advance base for their escape. They couldn't disembark at sea without detection and capture unless they had a submarine, which is impossible to find

without legitimate government backing. The abandoned mine site makes a perfect hiding place for helicopters. And they can use the narrow-gauge railroad for commuting back and forth from the fjord."

"Hollis," said Gunn briefly, "We'd better inform him."

"Can't," said Giordino. "Our friendly neighborhood Colonel refused to provide us with a radio."

"So how do we warn Hollis?" Gunn put in.

"No way." Pitt shrugged. "But we might help by finding and disabling their helicopters while pinning down any terrorist force in the mine camp to keep them from catching Hollis and his assault teams in a vise."

"There could be fifty of them," protested Findley. "We're only four."

"'Their security is lax," Gunn pointed out. "They don't expect anyone to drop in from the interior of a deserted island in the middle of a storm."

"Rudi's right," said Giordino. "If they were alert they'd have been onto us by now. I vote we evict the bastards."

"We have surprise on our side," Pitt continued. "As long as we stay careful and keep undercover in the dark, we can keep them off balance."

"If they come after us," asked Findley, "do we throw rocks?"

"My life is guided by the Boy Scout motto," replied Pitt.

He and Giordino knelt in unison and unzipped the tote bags. Giordino began passing around bulletproof vests while Pitt handed out the weapons.

He held up a semiautomatic shotgun for Findley. "You said you hunted some, Clayton. Here's an early Christmas present. A twelve-gauge Benelli Super Ninety."

Findley's eyes gleamed. "I like it." He ran his hands over the stock as lightly as though it were a woman's thigh. "Yes, I like it." Then he noticed that Gunn and Giordino carried Heckler-Koch machine guns modified with silencers. "You can't buy this stuff at a corner hardware store. Where did you get it?"

"Special Operations Forces issue," Giordino said nonchalantly. "Borrowed when when Hollis and Dillenger weren't looking."

Findley was further amazed when Pitt shoved a round drum in an ancient"Mompson submachine gun. "You must like antiques."

"There's something to be said for old-fashioned craftsman ship," said Pitt. He looked at his watch again. Only six minutes remained before Hollis and Dillenger attacked the ship. "No shooting until I give the word. We don't want to screw up the Special Forces assault. They have precious little chance of surprise as it is."

"What about the glacier?" Findley asked. "Won't our gunfire send out shock waves that could fracture the forward wall of ice?"

"Not from this range," Gunn assured him. "Our concentrated fire will seem more like the distant bang of firecrackers."

"Remember," ordered Pitt, "we want to stall off a gun battle as long as we can. Our first priority is to find the helicopters."

"A pity we don't have any explosives," mumbled Giordino. "Nothing ever comes easy."

Pitt gave Findley a few seconds to get his bearings. Then the geologist nodded and they moved out, skirting the backs of the old, weathered buildings, keeping to the shadows, stepping as quietly as possible, the crunch of their soles against the loose gravel muffled by the stiff breeze that reversed and now came sweeping down the mountainside.

The buildings around the mine were mostly built of wooden support beams covered by corrugated metal sheeting that showed signs of corrosion and rust. Some were small sheds, others rose two to four stories into the sky, their walls trailing off into the gloom. Except for the smell of the roasting lamb, it looked like an old American West ghost town.

Abruptly Findley stopped behind a long shed and held up a hand, waiting for the other to close around him. He Peered around the corner once, twice, and then turned to Pitt.

"The recreation and dining-hall building is only a few paces to my right," he whispered. "I can make out cracks of light spilling out from under the door." Giordino tested the air with his nose. "They must like their meat well done."

"any sign of guards?" asked Pitt.

"The area looks deserted."

"Where could they hide the helicopters?"

"The main mine is a vertical shaft dropping to six levels. So that's out as a parking garage."

"Where, then?" Findley gestured into the early-morning blackness. "The ore-crushing mill has the largest open space. There's also a sliding door used for storing heavy equipment. If the copter's rotor blades were folded they could easily squeeze three of them inside."

"The crushing mill it is," said Pitt softly.

There was no more time to waste; Hollis and Dillenger's joint attack would begin at any minute. They were halfway past the dining hall when the door suddenly opened and a shaft of light filtered through the rain, cutting them off below the knees and illuminating their feet. They froze, guns in firing position.

A figure was silhouetted by the interior light for a few seconds. He stepped over the threshold briefly and scraped a few morsels from a dish onto the ground. Then he turned and closed the door. Moments later Pitt and the others flattened their backs against the crushing-mill's wall.

Pitt turned and put his mouth to Findley's ear.

"How can we sneak in?"

"Conveyor belts run through openings in the building that carried the bulk ore to the crusher and back to the train after it became slurry.

The only problem is they're way over our heads."

"Lower access doors?"

"The big equipment-storage door," Findley answered, his murmur as soft as Pitts, "and the main front entrance. If I remember correctly there's also a stairway that leads into a side office."

"No doubt locked," said Giordino morosely.

"A bright thought," Pitt conceded. "Okay, the front door it is. No one inside will be expecting total strangers coming to call. We'll go in clean and quiet, like we belong. No surprises. Just one of their buddies strolling from the dining hall."

"I bet the door squeaks," Giordino muttered.

They walked unhurriedly around a corner of the crushing nial and entered unchallenged through a high, weathered door that swung on its hinges noiselessly.

"Curses," Giordino whispered ugh clenched teeth.

The interior of the building was enormous. It had to be. A giant mechanical machine sat in the center like a giant octopus with conveyor belts, water hoses and electrical wiring for tenfacies. The ore crusher consisted of a massive horizontal cylinder containing various-sized steel balls that pulverized the ore.

Huge flotation tanks sat along one wall that had received the slurry after crushing. Overhead, maintenance catwalks reached by steel ladders crisscrossed above the massive equipment. A cord of lights hung from the catwalk railings, their power produced by a portable generator whose exhaust popped away in one corner.

Pitt had guessed wrong. He had figured at least two, perhaps even three, helicopters to evacuate the hijackers. There was only one-a large British Westiand Commando, an older but reliable craft designed for logistic support. it could carry eight or more passengers if they were tightly crammed in. Two men in ordinary combat fatigues were standing on a high mechanic's stand peering through an access panel beside the engine. They were engrossed in their work and paid no notice to their predawn visitors.

Slowly, cautiously, Pitt advanced into the great open crushing room, Findley on his right, Giordino covering the left, Gunn And Findley together. the helicopter's two crewmen did not Turn from their work.

Only then did he see an uncaring guard sitting on an overturned box behind a support beam with his back to the door.

Pitt gestured to Giordino and Findley to circle around the helicopter in the shadows and search for other hijackers. The guard, having felt the rush of cold air from the opening-andclosing door, half turned to see who had entered the building.

Pitt walked slowly toward the guard, who was dressed in black combat fatigues, with a ski mask over his head. Pitt was only two meters away when he smiled and lifted a hand in a vague greeting.

The guard gave him a quizzical look and said something in Arabic.

Pitt gave a friendly shrug and replied in gibberish that was lost under the sound of the generator's exhaust.

Then the guard focused his eyes on the old Thompson machine gun. The two seconds between puzzlement, and alarm, followed by physical reaction, cost him painfully. Before he could bring up his weapon and whip sideways, Pitt had chopped the butt of the Thompson against his skull under the black ski mask.

Pitt caught the guard as he slumped and propped him back against the beam as though he were dozing. Next he ducked under the forward fuselage of the helicopter and approached the two mechanics working on the engine. Reaching the stand, he grasped the rungs of its ladder and gave it a great heave, tipping it backwards.

The mechanics flew through the air, so startled they didn't shout. Their only reaction was to throw up their hands in a futile attempt to claw the air before thumping onto the hard wooden plank floor. One struck his head and blacked out immediately. The other landed on his side, his tight arm breaking with an audible snap. A painful gasp burst from his lips only to be silenced by the sudden impact of the Thompson' butt against his temple.

"Nice work," said Findley, dispensing with silence.

"Every move a picture," Pitt muttered loftily.

"I hope that's the lot."

"Not quite. Al has four more behind the 'chopper."

Findley cautiously stepped under the aircraft and was astounded to see Giordino sitting comfortably in a folding chair, staring fiercely at four scowling captives entirely encased up to their chins in sleeping bags.

"You always had a fetish for neat packages," said Pitt.

Giordino's eyes never left his prisoners. "And you were always too loud. What was all the noise?"

"The mechanics took a nasty fall off the maintenance stand."

"How many did we bag?"

"Seven, all told."

"Four must be part of the flight crew."

"A backup pilot and copilot plus two mechanics. They weren't taking any chances."

Findley motioned to one of the mechanics. "One of them is coming around.."

Pitt slung his Thompson over a shoulder. "I think we'll fix it so they can't go anywhere for a while. You do the honors, Clayton. Bind and gag them. You should find some straps inside the chopper. Al, keep a sharp eye on them. Rudi and I are going to look around outside."

"We'll ensure their complete immobilization," said Giordino, speaking like a bureaucrat.

"You better. They'll kill you if you don't."

Pitt motioned to Gunn and they stripped off the upper clothing from two of their prisoners. Pitt snatched the ski mask and pulled the black sweater from the unconscious guard. He wrinkled his nose from the smell of the unwashed sweater and slipped it over his own head.

Then they walked out the door, making no effort to appear inconspicuous.

They strode briskly, confidently, staying in the center of the road that ran between the buildings. At the dining hall they cut into the shadows and peered around the edge of a window through a crack in the curtains.

"There's got to be a dozen of them in there," Gunn whispered. "All armed to their molars. Looks like they're ready to vacate the premises,"

"Damn Hollis," Pitt grunted softly. "if only he'd given us some means of communicating with him."

"Too late now."

"Late?"

"It's 05:12," answered Gunn. "If the assault had gone according to schedule, Hollis's support forces and medics would be flying over toward the ship by now."

Gunn was right. There was no sound of the Special Operations Forces'

helicopters.

"Let's find the ore train," ordered Pitt. "We'd be smart to put it out of commission and cut all transportation between the mine and the ship."

Gunn nodded, and they moved silently along the wall of the dining hall, ducking under the windows and halting at a corner where they paused to cautiously scan the immediate neighborhood. Then they swung across an open space until they reached the railroad track, stepped across the rails and began sprinting between the ties.

A chill crept up Pitts back as he tailed Gunn, and he clenched his fists around the stock and forward grip of the Thompson with a growing sense of despair. The wind and rain had stopped and the stars were quickly fading in the eastern sky.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

To Hollis, it seemed hours since they had launched the boats.

The compact Carrier Pigeon helicopters had flown low along the rugged coastline and deposited Hollis's team on a small island at the mouth of the fjord without a hitch. The launching was executed smoothly with effortless efficiency, but the swift, four-knot tidal current was far stronger than anyone had anticipated.

Then the silent electric motor on the lead five-man tow boat had mysteriously quit after the first ten minutes. Precious time was lost as the Special Forces men broke out the paddles and put their backs into a desperate race to close on the Lady Flamborough before first light.

Matters had been worsened by the breakdown in communications. To his dismay, Hollis was unable to notify Dillenger or any of the land team.

He had no way of knowing whether Dillenger had boarded the ship or was lost on the glacier.

Hollis paddled and cursed the deceased motor, the current at every stroke. His carefully calculated timetable was down the drain. The attack was far behind schedule, and he couldn't risk calling it off.

His only salvation was the "fog smoke" Findley had described. it swirled around the small boats and the fiercely determined men, cloaking them like a protecting blanket.

The mist and the darkness made it impossible for Hollis to see more than a few meters ahead. He navigated and watched over his tiny fleet through an infrared scope. He kept them tightly grouped within a three-meter radius, quietly giving directions over his miniature radio whenever one began to stray.

He turned the scope on the Lady Flamborough. Her beautiful lines now looked like a grotesque ice carving floating in front of the cracked porcelain wall of an antique bathtub. Hollis judged her to still be a good kilometer away.

After exacting its toll, the tide suddenly began to slacken and their speed soon picked up almost a knot. The welcome relief came almost too late. Hollis could see his men were wearing down under the constant, arduous paddling. They were men hardened by rigid training, and all lifted weights on a regular basis. They dug the paddles into the water noiselessly and heaved against the merciless tide, but their muscles were beginning to stiffen and each stroke became an effort.

The protective mist was beginning to . lift In his mind was the fear that they would become sitting ducks in the water. Hollis looked upward, his confidence ebbing with the tide. Through the mist's open patches he could see a sky that was turning from black to an ever lighter blue.

His boats were in the middle of the fjord, and the nearest shore that offered any degree of cover was half a kilometer farther away than the Lady Flamborough.

"Put your backs into it, men," he urged. "We're in the home stretch. Go for it."

The weary fighters reached deep for their reserve strength and increased the length and speed of their strokes. It felt to Hollis as if the inflatable boats were spurting through the water. He put aside the scope and paddled furiously.

They might make it, just might make it, he thought hopefuly as they began to rapidly close on the ship.

But where was Dillenger? he wondered bitterly. What in hell had happened to the assault team on the glacier?

Dillenger was having no picnic himself. He was even more vague on the situation. Immediately after jumping from the C-140 wmsport, he and his men had been immediately hurle, all over the sky by the heavy, blowing winds.

Tight-faced, Dillenger looked up and around to see how his team was Managing. Each man carried a small blue light, but the driving sleet made it impossible for him to see them. He lost them almost the instant his chute opened.

He reached down and pressed the switch of a little black box strapped to his leg. Then he spoke into his tiny transmitter.

"This is Major Dillenger-I have turned on my marker beacon. have a seven-kilometer glide, so try and stay close to me and home in on my position after you land."

"In this crap we'll be lucky to come down on the island," some malcontent muttered.

"Radio silence except for emergency," Dillenger ordered.

He looked down and saw nothing beyond his survival-and-weapons pack that dangled on a two-meter line beneath his harness-He took his bearings from the luminous dial of a combination compass and altimeter that extended in front of his forehead like the mirror worn by ear, nose and throat physicians.

Without reference points or a homing beacon dropped on the landing zone in advance-a luxury too great to risk alerttng the hiJackers-Dillenger had to try and fly by the seat of his pants and mentally judge glide angle and distance.

His primary concern was overshooting the edge of the glacier and landing m the fjord. He hedged his bet and came down short-nearly a full kilometer too short.

The glacier materialized through the darkness, and Dillenger saw he was descending directly over a crevasse. A sudden side gust caught his rectangular canopy and it began to oscillate. He jockeyed the shrouds to compensate and twisted into a landing attitude just as his dangling pack struck the inner wall of the crevasse and bounced over the lip. A layer of snow cushioned his impact and he made a perfect landing on his feet, only two meters from the ice fracture.

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 behind 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."

"Your temn goes in first," Hollis ordered. "Without total darkness to cover our ascent up the hull we badly need the distraction. "

"I'll meet you on the sun deck for cocktails," Dillenger said.

"The tab will be on me," Hollis replied, suddenly buoyant with expectation. "Good luck."

Ibn saw them.

He stood on the old ore-loading pier along with Ammar, their four hostages and twenty men of the Egyptian hijacking force. He peered through binoculars at the figures in all-black gear who were poised on the brink of the glacier. He watched as they slid down ropes, slashed their way through the plastic sheet and vanished inside.

He lowered the glasses slightly and focused on the men in the boats clustered below the hull. He observed them shoot grappling hooks from small launchers, and then climb the attached lines to the main-deck level.

"Who are they?" asked Ammar, standing next to him, also gazing through binoculars.

"I cannot say, Suleiman Aziz. They appear to be an elite force. I hear no battle sounds; their weapons must be heavily silenced. Their assault operation was most efficient."

"Too efficient for any rabble Yazid or Topiltzin could have scraped up on short notice."

"I believe they may be an American Special Operations Force." Ammar nodded in the brightening light. "You may be right, but how in Allah's name did they find us so quickly?"

"We must leave before their support forces arrive."

"Have you signaled for the chopper?"

"It should be here shortly.

"Wat is it?" asked President De Lorenzo. "What is happening?"

Ammar brushed off De Lorenzo. for the first time a flicker of foreboding came through in his voice. "It seems we left the ship at a most appropriate moment. Allah smiles. The intruders are not aware of our presence here."

"In another thirty minutes this island will be crawling with United States fighting men," said Senator Pitt, calmly turning the screw. "You might be well advised to surrender."

Ammar suddenly turned and stared savagely at the politician. "Not necessary, Senator. Don't look for your famed cavalry to charge to the rescue. If and when they arrive, there will be no one left to save."

"Why didn't you kill us on the ship?" Hala asked bravely.

Ammar's teeth showed under the mask in a hideous smile and he did not give her the courtesy of an answer. He nodded at Ibn. "Detonate the charges."

"As you wish, Suleiman Aziz," Ibn replied dutifully.

"What charges?" demanded the Senator. "What, are you talking about?"

"Why, the explosives we placed behind the glacial wall," Ammar said as if it was common knowledge. He gestured toward the Lady Flamborough"Ibn, if you please."

Totally expressionless, Ibn took a small transmitter from a coat pocket and held it out in front of him so the forward end pointed at the glacier.

"In the name of God, man," pleaded Senator Pitt. "Don't do it."

Ibn hesitated, staring at Ammar.

"There are hundreds of people on that ship," said President Hasan, shock showing in every line of his face. "You have no reason to murder them."

"I do not have to justify my actions to anyone here."

"Yazid will be punished for your atrocity," Hala murmured in a tone edged with fury.

"Thank you for making it easier," Ammar said, smiling at Hala, whose face became a study in bewildered incomprehension. "Enough of these maudlin delays. Quickly, Ibn. Get on with it."

Before the stunned hostages could utter further protests, fbn flicked the power switch of the transmitting unit to "on" and pressed the button that activated the detonators.

The explosion came like a curiously muffled clap of thunder. The forward mass of the glacier creaked and groaned ominously. Then nothing appeared to happen. The ice cliff remained firm and upright.

Detonations should have occurred at eight different locations inside the fracture, but Major Dillenger and his men had discovered and disarmed all but one charge before their search was cut off.

The distant thump came just as Pitt and Gunn were closing in on the two hijackers who were busily firing up the old mine locomotive. The hijackers paused, listening for a few moments, exchanging words in Arabic. Then they laughed between themselves and turned back to their work.

"Whatever caused the boom," whispered Gunn, "came as no surprise to those guys. They act as if they expected it."

"Sounded like a small explosion," Pitt replied sourily.

"Definitely not the glacier breaking away. We'd have felt tremors in the ground."

Pitt stared at the small narrow-gauge locomotive, which was coupled to a coal tender and five ore cars. It was a type used around plantations, industrial plants and mining operations. Quaint, stout and sturdy, with a tall stovepipe smokestack and round porthole windows in the cab, it looked like the Little Engine That Could, standing there puffing wisps of steam around its running gear.

A railroad man would have classed the wheel arrangement as an 00, indicating no leading truck wheels followed by four drive wheels with no trailing truck beneath the cab.

"Let's give the engineer and his fireman a warm sendoff," Pitt murmured wryly. "It's the friendly thing to do."

Gunn looked at Pitt queerly and shook his head in bewilderment before crouching and running toward the end of the train. They split up and approached from opposite sides, taking cover under the ore cars. The cab was brightly illuminated i by the open firebox, and Pitt gestured with an upturned palm, signaling Gunn to wait.

The Arab who acted as engineer was busy turning valves and watching the steam-pressure gauges. The other shoveled coal from the tender across the platform into the flames. He fed a load of the black lumps onto the fiercely burning firebox, paused to mop his sweating face, and then slammed the door to the firebox shut with his shovel, sending the cab into a state of semidarkness.

Pitt pointed at Gunn and then at the engineer. Gunn waved an acknowledgment, grasped the grab irons and leaped up the steps into the cab.

Pitt arrived first. He calmly approached the fireman head-on and said pleasantly, "Have a nice day."

Before the confused and astonished fireman could respond, Pitt had swiftly snatched the shovel out of the Arab's hands and beat him over the head with it.

The engineer was in the act of turning around when Gunn whipped him across the jaw with the heavy silencer joined to the Heckler & Koch's stubby muzzle. The Arab dropped like a bag of cement.

While Gunn guarded against intruders, Pitt propped both hijackers so they hung half out of the cab's side windows. Next he thoughtfully studied the maze of pipes, levers and valves.

"You'll never do it," Gunn said shaking his head.

"I know how to start and drive a Stanley Steamer," Pitt said indignantly.

"A what?"

"An antique automobile," Pitt answered. "Pull open the door to the firebox. I need some light to read the gauges."

Gunn did as he was asked and held out his hands to warm them from the flames leaping through the opening. "You better figure it out quick,"

he said impatiently. "We're lit up like a Las Vegas chorus line."

Pitt pulled down a long lever and the little engine slipped forward a scant centimeter. "Okay, that's the brake. I think I've figured what handle does what. Now, when we roll past the crushing mill, jump and hustle inside."

"What about the train?"

"The Cannonball Express," Pitt replied with a wide grin, "does not make stops."

Pitt released the ratchet on the forward-reverse lever and pushed it away from him. Next he squeezed the ratchet on the throttle bar and eased it open. The locomotive crept slowly ahead, accompanied by the clanging jerk of the coupled ore cars. He shoved the throttle to its stop. The drive wheels whirled full circle several times before they bit the rusty rails. The train lurched forward and got underway.

The labored puffing came in faster spurts as the little engine picked up speed and chugged by the front of the dining hall. The door opened and a hijacker leaned out and raised a hand as if to wave. He snapped it back down when he saw the two bodies leaning from the cab's side windows. He disappeared into the building as if jerked by an immense nibber band, wildly shouting a warning.

Pitt and Gunn both unleashed a blast of gunfire through the windows and door of the building. Then the engine was past and heading toward the crushing mill. Pitt glanced at the ground and judged the speed to be somewhere between fifteen and twenty kilometers.

Pitt pulled the overhead whistle lever and tied it down with a drawstring from inside his ski jacket. The spurt of steam through the brass whistle cut the air like a razor "Get ready to jump," he yelled at Gunn above the ear-splitting scream.

Gunn didn't reply. He stared at the rough gravel flashing past as though it were hurtling by at jet speed a thousand meters below.

"Now!" shouted Pitt.

They hit the ground on the run, skidding and sliding but somehow managing to keep their footing, There was no hesitation, no pause to catch their breath. They ran alongside the train and straight up the steps of the crushing-mill's stairs, and didn't stop until they both stumbled, then tripped over the threshold and crashed to the floor inside.

The first thing Pitt saw was Giordino standing above him, unconcernedly holding his machine gun in a muzzle-up position.

"I've seen you kicked out of some pretty raunchy pubs," Giordino said in a dour voice, "but this is the first time I've ever seen YOU tossed off a train."

"No great loss," said Pitt, coming to his feet. "It didn't have a club car."

The gunfire. Yours or theirs?"

"Ours.

"Company on the way?"

"Like mad hornets out of a vandalized nest," replied pitt. "We don't have much time to prepare for a siege."

"They'd better be careful where they aim or their helicopter might get broken."

"An advantage we'll play to the hilt."

Findley had finished tying the guard and the two mechanics together in the center of the floor, and he stood up. "where do you want them?"

"They're as safe as anywhere there on the floor," answered Pitt. He looked swiftly around at the cavernous interior of the building with the crushing mill squatting in the center. "Al, you and Findley grab whatever equipment or furniture you can lift and convert the ore crusher into a fort. Rudi and I will delay them as long as we can."

"A fort within a fort," said Findley.

"It would take twenty men to defend a building this big," Pitt explained. "The hijackers' only hope of capturing their helicopter intact is to blow the main door and rush us en masse. We'll pick off as many as we can from the windows and then retreat to the mill for a last-ditch defense."

"Now I can sympathize with Davy Crockett at the Alamo," moaned Giordino.

Findley and GiordinO began fortifying the huge building while Pitt and Gunn set up shop at windows on opposite corners of the building. The sun was beginning to cast its rays over the slopes on the other side of the mountain. Darkness was almost gone.

Pitt could feel the wave of anxiety that washed through his mind. They might prevent the Arabs who were rapidly surrounding the crushing null from escaping, but if the hijackers on the ship eluded the Special Forces teams and made a run for the mine, he and his pitiful little force would be overwhelmed.

He looked darkly out the window at the little engine as it roared down the track on its final run, picking up momentum with every Turn of its drive wheels. Sparks belched from the stack as a long plume of smoke trailed sideways, driven by a flanking wind. The ore cars rattled and swayed on the narrow rails. The sound of the whistle turned from a shrill shriek to the mournful wail of a lost soul in hell as the train hurtled into the distance.

The shock and disappointment showed clearly in Ammar's eyes when he realized the glacial front was not about to fall. He whirled to face Ibn.

"What went wrong?" he demanded, his voice ragged with growing anger.

"There should have been a chain of explosions."

Ibn's face was like stone. "You know me well, Suleiman Aziz-I do not make mistakes. The explosives should have detonated. The commando team we saw drop from the glacier to the ship must have found and disarmed most of them."

Ammar stared briefly at the sky, threw up his hands and let them drop again. "Allah weaves strange patterns into our lives," he said philosophically. Then a slow smile spread across his lips. "The glacier may fall yet. Once our helicopter is airborne, we can make a pass and drop grenades into the ice fracture. "

Ibn matched Ammar's smile. "Allah has not deserted us he said reverently. "Do not forget, we are safe here on sho while the Mexicans have inherited the job of fighting the Americans. "

"Yes, you're right, old friend, we're in Allah's debt for our well-timed deliverance." Ammar stared contemptuously at the ship. "We'll soon see if Captain Machado's Aztec gods can protect him."

"He was a maggot, that one ' Suddenly Ibn stopped and cocked an ear, then gazed up the mountain slope. "Gunfire, coming from the mine."

Ammar listened, but he heard something else-the distant cry of the locomotive's whistle. The sound was continuous and grew louder. Then he saw the plume of smoke and watched in sudden puzzlement as the train shot down the mountainside, careening wildly on the curving switchbacks before barreling across a long, straight stretch toward the pier.

"What are those fools doing?" Ammar gasped as he saw the train thundering wildly down the track, heard the whistle filling the predawn with its high-pitched scream.

The hijackers and their hostages were not prepared for the incredible spectacle now avalanching upon them like a monster on a rampage. They stood petrified in disbelieving fascination.

"Allah save us!" a man uttered in a hoarse voice.

"Save yourself!" Ibn snapped. He was the first to recover, and he began shouting for everyone to clear the tracks. There was bedlam as everyone scattered away from the rails just as the ore cars, pulled by the out-of-control little engine, her drive rods whipping in blurred motion, shot onto the pier.

The wooden pilings and flooring shuddered at the sudden onslaught. The tail-end ore car bounced off the tracks but, held by its coupling, was dragged like a screaming, unruly child by his ear across the tarred planking. Clouds of sparks sprayed as the steel wheels clattered against the rails. Then the engine ran out of track and soared off the end of the pier.

The train seemed to arc through the air for an instant in slow motion before the engine finally dropped and dived into the fiord.

Miraculously, the boiler failed to explode when its heated walls met the icy water. The engine vanished with a great hiss and a cloud of steam, followed by a loud grinding of to metal as the ore cars piled in on top of each other.

Anunar and Ibn dashed to the pier's end and stared helplessly at the bubbles and steam rising from the water.

"The bodies of our men were hanging from the cab," said Ammar. "Did you see them?"

"I did, Suleiman Aziz."

"The sound of gunfire you heard a minute ago!" Ammar said in a white rage. "Our men must be under attack at the mine. There is still a chance to escape if we hurry and help them before the helicopter is damaged."

Ammar paused only long enough to give orders for one of his men to bring up the rear with the prisoners. He set off up the narrow-gauge tracks at a half-run, the other members of his hijacking force trailing behind in single file.

growing fear and uncertainty swelled inside Ammar's mind. If the helicopter was destroyed, there could be no escape, no place to hide on the barren island. The American Special Forces would hunt them down one by one, or leave them either to freeze or starve to death.

Ammar was determined to survive if for no other reason than to kill Yazid and find the devil who was responsible for hounding him to Santa Inez Island and devastating his intricate plans.

The sounds of the battle increased and reverberated down the mountain.

He was panting heavily from the exertion of running uphill, but he gritted his teeth and increased his pace.

Captain Machado was standing in the wheelhouse when he heard, felt, really, the muted detonation on the glacier. He stiffened for a moment, listening, but the only sound was the light tick of a large eight-day clock above the bridge windows.

Then his face suddenly paled. The glacier, he thought, it must be ready to break off.

Machado hurried to the communications room and found one of his men staring dumbly at the teletype.

He looked up blankly at Machado's entr heard an explosion." ance. "I thought I Suspicion unfolded inside Machado's gut. "Have you seen the radioman or the Egyptian leader?"

"I've seen no one."

"No Arabs at all?"

"Not in the past hour." The radar operator paused. "I haven't seen any of them since I left the dining salon and came on duty. They should be guarding the prisoners and patrolling the outside decks, since those are the jobs they stupidly volunteered for."

Machado studied the empty chair at the radio thoughtfully. "Maybe they weren't so stupid."

He stepped to the counter in front of the helm and looked through the narrow view culs in the plastic sheeting directly in front of the bridge windows. There was enough daylight now to clearly see the forward part of the ship.

His eyes found several wide tears in the plastic. Too late he saw the ropes running from the top of the glacier down through the openings. Too late he swung around to voice an alarm over the ship's communication system.

He came to a dead stop before he uttered a sound.

There was a man standing in the doorway.

A man who wore all-black dress; hands and what little face that showed through the ski mask were also blackened. Nightvision goggles hung around his neck. He wore a large bulletproof chest piece with several pockets and clips holding both fragmentation and stun grenades, three murderous-looking knives and a number of other killing devices.

Machado's eyes suddenly squinted. "Who are you?" he demanded, knowing full well he was staring at death.

As he spoke he made a lightning snatch of a nine-millimeter automatic pistol from a shoulder holster and snapped off a shot.

Machado was good. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and Bat Masterson would have been proud of him. His shot struck the intruder square in the center of the chest.

With older bulletproof vests, the pure force behind the blow could snap a rib or stop a heart. The vests worn by the SOF men, however, were the latest state of the art. They could even stop a 308 NATO round and distribute the impact so it left only a bruse.

Dillenger shuddered slightly from the bullet, took one step back and pulled the trigger of his Heckler & Koch, all in the same motion.

Machado wore a vest too, but the older model. Dillenger's burst tore through and riddled his chest. His spine arched like a tightly strung bow and he staggered backward, falling against the Captain's chair before dropping to the deck '

The Mexican guard raised his arms and shouted, "Don't fire! I am unarmed-"

Dillenger's short burst into the throat cut off the Mexican's plea, knocking him into the ship's compass binnacle, where he hung suspended like a limp rag doll.

"Don't move or I'll shoot," Dillenger said belatedly.

Sergeant Foster stepped around the Major and looked down at the dead terrorist. "He's dead, sir."

"I warned him," Dillenger said casually as he slipped another clip into his weapon.

Foster kicked the body over on its stomach with his boot. A long bayonet knife slipped out of a sheath below the collar and rattled on the deck. "Intuition, Major?" asked Foster.

"I never trust a man who says he's unarmed-"

Suddenly Dillenger stopped and listened. Both men heard it at the same time and looked at each other, puzzled.

"What in hell is that?" asked Foster,

"They were a good thirty years before my time, but I'd swear that's a whistle from an old steam locomotive."

"Sounds like it's coming down the mountain from the old mine."

"I thought it was abandoned."

The NUMA people were to wait there until the ship was secure .

"Why would they stoke up an old locomotive?"

"I don't know." Dillenger paused and stared distantly, a sudden certainty growing within him. "Unless . . . they're trying to tell us something."

The detonation on the glacier caught Hollis and The team by surprise.

His team entered the dining salon immediately after a wild shootout.

His dive team had sliced their way through the plastic and found a tight passage between the fake cargo containers. They had passed wanly through a doorway into an empty bar and lounge outside the dining salon, fanned out, dodging pillars and four men covering the stairs and two elevators, and surprised Machado's Mexican terrorist team.

All but one terrorist was down. He still stood where he'd been hit, hate and vague astonishment reflected in his dying eyes. Then his body collapsed and he fell to the carpet, staining its rich, thick pile a deep crimson.

Hollis and his team advanced, warily stepping over and around the bodies. A blood-chilling of the ice wall sounded throughout the ship, rattling the few undamaged bottles and glasses behind an ornate bar.

The Special Operations men stared uneasily at one another and at their Colonel, but they stood firm and ready.

"Major Dillenger's team must have missed one," Hollis mused calmly.

"No hostages here, sir," said one of his men. "All appear to be terrorists."

Hollis studied several of the lifeless faces. None of them looked like they came from the Middle East. Must be the crew from the General Bravo, he thought.

He turned away and pulled a copy of the ship's deck layout from a pocket and studied it briefly, while he talked into his radio.

"Major, report your status."

"Met light resistance so far," replied Dillenger. "Have only accounted for four hijackers. The bridge is secure and we've released over a hundred crew members who were locked in the baggage hold. Sorry we didn't find all the charges."

"Good work. You did well to disarm enough to keep the glacier from collapsing. I'm heading for the master staterooms to free the passengers. Request the engine-room crew return to their station and restore power. We don't dare hang around under the ice cliff a minute longer than we have to. Watch yourselves. We took out another sixteen hijackers, all Latins. There must be another twenty Arabs still on the ship."

"They may be on shore, sir."

"Why do you say that?"

"We heard a whistle from a locomotive a couple of minutes ago. I ordered one of my men to climb the radar mast and check it out. He reported a train rolling down the mountain like a bowling ball. He also observed it run off a nearby pier that was crowded with two dozen terrorists."

"Forget it for now. Let's rescue the hostages first and see to the shore when we've secured the ship."

"Acknowledged."

Hollis led his men up the grand staircase and moved, quiet as a whisper, into the hallway separating the staterooms. Suddenly they froze in position as one of the elevators hummed and rose from the deck below.

The door opened and a hijacker stepped out, unaware of the assault. He opened his mouth, the only movement he was able to make before one of Hollis's men tapped him heavily on the head with the silenced muzzle of his gun.

Incredibly, there were no guards outside the staterooms. The men began kicking in the doors, and upon entering, found the Egyptian and Mexican advisers and Presidential staff aides, but no sign of Hasan and De Lorenzo.

Hollis broke open the last door at the hallway, burst inside and confronted five men in ship's uniforms. One of them stepped forward and gazed at Hollis in contempt, "You might have used the door latch," he said, regarding Hollis with suspicion.

"You must be Captain Oliver Collins?"

"Yes, I'm Collins, as if you didn't know.

"Sorry about the door. I'm Colonel Morton Hollis, Special Operations Forces."

"By Jesus, an American!" gasped First Officer Finney.

Collins's face lit up as he rushed forward to pump Hollis's hand.

"Forgive me, Colonel. I thought you might be one of them. Are we ever glad to see you."

"How many hijackers?" asked Hollis.

"After the Mexicans came on board from the Geeral Bravo, I should judge about forty."

"We've only accounted for twenty."

Collins's face reflected the ordeal. He looked haggard but still stood tall. "You've freed the two presidents and Senator Pitt and Miss Kamil?"

"I'm afraid we haven't found them yet."

Collins rushed past him through the doorway. '-They were held in the master suite just across the passageway."

Hollis stood aside in surprise. "No one in there," he said flatly.

"We've already searched this deck."

The Captain ran into the empty suite, but saw only the rumpled bedclothes, the usual light mess left by passengers. His stiff-backed composure fell away and he looked positively stunned.

My God, they've taken them."

Hollis spoke into his crophone. "Major Dillenger."

"Dillenger took five seconds to respond. "I read you, Colonel. Go ahead."

"any contact with the enemy?"

"None, I think we've pretty well rounded them up."

"At least twenty hijackers and the VIP passengers are missing. You see a sign of them?"

"Negative, not so much as a stray hair."

"Okay, finish securing the ship and have her crew move her out into the fjord."

"No can do," said Dillenger solemnly.

"Problems?"

"The murdering bastards really did a number on the engine room. They smashed up everything. It'll take a week to put the ship back in operation."

"We've got no power at all?"

"Sorry, Colonel. Here we are, and here we sit. These engines aren't taking us anywhere. They also wrecked the generators, including the auxiliaries."

... Then we'll have to take the crew and passengers off by lifeboat, using the manual winches."

"No go, Colonel. We're dealing with genuine sadists. They also trashed the lifeboats. Bashed the bottoms out."

Dillenger's dire report was punctuated by a deep growling noise that emanated from the glacier and traveled through the ship like a drum.

There was no vibration this time, only the growl that turned into a heart-stopping rumble. It lasted nearly a minute before it finally faded and died.

Hollis and Collins were both brave men-no one would ever doubt it-but each read fear in the other's eyes.

"The glacier is ready to calve," said Collins grimly. "Our only hope is to cut away the anchor chains and pray the tide carries us out into the fjord."

"Believe me, you won't see ebb tide for another eight hours," said Hollis. "You're talking to a man who knows."

"You're just full of cheery news, aren't you, Colonel."

"Doesn't look encouraging, does it?"

"Doesn't look encouraging," Collins repeated. "Is that all you have to say? There are nearly two hundred people on board the Lady Flamborough.

They must be evacuated immediately."

"I can't wave a wand and make the glacier go away," Hollis explained calmly. "I can take a few out in inflatable boats and call in our helicopters to airlift the rest. But we're talking a good hour."

Collins's voice came edged with impatience. "Then I suggest you get on with it while we're all still alive-" He halted as Hollis abruptly swung up a hand for silence.

Hollis's eyes narrowed in bewilderment as a strange voice suddenly burst over his earphone.

"Colonel Hollis, am I on your frequency? Over."

"Who the hell is this!" Hollis snapped.

"Captain Frank Stewart of the NUMA ship Sounder at your service. Can I give you a lift somewhere?"

"Stewart!" the Colonel burst out. "Where are you?"

"If you could see through all that crap hanging on your superstructure, you'd find me cruising up the fjord about half a kilometer off your port side."

Hollis exhaled a great sigh and nodded at Collins. "A ship is bearing down on us. any instructions?"

Collins stared at him, numb with disbelief. Then he blurted, "Good God, yes, man! Tell him to take us under tow."

Working feverishly, Collins's crew slipped the bow and stern anchor chains and made ready with the mooring hawsers.

In a feat of superb seamanship, Stewart swung the Sounder's stern under the Lady Flamborough's bow in one pass. Two heavy rope mooring lines were dropped by the crewmen of the cruise ship and immediately made fast to the survey ship's deck bitts. It was not the most perfect tow arrangement, but the ships were not going for distance across stormy seas, and the temporary expedient was accomplished in a matter of minutes.

Stewart gave the command for "slow ahead" until the slack was taken up from the tow lines. Then he slowly increased speed to "full ahead"

while he looked over his shoulder, one eye on the glacier, one on the cruise liner. The Sounder's two cycloidal propellers, one forward and one aft, thrashed the water as her great diesel engine strained under the load.

She was half the Lady Flamborough's tonnage and never meant for tug duty, but she dug in and drove like a draft horse in a pulling contest, black exhaust pouring from her stack.

At first nothing seemed to happen, and then slowly, imperceptibly, a small bit of froth appeared around the Sounder's bow. She was moving, hauling the reluctant cruise liner from under the shadow of the glacier.

Despite the danger, the passengers, crew and Special Forces fighters all tore away the plastic sheeting and stood on the decks, watching and willing the struggling Sounder forward. Ten meters, then twenty, a hundred, the gap between ship and ice widened with agonizing slowness.

Then at last the Lady was clear.

Everyone on both ships gave a rousing cheer that echoed up and down the fiord. Later, Captain Collins would humorously call it the cheer that broke the camel's back.

A loud cracking sound shattered the celebrating voices and grew into a great booming rumble. To those watching, it seemed as if the air was electrified. Then the whole forward face of the ice cliff toppled forward and pounded into the fjord like a huge oil tanker being launched on its side. The water seethed and boiled and rose in a ten-foot wave that surged down the fjord and lifted the two ships like corks before heading out toward the open sea.

The monstrous, newly calved iceberg settled into the deeply carved channel of the fjord, its ice glinting like a field of orange diamonds under the new sun. Then the rumble rolled down from the mountainside and echoed in the ears of the stunned onlookers, who couldn't believe they were somehow alive.

At first there was complete confusion, with much shouting and wild shooting. The Egyptians had no idea of the size of the force that fired on them in the dining hall during the passage of the . They snuffed the lights and shot at the earlymoming shadows until they realized the shadows weren't shooting back.

The dirt roads between the wooden buildings took on an eerie silence.

for several minutes the Egyptian hijackers made no effort to leave the dining hall.

Then, suddenly, a half-dozen men-two from the front and four at the rear of the building-broke from the doors, scrambling, crouching, and diving headlong behind predetermined shelter. Once in position, they laid down a circle of fire to cover the rest of the men, who then followed on their heels.

Their leader, a tall man wearing a black turban, directed the men's movements by blowing sharp biceps on a whistle.

After a rocky start, the Egyptian terrorist team was everything Pitt was afraid of-highly ed, practiced and tough. When it came to house-to-house street fighting, they were the best in the world. They were even well led. The leader in the black turban was competent and methodical.

They searched building by building, working toward the crushing Mill until they half-circled it like a crescent. No haphazard assault by Animar's hand-picked killers. They moved with stealth and purpose.

Their leader caned out in Arabic. When there was no reply, another terrorist shouted from a different location. They were hailing the guard and mechanics inside the crushing mill, Pitt guessed correctly.

They were too close now for Pitt to risk revealing himself at the window. He removed the terrorist's ski mask and clothing and threw it in a pile on the floor, then rummaged through a pocket of his ski jacket and retrieved a small mirror attached to a narrow stretch handle. He eased the mirror above the window sill and extended the handle, twisting it like a periscope.

He found the target he was looking for, 90 percent concealed, but enough showing for a killing shot.

Pitt turned the fire-select lever from FULL AUTO to SINGLE. Then he swiftly raised up, aimed and squeezed the trigger.

The deadly old Thompson spat. Black Turban took two or three steps, his face blank and uncomprehending; then he sagged, fell forward and pitched to the ground.

Pitt dropped down, lowered his gun and peered into the mirror again. The terrorists had disappeared. To a man, they had dodged behind buildings or crawled furiously under abandoned and rusting mining equipment. Pitt knew they weren't about to quit. They were still out there, dangerous as ever, waiting for instructions from their second-m-command.

Gunn took his cue and pumped a ten-round burst through a wooden door on a shed across the road. Very slowly the door swung open, pushed by a body that twisted and dropped.

Still there was no return fire. They were nobody's fools, thought Pitt.

Now that they realized they were not up against a superior force but by a small group, they took their time to regroup and consider options.

They also realized now that their unknown oponents had captured their helicopter and were holed up in the crushing Mill.

Pitt ducked, scurried over and crouched beside Gunn. "How's it look on your side?"

"Quiet. They're playing it nice and easy. They don't want to dent their helicopter."

"I think they're going to create a diversion at the front door and then make a rush through the side office."

Gunn nodded. "Sounds logical. About time we found better cover away from these windows anyway. Where do you want me?"

Pitt looked up at the catwalk above. He pointed at a row of small skylights encircling a small winch tower. "Climb up and keep watch.

Yell when they launch the attack and welcome them with a concentrated burst through the front door. Then get your ass back down here. They won't have any scruples about peppering the walls above the chopper."

"On my way."

Pitt moved around to the side office, paused at the threshold and turned to Giordino and Findley.

"How's it coming?" he asked.

Giordino looked up from shoveling a pile of leftover ore for a barricade. "Fort Giordino will be finished on schedule."

Findley stopped work and stared at him. "F before G, Fort Findley. "

Giordino looked at Findley morosely for a second before returning to his work. "Fort Findley if we lose, Giordino if we win."

Shaking his head in awe, Pitt wondered why he was blessed with such incredible friends. He wanted to say something to them, express his feelings of gratitude for risking their lives to stop a band of scum when they could have bolted for the boondocks and hid out until Hollis and his team arrived. But they knew: men like this needed no words of appreciation or encouragement. There they'd stay, and there they'd fight it out. Pitt hoped to God none would die uselessly.

"Argue about it later," he ordered, "and ready a reception committee if they get past me."

He turned and entered the damp and musty-smelling office He checked his Thompson and set it aside. After quickly building a barrier with two overturned desks, a steel filing cabinet and a heavy iron potbellied stove, he lay down on the floor and waited.

He didn't wait long. One minute later he came to unmoving attention as he thought he heard the faint crunch of gravel outside. The sound stopped and then came again, soft but unmistakable. He raised the Thompson and propped the grips on the filing cabinet.

Too late, Gunn gave a yell of warning, when suddenly an object crashed through the window above the door and fell, rolling across the floor. A second came right behind. Pitt dropped low and tried to burrow into the steel cabinet, cursing his lack of forethought.

Both grenades went off with an ear-bursting blast. The office erupted in a great roar of shattered furniture and flying wood and yellowed paper. The outer wall was blown outward and most of the ceiling caved in.

Pitt was dazed by the concussion and the deafening clap of the twill blast. He'd never experienced an explosion in a close proximity before, and he was stunned right down to his toes.

The potbellied stove had taken the main force of the shrapnel, yet held its shape, the rounded sides perforated with jagged holes. The file cabinet was bent and twisted and the desks badly mutilated, but the only apparent injuries Pitt could find on himself were a thin but deep cut in his left thigh and a five-centimeter gash on his cheek.

The office had vanished and left in its place a pile of smoldering debris, and for one apprehensive moment Pitt had a vision of being trapped in a blazing fire. But only for a moment-the rain-soaked old wood of the building sizzled a bit in several places but refused to ignite.

With a conscious effort of will Pitt switched the Thompson to FULL AUTO, and aimed the barrel at the splintered remains of the front door. Blood was streaming down the side of his face and under his collar. His eyes never flickered as a barrage of automatic fire came pouring over his head from the guns of four men who charged through the shattered openings in the outer wall.

Pitt felt neither remorse nor fear as he fired a long burst that blew away his attackers like trees before a tornado. They threw up their weapons, arms flailing in the manner of ftenzied dancers on a stage, and spun crazily to the debris-piled floor.

Three more terrorist fighters followed the first wave and were as ruthlessly stopped by Pitt-all except one, who reacted with incredible swiftness and flung himself behind a smoking, shredded leather sofa.

Cannonlike blasts went off in Pin's ear as Findley dropped to his knees behind him and pumped loads from his shotgun into the lower base of the sofa. Leather, burlap padding and wood sprayed the air. A moment of quiet, and then one of the terrorist's arms flopped lifelessly beyond the sofa's carved feet.

Giordino appeared through the smoke and gunpowder fumes, grasping Pitt under the arms and dragging him back

"Must you always make a mess?" he said, grinning. Then into the crushing-mill area and behind an old ore car.

his face softened with concern. "You hurt bad?"

Pitt wiped the blood away from his cheek and stared down at the crimson stain spreading through the fabric covering his leg. "Damn!

A perfectly good pair of pants. Now that really pisses me off."

Findley knelt down, cut away the pants leg and began bandaging the wound. "You were lucky to survive the blast with only a couple of cuts."

"Dumb of me not to figure on grenades," Pitt said bitterly. 'I should have guessed."

"No sense in blaming yourself." Giordino shrugged. "This isn't our line of work."

Pitt looked up. "We better get smart real fast if we want to be around when the SOF guys arrive."

"They won't try another assault from this direction," Findley said. "The blast knocked down the stairway outside.

They'd be sitting ducks if they tried scrambling up ten feet of broken timber."

"Now might be a ripe oportunity to burn the helicopter and get the hell out of here," Findley said unhappily.

"The news gets worse, and it gets better," Gunn said, dropping from a ladder to the floor. "I saw another twenty of them charging up the railroad track like a prairie fire. They should be here in another seven or eight minutes."

Giordino looked at Gunn suspiciously. "How many?"

"I stopped counting at fifteen."

"The opportunity to flee the coop gets even riper," muttered Findley.

"Hollis and his men?" asked Pitt.

Gunn shook his head wearily. "No sign of them." He paused to draw a deep breath and turned to stare at Pitt.

terrorist reinforcements, they were ed by four hostages with two guards. I could just recognize them through my binoculars. One was your Dad. He and a woman were helping two other men along the tracks."

"Hala Kamil, bless her," Pitt said with vast relief. "Thank God, the old man is alive."

"The other two?" asked Giordino.

"Most likely Presidents Hasan and De Lorenzo."

"So much for early retirement," said Findley gloomily as he placed the final piece of tape over Pitts bandage.

"The terrorists are only keeping the Senator and the others alive to ensure a safe escape," said Pitt.

"And won't hesitate to murder them one by one until we hand over their helicopter," predicted Gunn.

Pitt nodded. "Without a doubt, but if we surrendered, there's no guarantee they wouldn't murder them anywayThey've already tried to assassinate Hala twice and most certainly want Hasan dead too."

"They'll call a truce and negotiate."

Pitt looked at his watch. "They won't haggle for very long. They know their time is running out. But we might gain a few extra minutes."

"So what's the plan?" asked Giordino.

"We stall and fight for as long as it takes." Pitt looked at Gunn. "Were the hostages surrounded by the hijackers?"

"No, they were a good two hundred meters in the rear, trailing the main party up the rail-bed," Gunn replied. "They were herded by only two terrorists." He stared back into Pitts green eyes, and then nodded in slow understanding. "You want me to take out the guards and protect the Senator and the rest until Hollis shows?"

"You're the smallest and the fastest, Rudi. If anybody can get clear of the building undetected and circle around behind those two guards while we distract them, you can."

Gunn threw out his hands and dropped them to his sides. "I'm grateful for the trust. I only hope I can pull it off."

"You can."

"That leaves only three of you to hold the fort."

"We'll have to make do." Pitt awkwardly rose to his feet and limped over to the pile of terrorists' clothing he'd tossed on the floor. He returned and held it out to Gunn. "Wear this.

They'll think you're one of them."

Gunn stood there rooted, reluctant to desert his friends.

Giordino came to his rescue by laying a beefy hand on the smaller man's shoulder and steering him to a maintenance passage that dropped beneath the floor and ran around the giant crushing mill.

"You can get out through here," he said smiling. "Wait until things heat up before you make your break."

Gunn found himself half under the floor in the passage before he could protest. He took one last look at Pitt, the incredibly durable, indestructible Dirk Pitt, who gave him a jaunty wave. Peerrd at Giordino, old steady and reliable, whose concern was masked by a lighthearted expression. And finally Findley, who flashed a sparkling smile and held up both thumbs. They were all part of him and he was heartsick at leaving, not knowing if he would see any of them alive again.

"You guys be here when I get back," he said. "You hear?"

Then he ducked under the flooring and was gone.

Hollis paced beside the postage-stamp-sized landing pad that the Lady Flamborough's crew had hurriedly fabricated over the swimming pool. A Carrier Pigeon helicopter settled onto the pad as a small team of men waited to board.

Hollis stopped when he heard a fresh outburst of gunfire from the direction of the mine, his face reflecting concern.

"Load and get 'em airborne," he shouted impatiently to Dillenger.

"Somebody's alive up there and fighting our battle."

"The mine must have been the hijackers' escape point," said Captain Collins, who paced at Hollis's side.

"And thanks to me, Dirk Pitt and his friends stumbled right into them,"

snapped Hollis.

"any way you can get there in time to save them and the hostages?" asked Collins.

Hollis shook his head in grim despair. "Not one chance in hell.

Rudi Gunn was thankful for the sudden downpour of heavy rain. It effectively shielded him as he crawled away from the crushing mill under a string of empty ore cars. Once clear of the buildings, he dropped down the mountain below the mine for a few hundred meters, and then circled back.

He found the narrow-gauge tracks and began walking silently on the crossties. He could see only a short distance around him, but within a few minutes of escaping the terrorists' assault on the crushing mill, he froze in position when his eyes distinguished several vague figures through the rain ahead. He counted four sitting and two standing.

Gunn faced a dilemma. He assumed the hostages were resting while the guards stood. But he couldn't shoot and check his assumption later. He would have to rely on his borrowed terrorist clothing to bluff his way close enough to tell mend from foe.

His only drawback, and a vital one, was he only knew two or three words of Arabic.

Gunn took a breath and walked forward. He said, "Sa ," repeating the word two more times in a calm, controlled voice.

The two figures who were standing took on more detail as he approached, and he saw they held machine guns lowered and pointed his way.

One of them replied with words Gunn couldn't interpret. He mentally crossed his fingers and hoped they had asked the Arabic equivalent of

"Who goes there?"

"Muhammad," he mumbled, relying on the prophet's name to carry him through, while lazily holding the Heckler & Koch across his chest with the muzzle aimed off to the side.

Gunn's heartbeat calmed considerably as the two terrorists lowered their guns in unison and turned their attention back to their guard duty. He moved casually until he was standing alongside them so his line of fire would not strike the hostages.

Then, while keeping his eyes aimed at the miserable people sitting on the ground between the track rails, and without even looking at the two guards, he squeezed the trigger.

Ammar and his men were on the verge of total exhaustion when they reached the outskirts of the mine. The persistent downpour had turned their clothes sodden and heavy. They struggled over a long mound of tracks and thankfully entered a shed that once housed mining-equipment parts.

Ammar dropped onto a wooden bench, his head drooped on his chest, his breath coming in labored gasps. He looked up as Ibn entered with another man.

"This is Mustapha Osman," said Ibn. "He says an armed group of commandos have killed their group leader and barricaded themselves in the crushing mill with our helicopter."

Ammar's lips drew back in anger. "How could you let this happen?"

Osman's black eyes registered panic. "We had . . . no warning," he stammered. "They must have come down from the mountain. They subdued the sentries, seized the train and shot up our living quarters. When we launched our counterattack they fired on us from the crushing-mill building."

"Casualties?" Ammar demanded coldly.

"There are seven of us left."

The nightmare was worse than Ammar thought. "How many in their assault party?"

"Twenty, maybe thirty."

"Seven of you have of them under siege," snarled Ammar, his tone heavy with sarcasm. "Their number. This time the truth, or Ibn here will slit your throat."

Osman averted Ammar's eyes. He was frozen in fear. "There is no way of knowing for certain," he mumbled. "Perhaps four or more."

"Four men did all this?" said Ammar, aghast. He was seething but too disciplined to allow his anger to take control. "What of the helicopter?

Is it damaged?"

Osman seemed to brighten a degree. "No, we were careful not to fire at the section of the building where it is parked. I'd stake my father's honor it has not been hit."

"Only Allah knows whether the commandos have sabotaged it," said Ibn.

"We'll all see Allah soon if we don't recapture it in flying condition,"

Ammar said quietly. "The only way we can overpower the defenders is to strike hard and penetrate from all sides and crush them by sheer weight of numbers."

"Perhaps we can use the hostages to bargain our way out," said Ibn hopefully.

Ammar nodded. "A possibility. Americans are weak when it comes to death threats. I'll parley with our unknown scourge while you position the men for the assault."

"Take care, Suleiman Aziz."

"Be ready to attack when I remove my mask."

Ibn gave a slight bow and immediately began giving orders to the men.

Ammar ripped a tattered curtain from one window. The fabric had once been white, but was now faded to a dingy yellow.

It would have to do, he thought. He tied it to an old broom and stepped from the shed.

He moved along a row of miners' bunkhouses, keeping out of sight of the crushing mill until he was across from it.

Then he extended the curtain around a corner and waved it UP and down.

No gunfire tore through the ragged flag of truce, but nothing else happened either. Ammar tried shouting in English.

"We wish to talk!"

After several moments a voice yelled back. "No hablo inglgs. "

Ammar was taken back momentarily. Chilean secret police? They were far more efficient than he thought. He could speak fluently in English and get by in French, but he knew little Spanish. Hesitation would get him nowhere. He had to see who stood in his way of a successful escape.

He held up the makeshift flag, raised free hand and stepped out onto the road in front of the crushing mill.

The word for peace he knew was paz. So he shouted it several times.

Finally a man opened the main door and slowly limped Onto the road, stopped a few paces away and faced him.

The stranger was tall, with intensely green eyes that never flickered and yet ignored the dozen gunbarrels poking through windows and doorways in his direction. The eyes locked on Ammar only. The black hair was long and wavy, skin weathered a deep copper from long exposure to sun, slightly bushy eyebrows with firm lips fixed in a slight grin-all lent the masculine but not quite handsome face a deceptive look of humorous detachment, with only a trace of cold hardness.

There was a cut in one cheek that oozed blood and a wound on one thigh that was heavily bandaged under the slashed fabric.

The shape might have been lean under the bulky, out-of place ski suit, but Ammar could not e a clear assessment. One hand was bare while the other was gloved and hung loosely beneath one sleeve of the ski jacket.

Three seconds were all Ammar needed to read this devilthree seconds to know he was facing a dangerous man. He searched his mind for the few meager words of Spanish stored there. "Can we talk?" Yes, that would do for openers.

"Podemos hablar?" he shouted.

The suggestion of a grin widened into a casual smile. "Porque no?"

Ammar translated that as Why not? "Hacer capitular usted?"

"Why don't we cut the crap?" Pitt said suddenly in English "Your Spanish is worse than mine. The answer to your question is No, we're not going to surrender."

Ammar was too much a pro not to recover immediately, yet he was confounded by the fact that his adversary wore expensive skiing clothes instead of battle gear. The first possibility that crossed his mind was CIA.

"May I ask your name?"

"Dirk Pitt."

"I am Suleiman Aziz Ammar ,

"I don't really give a damn who you are," Pitt said coldly.

"As you wish, Mr. Pitt," Ammar remarked calmly. Then one of his eyebrows lifted rightly. "You by chance related to Senator George Pitt?"

"I don't travel in political circles."

"But you know him. I can see a resemblance. The son perhaps?"

"Can we get on with this? I had to interrupt a perfectly good champagne brunch to come out here in the rain."

Annnar laughed. The man was incredible. "You have something of mine.

I'd like it returned in firstrate condition."

"You're speaking, of course, of one ummarked helicopter."

"Of course."

"Finders keepers. You want it, pal, you come and get it."

Ammar clenched and unclenched his fists impatiently. This was not going as he had hoped. He continued in a silky voice.

"Some of my men will die, you will die, and your father will most likely die if you do not turn it over to me."

Pitt didn't blink. "You forgot to throw in Hala Kamfl and Presidents De Lorenzo and Hasan. And don't neglect to include yourself. No reason you shouldn't fertilize the grass too.

Ammar stared at Pitt, his anger slowly rising.

"I can't believe your stubborn stupidity. What will you gain by more bloodletting?"

"To put the skids under scumbags like you," said pitt harshly. "You want a war, you declare it. But don't sneak around butchering women and children and taking innocent hostages who can't fight back. The terror stops here. I'm not bound by any law but my own. for every one of us you murder, we bury five of you."

"I didn't come out here in the wet to discuss our political differences!" said Ammar, fighting to control his wrath. "Tell me if the helicopter has been damaged."

"Doesn't have a scratch. And I might add that your pilots are still fit to fly. That make you happy?"

"You would be wise to surrender your weapons and Turn over my craft and flight crew."

Pitt shrugged. "Screw you."

Ammar was shaken by his failure to intimidate Pitt. His voice turned abrupt and cold. "How many men do you have, four, perhaps five? We outnumber you eight to one."

Pitt nodded his head at the bodies scattered beside the crushing mill.

"You're going to have to play catch-up ball. The way I see it, you're about nine strikes down on the scoreboard." Then as an afterthought he said, "Before I forget-I give you my word I won't sabotage your chopper.

It's yours in pristine shape providing you can take it. But harm any of the hostages, and I blow it from here to the nearest junkyard. That's the only deal I'll make."

"That is your final word?"

"for now, yes."

A thought crystallized in Ammar's mind, and he was swept by a sudden revelation. "It was you!" he rasped. "You led the American special forces here."

"Luck gets most of the credit," Pitt said modestly. "But after I found the wreck of the General Bravo and a splaced roll of plastic, it all fell into place."

Ammar stood there for a moment in profound astonishment, then recovered and said, "You do your powers of deduction an injustice, Mr. Pitt. I readily concede the coyote has run the fox to ground."

"Fox?" said Pitt. "You flatter yourself. Don't you mean maggot?"

Ammar looked at Pitt through narrowed eyes. "I'm personally going to kill you, Pitt, and I'm going to take great pleasure in seeing your body shot to pieces. What say you to that?"

There was no in Pitts eyes, no hatred etched in his face. He stared back at Ammar with a kind of bemused disgust one might display in exchanging looks with a cobra behind glass at a snake farm.

"Give my regards to Broadway," he said, turning his back on Ammar and walking casually back to the door of the crushing null.

Furious, Animar burled down the flag of truce and strode swiftly in the opposite direction. As he moved he eased an American Ruger P-85

semiautomatic 9-millimeter from the inside pocket of his coat.

Suddenly he whirled, whipped off his mask and went into the classic crouched stance with the Ruger gripped in both hands. The instant the sights lined up dead center on Pitts back, Ammar pulled the trigger six times in quick succession.

He saw the bullets tear into the middle of Pitts ski jacket in a ragged grouping of uneven holes, watched as the concentrated impact knocked his hated enemy stumbling forward into the wall of the crushing mill.

Ammar waited for Pitt to fall. His antagonist, he knew with firm certainty, was dead before hitting the ground.

Gradually Ammar became aware that Pitt was not acting as he should.

Pitt did not fall dead. Instead, he turned, and Animar saw the devil's own smile.

Stunned, Ammar knew he'd been outwitted. He realized now Pitt had expected a cowardly attack from the rear and protected his back with a bulletproof shield under the bulky ski jacket.

And with a numbing shock he saw the gloved hand hanging from the ve was fake. A magician's trick. The real hand had materialized, a hand clutching a big Colt 45 automatic that protruded from the partially unzipped ski jacket.

Ammar aimed the Ruger again but Pitt fired first.

Pitts first shot took Ammar in the tight shoulder and spun him sideways.

The second smashed through his chin and lower jaw. The third shattered one wrist as he threw it up to his face. The fourth passed through his face from side to side, Ammar rolled to the gravel and sprawled on his back, uncaring and oblivious to the gunfire that erupted over him, not knowing that Pitt had leaped uninjured through the door of the crushing mill before Ammar's men belatedly opened fire.

He was only vaguely aware of Ibn dragging him to safety behind a steel water tank as a short burst of fire from inside the crushing mill sprayed the ground around them. Slowly his hand groped up Ibn's arm until he clutched the solid-muscled shoulder. Then he pulled his friend downward.

"I cannot see you," he rasped.

Ibn removed a large surgical pad from a pack on his belt and gently pressed it over the torn flesh that once held Ammar's eyes. "Allah and I will see for you," said Ibn.

Ammar coughed and spit out the blood from the shattered chin that had seeped down his throat. "I want that Satan, Pitt, and the hostages hacked to pieces."

"Our attack has began. Their lives are measured in seconds."

"If I die . . . kill Yazid."

"You will not die."

Ammar went ugh another coughing spasm before he could speak again. "No matter . . . the Americans will destroy the helicopter now. You must escape the island another way. Leave . . . leave me. That is my final request of you."

Wordlessly, without acknowledging the plea, Ibn lifted Ammar in his arms and began walking away from the scene of the battle.

When Ibn spoke, his voice was hoarse but soft. "Be of strong spirit, Suleiman Aziz," he said. "We will return to Alexandria together."

Pitt barely had time to leap through the door, whip off the two bulletproof vests from under the back of his coat, replace one in the front and return the second to Giordino before a hail of concentrated fire drilled through the thin wooden walls.

"Now the jacket is ruined," Pitt grunted, pressing his body into the floor.

"You'd have been dead meat if he'd plugged you in the chest," said Giordino, wiggling into his vest. "How'd you know he was going to shoot when your back was turned?"

"He had bad breath and beady eyes."

Findley began scrambling from window to window, throwing grenades as fast as he could yank the activating pins. "They're here!" he yelled.

Giordino rolled across the plank floor and poured a continuous fire from behind a wheelbarrow full of ore. Pitt snatched up the Thompson just in time to stop two terrorists who had somehow managed to climb into the shattered side office.

Ammar's small army charged the building from all sides with guns blazing. There was no stopping the tide of the savage Onslaught-They swarmed in everywhere. The sharp crackle of the terrorists'

small-caliber AK-74S and the deep stutter of Pitts 45-caliber Thompson were punctuated by the boom of Findley's shotgun.

Giordino fell back to the crushing mill, laying down a covering fire for Pitt and Findley until all three had reached the temporary Protection of their Mickey Mouse fort. The terrorists were momentarily stunned to find no enemy throwing up their hands in surrender. Once inside the building they'd expected to inundate their unprotected enemy with sheer numbers. Instead, they found themselves caught naked by a withering fusillade from the mill and were cut down like milling cattle.

Pitt, Giordino and Findley decimated the first wave. But the Arabs were fanatically brave, and they learned fast. An intensified gunfire and the blast from several grenades engulfed the cavernous room ahead of the next assault.

Bedlam! The dead heaped the floor, and the Arabs took cover behind the bodies of their dead comrades. It was a firefight scene-guns blasting, grenades exploding, the shouts and curses in two languages from two culmms as different as night and day The budding shook from the reverberations of gunfire and the concussions of the grenades. Shrapnel and bullets flayed the sides of the gmt mechanical mill like sparks from a bucket of molten steel. The air was filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder.

Fire broke out in a dozen places and was completely ignored. Giordino threw a grenade that blew off the tail rotor of the helicopter. Even with the last hope of escape gone now, the Arabs irrationally fought all the harder.

Pitts ancient Thompson slammed deafeningly and then stopped. He ejected the fifty-round rotary dnun and inserted another-his last. There was a cold, calculated determination he'd never felt before. He and Giordino and Findley had no intention of throwing in the towel. They had long passed the point of no return and found no fear of death behind it. They hung on grimly, fighting for their very existence, tenaciously giving better than they received.

Three times the Arab terrorists were driven back and times they charged forward in the face of the murderous fire. Their badly diminished force regrouped again and launched a final suicide assault, closing the ring tighter and tighter.

The Arab Mushm could not understand their enemy's ferocity, how they could fight with such bloody-minded precision, why they were so outrageously defiant. The Americans fought desperately only to live, while they themselves sought a blessed death and martyrdom as salvation.

Pitts eyes stung from the smoke, and tears streamed down his cheeks. The whole cnishing mill was vibrating. Bullets ricocheted off the steel sides like angry hornets, four Of them tearing through Pitts sleeve and slightly grazing the skin.

Recklessly the Arabs threw themselves against the crushing mill and scurried over the makeshift barricade. The shooting match quickly turned into a man-to-man struggle as the two groups met in a savage, brawling mass of bodies.

Findley went down as two bullets struck him in his unprotected side, yet he remained on his knees, feebly swinging his empty shotgun like a baseball bat.

Giordino, wounded in five places, gamely heaved ore rocks with his right hand, his left arm dangling useless from a bullet through the shoulder.

Pitts Thompson fired its last cartridge, and he hurled the big gun in the face of an Arab who suddenly up before him. He yanked the Colt automatic from his belt and fired at any face that lurched through the smoke. He felt a stinging sensation at the base of the neck and knew he'd been hit. The Colt quickly emptied, and Pitt fought on, chopping the heavy gun like a small club. He began to taste the begininggs of sour defeat.

Reality no longer existed. Pitt felt as if he were fighting a war. A grenade went off, a crushing explosion that deafened him by its closeness. A body fell on top of him, and he was caught off balance and thrown backward.

His head struck against a steel pipe and an expanding ball of fire flashed inside his head. And then, like a wave breaking in the surf, the nightmare swept over and smothered him.

The Special Operations Forces landed and regrouped behind the ore tracks that shielded their approach from the mine buildings. They quickly spread out in a loose battle formation and waited for the command to move in. The snipers established their positions around the mine, lying flat and watching for movement through their scopes.

Hollis, with Dillenger at his side, crawled up to the summit of the tracks and cautiously peered over. The scene had the look of a graveyard.

The ghost mine was an eerie stage for a battle, but the cold rain and barren mountainside seemed an appropriate backdrop for a killing ground.

The dull gray sky fell and gave the decaying buildings the look of a place that didn't belong to any world.

The firing had stopped. Two of the outer buildings were blazing fiercely, the smoke rolling into the low overcast. Hollis counted at least seven bodies littering the road on one side of the crushing mill.

"I hate to sound mundane," said Hollis, "but I don't like the look of it."

"No sign of life," agreed Dillenger, peering through a pair of small but powerful binoculars.

Hollis carefully studied the buildings for another five seconds and then spoke into his transmitter. "All right, let's mind our step and move in-"

"One moment, Colonel," a voice broke in.

"Hold the order," snapped Hollis.

"Sergeant Baker, sir, on the right flank. I have a group of five people approaching up the railroad track."

"They armed?"

"No, sir. They have their hands in the air."

"Very good. You and your men round them up. Watch for a trap. Major Dillenger and I are on our way."

Hollis and Dillenger snaked around the mine takings until they found the railroad and began jogging along it toward the fjord. After about seventy meters, several human figures took form through the pouring rain.

Sergeant Baker came forward to report.

"We have the hostages and one terrorist, Colonel."

"You've rescued the hostages?" Hollis exclaimed loudly. "All four of them?"

"Yes, sir," replied Baker. "They're pretty well worn out, but otherwise they're in good shape."

"Nice work, Sergeant," said Hollis, pumping Baker's hand in undisguised exuberance.

Both officers had memorized the faces of the two presidents and the United Nations SecretaryGeneral during the flight from Virginia. They were already familiar with Senator Pitts appearance from the news media.

They hurried forward and were enveloped in a great surge of relief as they recognized all four of the missing VIPS.

Much of their relief turned to surprise when they saw the terrorist prisoner was none other than Rudi Gunn.

Senator Pitt stepped forward and shook Hollis's hand as Gunn made the introductions. "Are we ever glad to see you, Colonel," said the Senator, beaming.

"Sorry we're late," mumbled Hollis, still not sure what to make of it all.

Hala embraced him, as did Hasan and De Lorenzo. Then it was Dillenger's Turn, and he went red as a tomato.

"Mind telling me what's going on?" Hollis asked Gunn.

Gunn took grim delight in rubbing it in. "It seems you dropped us off at a very critical point, Colonel. We found almost twenty terrorists at the mine, along with a hidden chopper they planned to use in clearing off the island. You didn't see fit to include us in your communications, so Pitt tried to warn you by sending a runaway train down the mountain into the fjord." Dillenger nodded in understanding.

"The helicopter explains why the Arab hijackers deserted the ship and left the Mexicans to fend for themselves."

"And the chopper was their transportation from the mine," Gunn added.

Hollis asked, "Where are the others?"

"Last I saw of them before Pitt sent me to rescue his father and these people, they were under siege inside the crushing mill building."

"The four of you took on close to forty terrorists?" Dillenger asked incredulously.

"Pitt and the others kept the Arabs from escaping as well as creating a diversion so I could rescue the hostages."

"The odds were better than ten to one against them," stated Hollis.

"They were doing a pretty good job of it when I left," answered Gunn solemnly.

Hollis and Dillenger stared at each other. "We'd better see what we can find," said Hollis.

Senator Pitt came over. "Colonel, Rudi has told me my son is up at the mine. I'd like to tag along with you."

"Sorry, Senator. I can't permit it until the area is secure."

Gunn put his arm around the old man's shoulder. "I'll see to it, Senator. Don't worry about Dirk. He'll outlive us all."

"Thank you, Rudi. I appreciate your kindness."

Hollis was not so confident. "They must have been wiped out," he muttered under his breath to Dillenger.

Dillenger nodded in agreement. "Hopeless to think they could survive against a heavy force of trained terrorists."

Hollis gave the signal and his men began moving like phantoms through the mine buildings. As they neared the crushing mill they began to find the litter of dead awesome. They counted n bodies crumpled in rag-doll positions on the road and ground outside.

The crushing-mill building was riddled with hundreds of bullet holes and showed the splintered results of grenades. Not a single pane of glass was left intact anywhere. Every entry door had been blown into splinters.

Hollis and five men cautiously entered through holes blown in the walls while Dillenger and his team approached from the shattered opening that was once the front main entrance. Small fires burned and smoldered everywhere, but had not yet joined to build a major conflagration.

Two dozen bodies were heaped about the floor, several stacked against the front of the ore crusher. The helicopter stood amazingly clean and pristine with only its tail section in mangled condition.

Three men still lived among the carnage-men who looked so smokeblackened, so bloody, in such awful shape, that Hollis couldn't believe his eyes. One man was lying on the floor, his head resting in the lap of another, whose hand was held in a gore-stained sling. One stood swaying on his feet, blood streaming from wounds on one leg, the base of his neck where it met the shoulder, the top of his head and the side of his face.

Not until Hollis was only a few meters away did he recognize the battered men before him. He was absolutely shocked. He couldn't see how those three pitiful wrecks had kept the faith and won out over fearsome odds.

The Special Operations Forces grouped around in silent admiration. Rudi Gunn smiled from ear to ear. Hollis and Dillenger stood there wordlessly.

Then Pitt painfully straightened to his full height and said, "About time you showed up. We were running out of things to do."