Pitt still wasn't sure he was hearing right. "Are you serious?"
Gillespie finally lowered the glasses. "I am." Then he proceeded to tell Pitt about the meeting with the U-boat. "I identified her from an old photo I have in my maritime library. There's no doubt in my mind.
She's the U-2015, all right. Don't ask me how she survived all these years or why she's tracking this ship.
I don't have the answers. All I know is that she's out there."
Pitt had worked with the captain on at least four projects over the years. He knew him as one of the most trusted captains in NUMA's fleet of research ships. Dan Gillespie was not a kook or someone who told tall tales. He was a sober and decisive man who had never had a black mark on his record. No accident or serious injury ever occurred when he trod the deck.
"Who would believe after all these years. . ." Pitt's voice trailed off. He was unsure of what to say.
"I don't have to read your mind to know you think I'm ready for a straitjacket," said Gillespie earnestly, "but I can prove it. Ms. Evie Tan, who is on board writing a story on the expedition for a national magazine, took photos of the sub when we nearly rammed her."
"Do you see any sign of her now?" Pitt inquired. "Periscope or snorkel?"
"She's playing coy and staying deep," Gillespie answered.
"Then how can you be sure she's out there?"
"One of our scientists dropped his underwater acoustic microphones over the side-- he uses them to record whale talk. We trailed the listening gear a quarter of a mile behind the ship. I then shut down the engines and drifted. She's not a modern nuclear attack sub that can run silent through the depths. We picked up the beat of her engines as clear as a barking dog."
"Not a bad concept, but I would have trailed a weather balloon with a magnetometer hanging from it."
Gillespie laughed. "Not a bad concept, either. We thought about sidescan, but you'd have to get your sensor alongside for a good reading, and that seemed too tricky. I was hoping that now you've come on board we might find some answers."
A warning light went off in the back of Pitt's brain. He was beginning to wonder if he hadn't entered the twilight zone. To even consider a connection between the assassins from the Fourth Empire and an antique U-boat was plain crazy. And yet nothing in the whole incredible scheme made sense.
"Brief the admiral," ordered Pitt. "Tell him we may need some help."
"Should we harass him?" said Gillespie, referring to the sub. "Double back on our track and play cat and mouse?"
Pitt gave a slight negative shake of the head. "I'm afraid our ghost will have to wait. Finding the Madras takes first priority."
"Was that her name?"
Pitt nodded. "An East Indiaman lost in 1779."
"And you think she's locked in the ice somewhere along the shore," Gillespie said doubtfully.
"I'm hoping she's still there."
"What's on board that's so important to NUMA?"
"Answers to an ancient riddle."
Gillespie did not require a lengthy explanation. If that was all Pitt was going to tell him, he accepted it.
His responsibility was to the ship and the people on board. He would follow an order from his bosses at NUMA without question, unless it ran counter to the safety of the Polar Storm.
"How far into the ice pack do you want me to run the ship?"
Pitt passed the captain a slip of paper. "I'd be grateful if you could place the Polar Storm on top of this position."
Gillespie studied the numbers for a moment. "It's been a while since I navigated by latitude and longitude, but I'll set you as close as I can."
"Compass headings, then loran, then Global Positioning. Next they'll invent a positioning instrument that tells you where the nearest roll of toilet paper is located and how many inches away."
"May I ask where you got these numbers?"
"The log of the Paloverde, a whaling ship that found the East Indiaman a long time ago. Unfortunately, there is no guaranteeing how accurate they are."
"You know," Gillespie said wistfully, "I'll bet you that old whaling ship skipper could put his ship on a dime, whereas I would be hard pressed to put mine on a quarter."
The Polar Storm entered the pack and plunged against the floating mantle of ice like a fullback running through a team of opposing linemen. For the first mile, the ice was no more than a foot thick and the massive reinforced bow pushed aside the frigid blanket with ease, but closer to shore, the pack began to gradually swell, reaching three to four feet thick. Then the ship would slow to a stop, move astern, and then plow into the ice again, forcing a crack and a fifty-foot path until the ice closed in and stopped her forward progress again. The performance was repeated, the bow thrusting against the resisting ice time and time again.
Gillespie was not watching the effects of the ice-ramming. He was sitting in a tall swivel chair studying the screen of the ship's depth sounder, which sent sonic signals to the seabed. The signals were bounced back and indicated the distance in feet between the ship's keel and the bottom. These were unsurveyed waters, and the bottom was unmarked on the nautical charts.
Pitt stood a few feet away, staring through Gillespie's tinted-lens binoculars, which reduced the glare of the ice. The ice cliffs just back of the shoreline soared two hundred feet high before flattening into a broad plateau. He swept the glasses along the base of the cliffs, attempting to spot some hint of the ice-locked Madras. No telltale sign was obvious, no stern frozen in the ice, no masts thrusting above the top of the cliffs.
"Mr. Pitt?"
He turned and faced a smiling stubby man who was a few years on the low side of forty. His face was pink and cherubic, with twinkling green eyes and a wide mouth that smiled crookedly. A small, almost delicate hand was thrust out.
"Yes" was all Pitt replied, surprised at the firmness of the hand that gripped his.
"I'm Ed Northrop, chief scientist and glaciologist. I don't think I've had the pleasure."
"Dr. Northrop. I've often heard Admiral Sandecker speak of you," said Pitt pleasantly.
"In glowing terms, I hope," Northrop said, laughing.
"As a matter of fact, he never forgave you for filling his boots with ice during an expedition north of the Bering Sea."
"Jim certainly holds a grudge. That was fifteen years ago."
"You've spent quite a number of years in the Arctic and Antarctic."
"Been studying sea ice for eighteen years. By the way, I volunteered to go with you."
"Don't think me ungrateful, but I'd rather go it alone."
Northrop nodded and held his ample stomach with both hands.
"Won't hurt to have a good man along who can read the ice, and I'm more durable than I look."
"You make a good point."
"Bottom coming up," Gillespie announced. Then he called down to the engine room. "All stop, Chief.
This is as far as we go." He glanced in Pitt's direction. "We're sitting on top of the latitude and longitude you gave me."
"Thank you, Dan. Good work. This should be the approximate spot where the Paloverde was frozen in the ice during the Antarctic winter of 1858"
Northrop stared through the bridge windows at the ice spreading from the ship to shore. "I make it about two miles. A short hike in the brisk air will do us good."
"You have no snowmobiles on board?"
"Sorry, our work takes place within a hundred yards of the ship. We saw no need to add luxuries to the project budget."
"What temperature do you consider brisk air?"
"Five to ten degrees below zero. Relatively warm in these parts."
"I can't wait," Pitt said laconically.
"Consider yourself lucky it's autumn down here. It's much colder in spring."
"I prefer the tropics, with warm trade winds and lovely girls in sarongs swaying to the beat of a drum under the setting sun."
His eyes traveled to an attractive Asian lady who walked straight up to him. She smiled and said, Àre
n't you being overdramatic?"
"It's my nature."
"I'm told you're Dirk Pitt."
He smiled cordially. "I do hope so. And you must be Evie Tan. Dan Gillespie has told me you're doing a photo story about the ice expedition."
"I read a great deal about your exploits. May I interview you when you return from whatever it is you're looking for?"
Pitt instinctively threw a questioning look at Gillespie, who shook his head. "I haven't told a soul about your target."
Pitt pressed her hand. "I'll be happy to give you an interview, but the nature of our project must be off the record."
"Does it have to do with the military?" she asked, with an innocent face.
Pitt caught her sneaky probe instantly. "Nothing to do with classified military activities, or Spanish treasure galleons, or abominable snowmen. In fact, the story is so dull, I doubt any self-respecting journalist would be interested in it" Then he addressed Gillespie. "Looks like we left the submarine at the edge of the ice floe."
"Either that," said the captain, "or else they followed us under the ice."
"They're ready for you," said First Officer Bushey to Pitt.
"On my way."
The crew lowered the gangway and brought down three sleds to the ice, one with a box of ice-cutting tools covered by a tarpaulin. The other two carried only tie-down rope to secure any artifacts they might find. Pitt stood in the feathery foot-deep snow and looked at Gillespie, who had motioned to a man who was about the size and shape of a Kodiak bear. "I'm sending my third officer with you and Doc Northrop. This is Ira Cox."
"Glad to meet y'all," said Cox, through a beard that came down to his chest. The voice seemed to rise from somewhere deep below the Mason-Dixon line. He didn't offer a hand. His immense paws were covered by equally immense Arctic gloves.
"Another volunteer?"
"My idea," offered Gillespie. "I can't allow one of Admiral Sandecker's chief directors to traipse through a field of unpredictable ice alone. I won't take the responsibility. This way, if you encounter any problems, you'll have a better chance of surviving. If you should run into a polar bear, Cox will wrestle it to death."
"There are no polar bears in the Antarctic."
Gillespie looked at Pitt and shrugged. "Why take chances?"
Pitt did not make a formal or indignant protest. Down deep, he knew that if worse came to worst, one or both of those men just might save his life.
As autumn takes over the Antarctic, the stormy seas surround the continent, but as winter arrives and temperatures drop, the water thickens into oily-appearing slicks. Then the ice fragments form floating saucers called pancake ice, which enlarge and merge together before eventually forming ice floes covered by snow. Because the ice came early this year, Pitt, Northrop, and Cox moved without incident across the uneven but fairly smooth surface. They detoured around several ice ridges and two icebergs that had drifted offshore before being frozen in the pack ice. To Pitt, the floe looked like an unkempt, lumpy bed with a white quilt thrown over it.
Trudging through a foot of feathery snow did not hinder their motion. Their pace never slackened.
Northrop went first, studying the ice as he went, watchful for any deviation or crack. He walked without the burden of a sled, insisting that he required more freedom of movement to test the ice. Harnessed to a sled, Pitt followed Northrop, easily moving on cross-country skis that he had shipped from his father's lodge in Breckenridge, Colorado. Cox brought up the rear, wearing showshoes and pulling two sleds as effortlessly as if they were toys.
What began as a beautiful day with a dazzling sun in an uncluttered sky deteriorated as clouds crept over the horizon. Slowly, the blue skies went gray and the sun became a muted ball of faded orange. A light snow began to fall, reducing visibility. Pitt ignored the worsening weather, and did not allow his mind to linger on the green, frigid water only an arm's length below his feet. He kept glancing at the cliffs, which rose higher and higher above the tips of his skis the closer they came. He could see the ice-free rugged Hansen Mountains far inland, but still no sign of a shadowy shape embedded in the ice. He began to feel like an intruder in this vast, remote domain unspoiled by human habitation.
They made their crossing over the floe and reached the base of the ice cliffs in slightly over an hour.
Gillespie followed their every movement until they stopped at the inner edge of the ice floe. Their turquoise NUMA arctic gear made them easily visible against the brilliant white. He checked the meteorological reports for the tenth time. The falling snow was light and there was no wind, but he knew well that could change in a matter of minutes. It was the wind that was the unknown factor. Without warning, it could turn a dazzling white landscape into a howling whiteout.
Gillespie picked up the ship's satellite phone and dialed a number. He was put through immediately to Sandecker. "They're on shore and beginning the search," he informed his boss.
"Thank you, Dan," Sandecker replied. "Report to me when they return."
"Before I ring off, Admiral, there is something else. I'm afraid we have a rather baffling situation." He then gave Sandecker a concise report on the U-boat. When he finished, there was the expected pause while the admiral tried to digest what he had just heard.
Finally, he replied tersely, "I'll take care of it."
Gillespie went back to the broad windshield of the bridge and picked up his glasses again. "All this for a shipwreck," he said under his breath. "It had better be worth it."
On shore, Pitt was fighting off discouragement. He was well aware that any search for something lost so far back in time was a long shot. There was no way of determining how much ice had formed to enshroud the entire ship in 150 years. For all he knew, it could be a hundred yards deep within the ice.
Using the Polar Storm as a base point, he marked off a two-mile grid below the sheer, icebound cliffs.
Pitt and Cox each used small handheld GPS units the size of a cigarette pack to pinpoint their precise location at any moment. They split up, leaving the sleds at the departure point. Pitt headed to his left, making good time on his skis along the ice floe where it met the cliffs, while Cox and Northrop searched to the right. When they each reached the approximate end of a mile, they agreed to return to their starting point.
Making better time than the others, Pitt was the first to return to the sleds. Examining every foot of the lower cliffs going and coming, he was disappointed not to find the slightest clue to the Madras. Thirty minutes later, the glaciologist arrived and lay with his back over a small hummock of ice, legs and arms outstretched, catching his breath and resting his aching knees and ankles. He looked at Pitt through his dark bronze goggles and made a gesture of defeat.
"Sorry, Dirk, I saw nothing in the ice that resembled an old ship."
"I came up dry, too," Pitt admitted.
"I can't say without making tests, but it's a good bet the ice has broken off at one time or another and carried her out to sea."
Gillespie's muffled voice came from a pocket of Pitt's polar-fleece jacket. He pulled out a portable ship-to-shore radio and responded. "Go ahead, Dan, I have you."
"Looks like a bad storm coming up," warned Gillespie. "You should return to the ship as quickly as possible."
"No argument on that score. See you soon."
Pitt slipped the radio back into his pocket, looked over the ice floe to the north, and saw only emptiness. "Where did you leave Cox?"
Suddenly concerned, Northrop sat up and peered across the ice. "He found and entered a crevice in the cliffs. I thought he'd investigate, come out and follow me back."
"I'd better check him out."
Pitt pushed off with his ski poles and traced the footprints in the snow, two sets going, only one returning. The wind was increasing rapidly, the tiny ice particles thickening like a silken veil. Any glare was wiped out and the sun had vanished completely. He could not help but admire the courage of Roxanna Mender. He thought it a miracle she had surviv
ed the terrible cold. He found himself skiing under great icy crags that loomed over him. He had the fleeting impression the great hard mass would topple over him at any time.
He heard a muted shout not far away over the swelling sound of the wind. He stood listening, ears cocked, intent on piercing the barrier of the ice mist.
"Mr. Pitt! Over here!"
At first Pitt could see nothing but the frigid white face of the cliff. Then he caught a vague glimpse of a turquoise smear waving from a black shaft that split the cliff. Pitt dug his ski poles into the ice and pushed toward Cox. He felt like Ronald Colman in Lost Horizon, struggling through the Himalayan blizzard into the tunnel that took him to Shangri-la. One moment he was in the midst of swarming ice particles, the next he was in a dry, quiet, wind-free atmosphere.
He leaned forward on his poles and looked around an ice cave that measured about eight feet wide and tapered to a sharp peak twenty feet above. From the entrance, the gloom transformed from ash white to an ivory blackness. The only flash of color he could see was Cox's cold-weather gear.
"A bad storm is brewing," said Pitt, wagging a thumb through the cave entrance. "We'd best make a run for the ship."
Cox pulled up his goggles, his eyes looking at Pitt strangely. "You want to leave?"
"It's nice and comfy in here, but we can't afford to waste time."
"I thought you were looking for an old ship."
"I thought so, too," Pitt said testily.
Cox held up his gloved hand and unrolled an index finger in the upright position. "Well?"
Pitt looked upward. There, near the peak of the crevice, a small section of a wooden stern section of an old sailing ship was protruding from the ice.
<<17>>
Pitt skied back to Northrop, and together they dragged the three sleds into the ice cave. Pitt also briefed Gillespie on their discovery and assured him that they were comfortably shielded from the foul weather outside the ice cave.
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