Pitt stared at the apparition, trying unsuccessfully to gauge the eyes behind the polarized goggles.
"Can I wiggle my ears?" he asked, perfectly composed.
From his point of view, Cleary couldn't be sure whether the nondescript characters standing in front of him represented enemy or friend. The shorter one looked like a pit bull. The taller of the two was disheveled and had slipshod bandages covering half his face. They looked like men dead on their feet, their gaunt, barely focused, sunken eyes set over cheeks and jaws showing the early stages of scraggly beards. "Who are you and where did you two characters come from, wise mouth?"
"My name is Dirk Pitt. My friend is Al Giordino. We're with the National Underwater and Marine Agency."
"NUMA." Cleary repeated, finding the answer little short of lunacy. "Is that a fact?"
"It's a fact," Pitt answered, perfectly composed. "Who are you?"
"Major Tom Cleary, United States Army Special Forces. I'm in command of the team that assaulted the facility."
"I'm sorry we couldn't have arrived sooner and saved more of your men," Pitt said sincerely.
Cleary's shoulders sagged and he lowered his gun. "No better men have died today."
Pitt and Giordino said nothing. There was nothing fitting they could say.
Finally, Cleary straightened. "I can't believe a couple of oceanographic people from NUMA, untrained to fight hostiles, could do so much damage," said Cleary, still trying to figure the men standing in front of him.
"Saving you and your men was a spur-of-the-moment action. Stopping the Wolfs from launching a cataclysm was our primary goal."
"And did you accomplish it?" asked Cleary, looking around at the wreckage of what had once been a high-tech operational control center, "or is the clock still ticking?"
"As you can see," Pitt replied, "all electronic functions are disabled. The electronic commands to activate the ice-cutting machines have been terminated."
"Thank God," Cleary said, the stress and strain suddenly falling from his shoulders. He wearily removed his helmet, pulled his goggles over his forehead, stepped forward, and extended his unwounded hand. "Gentlemen. Those of us still standing are in your debt. Lord only knows how many lives were spared by your timely intervention with this…" As he shook their hands, he paused to gaze at the twisted shambles of the once-magnificent Snow Cruiser, her Cummins diesel engines still slowly clacking over like a pair of faintly beating hearts. "Just what exactly is it?"
"A souvenir from Admiral Byrd," said Giordino.
"Who?"
Pitt smiled faintly. "It's a long story."
Cleary's mind shifted gears. "I see no bodies."
"They must have all evacuated the center during the battle and headed for the hangar to board the aircraft and make their escape," Giordino speculated.
"My map of the facility shows an airstrip, but we didn't see any sign of aircraft during our descent."
"Their hangar can't be seen from the air. It was carved into the ice."
Cleary's expression turned to fury. "Are you telling me the fiends responsible for this shameful debacle have vanished?"
"Relax, Major," Giordino said with a canny smile. "They haven't left the facility."
Cleary saw the pleased look in Pitt's eyes. "Did you arrange that, too?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Pitt answered candidly. "On our way here, we happened to run into their aircraft. I'm happy to announce that all flights from the facility have been canceled."
Shouts and cheers erupted unabashedly in the Pentagon and White House war rooms at hearing Cleary's voice announce the termination of the ice shelf detachment systems, followed by Lieutenant Jacobs's report that the survivors of Wolf's security force were laying down their arms and surrendering. Elation washed over the two rooms at learning the worst of the deadly crisis was over. They heard Cleary's voice carrying on a one-sided conversation with the saviors of the mission, who carried no radios and whose words could not be heard intelligibly over Cleary's throat microphone.
Unable to contain his exhilaration, the President snatched up a phone and spoke sharply. "Major Cleary, this is the President. Do you read me?"
There was a flicker of static, and then Cleary's voice answered. "Yes, Mr. President, I hear you loud and clear."
"Until now, I was told not to interfere with your communications, but I believe everybody here would like a coherent report."
"I understand, sir," Cleary said, finding it next to impossible to believe he was actually talking to his commander in chief. "I'll have to make it quick, Mr. President. We still have to round up the Wolfs, their engineers, and the last of their security guards."
"I understand, but please brief us on this macabre vehicle that came on the scene. Who does it belong to and who was operating it?"
Cleary told him, but failed miserably at attempting to describe the snow monster that had burst forth from the ice at the last minute and snatched victory virtually from the mouth of defeat.
Everyone sat and listened, bewildered, but nobody was more bewildered than Admiral Sandecker when informed that two men from his government agency who were under his direct authority had driven sixty miles across the barren ice in a monstrous 1940 snow vehicle and helped crush a small army of mercenary security guards. He was doubly stunned when he heard the names Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino, who he thought were due to land in Washington within the hour.
"Pitt and Giordino," he said, shaking his head in wonderment. "I should have known. If anyone can make a grand entrance where they're not expected, it's them."
"I'm not surprised," said Loren, with a smile across her lovely face. "There was no way Dirk and Al were going to stand by passively and wait for the world to stop."
"Who are these people?" demanded General South, angrily. "Where does NUMA get off interfering in a military operation? Who authorized their presence?"
"I would be proud to say I did," Sandecker said, staring directly at South without giving an inch, "but it simply would not be true. These men, make that my men, acted on their own initiative, and it looks to me that it was a damned good thing they did."
The argument died before it had begun. It never left the minds of those present in the war rooms of the Pentagon and White House that without the intervention of Pitt and Giordino, there would have been no estimating the frightful aftermath.
Pitt's and Giordino's ears should have been burning, but without a link to Cleary's headgear radio, they could not hear what was said half a world away. Pitt sat on the step of the Snow Cruiser and pulled the bandages off his face, revealing several cuts that would require stitches.
Cleary looked down at him. "You're certain the Wolfs are still here?"
Pitt nodded. "Karl, the head of the family, and one sister, Elsie, must be in tears at seeing the aircraft they'd planned to use to flee the facility has been rendered nonflyable."
"Can you and Mr. Giordino lead me to the hangar?"
Pitt cracked a smile. "I'd consider it an honor and a privilege."
General South's voice cut into the brief conversation. "Major Cleary, I am directing you to regroup, do what you can for your wounded, and secure the rest of the facility. Then wait for the main Special Forces unit, which should be landing inside half an hour."
"Yes, sir," answered Cleary. "But first there is a little unfinished business to settle." He pulled out the connector between his mike and receiving unit, turned to Pitt, and fixed him with an "Where is this hangar?"
"About half a mile," said Pitt. "Are you thinking of rounding up a hundred people with the few men you have left?"
Cleary's lips spread in a shifty grin. "Don't you think it and proper that the men who have gone through hell should the final kill?"
"You'll get no argument from me."
"Are you two up to acting as guides?"
"Did you get permission from Washington?"
"I neglected to ask."
Pitt's opaline green eyes took on a wicked look. Then he sai
d, not? Al and I never could pass up a diabolical scheme."
45
It would be a classic understatement to say that Karl Wolf was horrified and enraged when he laid eyes on the broken wreckage of his aircraft. His grand scheme was in tatters, as he and his scientists and engineers milled around the hangar in fear and confusion. To his knowledge, the mechanism to break away the ice shelf was still set to come online in less than four minutes.
Misguided by Hugo, who told them his guards at the control center were still locked in a life-or-death struggle with the Special Forces teams, Karl had no perception that the Fourth Empire had died before it was born, or that Project Valhalla was aborted.
The Wolfs stood in a solemn group, unable to accept the full impact of the disaster, unable to believe the incredible story of a huge vehicle that had run amok and smashed their aircraft, before heading off toward the battle raging in front of the control center. They stood stunned with disbelief at the sudden reversal of their long-cherished plans. Hugo was the only one missing from his family members. Committed to the end, he had disregarded their predicament and was feverishly organizing the remaining members of his security force for the final resistance against the Americans he knew for certain were short minutes away from assaulting the hangar.
Then Karl said, "Well, that's it, then." He turned to Blondi. "Send a message to our brother Bruno on board the Ulrich Wolf. Explain the situation and tell him to send backup aircraft here immediately with all speed. We haven't another moment to lose."
Blondi didn't waste time with questions. She took off at a run toward the radio inside the control room at the edge of the airstrip.
"Will it be possible to land on the Ulrich Wolf during the early stages of the cataclysm?" Elsie Wolf asked her brother. Her face was pale with anguish.
Karl looked at his chief engineer, Jurgen Holtz. "Do you have an answer for my sister, Jurgen?"
A frightened Holtz looked down at the icy floor of the hangar and replied woodenly. "I have no way of calculating the exact arrival time of the expected hurricane winds and tidal waves. Nor can I predict their initial strength. But if they reach the Ulrich Wolf before our flight can land, I fear the result can only lead to tragedy."
"Are you saying we're all going to die?" demanded Elsie.
"I'm saying we won't know until the time comes," Holtz said soberly.
"We'll never have time to transfer the Amenes artifacts from the damaged planes after Bruno arrives," said Karl, staring distraught at the family's personal executive jet, sitting broken like a child's toy "We'll take only relics of the Third Reich."
"I'm going to need every able-bodied male and female who can shoot a weapon." The voice came from behind Karl. It was Hugo, whose black uniform was splattered with blood from the dead guard who'd failed to tell him of the havoc in the hangar. "I realize we have many frightened and disoriented people on our hands, but if we are to survive until rescued by our brothers and sisters at the shipyard, we must hold out against the American fighting force."
"How many of your fighting men have survived?" asked Karl.
"I'm down to twelve. That's why I require all the reserves I can find."
"Do you have enough weapons for us all?"
Hugo nodded. "Guns and ammo can be found in the arsenal room at the entrance of the hangar."
"Then you have my permission to recruit any and everyone who wants to see their loved ones again."
Hugo looked his brother in the eyes. "It is not my place, brother, to ask them to fight and die. You are the leader of our new destiny. You are whom they respect and venerate. You ask, and they will follow."
Karl stared into the faces of his brother and two sisters, seeing his own expression of foreboding in their eyes. With a mind as cold as an iceberg and a heart of stone, he had no misgivings about ordering his people to lay down their lives so that he and his siblings might survive.
"Assemble them," he said to Elsie, "and I will tell them what they must do."
Leaving four of his men who were not hurt seriously to tend the wounded and stand guard over the surviving security guards, Cleary and twenty-two able-bodied men of his remaining team, led by Pitt and Giordino, who knew the way to the hangar, entered the main tunnel in tactical formation, with two of Garnet's Delta Force acting as forward flanking scouts.
Lieutenant Jacobs was more than surprised to meet up with Pitt and Giordino again, and even more amazed to find that they were the madmen who'd driven the Snow Cruiser into the battle zone only minutes before Cleary and his men would have ended up like Custer and the Seventh Cavalry at the Little Bighorn.
Moving cautiously, the column rounded the first bend in the tunnel and moved past the deserted construction equipment and the doorways leading into the empty storerooms. Walking through the ice tunnel seemed far different to Pitt and Giordino than when they had careened through it in the Snow Cruiser. Pitt smiled to himself at seeing the long gouges in the ice caused by his reckless driving when escaping the armored Sno-cat.
When they reached an abandoned tow vehicle, attached to a small train of four flatbed cars that had been used to haul supplies and cargo throughout the tunnel labyrinth, they halted their advance and used the equipment for cover, as Cleary questioned Pitt and Giordino.
"How far to the hangar from here?" he asked.
"About another five hundred yards before the tunnel opens into it," Pitt answered.
"Is there any place between here and there they could set up a barricade?"
"Every ten feet, if they had the time and blocks of ice. But I doubt they could have built anything substantial in the few short minutes since they lost their battle for the facility." He pointed down on the ice. Besides the rotund indentations from the tires of the Snow Cruiser, the only other tracks came from a single snowmobile and the footprints of several men that suggested that they had been running from the battle.
"Can't be more than a dozen security guards left. If they intend to mount a defense, it will have to be within a hundred yards of the hangar."
"Don't forget the Sno-cat," said Giordino quietly, "the one you didn't mash into scrap."
"There's another one of those devilish vehicles still lurking around?" growled Cleary.
Pitt nodded. "Very well could be. What's in your traveling arsenal that can disable it?"
"Nothing that will penetrate its armor," Cleary admitted.
"Hold up your men, Major. I think I see something that might be of use."
Pitt rummaged around in the toolbox of the tow vehicle until he came up with an empty fuel can. He found a steel pry bar and used it to perforate the top of the can. Then he took the bar and punched the bar through the bottom of the tow vehicle's fuel tank. When the can was full, he held it up. "Now all we need is an igniting device."
Lieutenant Jacobs, who was observing Pitt's actions, reached into his pack and retrieved a small flare gun used for signaling purposes at night or in foul weather. "Will this do?"
"Like a beautiful woman and a glass of fine Cabernet," said Pitt.
Cleary raised his arm and swung it forward. "Let's move out."
There were no haunting fears of the unknown now, no urgencies or trepidations. Flankers moving like cats, followed by men unshakable and committed, bent on avenging friends who'd died back at the control center, they advanced into the tunnel like wraiths under the obscure light refracting through the ice. Pitt felt a swell of pride, knowing that he and Giordino were accepted by such men as equals.
Suddenly, the flankers motioned a halt. Everyone froze, listening. An engine's exhaust faintly heard in the distance signaled the approach of a vehicle. Soon the sound grew louder and echoed through the tunnel. Then twin lights appeared, their beams dancing on the ice before rounding the bend.
"The Sno-cat," Pitt announced calmly. "Here it comes." He pointed at one of the nearby empty storerooms. "I suggest you and your men get inside quickly before we're all exposed by the headlights."
A terse, quiet command,
and twenty seconds later, every man was inside the storeroom, with the door cracked open an inch. The lights grew brighter as the Sno-cat trod its way through the tunnel. Just behind the storeroom door, Pitt crouched with the fuel can clutched in both hands. Behind him, Jacobs stood poised and ready to fire the flare pistol, and behind him, the entire team primed and ready to pour from the storeroom and lay down a hail of lethal fire on the occupants of the Sno-cat or any guards who might be following on foot.
Timing was critical. If Pitt threw the can too soon or too late and the guards inside survived, the entire Special Force team was trapped inside the storeroom like ducks in a closet, and would be wiped out in less time than it would take to tell about it. Jacobs had to be on target, too. A miss and it was all over.
The Sno-cat came closer. Pitt judged its speed at about ten miles an hour. The driver was moving cautiously. Through the narrow slit between the door and frame, he saw no sign of guards following the vehicle on foot. "She's coming too fast for support to follow behind," Pitt reported softly to Cleary. "My guess is they're on a scouting mission."
"They carry four men," Cleary murmured. "I know that much."
Pitt shied his head and closed his eyes to keep from being temporarily blinded by the bright lights of the Sno-cat. It was so close now he could hear its treads crunch against the icy floor of the tunnel. With infinite caution, without using any sudden movement that might catch the eye of the vehicle's occupants, he inched the door open. The front end of the Sno-cat was now close enough to the storeroom that he could hear the muted beat of its engine. Nimbly, focused, and precise, he threw the door open, raised himself to his full height and hurled the gas can into the open compartment of the Sno-cat. Then, without the slightest suggestion of a pause, he ducked to his side and dropped to the ice.
Jacobs was not one to let the grass grow under his feet. He was aiming the flare pistol before Pitt cast aside the door. A millimeter's adjustment and he fired, the shell missing Pitt's head by the width of two fingers a heartbeat after the fuel can sailed into the open Sno-cat and splashed its contents inside.
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