was without a scratch.
“She’s still clear!” Giordino shouted.
“Not for long,” Pitt said. In an instant he took in the dire situation. The Polar Queen was steaming in large circles, her helm somehow jammed hard to starboard. They had arrived less than thirty minutes before her arc would bring her in collision with the sheer rocks, crushing her hull and sending everyone on board into deep, icy water.
“There are bodies on her deck,” said Giordino soberly.
A few lay scattered about the bridge deck. Several had fallen on the sundeck near the stern. A Zodiac, still attached to the gangway, was dragged along through the swells, two bodies lying on its bottom. That no one was alive was obvious by the fact they were all covered with a thin coating of snow and ice.
“Two more revolutions and she’ll kiss the rock,” said Giordino.
“We’ve got to get down there and somehow turn her about.”
“Not in this wind,” said Giordino. “The only open space is the roof over the bridge-deck quarters. That’s a tricky landing I wouldn’t want to try. Once we dump airspeed and hover prior to setting down, we’ll have as much control as a dry leaf. A sudden downdraft and we’ll end up in the mess down there.”
Pitt unsnapped his safety harness. “Then you drive the bus while I go down on the winch.”
“There are people under restraint in rubber rooms who aren’t that crazy. You’d be whipped around like a yo- yo on a string.”
“You know any other way to get on board?”
“Only one. But it’s not approved by the Ladies Home Journal.”
“The battleship drop in the Vixen affair,” said Pitt, recalling.
“One more occasion where you were damned lucky,” said Giordino.
There was no doubt in Pitt’s mind-the ship was going to pile up on the rocks. Once the bottom was torn out of her, she would sink like a brick. There was always the possibility that someone had survived the unknown plague as Maeve and her excursionists had in the cave. The cold, hard reality dictated that the bodies be examined in hopes of tracking down the cause of death. If there was the slightest chance of saving the Polar Queen, he had to take it.
Pitt looked at Giordino and smiled faintly. “It’s time to cue the daring young man on the flying trapeze.”
Pitt already wore thermal underwear made from heavy nylon pile to retain his body heat and shield him from frigid temperatures. Over this he pulled on a diver’s drysuit, specially insulated for polar waters. The purpose of the dry suit was twofold. The first was to protect him from the windchill while he was dangling beneath the moving helicopter. The second, to keep him alive in cold water long enough for rescue, should he drop too soon or too late and miss the ship entirely.
He strapped on a quick-release harness and tightened the chin strap to the heavy crash-type helmet that contained his radio headset. He looked through the compartment that held Van Fleet’s lab equipment and into the cockpit. “Do you read me okay?” he asked Giordino through the tiny microphone in front of his lips.
“A little fuzzy around the edges. But that should clear once you’re free of the engine’s interference. How about me?”
“Your every syllable is like a chime,” Pitt jested.
“Because the upper superstructure is crowded with the funnel, forward mast and a batch of electronic navigation equipment, I can’t risk dropping you amidships. It will have to be either the open bow or the stern.”
“Make it the sundeck over the stern. The bow contains too much machinery.”
“I’ll start the run from starboard to port as soon as the ship turns and the wind comes from abeam,” Giordino informed him. “I’ll come in from the sea and attempt to take advantage of the calmer conditions on the lee side of the cliffs.”
“Understood.”
“You ready?”
Pitt adjusted his helmet’s face mask and pulled on his gloves. He took the remote control unit to the winch motor in one hand, turned and pulled open the side entry hatch. If he hadn’t been dressed for the abrupt blast of polar frigidity he would have been frozen into a Popsicle within a few seconds. He leaned out the door and gazed at Polar Queen.
She was circling in closer and closer to her death. Only fifty meters separated her from destruction on this pass. The uncompromising rock walls of the outermost Danger Island seemed to beckon to her. She looked like an uncaring moth serenely gliding toward a black spider, Pitt thought. There wasn’t much time left. She was beginning her final circuit, which would bring her into collision with an immovable object. She would have died before but for the waves that crashed against the sheer rock and echoed back, delaying her trip to the bottom.
“Throttling back,” Giordino said, announcing the start of his run over the ship.
“Exiting now,” Pitt informed him. Pitt pressed the release button to reel out the cable. As soon as he had enough slack to clear the doorway he stepped into space.
The rush of wind took him in its grasp and strung his body out behind the underside of the helicopter. The rotor blades thumped above him, and the sound of the turbine exhaust came through his helmet and earphones. Whirling through the chilly air, Pitt felt the same sensation as that felt by a bungee jumper after the initial recoil. He focused his concentration onto the ship, which looked like a toy boat floating on a blanket of blue in the near distance. The superstructure of the ship rapidly grew until it filled most of his vision.
“Coming up on her,” Giordino’s voice came over the earphones. “Mind you don’t slam into the railing and slice yourself into little pieces.”
He may have spoken as calmly as though he was parking a car in a garage, but there was a noticeable strain in Giordino’s voice as he struggled to keep the slow-moving helicopter stable while heading through frenzied crosswinds.
“And don’t you bloody your nose on those rocks,” Pitt shot back.
Those were the last words between them. From now on it was all by sight and gut instinct. Pitt had let himself down until he was almost fifteen meters below and behind the chopper. He fought against the pull and momentum that worked to twist him in circles, using his outstretched arms like the wings and ailerons of an aircraft. He felt himself drop a few meters as Giordino reduced speed.
To Giordino it seemed Polar Queen churned the water with her screws as though it was business as usual and she was on a tropical pleasure cruise. He eased back on the throttle as far as he dared. One more notch and all control would belong to the winds. He was flying with every shred of experience he’d gained during many thousands of hours in the air, if being tossed about by fickle air currents could be called flying. Despite the wind buffeting, if he maintained his present course, he could drop Pitt dead center onto the sundeck. He later swore that he was pitched and yawed by winds coming at him from six different directions. From his position at the end of the winch cable, Pitt marveled that Giordino kept the craft on a straight line.
The black cliffs loomed up beyond the ship, ominous and menacing. If it was a sight to daunt the bravest of sea captains, it certainly daunted Giordino. It wouldn’t do for him to make a spectacular head-on smash into the exposed rock, any more than it would do for Pitt to miscalculate and strike the side of the ship, breaking every bone in his body.
They were flying toward the lee side of the island, and the winds abated slightly. Not much, but enough for Giordino to feel he had firm control of the chopper and his destiny once more. One instant the cruise ship stretched in front of Giordino and the next the white superstructure and yellow hull swept out of sight beneath him. Then all he saw was ice-frozen rock that rose out of sight above his forward view. He could only hope Pitt was away as he abruptly threw the helicopter into a vertical ascent. The cliffs, wet from the billowing spray from the pounding waves, looked as if they were drawing him toward them like a magnet.
Then he was over the icy crest and was struck by the full force of the wind, which threw the aircraft on its tail, the rotor blades in a perpendicular position. Without any attempt at finesse, Giordino threw the helicopter around to a level position on a reverse course and beat back over the ship, his eyes darting as he looked out the window for a glimpse of Pitt.
Giordino did not know, could not have known, that Pitt had released his harness and made a perfect drop from a height of only three meters directly into the center of the sundeck’s open swimming pool. Even from that short height it looked no larger than a postage stamp, but to Pitt it seemed as enticing as the cushiness of a
