Iceberg

'What in hell do you expect? You're both highly intelligent people, yet you act like a pair of mongoloids.

Take Dr. Hunnewell here. An internationally renowned scientist, and he can't even explain how an iceberg can drift north against the Labrador Current. Either you're a fraud, Dog or you're the dumbest professor — on record. The plain simple truth is that it's as impossible for this berg to reverse drift as it is for a glacier to flow uphitl.'

'Nobody's perfect,' Hunnewell said shrugging helplessly.

'No courtesy, no honest answer, is that it?'

'It's not a question of honesty,' Pitt said. 'We've our orders just as you have yours. Up to an hour ago Hunnewell and I were following a precise plan. That plan is now out the window.'

'Uh-huh. And the next move in our game of charades?'

'The problem is, we can't explain everything,' Pitt said. 'Damned little in reality. I'll tell you what Dr. Hunnewell and I know. After that you'll have to draw your own conclusions.'

'You could have leveled with me sooner.'

'Hardly,' Pitt said. 'As captain of your ship you have full authority. You even have the power to disregard or challenge orders from your Commandant if you feel they endanger your crew and ship. I couldn't take a chance. We had to give you a snow job so you'd cooperate fully. Besides, we were not to confide in anyone. I'm going against those orders right now.'

'Could be another snow job?'

'Could be,' Pitt said, grinning, 'but what's the percentage? Hunnewell and I have nothing more to gain. We're washing our hands of this mess and heading for Iceland.'

'You're dropping all this in my lap?'

'Why not? Abandoned and drifting derelicts are your bag. Remember your motto, Semper paratus, always prepared, Coast Guard to the rescue and all that.'

The twisted look on Koski's face was priceless. 'I would appreciate it if you just stuck to the facts without benefit of tawdry remarks.'

'Very well,' Pitt said calmly. 'The story I concocted on the Catawaba was true up to a point-the point where I substituted the Novgorod for the Lax. Fyrie's yacht, of course, wasnt carrying classified electronic equipment, or any other clandestine mechanical devices for that matter. The cargo actually consisted of eight major-league engineers and scientists from Fyrie Mining Limited, who were on their way to New York to open secret negotiations with two of our government's largest defense contractors. Somewhere on board-probably in this room-was a file of documents containing a geological survey of the ocean floor. What Fyrie's research team bad discovered under the sea or where remains a mystery. This information was vitally important to a great number of people; our own defense department desperately yearned to get their hands on it.

And so did the Russians; they pulled out all stops to grab it.'

'The last statement explains a great deal,' said Koski.

'Meaning?'

Koski exchanged knowing looks with Dover. 'We were one of the ships that searched for the Lax-it was the Catawaba's first patrol. Every time we blinked our eyes, we found ourselves crossing the wake of a Russian vessel. We were just egotistical enough to think they were observing our search patterns. Now it turns out that they were nosing after the Lax too.'

'It also neatly ties in with the reason we butted in on your show' said Dover. 'Ten minutes after you and Dr. Hunnewell left the flight pad, we received a message from Coast Guard Headquarters warning of a Russian sub patrolling around the ice pack. We tried but couldn't raise you-'

'Small wonder,' Pitt interrupted. 'It was essential that we maintain strict radio silence once we headed for the derelict. I took the precaution of switching the radio off. We couldn't transmit, much less receive.'

'After Commander Koski notified headquarters of our failure to contact your helicopter,' Dover continued, 'a signal came through hot and heavy ordering us to hightail it after you and act as escort in case the sub got pushy.'

'How did you find us?' Pitt asked.

'We hadn't passed two icebergs before we snotted that yellow copter of yours. it stood out like a canary on a bedsheet.'

Pitt and Hunnewell looked at each other and began laughing.

'What's the joke?' Koski asked curiously.

'Luck, plain, simple, paradoxical luck,' said Pitt, his face twisted in mirth. 'We flew all over hell for three hours before we found this floating ice palace, and you found it five minutes after you began searching.' Pitt then briefly told Koski and Dover about the iceberg decoy and meeting with the Russian submarine.

'Good Lord,' Dover muttered. 'Are you suggesting that we're not the first to set foot on the iceberg?'

'The evidence is plain,' Pitt said. 'The Ice Patrol's dyed stain has been chipped away, and Hunnewell and I found footprints in nearly every cabin of the ship.

And there's more, something that takes the whole situation out of the mysterious and puts it in the category of the macabre.'

'The fire?'

'The fire.'

'Undoubtedly accidental. Fires have been happening on ships since the first reed boats floated down the Nile thousand of years ago.'

'Murder has been going on for much longer than that.'

'Murder!' Koski repeated flatly. 'You did say murder?'

'With a capital M.'

'Except for the excessive degree, I've observed nothing I haven't already seen On at least eight other burned-out ships during my service on the Coast Guard-bodies, stench, devastation, the works. In your honored opinion as an Air Force officer what makes You think this one is any different?'

Pitt ignored Koski's testy remark 'It's all too perfect. The radio operator in the radio room, two engineers in the engine room, the captain and a mate on the bridge, the passengers in either their staterooms or salon, even a cook in the galley, everybody exactly where he should be. You tell me, Commander; you're the expert. What in hell kind of a fire would sweep through the entire ship, roasting everyone to a crisp without their making the slightest attempt at selfpreservation?'

Koski tugged at an ear thoughtfully. 'No hoses are scattered in the passageways. It's apparent no one tried to save the ship.'

'The nearest body to the fire extinguisher lies twenty feet away. The crew went against all laws of human nature if they decided at the last minute to run and die at their routine duty stations. I can't imagine a cook who perferred dying in his galley to saving his life.'

'That still proves nothing. Panic could have-'

'What does it take to convince you, Commander-a belt in the bicuspids with a baseball bat?

Explain the radio operator. He died at his set, yet it's a known fact that a Mayday signal was never received from the Lax or any'other ship in the North Atlantic at the time. Seems a bit odd that he couldn't have gotten off at least three or four words of a distress call.'

'Keep going,' Koski said quietly. His piercing eyes had an interested glint.

Pitt lit a cigarette and blew a long cloud of blue smoke into the refrigerated air, and he seemed to deliberate for a moment. 'Let's talk about the condition of the derelict. You said it, Commander, you've never seen a ship gutted as badly as this one. Why? It was carrying no explosives or flammable cargo, and we can rule out the fuel tanks-they caused the blaze to spread, yes, but not to this degree on the opposite end of the ship. Why would every square inch burn with such a high intensity? The hull and superstructure are steel. And besides hoses and extinguishers, the Lax had a sprinkler system.' He paused and pointed at two misshapen metal fixtures hanging from the ceiling. 'A fire at sea usually starts at one location, the engine room, or a cargo hold, or a storage area, and then spreads from compartment to compartment, taking hours and sometimes days to fully consume a ship. I'll bet you any amount you care to cover that a fire investigator would scratch his head and cross this one off as a flash fire, one that totaled out the entire ship within a matter Of minutes, setting a new record, ignited by causes or persons unknown.'

'What do you have in mind for the cause?'