were less conspicuous methods.'
'Shooting an unarmed plane out of the air without telltale witnesses, for example?'
'That appears to be the pattern,' Sandecker said softly. 'It wasn't until our two scientists had returned to their base camp that Matajic began to have doubts. The captain of the trawler had simply passed his command off as a sister ship to Fyrie's Lax. It was a possibility, Matajic told himself. But if the ship earned its keep as a fishing trawler, where were the fish? Even the distinct aroma had been missing. He got on the radio and contacted me at NUMA headquarters, told me the story along with his suspicions, and suggested that the Coast Guard make a routine investigation of the trawler. I ordered them to stand by while I sent a supply plane north to return them to Washington as quickly as possible to make a detailed report.' Sandecker tapped the cigar ashes into the wastebasket again, a grim expression on his face. 'I was too late. The captain of the trawler must have monitored Matajic's message. The pilot made it to the ice floe and picked them up. After that, the three of them vanished.'
Sandecker reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out a worn and folded piece — of paper. 'This is Matajic's last message.'
Pitt took the paper from the admiral's hand and unfolded it across the desk. It read:
MAYDAY! MAYDAY!
THE BASTARD'S ATTACKING. BLACK. NUMBER ONE ENGINE IS … The words abruptly ended.
'Enter the black jet.'
'Exactly. With his only witnesses out of the way, the captain's problem 'was now the Coast Guard, whom he was sure would show up at any moment.'
Pitt looked at Sandecker speculatively. 'But the Coast Guard didn't come. They were never invited.
You've yet to fully explain why you maintained silence even after you were certain three of NUMA's men were killed, murdered like cattle by a group of traveling butchers.'
'At the time I didn't really know.' The vagueness wasn't like Sandecker. Normally he was as decisive and direct as a bolt of lightning- 'I suppose I didn't want the sons-Of-bitches responsible to have the satisfaction of knowing how successful they werl thought it best to let them wonder. It's snatching at leaves in a hurricane, I admit, but it's just barely possible they might make an unplanned move, a mistake that will give us a slim lead to their identity when and if I resurrect the ghosts of Matajic and O'Riley. 'How did you handle the search party?'
'I notified all search and rescue units in the Northern Command that a valuable piece of equipment had fallen off of a NUMA research ship and was floating around lost. I gave Out have taken and waited for a the course the Plane would sighting report. There was none.' Sandecker waved his cigar to indicate helplessness. 'I also waited in vain for the sighting of a trawler matching the hull design of the Lax. It too had evaporated.'
'That's why you were dead sure it was the Lax under the iceberg.'
'Let's just say I was eighty percent certain,' Sandecker said. 'I also did a bit Of checking with every port authority between Buenos Aires and Goose Bay, Labrador. Twelve Ports recorded the entry and departure of an Icelandic fishing trawler matching the Lax's altered superstructure. For what it's worth, it went under the name of Surtsey. Surtsey, by the way, is Icelandic for 'submarine,'
'I see.' Pitt groped for a cigarette and then remembered that he was wearing a stranger's clothes. 'A northern fisherman would hardly troll so close within territorial waters. Working the undersea probe is the only credible explanation.'
'It's as if we were presented with a pregnant rabbit,' Sandecker grunted. 'One solution leaves us with a new brood of unfathomable puzzles.'
'Are you in contact with COmmander Koski?'
'Yes. The Catawaba is standing by the derelict while a team of investigators combs it thoroughly. In fact, I received a signal from them just before you struggled from bed. Three of the bodies were positively established as Fyrie's crew. The rest were too badly burned to identify.'
'Like an Edgar Allan Poe ghost story. Fyrie and his people and the Lax disappear into the sea. Nearly a year later the Lax turns up at one of our research stations with a different crew. Then soon after that, the same ship becomes a burned-out derelict in an iceberg with the remains of Fyrie and the original crew on board. The more I dwell on it, the more I kick myself for not catching that Air Force jet to Tyler Field.'
'You were warned.'
Pitt managed a sour grin as he lightly touched the bandage on his head. 'One of these times I'm going to volunteer once too often.'
'You're probably the world's luckiest bastard,' Sandecker said. 'Living through two attempts on your life in the same morning.'
'Which reminds me, how are my two friendly POlicemen?'
'Under interrogation. But short of Gestapo torture methods. I seriously doubt if we even get so much as a name, rank and serial number out of them. They keep insisting that they're going to be killed anyway, so why should they offer us information.'
'Who is doing the interrogating?'
'National Intelligence agents on our airbase at Keflavik. The Iceland government is cooperating with us every step of the way-after all, Fyrie was practically their national hero. They're just as interested in finding out what happened to the probe and the Lax as we are.'
Sandecker paused to remove a small bit Of tobacco from his tongue. 'If you're wondering why NUMA is mixed up in this instead of sitting on the sidelines and cheering on the National Intelligence Agency and their army of super spies, the answer is, or I should say was, Hunnewell. He corresponded with Fyrie's scientists for months, offering his knowledge toward the ultimate success of the probe. It was Hunnewell who was instrumental in the development of celtinium-279. Only he had a rough idea of what the probe looked like, and only he could have safely disassembled it.'
'That, of course, explains why Hunnewell had to be the first aboard the derelict.'
'Yes, celtinium in its refined state is very unstable.
Under the right conditions, it can explode with a force equal to a fifty-ton phosphate bomb, but with a pronounced characteristic difference. Celtinium fulminates at a very slow rate, burning everything in its path to ashes. Yet, unlike more common explosives, its expansion pressure is quite low, about the same as a sixtymile-an- hour wind. It could go off and melt but not shatter a pane of glass.'
'Then MY flamethrower theory was a bust. It was the probe that went off and turned the Lax into an instant pyre.'
Sandecker smiled. 'You came close.'
“But that means the probe is destroyed.'
Sandecker nodded, his smile rapidly fading. 'All of it, the murders, the probe, the killers' search for undersea treasure, it went all for nothing-a terrible, terrible waste.'
'It's possible that the organization behind this affair has the design and plans for the probe in its possession.'
'It is more than possible.' He paused, then went on almost absently. 'A lot of good it will do them. Hunnewell was the only person on earth with the process for celtinium-279. As he often said, it was basically so simple that he kept it in his head.'
'The fools,' pitt murmured. 'They murdered their only key to constructing a new probe. But why? Hunnewell couldn't have been a serious threat unless he found something on the derelict that led to the organization's paid mastermind.'
'I haven't the vaguest idea.' Sandecker shrugged helplessly. 'Anymore than I can guess who the unseen men were who chipped the red dye marker off the iceberg.'
'I wish I knew where in the hell to take the next step,' Pitt said.
'I've taken care of that little matter for you.'
Pitt looked up skeptically. 'I hope this isn't another one of your famous favors.'
“You said it yourself, you wanted to see if Iceland's women were coolly beautiful.'
'You're changing the subject.' Pitt looked steadily at the admiral. 'Here it comes, let me guess, You're going to introduce me to a burly, steely-eyed Icelandic female government official who is going to make me sit up half the night going over the same old tired questions and answers that I've already covered. Sorry, Admiral, I'm not up to
