'No go, Colonel. We're dealing with genuine sadists. They also trashed the lifeboats. Bashed the bottoms out.'
Dillenger's dire report was punctuated by a deep growling noise that emanated from the glacier and traveled through the ship like a drum.
There was no vibration this time, only the growl that turned into a heart-stopping rumble. It lasted nearly a minute before it finally faded and died.
Hollis and Collins were both brave men-no one would ever doubt it-but each read fear in the other's eyes.
'The glacier is ready to calve,' said Collins grimly. 'Our only hope is to cut away the anchor chains and pray the tide carries us out into the fjord.'
'Believe me, you won't see ebb tide for another eight hours,' said Hollis. 'You're talking to a man who knows.'
'You're just full of cheery news, aren't you, Colonel.'
'Doesn't look encouraging, does it?'
'Doesn't look encouraging,' Collins repeated. 'Is that all you have to say? There are nearly two hundred people on board the Lady Flamborough.
They must be evacuated immediately.'
'I can't wave a wand and make the glacier go away,' Hollis explained calmly. 'I can take a few out in inflatable boats and call in our helicopters to airlift the rest. But we're talking a good hour.'
Collins's voice came edged with impatience. 'Then I suggest you get on with it while we're all still alive-' He halted as Hollis abruptly swung up a hand for silence.
Hollis's eyes narrowed in bewilderment as a strange voice suddenly burst over his earphone.
'Colonel Hollis, am I on your frequency? Over.'
'Who the hell is this!' Hollis snapped.
'Captain Frank Stewart of the NUMA ship Sounder at your service. Can I give you a lift somewhere?'
'Stewart!' the Colonel burst out. 'Where are you?'
'If you could see through all that crap hanging on your superstructure, you'd find me cruising up the fjord about half a kilometer off your port side.'
Hollis exhaled a great sigh and nodded at Collins. 'A ship is bearing down on us. any instructions?'
Collins stared at him, numb with disbelief. Then he blurted, 'Good God, yes, man! Tell him to take us under tow.'
Working feverishly, Collins's crew slipped the bow and stern anchor chains and made ready with the mooring hawsers.
In a feat of superb seamanship, Stewart swung the Sounder's stern under the Lady Flamborough's bow in one pass. Two heavy rope mooring lines were dropped by the crewmen of the cruise ship and immediately made fast to the survey ship's deck bitts. It was not the most perfect tow arrangement, but the ships were not going for distance across stormy seas, and the temporary expedient was accomplished in a matter of minutes.
Stewart gave the command for 'slow ahead' until the slack was taken up from the tow lines. Then he slowly increased speed to 'full ahead'
while he looked over his shoulder, one eye on the glacier, one on the cruise liner. The Sounder's two cycloidal propellers, one forward and one aft, thrashed the water as her great diesel engine strained under the load.
She was half the Lady Flamborough's tonnage and never meant for tug duty, but she dug in and drove like a draft horse in a pulling contest, black exhaust pouring from her stack.
At first nothing seemed to happen, and then slowly, imperceptibly, a small bit of froth appeared around the Sounder's bow. She was moving, hauling the reluctant cruise liner from under the shadow of the glacier.
Despite the danger, the passengers, crew and Special Forces fighters all tore away the plastic sheeting and stood on the decks, watching and willing the struggling Sounder forward. Ten meters, then twenty, a hundred, the gap between ship and ice widened with agonizing slowness.
Then at last the Lady was clear.
Everyone on both ships gave a rousing cheer that echoed up and down the fiord. Later, Captain Collins would humorously call it the cheer that broke the camel's back.
A loud cracking sound shattered the celebrating voices and grew into a great booming rumble. To those watching, it seemed as if the air was electrified. Then the whole forward face of the ice cliff toppled forward and pounded into the fjord like a huge oil tanker being launched on its side. The water seethed and boiled and rose in a ten-foot wave that surged down the fjord and lifted the two ships like corks before heading out toward the open sea.
The monstrous, newly calved iceberg settled into the deeply carved channel of the fjord, its ice glinting like a field of orange diamonds under the new sun. Then the rumble rolled down from the mountainside and echoed in the ears of the stunned onlookers, who couldn't believe they were somehow alive.
At first there was complete confusion, with much shouting and wild shooting. The Egyptians had no idea of the size of the force that fired on them in the dining hall during the passage of the . They snuffed the lights and shot at the earlymoming shadows until they realized the shadows weren't shooting back.
The dirt roads between the wooden buildings took on an eerie silence.
for several minutes the Egyptian hijackers made no effort to leave the dining hall.
Then, suddenly, a half-dozen men-two from the front and four at the rear of the building-broke from the doors, scrambling, crouching, and diving headlong behind predetermined shelter. Once in position, they laid down a circle of fire to cover the rest of the men, who then followed on their heels.
Their leader, a tall man wearing a black turban, directed the men's movements by blowing sharp biceps on a
