Текст книги "Iceberg"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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"Isn't it possible," Pitt asked, "for American engineers to develop our own probe?"

"Yes, in fact we already have one, but compared with Fyrie's probe, it operates with all the efficiency of a bicycle next to a sportscar. His people made a breakthrough that is ten years ahead of anything we or the Russians are currently developing."

"Any ideason who stole the probe?"

Sandecker shook his head. "None. It's obviously a well-financed organization. Beyond that we're playing blindman's buff in a swamp."

"Which country would have the necessary resources to-"

"You can forget that speculation," Sandecker interrupted. "The National Intelligence Agency is Positive no foreign government is in the act. Even the Chinese would think twice before killing two dozen people over an innocent, nondestructive scientific instrument. No, it's got to be a private motive. For what purpose besides financial gain," he shrugged helplessly, "we can't even guess."

"All right, so the mysterious organization has the probe, so they strike a bonanza on the sea floor. How do they raise it?"

"They can't," Sandecker replied. "Not without highly technical equipment."

"It doesn't make sense. If they've had the probe over a year, what good has it done them?"

"They've put the probe to good use all right," Sandecker said seriously, "testing every square foot of the continental shelf on the Atlantic shore of North and South America. And they used the Lax to do it."

Pitt stared at him curiously. "The Lax? I don't follow."

"Do you remember Dr. Len Matajic and his assistant Sandecker flicked an ash into the wastebasket. “Jack O'Riley?"

Pitt frowned, recalling. "I air-dropped supplies. to them three months ago when they set up camp on an ice floe in Baffin Bay. Dr. Matajic was studying currents below a depth of ten thousand feet, trying to prove a pet theory of his that a deep layer of warm water had the capacity to melt the Pole if only one percent of it could be diverted upward."

"What was the last you heard of them?"

Pitt shrugged. "I left for the Oceanlab Project in California as soon as they began routine housekeeping. Why ask me? You planned and coordinated their expedition.

"Yes, I planned the expedition," Sandecker repeated slowly. He screwed the knuckles of his index fingers into his eyes, then pushed the hands together and folded them. "Matajic and O'Riley are dead. The plane bringing them back from the ice floe crashed in the sea.No trace was found."

"Strange, I hadn't heard. It must have just happened."

Sandecker put another match to his cigar. "A month ago yesterday, to be exact."

Pitt stared at him. "Why the secrecy? Nothing was mentioned in broadcast about their ac'ident. As your special projects director, I should have been one of the first to be informed."

"Only one other man besides myself was aware of their deaths-the radio operator who took their last message. I've made no announcement because I couldn't try to bring them back from their watery grave."

"Sorry, Admiral," Pitt said. "You've lost me completely.”

"All right then," Sandecker said heavily. "Five weeks ago I received a signal from Matajic. Seems O'Riley, while on a scouting trek, spotted a fishing trawler that had moored to the north end of their ice floe. Not being socially aggressive, he returned to base and informed Matajic. Then together, they trolled back and paid a friendly call on the fishermen to determine if they needed assistance. An odd bunch, Matajic said.

The ship flew the flag of Iceland, yet most of the crew were Arabs, while the rest represented at least six different countries including the United Sates. It seems a bearing had burned out in their diesel engine. Rather than drift around while repairs were made, they decided to tie up on the ice flow to let the crew stretch their legs. "Nothing suspicious in that," Pitt commented.

"The captain and crew invited Matajic and O'Riley on board for dinner," Sandecker continued. "This courteous act seemed harmless enough at the time. Later, it was seen as an obvious attempt to avoid suspicion. By sheer coincidence, it backfired."

"SO Our two scientists were also on the list to see something they shouldn't have."

"You guessed it. Some years previously, Kristjan Fyrie had entertained Dr. Hunnewell and Dr. Matajic aboard his yacht. The exterior of the trawler had been altered, Of course, but the instant Matajic stepped into the main salon, he recognized the ship as the Lax.

If he had said nothing, e and O'Riley might have been alive today. Unfortunately, he innocently asked why the proud and plush Lax that he remembered had been converted into a common fishing trawler. It was an honest question, but one that had cruel consequences."

"They could have been murdered then and there and their bodies weighted and dropped into the sea-no one would have ever known."

"It's one thing for a ship to go down at sea with all hands. The newspapers forgot the Lax one week after it disappeared. But two men and a government research station, not likely. The press would have exaggerated and harped on the enigma of the abandoned ice station for years. No, if Matajic and O'Riley had to be eliminated, there 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 it."

Sandecker's eyes narrowed and he sighed. "Suit yourself. The girl I have in mind isn't burly or steelyeyed or a government official, for that matter. She happens to be the loveliest woman north of the sixty-fourth parallel and, I might add, the wealthiest."

"Oh, really?" Pitt suddenly came alive. "What's her name?"

"Kirsti," Sandecker said with a sly smile. "Kirsti Fyrie, Kristjan Fyrie's twin sister."

Chapter 8

If Snorri's Restaurant in Reykjavik could be picked up and placed down in any of the epicurean distinguished cities of the world, it would be instantly greeted with respectful acclaim. its one great hall, with open kitchen and earthen ovens only a few feet from the dining area, was designed in the Viking tradition. Richly panneled walls and intricately carved doors and beams rovided the perfect atmosphere for a leisurely yet elegant dinner. The menu selection was created to reward even the most picky gourmet, and along one entire wall stood a buffet table with over two hundred different native dishes.

Pitt surveyed the crowded dining hall. The tables were filled with laughing, talkative Icelanders and their lovely women. He was standing there, his eyes taking in the scene, his nostrils basking in the rich food smells when the maitre d' came up and spoke in Icelandic. Pitt shook his head and pointed at Admiral Sandecker and Tidi Royal comfortably ensconced at a table near the bar. He made his way over to them.

Sandecker waved Pitt to a chair opposite Tidi and hailed a passing waiter in the same motion. "You're ten minutes late."

"Sorry," Pitt said. "I took a walk in the Tjamargardar gardens and did a little sightseeing."

"Looks like you found yourself a swinging men's shop," Tidi remarked admiringly. Her wise brown eyes roved over his wool turtleneck sweater, belted corduroy jacket and plaid slacks.

"I grew tired of wearing hand-me-downs," he said, smiling.

Sandecker looked up at the waiter. "Two more of the same," he said. "What will you have, Dirk?"

"What are you and Tidi drinking?"

"Holland gin-schnapps if you prefer. It seems to be big with the natives."

Pitt twisted his mouth. "No, thanks. I'll stick with my old standby, Cutty rocks."

The waiter nodded and left.

"Where is this exciting creature I've heard so much about?" Pitt asked.

"Miss Fyrie should be along any minute," Sandecker replied.

"Just before we were attacked, Hunnewell said that Fyrie's sister was a missionary in New Guinea."

"Yes, little else is known about her. In fact, few people knew she even existed until Fyrie's will named her sole beneficiary. Then she appeared at Fyrie Limited one day and took the reins as smoothly as if she had built the empire herself. Don't get any ideas in that bedroom mind of yours. She's shrewd-just as shrewd as her brother was."

"Then why bother with the introductions. You say hands off, yet I get the distinct impression that I'm supposed to play Prince Charming. Get cozy, but not too cozy. You've chosen the wrong man, Admiral. I'm the first to admit my looks hardly put me in the Rock Hudson-Paul Newman class, but I have a nasty habit when it comes to pursuing skirts-I'm picky. I'm not geared to assault every girl that comes into sight, especially one who is the spitting image of her brother. spent half her life as a missionary, and runs a giant corporation with a mace and chain. Sorry, Admiral, Miss Fyrie hardly sounds like my type."

"I think it's disgusting," Tidi said disapproving] the eyebrows arched above the huge brown eyes.

"NUMA is supposed to be dedicated to scientific research of the oceans. None of this talk sounds very scientific to me."

Sandecker threw her an admonishing stare, a facial display that he was unquestionably a master at projecting. "Secretaries should be seen and not heard. Tidi was saved from fher reprimand by the timely arrival of the waiter with the drinks. He set them on the table with an accomplished motion and then left.

Sandecker watched until the waiter was several tables away before he turned back to Pitt.

"Nearly forty percent of NUMA's projects are designed and planned around mining the sea floor. Russia leads us by a wide margin in surface programs, the science of her fishing fleet far surpasses anything we've got. But she lags badly in deep submersibles-a damned vital piece of equipment for undersea mining. This is our strong point– We want to maintain this advantage. Our Country has the resources, but Fyrie Limited has the technical knowledge. With Kristjan Fyrie we had a good, close working association. No, now that he's only a memory, I don't care to see the results of our efforts lost just when our programs are on the verge of hitting paydirt. I've talked to Miss Fyrie. All of a sudden she's very noncommittal-says she has decided to reevaluate her firm's Programs with our country. "You said she's shrewd," Pitt said. "Maybe she's holding out to the highest bidder. There's nothing in the book that says she has to be as magnanimous as her brother."

"Dammit," Sandecker said irritably. "Anything is Possible. Maybe she hates Americans."

"She's not alone."

"If so, there must be a reason, and we've got to find it."

"Enter Dirk Pitt, stage left."

"Precisely, but no hanky-panky. I'm taking you off the Pacific Oceanlab project definitely and putting you on this one– Forget playing secret agent while you're at it. Leave the intrigue and the dead bodies to the National Intelligence Agency. You're to act in your official capacity as special projects director for NUMA. No more no less. If you stumble onto any information that might lead to the people who killed Fyrie, Hunnewell and Matajic, you're to pass it on."

"Pass it on to whom?"

Sandecker shrugged. "I don't know. The N.S.A didn't see fit to tell me before I left Washin-ton."

"Great, I'll take out a full-page ad in the local newspaper," Pitt said sourly.

"I don't recommend it," Sandecker said. He took a long swallow from his glass and mide a wry face. "God, what do they see in this stuff?" He took another swallow from a glass of water. "I have to be in Washington the day after tomorrow. That gives me enough time to smooth the way for you."

"With-ah-Miss Fyrie?"

"With Fyrie Limited. I've arranged an exchange program. I'm taking one of their top engineers with me to the States to observe and study our techniques while you're to stay here and report on theirs. Your primary job will be to restore the close relationship we once enjoyed with the Fyrie's management."

"If this Fyrie broad has been so cool toward you and NUMA. why did she consent to meet us tonight?"

"Out of courtesy. Dr. Hunnewell and her brother were good friends. His death and the fact that you made a gallant but losing attempt to save his life played on her feminine emotions. In short, she insisted 'On meeting you "She's beginning to sound like a cross between Catherine the Great and Aimee Semple McPherson," Tidi said sarcastically.

"I can't wait to meet my new boss face to face," Pitt said. Sandecker nodded. "You can in precisely five seconds-she just walked in."

Pitt turned, and so did every other male head in the restaurant. She stood in the foyer very tall and very blond, like a fantasy of womanly perfection, incredibly beautiful, as if caught in the perfect pose by the lens of a fashion photographer's camera. Her statuesque figure was encased in a long violet-colored dress of velvet with peasant embroidery on the sleeves and hem. Now she caught Sandecker's wave. and she walked over to the table, moving with a graceful flowing motion that possessed all the suppleness of a ballerina and more than the suggestion of a natural athlete. By this time all the women in the restaurant were eyeing her with instinctive envy.

Pitt pushed back his chair and rose and studied her face as she approached. It was her tan that intrigued him. The delicately clear tanned complexion somehow seemed foreign to an Icelandic woman, even one who spent a good portion of her life in the back country of New Guinea. The total effect was striking. The blond hair, a carefree casual look with a controlled tousled effect, the deep violet eyes tbal matched the color of her dress, she was hardly what Pitt had imagined, to say the least.

"My dear Miss Fyrie, I'm honored that you could dine with us." Admiral Sandecker took her hand and kissed it. Then he turned to Tidi, who wore a mask of friendliness. "May I introduce my secretary, miss Tidi Royal."

The two women exchanged polite but typically cool feminine greetings.

Then Sandecker turned to Pitt. "And this is Major Dirk Pitt, the real driving force behind my agency's projects."

"So this is the brave gentleman you've told me so much about, Admiral." Her voice came across husky and terribly. sexy. "I am deeply sorry for the tragic loss of Dr. Hunnewell. My brother thought very highly of him."

"We're sorry too" Pitt said.

There was a pause while they looked at each other, Kirsti Fyrie with a touch of speculation in her eyes, and with what might have been more than friendly interest.

Pitt with analytical male appraisal.

He was the first to break the silence. "If I sit here staring, Miss Fyrie, it's because Admiral Sandecker failed to warn me that the head of Fyrie Limited had such mystic eyes."

"I have been paid compliments by men before, Major Pitt, but you are the first to describe my eyes as mystic."

"Purely academic," Pitt said. "The eyes are doors to the secrets a person hides from within."

"And what deep, dark shadows do you see lurking within my soul?"

Pitt laughed. "A gentleman never reveals a lady's private thoughts." He offered her a cigarette, but she shook her head. "Seriously, our eyes have something in common."

"Miss Fyrie's eyes are deep blue," Tidi said, yours are green. What could they possibly have in common?"

"Miss Fyrie's eyes, like mine, have rays that spread from the pupil into the iris," Pitt said. "They're sometimes called flashes." He paused to light a cigarette. "I have it from the best authority, flashes are a sign of psychic powers."

"Are you clairvoyant?" Kirsti asked.

"I admit to being a failure," Pitt replied. "I always lose at poker because I have yet to read my opponent's cards or mind. How about you, Miss Fyrie, can you see into the future?"

He saw a fleeting shadow across her eyes.

"I know my destiny, therefore I can control it."

Pitts dark, grinning features gave nothing away as he began to enter into the spirit of the eternal chase. He leaned across the table until only a few inches separated their eyes-green stared into violet.

"I take it you usually expect to get what you want?"

"Yes!" Her answer came without an instants hesitation.

Then suppose I told you that under no circumstances would I ever attempt to make love to you?"

"I know the sort of thing you expect me to say, Major." An expression of defiant determination animated her face. "But If I really desired you and demanded your attention, I would be playing into your hands, Eternally. No, I seldom bother with something I do not want. I shant totally impore your empty rejection."

Pitt acted as if he were unconscious of any static in the atmosphere. "Why, Miss Fyrie, I hardly figured you for a cop-out artist."

She looked blank. "A cop-out artist?"

"That's American for chicken," Tidi said with a razor-sharp tongue coated with several layers of sugar.

Admiral Sandecker cleared his throat. He was thinking of what might happen if this trend in the conversation were to continue.

"I see no reason for an old man to sit here and listen to all this lighthearted talk while he's starving.

Particularly when several square yards of delicious-looking food sits begging for attention only ten feet away."

"Please allow me to introduce you to our native buffet dishes," Kirsti said. "I trust Major Pitts appetite for food is more regulated than his appetite for sex."

"Touche!" Pitt laughed. He rose and pulled back Kirsti's chair. "From this moment forward, my every move will be with moderation."

The varieties of fish seemed endless. Pitt counted over twenty different dishes of salmon and nearly fifteen of cod alone. They each returned with their plates heaped with near over-the-rim helpings.

"I see you've taken a fancy to our cured shark meat, Major." Kirsti's eyes were smiling.

"I've heard a great deal about the processing," Pitt said. "And now at last I have a chance to try it."

The smile in her lovely eyes turned to a flicker of surprise as he ate several slices. "Are you sure you're aware of how we prepare it?"

"Of course," he answered. "The species of shark found in colder waters can't be eaten fresh, so you slice it in strips and bury it in beach sand for twenty-six days and then cure it in the wind."

"You're eating it raw, you know?" Kirsti persisted.

"Is there any other way"' Pitt said as he forked another slice into his mouth. Didn't have an easy time trying to shock him, Miss Fyrie."

Sandecker cast a distasteful eye at the shark meat. "Dirk's hebby is gourmet cooking. His specialty is fish, and he is an expert on international seafood preparation."

"Actually, it's quite good," Pitt managed between mouthfuls. "However, I do think the Malaysian version has a better flavor. They cure the shark meat wrapped in a seaweed called echidna. This gives it a slightly sweeter taste than the Icelandic delicacy."

"Americans usually order steak or chicken," Kirsti said. "You are the first I have known who prefers fish."

"Not entirely," Pitt said. "Like most of my countrymen, my favorite standby is still a good double hamburger with French fries and a chocolate malt."

Kirsti looked at Pitt and smiled. "I am beginning to think that you are blessed with an iron stomach."

Pitt shrugged. "I have an uncle who is San Francisco's leading bon vivant. In my own small way I'm trying to follow in his footsteps."

The rest of the meal was eaten with a minimum of small talk, everyone relaxed and comfortable in the atmosphere of friendliness and good food. Two hours later, during a strawberry and ice cream flambo, especially concocted by Pitt and an agreeable chef, Kirsti began to make apologies for an early departure.

"I hope you will not think me rude, Admiral Sandecker, but I am afraid I must leave you, Miss Royal and Major Pitt very shortly. My fiance has insisted on taking me to a poetry reading tonight, and since I am only a woman, it is difficult to refuse his wishes." She gave Tidi a soft female look of understanding. "I'm sure Miss Royal can appreciate my situation."

Tidi instantly grasped the romantic inference. "I envy you, Miss Fyrie. A fiance who loves poetry is a rare catch."

Admiral Sandecker beamed a felicitating smile.

"My sincerest wishes for your happiness, Miss Fyrie. I had no idea you were engaged. Who is the lucky man?"

The admiral held his composure exceedingly well, Pitt thought. He knew the Old man was stunned right down to his shoe soles. This development would call for a different set of ground rules-already Pitt found himself wondering what the competition was like.

"Rondheim-Oskar Rondheim," Kristi announced.

"My brother introduced v, in a letter. Oskar and I exchanged pictures and corresponded for two years before we finally met."

Sandecker stared at her. "Wait a minute," he said slowly. "I think I know of him. Isn't he the one who owns an international chain of canneries? Rondheim Industries? A fishing fleet the size of Spain's navy? Or am I thinking of some other Rondheim?"

"No, that's right," Kirsti said. "His executive offices are right here in Reykjavik."

"The fishing boats, painted blue, flying a red flag with an albatross?" Pitt inquired.

Kirsti nodded. "The P.I'oatross is Oskar's good luck symbol. Do you know his boats?"

"I've had occasion to fly over them," Pitt said.

Of course Pitt knew the boats and their symbol. So did every fisherman of every country north of the fortieth parallel. Rondheim's fishing fleets were notorious for wiping out fishing grounds, almost to the verge of extinction, robbing the nets of the other fishermen, and dropping their own distinctive red-dyed nets inside the territorial boundaries of other countries. 'The Rondheim albatross carried as much respect as the Nazi swastika, "A merger between Fyrie Limited and Rondheim Industries would result in a most powerful empire," Sandecker said slowly, almost as if he were weighing the consequences.

Pitts mind was running along the same channels.

Suddenly, his train of thought was broken when Kirsti waved her hand.

"There he is. There!"

They turned and followed Kirsti's gaze to a tall, snow-haired, distinguished-looking figure vigorously stepping toward them. fie was fairly young, late thirties, his face strong and lined by years of ocean gales and salt air. the eyes were cool blue-gray above a strong narrow nose and a mouth that looked good-naturedly warm, though Pitt mused-rightly-that it could quickly straighten and harden to an aggressive line during business hours. Pitt mentally wrote him down as a sharp and cunning opponent. He made a note never to turn his back to him.