"Need a hand?" Pitt asked.
"You carry the skull and the bag with the cameras. I'll tote the refuse."
"Best if you go first and I follow. That way I can watch them every inch of the way in case Big Boy starts breaking loose."
Giordino handed him the little gun with the barb. "Shoot him in his Adam's apple if he so much as wiggles a finger."
"We'll have to be very careful in our decompression stops. We may not have enough air for the four of us."
Giordino made an indifferent motion with his hands. "Sorry, I'm not in a sacrificial mood."
The return went slowly. Giordino made better time dragging the two divers and their breathing gear by walking over the ore track ties than trying to swim his way back to the shaft. Precious air was lost during the prolonged passage. Pitt kept a close eye on his air gauge-- he knew that his air was seriously depleted. The gauge read just three hundred pounds. He and Giordino had used twice the amount of air they had computed before the dive, not having counted on a fight with intruders.
He curled his body and kicked around to the side of the bound divers, checking their air gauges. Both men had nearly seven hundred pounds. They must have found a shorter route through the mine to the chamber, Pitt surmised. After what seemed a year and a day, they finally reached the vertical shaft and rose to the first decompression stop. Sheriff Eagan and Luis Marquez had lowered two spare tanks on nylon line to the precise depth Giordino had calculated earlier.
Keeping a tight eye on his decompression computer, Giordino listened as Pitt read off the air pressure remaining in each tank. Only when they went beyond the safety level did he unstrap and push them aside.
The prisoners did not become belligerent. They'd come to realize that to resist was to die. But Pitt didn't let down his guard for a second. He knew well they were two ticking time bombs, waiting to explode at the first opportunity that presented itself for them to escape.
Time passed as if mired in glue. They used up the last of their air and went on the reserve tanks. When the prisoner's tanks were dry, Pitt and Giordino began to buddy-breathe with them, exchanging their mouthpieces between breaths. After the prescribed wait, they lazily swam up to the next decompression stop.
They were scraping the bottom of the reserve tanks when Giordino finally gave the "surface" sign and said, "The party's over. We can go home now."
Pitt climbed the rope ladder thrown into the shaft by Marquez. He reached the rim of the tunnel floor and handed Sheriff Eagan his air tanks. Then he passed up the skull and camera bag. Next, Eagan took Pitt's outstretched hand and helped him onto firm rock. Pitt rolled over on his back, removed his full face mask, and lay there for a minute, thankfully breathing in the cool damp air of the mine.
"Welcome home," said Eagan. "What took you so long? You were due back twenty minutes ago."
"We ran into two more candidates for your jail."
Giordino surfaced, climbed up, and then knelt on his hands and knees before hauling the smaller prisoner into the tunnel. "I'll need help with the other," he said, lifting his face mask. "He weighs two of me put together."
Three minutes later, Eagan was standing over the intruders, questioning them. But they glared menacingly at him and said nothing. Pitt dropped to his knees and removed the dive hood covering the smaller man's head and chin.
"Well, well, my friend the biker. How's your neck?"
The constrained killer lifted his head and spat at Pitt's face, narrowly missing. The teeth were bared like a rabid dog's. Eyes that had seen more than one death glared at Pitt.
"A testy little devil, aren't we?" said Pitt. "A zealot of the Fourth Empire. Is that it? You can dream about it while you rot in jail."
The sheriff reached down and gripped Pitt's shoulder. "I'll have to let them go free."
Pitt stared up, his green eyes suddenly blazing. "Like hell you will."
"I can't arrest them unless they've committed a crime," Eagan said helplessly.
"I'll press charges," Marquez cut in coldly.
"What charges?"
"Trespassing, claim-jumping, destroying private property, and you can throw in theft for good measure."
"What did they steal?" Eagan asked, puzzled.
"My overhead lighting system," Marquez replied indignantly, pointing down at the electrical cord binding the divers. "They've snatched it from my mine."
Pitt placed a hand on Eagan's shoulder. "Sheriff, we're also talking attempted murder here. I think it might be wise if you held them in custody for a few days, at least until a preliminary investigation can make an identification and perhaps uncover evidence of their intentions."
"Come on, Jim," said Marquez, "you can at least keep them under lock and key while you interrogate them."
"I doubt whether I'll get much out of this lot."
"I agree," said Giordino, running a small brush through his curly hair. "They don't look like happy campers."
"There's something going on here that goes far beyond San Miguel County." Pitt peeled off his dry suit and began dressing in his street clothing. "It won't hurt to cover your bases."
Eagan looked thoughtful. "All right, I'll send a report to the Colorado Investigation Agency--"
The sheriff broke off as every head turned and stared up the tunnel. A man was shouting and running toward them as if chased by demons. A few seconds later, they could see that it was one of Eagan's deputies. He staggered to a halt and leaned over until his head was even with his hips, panting for breath, exhausted after running from the hotel wine cellar.
"What is it, Charlie?" Eagan pressed. "Spit it out!"
"The bodies. . ." Charlie the deputy gasped. "The bodies in the morgue!"
Eagan took Charlie by the shoulders and gently raised him upright. "What about the bodies?"
"They're missing."
"What are you talking about?"
"The coroner says they've disappeared. Somebody snatched them from the morgue."
Pitt looked at Eagan for a long moment of silence, then said quietly, "If I were you, Sheriff, I'd send copies of your report to the FBI and the Justice Department. This thing goes far deeper than any of us imagined."
<2>IN THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE ANCIENTS
March 27, 2001
Okuma Bay, Antarctica
<<9>>
Captain Daniel Gillespie stood on the huge glass-enclosed bridge of the Polar Storm and stared through tinted-lens binoculars at the ice that was building around the eight-thousand-ton research icebreaker's hull. Lean as an aspen tree and prone to moments of anxiety, he studied the ice while plotting a course in his mind for the easiest passage to take the Polar Storm. The autumn ice had formed early in the Ross Sea. In some places, it was already two feet thick, with ridges rising to three.
The ship trembled under his feet as its great bulbous bow rammed the ice and then heaved up and over the white surface. Then the weight of the forward part of the ship crushed the pack into piano-size portions that tore at the paint on the hull as they groaned and scraped against the steel plates until they were chopped to small chunks by the ship's huge twelve-foot propellers and were left bobbing in the ship's wake. The process was repeated until they reached a part of the sea a few miles off the continent where the ice pack had been slow to thicken.
The Polar Storm incorporated the capabilities of both an icebreaker and a research vessel. By most maritime standards, she was an old ship, having been launched twenty years earlier, in 1981. She was also considered small alongside most icebreakers. She had an 8,000-ton displacement, a length of 145
feet, and a 27-foot beam. Her facilities supported oceanographic, meteorological, biological, and ice research, and she was capable of breaking through a minimum of three feet of level ice.
Evie Tan, who had joined the Polar Storm when it had stopped at Montevideo in Uruguay on its way to the Antarctic, sat in a chair and wrote in a notebook. A science and technical writer and photographer, Evie had come onboard to do a story for a national sci
ence magazine. She was a petite lady with long, silky black hair, who had been born and raised in the Philippines. She looked over at Captain Gillespie and watched him scan the ice pack ahead before asking him a question.
"Is it your plan to land a team of scientists on the pack to study the sea ice?"
Gillespie lowered his binoculars and nodded. "That's the routine. Sometimes as many as three times an Antarctic day, the glaciologists march out on the ice to take samples and readings for later study in the ship's lab. They also record the physical properties of the ice and seawater as we sail from site to site."
"Anything in particular they're looking for?"
"Joel Rogers, the expedition's chief scientist, can explain it better than I can. The primary goal of the project is to assess the impact behind the current warming trend that is shrinking the sea ice around the continent."
"Is it a scientific fact the ice is diminishing?" asked Evie.
"During the Antarctic autumn, March into May, the ocean around the continent begins to freeze and ice over. The pack once spread out from the landmass and formed a vast collar twice the size of Australia. But now the sea ice has retreated and is not as thick and extensive as it once was. The winters are simply not as cold as they were in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Because of the warming trend, a pivotal link in the Antarctic sea chain has been disrupted."
"Beginning with the single-cell algae that live on the underside of the ice pack," offered Evie, knowledgeably.
"You've done your homework." Gillespie smiled. "Without the algae to dine on, there would be no krill, the little shrimplike fellows, who in turn provide nourishment for every animal and fish in these southern waters from penguins to whales to phocids."
"By phocids, you mean seals?"
"I do."
Evie gazed out over Okuma Bay, which divided the great Ross Ice Shelf and the Edward VII Peninsula. "That range of mountains to the south," she said, "what is it called?"
"The Rockefeller Mountains," answered Gillespie. "They're anchored by Mount Frazier on this end and Mount Nilsen on the other."
"They're beautiful," said Evie, admiring the snow-covered peaks that blazed under the bright sun. "May I borrow your binoculars?"
"Certainly."
Evie focused the glasses on a complex of large buildings set around a large towerlike structure only two miles to the south in a sheltered part of Okuma Bay. She could distinguish an airfield behind the buildings and a concrete pier leading into the bay. A large cargo ship was moored to the pier, in the process of being unloaded by a high, overhead crane. "Is that a research station there at the base of Mount Frazier?"
Gillespie peered in the direction the binoculars were aimed. "No, it's a mining facility, owned and operated by a big international conglomerate based in Argentina. They're extracting minerals from the sea."
She lowered the binoculars and looked at him. "I didn't think that was economically feasible."
Gillespie shook his head. "From what I've been told by Bob Maris, our resident geologist, they've developed a new process for extracting gold and other precious minerals from seawater."
"Odd I haven't heard about it."
"Their operation is all very secret. This is as close as we can come without one of their security boats coming out and shooing us off. But it's rumored they do it through a new science called nanotechnology."
"Why in such a remote area as Antarctica? Why not on a coast or port city with easy access to transportation?"
"According to Maris, freezing water concentrates the sea brine and forces it into deeper water. The extraction process becomes more efficient when the salt is removed--" The captain broke off and studied the ice pack beyond the bow. "Excuse me, Ms. Tan, but we have an iceberg corning on dead ahead."
The iceberg loomed up from the flat ice pack like a desert plateau covered by a white sheet. Its steep walls rose well more than a hundred feet from the sea. Brilliant white under a pure radiant sun and a clear blue sky, the berg seemed pristine and unblemished by man, animals or rooted plant life. The Polar Storm approached the berg from the west, and Gillespie ordered the helmsman to set the ship's automated control systems on a course around the nearest tip. The helmsman expertly shifted the electronic controls on a broad console and nudged the icebreaker on a seventy-five-degree turn to port, scanning the echo sounder for any underwater spurs that might have protruded from the berg. The icebreaker's stout hull was built to withstand a hard blow from solid ice, but Gillespie saw no reason to cause even the slightest damage to its steel plates.
He skirted the berg from less than three hundred yards, a safe distance but still near enough for the crew and scientists on the outside deck to stare up at the icy cliffs towering above. It was a strange and wonderful sight. Soon the palisades slipped by, as the ship circled the huge mass and turned into the open pack beyond.
Suddenly, another vessel sailed into view, having been hidden behind the berg. Gillespie was astonished to identify the encroaching ship as a submarine. The undersea craft was sailing through an open lead in the ice and passing on a course that took it directly across the icebreaker's great bow from port to starboard.
The helmsman acted before Gillespie's orders issued across the bridge. He sized up the situation, judged the submarine's speed, and threw the icebreaker's big port diesel engine into Full Reverse. It was a wise maneuver, one that might have saved the White Star liner Titanic. Rather than reversing both engines in a futile effort to halt the momentum of the big icebreaker, he kept the starboard engine on Half Ahead. With one propeller thrusting the Polar Storm forward and the other pulling it backward, the ship began turning far more sharply than a simple rudder command. Everyone on the bridge stood mesmerized, as the big bow's direction slowly angled from the sub's hull toward the wake behind its stern.
There was no time for a warning, no time for communications between the two vessels. Gillespie hit the great horn on the icebreaker and shouted over the intercom for the crew and scientists to brace for a collision. There was a cloud of restrained frenzy on the bridge.
"Come on, baby," the helmsman pleaded. "Turn, turn!"
Evie stared enraptured for a few moments before the business and professional side of her mind shifted into gear. She quickly snatched her camera out of its case, checked the settings, and began snapping pictures. Through the range finder she saw no crew on the deck of the submarine, no officers standing in the top of the conning tower. She paused to refocus her lens, when she saw the submarine's bow slip beneath the ice pack as it began to crash dive.
The two ships closed. Gillespie was certain the massive reinforced bow of the icebreaker would crush the pressure hull of the submarine. But a sudden burst of speed from the undersea vessel, the quick action of the helmsman, and the ability of the Polar Storm to make sharp turns made the difference between a near miss and tragedy.
Gillespie ran out onto the starboard bridge wing and stared down, fearing the worst. The submarine had barely dipped under the surface when the icebreaker's bow swung over her stern, missing the rudder and propellers by less than the length of an ordinary dining table. Gillespie could not believe the two vessels had not collided. The strange submarine had disappeared with barely a ripple, the icy water slowly swirling in a whorl and then turning smooth, as though the submarine had never been there.
"My God, that was close!" the helmsman muttered with a thankful sigh.
"A submarine," said Evie in a vague voice, as she lowered her camera. "Where did it come from?
What navy did it belong to?"
"I saw no markings," said the helmsman. "It certainly didn't look like any submarine I've ever seen."
The ship's first officer, Jake Bushey, came rushing onto the bridge. "What happened, Captain?"
"A near collision with a submarine."
"A nuclear submarine, here in Marguerite Bay? You must be joking."
"Captain Gillespie isn't joking," said Evie. "I've got a photo record to prove it."
"It wasn't a nuclear sub," said Gillespie slowly.
"She was an old model by the look of her," the helmsman said, gazing at his hands, noticing for the first time that they were shaking.
"Take the bridge," Gillespie ordered Bushey. "Keep us on a course toward that ice ridge a mile off the starboard bow. We'll drop the scientists there. I'll be in my cabin."
Evie and Jake Bushey both caught the distant, puzzled expression on the captain's face. They watched as he dropped down a companionway to the passageway on the deck below. Gillespie opened the door to his cabin and stepped inside. He was a man born to the sea and a lover of sea history. Shelves stretching around the bulkheads of his cabin were filled with books about the sea. His eyes wandered over the titles and stopped at an old ship's recognition book.
He sat in a comfortable leather chair and turned the pages, stopping at a photo in the middle of the book. There it was, a picture of the identical vessel that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The photo showed a large submarine cruising on the surface not far from a rocky coastline. The caption underneath read,
Only known photo of the U-2015, one of two XXI Electro Boats to see operational service during World War II. A fast vessel that could stay submerged for indefinite periods of time and cruise nearly halfway around the world before surfacing for fuel.