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Pitts concentration was aimed elsewhere. He sat off to one side, studying a large nautical chart draped across his lap. Once in a while he looked up, listening, but did not contribute to the conversation.
Hollis turned to Captain Stewart, who stood next to the receiver, wearing a headset with attached microphone. "When can we expect the Casper's infrared photo?"
Stewart raised a hand as a signal not to interrupt. He pressed the headset against his ears, listening to a voice at CIA headquarters in Washington. Then he nodded toward Hollis. "The photo lab at Langley says they'll begin transmitting in half a minute."
Hollis paced the small compartment like a cat listening for the sound of a can opener. He paused and stared curiously at Pitt, who was unconcernedly measuring distances with a pair of dividers.
The Colonel had learned a great deal about the man from NUMA in the past few hours, not from Pitt himself, but from the men on the ship. They talked of him as though he were some kind of walking legend.
"Coming through now," announced Stewart. He removed the headset and waited patiently for the newspaper-size photo to emerge from the receiver. As soon as it rolled free, he carried it over and placed it on the table. Then everyone began scrutinizing the shoreline around the upper end of the peninsula.
"The technicians at the CIA photo lab have computer-converted the specially sensitive film to a thermogram," explained Stewart. "The differences of infrared radiation are revealed in various colors. Black represents the coldest temperatures. Dark blue, light blue, green, yellow and red form an increasingly warmer scale to white, the hottest."
"What reading can we expect from the Lady Flamborough?" asked Dillenger.
"Somewhere in the upper end between yellow and red."
"Closer to a dark blue," Pitt broke in.
Everyone turned and glared at him as though he'd sneezed during a chess match.
"That being the case she won't stand out," Hollis protested. "We'd never find her."
"Heat radiation from the engines and generators will show as plain as a golf ball on a green," Gunn argued.
"Not if the engineering room was shut down."
"You can't mean a dead ship?" Dillenger asked in disbelief.
Pitt nodded. He stared at the others with a passing casual gaze that was more disturbing than if he had thrown a wet blanket over the enthusiasm of a breakthrough.
He smiled and said, "What we have here is a persistent urge to underrate the coach on the other team."
The five men looked at each other and then back at Pitt, waiting for some kind of explanation.
Pitt laid his nautical charts aside and rose from his chair. He walked to the table, picked up the infrared photo and folded it in half, revealing only the lower tip of Chile.
"Now then," Pitt continued, "hav
en't you noticed that every time the ship went through a change of appearance or altered course, it came immediately after one of our satellites passed overhead."
"Another example of precise planning," said Gunn. "The orbits of scientific data-gathering satellites are tracked by half the countries of the world. The information is as readily attainable as phases of the moon."
"Okay, so the hijack leader knew the orbiting schedules and guessed when the satellite cameras were aimed in his direction," said Hollis. "So what?"
"So he covered all avenues and shut down power to prevent detection by infrared photography. And, most important, to keep the warmth from melting the thin layer of ice coating the plastic shroud."
Four out of five found Pitts theory quite plausible. The holdout was Gunn. He was the fastest intellect in the bunch. He saw the flaw before anyone else.
"You're forgetting the subzero temperatures around the peninsula," said Gunn. "No power, no heat. Everyone on the ship would freeze to death in a few hours. You might say the hijackers were committing suicide at the same time they murdered their prisoners."
"Rudi makes good sense," Giordino said. "They couldn't survive without some degree of warmth and protective clothing."
Pitt smiled like a lottery winner. "I agree with Rudi one hundred percent."
"You're driving in circles," said Hollis in aggravation. "Make sense."
"Nothing complicated: The Lady Flamborough didn't enter the Antarctic."
