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"I've chartered a small cargo ship that is moored off the ice shelf. We'll drive her across the ice, up a ramp, and onto the ship."
"If she performs according to expectations," said Pitt, "can we borrow her for a couple of days?"
Dad looked blank. Then he turned and stared at Cash. "He's joking."
Cash shook his head. "He's not joking. These men desperately need transportation to the Wolf mining facility."
Dad squinted at Pitt as he refilled his wineglass. "I should say not. By the time I'm finished, I will have spent over three hundred thousand dollars to pull her out of the ice, restore her to running condition, and transport her back to the Smithsonian in Washington. When I first discussed my dream of saving the vehicle, everyone laughed at me. My crew and I dug under the worst weather conditions imaginable. It was a major feat to lift her back to the surface again, and we're all damned proud. I'm not about to hand her over to a couple of strangers who want to go joyriding around the ice pack."
"Trust me," said Pitt earnestly. "We're not going for a joyride. As bizarre as it sounds, we are trying to avert a worldwide catastrophe."
"The answer is no!"
Pitt and Giordino exchanged cold looks. Then Pitt removed a small folder from the breast pocket of his arctic survival coat and pushed it across the table at Dad. "Inside, you will find several phone numbers. They list, in order, the Oval Office of the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, the chief director of NUMA, and the Congressional Security Committee. There are also names of other important people who will back up our story."
"And what, may I ask, is your story?" Dad asked skeptically.
So Pitt told him.
AN hour and thirty minutes later, Dad and his crew, along with Frank Cash, stood and watched silently as the big red vehicle, belching a black cloud of exhaust into the crystal blue sky, lumbered across the frozen landscape toward the horizon.
"I never got Dad's name," said Pitt, as he sat hunched over the steering wheel, gazing through the windshield and studying the ice field ahead for cracks and obstacles.
Giordino stood behind Pitt in the Snow Cruiser's confined chart and control room, studying a topographical map of the ice pack. "The name on an envelope that was sticking out of his pocket read
'Clive Cussler.' "
"That is an odd name. Yet it sounds vaguely familiar."
"Whoever," said Giordino indifferently.
"I hope I didn't step into a minefield when I promised
to bring back his off-road vehicle in the same condition he loaned it to us."
"If we put a scratch on it, have him send the bill to Admiral Sandecker."
"Got a heading for me?" Pitt asked.
"Where's your GPS unit?"
"I forgot it in the rush. Besides, they didn't have a Global Positioning System in 1940."
"Just head that way," Giordino said, pointing vaguely into the distance.
Pitt's eyebrows rose. "That's the best you can do?"
"No directional instrument ever created can beat an eyeball."
"Your logic defies sanity."
"How long do you think it will take to get there?" Giordino asked.
"Sixty miles, at only twenty miles an hour," Pitt murmured. "Three hours, if we don't run into any barriers in the ice and have to detour around them. I only hope we can get there before the assault team.
A full-scale attack might force Karl Wolf to slice off the ice shelf ahead of schedule."
"I have a sour feeling in my stomach that we won't be as lucky sneaking in here as we were at the shipyard."
