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"Do not move a finger or twitch an eye!" The command came as hard as cold marble.
Pitt looked up and found himself face-to-face with a figure in white fatigues pointing a mutant-looking firearm at him. The stranger was bleeding from the chin and a wound in one hand.
Pitt stared at the apparition, trying unsuccessfully to gauge the eyes behind the polarized goggles.
"Can I wiggle my ears?" he asked, perfectly composed.
From his point of view, Cleary couldn't be sure whether the nondescript characters standing in front of him represented enemy or friend. The shorter one looked like a pit bull. The taller of the two was disheveled and had slipshod bandages covering half his face. They looked like men dead on their feet, their gaunt, barely focused, sunken eyes set over cheeks and jaws showing the early stages of scraggly beards. "Who are you and where did you two characters come from, wise mouth?"
"My name is Dirk Pitt. My friend is Al Giordino. We're with the National Underwater and Marine Agency."
"NUMA." Cleary repeated, finding the answer little short of lunacy. "Is that a fact?"
"It's a fact," Pitt answered, perfectly composed. "Who are you?"
"Major Tom Cleary, United States Army Special Forces. I'm in command of the team that assaulted the facility."
"I'm sorry we couldn't have arrived sooner and saved more of your men," Pitt said sincerely.
Cleary's shoulders sagged and he lowered his gun. "No better men have died today."
Pitt and Giordino said nothing. There was nothing fitting they could say.
Finally, Cleary straightened. "I can't believe a couple of oceanographic people from NUMA, untrained to fight hosti
les, could do so much damage," said Cleary, still trying to figure the men standing in front of him.
"Saving you and your men was a spur-of-the-moment action. Stopping the Wolfs from launching a cataclysm was our primary goal."
"And did you accomplish it?" asked Cleary, looking around at the wreckage of what had once been a high-tech operational control center, "or is the clock still ticking?"
"As you can see," Pitt replied, "all electronic functions are disabled. The electronic commands to activate the ice-cutting machines have been terminated."
"Thank God," Cleary said, the stress and strain suddenly falling from his shoulders. He wearily removed his helmet, pulled his goggles over his forehead, stepped forward, and extended his unwounded hand. "Gentlemen. Those of us still standing are in your debt. Lord only knows how many lives were spared by your timely intervention with this. . ." As he shook their hands, he paused to gaze at the twisted shambles of the once-magnificent Snow Cruiser, her Cummins diesel engines still slowly clacking over like a pair of faintly beating hearts. "Just what exactly is it?"
"A souvenir from Admiral Byrd," said Giordino.
"Who?"
Pitt smiled faintly. "It's a long story."
Cleary's mind shifted gears. "I see no bodies."
"They must have all evacuated the center during the battle and headed for the hangar to board the aircraft and make their escape," Giordino speculated.
"My map of the facility shows an airstrip, but we didn't see any sign of aircraft during our descent."
"Their hangar can't be seen from the air. It was carved into the ice."
Cleary's expression turned to fury. "Are you telling me the fiends responsible for this shameful debacle have vanished?"
"Relax, Major," Giordino said with a canny smile. "They haven't left the facility."
Cleary saw the pleased look in Pitt's eyes. "Did you arrange that, too?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Pitt answered candidly. "On our way here, we happened to run into their aircraft. I'm happy to announce that all flights from the facility have been canceled."
Shouts and cheers erupted unabashedly in the Pentagon and White House war rooms at hearing Cleary's voice announce the termination of the ice shelf detachment systems, followed by Lieutenant Jacobs's report that the survivors of Wolf's security force were laying down their arms and surrendering.
