Atlantis Found (24 page)

Could it still be there, he wondered, just as Roxanna Mender and her husband had found it nearly a century and a half before? Or had it been eventually crushed by the ice or bulldozed out to sea where it finally sank deep in icy waters?

Pitt found Gillespie standing on a bridge wing, peering through binoculars at an unseen object far back in the spreading wake of the icebreaker. “Looking for whales?” he asked.

“U-boats,” Gillespie answered, matter-of-factly.

Pitt thought the captain was joking. “Not many wolf packs in this part of the sea.”

“Just one.” Gillespie kept the glasses pressed against his eyes. “The U-2015. She’s been following our wake ever since we almost collided with her ten days ago.”

Pitt still wasn’t sure he was hearing right. “Are you serious?”

Gillespie finally lowered the glasses. “I am.” Then he proceeded to tell Pitt about the meeting with the U-boat. “I identified her from an old photo I have in my maritime library. There’s no doubt in my mind. She’s the U-2015, all right. Don’t ask me how she survived all these years or why she’s tracking this ship. I don’t have the answers. All I know is that she’s out there.”

Pitt had worked with the captain on at least four projects over the years. He knew him as one of the most trusted captains in NUMA’s fleet of research ships. Dan Gillespie was not a kook or someone who told tall tales. He was a sober and decisive man who had never had a black mark on his record. No accident or serious injury ever occurred when he trod the deck.

“Who would believe after all these years . . .” Pitt’s voice trailed off. He was unsure of what to say.

“I don’t have to read your mind to know you think I’m ready for a straitjacket,” said Gillespie earnestly, “but I can prove it. Ms. Evie Tan, who is on board writing a story on the expedition for a national magazine, took photos of the sub when we nearly rammed her.”

“Do you see any sign of her now?” Pitt inquired. “Periscope or snorkel?”

“She’s playing coy and staying deep,” Gillespie answered.

“Then how can you be sure she’s out there?”

“One of our scientists dropped his underwater acoustic microphones over the side—he uses them to record whale talk. We trailed the listening gear a quarter of a mile behind the ship. I then shut down the engines and drifted. She’s not a modern nuclear attack sub that can run silent through the depths. We picked up the beat of her engines as clear as a barking dog.”

“Not a bad concept, but I would have trailed a weather balloon with a magnetometer hanging from it.”

Gillespie laughed. “Not a bad concept, either. We thought about sidescan, but you’d have to get your sensor alongside for a good reading, and that seemed too tricky. I was hoping that now you’ve come on board we might find some answers.”

A warning light went off in the back of Pitt’s brain. He was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t entered the twilight zone. To even consider a connection between the assassins from the Fourth Empire and an antique U-boat was plain crazy. And yet nothing in the whole incredible scheme made sense.

“Brief the admiral,” ordered Pitt. “Tell him we may need some help.”

“Should we harass him?” said Gillespie, referring to the sub. “Double back on our track and play cat and mouse?”

Pitt gave a slight negative shake of the head. “I’m afraid our ghost will have to wait. Finding the
Madras
takes first priority.”

“Was that her name?”

Pitt nodded. “An East Indiaman lost in 1779.”

“And you think she’s locked in the ice somewhere along the shore,” Gillespie said doubtfully.

“I’m hoping she’s still there.”

“What’s on board that’s so important to NUMA?”

“Answers to an ancient riddle.”

Gillespie did not require a lengthy explanation. If that was all Pitt was going to tell him, he accepted it. His responsibility was to the ship and the people on board. He would follow an order from his bosses at NUMA without question, unless it ran counter to the safety of the
Polar Storm.

“How far into the ice pack do you want me to run the ship?”

Pitt passed the captain a slip of paper. “I’d be grateful if you could place the
Polar Storm
on top of this position.”

Gillespie studied the numbers for a moment. “It’s been a while since I navigated by latitude and longitude, but I’ll set you as close as I can.”

“Compass headings, then loran, then Global Positioning. Next they’ll invent a positioning instrument that tells you where the nearest roll of toilet paper is located and how many inches away.”

“May I ask where you got these numbers?”

“The log of the
Paloverde,
a whaling ship that found the East Indiaman a long time ago. Unfortunately, there is no guaranteeing how accurate they are.”

“You know,” Gillespie said wistfully, “I’ll bet you that old whaling ship skipper could put his ship on a dime, whereas I would be hard-pressed to put mine on a quarter.”

 
THE
Polar Storm
entered the pack and plunged against the floating mantle of ice like a fullback running through a team of opposing linemen. For the first mile, the ice was no more than a foot thick and the massive reinforced bow pushed aside the frigid blanket with ease, but closer to shore, the pack began to gradually swell, reaching three to four feet thick. Then the ship would slow to a stop, move astern, and then plow into the ice again, forcing a crack and a fifty-foot path until the ice closed in and stopped her forward progress again. The performance was repeated, the bow thrusting against the resisting ice time and time again.

Gillespie was not watching the effects of the ice-ramming. He was sitting in a tall swivel chair studying the screen of the ship’s depth sounder, which sent sonic signals to the seabed. The signals were bounced back and indicated the distance in feet between the ship’s keel and the bottom. These were unsurveyed waters, and the bottom was unmarked on the nautical charts.

Pitt stood a few feet away, staring through Gillespie’s tinted-lens binoculars, which reduced the glare of the ice. The ice cliffs just back of the shoreline soared two hundred feet high before flattening into a broad plateau. He swept the glasses along the base of the cliffs, attempting to spot some hint of the ice-locked
Madras.
No telltale sign was obvious, no stern frozen in the ice, no masts thrusting above the top of the cliffs.

“Mr. Pitt?”

He turned and faced a smiling stubby man who was a few years on the low side of forty. His face was pink and cherubic, with twinkling green eyes and a wide mouth that smiled crookedly. A small, almost delicate hand was thrust out.

“Yes” was all Pitt replied, surprised at the firmness of the hand that gripped his.

“I’m Ed Northrop, chief scientist and glaciologist. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Dr. Northrop. I’ve often heard Admiral Sandecker speak of you,” said Pitt pleasantly.

“In glowing terms, I hope,” Northrop said, laughing.

“As a matter of fact, he never forgave you for filling his boots with ice during an expedition north of the Bering Sea.”

“Jim certainly holds a grudge. That was fifteen years ago.”

“You’ve spent quite a number of years in the Arctic and Antarctic.”

“Been studying sea ice for eighteen years. By the way, I volunteered to go with you.”

“Don’t think me ungrateful, but I’d rather go it alone.”

Northrop nodded and held his ample stomach with both hands. “Won’t hurt to have a good man along who can read the ice, and I’m more durable than I look.”

“You make a good point.”

“Bottom coming up,” Gillespie announced. Then he called down to the engine room. “All stop, Chief. This is as far as we go.” He glanced in Pitt’s direction. “We’re sitting on top of the latitude and longitude you gave me.”

“Thank you, Dan. Good work. This should be the approximate spot where the
Paloverde
was frozen in the ice during the Antarctic winter of 1858.”

Northrop stared through the bridge windows at the ice spreading from the ship to shore. “I make it about two miles. A short hike in the brisk air will do us good.”

“You have no snowmobiles on board?”

“Sorry, our work takes place within a hundred yards of the ship. We saw no need to add luxuries to the project budget.”

“What temperature do you consider brisk air?”

“Five to ten degrees below zero. Relatively warm in these parts.”

“I can’t wait,” Pitt said laconically.

“Consider yourself lucky it’s autumn down here. It’s much colder in spring.”

“I prefer the tropics, with warm trade winds and lovely girls in sarongs swaying to the beat of a drum under the setting sun.”

His eyes traveled to an attractive Asian lady who walked straight up to him. She smiled and said, “Aren’t you being overdramatic?”

“It’s my nature.”

“I’m told you’re Dirk Pitt.”

He smiled cordially. “I do hope so. And you must be Evie Tan. Dan Gillespie has told me you’re doing a photo story about the ice expedition.”

“I read a great deal about your exploits. May I interview you when you return from whatever it is you’re looking for?”

Pitt instinctively threw a questioning look at Gillespie, who shook his head. “I haven’t told a soul about your target.”

Pitt pressed her hand. “I’ll be happy to give you an interview, but the nature of our project must be off the record.”

“Does it have to do with the military?” she asked, with an innocent face.

Pitt caught her sneaky probe instantly. “Nothing to do with classified military activities, or Spanish treasure galleons, or abominable snowmen. In fact, the story is so dull, I doubt any self-respecting journalist would be interested in it.” Then he addressed Gillespie. “Looks like we left the submarine at the edge of the ice floe.”

“Either that,” said the captain, “or else they followed us under the ice.”

“They’re ready for you,” said First Officer Bushey to Pitt.

“On my way.”

The crew lowered the gangway and brought down three sleds to the ice, one with a box of ice-cutting tools covered by a tarpaulin. The other two carried only tie-down rope to secure any artifacts they might find. Pitt stood in the feathery foot-deep snow and looked at Gillespie, who had motioned to a man who was about the size and shape of a Kodiak bear. “I’m sending my third officer with you and Doc Northrop. This is Ira Cox.”

“Glad to meet y’all,” said Cox, through a beard that came down to his chest. The voice seemed to rise from somewhere deep below the Mason-Dixon line. He didn’t offer a hand. His immense paws were covered by equally immense Arctic gloves.

“Another volunteer?”

“My idea,” offered Gillespie. “I can’t allow one of Admiral Sandecker’s chief directors to traipse through a field of unpredictable ice alone. I won’t take the responsibility. This way, if you encounter any problems, you’ll have a better chance of surviving. If you should run into a polar bear, Cox will wrestle it to death.”

“There are no polar bears in the Antarctic.”

Gillespie looked at Pitt and shrugged. “Why take chances?”

Pitt did not make a formal or indignant protest. Down deep, he knew that if worse came to worst, one or both of those men just might save his life.

 
AS autumn takes over the Antarctic, the stormy seas surround the continent, but as winter arrives and temperatures drop, the water thickens into oily-appearing slicks. Then the ice fragments form floating saucers called pancake ice, which enlarge and merge together before eventually forming ice floes covered by snow. Because the ice came early this year, Pitt, Northrop, and Cox moved without incident across the uneven but fairly smooth surface. They detoured around several ice ridges and two icebergs that had drifted offshore before being frozen in the pack ice. To Pitt, the floe looked like an unkempt, lumpy bed with a white quilt thrown over it.

Trudging through a foot of feathery snow did not hinder their motion. Their pace never slackened. Northrop went first, studying the ice as he went, watchful for any deviation or crack. He walked without the burden of a sled, insisting that he required more freedom of movement to test the ice. Harnessed to a sled, Pitt followed Northrop, easily moving on cross-country skis that he had shipped from his father’s lodge in Breckenridge, Colorado. Cox brought up the rear, wearing showshoes and pulling two sleds as effortlessly as if they were toys.

What began as a beautiful day with a dazzling sun in an uncluttered sky deteriorated as clouds crept over the horizon. Slowly, the blue skies went gray and the sun became a muted ball of faded orange. A light snow began to fall, reducing visibility. Pitt ignored the worsening weather, and did not allow his mind to linger on the green, frigid water only an arm’s length below his feet. He kept glancing at the cliffs, which rose higher and higher above the tips of his skis the closer they came. He could see the ice-free rugged Hansen Mountains far inland, but still no sign of a shadowy shape embedded in the ice. He began to feel like an intruder in this vast, remote domain unspoiled by human habitation.

They made their crossing over the floe and reached the base of the ice cliffs in slightly over an hour. Gillespie followed their every movement until they stopped at the inner edge of the ice floe. Their turquoise NUMA arctic gear made them easily visible against the brilliant white. He checked the meteorological reports for the tenth time. The falling snow was light and there was no wind, but he knew well that could change in a matter of minutes. It was the wind that was the unknown factor. Without warning, it could turn a dazzling white landscape into a howling whiteout.

Gillespie picked up the ship’s satellite phone and dialed a number. He was put through immediately to Sandecker. “They’re on shore and beginning the search,” he informed his boss.