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 hostiles, 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. Elation washed over the two rooms at learning the worst of the deadly crisis was over. They heard Cleary's voice carrying on a one-sided conversation with the saviors of the mission, who carried no radios and whose words could not be heard intelligibly over Cleary's throat microphone.
Unable to contain his exhilaration, the President snatched up a phone and spoke sharply. "Major Cleary, this is the President. Do you read me?"
There was a flicker of static, and then Cleary's voice answered. "Yes, Mr. President, I hear you loud and clear."
"Until now, I was told not to interfere with your communications, but I believe everybody here would like a coherent report."
"I understand, sir," Cleary said, finding it next to impossible to believe he was actually talking to his commander in chief. "I'll have to make it quick, Mr. President. We still have to round up the Wolfs, their engineers, and the last of their security guards."
"I understand, but please brief us on this macabre vehicle that came on the scene. Who does it belong to and who was operating it?"
Cleary told him, but failed miserably at attempting to describe the snow monster that had burst forth from the ice at the last minute and snatched victory virtually from the mouth of defeat.
Everyone sat and listened, bewildered, but nobody was more bewildered than Admiral Sandecker when informed that two men from his government agency who were under his direct authority had driven sixty miles across the barren ice in a monstrous 1940 snow vehicle and helped crush a small army of mercenary security guards. He was doubly stunned when he heard the names Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino, who he thought were due to land in Washington within the hour.
"Pitt and Giordino," he said, shaking his head in wonderment. "I should have known. If anyone can make a grand entrance where they're not expected, it's them."
"I'm not surprised," said Loren, with a smile across her lovely face. "There was no way Dirk and Al were going to stand by passively and wait for the world to stop."
"Who are these people?" demanded General South, angrily. "Where does NUMA get off interfering in a military operation? Who authorized their presence?"
"I would be proud to say I did," Sandecker said, staring directly at South without giving an inch, "but it simply would not be true. These men, make that my men, acted on their own initiative, and it looks to me that it was a damned good thing they did."
The argument died before it had begun. It never left the minds of those present in the war rooms of the Pentagon and White House that without the intervention of Pitt and Giordino, there would have been no estimating the frightful aftermath.
Pitt's and Giordino's ears should have been burning, but without a link to Cleary's headgear radio, they could not hear what was said half a world away. Pitt sat on the step of the Snow Cruiser and pulled the bandages off his face, revealing several cuts that would require stitches.
Cleary looked down at him. "You're certain the Wolfs are still here?"
Pitt nodded. "Karl, the head of the family, and one sister, Elsie, must be in tears at seeing the aircraft they'd planned to use to flee the facility has been rendered nonflyable."
"Can you and Mr. Giordino lead me to the hangar?"
Pitt cracked a smile. "I'd consider it an honor and a privilege."
General South's voice cut into the brief conversation. "Major Cleary, I am directing you to regroup, do what you can for your wounded, and secure the rest of the facility. Then wait for the main Special Forces unit, which should be landing inside half an hour."
"Yes, sir," answered Cleary. "But first there is a little unfinished business to settle." He pulled out the connector between his mike and receiving unit, turned to Pitt, and fixed him with an "Where is this hangar?"
"About half a mile," said Pitt. "Are you thinking of rounding up a hundred people with the few men you have left?"