Pitts eyebrows raised. "No, I didn't know."
"No secret really." Hunnewell puffed on the lenses of his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief.
"The man we've lied, schemed and risked our lives to find-unfortunately, as it probably turns out, dead-attended one of my classes at the Oceanographic Institute six years ago. A brilliant fellow." He motioned toward the two cremated forms on the deck. "A pity if he ended like this."
"How can you be certain you'll be able to tell him from the others?" Pitt asked.
"By his rings. He had a thing about rings. Wore them on every finger except his thumbs."
"Rings don't make a positive identification."
Hunnewell smiled a little. "There is also a toe missing from the left foot. Will that do?"
"It would," Pitt said thoughtfully. "But we haven't found a corpse that qualifies. We've already searched the entire ship."
"Not quite." Hunnewell pulled a slip of paper from the notebook and unfolded it under the beam of his flashlight. "This is a rough diagram of the vessel. I traced a copy from the original in the maritime archives." He pointed at the creased paper. "See here, just beyond the chartroom. A narrow ladder drops to a compartment directly beneath a false funnel. It's the only entrance."
Pitt studied the crude tracing. Then he turned and stepped outside the chartroom. "The opening is here all right. The ladder is burned all to hell, but enough of the rung bracing is left to support our weight."
The isolated compartment-situated in the exact center of the hull without benefit of portholes-was savaged even worse than the others; the steel plating on the walls curved outward, buckled like crinkled sheets of wallpaper. It appeared. empty. No trace of anything that remotely resembled furnishings was left after the conflagration. Pitt was just kneeling down, poking the ashes, searching for a sign of a body, when Hunnewell shouted.
"Here!" He fell to his knees. "Over here in the corner." Hunnewell focused the light on the sprawled outline of what had once been a man, now a barely discernible pile of charred bones. Only bits of the jawbone and pelvis were recognizable. Then he bent very low and carefully brushed away an area of the remains.
When Hunnewell stood up, he held several small pieces of distorted metal in his hand.
"Not proof positive perhaps. But about as certain as we'll ever get."
Pitt took the fused bits of metal and held them under the beam of his light.
"I remember the rings quite well," Hunnewell said.
"The settings were beautifully handcrafted and inlaid with eight different semiprecious stones native to Iceland. Each was carved in the likeness of an ancient Nordic god."
"Sounds impressive but garish," Pitt said.
"To you, a stranger maybe," Hunnewell returned quietly. "Yet if you had known him-" His voice trailed off.
Pitt eyed Hunnewell speculatively. "Do you always form sentimental attachments to your students?"
"Genius, adventurer, scientist, legend, the tenth richest man in the world before he was twenty-five. A kind and gentle person totally untouched by his fame and wealth. Yes, I think you could safely say a friendship with Kristjan Fyrie could result in a sentimental attachment."
How strange, Pitt thought. It was the first time the scientist had mentioned Fyrie's name since they had left Washington. And it had been uttered in a hushed, almost reverent tone. The same inflection, Pitt recalled, that Admiral Sandecker had also used when he spoke of the Icelander.
Pitt was conscious of no awe as he stood over the pitiful remains of the man who had been one of the most powerful figures in international finance. As he stood there staring down, his mind simply could not associate the ashes at his feet with the flesh-and-blood person the world's newspapers referred to as the apotheosis of the swinging intellectual jetsetter- Perhaps if he had met the celebrated Kristjan Fyrie, an emotion of some sort might be present now. But then, Pitt truly doubted it. He wasn't one to impress easily. Take away the clothes of the greatest living man, his father once told him, and you behold a very embarrassed, naked and defenseless animal.
Pitt looked at the twisted metal rings for a moment and then passed them back to Hunnewell, and as he did he heard the faint sound of movement somewhere on the deck above. He froze, listening intently.
But the sound had died in the blackness beyond the upper hatchway. There was something sinister in the quality of the silence that hung over the devastated cabin-a feeling that someone was observing their every motion, listening to their every word. Pitt nerved himself for an act of defense, but it was too late. A powerful light beam played into the room from the top of the ladder, blinding his eyes in its blazing glare.
"Robbing the dead, gentlemen? By God, I do believe you two are capable of most anything." The face was hidden behind the light, but the voice unmistakably belonged to Commander Koski.
Chapter 4
Without moving, without replying, Pitt stood in the middle of the charred deck. He stood there, it seemed to him, for a decade while his brain worked to explain Koski's presence. He had expected the Commander to arrive on the scene eventually, but not for at least another three hours. It was now obvious that instead of waiting until the prescribed rendezvous time, Koski had altered his heading and pushed the Catawaba at full speed along Hunnewell's plotted course into the ice pack as soon as the helicopter was out of sight.
Koski swung the flash beam to the ladder, exposing Dover's face beside him. "We have much to talk about. Major Pitt, Dr. Hunnewell, if you please."
Pitt thought of a cleverly worded comeback but dismissed it. Instead, he said, "Up your ass, Koski! You come down! And bring that hulking goon of an exec officer if it will make you feel any safer."
There was almost a full minute of angry silence before Koski replied, "You're hardly in a position to make rash demands."
"Why not? There's too much at stake for Dr. Hunnewell and me to sit here and suck our thumbs while you play amateur detective." Pitt knew his words were, arrogant, but he had to get the upper hand over Koski.
"No need to get nasty, Major. An honest explanation will go a long way. You've Lied since the moment you set foot on my ship. The Novgorod indeed. The greenest cadet at the Coast Guard Academy wouldn't think of identifying this hulk as a Russian spy trawler.
The radar antennas, the highly sophisticated electronic gear you described with such authority-did the equipment evaporate? I didn't buy you and Hunnewell from the beginning, but your stories were convincing. and my own headquarters, however mysteriously, backed you up. You've used me. Major. My crew, my ship, as you would a streetcar or a service station. An explanation?
Yes, I don't think it's asking too much. Merely the answer to one simple question: what in hell is coming Off?" Koski was in the fold now, Pitt thought. The cocky little commander wasn't demanding, he was asking.
"You still have to come down to our level. Part of the answer lies here in the ashes."
There was a moment's hesitation, but they came.
Koski, followed by the mammoth form of Dover, climbed down the ladder and faced Pitt and Hunnewell.
"Okay, gentlemen, let's have it."
"You've seen most of the ship?" Pitt asked.
Koski nodded. "Enough. Eighteen years of rescue C, at sea, and I've never seen a vessel gutted as bad as this one."
"Do you recognize it?"
"Impossible. What's left to recognize? It was a pleasure craft, a yacht. That much is certain. Beyond that you can flip a coin." Koski looked at Pitt, a faint puzzlement in his eyes. "I'm the one who expects answers. What are you leading up to?"
"The Lax. Ever hear of it?"
Koski nodded. "The Lax disappeared over a year ago with all hands, including its owner, the Icelandic mining magnate-" he hesitated, recalling, "Fyrie, Kristjan Fyrie. Christ, half the Coast Guard searched for months. Didn't find a sign. So what about the Lax?"