"I can't hear you."
"Something's wrong."
Hoskins nodded in understanding and refocused his attention on the terrain ahead. The distraction was to cost them. Too late, he glimpsed one of the troughs gouged by the landing gear almost as he was on it.
The snowmobile flew over the two-meter opening in the ice and became airborne. The weight of the two riders forced the nose to dip down and it collided against the opposite wall with a sharp crack like the blast of a pistol. Fortunately for Hoskins and Graham, they were pitched over the edge and onto the ice surface, their bodies tumbling crazily as if they were cottonstuffed dolls thrown across a waxed floor.
Thirty seconds later a stunned Graham, moving like a ninety-year-old man, stiffly lifted himself to his hands and knees. He sat there dazed, not fully aware of how he got there. He heard a strange hissing sound and looked around.
Hoskins was sitting in an upright position, doubled up in agony with both hands tightly pressed against his groin. He was sucking and exhaling air through clenched teeth while rocking back and forth.
Graham removed his outer mitten and lightly touched his nose, It didn't feel broken, but blood was flowing from the nostrils, forcing him to breathe through his mouth. A series of stretches indicated all joints were still mobile, all limbs in place. Not too surprising, considering the heavy padding of his clothing. He crawled over to Hoskins, whose tortured hissing had become a string of mournful groans.
"What happened?" Graham asked, regreuing such a stupid question the instant he uttered it.
"We hit a gash furrowed in the ice by the aircraft," Hoskins managed between groans. "Jesus, I think I've been castrated."
"Let me have a look." Graham pried away the hands and unzipped the front of Hoskins's jumpsuit. He took a flashlight from a pocket and pushed the switch. He could not suppress a smile. "Your wife will need another excuse to dump you. There's no sign of blood. Your sex life is secure."
"Where's Lily . . . and Gronquist?" Hoskins asked haltingly.
"About two hundred meters back. We've got to make our way around the ice opening and check out their situation."
Hoskins rose painfully to his feet and hobbled to the edge of the ice break. Amazingly, the snowmobile's headlamp was still burning, its dim glow playing on the bottom of the flord while backlighting the bubbles that traveled up six meters to the surface. Graham walked over and peered down. Then they looked at each other.
"As lifesavers," said Hoskins dejectedly, "we'd better stick with archaeology-"
"Quiet!" Graham snapped suddenly. He cupped his mittens to his ears and turned from side to side like a radar dish. Then he stopped and pointed excitedly at flashing lights in the distance. "Hot damn!" he shouted.
"There's a helicopter coming up the fjord."
Lily floated in and out of reality.
She could not understand why it became increasingly difficult for her to think straight. She lifted her head and looked around for Gronquist. He lay unmoving several meters away. She shouted, desperately trying to get a response, but he lay as though dead. She gave up and gradually entered a halfdream world as her legs lost all sensation of feeling.
Only when she began to shiver did Lily realize she was in a mild state of shock.
She was certain Graham and Hoskins would return any moment, but the moments soon grew into painful minutes, and they did not show. She felt very tired and was about to gratefully slip away into sleep when she heard a strange thumping sound approaching from overhead. Then a dazzling light cut the dark sky and blinded her eyes. Loose snow was kicked up by a sudden windstorm and swept around her. The thumping sound died in intensity and a vague figure, encircled by the light, came toward her.
The figure became a man in a heavy fur parka who immediately summed up the situation, took a strong - grip on the snowmobile and heaved it off her legs to an upright position.
He walked around her until the light illuminated his face. Lily's eyes weren't focusing as they should but they stared into a pair of sparkling green eyes that took her breath away. They seemed to reflect hardness, gentleness and sincere concern in one glinting montage. They narrowed a fraction when he saw that she was a woman. She wondered dizzily where he came from.
Lily couldn't think of anything to say except, "Oh, am I ever glad to see you."
"Name's Dirk Pitt," answered a warm voice. "If you're not busy, why don't you have dinner with me tomorrow night?"
Lily looked up at Pitt, trying to read him, not sure she had heard him correctly. "I may not be up to it."
He pushed back the hood of his parka and ran his hands up and down her legs. He gently squeezed her ankles. "No apparent breaks or swelling,"
he said in a friendly voice. "Are you in pain?"
"I'm too cold to hurt."
Pitt retrieved a pair of blankets that had been pitched from the sled d you get here?"
he asked her.
"I'm one of a team of archaeologists doing an excavation on an ancient Eskimo village. We heard the plane come up the fjord and ran out of our hut in time to see it land on the ice. We were heading for the crash site with blankets and medical supplies when we . . ." Lily's words became vague and she weakly gestured toward the overturned sled.
"We?"
In the light from the helicopter Pitt quickly read the accident in the snow coating the ice: the straight trail of the snowmobile, the abrupt swerve around the severed aircraft wing, the sharp cuts made by the runners of the out-of-control sledonly then did he glimpse another human form lying nearly ten meters beyond the wing.
"Hold on."
Pitt walked over and knelt down beside Gronquist. The big archaeologist was breathing evenly. Pitt gave him a cursory examination.
Lily watched for a few moments, and then asked anxiously, "Is he dead?"
"Hardly. A nasty contusion on his forehead. Concussion, most likely.
Possible fracture, but I doubt it. He has a head like a bank vault."
Graham came trudging up, Hoskins limping along behind, both looking like snowmen, their Arctic jumpsuits dusted white, their face masks plastered with ice from their breathing. Graham lifted his mask, exposing his bloodied face and studied Pitt blankly for a moment, then he smiled bleakly.
"Welcome, stranger. Your timing was perfect."
No one on the helicopter had seen the other two members of the archaeology expedition from the air, and Pitt began to wonder how many other ambulance cases were wandering around the fjord.
"We have an injured man and lady here," Pitt said without formalities.
"Are they part of your group?"
The smile fell from Graham's face. "What happened?"
"They took a bad spill."
"We took one too."
"You see the aircraft?"
"Saw it go down, but we didn't reach it."
Hoskins moved around Graham and stared down at Lily and then glanced around until he spied Gronquist. "How badly are they hurt?"
"Know better after they've had X-rays."
"We've got to help them."
"I have a team of medics on board the helicopter."
"Then what in hell are you waiting for?" Hoskins cut him off - "Call them out here - " He made as if to brush past Pitt, but he was stopped dead by an iron grip on his arm. He stared uncomprehending into a pair of unblinking eyes.
"Your friends will have to wait," Pitt said firmly. "any survivors on the downed aircraft must come first. How far to your camp?"
"A kilometer to the south," Hoskins answered compliantly.
"The snowmobile is still operable. You and your partner rehitch the sled and carry them back to your camp. Go easy in case they have any internal injuries. You have a radio?"
"Yes. "
"Keep it set on frequency thirty-two and stand by," said Pitt. "If the plane was a commercial jetliner loaded with passengers, we'll have a real mess on our hands."
"We'll stand by," Graham assured him.
Pitt leaned over Lily and squeezed her hand. "Don't forget our date,"
he said.
Then he yanked the parka hood over his head, turned and jogged back to the helicopter.
Rubin felt a great weight smothering him from all sides as if some relentless force was driving him backward. The seat belt and harness pressed cruelly into his gut and shoulders. He opened his eyes and saw only vague and shadowy images. As he waited for his vision to clear he tried to move his hands and arms, but they seemed locked in place.
Then his eyes gradually focused and he saw why.
An avalanche of snow and ice had forged through the shattered windshield, entrapping his body up to the chest. He made a desperate attempt to free himself. After a few minutes of struggling, he gave up.
The unyielding pressure held him like a straitjacket. There was no way he could escape the cockpit without help.
The shock slowly began to fade and he gritted his teeth from the pain that erupted from his broken legs. Rubin thought it strange that his feet felt as though they were immersed in water. He rationalized that it was his own blood.
Rubin was wrong. The plane had settled through the ice in water nearly three meters deep and it had flooded the cabin floor up to the seats.
Only then did he remember Ybarra. He turned his head to his right and squinted through the darkness. The starboard side of the aircraft's bow had been crushed inward almost to the engineer's panel. All he could see of the Mexican delegate was a rigid, upraised arm protruding from the snow and telescoped wreckage.