Gronquist took a swallow of his brandy. "Ancient coinage has turned up in odd places before. But the date and source of its deposit could rarely be proven to the full satisfaction of the archaeologists'
community."
"Perhaps," said Graham slowly. "But I'd give my Mercedes convertible to know how it turned up here."
They all gazed at the coin for a few moments without speaking, each lost in their own thoughts.
Finally Gronquist broke the silence. "It seems the only thing we know for certain is that we have a real mystery on our hands.
Shortly before midnight, the imposter began his practiced drill to abandon the jetliner. The air was sparkling clear and the dim smudge that was Iceland rose above the flat, black horizon line of the sea. The small island country was outlined by a faint but eerie display of greenish rays from the Aurora Borealis.
He was oblivious to the dead men around him. He had grown used to the smell of blood and it no longer sickened him. Death and gore simply went with the job. He was as indifferent to mutilated bodies as a pathologist or the neighborhood butcher.
The imposter was quite clinical about killing. Numbers of dead were merely mathematical sums. He was paid well; he was a mercenary, as well as a religious fanatic who murdered for a cause. Oddly, the only part of his work that offended him was being called an assassin or a terrorist. He detested the words. They had a political ring about them, and he nurtured a passionate dislike for politicians.
He was a man of a thousand identities, a perfectionist who rejected random gunfire in crowds or sloppy car bombs, considering them tools for juvenile idiots. His methods were far more subtle. He never left anything to chance. International investigators found it difficult to separate many of his hits from what appeared to be accidents.
The death of Hala Kamil was more than an assigned task. He considered it a duty. His elaborate plan had taken five months to perfect, followed by the patient wait for the opportune moment.
Almost a waste, he mused. Kamil was a beautiful woman. But she was a threat that had to be nullified.
He gently eased back on the throttles and nudged the control column forward, beginning a shallow rate of descent. To anyone but another pilot the slight drop in speed and altitude was imperceptible.
The main cabin crew had not troubled him. By now the passengers were dozing, attempting but failing to fall into the deep sleep so elusive on long aircraft flights.
for the twentieth time he re-checked his heading and studied the computer he had reprogrammed to indicate the time and distance to his drop zone.
Fifteen minutes later the jetliner crossed over an uninhabited section of Iceland's southern coastline and headed inland. The landscape below became a montage of gray rock and white snow. He lowered the flaps and reduced speed until the Boeing 720-B was flying at 352 kilometers an hour.
He reengaged the auto pilot on a new radio frequency transmitted from a beacon placed on the Hofsjokull, a glacier rising 1,737 meters from the center of the island. Then he set the altitude so the aircraft would impact 150 meters below the peak.
Methodically he smashed and disabled the communication and direction indicators. He also began dumping fuel as a backup in case a flaw somehow marred his carefully conceived plan.
Eight minutes to go.
He dropped through the trapdoor into the hell hole. He already wore a pair of French paraboots with thick, elastic soles. He hurriedly removed a jumpsuit from the duffel bag and slipped into it. There had been no room for a helmet so he pulled on a ski mask and stocking cap.
Next came a pair of gloves, goggles and an altimeter, which he strapped to one wrist.
He clipped the harness snaps and checked the straps for snugness. He wore a piggyback rig where the reserve sat on his shoulder blades and the main chute fit into the small of his back. He relied on a ram air canopy, a square air foil that is more flown than jumped.
He glanced at the dial of his watch. One minute, twenty seconds. He opened the escape door and a rush of air swept through the hell hole. He studied the sweep second hand on the watch and began counting down.
When he reached zero he launched his body through the narrow opening feet first, facing in the direction of flight. The velocity of the airstream struck him with the icy force of an avalanche, crushing the breath from his lungs. The plane soared past with a deafening roar. for a brief instant he felt the heat from the turbine's exhaust, and then he was away and falling.
Face down in a stable arched and spread position, knees slightly flexed, hands spread in front, Lemk looked down and saw only blackness. No lights burned on the ground.
He assumed the worst; his crew had failed to reach the correct rendezvous point. Without a defined target zone he could not gauge his wind drift or direction. He might land kilometers away, or worse, impact in the middle of jagged ice with serious injury and never be found in time.
In ten seconds he had already dropped nearly 360 meters. The needle on the luminous dial of his altimeter was crossing into the red. He could not wait any longer. He pulled the pilot chute from a pouch and threw it into the wind. It anchored to the sky and strung out the main canopy.
He heard the chute open with a satisfying thump, and he was jerked into an upright position. He took his penlight and aimed the narrow beam over his head. The canopy blossomed above him.
Suddenly a small circle of lights blinked on about one Mile away to his right. Then a flare went up and hung for several seconds, just long enough for him to judge wind direction and speed. He pulled on the right steering toggle and began gliding toward the lights.
Another flare went up. The wind held steady with no fluctuation as he neared the ground. He could clearly see his crew now. They had laid out another line of lights leading to the previously lit circle. He jockeyed the steering toggles and made a 180-degree bank into the wind.
Lemk prepared to strike the ground. His crew had chosen the terrain well. The balls of his feet made contact with soft tundra, and he made a perfect stand-up landing in the center of the circle.
Without a word, he unsnapped the harness and walked outside the glare of the lights. He looked up at the sky.
The aircraft with its unsuspecting crew and passengers flew straight toward the glacier that gradually rose, closing the gap between ice and metal.
He stood there watching as the faint sound of the jet engines died and the blinking navigation lights melted into the black 4 night.
Back in the galley, one of the flight attendants tilted her head, listening.
"What's that tinny noise coming from the cockpit?" she asked.
Gary Rubin, the chief steward, stepped into the aisle and faced toward the bow of the plane. He could hear what sounded like a continuous, muffled roar, almost like rushing water in the distance.
Ten seconds after the imposter's exodus, the timer on the actuator set the hydraulic arm in motion, closing the hatch in the hell hole and cutting off the strange sound.
"It stopped," he said. "I don't hear it any more."
"What do you suppose it was?"
"Can't say. I've never heard anything quite like it. for a moment I thought we might have suffered a pressure leak."
A passenger call light came on and the flight attendant brushed back her blond hair and stepped into the main cabin.
"Maybe you better check it out with the captain," she said over her shoulder.
Rubin hesitated, remembering Lemk's order not to bother the flight crew except for a matter of importance. Better safe than sorry. The welfare of the passengers came first. He lifted the intercom phone to his ear and pressed the cockpit call button.
"Captain, Chief Steward here. We've just experienced a weird noise forward of the main cabin. Is there a problem?"
He received no reply.
He tried three times, but the receiver remained dead. He stood there at a loss for several moments, wondering why the flight cabin did not respond. In twelve years of flying, this was a new experience for him.