As before, the ladder led to a deck and a passageway, but the corridor was only about ten feet long, and it ended in a door. They opened the door and stepped inside.
"I think we just found the crew," Zavala said.
There were six decomposed corpses in the control room. They were piled in the lower end of the room. Austin was reluctant to violate the crew's tomb, but he knew it was important to learn as much about the ship as possible. With Zavala a step behind, Austin entered the room and glanced at the large control panel. With dozens of gauges and switches, it was far more complicated than any he had ever seen. He made an educated guess that the dynamos belowdecks were controlled from this compact space. He was examining the controls when the ship suddenly creaked, then seemed to moan.
Zavala said, "Kurt!"
Austin knew that if they stayed with the crew a second longer they would be joining the bloated corpses.
"I think we're done here." He pointed to the door.
With Zavala leading, they pounded down the corridor and practically vaulted up the ladder onto the deck and into the sunlight.
Austin had tried keeping track in his head of the seconds that had elapsed since they heard the noise, but in their rush he had lost count. There was no time to get in the boat, start the motor and cast off. Not stopping to snatch their flotation vests, they ran for the lower side of the ship and launched their bodies off the side.
When they came up, they swam as fast as they could. The ship would create suction as it sank, and they didn't want to get caught in it. They were well away from the vessel when they stopped swimming and looked back.
The lower rail had dropped so that it was entirely under water. The ship itself was poised at a dangerous angle, with the deck almost perpendicular to the surface of the sea. Zavala's sneezing seagull must have landed, because the ship suddenly reached the tipping point and rolled over. It floated for several minutes, looking like the shiny wet back of a gigantic turtle. As water flowed into the hold, the ship sank lower, until only a small circle of the hull was visible. Then that, too, disappeared, and was replaced by a frothy mound of bubbles.
The sea had taken back its own.
16
Pleased to meet YOU, Professor Kurtz," said Harold Mum-ford, a professor of zooarchaeology. "Is Earl Grey tea all right?"
"My favorite," said the man seated in Mumford's office at the University of Alaska's Fairbanks campus. He had a long face, with a prominent jaw and light blue eyes. His brown hair was going gray.
Mumford poured two cups of tea and handed one to his guest. "You've had a long journey. Fairbanks is quite a distance from Berlin."
"Yes, Germany is many miles from here, Dr. Mumford. But I've always wanted to come to Alaska. It is the last frontier."
"That's changing fast," said Mumford, a portly, middle-aged man who had a face like a friendly walrus. "Hell, we've even got a Wal-Mart in town. But with very little effort, you can get into some pretty rugged country, full of grizzly bears and moose. I hope you make it to the park at Denali."
"Oh yes. That's on my agenda. I'm very excited about the prospect."
"It's an all-day trip but well worth the time. I'm sorry you missed Karla Janos. As I mentioned on the phone, she left on a field trip a few days ago."
"It was a last-minute decision to come here," Schroeder said. "I had some unexpected time to spare, and decided to drop by the university on a whim. It's quite nice of you to see me on such short notice."
"Not at all. I don't blame you for wanting to meet Karla. She's a brilliant as well as lovely young woman. She worked on the Gerstle River Quarry site about seventy miles from here. That's where we found some carved mammoth tusks. It was very exciting. Her paper on the exploitation of the mammoth by early hunters was one of the best expositions I've seen on the subject. I know she'd be eager to meet someone with your academic background."
Schroeder had found his academic credentials at a Kinko's printshop in Anchorage. The business cards he had made up identified him as Herman Kurtz, professor of anthropology at Berlin University. He had borrowed the last name from the enigmatic character in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Throughout his shadowy career, it had never failed to surprise him how powerful words on a sheet of paper were when combined with an air of confidence. The hardest part of the masquerade was faking an Austrian accent after all the years he'd been speaking western 'Merican.
"I read that paper," Schroeder lied. "As you say, very impressive. I also read the article stating her thesis about the demise of the mammoth."
"That was typical of Karla. After she concluded that man had only a negligible impact on the mammoth's extinction, she made the great leap to a catastrophic event being the cause. You can imagine the controversy."
"Yes, it's rather an innovative theory, but I liked the boldness with which she put it forth. Does her extinction theory have anything to do with her field trip?"
"Everything. She's hoping to find evidence to support her theory on a remote island in Siberia."
Schroeder puffed his cheeks out. "Siberia is a long way from here. How does one go about getting there?"
"In Karla's case, she flew to Wrangel Island, and then hopped aboard an icebreaker that took her to the New Siberian Islands. The boat will pick her up in two weeks, and she'll be back in Fairbanks a few days after that. Will you still be in Alaska?"
"Unfortunately, no. But I'm quite envious of her adventure. I'd drop everything and follow in her tracks in a minute, if I could."
Mumford leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. "Ivory Island must be the new Cancun," he said with a grin.
"Pardon?" Schroeder said.
"Ivory Island is where Karla is working. A guy from the Discovery Channel came into my office yesterday and said he was with a crew in Alaska to do a special on Mount McKinley. Guess he heard about Karla's work. He seemed extremely interested when I told him about Ivory Island. Talked about making a side trip. Asked all about the project. I guess nothing's an obstacle when you've got a fat checkbook."
"What was his name?" Schroeder said. "Perhaps I've come across him in my travels."
"Hunter," he said. "Scott Hunter. Big, muscular guy."
Schroeder smiled, but there was contempt in his eyes for the thinly veiled wordplay behind the fake name. "Can't say I know him. Of course, you informed him of the difficulties of getting to Ivory Island?"
"I sent him to the airport to talk to Joe Harper. He's a former bush pilot who operates a company called PoleStar Air. They run packaged adventure tours into Russia."
Schroeder gulped down the rest of his tea even though it burned his throat. He thanked Mumford for his hospitality, and drove his rental car to the Fairbanks airport. The airport's location near the Arctic Circle made it a convenient refueling stop for big cargo planes flying the circle route between the Far East and America. Schroeder saw a 747 taking off as he parked. The airport itself was relatively small, and it took only one inquiry to find the office for PoleStar Air.
The receptionist gave Schroeder a pleasant smile and said Mr. Harper would be free as soon as he got off the phone. Harper came out after a few minutes. He looked as if he had been picked for the role of a bush pilot by central casting. He was a lean man with alert eyes and a strong set to his mouth, and, judging from his appearance, he was still making the transition from bush pilot to tour operator.