Atlantis Found Part 96

"You're a hard man to convince."

"Give the order to fire, brother," Elsie demanded. "Shoot the vermin. If you don't, I will."

Karl Wolf stared at the weary and battle-exhausted veterans of Cleary's command. "My sister is right. Unless your men surrender within the next ten seconds, my people will cut them down."

"Never happen," said Pitt, his voice hard and abrupt.

"One hundred guns against twenty? The battle will not last long, and there can only be one conclusion. You see, Mr. Pitt, too much is at stake. My sisters and I will gladly sacrifice our lives in the name of the Fourth Empire."

"It's stupid to waste lives for a dream that's already dead and buried," Pitt said casually.

"The hollow statement of a desperate man. At least I will have the gratification of knowing you'll be the first to die."

Pitt stared at Wolf for a long moment, then glanced down at the automatic rifle in the madman's hands. Then he shrugged. "Have it your way. But before you get carried away with blood l.u.s.t, I suggest you look behind you."

Wolf shook his head. "I'm not taking my eyes off you."

Pitt turned slightly to Elsie and Blondi. "Why don't you girls explain the facts of life to your brother?"

The Wolf sisters turned and looked.

Every neck in the hangar turned and every pair of eyes looked toward the rear wall and the entrance of the far tunnel. If there was one thing the hangar was lacking, it wasn't an a.r.s.enal of automatic weapons. Another two hundred had joined the drama being enacted around the wrecked aircraft. Two hundred nasty-looking Eradicator rifles all aimed at the backs of Destiny Enterprises engineers and scientists and held in the hands of men whose faces were hidden by helmets and goggles. They were ranged in an orderly semicircle, the front row kneeling, the back row standing, dressed in Arctic battle gear similar to that worn by Cleary and his team.

One of the figures stepped forward and spoke loudly with authority. "Lay down your weapons very slowly and back away! At the first sign of hostility, I will order my men to open fire! Please cooperate and no one will be hurt!"

There was no sign of hesitation or resistance. Far from it. The men and women who made up the scientific team for Destiny Enterprises were only too happy to rid themselves of weapons few of them knew how to operate properly. There was an almost universal sigh of relief as they backed away from the Bushmaster rifles and raised their hands in the air.

Elsie looked as if she had taken a knife in the heart. She stood with a stunned, uncomprehending look on her face. Blondi, her eyes stricken and bewildered, looked as if she was going to be sick. Karl Wolf's face went tense and hard as stone, more angry than fearful at the certainty of seeing his grand plan to launch a new world order suddenly evaporate.

"Which one of you is Dirk Pitt?" inquired the leader of the newly arrived Special Forces.

Pitt slowly raised his hand. "Here."

The officer strode up to Pitt and gave a slight nod of his head. "Colonel Robert Wittenberg, in charge of the Special Forces operation. What is the status of the Ross Ice Shelf operation?"

"Terminated," Pitt answered steadily. "The Valhalla Project was shut down ten minutes short of the ice-cutting system's activation."

Wittenberg relaxed visibly. "Thank G.o.d," he sighed.

"Your timing could not have been more perfect, Colonel."

"After making radio contact with Major Cleary, we followed your directions through the opening in the ice you smashed with your vehicle." He paused and asked as if in awe, "Did you see the ancient city?"

Pitt smiled. "Yes, we saw it."

"From there it was a routine run with full battle gear," Wittenberg continued, "until we arrived at the hangar and a.s.sembled before anyone turned and noticed us."

"It was touch and go, but Major Cleary and I managed to keep everyone's attention focused away from your end of the tunnel until you took up your battle position."

"Is this all of them?" asked Wittenberg.

Pitt nodded. "Except for several of their wounded back at the control center."

Cleary approached, and the two warriors saluted before shaking hands warmly. Cleary's smile was tired, but the teeth showed. "Bob, you don't know how happy I am to see your ugly old face."

"How many times does this make that I saved your tail?" Wittenberg said, humor in his eyes.

"Twice, and I'm not ashamed to admit it."

"You didn't leave much for me to do."

"True, but if you and your men hadn't shown up when you did, you'd have found half an acre of dead bodies."

Wittenberg stared at Cleary's men, who stood gaunt and weary but still vigilant, watching every move made by the Wolf personnel as they dropped their rifles on the ice floor and gathered in hushed groups near the wrecked aircraft. "It looks like they whittled you down some."

"I lost too many good men," Cleary admitted grimly.

Pitt gestured to the Wolfs. "Colonel Wittenberg, may I introduce Karl Wolf and his sisters Elsie and ..." Not knowing Blondi, he paused.

"My sister Blondi," Karl intervened. He was a man in the middle of a nightmare. "What do you intend to do with us, Colonel?"

"If it was up to me," growled Cleary, "I'd shoot the whole lot of you."

"Were you given orders concerning the Wolfs after you captured them?" Pitt asked Wittenberg.

The colonel shook his head. "There was no time to discuss political policy regarding prisoners."

"In that case, may I ask a favor?"

"After all you and your friend have done," replied Cleary, "you have but to name it."

"I'd like temporary custody of the Wolfs."

Wittenberg gazed into Pitt's eyes, as if trying to read the mind behind. "I don't quite understand."

But Cleary did. "Since you were given no orders concerning the disposition of prisoners," he said to the colonel, "I think it only fitting and proper that the man who saved us from unimaginable horror have his request honored."

Wittenberg thought a moment before nodding. "I quite agree. The spoils of war. You have custody of the Wolfs until such time as they can be transported under guard to Washington."

"No one government has legal jurisdiction over any individual in Antarctica," said Karl arrogantly. "It is unlawful for you to hold us as hostages."

"I'm only a simple soldier," said Wittenberg, with an indifferent shrug. "I'll leave it for the lawyers and politicians to decide your fate after you're in their hands."

WHILE the newly combined Special Force teams secured the mining facility and rounded up the captives, eventually placing them in confinement in a workers' dormitory, Pitt and Giordino un.o.btrusively herded Karl, Elsie, and Blondi Wolf along the huge doors that covered one wall of the hangar. Seemingly unnoticed, they suddenly forced the three Wolfs through a small maintenance door that opened onto the aircraft runway outside. The sudden surge of cold air came as a shock after the sixty-degree temperature inside the hangar.

Karl Wolf turned and smiled bleakly at Pitt and Giordino. "Is this where you execute us?"