Austin had been in the bridge poring over a chart with Zavala when the report came on over the radio’s speaker.

“Our missing Moby?” Austin asked the captain.

“Could be,” Dawe said. “She fits the description. We should know soon enough.”

Dawe ordered the ship’s engine room to cut speed. Cottony wisps of fog were curling around the ship’s plunging bow. Within minutes, a colorless miasma wrapped the ship like a wet dishcloth. Visibility was reduced to spitting distance. The ship groped its way along relying entirely on its electronic eyes.

The captain kept close tabs on the radar screen and called out commands from time to time for the helmsman to adjust course. The ship was moving at a crawl, and the tension on the bridge was thicker than clam chowder. The ship was traveling through the haunted waters near the grave of the Titanic. Even with electronics that could pinpoint a toy boat in a rain puddle, ship collisions with ice were not uncommon, and sometimes fatal.

The captain emitted a cryptic grunt and looked up from the radar screen.

He grinned and said, “Did I ever tell you what a Newfie uses for mosquito repellant?”

“A shotgun,” Zavala said.

“The mosquito will crash when you shoot out its landing lights,” Austin added.

“Guess you heard that one. Don’t worry; we’ll make Newfies out of you yet.”

With the tension broken, the captain turned his attention back to the radar screen. “Fog’s let up a bit. Keep an eye out. Any second now.”

Austin scanned the grayness. “We’ve got company,” he said, breaking the cathedral quietness on the bridge.

The ghostly outlines of an enormous iceberg loomed ahead like something in a dream. Within seconds, the mountain of ice became more solid and less spectral. The berg angled up from one end to a lofty pinnacle that rose as high as a fifteen-story building. A stray shaft of sunlight had penetrated the fog. Under the glare of the heavenly spotlight, the berg glowed with a bone white sheen except for the sky blue crevasses where the refrozen meltwaters were free of bubbles that reflected white light.

The captain slapped Austin and Zavala on the back. “Grab your harpoons, boys. We’ve found Moby-Berg.” He gazed in rapture at the enormous berg. “Real pretty, eh?”

“Quite the little ice cube,” Austin said. “And we’re only seeing about an eighth of the berg above water.”

“There’s must be enough ice there for a billion margaritas,” Zavala said with undisguised awe.

Dawe said, “She’s a castle berg. Like the one that sunk the Titanic. The average berg in this neighborhood runs a couple of hundred thousand tons and maybe two hundred feet in length. This one is around three hundred feet plus and maybe five hundred thousand tons. The Titanic iceberg was only around two hundred fifty thousand tons.”