Schroeder had learned long ago of the need to know the theater of operations one expected to operate in, whether it was a hundred square miles of countryside or a few blocks of city alleyways.

He had studied the map a number of times and felt that he knew Ivory Island as well as if he had been there. The island was about ten miles wide and twenty miles long, elongated in shape. The sea had eroded the permafrost, so that the coast was as jagged as a pottery shard. On the south shore, a half-moon indentation in the shoreline offered a sheltering harbor, near where a river emptied into the sea.

Ancient rivers, some dry and some still active, had created a mazelike warren of winding, natural corridors through the rolling tundra. A long-dormant volcano rose from the permafrost like a huge, black carbuncle.

He put the chart aside and thumbed through a well-worn Russian travel guide he had picked up in a secondhand bookstore while he was trying to arrange transportation to the island. He was glad to see that his command of Russian was still serviceable. Ivory Island was discovered in the late 1700s by Russian fur traders. They found the huge piles of animal bones and mammoth tusks that lent the island its name. The bones were piled everywhere, lying on the open ground or forming hills cemented together by the cold.

The fur-trading business was wiped out in an orgy of murder, and the ivory hunters started coming in. Fine ivory found a ready market in the master carvers of China and other parts of the world. Recognizing the white bonanza, the Russian government awarded franchises to entrepreneurs. One businessman hired an agent named Sannikoff, who explored all the Arctic islands.

Ivory Island held the richest trove, but because of its remoteness it was left relatively unscathed in favor of more accessible sources to the south. A few intrepid ivory hunters established a settlement at the mouth of the river, which they called Ivorytown, the book said, but the island had been largely abandoned in favor of more hospitable locations.

The knock on the cabin door interrupted his research. It was the captain, a round-faced man who was half Russian, half Eskimo.

“The boat is ready to take you ashore,” the captain said.

Grabbing his duffel bag, Schroeder followed the captain to the port rail of the trawler and climbed down a ladder to a rowboat. While a crewman pulled at the oars, Schroeder used a long-handled gaff to fend off hunks of ice that floated in the still, cold water. Minutes later, the bottom of the boat scraped onto the gravelly beach.

Schroeder tossed his bag onto the beach, got out of the boat and helped push it off.