paint poured atop a pyramid.

But looking outside one would never guess the sun had been, or was,

anywhere near.

Right now, however, Cabrillo was less concerned with the darkness

than he was with transportation. Walking off to the side of the terminal,

he removed a satellite telephone and hit the speed dial.

"WHAT HAVE YOU found out?" he asked when Hanley answered.

Because of Overholt's urgency, Cabrillo had left the Oregon without

a clear plan on how he was to travel to Mount Forel. Hanley had assured

him that by the time he was on the ground there would be a plan

in place.

"There are some dogsled teams available for charter," Hanley noted,

"but you'd need a guide as a musher-and I didn't figure you wanted a

witness, so I ruled that out. The helicopters that service Kulusuk have

regularly scheduled routes, from Tasiilaq and back, but they don't hire

out and the current weather has them grounded."

"Not walking weather," Cabrillo said, staring outside.

"Or skiing," Hanley added, "though I know you pride yourself on

your skiing ability."

52 CLIVE CUSSLER

"So what is it?"

"I had the computer pull vehicle registrations from the area-it didn't

take long, as there are only four hundred or so people in Kulusuk. I discounted

snowmobiles because you'd be exposed to the snow and cold,

plus their tendency to break down. That leaves us with snowcats. They

are slow and burn a lot of fuel, but they have heaters and plenty of room

for storage of supplies. I think that's our best bet."

"Sounds reasonable," Cabrillo said. "Where's the rental place located?"

"There

isn't one," Hanley said, "but I pulled up the names and addresses

of private owners from the Greenland registry and made a few

calls. None of the people that own them have home telephone numbers,

but I reached the pastor of the local church. He said there is one man

that might agree to a rental-the rest are in use."

"What's the address?" Cabrillo asked, removing a pencil and small

pad of paper from his parka for notes.

"The address is the sixth house past the church, red walls with yellow

trim."

"No street addresses this far north, huh?"

"Everybody knows everyone else, I guess," Hanley said.

"Sounds like the natives are friendly."

"I'm not too sure about that," Hanley told him. "The pastor mentioned

the owner drinks quite a bit during the winter. He also said almost

everyone in town carries firearms to ward off bears."

Cabrillo nodded. "So basically, I just need to convince an armed

drunken native to rent me his snowcat and I'm on my way," Cabrillo

said, patting the packets of one-hundred-dollar bills in his parka pocket.

"Sounds simple enough."

"Well, there's one more thing-he's not a native. He grew up in Arvada,

Colorado, and was drafted into the army during the Vietnam War.

From what I've been able to piece together from the databases, once he