It was not to be. The freshening breeze was still gentle, and the caravel could not match the speed of the fleeing galley, whose row- ers were pulling for their lives. Before long, the galley was a dark spot on the ocean.

Aguirrez would have chased Martinez to the ends of the earth, but he saw sails on the horizon and guessed that they might be enemy re- inforcements. The Inquisition had a long reach. He remembered his promise to his wife and children and his responsibility to the Basque people. Reluctantly, he swung the ship around and set a course north toward Denmark. Aguirrez had no illusions about his enemy. Mar- tinez might be a coward, but he was patient and persistent. It would be only a matter of time before they met again.

NUMA 4 - White Death

PROLOGUE II

Germany, 1935

SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT, the dogs began to howl along a swath of countryside between the city of Hamburg and the North Sea. Terrified canines stared at the black, moonless sky with lolling tongues and shivering haunches. Their keen hearing had picked up what human ears could not: the faint whir of engines from the giant silver-skinned torpedo that slithered through the thick layer of clouds high above.

Four Maybach 12-cylinder engines, a pair on each side, hung in streamlined housings from the bottom of the 800-foot-long airship. Lights glowed in the oversized windows of the control car near the rront of the fuselage. The long, narrow control car was organized like a ship's pilothouse, complete with compass and spoked steering wheels for the rudder and elevators. standing next to the helmsman, feet wide apart, arms clasped behind his back, was Captain Heinrich Braun, a tall ramrod-straight figure impeccably dressed in a dark-blue uniform and a tall-peaked cap. Cold had seeped into the cabin and overwhelmed its heaters, so he wore a thick turtleneck sweater under his jacket. Braun's haughty profile could have been chiseled from granite. His rigid posture and silver hair, cropped close to his scalp military-style, and the slight elevation to his jutting chin, recalled his days as a Pruss- ian naval officer.

Braun checked the compass heading, then turned to a portly middle-aged man whose bushy, upturned mustache made him re- semble a good-natured walrus.

“Well, Herr Lutz, we have successfully completed the first leg of our historic journey.” Braun had an elegant, anachronistic way of speaking. “We are maintaining our goal of one hundred twenty kilo- meters per hour. Even with a slight headwind, fuel consumption is exactly as calculated. My compliments, Herr Professor.”