Iceberg

{ Feb 2021 - Verified ebook for complete book description, cover, table of contents, content separation, and epub format error checking. } Paperback, 296 pages Published 1975 Frozen inside a million-ton mass of ice-the charred remains of a long missing luxury yacht, vanished en route to a secret White House rendezvous. The only clue to the ship's priceless-and missing-cargo: nine ornately carved rings and the horribly burned bodies of its crew. Just seventy-two hours ago, Dirk Pitt was lying in the hot California sun with a beautiful woman, a Scotch-rocks in one hand, but an urgent call from Admiral James Sandecker, his commander at the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), brings Pitt out of the warm Pacific breezes and straight into a North Atlantic deep freeze. The reason: the dis- covery of a long-missing luxury yacht, en route to a secret White House rendezvous, frozen solid in a mil- lion-ton tombstone of ice. Tunneling his way into the core of the berg, Pitt comes upon a gruesome scene -- a crew of corpses, hor- ribly incinerated at their posts -- but the vessel's price- less cargo, which could alter the balance of world power and put the threat of annihilation at America's doorstep, has vanished. This discovery is the springboard from which Clive Cussler -- The Grand Master of Adventure -- launches a compelling and powerful story that takes Dirk Pitt from the remote, uninhabited tundra of Iceland to the frigid abyss of the North Atlantic, determined to force his deadly, unseen opponent -- a multibillionaire in the business of playing God -- to make his next move. But first Pitt will have to penetrate the shroud of mystery concealing a titanic network of international financial intrigue -- and mass murder. Lives, nations, continents are at stake. And although his enemies may have the firepower as always, Dirk Pitt has the skill and the daring, the ruth- lessness and resourcefulness to meet it. He also has Kirsti Fyrie, an Icelandic beauty whose twin brother died on the ice-encased yacht and who carries in her heart the secret that Pitt needs to destroy his opponents in this deadly game. Iceberg is classic Cussler. Lieutenant Commander Lee Koski clamped his teeth a notch tighter on the stem of a corncob pipe, jammed his knotted fists two inches deeper in his fur-lined wind-breaker and shivered in the intense cold.