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Pitt was a lean, firm-muscled man in prime physical shape for someone who didn't run ten miles every day or look upon the exertion and sweat of bodybuilding as a celestial tonic against old age His face wore the tanned, weathered skin of an outdoors of an office His deep green, opaque eyes radiated a strange combination of warmth and cruelty while his lips seerin

He was a s the rich and powerful, but preferred the coht up and liked to get their hands dirty

A product of the Air Force Academy, he was listed on active status with the rank of Major, although he had been on loan to the National Underwater & Marine Agency (NUMA) for nearly six years as their Special Projects Director, Along with Al Giordino, his closest friend since childhood, he had lived and adventured in every sea, on the surface and in the depths, encountering in half a decade more wild experiences than most men would see in ten lifetimes He had found the vanished Manhattan Liround cavern in New York, salvaged a few passengers before being sent to the bottom of the Saint Lawrence River with a thousand souls He had hunted down the lost nuclear subhost ship Cyclops to her grave under the Caribbean And he raised the Titanic

He was, Giordino often hty years too late

"You ht want to see this," Giordino said suddenly from the other side of the room

Pitt turned from a color video monitor that displayed a view of the seascape one hundred meters beneath the hull of the icebreaker survey ship Polar Explorer She was a sturdy new vessel especially built for sailing through ice-covered waters Theabove the hull resereat bow, pushed by 80,000-horsepower engines, could pound a path through ice up to one-and-a-half meters thick

Pitt placed one foot against a counter, flexed his knee and pushed The entle roll of the ship for rees in his swivel chair as its castors carried hi deck of the electronics compartment

"Looks like a crater co up"

Al Giordino sat at a console studying an i a little over 162 centied size-eleven feet, broadened with beefy shoulders in the shape of a wedge, he looked as if he were assembled out of spare bulldozer parts His hair was dark and curly, an inheritance from Italian ancestry, and if he had worn a bandanna and an earring he could have rinder Dry-humored, steadfast and reliable as the tides, Giordino was Pitts insurance policy against Murphy's Law

His concentration never flickered while Pitt, feet extended as buainst the console beside him

Pitt watched the coe of a crater slowly rose to a crest and then made a steep descent into the interior void

"She's dropping fast," said Giordino

Pitt glanced at the echo sounder "Down from 140 to 180 meters "

"Hardly any slope to the outer rim"

"Two hundred and still falling"