“Yes, just a tardy effort by the competition.”
“What’s our approach to the islands?” the captain asked, peering over Zak’s shoulder.
“The south coast of West Island. We’ll make for the mining operation first. Let’s run right up to the pier and see if anyone is home. It’s early in the season, so they may not have opened up summer operations yet.”
“Might be a good place to dump our captives.”
Zak gazed out the aft window, watching the barge that was tailing behind wallow in the turbulent seas.
“No,” he replied after contemplation. “They should be quite comfortable where they are.”
* * *
Comfortable was hardly the sentiment that came to Rick Roman’s mind. But under the circumstances, he had to admit they had made the best of things.
The cold steel deck and bulkheads of their floating prison quickly sapped their efforts to keep warm, but a solution lie in the debris left behind. Roman organized the men under penlight and had them attack the mound of tires. First, a layer of the old rubber was laid on the deck, then a series of walls were built up, creating a smaller den where all the men could still fit. The mooring ropes were then unwound and draped over the tire walls and floor, creating an extra layer of insulation, as well as padding for the men to lie on. Huddled into the tight enclave, the men had a combined body heat that gradually forced a rise in the temperature. After several hours, Roman flashed his light on a bottle of water at his feet and noted an inch or two of liquid sloshed atop the frozen contents. The insulated den had warmed above freezing, he noted with some satisfaction.
It was the only satisfaction he had received in some time. When Murdock and Bojorquez returned after a two-hour inspection of the barge’s interior, the news was all bleak. Murdock had found no other potential exit points astern of their storage hold, save for the cavernous holds themselves. The mammoth overhead hatch covers might as well have been welded shut for the chance they had at moving them.
“I did find this,” Bojorquez said, holding up a small wood-handled claw hammer. “Somebody must have dropped it in the hold and didn’t bother to retrieve it.”
“Even a sledgehammer wouldn’t do us a lot of good on that hatch,” Roman replied.
Undeterred, Bojorquez began attacking the locked hatch lever with the small tool. Soon the tap-tap-tap of the pounding hammer became a constant accompaniment to the creaking sounds of the moving barge. Men lined up to have a go at the hammer, mostly out of boredom, or in an attempt to warm themselves from the exertion. Against the incessant rapping, Murdock’s voice suddenly raised over the din.
“The tow ship is slowing.”
“Cease the hammering,” Roman ordered.
Ahead of them, they could hear the engines of the icebreaker slow their deep-throated drone. A few minutes later, the engines dropped to an idle, then the barge bumped against a stationary object. Listening in silence, the men anxiously hoped that their frozen imprisonment was over.
59
The Royal Geographical Society islands appeared as a mass of buff-colored hills rising above the choppy slate waters. The islands were christened by the explorer Roald Amundsen in 1905, during his epic voyage on the Gjoa, when he became the first man to successfully navigate the length of the Northwest Passage. Remote and forgotten for over a century, the islands remained a footnote until a freelance exploration company found an exposed deposit of zinc on West Island and sold its claims to Mid-America.
The Mid-America mining camp was built on a wide cove along the island’s rugged southern coast, which zigzagged with numerous inlets and lagoons. A naturally formed deepwater channel allowed large ships to access the cove, providing that the sea ice had vanished for the season. The company had built a three-hundred-foot semifloating dock that stretched from the cove, sitting empty and alone amid the chunks of ice bobbing in the surrounding waters.
Zak had the captain pull to the dock while he scanned the shoreline through a pair of binoculars. He viewed a pair of prefabricated buildings perched beneath a small bluff alongside a gravel road that ran inland a short distance. The windows of the buildings were dark, and piles of drifting snow could be seen accumulated in the doorways. Satisfied that the facility was still abandoned from the winter shutdown, he had the Otok tie up to the dock.
“Have the team of geologists assembled and put ashore,” Zak instructed the captain. “I want to know the mineral content of the ore they are extracting here, as well as the geology of the general area.”
“I believe the team is anxious to get ashore,” the captain quipped, having seen a number of the geologists suffering from seasickness in the galley.
“Captain, I had a large package sent to the ship before I arrived. Did you receive a delivery in Tuktoyaktuk?”
“Yes, a crate was taken aboard there. I had it placed in the forward hold.”
“Please have it delivered to my cabin. It contains some materials that I’ll need on shore,” he said.
“I’ll have it taken care of right away. What about our captives on the barge? They’re probably near death,” he said, eyeing a digital thermometer on the console that indicated the outside temperature was five degrees.
“Ah yes, our frozen Americans. I’m sure their disappearance has a few people excited by now,” Zak said with an arrogant tone. “Toss them some food and blankets, I suppose. It may still do for us to keep them alive.”
While the geologists made their way ashore accompanied by an armed security team, Zak stepped down to his cabin. His package, a metal-skinned trunk toting a heavy padlock, sat waiting for him on the carpeted floor. Inside was a carefully organized array of fuses and detonators, along with enough dynamite to flatten a city block. Zak selected a few of the items and placed them in a small satchel, then relocked the trunk. Slipping into a heavy parka, he made his way to the main deck and was about to step off the ship when a crewman stopped him.
“You have a call on the bridge. The captain asks that you come right away.”
Zak took a companionway to the bridge, where he found the captain talking on a secure satellite telephone.
“Yes, he’s right here,” the captain said, then turned and handed the phone to Zak.
The testy voice of Mitchell Goyette blared through the earpiece.
“Zak, the captain tells me that you are tied up at the Mid-America facility.”
“That’s right. They haven’t initiated their summer operations yet, so the place is empty. I was just on my way to make sure they stay out of commission for the season.”
“Excellent. The way things are heating up in Ottawa, I doubt an American would even be able to set foot up there.” Goyette’s greed began to chime in. “Try not to destroy any infrastructure that might be useful for me when I purchase the lot at a fire-sale price,” he said with a snort.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Zak replied.
“Tell me, what have you learned about the ruthenium?”
“The geologists are just now making an initial survey around the mining camp. But we’re presently on the south side of the island, and the trader’s map indicated that the Inuit mine was located on the north coast. We’ll reposition there in a few hours.”
“Very well. Keep me apprised.”
“There is something you should be aware of,” Zak replied, dropping the bombshell. “We have the American crew of the Polar Dawn in our captivity.”
“You what? ” Goyette howled, forcing Zak to pull the receiver away from his ear. The industrialist’s temper burned white-hot, even after Zak described the circumstances of the abduction.
“No wonder the politicians are going ballistic,” he hissed. “You’re about to set off World War Three.”
“It makes it a sure thing that the Americans won’t have access to this region for a long time,” Zak argued.
“That may be true, but I won’t enjoy profiting from their absence if I’m sitting in a jail cell. Dispose of the matter, and without incid
ent,” he barked. “Whatever you do, there had better be no link to me.”
Zak hung up the phone as the line went dead. Just another unimaginative thug who had bullied his way to billions, Zak thought. Then he slipped his parka back on and went ashore.
* * *
A brown ring of rock and gravel encircled the island’s cove, melding into a white sheet of ice as one moved inland. The exception was a large rectangular rut that ran several hundred feet into the hillside, ending in a flat, vertical wall clearly cut by machine. The zinc-mining operation was simply cutting straight into the landscape, where the mineral-rich ore was readily accessible. In the distance, Zak noticed a few of the geologists poking around the tailings of the most recent diggings.
The interior of the cove was protected from the worst of the westerly winds, but Zak still moved quickly down the dock, not wishing to prolong his exposure to the cold. He quickly sized up the mining operation before him, which was simple and low-tech. The larger of two buildings was a warehouse that housed the mining equipment — bulldozers, backhoes, and a dump truck — which dug up the island soil and transferred it onto a small conveyor system for shipboard loading. A smaller building next door would be the crew’s bunkhouse and administrative office.
Zak made his way to the smaller building first, curiously finding that the door had been locked. Pulling a Glock automatic from his pocket, he fired twice at the deadbolt, then kicked the door open. The interior was like an expansive house, with two large bedrooms filled with bunk beds, plus an oversize kitchen, a dining room, and a living area. Zak walked directly to the kitchen and looked at the stove, which trailed a gas line to a storage closet containing a large tank of propane. Digging into his satchel, he removed a charge of dynamite and placed it beneath the tank, then affixed a blasting cap with a timed fuse. Checking his watch, he set the fuse to ignite in ninety minutes, then exited the building.
He walked to the equipment-storage building, studying its exterior for some time before hiking around to the back side. Towering over the building was a small bluff, which was strewn with ice-covered rocks and boulders. He struggled up the steep slope to a slight ledge that ran horizontally across the upper face of the hill. Kicking a divot in the frozen ground beneath a car-sized boulder, he removed his gloves and placed another charge of dynamite under the rock. With his fingers freezing, he quickly set the fuse to the blasting cap. Moving a few yards away, he set a second charge beneath a similar clump of large boulders.
Scampering down the hillside, he returned to the front of the building and set one more charge by the hinge of a large swinging door. After setting the fuse, he quickly stepped back to the dock and headed for the icebreaker. As he approached the ship, he could see the captain peering down at him from the bridge. Zak pumped his arm, motioning for him to blow the ship’s horn. A second later, two deafening blasts echoed off the hills, signaling the geologists to return to the ship.
Zak turned to see that the geologists took note of the message, then he walked to the barge at the end of the pier. The dock just reached to the bow of the barge, and Zak waited until the current nudged the vessel against the pylons before jumping onto an embedded steel ladder that rose to the vessel’s deck. Climbing up, he made his way astern, passing the number 4 hold on the way to an indented well on the aft side. Kneeling against an exterior bulkhead, he packed his remaining explosives, this time affixing a radio-controlled detonator. It wasn’t positioned beneath the waterline as he would have liked, but he knew it would do the job in the rolling seas that they had been encountering. Ignoring the lives of the men huddled a few feet away, Zak stepped off the barge with a wry sense of satisfaction. Goyette wasn’t going to be happy losing a newly built barge, but what could he say? Zak’s instructions were to leave no evidence, and disposing of the barge where nobody could find it was the perfect solution.
The last of the geologists and security guards were climbing aboard the icebreaker when Zak reached the gangplank. He headed straight to the bridge, thankful to enter its warm interior.
“Everyone is back aboard,” the captain reported. “Are you ready to leave or did you wish to speak to the geologists first?”
“They can brief me on the way. I’m anxious to investigate the north shore.” He looked at his watch. “Though we might want to enjoy the show before shoving off.”
Two minutes later, the bunkhouse kitchen blew up, leveling the walls of the entire structure. The propane tank, which was nearly full of gas, exploded in a massive fireball that sent waves of orange flame skyward, its concussion rattling the windows on the ship. A few seconds later, the storage-building charge went off, blowing off the front door and crumbling the roof. The hillside charges were next, creating a tumbling landslide of rocks and boulders that poured onto the mangled roof. When a thick cloud of airborne dust finally settled, Zak could see that the entire building was pulverized under a layer of rock and rubble.
“Very effective,” mumbled the captain. “I guess we don’t need to worry about an American presence in the vicinity now.”
“Quite,” Zak replied in a tone of arrogant certainty.
60
The westerly winds whipped across Victoria Strait, kicking up whitecaps that washed over the sporadic chunks of floating ice. Forging through the dark waters, the bright turquoise NUMA ship appeared like a beacon in a colorless world. With the Royal Geographical Society Islands visible off its bow, the ship steamed slowly south into the first of Pitt’s search grids.
“Looks to be a vessel rounding the northwest coast,” the helmsman reported, eyeing the radarscope.
Captain Stenseth picked up a pair of binoculars and viewed a tandem pair of dots on the horizon.
“Probably an Asian freighter making an escorted attempt through the passage,” he said. He turned to Pitt, who was seated at the chart table studying a blueprint of the Franklin ships. “We’ll be approaching the finish line shortly. Any idea when your torpedo will pop up?”
Pitt glanced at his orange-faced Doxa dive watch. “She ought to surface within the next half hour.”
It proved to be twenty minutes later when one of the crewmen spotted the yellow AUV bobbing to the surface. Stenseth maneuvered the ship alongside, and the AUV was quickly hoisted aboard. Giordino removed its one-terabyte hard drive and hustled the data to a small viewing room, where a computer and projection system awaited.
“You headed to the movies?” Stenseth asked as Pitt stood up and stretched.
“Yes, the first of two rather long double features. You have a fix on the transponders?”
Stenseth nodded. “We’ll go grab them next. They’ve actually been pushed quite far along, due to the strong southerly current here. We will have to make a bit of a dash for them before they pile up on the island rocks.”
“I’ll tell Dahlgren to be standing by,” Pitt replied. “Then we can go grab fish number 2.”
Pitt made his way down to the darkened viewing room, where Giordino already had the sonar’s collected data displayed on the screen. A gold-colored image of the seafloor was scrolling by, revealing a largely flat but rocky bottom.
“A nice crisp image,” Pitt said, taking a seat next to Giordino.
“We boosted the frequency for a higher resolution,” Giordino explained. He handed Pitt a bowl of microwave popcorn. “But it still ain’t Casablanca, I’m afraid.”
“That’s okay. As long as we find something worth playing again, Sam.”
The two men sat back and stared at the screen as an endless swath of sea bottom began scrolling by.
61
The Zodiac pounded over the choppy swells, careening off small chunks of ice as a freezing mist sprayed into the air. The pilot kept the throttle open until approaching a wide expanse of unbroken ice that stretched from the shoreline. Finding a section with a sloping front edge, he drove the inflatable boat up and onto the sea ice. The hardened hull of the Zodiac slid several feet before mashing to a halt against a low knoll. Seated near the stern,
Zak waited for the geology team to exit the boat before he stepped out, following a guard carrying a hunting rifle whose sole job was to ward off any inquisitive bears.
“Pick us up a mile down the coast in exactly two hours,” Zak ordered the pilot, waving an arm to the west. Then he helped shove the Zodiac back into the water and watched as the rubber boat sped to the Otok, idling a half mile away.
Zak could have stayed in the warmth of his cabin, reading a biography of Wild Bill Hickok that he had brought along, but he feared the geologists would dawdle in the cold. What actually drove him ashore, he didn’t want to admit, was the disappointment he felt with their geological assessment of the Mid-America mining camp.
While it was hardly a surprise when they confirmed the rich ground content of zinc and iron on the south side of the island, he had expected that some trace elements of ruthenium might be present. But none were found. The geologists in fact found no evidence of any platinum-related elements in the exposed stratum.
It meant nothing, he assured himself, since he knew exactly where the ruthenium would be found. Digging into the pocket of his parka, he pulled out the journal pages that he had stolen from the Miners Co-op. In heavy charcoal was a hand-drawn circular diagram that clearly resembled West Island. A small X was marked on the northern shore of the island. At the top of the page, a different hand had written “Royal Geographical Society Islands” with a quill pen in a Victorian script. It was, according to an earlier page in the journal, the copied diagram of an Inuit map where the Adelaide seal hunters had obtained the ruthenium they oddly called Black Kobluna.
Zak matched the contours with a modern map of the islands and identified the targeted spot slightly west of their landing site.
“The mine should be a half mile or so down the coastline,” he announced after the group had hiked over the ice to a rock-covered beachfront. “Keep your eyes open.”
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