Fast Ice

by Clive Cussler

  59

  BASE ZERO

  Gamay sat at the table Yvonne had once occupied. She stared at the same computer, monitoring the same flow of water through the tunnel bored in the ice.

  She turned to Paul, who remained on the bedroll with his injured leg elevated. “The water in the tunnel has gone past the final sensor. If this is accurate, it’s already pouring into the sea.”

  Paul had the satellite phone with him. He’d been trying to reach Rudi through the storm but to no avail. “Either Kurt and Joe didn’t get there or they’ve made it and haven’t been able to do anything about it. Odds are that station is going to be as well defended as this one.”

  Gamay knew that but there was little she could do about it. She had a more immediate concern. Paul’s voice was strained. He didn’t sound like himself. Gamay came over to check on him. The new gauze was bloody but not soaked. Still, he’d lost a fair amount of blood. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “Good luck finding one,” Paul said. “Even if we could reach Rudi, there’s no way to get a helicopter through this storm.”

  The sun had risen on a whiteout in the making. Wind-driven snow had cut visibility to a hundred feet or less. And it wasn’t just the snow coming down from the sky, it was being whipped up off the surface like dust and streaming in places like smoke. Already the changing direction of the wind was scouring away drifts that had formed overnight.

  “We don’t have to get you back to the mainland,” Gamay said. “A ship or a manned scientific station where they have a medical officer would do just fine.”

  “I already looked,” Paul said. “The nearest outpost is an Indian science station two hundred miles to the west of us with a mountain range in between. That’s too far to walk.”

  She knew he was right, but she hated feeling powerless. “You know I’d rather be the one who got shot, right?”

  “So I could worry?” Paul said. “No thank you. Relax, I’m going to be fine. Our real concern should be helping Kurt and Joe if we can.”

  “They’re eighty miles away, Paul. It’s out of our hands now.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he said. “I’ve been thinking. We should make another attempt to disable that pumping station. Kurt and Joe may not make it to the coast or they may get there and find a platoon of Ryland’s people guarding whatever they find there. We can’t count on them pulling this off, which means we have to try again, back here.”

  “What can we do?” Gamay said. “Our explosives are all used up, the shaft to the pumping station is sealed off by a hundred tons of ice and we have nothing we can use to cut through that.”

  “We need nothing,” he said. “Yvonne and her people left plenty of equipment lying around. There’s a drilling rig out there with a half mile of pipe stacked up beside it. There are cutting tools and welding torches in storage, where we found these mats. There are hammers, shovels and everything else they used to set up these modules.”

  “That drilling rig looks like an ice sculpture,” she reminded him. “It’s frozen solid.”

  He propped himself up on his elbows. “The pipe isn’t.”

  “And what, exactly, are we going to do with it?”

  “We could capture the heat and steam pouring from the exhaust ports and use it to tunnel through the ice the way Yvonne and her people did.”

  Gamay raised a finger, primed to shut down any idea that would put her husband at risk, especially as it all seemed pointless. Yet before the words left her mouth, she realized the idea had merit. “You forget that pipe is big and heavy.”

  “What about those pipes,” he said, nodding toward the ceiling.

  Gamay looked up. Running along the ceiling were thick PVC pipes. She’d seen lengths of it stacked vertically in another room. Yvonne and her people had used it for water and warm air circulation. While the PVC would get brittle in the cold, the heat from the steam would keep it from cracking.

  “If we funnel the steam from all four exhaust ports into one pipe and then angle that pipe downward,” he said, “that would give us a high-temperature knife that would slowly cut through the glacier, melting its way through to the pumping station down below.”

  * * *

  —

  Ten thousand miles away, Rudi was staring at the large screen in the front of the room. It displayed two satellite photos side by side. One was crystal clear, the other blurred by fog or clouds.

  Garland pointed at the images. “The first one is from a NASA glacier study done ten weeks ago. The second is our satellite pass made just before the storm came through. Hiram has normalized the photos so they’re of the exact same scale and angle.”

  Yaeger nodded. “I’ve pulled out the cloud layer and had the computer scan for discrepancies. Here’s the result.”

  He touched a button and the photos synced up as the clouds were stripped away.

  “Zoom in on the end of the pipeline,” Rudi ordered.

  “Stand by,” Yaeger said.

  The frame tightened and compressed, zooming in closer and closer to the target zone.

  The truth was easy to see. In the NASA photo, the terminal moraine of the glacier stretched across the screen, from one side to the other, with only the tiniest icebergs and growlers appearing in the dark water beyond. In the NUMA photo, an irregular diamond-shaped iceberg sat at the very end of the glacier.

  The radar return had painted it as ice, which it was. Its absence in the earlier photograph gave it away.

  “It doesn’t look much like a ship,” Rudi said. “If the point is to disguise it—”

  “The computer thinks it’s an iceberg calved from the glacier,” Yaeger said. “If something that large broke off the glacier, it would leave a mark. There’s no mark.”

  “That’s our ship,” Rudi said. He had no doubt. Its position matched up too closely with the far end of the pipeline for it to be anything else.

  “If it is, it’s a huge one,” Garland said. “Eighteen hundred feet in length, three hundred feet wide amidships.”

  Yaeger agreed. “Joe said ‘aircraft carrier size or larger.’ He was right on target. Now, what do we do about it?”

  Rudi’s euphoria gave way to reality. He’d already spoken to the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations. While they had ships, submarines and planes scouring the seas for Liang’s tankers, there were no combat units within six thousand miles of the Antarctic coast.

  The nearest surface vessels were in the Indian Ocean. Any of those ships would take five days at flank speed to reach an intercept position. That would be five days too late.

  “We send the information to Kurt and Joe,” he said. “And hope they can stop this thing from ever leaving port.”

  60

  Kurt and Joe crouched down and gazed over the edge of the glacier. Ahead of them lay what appeared to be a large iceberg. It was covered with ridges and swales and jagged peaks, just like every iceberg Kurt had ever seen. It appeared to be crumbling on top and eroding on the near side where the sea lapped against it. With the snow still falling, the visibility was such that he couldn’t even see the far end of the vessel.

  “So, that’s a ship?” Kurt asked, studying the contours through a pair of binoculars.

  “According to Rudi,” Joe said. “Do you think they’ve started filling their tanks?”

  Kurt glanced at his watch and nodded. Despite the snow racer running downwind, the trip had taken three hours. Terrain, and caution, had slowed them. The flow of water had almost certainly beat them to the finish line, but it couldn’t have been by much. “How long does a supertanker need to top off?”

  “Eight to ten hours,” Joe said. “With crude oil, you have to go slow. You have to stop and vent the tanks from time to time to avoid buildup of explosive gases. You have viscosity issues, too. Even light crude is relatively thick. Ryland is filling
this thing with lake water and he’s using a larger pump, at higher pressure. Even if this vessel is as big as Rudi says it is, back-of-envelope calculations say four or five hours to fill it.”

  Kurt would put Joe’s back-of-envelope calculations up against a computer from MIT any day. “That means he’s at least a third of the way home.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Stop the pumps like we planned,” Kurt said. “And keep this ship from leaving port. If it’s stranded in the bay, it can’t spread the algae beyond it.”

  “In that case, we’re going to need a way to get aboard,” Joe said. He pointed downslope and to the left. “How about the mooring lines?”

  Kurt raised the binoculars again and aimed them in the direction Joe had pointed. The lines were hard to see through the blowing snow, but once Kurt spotted them they couldn’t be missed. A half-dozen heavy lines, stretching from the ice ship to a forest of large bollards that had been drilled into the glacier in various places.

  Even though the lines were frozen over with ice and snow and pulled taut, they held against the wind, which was blowing out to sea.

  Scanning back in the other direction, Kurt found a second collection of four lines. Farther on, he spied a third that looked like another six-pack.

  “They’ve docked her Mediterranean-style,” Kurt said, referring to the method of mooring a ship with its stern against the dock and its bow outward.

  “They must want to make a quick getaway,” Joe said.

  Kurt slid the binoculars back into an outside pocket of his jacket. “Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  They backtracked to the snow racer and traded their expedition jackets for the cold-weather gear they’d taken from the Base Zero locker.

  “Glad you brought these,” Kurt said.

  “Might as well look like we belong,” Joe said.

  Dressed this way, they made their way downslope and took cover behind an outcropping of ice near the first mooring lines.

  The lines, three inches in diameter, were thick and heavy. They were attached to the sturdy bollards that had been drilled into the ice. The bollards were as thick as telephone poles, but much shorter, and topped with mushroom-shaped caps that would keep lines from slipping off.

  As Kurt and Joe watched, several crewmen from the ice ship came across a gangplank and approached the closest bollard. These men checked the lines and, after a brief discussion, made a radio call to someone before moving off toward the second bollard farther on.

  Kurt watched until they vanished in the snowstorm. “Now’s our chance. Follow me.”

  Kurt picked his way down to the very edge of the glacier. An eighty-foot drop into freezing water awaited if he took one wrong step.

  By now, they were below what Kurt would have called the ship’s main deck. It loomed above them, jutting out across the water with a large overhang from what was the lower hull of the ship.

  “Impressive freeboard,” Joe said. “You’d need a monster wave to splash that deck.”

  Kurt was looking up. The overhang was at least thirty feet above their heads. The flight deck of an American aircraft carrier cleared the water by about sixty feet. The main deck of the ice ship rose nearly twice that height. “It’ll be a lot lower once they’ve filled their tanks to the stops.”

  “True,” Joe said. “Now, about your plan to get on board. I assume we’re sneaking aboard like rats.”

  Kurt nodded.

  The mooring lines stretched from the bollards on the glacier across the water and down to the ice ship. They vanished through a wide gap, secured inside to hidden cleats and anchors.

  Studying the opening, Kurt saw nothing to suggest anyone was standing inside. “No one home.”

  He ducked under the first two lines and then climbed up toward a third line that had been attached at a higher point on the ice. Pulling the MP5 from under his coat, he disconnected its strap and then stuffed the weapon back into his jacket. He took the strap, looped it over the mooring line and then twisted the two ends around his wrists. Gripping the strap tightly, Kurt pushed forward, leaping off the end of the glacier and sliding down the angled line to the vessel.

  He picked up speed as he went, the icy synthetic cable proving almost frictionless. It took only seconds to cross the gap, with Kurt raising his legs as he approached the ship, using them as shock absorbers to cushion the impact when he reached the hull.

  Hanging suspended just below the opening where the mooring line went in, Kurt dug the spiked tread of his boots into the hull, pulled himself up, and clawed his way into the gap. To get to the compartment beyond required him to crawl across ten feet of ice, which acted as the outer hull of the ship. It was impressive and strange all at the same time.

  Reaching the inner hull, Kurt dropped to the deck and glanced around. He was alone in the compartment, which was the size of a five-car garage. Heavy gearing connected to a powerful winch system gripped the outgoing lines.

  Turning back to the outside, he saw Joe come down the mooring line and climb inside.

  “That was easy enough,” Joe said. “Do you think anyone saw us?”

  “I don’t see any windows for people to watch from,” Kurt said. “Even if there were, someone would have had to have been looking at exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Add in the blowing snow and the monotony of staring at a blank white canvas and I like our odds. Now all we have to do is find our way to the pump room.”

  “Lead on,” Joe said.

  Kurt got up out of his crouch and made his way to the inner wall, which was made of steel. A hatchway in the wall awaited. Kurt leaned on the handle and was able to pull it open. Inside stretched a gloomy hallway lit only every thirty feet by a few LEDs.

  “Someone forgot to pay the electric bill,” Joe said.

  Kurt stepped into the corridor, happy to be in semidarkness. “They must be conserving power, trying to keep the ship cold or save all the juice for the pumps. Either way, this plays to our advantage.”

  “Which way do we go?” Joe asked.

  “Inward and down,” Kurt said. “Pumps are heavy machinery. They’ll be on the bottom deck.”

  “In that case,” Joe said, “let’s find a ladder to take us there.”

  61

  BASE ZERO

  Gamay leaned into the wind, dragging a sled through the snow like a plow horse. She stopped only as she neared the ruined entryway to the pumping station.

  The bodies of the men who’d been killed there were now buried under mounds of snow. But the four exhaust ports continued blasting heated vapor into the air.

  Throwing off the strap, Gamay found herself sweating from the effort. She backtracked to the sled and lifted the first section of pipe she and Paul had cut and melted together. She dragged it to the nearest vent and then laid it down. Three more sections were given similar treatment.

  As the last one landed, Gamay rested, breathing hard and waiting for Paul, who was limping toward her on the snowy surface.

  As he came within earshot, Gamay announced a unilateral decision. “When we get back to civilization, you’re in charge of throwing the garbage out,” she said. “For the rest of our lives.”

  “Gladly,” Paul said, moving up awkwardly next to her. “Let’s link this up and get back inside. I’m freezing.”

  With the blood he’d lost, Paul shouldn’t have been out in the elements, but he’d refused to remain in the shelter. He had insisted it would take both of them working together to fit the network of pipes together and lower them into place. Even if she did most of the heavy lifting, a second pair of hands and arms would be crucial.

  Girding herself for the effort, Gamay took several deep breaths and dragged the largest section of pipe over into position. It was made up of a curved section that would fit over the exhaust port and a long length of PVC pipe that would c
hannel the superheated steam to a new destination. Each of the exhaust pipes would get a similar section fitted over the top and they would then all meet in the middle, where a makeshift connector in the shape of an X would link all four exhaust streams together and direct the boiling vapor downward.

  Despite being made of plastic and only five inches in diameter, each section of PVC pipe weighed more than a hundred pounds. Lifting and moving it without breaking the improvised connections took leverage and patience. Gamay knew the seams would never pass inspection, but she felt they would hold as long as needed here.

  With Paul’s help, she fitted the PVC pipe into the X, then they lifted the first curved section over the nearest exhaust stack. It was awkward and strenuous work because of the length and weight of the now interlocked contraption, but they had to do it in this order or otherwise they’d be trying to connect the X while scalding steam was blasting out of the pipes onto their hands.

  The second curved section went on easier. The third was more difficult and the fourth a serious problem.

  Gamay heaved and pulled, trying to get the plastic pipe to cover the steel exhaust stack. No matter how hard she tried, it wouldn’t line up.

  “It’s no good,” she said, looking over at Paul, who was now shaking.

  “I’ll help you,” Paul said, limping her way. “I’ll heave, you pull.”

  If Paul could have seen her face through the balaclava, he would have known instantly what she thought of that plan.

  He got into position and pushed upward. Gamay pulled with all her might, but they could move the section only so far. The two ends still would not slot together.

  Paul slipped when the weight became too much. As he got back up off the ground, Gamay noticed a bright stain of blood on the snow.

  “Paul.”

  “I know,” he replied. “Let’s just hurry.”

  “Three is enough,” she replied, pointing to the steam surging out from underneath the X. A vast curtain of fog was forming, the ice already melting beneath it.