Fast Ice

by Clive Cussler

  “If we don’t do all of them, there’s no point,” he replied. “There won’t be enough heat.”

  “Paul Trout,” she snapped. “You are so damned stubborn. You know I’m right.”

  “The sooner we get this done,” he said, “the sooner we go back to the lodge and get a hot toddy.”

  “Fine,” she said. “One more try.”

  Paul dropped down and put his shoulder to the bottom of the pipe, forcing it upward and toward Gamay. Gamay grasped the connector and pulled, leaning back into it. It covered but wouldn’t slide into place.

  “A little more,” she urged.

  Paul shoved harder and Gamay put her weight against the top of the contraption, shoving it downward. This time, it locked into place.

  She stepped back, breathing hard but ecstatic. She turned to Paul, who offered a weak thumbs-up before he staggered backward and fell over into the snow.

  She raced to his side and dropped down next to him. His arms were limp and she could see through his goggles that his eyes had rolled back.

  “No, no, no,” she insisted. “Don’t you do this to me.”

  She had to get him inside. She stood up and dragged him unceremoniously by the arms. Reaching the sled that they’d used to bring out the sections of pipe, she rolled him onto it and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Don’t you die on me,” she said, taking up the strap reins. “Don’t you dare die.”

  With the strap diagonally across her chest, she leaned forward and began dragging Paul toward the habitat. She dug in with each step, working her legs like pistons.

  Her heart was pounding, her chest heaving, as she breathed the frigid air. She pushed forward, oblivious to the wind and the snow and the cold. Even though the whiteout made it almost impossible to see the habitat and the danger of getting lost was very real, she kept the trench in sight and plowed her way forward.

  After what felt like an eternity, the silhouette of the habitat finally appeared in the distance. Gamay kept moving, as even now it seemed so desperately far away.

  62

  ICE SHIP GOLIATH

  FIMBUL BAY

  Navigating the corridors of the ice ship was nothing like moving around in a regular vessel. To begin with, the spaces were vast. So vast, it was hard to tell if one was near the bow, stern or amidships. Or even if such terms mattered.

  The halls were long and angled. Every fifty feet, they turned slightly. The effect was such that one could look down a corridor in either direction and never see the end. Between the strange layout and dim lighting, it began to seem like a maze.

  Finally, Kurt and Joe reached an intersection. It led to a ship’s ladder that dropped them down another deck. They rounded a turn and continued dropping. Eight levels down, they heard footfalls.

  “Someone’s coming up,” Joe said.

  They stepped away from the stairwell and hid behind the nearest wall. Voices and boots on the metal steps’ rungs told them the men climbing upward were nearing their floor.

  Kurt poked his head out just as the two men made the turn to go up to the next level. Lunging forward, he grabbed both men from behind by their coveralls and heaved backward.

  The men tumbled off the stairs, landing on the metal deck. They popped up, cursing, only to see Joe holding the submachine gun on them.

  “Who are you?” one of the men asked. He had a mane of strawberry blond hair, a thin brown beard and a Norwegian accent. The coveralls had no rank or insignia on them, but they were stained with ball bearing grease.

  “I’m from the health department,” Kurt said. “I need to see the pump room. Care to show us where it is?”

  The two men set their jaws but stared at the weapons.

  “They’re not going to talk,” Kurt said. “Might as well kill them.”

  Joe raised the MP5.

  “Wait,” the Norwegian said. “We’ll show you.”

  With his hands raised above his head, he got to his feet. His partner followed suit and they turned back down the stairwell in the direction they’d just come.

  Kurt and Joe followed and the four of them descended another six levels.

  On the bottom deck, the Norwegian pointed down the corridor.

  “Go on,” Kurt said.

  The crewmen continued down the hall, with Kurt and Joe a few paces behind.

  “How many crew in the pump room?” Kurt asked their prisoner.

  “Five or six.”

  “Is it automated?”

  “Most of it.”

  Like any other ship, especially one this vast, there were markers and numbers to help the crew understand where they were. They stepped off the stairs and onto E-15—Deck 15, Section E. Unlike cruise ships, most merchant and military vessels were numbered from the main deck, up and down, so one deck above the main would be 1-A. Kurt, Joe and their prisoners were now fifteen decks below the main.

  “We’re underwater here,” Joe said.

  Kurt nodded. He estimated they’d been below the waterline for the last seven decks.

  Section E led to F and then to G.

  They passed multiple compartments and storage areas, finally arriving at a hatchway that read Pump Room.

  “After you,” Kurt said, nudging their prisoners forward with the barrel of the gun.

  The Norwegian pulled the door open and stepped inside. He’d just gone three paces when he shouted something and broke into a run. His friend lunged for Joe’s weapon but got a knee to the gut instead and fell to the floor.

  Kurt charged into the pump room, firing in the air and shouting at the top of his lungs, “Everyone on the floor. Facedown.”

  He triggered off several shots for emphasis. Activity ceased. The Norwegian man stopped running. One by one, the crew sat down in front of him.

  Joe dragged the other engineer into the room, tossed him to the ground and then dogged the hatch down tight. “We’re secure.”

  Kurt studied the captives. The six of them were from all over the world. Random selection or part of Ryland’s plan, Kurt didn’t know. One look told Kurt none of them were gunmen or killers. Not one had tried to fight. Even the Norwegian had run. It didn’t matter at this point. Kurt did wonder if any of them really knew what they’d become a part of.

  Joe tied them up using electrical tape and ropes they found. He even gagged them to keep them quiet.

  With the threat of resistance quelled, Kurt pulled off his coat. “Hot in here,” he said. “Unlike the rest of the ship.”

  “Steel all around,” Joe said, pointing out the walls. “Did you see how thick that hatch was? They’ve isolated this singular compartment from the rest of the ship. Probably dropped into the middle of the vessel as they built up the ice. Interesting way to construct a ship.”

  “Save it for your after report,” Kurt said. “What are we looking at?”

  Joe pointed to a bank of analog gauges, just beyond which stood huge levers and circular wheels designed to open and close various valves. To their right were several computer terminals.

  “These are all tied into the system,” Joe told Kurt. “Like the guy said, it’s all automated. The levers and manual valves and all the analog gauges are just here for backup. In case the computers go down.”

  Kurt moved to the computer terminal while keeping an eye on their prisoners. He motioned to Joe. “Can you see how much lake water they’ve taken on?”

  Joe tapped into the first terminal and began to click through various screens. He found a schematic showing the diamond-shaped vessel and the vast areas of the ship given over to storage.

  “The tanks are at forty-nine percent and rising,” Joe said. “They’re halfway to the top. Even if we shut this down now, Ryland has fifty million gallons of lake water on board. That’s five times what the Exxon Valdez spilled when it ran aground off the coast of Alaska.
”

  Kurt took the grim news without reaction. Twenty million gallons, sixty million gallons—it didn’t really matter. It was enough to wreak havoc on the world’s climate. That being the case, Kurt couldn’t allow it to leave the bay.

  63

  PUMPING STATION, BASE ZERO

  Yvonne’s foreman had done his job well. He’d sent the members of her security team up to the surface and used the time to prepare a final line of defense in the subterranean station.

  In a way, Yvonne had prepared them for this. She’d warned them from day one that they’d be attacked. She’d instilled in all those who followed her the idea that the wealthy and the powerful nations of the world would do everything they could to prevent the change she and Ryland were trying to bring about. And she’d steeled everyone to the sobering truth that they might very well have to sacrifice their lives to bring about this change.

  The foreman had no doubt that Yvonne and her team had done just that. And, soon enough, it would be his turn. There was no way out for him now. No way back to the surface short of someone digging him out and that would mean capture or death.

  He would die at his post, he decided. But not until my job is done.

  He continued monitoring the flow of lake water, unnerved only slightly by the sound of cracking and shifting ice around him. He figured it was settling just in the collapsed hallway. But with each additional rumble, that certainty fell away.

  Having checked the passageway and finding it utterly impassable, he came back to the control room, where the hum of the turbine and the soft heartbeat of the steam engine comforted him. Checking the computer panel, he saw that the backflow pressure had risen in the steam pipes, but not to a level that was dangerous.

  He looked for a problem in the steam engine setup and found nothing.

  Perplexed, he continued to stare at the screen until a large drop of water splattered on it from above. He looked up.

  The ceiling was weeping. It had water clinging to it that had begun dripping here and there. Pear-shaped dollops fell next to him while other drops hissed as they came in contact with the hot machinery.

  Another drop hit the computer. A third landed on his shoulder. He caught a fourth drop in his outstretched palm. To his surprise, it was warm, not cold.

  Turning back to his computer, he wiped the screen and checked the temperature. Heat in the cavern was a problem—and it always had been—but the cooling mesh attached to the walls and ceiling was supposed to whisk it away. The resin applied to the layer of ice was supposed to insulate it to prevent the heat from being given off.

  Clicking through a dozen temperature readings, he saw that the situation was contained. The cavern was the same temperature it had been for hours, a fact that would have assuaged his fears had not the dripping become more steady and grown louder.

  “This makes no sense,” the foreman said, double-checking the refrigeration system only to find it working at maximum capacity.

  Without warning, a crack opened up above him and a chunk of ice fell from the ceiling. It shattered as it hit the floor while water began to pour in a constant stream through the opening it left behind.

  The foreman moved out of the way, dragging the workstation with him and desperately seeking an answer. He tapped away at the computer as more cracks appeared and the existing one widened.

  Another crack slithered across the ceiling. A desk-sized chunk of ice broke away, again crashing to the floor, and pulled half the cooling mesh down with it. The mesh collapsed like a net, piling up in a heap on the floor, as a waterfall cascaded through the ice.

  Now steam began filling the room, some of it from water hitting the hot machinery, the rest bursting through fissures above him.

  More ice fell, coming down here and there like boulders dropped from the sky. The workstation was smashed, the turbine housing and other equipment dented and damaged.

  The foreman dove to avoid being laid out by a hundred-pound chunk that seemed to take aim at his head.

  He hit the floor and slid face-first, as the ice was now slick under an inch of water. Getting to his feet, he heard the largest displacement yet. He looked up. The center of the ceiling was bulging. Jagged fractures were spreading around it in all directions. “No,” he shouted. “This can’t be.”

  All at once, the ceiling gave way.

  Tons of ice and snow dropped straight down. A thousand gallons of meltwater surged into the cavern along with it. The turbine was knocked from its cradle, the pipework mangled and wrenched apart. The foreman was swept aside by the wave of water and ice and snow.

  It threw him against a wall just as the rest of the ice fell—a thousand tons of it—crushing and burying everything in its path.

  * * *

  —

  Eighty miles away, on the bridge of the Goliath, Ryland and Ober noticed the pressure drop immediately.

  “Sensors going green to yellow up the line from us,” Ober said. “All the way back to the pumping station at Base Zero.”

  Ryland stared at the monitor. Virtual, real-time gauges that measured the pressure along the way showed water velocity and volume dropping. Tension ripped across Ryland’s body. “Can we compensate for the drop on our end?”

  Ober checked the status of their own turbine. He shook his head. “We’re already at full power.”

  He turned to the Goliath’s captain. “Have you been able to reach anyone at Base Zero?”

  The captain shook his head. “No response. Nothing from Yvonne.”

  Ryland found himself gripping the edge of the monitor in frustration. His knuckles were turning white. The pressure distorting the edge of the screen. “It has to be NUMA,” he whispered. “Damn them.”

  The captain offered a suggestion. “We could send a team to—”

  Ryland cut him off. “There’s no point. It’s too far. And remaining here is now too dangerous.”

  “But Yvonne—”

  “Is dead,” Ryland snapped. “Or in NUMA’s hands, which would be far worse.”

  “It could be anything,” Ober said calmly. “These turbines are temperamental. They may have had to shut down to reset. Give us a few minutes to see if they come back online.”

  “No,” Ryland said. “Look at the screen. Water volume is zero. We’re sucking on an empty straw. It’s not the turbine. They’ve cut off the supply somehow.”

  Ober turned back toward the monitor, his face a shade paler. Ryland waited for him. Finally, Ober nodded. “You’re right. The line has either been blocked or cut off. But it’s not a problem in the tunnel. It’s back at Base Zero.”

  “NUMA,” Ryland said under his breath. “It has to be.” He turned to the captain. “Fire up the engines and cut the lines. Don’t even bother to bring them back in. I want this ship under way as soon as possible.”

  * * *

  —

  The rumbling of the massive diesel engines could be felt throughout the ship, especially belowdecks in the pump room, which was only two compartments over from the engine room.

  “We’ve run out of time,” Kurt said.

  “The tanks are at fifty-one percent,” Joe said. “They can’t be leaving now.”

  The ship’s intercom began to squawk. “Departure imminent,” a voice said. “Shut off acquisition pump and detach umbilical.”

  Kurt looked at Joe, who nodded. He could do it. He pressed the talk button. “Understood,” he said in a clipped voice. “Pump room out.”

  Joe found the controls. “We could leave acquisition lines attached?”

  “It would just bring them running down here to find out what went wrong,” Kurt said. “Cut it loose.”

  Joe disconnected the umbilical cord tying the ship to the mouth of the tunnel. He closed the valves one by one and shut off the pumps. “Can’t imagine why they’re leaving early,” he said. “Once this ship gets
under way, it’s going to be impossible to stop.”

  Kurt knew that. He was considering the options. They ran the whole gamut, from long shot to impossible.

  The obvious option was breaking into the engine room and sabotaging the ship’s propulsion system. But they wouldn’t be able to hold it for long. And large diesel engines were notoriously robust. Any damage he and Joe might cause would be easy to fix once Ryland’s private soldiers had stormed in and taken the compartment back.

  At best, they’d get themselves killed in exchange for a brief delay in the ship’s departure. Not exactly a fair trade.

  He needed a better idea. “This ship is made of thick ice,” he said, thinking aloud. “Not thin steel. That ice makes it all but impervious from the outside yet also gives it odd sailing properties. It’s naturally top-heavy. Worse than the Grishka with all that frost on the superstructure.”

  “Sure,” Joe said. “But it’s got a wide hull with a lot of stability. It’s drawing eighty feet of water. That’s going to make it more stable.”

  “Except unlike a ship made of steel plates that would sink if disconnected from the hull, every portion of this ship would float on its own. Every slab of ice making up the hull is lighter and less dense than the water around it. From a physical standpoint, every part of the underside of this ship would prefer to be on the surface. That makes the ship unstable dynamically.”

  A gleam appeared in Joe’s eye. He could see where Kurt was going. “Icebergs roll over all the time,” he said. “Once enough of the underside is worn away, they capsize like eggs trying to stand on the pointy end. But you’re forgetting one thing. Sixty million gallons of lake water. Those half-filled tanks are enough to weigh the ship down and stabilize it.”

  “Not if you transfer all of them to one side.”

  Joe’s eyebrows went up and a grin appeared on his face. “Now you’re making sense.”

  “Can you do it from here?”

  “And nowhere else but here,” Joe said confidently. “We’ve got cross-feed lines and high-pressure pumps. If I use the manual override, they won’t be able to turn them off from the bridge. Or anywhere else. But if they notice, they might come down to investigate.”