The Alex Cave Series. Books 1, 2, & 3.: Box set

by James M. Corkill

  Alex looked at the shuffleboard table for a moment, then walked over and picked up the chromed steel disk with a colored plastic top. When he held it flat between his thumb and first finger, it resembled something he had seen before. He held it out for Okana to see. “Remember this shape and let’s go outside so we can talk without interruption.”

  Outside, on the stern, near the post, Alex told Okana about the Dead Energy operation. “These devices were never meant to be in the water. I just hope we can retrieve them before it’s too late.”

  “Mike left the Discovery in place after he talked to Donner. Donner told him he will have his experts on the Discovery by late this morning, so they’re probably there by now.”

  Alex looked out over the water, admiring the setting sun painting the clouds in beautiful pastel colors. Alex wished he could take the time to truly enjoy them.

  “Do you know how many stops we’ll make along the way?”

  “No. I didn’t think about it, but I can find out easy enough.”

  Alex turned away from the water. “I smell food.”

  “Josh is making something special for his girl. Let’s go inside and we can ask Mike about where we’ll stop for supplies.”

  Alex thought about how much he should tell everyone. “We need to play dumb about where the devices came from. For now, all anyone needs to know is that they need to be recovered.”

  “I’m with you.”

  Alex and Okana entered the lounge, the only person missing was Harrison, who was on the bridge monitoring the automated controls. The dinner conversations were lighthearted and Bartram gulped down a mountain of food before leaving to relieve Harrison on the bridge. After the delicious meal and clean up, Bett and Joshua disappeared, and Alex and Okana sat at the table with Mike, Lisa, Dieter, and Rita, to discuss the trip.

  Alex explained his plan. “I have a contact at the CHARS station in Northeast Canada trying to give me a location for the search. That’s why I asked for your assistance, Mike. We may need your sub to look under the ice.”

  “Ah, shit!” Harrison exclaimed as he carried a plate of food to the table and sat down. “I hate the cold.”

  Mike looked around the table. “Then our first stop is Seward, Alaska. I need you to come ashore so I can buy you some cold weather gear.” He looked at Dieter. “What do you think, John?”

  “We should stop in Prince Rupert, Canada instead. Seward will take us too far north, and we could be in Rupert early tomorrow morning. We will top off our fuel and supplies, and from there, we can make it through the Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea. We can top off the fuel again in Burrow, Alaska, if necessary.”

  Alex stood. “I appreciate this, Mike. I need to make a few calls.”

  Alex left the room and descended the stairs to his cabin. This far from shore his cellphone would be useless, so he grabbed the satellite phone from his bag and carried it up to the stern of the ship.

  His first call was to retrieve messages from his I-phone voicemail. The only message was from Wesley, he was worried about something. He entered the speed dial number, and Wesley answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, Wesley. This is Alex.”

  “Hey, Alex, I didn’t recognize the number, but I figured it was you. I’m glad you called. That lady from the park called a little while ago. My mountain is starting to show more activity.”

  “How bad?”

  “A new hot spring in one of the campgrounds. I’ll look around tomorrow.”

  “Okay. You’ll have to use this number for a while. Tomorrow I’ll be in Prince Rupert. We’re going to pick up supplies and then leave for the Arctic, so I won’t have cellphone service.”

  “Any chance you can get me some current satellite images of Mount Baker?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks. How’d it go in Nevada?”

  “It’s not good. There are four of those devices. So far, only two have been activated that we know about. The only way to stop them is to get one to the surface. Hopefully the one in the pacific will remain dormant until they recover it.”

  “And the one in the Arctic?”

  “It will be impossible to find unless Sonja and her team can get a more precise location.”

  “I see. Until tomorrow then.”

  Alex made a call to a friend at NASA and arranged to have current satellite images of Mount Baker faxed to Wesley. He turned off the phone and put it in his pocket, then stared across the water. He was worried about Derek and Kristy, and his father, of course. Derek was a smart young man, and he was confident Derek would take care of his family. Still, he hoped the activity on the mountain would not get any worse and put Derek in a precarious situation. He felt exhausted and decided to call it a night.

  *

  Dieter stared down at Cave from the bridge and waited until he walked inside, then grabbed the satellite phone they kept on the bridge and entered a number. He was alone on watch, and listened carefully for someone coming up the inside stairs to the bridge. A moment later, someone answered the phone. “This is Dieter. I had to change the plan. We will be in Prince Rupert tomorrow morning, so find out where Blacktooth would like to meet. I will meet you at your shop first, so have the money ready.” He set the phone in its storage bracket and stared through the front window. You are making things very complicated for me, Professor, he thought.

  * * *

  Chapter 18

  60 MILES WEST OF VANCOUVER ISLAND:

  It was his first time in a helicopter and Henry Heinz found it exhilarating as he approached a large white ship, alone in the vast expanse of ocean. From above, the Discovery was sleek in design, with a square stern and two decks above the water line. The ship was very odd looking, he thought. It had a twenty-foot-diameter hole down through the center of the ship, near the stern, and the top of the ship was a florescent orange color.

  As the helicopter approached, he admired the large, swept back, tinted windows for the bridge which wrapped around the bow and continued along both sides of the four-hundred-foot-long main deck, stopping forty-feet from the stern.

  Carl Gregory brought the helicopter over the top of the ship to land, and Henry saw the reason it was orange. A twenty-foot-tall, white metal railing wrapped around the open, one-hundred-foot-wide top deck. Inside the railing were long rows of flat orange hose. The hose was stacked twenty-feet-high, starting at the bow, above the bridge, and ending at the edge of the open hole. Past the hole, near the stern, was a large flat area with a black ‘H’ painted on the grey deck.

  Henry’s hands tightened on the armrests as Carl gently set the helicopter down on the H and he waited for Carl to tell him what to do next.

  Carl shut everything down and took off his headset. “I’ll take you down to meet everyone, Doctor. Follow me.”

  When Henry stepped down onto the ship, he stopped and looked out over the water. The air smelled so clean compared to the mainland in Bellingham, it was amazing. Now that he was actually here, the enormity of his task became real, and his heart rate increased, knowing he was responsible for the success of this mission.

  Carl stepped past Henry, retrieved his suitcase from between the back seats, then grinned at Henry’s expression. “Is this your first time on a ship, Doctor?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I live in Nevada.”

  Carl grinned and moved away. “This way, Doctor.”

  Henry followed Carl across the platform, to the handrail rising out of the deck, and then down the stairs to the main deck. When he saw the huge open area, he stopped to look around. The open area was enclosed on three sides, with the stern open to the sea and only a removable chain railing to keep someone from falling into the water. Straight ahead was an odd-looking fifteen-foot submarine without any windows. Two massive mechanical arms were folded back along its sides and a row of lights curved around one end. He looked up at the round opening in the roof he had seen when they landed, and then over at the handrail around the matching opening in the
deck, down into the water.

  Carl was kind enough to wait while he looked around, and then Henry followed him around the right side of the hole in the deck, past a large glass window in the forward wall. Just past the window, they turned right, through white double doors into the middle of the ship. They continued through a long hallway with doors on both sides labeled with numbers and nameplates.

  Carl held up the suitcase and indicated an open doorway labeled, CONFERENCE ROOM.

  “I’ll make sure this gets to your cabin, Doctor.”

  “Thank you, Carl. It was a very enjoyable ride.”

  Henry looked into the room, where a number of people had gathered already. As he entered, the ship’s Captain, a burly man with curly white hair, smiled and walked over to shake his hand.

  “Welcome aboard, Doctor Heinz. I’m Captain Paul Jordon. Let me introduce your fellow scientists. This is Doctor Victor Hugo, a marine engineer from the California Institute of Technology.”

  Henry looked up at a slender man with a gray goatee and no hair, and reached out to shake his hand. However, Victor did not smile and his handshake was limp and brief.

  Victor crossed his arms and looked down at the little man Director Donner had sent to help him with the recovery. “I have a laboratory waiting, Doctor Heinz, so when you’re through with the pleasantries, we have to get started.”

  Henry wasn’t sure what to make of Victor, and then a small woman with gray hair tied back in a bun, smiled and held out her hand.

  “Welcome aboard, Dr. Heinz. I’m Janice Shepard.” When her hand touched Henry’s, Janice suddenly felt flushed and sensed her heart rate increase. She had never cared for tall men, and Henry was only five-foot-six, an inch taller than she was. He looked to be about the same age as she was, too, about his mid to late sixties.

  “Please, call me Henry, and it is nice to meet you too, Janice.”

  Victor turned and walked toward the door. “Time to go to work,” he barked over his shoulder.

  Henry followed Janice and Victor back along the hallway, toward the stern, and Victor went through the last door on the left, where he had seen the large window. Janice grabbed his arm and pulled him through the white double doors to the stern deck, and over to the railing to look down into the hole.

  “This is where they lower the equipment to the ocean floor. Look up, behind us.” She turned and pointed at the opening in the roof, and the flat rows of orange tubing curved back onto the top deck.

  “I noticed those tubes when we made our approach.”

  “Victor and I arrived earlier this afternoon, and the Captain gave us a grand tour and explained what the Discovery does in Mister Tanner’s research company.”

  “And what is the purpose of the orange hose?”

  “It’s a flexible tube rolled around something similar to a giant conveyor belt. They have enough tubing to reach a depth of five-thousand-feet. They use it as a guide for the drilling and optical cables, and it will be attached to a large steel base anchored on the seafloor. We better get going. Victor isn’t a patient man.”

  Henry turned and could see Victor through the thick glass window on the right side of the doors. He was confused about Victor being in charge. The man does not have a clue what he is dealing with, he thought. The most important thing about this operation is to be cautious. He decided that, for now, he would just see how things would go, but if Victor tried to rush things, he would talk to Director Donner about it.

  He followed Janice through the double doors and stopped at the first door on the right. The name plate read, OBSERVATION, not laboratory. Inside the room were several computers, monitors, and video screens with numbers for specific cameras.

  Victor uncrossed his arms when Henry and Janice finally walked in. He had no idea who this Heinz person was or his specialty, and he did not like it. “Are you done with the tour, Janice?”

  “Bite me, Victor.”

  Henry’s mouth opened slightly. Janice appeared so innocent, he thought.

  Janice smiled at Henry’s expression and took his arm. “Come over here and have a seat, Henry. I’ll show you the recordings of what we’re up against.”

  “Of course.” He sat in a swivel chair in front of a video screen, and Janice and Victor rolled their chairs over to sit on either side of him. “You did not tell me your occupation, Janice.”

  “I work for the Environmental Protection Agency, as a chemical specialist, but I tinker with resonate frequencies as a hobby. From what little Director Donner told me, I guess both my skills are needed. My priority is the safe removal of the methane and the pollutants mixed in with it. Once we start melting the ice beneath it, all that material will rise, expand into a gas, and enter the atmosphere within twenty minutes. The environmental consequences will be significant. Our current global warming situation is bad enough, but if we allow this amount of pollutants to reach the surface, it could be enough to put us past the point of no return. The air is foul enough already.”

  Henry watched the recordings while Janice explained what he was seeing. “Have you determined the composition of that dark material?”

  “Nothing definitive. We do know it resembles tiny carbon crystals similar to diamonds.”

  When the magnified view of the grey cylinder appeared on the screen, Victor pressed pause. “We know that device melts and freezes the water very quickly, but nothing else. Director Donner told me you would tell us why it’s doing that.”

  Henry told them about how they operate. “What ideas have you discussed so far?”

  Janice leaned back and crossed her arms. “None that will work.”

  Henry noticed something missing in the recordings. “Does that dark area cover the entire under surface of the methane hydride?”

  Janice glanced over at Victor and back to Henry. “We don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait for Celeas to go down and take a closer look. What’s on your mind?”

  Henry swiveled his chair to face her. “Who is Celeas?”

  “She’s an un-manned underwater robot. You probably saw her when you arrived.”

  “Yes. Un-manned, you say? That is incredible. I was thinking that dark material could indicate a place to sever the two types of ice.”

  “Maybe. We know it was difficult to drill through. It’s an interesting idea.”

  Victor stood and leaned back against the thick window. “The pressure at that depth is enough to keep it frozen, and we know it’s the extreme cold of the clear ice that’s keeping them together so it doesn’t drift away.”

  Janice stood. “That’s all we know for now. Let’s get you settled into your cabin and we’ll talk more about how to recover this device over dinner.”

  Henry stood and held his elbow out. “After you, Janice.”

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  9:00 AM. PRINCE RUPERT, CANADA:

  Alex stood at the open railing behind the bridge, watching Harrison and Bartram setting the motorboat into the water. The morning air was cool as he stared across the water at the fishing wharf across the harbor. The warmer temperature of the water was starting to affect the fish populations, and if something didn’t change, the industry would collapse. Breeding farms for different species were still experimental and only a few species were hearty enough to live in captivity.

  They had topped off the Mystic’s fuel tanks two hours ago and Captain Dieter had moved her away from the fuel pier into the harbor. The Mystic was maintaining a position two-hundred-feet from the floating dock as if anchored, using the thrusters controlled by the computer. The stores were beginning to open and they would go ashore when the motorboat was ready.

  Alex turned when he heard someone approaching and smiled when Lisa walked up to the railing beside him. “Good morning.”

  Lisa smiled and handed Alex a cup of coffee. “I thought you might like something warm.”

  He took a sip, then grinned and lightly shook his head as he gave it back to her. “Thanks anyway.”

  Lisa fro
wned. “Okana said you like four spoons of sugar in your coffee.”

  “I like it black.”

  Lisa laughed at the joke. “I’ll get you another one.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Lisa looked down at the activity on deck. “You left early last night.”

  “It was a long day.”

  “When I was on the Discovery yesterday, I recovered some of the dark material flushed out from the drill. I’m not sure what to make of it, and since you’re the geologist, I thought you might know what it is. It’s some type of carbon and incredibly hard. Under the microscope it looks like tiny black diamonds.” She noticed his expression suddenly change. “Is something wrong?”

  “Did you say diamonds?”

  “Kind of. I could break it down into smaller elements if I had a laser spectrum analyzer. I didn’t think we needed one on the ship for the type of research we do.”

  Alex thought about David. “A friend of mine has one of those. His name is David Conway, one of the students at my College. I’m sure he would love to have a sample of that carbon for his analyzer.”

  This is great, Lisa thought. Alex seems to know all the right people. “I’ll get a sample ready and we can send it to him when we go ashore.”

  “I wish you could meet him. You have a lot in common.”

  “I thought he was a student.”

  “He’s more like a faculty member, and actually instructs some of the classes. They won’t grant him a fellowship because of his age. He’s only twenty six.”

  “I guess that is a little young.” She did not want to say too much, because she was only twenty-four. “I’ll go down and get the sample ready.”

  Lisa walked away, and Alex looked down at the motorboat tied against the rubber cushion on the back edge of the deck. Okana, Mike, Dieter, and Rita suddenly appeared below and he went down the steps to join them. Alex was suspicious of Harrison and Bartram, and had convinced Bett and Joshua to stay onboard as a precaution.

  *

  Bartram sat behind the steering wheel waiting for everyone to arrive. The captain was pretty pissed when Cave changed their plans, he thought. If the captain is so worried about Cave, he should just let me shoot him and toss him over the side. It wouldn’t be the first time the captain has asked me to get rid of someone. When we were attacking and robbing those small cruise ships touring the rivers in northern Europe, he had me kill lots of people. At least the ones who tried to fight back. Maybe he’s getting soft in his old age. Fifty is pretty old.