by L. A. Larkin
Avalanche. Luke was going to be buried alive.
He desperately searched for somewhere to hide. To his right, a rocky outcrop poked its dark fingers through the thick ice. He ran towards it; it might protect him from the full force of the avalanche. He also had to create an airspace around his head. If he didn’t, he would suffocate on his own exhaled carbon dioxide trapped beneath the snow.
The roar, now like a jet engine, was terrifying. The snow beneath his feet collapsed and began sliding downhill. Luke looked up as the wall of snow and ice raced towards him. He dropped his backpack – the weight would drag him down – and crouched low behind the rock, tucking his head in tightly and covering it with his arms, determined to keep an open airspace. His mind was screaming at him to prepare to swim: a flashback from avalanche survival training. If he wasn’t crushed by the weight, he had to flail his arms and legs to try to reach the surface.
The force of the giant wave winded him. He could barely breathe as the roar was all around him. Luke was torn away from the rock, smashed by an icy wall. He tumbled, as if in a washing machine, with no idea which direction was up and which down.
Finally the movement stopped. Luke was buried, and he knew he had to get to the surface before the ice solidified. His arms still protected his face, and he created an airspace by pushing snow away. His mouth was dry with fear but he forced some saliva from it. It ran down his lower lip and onto his chin. As a result he knew his head was pointing towards the sky.
He crawled upwards but his limbs were so tired, and the weight of snow and ice so great, that he could hardly move. The longer he stayed there, the harder the snow would set. It already weighed like concrete. With sheer bloody-mindedness he punched his arms above him, then used his gloved hands as shovels to force a hole. His muscles screamed in agony. But there was nobody to rescue him. He refused to die like this – not now that he was going to turn his life around. He thrashed his legs and arms as best he could.
He caught a tiny glimpse of blue. Fresh air! The snow loosened and Luke managed to get his head and shoulders free. He gritted his teeth as he attempted to drag himself up and onto his stomach. The veins in his neck bulged with exertion.
The loose snow gave him no grip, and he could feel himself sliding backwards, sinking. It was like quicksand. No, not like this. He had to get his body free. He kicked his legs as if he were swimming, and first one and then the other came loose. All he had to do now was lie flat on the surface and crawl away to firmer ice. Loose snow continued to slide downhill, but no longer in a violent onslaught.
With each movement the snow beneath him sank a little, but he remained on top of it. How long he crawled for, he had no idea, but when he reached a boulder he used it to pull himself into a sitting position, with his back against the rock. Was it the same rock he’d hidden behind, or another? Luke was completely disoriented. He was nauseous and his head felt like it was being squeezed in a vice.
He passed out.
T MINUS 2 DAYS, 17 HOURS, 46 MINUTES
7 March, 6:14 pm (UTC-07)
Robert had just finished relaying the good news to the select project team at Dragon Resources. His father had been unavoidably detained but the details would be passed on to him. Robert was on a high. Reluctant to let the buzz die away, he leaned over the bound and gagged Maddie. ‘If I take your gag away, will you behave?’
She glared at him.
‘Do you want to know what we’re doing here or not?’
Either way he was going to brag, but he preferred an interactive audience rather than a silent one. Robert lived for moments like this. Whenever he outmanoeuvred a competitor, he took delight in seeing the mixture of hatred and bitter admiration written all over the faces of the defeated.
Maddie nodded, and Robert removed the cloth gag.
‘My name is Robert Zhao Sheng,’ he began. ‘My father is General Zhao.’
‘So what are you doing here, Robert?’ she challenged.
He placed a chair in front of her and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, making her wait, enjoying the forced intimacy.
‘Water. The most precious resource in the world,’ he said.
He waited for her response, but she waited for him to continue. He inhaled again and then blew smoke up into the tent cavity.
‘My people are dying, Madeline. The Party plays down the hardship, keeps the media coverage to a minimum, but our farmers can’t produce crops, our industry is crippled, and our cities severely rationed. Our leaders have made terrible blunders, polluting rivers, building dams without thinking through the consequences. They have tried many ways to generate water but none as audacious as this. Our leaders worry too much about other countries’ reactions. They forget those countries are our competitors – they are talking their own book, as we say in my business. Our government doesn’t have the guts to do what is necessary. But I do.’
‘So you’re stealing Antarctic ice?’ Her tone was scathing.
He wagged his finger at her. ‘Theft? Pah. No one owns this wasteland.’
‘Robert, I understand you need water. I really do. But China isn’t the only one. Africa, the United States, the Middle East, Europe, my home – we’re all suffering. But you can’t just show up here, kill innocent people and start chipping away at a glacier. It’s not yours to take.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Madeline. The Madrid Protocol only prohibits activity relating to mineral resources. Not ice- harvesting. Anyway, Antarctica belongs to no one and to everyone.’ He raised his arms and gestured all around him. ‘This is my brainchild, and I, Robert Zhao Sheng, will be the first to successfully harvest Antarctic ice. Once other countries learn of my success, they will come clamouring to get their hands on all this frozen fresh water. You would be well aware that seventy per cent of the world’s fresh water is right here in Antarctica? Seventy per cent! But …’ he leaned back and placed his hands behind his head and gave her a glossy white smile, ‘only I have the technology. Patented, of course. They’ll have to come begging to me if they want to get in on the act. And for the right licence fee, I’m prepared to negotiate.’
‘But how?’ Her tone had changed, intrigued now. ‘It can’t be economically viable.’
‘Madeline, Madeline. You obviously don’t watch CNBC, do you? If you did, you see, you’d know water is now more valuable than oil. Have you been walking around with your eyes and ears closed? There are countries at war over access to rivers and aquifers. It is economically viable.’
Robert stubbed out his cigarette, collected his laptop and tapped a few keys. He returned to his chair and swivelled it to face Maddie. On the screen was a graphic of the Pine Island Glacier: two hundred and fifty kilometres long, forty kilometres wide and, at the very tip of the ice tongue, fifty metres deep.
‘At the far left hand corner of the ice tongue. Here.’ He pointed. ‘We have calculated exactly how much explosive we need to blow off one hundred and twenty-five thousand cubic metres of iceberg.’
‘But why use explosives? Why don’t you simply chisel away at the glacier face?’ She leaned closer. He had her hooked.
‘Ah, there you betray your poor knowledge of glaciers. Your good friend Luke would have known this if he hadn’t met with that tragic accident.’ Robert couldn’t resist reminding her. He just had to see the light in her eyes die, and it did. How easy it was to control people’s emotions.
‘It’s suicidal for a ship to be under the front of a glacier and “chip away”, as you put it. Glaciers calve all the time, and this one more than most. Too much risk, particularly considering my ninety-million-dollar purpose-built heavy-lift vessel. I certainly wouldn’t want it damaged. And then there’s the matter of refreezing, of course. We have to force a distance between the severed berg and the parent glacier, otherwise the two will simply freeze together again.’
Robert could see Maddie’s mind ticking away. From the look on her face, she was buying into his ideas.
‘That makes sense,’ she said. �
�And you’d need to control the shape of the berg. If it’s tabular, it’s less likely to flip …’
‘The vessel is equipped with lasers that can cut through ice with absolute precision. Every berg will be a perfect fit for our vessel.’
‘Do you have a picture of her?’ Maddie asked.
Robert was delighted. ‘Of course. Here.’ An image appeared on his screen. It resembled a supertanker but had a rectangular central section cut out so that the two ends of the ship were linked by a low-lying platform. Its ballast tanks could be flooded to lower the platform – the well deck – below the water’s surface, allowing an iceberg or oil rig or even another vessel to float on board. Then the deck could be raised, lifting the cargo above the waterline. ‘Four years in design and construction, two hundred and fifty metres long, eighty metres wide. There she is, the semi-submersible Water Dragon.’
Maddie stared at the image. Robert could see she was fascinated.
‘She’s designed to carry our icy cargo, but she can transport oil rigs. See, here,’ he said, pointing to the well deck, positioned between a forward pilot house and an aft machinery space.
‘Like the MV Blue Marlin,’ said Maddie. ‘Didn’t that vessel carry the USS Cole, a destroyer, back to America after it was damaged by a suicide bomber?’
‘Correct, Madeline, but ours is way bigger.’ He threw his arms wide.
‘A flo/flo,’ Maddie whispered.
‘Correct again. Float on, float off. And we’ll be floating onto her deck a giant ice cube!’
‘Amazing.’ Maddie seemed impressed. ‘But what are you going to do with the flo/flo for the seven months of the year when the continent’s ice-locked?’
‘Not seven. Four at most, and in those four months she’ll be leased out. You see, one of my businesses is a shipbuilder, and it has built a new type of nuclear-powered, super-strong ice-breaker. It will work day and night to keep sea ice at bay so the tankers can come and go.’
‘Tankers?’
‘Yes. There’s not much oil to transport these days, so they’ll carry mulched ice instead. Soon the Amundsen Sea will be as busy as the Straits of Hormuz.’
Maddie nodded. ‘So how are you mulching ice?’
‘Great question,’ he replied, carried away with excitement. ‘You’ve heard of Whalers Island? The Water Dragon will carry the bergs into its calm harbour. There, we have an ice-pulping station. Once the ice is mulched – a bit like putting it through a wood-chipper – it will be pumped into the hold of the waiting supertankers. When it reaches China, any impurities will be removed.’
‘Whalers Island?’ Maddie shook her head, frowning, and Robert could see her putting two and two together. ‘My God! You killed all those penguins. It wasn’t bird flu at all.’ She glared at him, and her sudden change of mood took Robert by surprise.
Despite the fact she was still tied to her chair, he took a step back. ‘Madeline, stop being so emotional. We had to find a way to keep all those tourist ships away, and what better deterrent than bird flu? It worked a treat.’
‘So you – what? Poisoned hundreds of thousands of penguins?’ She screwed her face up in disgust.
‘It had to be done.’
‘They died in agony. How could you?’ Her face hardened, which Robert didn’t like. ‘And our quarantine team? What happened to them?’
‘Casualties of war,’ he said, echoing his father.
‘War?’ she screamed. ‘Are you out of your mind? There is no bloody war.’
‘They were a small price to pay for the greater good.’
‘The greater good!’
‘Wise up, Madeline. The world is on the brink of a crisis. People are dying in wars over water: the Nile, the Jordan, the Congo. This is no different.’
‘What a crock of shit! This isn’t about saving China. This is about money. How rich will you be, Robert?’ Her eyes were wet, and her voice hoarse. ‘It’s too high a price. Your thirst for wealth and power has blinded you to the real cost – human lives. Let alone the poor birds …’
He was about to dismiss her accusation but Maddie hung her head and her hair fell forward, hiding her face. He watched her for a while and then left the tent, feeling thoroughly deflated. How dare the bitch burst his bubble!
He needed someone to kick. Where was Li Guangjie? He must have snuck out during their argument. Robert was about to enter the techno tent when he overheard Captain Wei inside. Why wasn’t he out inspecting the test site, as he should be?
‘Keep your voice down!’ Wei snapped to Li.
Robert stopped and listened.
‘What does it matter?’ Li was saying. ‘This is madness! We only used a fraction of the explosives we’ll use on the tenth of March, and already several new cracks have opened up either side of the initiation point. We caused that fracturing. Gao, I’m a glaciologist, so please listen. If we detonate one thousand two hundred tonnes of explosives, we could destroy the whole glacier.’
Robert’s jaw dropped. What was Li talking about? They were only using a precisely calculated two hundred and forty kilograms, carefully positioned so the berg would break away in one piece. Why was Li twittering on about one thousand two hundred tonnes? That was the equivalent of sixteen truckloads! The man was losing his grip on reality.
‘We proceed as planned,’ said Wei.
‘No, we can’t! I always said this project was risky, but climate change has clearly had a much bigger impact on this glacier than we thought. It’s fragile. I believe Project Eclipse will fracture the whole glacier.’
Robert burst into the tent. ‘What the hell is Project Eclipse?’
Li made a whimpering sound but neither spoke.
‘Answer me!’
Robert punched Li in the stomach and he dropped to the floor. The blow would have had little impact on Captain Wei, but Robert had deliberately picked the weaker of the two.
‘Now, Li. What have you two been up to? Planning to sabotage the ice harvesting?’
‘N … no, sir. Not at all. No, I w … want to make sure the water project is a success,’ stammered the glaciologist.
Robert leaned closer to Li. ‘So what the fuck is Project Eclipse, and why don’t I know about it?’ The man cowered and again glanced at Wei, as if seeking approval to speak.
‘So, Captain Wei,’ said Robert, shoving Li aside and pointing a pistol at Wei’s stomach. ‘Either you tell me what is going on or you die.’
Wei stared back defiantly. ‘My instructions are to ensure the success of the primary mission – the detonation of explosives along the twenty kilometres of the Fitzgerald Fissure. The water project is secondary.’
Robert instantly noticed that he had dropped the ‘sir’ from his speech.
‘Primary mission? What are you talking about? Water harvesting is the only mission.’
‘Put down your weapon,’ said Wei. ‘I am not authorised to say any more. It’s time to speak to the man in charge of Project Eclipse.’
Robert’s face flushed pink with fury. ‘And who the fuck is that?’
For the first time since Robert had known Wei, he saw the captain smile – and it was the smirk of the victorious. Wei jerked his chin forward and held his head high. ‘General Zhao. Your father.’
T MINUS 2 DAYS, 17 HOURS, 46 MINUTES
7 March, 6:14 pm (UTC-07)
Someone was shouting Luke’s name from far, far away. He was so tired that he couldn’t open his eyes. Better to sleep and dream. He was no longer cold or afraid and it felt good.
‘Luke. Wake! You must wake now!’
That insistent, guttural voice. Where did he know it from? Luke became aware of hands gripping him, his warm snow blanket slipping away. He tried to look but his eyelashes were stuck together, each lash carrying a tiny ice particle.
‘Wake up, you lazy son of a bitch.’
What? The accent was pronounced: it was Russian. Somebody was brushing snow from his face.
‘He’s hypothermic,’ said a different voice. ‘It’s mild,
but we have to get him warm, and he may have chest injuries.’ Luke lost consciousness for a few seconds. ‘Can you put up the tent? We need to get him into a sleeping bag fast. And make a hot drink.’ The voice had an American twang, like his mate Bill at McMurdo Station. He must be dreaming again. He hadn’t seen Bill for years.
‘Luke,’ said the American. ‘Can you tell me if you’re hurt?’
He heard the crackle of a two-way radio. ‘We have found Luke Searle. Repeat, we have found Luke Searle. He’s alive but was caught in the avalanche, over.’
The voice sounded Scandinavian. His dream was turning into the United Nations. Was something or someone moving him? Yes, he was being lifted. He tore his eyelids apart, afraid. Perhaps the killers had found him? The leader of those bastards had had an American accent.
Luke wriggled his arms, trying to break free of their grip. But the face grinning at him was broad, the neck wide, and small blue eyes peered at him from behind puffy eyelids. He knew that ugly mug. Vitaly Yushkov.
‘Hello, my friend,’ said the Russian, his face cracking into a smile.
Luke tried to speak. He stuttered and realised he was shaking uncontrollably.
‘You very cold. We must get you warm,’ said Vitaly.
‘Luke, where are the others?’ It was that insistent Scandinavian voice again. ‘Were they with you? Luke?’
‘N … no,’ Luke managed to say.
‘Where are they?’ the voice demanded. ‘Come on, Luke, you remember Maddie Wildman, Craig Anderson, Pete MacNamara? Are they buried in the avalanche?’
‘Dead,’ he breathed. ‘Maddie’s gone.’
The voice was frantic. ‘In the snow? Are they dead in the snow? Should we search for them?’
‘I’m … alone.’ Luke was pulled upwards, with a man on either side of him, and then dragged into a tent. ‘Where did …’ His freezer suit was being removed.
