Arctic Drift

by Clive Cussler

  The craggy brown seafloor was mostly devoid of life, a cold and empty world not far removed from the frozen lands protruding above the surface. Pitt turned the submersible into the current, guiding the vessel in a sweeping series of S turns. Though the Narwhal had been stationed directly above the wreck, Pitt knew that they had drifted considerably south during their descent.

  Giordino was the first to spot the wreck, pointing out a dark shadow on their starboard flank. Pitt steered the Bloodhound hard to the right until the stately wreck materialized under their spotlights.

  Before them sat a nineteenth-century wooden sailing ship. It was one of the most remarkable shipwrecks Pitt had ever seen. The frigid Arctic waters had retained the ship’s condition in a near-perfect state of preservation. Covered in a fine layer of silt, the ship appeared fully intact, from its bowsprit to its rudder. Only the masts, which had slipped from the deck during the long plunge to the bottom, lay out of place, dangling over the side railing.

  Mired in its desolate eternal mooring, the ancient ship exuded a forlorn aura. To Pitt, the ship appeared like a tomb in an empty graveyard. He felt an odd chill thinking about the men who had sailed her, then been forced to abandon their home of three years under desperate conditions.

  Slowly engaging the submersible, Pitt cruised in a tight arc around the vessel while Giordino activated a forward-mounted video camera. The hull timbers still appeared thick and sound, and in places where the silt was thin they could see a coat of black paint still adhering to the wood. As they rounded the stern, Giordino was startled to see the tips of a propeller protruding from the sand.

  “They had steam power?” he asked.

  “A supplement to sail, once they reached the ice pack,” Pitt confirmed. “Both ships were equipped with coal-fired locomotive engines installed for added propulsion through the thinner sea ice. The steam engines were also used to provide heat for the ship’s interior.”

  “No wonder Franklin had the confidence to try to plow through Victoria Strait in late summer.”

  “What he may not have had enough of by that point in the expedition was coal. Some figure they ran short of their coal supplies, and that may have accounted for the ships becoming trapped in the ice.”

  Pitt pushed the submersible around to the ship’s port side, anxious to find lettering on the bow that might reveal the ship’s name. But he was disappointed to find instead the only real evidence of damage to the ship. The hull beneath the bow was blown out in a jagged mass of timbers, caused by the constricting ice. The damage had extended to the topside deck when the weakened section had struck the seafloor, causing the timbers above to buckle. A broad section of the bow on both sides of the centerline had crumpled like an accordion just a few feet astern of the vessel’s blunt prow. Pitt patiently hovered off both sides of the bow as Giordino brushed aside the silt with an articulated arm, but no identifying script work could be found.

  “I guess this one wants to play hard to get,” Pitt muttered.

  “Like too many of the women I’ve dated,” Giordino grimaced. “I guess we’ll have to take Dahlgren up on his ship’s bell offer after all.”

  Pitt elevated the submersible above the deck, then swept toward the stern. The deck was remarkably clear of debris, the ship obviously configured in its winter hibernation mode when it was abandoned. The only unusual item was a large canvas structure that lay across the deck amidships. Pitt knew from the historical accounts that a tentlike covered structure was set up on the deck in winter so that the crew could escape the interior confines of the ship for exercise.

  Pitt continued aft, where he found the helmsman’s station and the large wooden ship’s wheel, still standing upright and attached to the rudder. A small bell was mounted nearby, but, after careful scrutiny, he could find no markings on it.

  “I know where the ship’s bell is,” Pitt stated, cruising back toward the bow. Hovering over the tangled mass of timbers and debris where the bow had buckled, he pointed down.

  “It’s in the garbage pit here.”

  “Must be,” Giordino agreed with a nod. “It’s not our day. Or night.” He checked a console of dials in front of him. “We have just under four hours of battery power remaining. Do you want to rummage around for the bell or have a look inside?”

  “Let’s take Rover for a walk. There’s one upside to this damage, I suppose. It will allow us easier access to the interior.”

  Pitt edged the Bloodhound to a clear section of the deck, then carefully set the submersible down. When the ship’s timbers gave no indication of stress, he powered off the propulsion motors.

  In the copilot seat, Giordino was busy engaging another device. Tucked between the submersible’s support skids was a small, tethered ROV the size of a small suitcase. Equipped with a micro-sized video camera and small array of lights, it could maneuver into the smallest corners of the shipwreck.

  Jockeying a controlling joystick, Giordino guided the Rover out from its cradle and toward the open section of the deck. Pitt flipped down an overhead monitor, which displayed the live video feed from the device. Methodically weaving above and around the debris, Giordino finally found a large gap in the deck and guided the ROV into the bowels of the ship.

  Pitt unrolled a cutaway diagram of the Erebus and tried to track the ROV’s location as it moved beneath the main deck. The ship had two levels belowdecks, plus a dank hold where the engine, boiler, and coal reserves were housed below the waterline. The living and dining areas for both crew and officers were located on the lower deck, one level down from the main deck. Beneath the lower deck was the orlop deck, which was strictly a storage area for provisions, tools, and ship’s spares.

  “You should be dropping near the galley,” Pitt remarked. “It’s adjacent to the crew’s living quarters, which is a sizable compartment.”

  Giordino guided the Rover down until the deck came into view, then he turned and panned the bay. The still water inside the ship was exceedingly translucent, providing perfectly clear visibility. Pitt and Giordino could see, not five feet away from the ROV, the galley’s large cookstove, built up on a layer of bricks. It was a massive structure made of cast iron and crowned by six large burners on its flat cooking surface. Sitting atop it were several black iron pots of varying sizes.

  “One galley, as ordered,” Giordino remarked.

  He then steered the ROV aft, slowly scanning back and forth. The thin bulkheads surrounding the galley had fallen to the deck, revealing the open crew’s quarters. The bay was mostly empty of debris, save for a large number of planked wooden slabs that lay evenly spaced across the deck.

  “Mess tables,” Pitt explained as the Rover’s cameras focused in on one of the tabletops. “They were stowed overhead to make way for the crew’s hammocks but lowered on ropes at meal-times. They’ve fallen to the deck as the ropes deteriorated.”

  The ROV moved aft as the compartment narrowed until fronting a wide bulkhead.

  “That will be the main hatchway,” Pitt explained. “Keep moving aft and we should reach a ladderway that descends to the orlop deck. They covered it with an enclosure to keep out the draft from below, but we’ll have to hope it was dislodged when the ship sank.”

  Giordino steered the ROV around the hatchway, then brought it to a sudden halt. Tilting it toward the deck, the camera revealed a large circular hole cut through the deck.

  “No door here,” he said.

  “Of course, we can drop through the deck collar,” Pitt replied.

  The deck collar held one of the ship’s three masts as it ran down to the hold. When the masts pulled free during the sinking, they left an open passageway into the lowest depths of the ship.

  The Rover squeezed through the opening, then sprayed its lights on the black orlop deck. For the next fifty minutes, the ROV scoured the corners of the deck, Giordino methodically searching for possible traces of the ore. But all they found was a vast supply of tools, weapons, and the ship’s stowed canvas sails, which would neve
r feel a sea breeze again. Returning to the mast stand, they delved into the lower hold, finding only a few scraps of coal near the massive steam boiler. Coming up empty on both levels, Giordino began threading the ROV back up to the lower deck, when the submersible’s radio crackled.

  “Narwhal to Bloodhound, have you got your ears on? ” came the readily distinguishable voice of Jack Dahlgren.

  “Bloodhound here. Go ahead, Jack,” Pitt replied.

  “The captain wanted me to let you know that our friend with the barge has moseyed back onto the radar screen. Appears to be sitting stationary about ten miles north of us.”

  “Affirmative. Please keep us advised.”

  “Will do. You boys having any luck down there?”

  “We sure are, but it has all been bad. We’ve got Rover on the leash and are about to try for the captain’s cabin.”

  “How are you doing on power?”

  Pitt eyed a bank of dials and meters overhead. “We’re good for another ninety minutes on the bottom, and we’ll probably need it all.”

  “Roger. We’ll look for you up top in less than two. Narwhal out.”

  Pitt stared at the dark abyss beyond the submersible, contemplating the icebreaker on the surface above. Were they in fact monitoring the Narwhal ? His gut told him so with certainty. It wouldn’t be his first encounter with the forces of Mitchell Goyette, he now knew. And what of Clay Zak? Could it be possible that Goyette’s thug was aboard the icebreaker?

  Giordino nudged him back to the task at hand.

  “Ready to move aft.”

  “The clock is ticking,” Pitt said quietly. “Let’s get it done.”

  65

  A DENSE, ICY FOG CREPT ACROSS THE OTOK AS dusk settled over Victoria Strait. The Narwhal was long lost from physical view, and Zak searched for her on the radarscope, finding the research ship as a narrow smudge on the top of the screen. Across the bridge, the icebreaker’s captain paced back and forth, having grown bored with holding his ship stationary for the past few hours.

  But the captain saw no signs of boredom in Zak’s face. On the contrary, there was an odd intensity about him. Like in the moment before an assassination, he was fully alert, his senses in high gear. While he had murdered many times before, he had never done so on a large scale. It was a test of cunning, he liked to think, that made his blood run fast. It gave him a sensation of invincibility, inflated by the knowledge that he had always come out on top.

  “Bring us to within eight kilometers of the Narwhal,” he finally directed the captain. “And do so nice and easy.”

  The captain engaged the helm and brought the ship and attached barge around on a southerly heading. Aided by the swift-moving current, the icebreaker ran just above idle, covering the distance in less than an hour. Reaching the new position, the captain swung his bow around to the current in order to remain stationary.

  “Eight kilometers and holding,” he reported to Zak.

  Zak eyed the gloomy darkness outside the bridge window and creased his lips in satisfaction.

  “Prepare to release the barge at my command,” he said.

  The captain stared at him as if he were insane.

  “What are you saying?” he asked.

  “You heard me. We are going to release the barge.”

  “That’s a ten-million-dollar vessel. In this fog and current, there’s no way we’ll be able to tie back up to her. She’ll rip her hull open on some ice or run aground on the islands. Either way, Mr. Goyette will have my head.”

  Zak shook his head with a thin smile. “She won’t be traveling very far. As for Goyette, please recall the signed letter I gave you in Kugluktuk giving me complete authority while I’m aboard this ship. Believe me, he will consider it a small price to pay to eliminate a problem that could cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Besides,” he added with a conniving grin, “isn’t that what marine insurance is for?”

  The captain reluctantly ordered his deckhands to the stern of the ship to man the towlines. The men waited in the cold while Zak ran down to his cabin, then returned to the bridge carrying his leather satchel. At Zak’s command, the captain reversed power and backed down on the barge until the thick towlines fell slack in the water. The deckhands released a lock plate, then heaved the looped ends of the towlines up and off the stern bollards. The men watched morbidly as the lines slid down the stern and disappeared into the black water below.

  When the bridge received an all-clear signal, the captain pulled the ship forward, then came around the barge’s starboard flank at Zak’s urging. The dark mass of the barge could barely be seen a few yards away as the fog continued to thicken. Zak reached into his satchel and pulled out a high-frequency radio transmitter, then stepped out onto the bridge wing. Extending a small antenna, he powered on the device and immediately pushed a red TRANSMIT button.

  The radio signal only had to travel a short distance to trigger the detonator cap planted on the stern of the barge. Less than a second later, the dynamite charge ignited.

  The explosion was neither loud nor visually impressive, just a resounding pop that reverberated within the barge, followed by a light puff of smoke that rose from the rear deck. Zak observed the scene for just a few seconds, then returned to the warmth of the bridge, putting the transmitter back into his bag.

  “I don’t like having the blood of those men on my hands,” the captain grumbled.

  “But you have it all wrong, Captain. The loss of the barge was quite accidental.”

  The captain simply stared at Zak with a look of dismay.

  “It’s very simple,” Zak continued. “You shall write in your log, and report to the authorities back in port, that the American research ship inadvertently collided with our barge in the fog and both vessels sank. We, of course, were most fortunate to release the towlines in the nick of time and suffered no casualties. Regrettably, we were unable to find any survivors in the water from the NUMA ship.”

  “But the NUMA ship has not sunk,” the captain protested.

  “That,” Zak replied with a snarl, “is about to change.”

  66

  A THOUSAND FEET BELOW THE SURFACE, THE INTERVENING hour had been one of complete frustration for Pitt and Giordino. While guiding the Rover aft along the lower deck, Giordino watched as the ROV jerked to a standstill and refused to move forward. Retracing its trail of cable, he found the power cord had become tangled in some debris at the head of the galley. Matters only got worse when the ROV’s thrusters kicked up a huge cloud of silt around the snagged area. He had to wait ten minutes just for the visibility to return before he could see enough to free the cable.

  The interior of the submersible had finally grown hot, and sweat dribbled down Giordino’s face as he tensely guided the ROV back through the crew’s quarters and down the main passageway toward the stern of the ship.

  “Where’s the lounge on this boat? I think Rover and I could both use a cold beer about now,” he muttered.

  “You would have needed to break into the Spirit Room belowdecks, where the rum was stored. Of course, if this is the Erebus, then you might be out of luck, as Franklin was a teetotaler.”

  “That seals it,” Giordino said. “No further proof required. My present state of luck dictates that this has to be the Erebus.”

  Despite the minutes ticking down on their bottom time, neither man was ready to give up. They pressed the ROV onward, striking down the single aft passageway, past the cramped officers’ cabins, until finally arriving at a large compartment at the very stern of the ship. Called the Great Cabin, it stretched from beam to beam, offering the one truly comfortable haven for the men of the ship, or at least its officers. Stocked with a library, chess sets, playing cards, and other sources of entertainment, it was also a potential repository for the ship’s log. But like the rest of the vessel, the Great Cabin offered no clues to the ship’s identity.

  Scattered across the deck and around an upturned table was a knee-deep pile of books. Lined on wide
shelves across each side of the cabin, the large collection of books had smashed through the glass cases during the sinking and been strewn everywhere. Giordino slowly flew the ROV back and forth across the cabin, surveying the wall-to-wall mess.

  “Looks like the San Francisco Library after the great earthquake,” Giordino said.

  “The ship’s library contained twelve hundred volumes,” Pitt replied, studying the mess with disappointment. “If the ship’s log is buried in there, it will take a couple of fortnights and a good rabbit’s foot to find it.”

  Their frustration was interrupted by another radio transmission from Dahlgren.

  “Sorry to break up the fiesta, but the big hand on the clock says it’s time for you to begin your ascent,” he said.

  “We’ll be on our way shortly,” Pitt replied.

  “Fair enough. The captain says to tell you that our shadow has closed to within four miles and is sitting pretty again. I think the captain would feel a whole lot better if you boys got yourselves aboard pronto.”

  “Understood. Bloodhound out.”

  Giordino looked at Pitt and noticed a look of concern in his green eyes.

  “You think that pal of yours from the Miners Co-op is aboard the icebreaker?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder,” Pitt replied.

  “Let’s try the captain’s cabin and then we’ll skedaddle.”

  The captain’s cabin was located off the far side of the Great Cabin and represented a faint hope for containing the ship’s log. But a small sliding door to the cabin was locked and no amount of bumping or cajoling by the ROV would shake it loose. With less than an hour of battery power left and a twenty-minute ride to the surface, Pitt called the survey off and told Giordino to fetch Rover back home.

  Giordino steered the ROV back to the galley and toward the entry gap in the bow, as a take-up spool reeled in the power cable. Pitt powered up the submersible’s thrusters, then gazed out the view port at the Bloodhound ’s electronic pod while waiting for the ROV.