Lloyd faltered. “You played polo with—?”
Glinn went on, speaking rapidly. “I alone have all the facts. I alone know the path to success. I am not being secretive for the sake of coyness, Mr. Lloyd. There is a vital reason for this: it is essential to prevent second-guessing and freelance decision making. Frankly, the meteorite bears no intrinsic interest for me. But I promised to move this thing from point A to point B, and no one, no one, is going to stop me. So I hope you understand now why I am not going to relinquish control of this operation, or share with you explanations and prognostications. As for you withholding payment, we can settle that question like gentlemen once we are back on American soil.”
“Look here, Glinn, that’s all very well and good—”
“This discussion is over, and now, sir, you will obey me.” Glinn’s voice, still soft, suddenly took on a steely edge. “Whether that means staying here quietly, or disappearing into your office, or being escorted to the brig, is a matter of indifference to me.”
Lloyd stared at him, dumbfounded. “You think you could put me in the brig, you arrogant bastard?”
The expression on Glinn’s face provided the answer.
Lloyd was silent for a moment, his face almost purple with rage. Then he turned to Britton. “And who are you working for?”
But Britton’s eyes, deep and green as the ocean, were still on Glinn. “I’m working for the man with the keys to the car,” she said at last.
Lloyd stood there, swelling in fury. But he did not immediately react. Instead, he made a slow circuit of the bridge, his creaking wingtips leaving a trail of water, until he stopped at the bridge windows. There he stood, breathing heavily a moment, looking out at nothing in particular. “Once again, I order that power and communications be restored to my suite.”
There was no sound, no answer. It was clear that no one, not even the lowest officer, intended to obey Lloyd.
Lloyd slowly turned, and his eyes fell square on McFarlane. He spoke in a low voice. “And you, Sam?”
Another hard gust buffeted the windows. McFarlane, standing in suspension, felt the shudder in the air. The bridge had fallen deathly quiet. He had a decision to make—and he found it one of the easiest decisions of his career.
“I’m working for the rock,” said McFarlane quietly.
Lloyd continued looking at him, his eyes black, adamantine. Then, all at once, he seemed to crumple. The bull-like power seemed to drain out of his massive frame; his shoulders slumped; his face lost its fiery color. He turned, hesitated, then walked slowly off the bridge and disappeared out the door.
After a moment, Glinn bent once again toward the black computer and murmured to his man at the keyboard.
Rolvaag,
1:45 A.M.
CAPTAIN BRITTON stared straight ahead, betraying nothing of her feelings. She tried to measure her breathing, the rhythm of her heart—everything—to the pulse of the ship. Over the past hours, the wind had been picking up steadily, and it moaned and rattled about the ship. It was raining harder now, fat drops that shot out of the fog like bullets. The panteonero was not far away.
She transferred her attention to the spiderwebbed tower that rose out of the ship’s tank. It was still well below the level of the bluff, and yet it seemed to be complete. She had no idea what the next step would be. It was uncomfortable, even humiliating, not knowing. She glanced over toward the EES computer and the man operating it. She had thought she knew everyone on board. And yet this man was a stranger who seemed to know a great deal about the operation of a supertanker. She pressed her lips more tightly together.
There were times, of course, when she relinquished command—taking on fuel, say, or when a harbor pilot came aboard. But those were comfortable, familiar patterns of running a ship, established over decades. This was not comfortable: it was a humiliation. Strangers were running the loading process, after lashing the ship to the shore and leaving her a sitting duck three thousand yards from a warship … Once again, she struggled to tuck away the feelings of anger and hurt. After all, her own feelings were not important—not when she thought about what waited for them, out there in the murk.
Anger and hurt … Her eyes flickered to Glinn, standing beside the black console, occasionally whispering words to his operative. He had just humiliated, even crushed, the world’s most powerful industrialist, and yet he looked so slender, so ordinary. She continued looking covertly at him. She could understand her anger. But hurt was something else. More than once she had lain awake at night, wondering what went on in his mind, what made him tick. She wondered how a man who was so physically inconsequential—a man she might pass in the street without a second glance—could take up residence in her imagination so vividly. She wondered how he could be so ruthless, so disciplined. Did he really have a plan, or was he simply good at covering up a series of ad hoc reactions to unexpected events? The most dangerous people were those who knew they were always right. And yet Glinn had been always right. He seemed to know everything in advance, he seemed to understand everybody. He certainly had understood her—at least, the professional Sally Britton. Success now depends on a certain subordination of your authority as captain, he had said. She found herself wondering if he really knew how she felt about having her command subordinated, even temporarily, or if he even cared. She wondered why she cared that he cared.
She felt a shudder as pumps came on along both sides of the ship. Jets of seawater blasted through discharge pipes into the sea. The ship began to rise almost imperceptibly as the ballast tanks emptied. Of course: that’s how the squat-looking tower would be raised to the level of the meteorite on the bluff. The whole ship would rise to meet it, bringing the platform flush with the rock. Again she felt humiliated at having control of the tanker taken from her, and yet awed at the audacity of the plan.
She remained stiffly at attention, speaking to no one, as the great ship rose in the water. It was a strange feeling, to see the ship going through the traditional motions of deballasting—lashing the sea suctions, aligning the loading arms, opening the manifold blocks—and yet seeing them as an observer rather than a participant. And to observe it under such circumstances—tethered to shore in the lee of a storm—went against everything she had ever learned in her career.
At last the tower was even with the shed perched on the bluff. She watched Glinn murmur to the console operator. Instantly, the pumps ceased.
A loud crack echoed from the bluff. A cloud of smoke expanded as the metal shed blew apart. The smoke rolled away to merge with the fog, revealing the meteorite, bloodred under the sodium lights. Britton caught her breath. She was aware that all eyes on the bridge had locked on the meteorite. There was a collective gasp.
On the bluff, diesel engines roared into life and a complicated series of pulleys and capstans began to turn. A high-pitched squeal sounded; diesel smoke billowed skyward to mingle with fog. Inch by inch, the meteorite began moving toward the reinforced edge of the bluff. Britton watched, transfixed, the flood of emotions inside her temporarily stilled. There was something regal about the meteorite’s progress: stately, slow, regular. It crept past the edge onto the platform atop the tower. Then it stopped. Again she felt the whole ship vibrate as the computer-controlled pumps kept the ship trim, emptying precisely enough ballast to compensate for the growing weight of the meteorite.
Britton watched the process in tense silence. The meteorite would creep a little farther onto the platform, then stop, to an answering shudder from the ballast pumps. The jerky ballet continued for twenty minutes. At last, it was finished: the meteorite was centered atop the tower. She felt the Rolvaag’s top-heaviness, the destabilization caused by the meteorite’s weight; but she could also sense the ballast tanks now refilling with water, the ship sinking back down into the water for stability.
Glinn spoke again to the computer operator. Then, nodding at Britton, he walked out onto the bridge wing nearest the bluff. The bridge remained silent for another minute. Then
she felt Chief Mate Howell come up behind her. She did not turn as he leaned toward her ear.
“Captain,” he murmured. “I want you to know that we—I mean, the officers and myself—aren’t happy about this. It isn’t right, the way you were treated. We’re behind you a hundred percent. You just say the word and … ” There was no need to finish the sentence.
Britton remained rigidly at attention. “I thank you, Mr. Howell,” she replied in a quiet voice. “But that will be all.”
After a moment, Howell stepped back. Britton took a deep breath. The time for action had passed. Now, they were committed. The meteorite was no longer a land-based problem. It was on the ship. And the only way to get it off was to see the Rolvaag docked safely in New York. Once again she thought of Glinn, of the way he had wooed her into commanding the Rolvaag, how he had known everything about her, how much he had trusted her in customs at Puerto Williams. They had been a good team. She wondered if she had done the right thing in yielding her command to him, however temporary. But then she had had no choice.
Through all these thoughts, Britton stood rigidly at attention.
Outside, there was another sharp cracking sound; a gleaming row of titanium struts flew away from the top rung of the tower with a dozen puffs of smoke. They spun away, coruscating into the fog, dropping lazily out of sight. The meteorite sank onto the next layer of the tower; the whole ship shuddered again; and the ballast pumps rumbled into life. Then there was another round of explosions; another narrow layer of the tower crumpled into itself, and the meteorite sank a few inches closer to the tank.
A part of Britton realized this was an awesome engineering feat; utterly original, perfectly planned, beautifully executed. But another part of her found no pleasure in it. She glanced down the length of the vessel. The fog was getting patchier, and the sleety rain was now blowing horizontally across the windows. Soon the fog would blow away. Then the game would be up. Because Vallenar was not some engineering problem Glinn could solve with a slide rule. And their only bargaining chip lay deep inside the Rolvaag—not in the brig, but in Dr. Brambell’s frozen morgue.
Rolvaag,
2:50 A.M.
LLOYD PACED his darkened study on the middle bridge deck with the restless fury of a caged beast. The wind had picked up, and every few minutes a gust would strike the ship with such force that the stern windows bowed and rattled in their frames. Lloyd barely noticed.
He paused a moment, then stared out through the open door of his private office into the sitting room beyond. Its surfaces were faintly illuminated in the dull red glow of emergency lights. The wall of television screens, black and featureless, blinked back the silent mockery of a hundred dim reflections of himself.
He spun away, trembling. His body swelled with anger inside his suit, straining the expensive fabric. It was incomprehensible. Glinn—a man he was paying three hundred million dollars—had ordered him from the bridge of his own ship. He had cut off the power to his suite, leaving him deaf, dumb, and blind. There were matters to take care of back in New York—critical matters. The enforced silence was costing him big money. And there was something else; something that hurt more than money. Glinn had humiliated him in front of the bridge officers and his own people. Lloyd could forgive a lot of things, but that he could never forgive. Palmer Lloyd had faced down presidents, prime ministers, sheikhs, captains of industry, and mob kingpins. But this man was different.
In a paroxysm of rage he kicked out at one of the wing chairs, sending it crashing to the deck. And then suddenly he whirled around, listening intently.
The howl of the wind, the faint grinding of machinery from the bogus worksite, went on as they had before. But there had been another, more regular sound: something that Lloyd, in the full flood of his anger, had not immediately noticed. There it was again: the staccato pop of an explosion. It was very near; on the ship, in fact, because he could feel the deck shuddering faintly beneath his feet.
He waited in the faint light, muscles tense, curiosity now mingling with his outrage. There it was again: the sound, followed by the shudder.
Something was happening on the maindeck.
Quickly, he walked out through the sitting room, down the corridor, and into the central suite. Here, his secretaries and assistants sat awkwardly among the dead phones and darkened computers, talking quietly. The talk fell away as he passed through the long, low space. Noiselessly, Penfold slipped out of the shadows to pluck at his sleeve. Brushing him away, Lloyd moved past the closed elevators and opened the soundproofed door that led to his private apartment. He went through the rooms to the forward bulkhead of the superstructure. He wiped the condensation from a porthole with the cuff of his suit jacket and peered out.
Below, the deck was a hive of activity. Workers were battening down the deck equipment, checking fastenings, tightening hatches, making all the last frenzied preparations for a sea voyage. But what caught his attention was the bizarre tower that reared out of the tank. It was shorter than it had been before; much shorter, in fact. Smoke and steam encircled it, blending with the fog to create clouds that unfurled along the deck in a slow-motion ballet. As he watched, there was another rat-tat-tat of explosions. The meteorite dropped slightly and the ship shuddered again. Groups of workers scurried forward, clearing away the fresh debris before the next set of explosions.
Now he understood precisely what Glinn had meant by a controlled failure of the tower. They were blowing it apart, bit by bit. As he watched, Lloyd grasped that this was the best—probably the only—way of getting something that heavy into the tank. He caught his breath at the brilliance and the audacity of it.
At this thought, a fresh spasm of rage ripped through his body. But Lloyd closed his eyes against it, turning away, taking a deep breath, trying to calm himself.
Glinn had told him not to come; McFarlane had told him not to come. But he had come anyway. Just as he had leapt onto the meteorite when it was first exposed. He thought of what had happened to the man named Timmer, and he shuddered.
Perhaps coming down again, guns blazing, had not been the right thing to do. It was impulsive, and Lloyd knew enough about himself to know he was not normally an impulsive man. He was too close to this: it had become too personal. J. P. Morgan once said, “If you want something too much, you will not succeed in getting it.” He had always lived by that philosophy: he had never been afraid to walk away from a deal, no matter how lucrative. The ability to fold a hand, even with four aces, had been his most valuable business asset. Now, for the first time in his life, he had drawn a hand that he could not fold. He was in the game to the finish, win or lose.
Lloyd found himself fighting an unfamiliar battle: a struggle to steady his mind. He considered that he had not made $34 billion by being unreasonable and hot-tempered. He had always avoided second-guessing his hired professionals. In this terrible moment of humiliation, defeat, and self-reflection, he realized that Glinn might, in fact, have been acting in his best interests by sending him from the bridge and cutting him off from the world. But even this thought touched off another wave of anger. Best interests or not, the man had been arrogant and high-handed. Glinn’s coolness, his unflappability, his assumption of leadership, enraged Lloyd. He had been humiliated in front of everyone, and he would never forget nor forgive it. When all this was over, there would be a reckoning for Glinn, financial and otherwise.
But first they had to get the meteorite the hell out of there. And Glinn seemed to be the only man who could do it.
Rolvaag,
3:40 A.M.
CAPTAIN BRITTON, the meteorite will be inside the holding tank within ten minutes. The ship will be yours, and we can depart.”
Glinn’s words broke the long hush that had fallen over the bridge. Like the others, McFarlane had been staring at the slow, regular progress of the meteorite into the belly of the Rolvaag.
For another minute, maybe two, Britton stood unmoving, statuesque, staring out the windows of the bridge as she ha
d ever since Lloyd’s departure. At last she turned and looked directly at Glinn. After a significant moment she turned toward the second officer. “Wind speed?”
“Thirty knots from the southwest, gusting to forty, and rising.”
“Currents?”
The murmured exchange continued, while Glinn leaned toward his man at the computer console: “Have Puppup and Amira report to me here, please.”
There was another rapid series of explosions. The ship lurched, and the ballast pumps rumbled to compensate.
“There’s a weather front coming in,” Howell murmured. “We’re losing our fog.”
“Visibility?” Britton asked.
“Rising to five hundred yards.”
“Position of the warship?”
“Unchanged at twenty-two hundred yards, zero five one.”
A gust of wind hit the ship hard. Then there was a vast, hollow boom, different from anything McFarlane had felt before, and a shudder seemed to run through the very spine of the vessel.
“The hull just hit the bluff,” said Britton quietly.
“We can’t move yet,” replied Glinn. “Will the hull stand it?”
“For a while,” Britton answered expressionlessly. “Perhaps.”
A door at the far end of the bridge opened and Rachel entered. She looked around, her bright alert eyes quickly sizing up the situation. She came up beside McFarlane. “Garza better get that thing in the tank before we’re holed,” she muttered.
There was another series of explosions, and the meteorite dropped farther. Its base was now hidden inside the frame of the ship.
“Dr. McFarlane,” Glinn said without turning around. “Once the meteorite is secured in the tank, it becomes yours. I want you and Amira to monitor it round the clock. Let me know if there’s any change in readings, or in the meteorite’s status. I don’t want any more surprises from that rock.”
The Ice Limit Page 31