Ice Fire: A Jock Boucher Thriller

by David Lyons

  His left arm was pinned under something. He extended his right, feeling along his side. Palmetto was underneath him. He knew it was Palmetto below because Mae was on top of him. That was a certainty. She was lying facedown right on top of him, her cheek nestled against his neck. Also, she had worn corduroy slacks and he could feel the ribbing of the material. He rubbed his hand along the textured cloth. It brought back a memory. As a young boy he’d inherited a hand-me-down pair of corduroy pants, his first pair of long trousers. He had hated them because they were too hot to wear on the bayou and too big for him. But as summer changed to fall he grew into them and discovered their inestimable benefit—they were indestructible. Sliding in the dirt, climbing trees; they saved him from skinned knees, and saved his butt from beatings because they didn’t tear. He heard a soft whisper.

  “Jock, would you please stop rubbing my ass?”

  “Mae! Are you all right?”

  “Well, you’re making me horny, so I guess I am. How’s Bob?”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s underneath me.”

  “There’s nowhere else he could be. I’m going to try to move.”

  He felt her weight lifted off him. He heard her as she groped her way in the dark. There was the sound of switches and buttons being pushed, but nothing happened. Finally, there was the soft whirr of a small motor, maybe a computer’s cooling fan. A red light came on. It was like a homing beacon. Mae found another switch, and another indicator light came on. With this limited illumination, she was able to find the magnetized penlight she kept at her workstation. She started checking gauges, starting with air. “Jesus,” she whispered. Boucher heard the whoosh of oxygen escaping from the tanks.

  “Another two minutes and we would have been asphyxiated,” Mae said, “or frozen. Damn, it’s cold in here.”

  It took another entire minute before Boucher could draw a full breath. He lifted himself up.

  “Shine the light on him,” he said.

  Mae directed the beam. He lifted Palmetto’s head and felt blood on his hand. He pressed the neck for a pulse, feeling nothing at first, then just the slightest hint. “He’s alive, but he’s hurt.”

  “Sorry. I can’t help. We’ve got to get out of here. We fell over two thousand meters. We’re at our maximum depth. We fall any farther and . . .” There was no need to finish the sentence.

  Mae turned off the oxygen and engaged the backup batteries. It took several minutes, but finally there was light. From the position of the equipment it was apparent that the sub was on its side. She contorted her way to the pilot’s porthole and took a look out. “My God,” she said.

  Boucher pulled his sweater off, made a pillow, and placed it under Palmetto’s head. Mae was still staring out, so he went to the other porthole.

  “I can’t make out anything,” he said.

  “You’re looking straight down. We’re on another ledge, I guess. I can’t see what’s holding us up.” She reached for the radiophone.

  “Beagle, this is Lucy. Over.” She heard her transmission echo. Three seconds later came the response.

  “Lucy, this is Beagle. What happened down there and how are you? Over.”

  “My God,” Boucher said. “It sounds like they’re in here with us.”

  “Yeah, our communications are great,” Mae said. “We’ve spoken to the International Space Station from three miles deep.

  “Beagle. We don’t know what happened. It might have been an earthquake. We have fallen into the Carolina Trough and are now at our maximum depth. We’re lying on our side against the trough. Running low on oxygen and battery power, and air quality is poor. The CO2 scrubber isn’t working properly. I don’t know whether I can jettison ballast to begin ascent from this position. Over.”

  There was a long minute of silence.

  “Lucy, you have no choice. You must begin ascent. Over.”

  “Will try. Over and out.” She replaced the phone.

  “What do you have to jettison?” Boucher asked.

  “The sub has expendable steel plates. That’s what makes us sink, and when we’re done, we just unhook them to rise to the surface.”

  “It’s that simple?”

  “It’s that simple.”

  They heard a moan and both dropped to Palmetto’s side. He was trying to sit up but couldn’t. Boucher caught him behind the neck as he fell back down.

  “You bumped your head,” Mae said.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” he answered. “Where are we?”

  She told him their position, and their predicament.

  “Well, we sure as hell can’t stay here,” he said. Again he tried to sit up, and did better on the second try. “This your sweater?” He handed it to Boucher. “Put it back on. You’ll freeze to death.” He looked at them. “What are we waiting for? Jettison those damned plates.”

  “Easier said than done,” Mae said. “We’re on our side. That means we’re lying on half of them. The others are on top of us.”

  Palmetto gathered his knees to his chest, wrapped his long arms around them, and lowered his head in thought.

  “Unhook them, or whatever you do,” Boucher said.

  Mae bent over the lopsided control board and flicked several switches. Nothing happened. “We don’t have gravity working with us.”

  “But we have something else,” Boucher said. He grabbed one of the CDs from the crew’s collection. The silver disk mirrored the colored indicator lights in its grooves and illuminated the label. “When you said this collection was diverse, you weren’t kidding. This is perfect.”

  He inserted the CD and unplugged the headset so the sound could be heard by all. The rhythm began: drums beating in 2/4 time, a single accordion. Boucher couldn’t stand, he slumped. He motioned Palmetto to move aside, though there was no room for him to go anywhere. Nonetheless, he stepped toward Mae and said, “Would you care to dance, madam? It’s zydeco. Think of it like a polka, but stomp your feet.”

  She stepped into his arms. In the deep-submergence vehicle, they moved to a Cajun beat. The sub swayed. It tilted. The shift in weight caused the vehicle to pitch and keel over, again tossing them, but not with the same violence as before. They listened as the sub scraped and grated against the rocky surface of the trough. They felt themselves fall off the ledge, deeper, deeper.

  Mae screamed, “The plates aren’t dropping!”

  She jumped for the control panel and slammed her fist against the release lever. They continued to sink . . . then, slowly, the sub righted itself. Its descent ceased and they hung suspended, then began to rise. The music kept playing, the lyrics touting the talents of a “hootchie-kootchie man.” A considerable amount of carbon dioxide was exhaled in their collective sighs of relief.

  They all sat in whatever positions they found most comfortable. The ascent was a simple process, rising like an air bubble to the surface. Mae kept an eye on the depth gauge. After a lengthy period of silence she said, “We’re back at the level where we got our sample.”

  Palmetto went to his porthole and looked out. “Mae, shine the light out there.”

  “We don’t have much power left, Bob.”

  “Please. It’s important.”

  Mae directed a beam across the seabed. “Look at that,” she said. Palmetto was looking.

  “That’s a stratum of methane hydrate out there,” he said. The surface looked like a field of dirty snow. “That was no seismic event that pitched us into the trough. That was a detonation. Somebody blasted away the surface and uncovered it. I bet the bastards knew we were down here.” He turned to face Boucher, who was seated at his own porthole. “Judge,” he said, “we almost joined the Rexcon victims list.”

  There was silence as all eyes were focused on the seabed.

  “I can see the future,” Palmetto said softly. “I can see hundreds of remote-operated backhoes collecting hydrate and depositing their loads into carbon fiber pods, bathyspheres that will separate CO2 and serve as depressurization chambers;
one linked to another like a giant string of pearls leading from the mining area on the ocean floor, perhaps rising to the surface where a liquefied natural gas tanker will be waiting; maybe the string of pearls will stretch all the way to the shore for processing and distribution. Not only do we end our dependency on foreign oil, think of the thousands of jobs that will be created. Can you see it?”

  “We see it, Bob,” his crewmates answered.

  The sub continued its ascent without another word being spoken until Mae again broke the silence.

  “We have about an hour and a half till we surface.”

  “You told me this would be the most boring part of the trip,” Boucher said.

  “Not this time. We’ve used up all the oxygen in our emergency tanks. We fell deeper than our planned depth, and we don’t know how much time we were unconscious on that ledge. We’re recycling our own breath, but the CO2 level is too high. There won’t be enough air to get us to the surface.”

  “Call upstairs and ask them how long we’ve been down,” Palmetto said.

  Mae got Beagle on the phone and asked.

  “We didn’t know just how to tell you. Longer than you should have.”

  “Do we have enough air to get to the surface?”

  “That’s a negative,” was the answer. The tone of voice was flat, no emotion was expressed, but they all knew better.

  She hung up the phone and looked at her mates. “We will meditate,” she whispered. “It lowers your metabolism and you will need less air. Think of two syllables and repeat them over and over in your mind. Now close your eyes.”

  They did as ordered, though Boucher added an extra syllable. He repeated Malika over and over until his meditation became a hypnotic trance, though he knew it was really the lack of air. The three drifted in and out of consciousness, then surrendered to the dark void.

  The divers from the Beagle were ready. The ascent of the sub had been monitored. The tower, or “sail,” broke surface and they were immediately climbing onto it. The hatch was flung open and one diver jumped in, carrying a tank of pure oxygen. There was no priority among the passengers. He placed a mask over the first face he could reach and kept it there till he saw a response. Palmetto coughed and gasped for the air now filling the compartment. Mae was next to receive air. The diver lifted the barely conscious woman up to the hatch. She was grabbed under the shoulders, pulled free, and placed in an inflatable dinghy, where a mask connected to a regular diver’s tank of compressed air was administered to her. The men were given the same treatment, then they were raced to the ship while some of the divers remained behind and began to ready the sub for its retrieval by the research vessel. Within minutes the three were receiving medical attention and the word had raced through the ship. They were safe.

  CHAPTER 18

  BOUCHER WOKE UP. PALMETTO was standing over him, his head swathed in bandages.

  “How are you feeling, Judge?”

  He looked around. Had they already made it to shore? The room he was in looked like a small ER. An IV had been inserted into his left wrist and its tube was attached to a bag hanging from a portable rack. He looked at it, puzzled.

  “Just to rehydrate you,” Palmetto said, then repeated, “How are you feeling?”

  He shrugged. “I feel fine.”

  “I want to show you something,” Palmetto said. “You feel up to a walk?”

  Boucher looked at the IV stuck in his wrist. “Get me unplugged.”

  “Will do. Be right back.”

  Palmetto returned in a minute with the ship’s doctor, as excited as when he had left. The doctor took Boucher’s blood pressure, then unhooked the IV.

  “Don’t go jogging on deck just yet,” the doctor said. “You all have had shocks to your systems. One more thing: Can you calm this guy down?”

  Palmetto was practically jumping in place. “Come on, come on,” he said.

  Boucher dressed, then followed the amiable maniac to the lab. The vacuum storage container had been retrieved from the sub and placed in a refrigerated storage unit. Several scientists in white coats were waiting for them. Mae stepped forward and hugged him. She whispered in his ear.

  “I woke up with you rubbing my ass. I passed out thinking of you rubbing my ass. Passing out meant we used less oxygen. You saved my ass.”

  They shared a chuckle as Palmetto glared at them. “Are we going to do this or not?” he said. Mae apologized, winking at Boucher as she pulled away.

  Palmetto opened the vacuum container, reached in, and pulled out the clump of methane hydrate they had recovered. It had safely survived the adventure of the deep. He broke off a chunk and returned the rest for further study, then faced his audience. He pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and lit the chunk. The white ice was enveloped in waves of blue flame. It was like staring at a star.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Palmetto said, “you are looking at the next major energy source on earth.”

  As they gazed at the ice on fire, a voice in the group muttered low: “What hath God wrought?”

  At that moment, no one knew.

  The captain set a course due east for Charleston, scheduled arrival the following afternoon.

  Conversation at dinner that evening was predictable. Everyone wanted to hear about the near disaster, not out of a sense of morbid curiosity, but from a scientific interest in how to better protect against such events in the future. Palmetto had little to offer, keeping his own counsel. Boucher understood his silence. He asked Palmetto to join him on deck after dinner.

  They stood at the railing, staring into the darkness. Clouds covered the moon. Though it was a pitch-black night, none of the senses were deprived. It was a rolling sea and the ship climbed and dropped as it crested moderate swells, sometimes throwing a light mist into their faces. Diesel fumes from the engine mixed with the scent of salty air, and the sound of waves slapping against the side mingled with the churning wake created by the ship’s prop. The black sea offered the sight of green luminescent phosphorus. They could even taste the sea by exposing their tongues. It settled lightly but unmistakably. The two men spoke.

  “I have a feeling you’re thinking about revenge,” Boucher said.

  “Actually,” Palmetto said, “I’ve been asking myself who set those charges. To blow a layer off the bottom of the sea as neatly as slicing off a pad of butter, that was not risky, that was plain stupid and irresponsible. Those fools have proven my worst fears about them. Perry—I want to kill the son of a bitch.”

  “I’m going to have to try and stop you.” Even in the dark, Boucher knew that Palmetto was staring at him.

  “What are you going to find me in contempt of this time? Contempt of ship? Contempt of ocean? He tried to kill you too, remember? He’s killed others and he’ll kill again. Your fucking legal system is not going to stop him. I’ve been that route. It’s a dead end, and that’s not a figure of speech.”

  “Calm down,” Boucher said. It was an order, and he knew how to give orders. Palmetto shut up.

  “How do you end the life of a powerful man?” the judge asked.

  “Is this a trick question? A bullet through the head would be my answer. A powerful man’s skull is no thicker than anyone else’s.”

  “No. You take away his power. Without it, he merely exists.”

  “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “Am I? You know John Perry. You know what motivates him. What if it were all taken away? What if he were to lose his corporation, his wealth, everything?”

  “I think he’d rather die. He thinks he is his company. If you’re talking about a messianic complex, he’s your textbook example.”

  “So if he were to lose his company, lose his money, if he were ruined financially beyond any hope of recovery, and, of course, if he were to lose his freedom . . .”

  “I’d love to see that day,” Palmetto said, “but you’re talking about the head of a large and politically powerful energy company. There’s no way the two of us could mak
e that happen.”

  “Detective Fitch in New Orleans might help us.”

  “Oh, boy. Now we are three.”

  “But you have friends too.”

  “Me? I’ve been living underground for the last twenty years, remember? I don’t have any friends. I don’t even have any family left.”

  “I think you’re wrong. I think you have more friends than you realize. There are quite a few people who are concerned about your welfare, and concerned about this new form of energy you have helped develop. I think they’d be inclined to help too, especially if it meant that Mr. John Perry and his company would be kept from causing damage to their precious ocean.”

  “You mean the Institute?”

  “Exactly. Listen to me. I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER 19

  THE BEAGLE DOCKED IN Charleston, finding berth in a decommissioned navy yard. Boucher and Palmetto bade the crew and scientists good-bye and took a taxi to the airport. They purchased tickets, cleared security, and stood in the departure area.

  “Just be where I can contact you,” Boucher said.

  “I’ll call you. I’m going to get myself a cell phone,” Palmetto said with a smile. “I’ve wanted one for years.”

  “Don’t forget what else I told you.”

  “I won’t.”

  The mention of a cell phone was a reminder. Boucher called Malika as he walked to his own departure gate. She answered after the first ring, identifying his number.

  “Where are you? What have you been doing?” she asked.

  “Deep-sea diving,” he said.

  “I wish you’d be serious for once. I’ve been worried about you.”

  A near-death experience is best not related to a loved one via cell phone in an air terminal. Boucher gave her the light version of his adventure. It was thrilling enough. He arrived at his gate, saw his flight was delayed twenty minutes, took a seat, and they conversed casually. He was amazed how colorless he made his thrill of a lifetime sound and promised to tell a better tale when they were together again. They said good-bye and he immediately placed another call. Fitch also recognized his number.