Arctic Floor

by Mark Aitken

  ‘So,’ said Hansen, ‘these terrorists don’t want to blow up the nuclear reactor? They will melt it down?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Aaron. ‘We’ve been keeping an eye on the Ariadne project but the hijacking surprised us.’

  ‘We should think about this,’ said the Swede, flashing a look at Gallen.

  ‘We should?’ said Gallen. ‘What should we think about?’

  Looking through the bubble windscreen as he manoeuvred the sub with a grip in each hand, Hansen’s eyes grew wide. ‘It can’t be,’ he whispered, shaking his head softly.

  ‘Can’t be what?’ asked Aaron.

  Hansen looked as if he’d eaten a bad oyster. ‘No one is so evil, surely?’

  ‘Try me,’ said Gallen.

  Hansen took a calming breath. ‘These well heads are on a geological feature called the Gakkel Ridge. You know of this?’

  ‘No,’ said Gallen.

  ‘The Gakkel Ridge sits at the confluence of two tectonic plates,’ said Hansen. ‘Beneath the ridge are vast domes holding down trillions of litres of compressed CO2.’

  ‘Is that bad?’ said Gallen.

  ‘At these depths, it’s almost impossible for an undersea volcano to erupt and disperse its plasma.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘But the Gakkel Ridge is so volatile, and it develops such incredible gas pressures—maybe twenty times the pressures you see in the St Helens eruptions—that it can explode even under the weight of three kilometres of ocean.’

  Gallen felt reflux. ‘So a nuclear reactor in meltdown—that would ruin this oil field for Oasis, right?’

  ‘Forget about an oil field,’ said Hansen, exasperated. ‘If you puncture one of these Gakkel domes in the wrong place, you could tear apart the entire sea floor.’

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER 65

  ‘Can we hit the lights?’ said Gallen as they saw the first signs of the Ariadne’s submersible beneath them.

  The tiny cockpit was plunged into inky blackness as Hansen killed the lights, Gallen and Aaron gasping slightly at the shock of it. The totality of the light deprivation had a swallowing effect that instantly made human existence seem insignificant.

  ‘Shit,’ said Gallen, breathing out. ‘That’s fricking dark.’

  ‘Oh boy,’ said Aaron. ‘This isn’t my thing.’

  ‘You sure they can’t see us?’ said Gallen as Hansen eased off the throttles and let the Sea Otter sink to the rear of where the other sub’s lights were throwing.

  ‘They have good sonar, and they’ll be able to sense something behind them,’ said the Swede as the Sea Otter hovered fifty feet to the rear of the white sub. ‘But their actual vision is forward-facing.’

  Gallen leaned towards the glass porthole as he let his eyes adjust to the environment. The white sub’s lights illuminated the muddy ground in front of it, and sediment rose in clouds as the props went on and off as it positioned itself. There was a large black 2 painted on the roof of the vessel.

  ‘What are they doing in the mud?’ said Gallen.

  ‘Could be the reactor,’ said Aaron. ‘It may have taken some time to find it on the sea bed.’

  ‘How much air do they have?’ said Gallen, watching the sub screw around like a pig with its snout in the mud.

  Hansen made a clicking sound. ‘About three hours.’

  ‘That means they have about two hours left,’ said Gallen.

  ‘There,’ said Aaron, as the white sub’s pig-rooting ceased and it slowly rose out of the sediment cloud.

  They breathed softly as they waited for the white sub to become clearer. Then, as they watched it ascend thirty feet off the muddy bottom, it slowly swivelled on its axis.

  ‘Shit,’ said Hansen, pushing one of the hand grips forward as the front glass plate of the white sub turned to ninety degrees. ‘She’s coming about.’

  The Sea Otter lurched to the port side, just avoiding the blinding floodlights of the spinning white sub. As they dipped out of the way, they looked up and saw it: the pale blue reactor room, held between two mechanical arms in front of the white sub’s windscreen, and being carried like a garbage dumpster.

  As they blended into blackness, the Sea Otter suddenly dropped.

  ‘No,’ said the Swede, as he struggled to control the vessel. ‘Turbulence.’

  He soon had the vessel righted but he couldn’t stop it immediately, and the Sea Otter bounced on her side into the sea bottom.

  Sitting in blackness and total silence for two seconds, they listened to one another’s nervous breathing.

  ‘The sub had a backwash,’ said Hansen. ‘Should have read that better.’

  The silence was total and Gallen felt an important question formulating. Aaron beat him to it. ‘We lost power, Hansen?’

  ‘There’s a back-up,’ said Hansen. ‘But that doesn’t mean we don’t have damage.’

  Gallen blinked and still couldn’t see a thing. The silence was broken only by the sound of Hansen’s fingers moving over a panel. Then he heard a click; and a soft whining hum started up and the instrument panel once again had the red backlight behind it.

  ‘Are we stuck?’ said Aaron, his voice slightly too panicky for Gallen’s liking. He’d heard that tone in Mindanao, where barracks bullies and cadre course heroes suddenly found they didn’t like being in a tropical jungle at night. Especially not when the Abu Sayyaf ambushers were about.

  ‘Let’s find out,’ said Hansen. The revs climbed and the capsule vibrated slightly.

  Backing off the throttles, Hansen sighed. ‘We’re in mud, but I think we have damage to the rear prop.’

  Aaron made a squawking sound. ‘Try again. Please.’

  ‘He will, Aaron,’ said Gallen. ‘Let’s do it his way, okay?’

  The revs climbed again, this time to an ear-splitting pitch.

  Hansen clicked his teeth. ‘Perhaps you two can rock, when I say so?’

  ‘Rock?’ said Aaron, the fear coming out in a low screech. ‘You want us to rock this fucking thing?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Hansen. ‘I need you both out of the harnesses, and leaning on the starboard side.’

  Fumbling at the five-point harness in the dimness of the panel’s glow, Gallen got himself free and rose first, grabbing Aaron by the collar and hauling him up. ‘We’re getting out of here, Aaron, okay?’ he whispered. ‘I won’t let you die.’

  Hearing the gulp and the rasped okay, Gallen pushed Aaron against the starboard bulkhead and then positioned himself with his hands against the pipes and cables that lined the vessel.

  ‘On my three,’ said Hansen, and counted them in.

  On three, Gallen and Aaron heaved against the bulkhead; back and forth as the revs rose to a screech. Slowly the sub started rocking and then they were falling in a heap over the backs of their seats as the Sea Otter burst from the mud like a cork and went into a wild spin.

  ‘Okay,’ said Hansen as he brought down the revs. ‘We’re out but the main prop is buckled.’

  ‘That bad?’ said Gallen.

  Hansen tapped on a small sonar screen. ‘It means we’re slower than the other sub, and lack power.’

  The sonar glowed green, showing a small shape behind them.

  ‘Can we get lights on?’ said Aaron. ‘Shit, it’s dark.’

  Gallen peered into the black. ‘We need the element of surprise.’

  ‘You think they haven’t seen us? I mean, we can see them, can’t we?’ spat Aaron.

  ‘Only because we know they’re there,’ said Hansen. ‘Unless you’re looking for us, we could be a seal or a whale.’

  Swinging around, they watched the nose of the Sea Otter line up with the blinking green shape on the screen. ‘About seventy metres away,’ said Hansen.

  After a minute of the whining electric motor pulling them through the dark, Aaron saw the lights. ‘There!’

  The lights got brighter as they closed, Hansen pulling back on the throttles and positioning the Sea Otter above and behind the white sub.
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  Hovering in the dark, peering into the other sub’s lights, was like looking into an opera stage that you’d run across in the middle of space. It was eerie, isolated and made every nerve in Gallen’s body scream.

  ‘They still have the reactor,’ said Gallen.

  ‘Not for long—look!’

  As the white sub inched forward, the reactor held aloft in the mechanical arms, the lights revealed what they were moving towards. Beyond the sub was the wide lip of a concrete cylinder, its thick sides standing twenty feet high and disappearing into the mud.

  ‘That’s the caisson,’ said Hansen. ‘One of three that were going to be finished in the next month.’

  ‘This is the one that drops a hundred feet?’ said Gallen.

  ‘They all do,’ said Hansen.

  The white sub edged the reactor closer to the lip and Gallen gulped down the fear. He knew Aaron wanted to turn tail and phone it in, and he had no right to put Hansen in the kind of danger he wanted to expose him to. But he couldn’t do nothing. It just wasn’t an option.

  ‘They can’t drop that thing,’ said Gallen. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘And do what?’ said Hansen.

  ‘Yeah, Gerry,’ said Aaron, a little too whiny. ‘What are we doing here? This is a job for the Navy SEALs or the clearance divers—’

  ‘There might be Navy guys on the surface by now, Aaron. But this won’t wait.’

  In front of them the reactor was rising to a point where it could slide across the top of the caisson.

  ‘Okay, but what are you going to do, Gerry? ‘

  ‘Something more than nothing,’ said Gallen. ‘Take her in, Hansen.’

  The nose dropped slightly as they accelerated towards the white sub.

  ‘What do these do?’ said Gallen, realising there were hand grips in front of his seat.

  ‘They operate the mechanical arms. Up, down, with a forward movement of the grip,’ said Hansen. ‘The trigger makes the hands close and open.’

  The arms made a loud whirring sound as Gallen tested them. They were responsive and surprisingly articulate.

  ‘Are they strong enough to out-muscle the other sub?’ said Gallen.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hansen. ‘But we have to be careful. These rigs run on two twelve-volt battery sets. You use more power from one minute of using the arms than you do from an hour of normal operation.’

  ‘So how long do we have with the arms?’

  ‘Start with forty-five seconds and I’ll let you know,’ Hansen said, tapping at the voltage gauge on the dashboard. ‘We’ll need enough power to make the surface again.’

  ‘Any ideas what I should do with them? ‘ said Gallen.

  ‘Grab the nearest arm and pull?’ said Aaron. ‘If we can keep the reactor out of that hole we at least have a chance of retrieving it.’

  Hansen brought the Sea Otter downwards from the side of the white sub, and at the last second pulled up in a hover over the right arm and turned the Sea Otter to the glass plate of the white sub.

  ‘Hello, friends,’ said the Swede with a ridiculous lilt, and he hit the Sea Otter lights, bathing the cockpit of the white sub in a wall of intense light. ‘Now,’ he said.

  The lights illuminated the Mossad agent they knew as Raffa, and Florita, both of whom flung their arms up to protect their retinas. It looked to Gallen like there was just the two of them—so where was the technician?

  Pushing the Sea Otter mechanical arms down, Gallen tried to use the grip to secure a hold on the other sub’s arms, to wrench the reactor clear. The first attempt failed. He couldn’t see very well and asked Hansen to back up slightly. As Hansen pulled the Sea Otter back, the white sub backed up too, trying to retreat from the situation.

  ‘Get me closer,’ said Gallen, as the grips of the mechanical arms came up short.

  Electrical engines whining, Hansen surged towards the reversing white sub, its pale blue cargo glinting in the floodlights. The white sub went backwards quickly and its hull hit the mud, throwing up silt into the space between the two craft.

  ‘Shit,’ said Gallen. ‘Can’t see a thing.’

  ‘Down there!’ Aaron yelled. ‘The reactor’s underneath us.’

  Pushing the arms downwards, Gallen realised he couldn’t make them curve back far enough. ‘Back up, Hansen. I need room.’

  ‘You’ve got thirty seconds,’ said Hansen, as he reversed enough for Gallen to train the arms on the reactor.

  Bringing the arms down to the right arm of the white sub, he depressed the triggers and watched the articulated jaws close on an arm gripping the reactor, like a massive Meccano set. The left jaw missed but the right one found its mark and the motors squealed and protested as the jaw gripped tight and held.

  ‘Okay,’ said Gallen. ‘Now what? ‘

  The white sub surged forward, taking the Sea Otter with it, thanks to the solid attachment. They moved at speed, and Gallen watched in horror as they bore down on the caisson edge.

  ‘Do something!’ he shouted.

  ‘We don’t have the power,’ said Hansen, trying to use reverse thrust to pull the arm off the reactor. ‘Let go.’

  ‘How?’ said Gallen as the caisson loomed to their right.

  ‘Take your hand off the trigger.’

  Gallen did as he was told, and the jaws released their quarry. But the latent momentum spun the Sea Otter on its axis even as Hansen tried to reverse thrust it out of the way. As inevitable as gravity, the Sea Otter spun sideways into the lip of the concrete caisson, bouncing off it into the mud.

  ‘Christ,’ said Aaron, his panting suggesting he was close to full panic.

  Above them the other sub shrieked to the edge of the caisson and they watched in horror as the arms pulled sideways and the reactor simply disappeared from view, dropping silently into the hole in the sea bed.

  The white sub reversed back again and Hansen got the Sea Otter clear of the mud, but something was wrong.

  ‘We travelling in a circle?’ said Aaron as they accelerated into the deep.

  ‘We lost the main prop,’ said Hansen. ‘We’re travelling on bow thruster power only.’

  ‘Where’s the other sub gone?’ Gallen peered at the sonar screen.

  ‘Behind us,’ said Hansen as the Sea Otter swept in a wide arc, the lights illuminating the stunning emptiness of the Arctic depths.

  As they came around to face the white sub, Hansen’s tone changed. ‘My God!’

  The cockpit was suddenly filled with light and as the white sub descended on them they raised their forearms to stop the blast of light into their eyeballs. The Sea Otter shook as it was rammed and pushed backwards.

  ‘It’s on top of us,’ said Hansen. ‘Feels like they have a grip.’

  ‘A grip!’ yelled Aaron. ‘Why? What are they going to do?’

  The Sea Otter was pushed back into the mud, where the two vessels became stationary, the whining and whirring of the electric motors sounding ominous in the rising sediment.

  A grinding sound came from the roof and then there was a loud tear and the white sub was reversing away into the black, something hanging from between its articulated jaws.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Gallen, pointing.

  ‘That’s our antenna,’ said Hansen, sounding defeated.

  ‘For what?’ screeched Aaron.

  ‘For the UQC,’ said the Swede. ‘That’s the radio gone.’

  ‘Can we get to the surface?’ Aaron asked.

  ‘I don’t think we have the thrust,’ Hansen replied. ‘It could take four hours with just the bow thruster. We have two hours of air, including the emergency tank.’

  ‘Is there any way we can talk to the Fanny on this?’ said Gallen, holding the radio handpiece.

  ‘The UQC is an underwater system that relies on the antenna,’ said Hansen. ‘I can try a morse signal.’

  ‘You do that,’ said Gallen. ‘How long we got?’

  ‘Two hours on emergency air and about fifty minutes each on BIBS.’

 
‘BIBS?’

  ‘It’s a face mask and air bottles—one per person, usually used in emergency decompression.’

  ‘It’s like a scuba rig?’ said Gallen.

  ‘It’s not supposed to be. It only reaches as far as the bottles.’ Hansen jerked his thumb over his shoulder.