Fast Ice

by Clive Cussler

  In his own way, Hiram was the exception to the rule Kurt had just laid down. A computer genius who’d designed and built most of NUMA’s top-end technology, Hiram wore granny glasses and had his hair in a ponytail, which he’d been promising to cut for years. He was dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved Harley-Davidson T-shirt, which proudly identified the Cabo San Lucas dealership as its place of origin.

  Despite the counterculture look, Hiram was sharp as a knife. If he ever retired from NUMA—something Rudi insisted would never be allowed—a bidding war for his services would erupt in Silicon Valley within the hour.

  As Rudi questioned Kurt and Joe about the incident, Hiram sat by, tapping notes into his laptop.

  “Did you get a good look at the submarine?” Rudi asked.

  “Several looks,” Kurt said. “A hundred feet in length, no conning tower or sail. It was fast and highly maneuverable. I’d say it was constructed of an unusual material.”

  “That’s very descriptive,” Rudi said. “Care to narrow it down for us?”

  “I didn’t have time to get a sample,” Kurt said. “But it wasn’t steel and it wasn’t the type of coating we use to cover our boats. Appeared slightly translucent and nonmetallic. My assumption would be a new type of sonar-absorbent material. Plastic or a synthetic polymer. Which might explain the translucent effect.”

  “Which suggests a very advanced operator,” Rudi noted with disdain. He turned to Hiram. “See what you can find in the database about new materials being developed for submersibles. That might tell us something.”

  Hiram nodded and typed more notes. Rudi continued the questioning. “How about from your vantage point, Joe?”

  “I saw what Kurt saw,” Joe replied. “Very stealthy. Turned on a dime. From stem to stern, not the type of equipment you could buy off the shelf.”

  “Military?” Rudi asked.

  Joe shook his head. “Unarmed. It didn’t fire anything at the helicopter and it used a ram to sink the Grishka. Doubt they’d have chosen the giant can opener approach if they carried torpedoes or missiles.”

  “Well,” Rudi said. “At least that tells us something.”

  Something but not much, Kurt thought. “Did you find anything on the missing scientist?”

  “We did,” Rudi said. “For one thing, she’s almost famous. But I’ll let Hiram explain.”

  Yaeger adjusted his glasses and began to speak. “Yvonne Lloyd is a thirty-four-year-old Dutch national. Though she was born in Amsterdam, she was raised in South Africa, where she attended Stellenbosch University. She majored in climatology and political science, graduating summa cum laude. After several months in Antarctica as part of a UN expedition, she went back to school and earned a doctorate in paleomicrobiology.”

  Joe raised his hand as if he were in class. “As a student whose most advanced degree is underwater basket weaving, I have to ask. What, exactly, is paleomicrobiology?”

  “It’s the study of microscopic organisms using the fossil record,” Hiram replied. “A paleobiologist performs research into bacteria, algae and viruses that lived in previous epochs before dying off or evolving into the organisms we have with us today.”

  “Ah,” Joe said. “That’s what I thought. Just wanted to be sure.”

  Yaeger continued. “Her earliest published work revolves around the concept of the Earth as a living organism, while comparing modern humans and our activities to a bacterial infestation. Finishing her doctoral program, she produced a dissertation on what scientists now call the Snowball Earth Theory.”

  “Sounds like a winter-themed amusement park,” Kurt said.

  Rudi jumped in. “I can promise you, there was little to be amused about during that era. If the Snowball Earth Theory is correct, the entire planet was frozen.”

  “Like an ice age?” Joe asked.

  “Worse,” Rudi said. “Consider it a super ice age. One that would bury all the major land masses in glaciers a mile deep. It would turn the upper layer of the oceans into ice, beneath which briny slush would ooze and barely move. If the theory is to be believed, only a narrow band around the equator remained warm enough for water to remain liquefied and thus support life.”

  “Pretty sure my toes would have been cold,” Kurt said. “How does this connect with Cora and whatever she might have been searching for in Antarctica?”

  Yaeger jumped back in to explain. “Yvonne’s dissertation proposed that one cause of this Snowball Earth era was microbes that no longer exist today. Her research showed that these microbes became so efficient at removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere that they left only traces of carbon dioxide and methane behind. The result was a crystal clear atmosphere with no greenhouse blanket left to warm it.”

  Joe chimed in. “Like the way a desert at night is a whole lot colder than a tropical island even if the desert is much hotter during the day.”

  “That’s the exact effect,” Yaeger said. “But further compounding this effect is the reflection issue.”

  “Which is?” Kurt asked.

  “The obvious effect of cold temperatures on water,” Yaeger said. “Turning it to snow and ice. With the Earth cooling rapidly, snow fell more often and stayed a lot longer. Eventually, the continents were covered in snowpack year-round and most of the world’s oceans were crusted over with ice. This coating reflected a much larger percentage of the incoming solar radiation back into space than what’s reflected today. So instead of absorbing heat in the daylight hours, the planet was cooling during the day as well as cooling at night.”

  “A classic negative feedback loop,” Kurt noted. “The colder it got, the more it cooled down. So how, precisely, did the world get out of this super ice age?”

  “No one’s quite sure,” Yaeger said. “Some scientists disagree with the theory based on the belief that the planet could not escape such a frozen state and therefore it could never have happened. Others point to a meteor impact or a strong wave of volcanic activity as events that would impart enough energy to begin the thaw. While those ideas are still being debated, Yvonne proposed a second theory that took this idea further, applying it on a smaller scale to the regular reoccurrence of normal ice ages, which have been coming and going for the last million years with incredible consistency.”

  Yaeger punched up a chart, which appeared on the screen both on the Providence and in the conference room.

  The chart compared the Earth’s average temperature to the amount of glacial coverage around the world over the past million years. As would be expected, every time temperatures rose, the glaciers melted. But instead of producing runaway warmth and a tropical Earth, each spike in temperatures was immediately followed by a cooling period, with the world returning first to equilibrium and then dropping into another ice age.

  Geologically speaking, the spikes and the cooling trends came at regular intervals and the resulting chart looked something like an EKG readout familiar to anyone who’d ever been in a hospital or watched a medical program on television.

  “Yvonne called it the Heartbeat of Gaia,” Yaeger explained. “Which is another name for Earth. She attributed this up and down pattern to the self-correcting abilities of the planet and the release of microbes from the Arctic regions during the hottest eras.”

  Rudi added a point. “She called this the Firewall Theory, suggesting that the Earth’s stored biological history will act like a computer firewall to prevent or correct any human-created catastrophe, including climate change or global warming.”

  Kurt nodded. It was interesting, if far-fetched. “By what mechanism does she suggest these microbes come and go?”

  “It’s based on the melting of glaciers,” Yaeger said. “When the Earth gets too warm, the glaciers melt. As they melt, they release viruses, bacteria and algae that haven’t seen the light of day for twenty thousand years or more. These dormant microbes flood into the oceans, blo
oming rapidly because they have no natural enemies. They absorb the greenhouse gases, creating a lesser version of the Snowball Earth and bringing about a cooling period and another ice age. As the world ices over, these microbes are cut off from their source and slowly die.”

  “Did she have any proof to offer?”

  “Not that I can see,” Yaeger said. “But the dissertation was written years ago. A lot has changed since then. And it wouldn’t surprise us if that’s what she and Cora were looking for in Antarctica.”

  Considering what he’d heard, it wouldn’t have surprised Kurt either. But looking and finding were two different things. “What are the chances of this being anything more than fantasy?”

  Joe spoke up. “I remember hearing about a group of scientists who discovered strains of dormant bacteria living in the meltwater at the bottom of Antarctic lakes. And then, just last year, a research group in Tibet discovered twenty-eight previously unknown viruses dormant beneath a melting glacier.”

  Kurt turned to Joe. “You seem to be well versed in this stuff.”

  Joe grinned. “If it falls into the realm of zombie apocalypse scenarios, I make sure to stay up to date.”

  Kurt laughed.

  “You’re not the only one,” Yaeger insisted. “My research has revealed similar things, including a deadly incident in Russia back in 2016, when reindeer carcasses thawed out of the permafrost and promptly released anthrax into the air. A French scientist studying the case warned that bubonic plague, Spanish flu and smallpox are lurking there as well. And that if deeper ice begins to melt, we might be facing diseases that humanity hasn’t dealt with since the Neanderthals were running around. Diseases we have no immunity to.”

  “As if the coronavirus and swine flu weren’t bad enough,” Rudi said.

  The communications room fell silent, everyone considering the implications of new plagues emerging from the melting ice.

  “Sounds like Yvonne’s theory was not out of the question,” Kurt said. “And it explains why she would be on Cora’s expedition. Rudi mentioned she was famous. Last I checked, publishing an academic paper or two doesn’t bring the paparazzi running to your door.”

  “No,” Yaeger admitted. “But getting into a tabloid-worthy feud with your wealthy oil baron brother does.”

  “Who’s her brother?”

  “Ryland Lloyd,” Hiram said. “Owner and CEO of Mata Petroleum.”

  As Yaeger spoke, he tapped away at the keyboard in front of him, bringing up photos of the two siblings. Yvonne was blond and natural, her features striking, without a hint of makeup. Ryland had dark brown hair and an angular face. His skin was weathered and furrowed. In one photo he had a tuft of hair underneath his chin, in the next he sported a full beard. “Ryland must be older than her.”

  “Fifteen years her senior,” Yaeger said. “He took care of her after their parents died. She was only eight at the time. By all indications, they were extremely close in her formative years. We found an old interview where he claimed the two of them were so similar as to be of one mind. But as he ran the oil company and she went from school to school, all of that changed. In her own words, ‘My eyes were opened.’ After graduating from Stellenbosch, she identified as a radical environmentalist. Radical because, in her opinion, to be anything less made one an accomplice in the Earth’s destruction.”

  “And I thought my sister and I were different,” Joe said.

  Yaeger continued with more details. “By the time Yvonne was a grown woman, she was getting arrested for breaking into private research facilities and leading environmental protests that went a step too far. At the same time, her brother was buying up deepwater oil fields and mines in all parts of the world and positioning himself as a leader in the movement called climate progression.”

  “Which is what?” Kurt asked.

  “A third side to the never-ending debate about climate change,” Rudi said. “Unlike the climate change deniers, who insist global warming is not happening, and the climate change activists, who insist that it is and will soon be the end of the planet as we know it, the climate progression movement accepts the idea that climate change is occurring while insisting it will be of tremendous benefit to the Earth in the long run. They consider the idea of preventing it foolish and that, if anything, it should be encouraged and moved along at a faster clip.”

  “That’s a new one,” Joe said.

  “They’re a small but powerful group,” Rudi explained. “Most don’t like to draw attention to themselves. Ryland Lloyd being the exception.”

  “He certainly makes up for the quiet ones,” Yaeger added. “Most famously claiming that melting the glaciers of Antarctica would open up access to eighty billion barrels of oil and countless deposits of rare earths and precious metals. When oil spiked a few years back, he floated the idea of drilling in the waters off the Antarctic coast, with plans to erect heated concrete and steel barriers to keep the area clear of ice.”

  “I see what you mean about them being different,” Kurt said. “I’m assuming the sister wasn’t a fan of his drilling proposition.”

  “Not one bit,” Rudi replied. “She and her group attacked the idea, viciously pointing out Mata Petroleum’s poor safety record, with secretly taped video of shoddy equipment and oil spills. In response, Ryland called the Antarctic continent empty and worthless in its current condition, suggesting it be strip-mined for minerals and scoured for oil. He went so far as to insist that oil is a natural product of the Earth and that a few spills would actually be good for the Antarctic environment.”

  “Molten lava is a natural product of the Earth, too,” Joe said. “I’d rather not swim in it.”

  Kurt laughed. “Did Ryland ever attempt to sink a well in Antarctic waters?”

  Rudi shook his head. “He spent a year pushing hard for approval, but the firestorm caused by his comments made it a nonstarter. The crash in oil prices a few years later made it a moot point. There’s no way it would be profitable now.”

  “Fire and ice,” Kurt said.

  “Her two theories?” Rudi asked.

  “Yvonne and her brother,” Kurt said. “Two people both obsessed with Antarctica for different reasons.”

  “Which is why we’re considering the possibility that Ryland had a hand in the attack on the Grishka and his sister’s disappearance,” Rudi said. “Obviously, a corporation involved in deepwater drilling would have all the resources and technology needed to build and operate its own submarines. Beyond that, oil companies are intimately familiar with the value of core samples and the secrets they reveal.”

  “It fits on a personal level as well,” Yaeger added. “Assuming Ryland was willing to massacre the scientists and crew of the Grishka to get what Cora discovered, he still might have a soft spot for his own sister.”

  “Or he might want to take her hostage,” Joe suggested. “Just to show her he’s beaten her once and for all.”

  Kurt could see it. But something didn’t fit. “One problem. It’s hard to imagine whatever Cora found down there being of interest to a guy who wanted to strip-mine the continent.”

  “Unless those core samples lead to the oil or mineral bonanza he was hoping to discover,” Rudi said.

  That was a possibility, Kurt thought. But at this point it was all just speculation and speculation could be dangerous. It could take you down the wrong road and make you blind to other paths. “The bottom line is, we have two leads.”

  “Two?” Rudi asked.

  “Ryland and the core samples,” Kurt said.

  “But we don’t have the core samples,” Yaeger reminded him.

  “But we might be able to find something similar,” Kurt said. “Or, more precisely, someone else may have already found something similar and they just don’t know it yet. Off the top of my head, I can think of several large facilities around the world storing frozen ice cores for resea
rch and processing. The National Science Foundation runs a warehouse and lab in Colorado. The EU funded a similar facility in Helsinki. And there’s another large storage center in Seoul, South Korea, if I’m not mistaken. Not to mention universities and national governments. If we can find core samples that were drilled in similar locations to where Cora looked, we might get an idea of what she found.”

  “Except that Cora’s team was operating in total secrecy,” Rudi said. “She went dark and stayed that way. The Grishka wasn’t even broadcasting an AIS signal. And the only communication we have was the coded satellite message—and that signal is impossible to trace. In other words, we have no idea where she went.”

  “I think she went to New Swabia,” Kurt said.

  Rudi looked at Kurt as if he were joking. “The new what?”

  “New Swabia,” Kurt repeated. “The section of Antarctica explored by the Deutsche Antarktische Expedition of 1938–1939.”

  As Kurt spoke, he produced the printed photograph he’d found on the Grishka. “Joe and I discovered this in the ship’s laboratory. Unless you know something I don’t, Cora and her team were the furthest thing from Nazis. Which means the only purpose for having this photograph would be a scientific one. It must be related to what they were doing or it wouldn’t have been sitting around in their lab.”

  Kurt held the photo in front of the camera. Rudi squinted to see it.

  Off to the side, Yaeger typed furiously. “German Antarctic Expedition of 1938–1939,” he said, reading from the NUMA record. “It was sent out just prior to World War Two. Using a converted freighter that remained anchored off the coast while exploring the continent with flying boats. The flights covered large swaths of previously unseen territory. The crews photographed the terrain while dropping markers and other junk to establish the Nazis’ privilege to control the land they’d found.”