Fast Ice

by Clive Cussler

  “That would be these guys,” Kurt said, pointing to the men in the picture.

  “No one knows what they were searching for,” Yaeger continued. “Official records suggest oil or a place to set up a whaling station. Others insist they planned to build a U-boat base on the continent. They called the territory New Swabia because they were flying off a ship known as the Schwabenland.”

  Rudi nodded at Yaeger. “And where, exactly, is New Swabia?”

  “About five hundred miles southeast of where the Grishka was discovered,” Yaeger said.

  “It’s a fair distance,” Kurt said. “But a ship could drift that far in eight or nine weeks.”

  The look on Rudi’s face told Kurt he agreed.

  “Okay,” Rudi said finally. “Two leads it is. We’ll look into this German expedition while you two get yourselves to Johannesburg. By the time you land, I’ll have set up an audience with Ryland Lloyd.”

  12

  CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

  Ryland Lloyd stood at the rail of a supply vessel as it crossed Cape Town Harbour. Two of his employees accompanied him, the boat’s pilot and a member of his protection squad. They were headed for the outer anchorage, where a scattering of ships too large for the harbor moored.

  It was night and the sky was black. The lights of the city cast an orange glow along the shore, while a darker backdrop beyond was all that could be seen of Table Mountain—the majestic, flat-topped escarpment so often seen in images of the South African city.

  Ryland had spent some time on Table Mountain. A cable car ran to the top, making it easy to reach. The view from up high was spectacular both day and night, taking in all of Cape Town and miles upon miles of ocean. Yet even the sharpest eyes keeping watch from it would not see what Ryland was about to do.

  The supply vessel cleared the no-wake zone and turned toward the anchorage, picking up speed in the process. It passed mothballed freighters and a carrier of crude oil off-loading its supply before zeroing in on its destination—a wide-hulled, industrial-looking vessel known as the Colossus.

  The Colossus was a crane ship. It was used for offshore construction and needed to be stable enough to move multi-thousand-ton loads without listing or toppling over. Most of these large ships were designed like catamarans, with two hulls with a deck between. Many of them were semisubmersible, meaning they could fill their pontoons with seawater, sinking lower and becoming heavier and more stable for construction operations.

  The Colossus sported only a single hull, though it was wider than a football field and twice as long. This boxy shape gave it stability and a huge internal volume, making it possible to operate in the most distant places without the need for constant reloading. The large empty volume gave it other attributes as well, including Ryland’s ability to keep his operations secret from the world.

  “They’re signaling for us to come aboard at the aft cargo bay,” Ryland’s pilot said.

  “Take us in,” Ryland said. “I’ll step off and you two can wait for my return.”

  The pilot nodded. The bodyguard did likewise.

  They were two of Ryland’s regular employees, well paid, vetted for trustworthiness and watched for any signs of disloyalty, but they were not capable of the leap of consciousness required to witness the truth that lay inside the Colossus.

  The supply boat rounded the stern of the crane ship, passing by the twenty-foot letters spelling out its name and then past the blue star Mata Petroleum logo.

  Moving up the far side, the pilot cut the throttle. The rumbling of the boat’s engine faded and the vessel slowed. It coasted to a stop beside a cargo door that had been lowered by powerful hydraulic arms.

  The open door acted as a platform. It lined up with the top deck of the supply boat.

  Ryland climbed a ladder to the roof of the pilothouse and stepped nimbly from the smaller vessel onto the bigger ship.

  A crewman from the Colossus stood guard silently. Ryland passed the sailor without acknowledgment and walked inside. He descended a flight of stairs and then walked out onto a platform overlooking the empty central section of the Colossus.

  This vast area below him was now filled with water. Technically, the purpose of this compartment was to add ballast and stability to the Colossus during lifting operations. Ryland’s engineers had modified it to open from the bottom, allowing submersibles to enter and leave unseen.

  At the moment, a gray, tadpole-shaped vessel sat moored inside. Several of Ryland’s men were working on the bow of the craft, which had been damaged during the ramming operation. There was no flash of welding torches or the banging of hammers, only two machines being moved into place and a soft grinding noise.

  Confident that the submarine would soon be repaired, Ryland continued down a catwalk that ran the length of the bay. At the far end, half hidden in the shadows, he found a tall, lean woman with straw blond hair.

  Ryland studied her before speaking. Aside from a bruise on her cheek, she was a vision of near perfection.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  Yvonne stepped forward. “I was injured when we rammed the Grishka,” she said. “The Blunt Nose has a very stiff structure. It failed to absorb the impact the way I expected it to. The fault is my own.”

  He caressed her face, careful to avoid touching the discolored skin. “Taking responsibility for our own errors is an honorable trait,” he said.

  “It separates us from the blind,” she replied.

  He withdrew his hand and the two of them entered the nearest corridor together, speaking as they walked. “I’m glad to see you,” he said. “We have much to discuss. Do you have the samples?”

  “They survived the journey without issue,” she said.

  That was good news. “Have the genetic modifications been successful?”

  “It appears so,” she replied. “Reproduction rates have been increased five hundred percent, cycles shortened to forty-eight hours. You’ll have to culture them and build a large enough seed stock before you begin full-scale production. But you should have no problem.”

  He nodded. That plan was already in the works. “All of that will pale in comparison to what can be released naturally from beneath the glacier. How close are we to delivering the payload from the subglacial lakes?”

  “The final sluice is being carved now. We’ll have direct access to the ocean within days.”

  “And the latest modeling?”

  “Everything you could have asked for,” she said. “Once the microbes reach the sea, they will spread around Antarctica. Changes in the Southern Hemisphere will become noticeable within three months.”

  “And then?” he asked.

  “Climate change will cause increased growth of the microbes,” she said, “which will cause more climate change. Significant dislocation of human activity will occur within eighteen months. And within three years a third of the world will face mass starvation due to crop failures and a reduction in fishing tonnage. The changes peak and stabilize at the ten-year time frame, at which point eighty-two percent of the world’s landmass will be unsuitable for human activity. A massive reduction in human population will inevitably follow.”

  He nodded, imagining the peace and quiet of a world no longer teeming with people. “There will be wars, of course.”

  “Starving people rattle their cages,” she replied, “but they lack the will to fight. At any rate, we’ll be safe in our sanctuaries.”

  Perhaps, he thought. In the long run, it mattered little to him.

  “You’ve done what you needed to do,” he said. “You should be proud.”

  She shook her head. “I failed to reach the Grishka before it was boarded. Two operatives from NUMA were on board when we attacked.”

  “I assume they drowned,” he said.

  “Unfortunately, no,” she said. “They escaped on the Grishka’s hel
icopter. But they can’t have learned much. We scrubbed that ship bare.”

  “They must have learned something,” he said. “They’ve asked for an audience during my party.”

  She went still, then asked, “What will you do?”

  “Visit with them and find out what they know,” he said.

  “Do not trifle with these men,” she advised. “Cora spoke of them often. They can be very persistent.”

  “Relax,” he said. “Once I have learned all I need to know, I’ll dispose of them. One way or another.”

  13

  NUMA OPERATIONS BUILDING

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Gamay Trout was in the NUMA science lab, goggles over her eyes, dark red hair tied back in a ponytail. Her gloved hands were submerged deep in a container of mud.

  Pushing her fingers together and through the sediment, she scooped out a handful of slimy black sludge. She placed the sample on a glass tray, peeled off the gloves and switched on a bright halogen lamp.

  Under the glare of the light, she picked through the muck with a stainless steel pointer, finding tiny shells and other clues that revealed what was living there.

  “Did you lose your wedding ring again?” a voice asked from behind her. “You know, there are easier ways to get out of being married to Paul.”

  Gamay stood back from the mess and shot Rudi Gunn a look that suggested she was not amused. In fact, she was fighting back laughter. She waved the steel pointer in his general direction. “You’d be wise not to antagonize a woman with a sharp object in her hand.”

  “I happily retract my statement,” Rudi said.

  Gamay allowed a smile to emerge. It was an easy smile, one that told the world she was comfortable with both being the target of a few jokes and giving as good as she got. “Retraction accepted,” she said. “For now.”

  Safe from being impaled, Rudi stepped closer. “What are you doing?”

  “This mud came from the bottom of San Francisco Bay,” she explained. “We’re comparing it with mud from 1939. Eighty years of shipping, oil spills and chemical runoff have taken their toll, but it’s neither dormant nor dead. Life has adapted. We find different bacteria, different mollusks, different fish poop. A whole plethora of altered organisms are living down there now.”

  “Altered?”

  “Adapted,” she explained. “As in became far better at living in those conditions than the ones that preceded them.”

  “Fascinating,” Rudi said, though his tone suggested he was less than enthralled. “Would you like to do something more interesting?”

  “Are you suggesting my work is boring?”

  “No,” Rudi said. “Just that I need to pull you off this project and put you on something more urgent.”

  She put the pointer down and pulled off the safety goggles. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Kurt and Joe’s sudden disappearance, does it? They were supposed to meet Paul and me for dinner last night. Never even called to cancel.”

  “They were busy escaping from a sinking ship on the other side of the world,” Rudi said.

  “Of course they were,” she replied. “It could never be just a flat tire with those two.”

  Rudi explained why Kurt and Joe had left so hastily, quickly filling Gamay in on what had happened with Cora and the need to know more about what she might have found in the ice cores from Antarctica.

  “Sorry to hear about Cora,” Gamay said. “I didn’t know her very well but I thought her research was top-notch. Does this mean you’re sending Paul and me to Antarctica to drill for additional samples?”

  “That would be too easy,” Rudi said. “And possibly dangerous at this point. I’m sending you to Finland. The European Ice Core Depository is in Helsinki. It just happens to be the largest storage facility in the world and a leading center for studying ice brought in from Antarctica.”

  “What makes you think we’ll find what we need up there?”

  “It was Kurt’s idea,” Rudi said, explaining the photograph and the connection to the Schwabenland expedition. “We counted seventeen expeditions to the geographical area that would have been New Swabia over the last two decades. Fifteen of those expeditions sent their core samples to Helsinki.”

  Gamay got it. “So instead of wandering around Antarctica with drill in hand, you want us to look through a million core samples stored in a frozen warehouse?”

  “A few thousand should probably do the trick.”

  “Is that all?”

  “It’s going to be slow and time-consuming,” Rudi told her. “But there’s no other avenue to approach this.”

  “Level with me,” Gamay asked. “What are the chances of a hit? In other words, how big is New Swabia?”

  “Over three hundred thousand square miles,” Rudi admitted. “The seventeen expeditions I referred to covered less than three percent of it. All told, they drilled in only one hundred and forty locations. And according to Cora’s passport, she spent extended time in Helsinki in the months before her team left for Antarctica. That tells us something.”

  The connection was obvious. “Looks like I’m trading in my mud for ice.”

  “Colder but cleaner,” Rudi said.

  “I can live with that,” she said. “When do we leave?”

  Before answering, Rudi stepped forward and removed the sharpened pointer from Gamay’s desk. “In an hour,” he said, checking his watch. “Correction. Fifty-eight minutes.”

  “NUMA aircraft?”

  “Not this time,” Rudi said. “You and Paul are booked on a direct flight out of Dulles.”

  “No time to pack?”

  Rudi shrugged. “You can buy clothes when you reach Finland. Just put it on the company card.”

  Gamay shook her head in disappointment. “Glassware and furniture,” she said.

  “What?”

  “One buys glassware and furniture in Helsinki,” she explained. “If you’re going to send me somewhere with a blank check for clothes, it should be Paris or Milan.”

  Rudi brightened. “If you and Paul can point us in the right direction, I’ll send you to both places with the card fully loaded.”

  14

  HELSINKI, FINLAND

  Paul Trout stood on the snow-covered sidewalk outside a clothing store in the center of Helsinki. He wore a long winter overcoat, fur-lined boots, a heavy scarf and a knit cap. His gloved hands were shoved deep into his pockets and he’d whirled the scarf around his face three times, covering everything except his eyes. Somehow, he was still chilled to the bone.

  As he attempted to keep his chin tucked in under the scarf, Gamay laughed at him. “You look like a turtle.”

  “A frozen turtle,” he replied.

  “A giant frozen turtle,” she corrected.

  Paul was six foot seven. With the boots on, he stood nearly six foot nine. Frankly, he’d been amazed to find clothes that fit. On average, it turned out, Nordic people were among the tallest in the world. That played to his advantage.

  “I know why they put the ice core facility in Helsinki,” he said. “Because if the power fails, the ice still wouldn’t melt.”

  The outside temperature was seventeen degrees Fahrenheit, only ten degrees colder than Washington had been, but Helsinki was known for the cold, damp wind blowing in off the Gulf of Finland and that wind lived up to its reputation. To make matters worse, it was already dark, the sun having set around four in the afternoon.

  “You might be right about that,” Gamay said, fiddling in her pockets as if she was looking for lost change.

  “What are you doing?” Paul asked.

  “Activating my hand-warming packets,” she said. She’d shoved two of them into each pocket and was massaging them to get the chemical reaction going. That done, she adjusted a pair of furry earmuffs. “If this doesn’t work, I’m getting one of thos
e giant Russian hats. I hear they keep your whole body warm.”

  “Communist propaganda,” Paul insisted. “Which way to the facility?”

  Gamay looked at the signs. They were written in two languages, Finnish and Swedish, neither of which she could read. But the letters EICD were also stamped on the sign. “This way,” she told him. “Eight blocks. We could take a cab, but walking will do us good.”

  “More Communist propaganda,” Paul replied. “But lead on. I shall gladly follow.”

  Despite Paul’s complaint, he found the walk enjoyable and scenic. Lampposts on both sides of the street were wrapped in garlands and holiday lights. An enticing glow spilled from the windows of shops, while the center of each roundabout displayed ice sculptures lit up by colorful pastel floodlights.

  “Assuming we don’t freeze to death,” he said, “this might be a grand place to explore.”

  “In July or August,” Gamay insisted.

  Paul thought that sounded reasonable.

  They soon arrived at a sprawling three-story structure. Light streaming through large windows of triple-pane glass made it look warm and inviting inside while the steeply sloped copper roof and exposed steel beams gave it a modernistic style. The illuminated letters shone from a sign by the door.

  “This is it,” Gamay said.

  Entering the building and signing in, they were met by a man named Matthias Räikkönen. He was tall and thin, with wispy gray hair and hazel eyes. He had peaked eyebrows and a long, narrow nose. The features gave him a hawk-like appearance.

  After shaking the man’s hand, Paul stood back and allowed Gamay to do the talking. She was the charming one, after all.

  “Thanks for meeting us on such short notice,” Gamay said.

  “It is the first time I’ve been honored with a call from NUMA,” he replied, speaking English. “The reputation of your organization precedes you. How may I be of service?”

  Gamay had spent time on the phone with him as they flew across the Atlantic. But she hadn’t given him the details of what they were after.