It sounded to Rudi as if Kurt was playing games. “I thought Cora’s discovery was the final piece of the puzzle.”
“No,” Kurt said. “The final piece is what happened afterward. That is, Ryland attacking the Grishka, taking the ice cores and kidnapping his sister.”
“I hate to remind you,” Rudi said. “But that’s the only thing we’re sure of.”
“We may be sure of it, but that doesn’t mean we’re right,” Kurt replied. “Look at it this way. If Ryland wanted to prevent Yvonne and Cora from thwarting his plan to melt the ice, then he should have blown the Grishka to scrap metal or sent her to the bottom.”
“He did send her to the bottom,” Rudi noted.
“Only after he took everything off the ship,” Kurt pointed out. “Including his sister, whom he supposedly has a blood feud with.”
Rudi uncrossed his arms. He sensed his Special Projects Director was onto something. “Keep going.”
“Ryland tells the world he wants the ice to melt. That he wants to open the seas to navigation and unfreeze the permafrost for farming and mining. His official and oft repeated line is that it’s going to happen anyway, so we might as well get on with it. That’s the very scheme he’s been selling to his partners. The entire thrust of the climate progression movement. But he doesn’t need Yvonne and Cora for that. He doesn’t need their data, or the ice cores, or the ‘magic liquid’ hidden in the glacial lake. In fact, the continued existence of those things threatens his entire plan. It’s literally the one thing that might overturn his dream. And yet instead of destroying the data and the ice cores, he took possession of all those things, keeping them safe, even though they might destroy him. Does anyone really buy that?”
Rudi glanced at St. Julien, who raised his brows.
“You make a good point,” Rudi said. “But we know he did take the materials. And you’re the one who convinced us he took Yvonne. I assume you’re about to tell us why.”
“Because he’s not who he claims to be,” Kurt said.
Rudi leaned back. “Surely you’re not suggesting an impersonator.”
“I am,” Kurt said boldly. “Ryland is impersonating himself. He’s playing the part of Ryland the industrialist. The man who doesn’t give a damn about the planet and puts profit before anything. I’m telling you, it’s an act. It’s a put-on.”
“But he wanted to drill in the Antarctic,” Rudi pointed out.
“Did he?” Kurt asked. “I know that’s what he said, look at the way he said it. He claimed ‘Antarctica was a worthless wasteland’ and that an oil spill would be ‘good for the environment.’ All that did was raise the volume of the conversation up to eleven. It invited attacks not only on his company but on every other corporation that ever dreamed of industrializing Antarctica. Effectively ending any possibility of it ever happening.”
“You think he doth protest too much,” St. Julien said, vaguely quoting Hamlet.
“I do,” Kurt replied. “No CEO talks like that. They promise to drill cleanly. They insist they’ll use best environmental practices and blah-blah-blah . . . Even if they don’t mean it, they say it. And that’s because they want the world to relax and let them go about their business. Yet Ryland doesn’t play that game. He invites the firestorm, he stirs it up, stoking it, pouring fuel on it, making it impossible for anyone listening to forget what drilling and fracking and mining do to the planet.”
“There are plenty of powerful people who think they can say whatever they want and the rest of us should just deal with it,” Rudi said.
“True,” Kurt said. “But ignore what he says and look at what he does. He claims to value profits above all else, yet according to Wall Street he never manages to make one. His mines don’t produce much, his oil wells are old and declining. Instead of sinking more wells or turning to methods like fracking or high-pressure injections, he just lives with a dwindling income and borrows more money.”
Kurt took a breath and then continued. “His personal actions are even more of a giveaway. His game lodge had a large aquarium on the main floor. I noticed a pair of endangered species tucked safely inside. His preserve is home to lions and tigers and elephants rescued from zoos and circuses. According to what Leandra told us, there are three hundred black rhino on his property. These are rare, nearly extinct creatures numbering only a few thousand left in the rest of the world.”
“As I understand it, those animals are there to be hunted for sport.”
“One or two, perhaps,” Kurt admitted. “Not the younger animals or the breeding pairs. And even that’s all just part of the show.”
Perlmutter spoke up. “So, if he’s not this base industrialist, who is he?”
“An ally of Yvonne’s,” Kurt said. “A partner instead of an enemy. He once told a reporter he and his sister were ‘of one mind and purpose.’ I’m suggesting they still are.”
Rudi nodded. “That would explain why he took her off the ship after they shot everyone else.”
“It would also explain how he knew about the ship in the first place,” Kurt said. “It would explain how he knew what it was carrying and where to find it and how to intercept it. It would explain why a half dozen of the crew were shot dead in their bunks.”
“Because Yvonne shot them while they were sleeping,” Rudi said.
Kurt nodded.
St. Julien shook his head sadly. “Poor Cora.”
“Poor Cora indeed,” Rudi added. “She thought they were being followed and tracked, she thought they were in danger. She never guessed the mole was her partner in crime.”
Kurt wondered if Cora had an inkling who it was that had betrayed her. The secret message she’d sent to Rudi suggested she was worried it might be someone close to her. “The bottom line is, once Yvonne knew that Cora was going to share what she’d found with NUMA, Ryland had no choice, he had to take action. He couldn’t wait for the ship to reach Cape Town because there was always a chance that a NUMA vessel would meet them before they got home. Or that Cora would send more information.”
“If they’re all on the same side, why turn on Cora?” Gamay asked.
“Because in the end,” Kurt said, “Cora was one of us and not one of them. And what they’re planning to do is not something a reasonable person would come up with.”
“Which is what?” Rudi asked.
Kurt could only guess at this point, but he had a fairly good idea. “They’re going to use what Cora discovered to cause a new ice age, maybe even turn the world back into Snowball Earth.”
33
Rudi considered Kurt’s theory. “Bury the world in ice,” he said. “What would be the point? Where’s the profit in that?”
“There isn’t one,” Kurt said. “Not in dollars. But Ryland is an unreasonable man. He measures himself by how successfully he bends the world to his will. For a person like that, altering the course of humanity would be the ultimate victory. The ultimate act of vainglory.”
Perlmutter raised another objection. “I must point out, my boy, that if Ryland is truly an environmentalist, he’d be aware of the damage an ice age would cause. It would wipe out as many species as any level of global warming. If not significantly more.”
Gamay, a biologist, chimed in next. “An ice age would be devastating. Anything close to a Snowball Earth would qualify as a mass extinction.”
“Ryland has spent billions on large tracts of land in multiple countries along the equator,” Kurt said. “This makes absolutely no sense if he’s expecting a radically hotter world. If he’s expecting an ice age, it makes all the sense in the world. These holdings are isolated and remote. In most cases, they’re hundreds of miles from the nearest population center. And if we look close enough, we’ll see that they are self-sufficient and easily defendable. These holdings are his ships made of gopher wood. His Noah’s arks. He can fill them with whatever animals he chooses. He can
breed different species, keep them in captivity or let them roam free. But as the rest of the world slowly freezes, his sanctuaries along the equator will be largely unaffected.”
“That works for the islands as well,” Joe pointed out. “He’s bought at least two dozen islands. They’re dotted throughout the tropical seas. If the ice age happens and the glaciers rebuild themselves, the seas will drop, we know that. Depending on the severity of the ice growth, sea level could fall a hundred feet. At that point, his low-lying islands would look more like a Tahitian paradise than atolls just barely poking up above the surface.”
Kurt nodded. “And just like the landlocked preserves he’s set up, these islands are all a long way from civilization.”
“Safe zones,” Gamay suggested.
Rudi shook his head. “He’d have to be deranged. And we’ve encountered enough madmen to know this type of God complex exists. As a friend of mine used to say, when a lunatic is shooting at you, you don’t stop and wonder what made the man go crazy. You get a rifle and fire back. So, assuming you’re right, and that Ryland and his sister are hell-bent on causing a new ice age, how do you propose we stop him?”
“We beat him to the punch and cut him off at the pass.”
“Which is?”
“The glacier. And the lake that Captain Jurgenson landed on,” Kurt said. “For Ryland’s plan to work, he needs to transport large quantities of the algae from the lake to the sea. The most efficient way to do that is by pumping them. Considering that Eileen Tunstall’s company makes turbines for pipeline systems, I’d bet that Ryland’s building a conduit, one that runs directly from glacial lake to ocean.”
“That should be easy enough to spot,” Rudi pointed out. “And to destroy.”
“Not this one,” Kurt said. “It won’t be made of iron and steel. It’ll be a tunnel through the ice, right through the heart of the glacier and out to the ocean. It might be hundreds of feet beneath the surface, which will make it impervious to whatever type of bomb you throw at it.”
“That’s one hell of a tunneling job,” Rudi said.
“Actually, it’s easier than building a pipeline on the surface,” Kurt said. “All he’d need is an adequate supply of hot water. A geothermal strike would give him plenty.”
Paul nodded. He was the geologist. “Hate to add to the bad news, but that area of Antarctica is riddled with volcanic activity.”
Rudi rubbed his temples. “Which means we’re back to square one. Figuring out where Cora went and where Jorgensen landed ninety years earlier.”
“Gamay and I have narrowed it down for you,” Paul insisted.
“Twelve thousand square miles is not exactly a bull’s-eye,” Rudi replied.
“Then you’d better start narrowing it down further,” Kurt replied.
“And how do you propose we do that?”
Kurt shrugged. “I’m sure you can pull a rabbit out of your hat. In the meantime, Paul and Gamay can fly south for the winter and Joe can plan the expedition.”
“South?” Paul said. “I hope you’re suggesting Miami or the French Riviera.”
“Farther south,” Kurt said. “About as far as you can go.”
“Figures,” Paul sighed. “I guess it can’t be any colder than the ice core facility.”
“Oh, I’m sure it will be,” Gamay added. “With the added bonus of wind and driving snow.”
Kurt laughed. “I promise you one day of sun in Cape Town before we set off. But we need you down here.”
“We’ll be on the first flight,” Gamay said.
Rudi raised his hand. “Just one question,” he said. “While the Trouts are flying, and Joe is planning, and I’m searching for a hat and a rabbit of the correct size and shape, what will you be doing?”
“Talking to a man about a horse,” Kurt said. “And by that I mean a boat.”
“We are a nautical agency, after all,” Rudi said. “I believe we have a few of those sitting around. Planes and helicopters, too.”
“I know that,” Kurt said. “So does Ryland. He’s probably been tracking NUMA’s movements since the moment Cora sent you that message. That’s how his submarine managed to appear within hours of Joe and me setting foot on the Grishka. That’s why he knew everything about us when we showed up at his party.”
Rudi sat back and looked at Kurt. “You’re looking for a horse of a different color, I assume.”
Kurt nodded. “One that doesn’t look quite so American.”
34
ATLANTIC OCEAN
FORTY MILES OFF THE COAST OF ANGOLA
Ryland and Yvonne sat in the passenger compartment of a Kamov Ka-62 helicopter as it crossed the sparkling waters off the coast of Angola. The Ka-62 was the civilian version of a military helicopter used extensively by the Russian Federation. It was fast, rugged and reliable. Ryland’s company owned three such helicopters, using them to ferry men and equipment to his offshore oil platforms.
“Do you think we have enough seed material?” Yvonne asked.
Pressure sealed, fifty-five-gallon drums lined the compartment around them, twenty-six in all. Eight additional drums were carried in the cargo compartment behind a thin bulkhead.
Each of the drums contained a highly concentrated batch of the genetically modified ice-forming algae. Had anyone opened the drums, he’d have discovered a pungent green mush with the consistency of paste. Enough to cover no more than a few hundred acres of water once it had spread into a thin layer. As Yvonne mentioned, this was seed stock, not meant to do anything except get the process started.
“This should be plenty,” Ryland said. “The tankers will have a long, slow journey north. By the time they reach the Arctic Sea, their storage tanks will be full of growth.”
“Then why do you look so concerned?”
“Austin and NUMA concern me,” he said.
“You should have shot them.”
“In the middle of my party? In our home? And how would I explain that to their government?”
She shook her head. “Being mauled by lions was preferable?”
“Eminently,” he said. “An explainable accident, caused by their wandering off. Which their government would expect them to do, given the situation.”
“Austin and his friend are very”—she struggled to find the right word—“resilient. I heard stories about them from Cora. You would not believe where they’ve been or what they’ve done. They were on the Grishka when we sank it. They survived that also. I just hope their presence didn’t spook our partners. We need those turbines and tankers.”
“Don’t be concerned about Liang and Tunstall,” Ryland said. “You should have seen them react to word of American agents prowling around. Any doubts about our scheme flew right out the window replaced by a gripping fear that the Americans might stop us from melting the permafrost.” He laughed at the thought. “If anything, NUMA showing up was all the proof we needed. We couldn’t pay for that sort of validation.”
She cocked her head at him. “Then why are you worried?”
Ryland turned toward his sister. “Because Austin—in addition to being resilient, as you so aptly described him—is the epitome of an unreasonable man. I worry that he will not stop pursuing us.”
Yvonne nodded. “It must be in their DNA,” she said. “Cora was the same. At first, that was to our advantage because she led us to something no one else believed existed. Once we found it, she wouldn’t listen to me or be persuaded to keep the discovery secret. Even after I sabotaged our radio and satellite gear, she still found a way to send a message to NUMA.”
“You should have killed her while you were out on the ice,” Ryland said.
“In front of our crew?” she replied, turning the same logic back on him that he had used earlier. “They were loyal to her. She’d found and hired most of them personally. If I hadn’t shot them in their
sleep, they’d have fought to the end and we might never have taken the materials from the Grishka.” Yvonne shook her head in frustration. “Truth is, I would have shot Cora if she’d left that captain’s side for one minute. But she was on the bridge from the moment we left the glacier until the Goliath found us.”
“Understandable,” he said.
“If only that damned ship had gone down,” Yvonne said, “NUMA would never have discovered us and we’d have nothing to worry about. I still don’t know how it remained afloat. We blew a hole in the side and sent it charging through a sea filled with icebergs and growlers.”
Ryland waved a hand dismissively. “In a week or so, none of that will matter,” he said. “What we do over the next seven days will tell the outcome. We can’t have any more interference. Not now. Not this close to the finish line.”
“How do you propose to stop it?”
“I’m sending High Point and the tactical squad with you to the pumping station,” he said. “You and he are to defend the station at all costs. And if Austin and his friends show up, you make sure they die there in the cold and the snow.”
A smile creased her face. “With pleasure.”
Ryland turned to the window. A towering oil rig loomed in the distance. An even more massive vessel held station several hundred yards from the structure. The ship was a VLCC, which stood for “very large crude carrier.” It displaced two hundred thousand tons—twice the weight of an American aircraft carrier. At over a thousand feet in length with a wide beam, the ship was a certified monster that could carry two million barrels of crude oil.
Her hull was painted navy blue, her flat deck a pale green. A stylish blue on the side of her superstructure identified her as one of Liang’s tankers. One look told Ryland the ship was empty as she rode high in the water, a large red swath on the lower half of the hull exposed for all to see.
He checked his watch. The ship should have been almost full and low in the water by now. In fact, had things gone according to schedule it should have cleared the artificial island and begun its journey north.
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