50
Kurt’s mind cleared as a surge of adrenaline raced through his body. He put aside the discovery of the old plane and gazed through the dark looking for any sign of his friend.
Time was now the enemy. A person could survive being buried in the snow for a while, but the maximum duration was around eighteen minutes. In the end, it wasn’t lack of oxygen that killed him but carbon dioxide. Even hard-packed snow contained plenty of oxygen in between the ice crystals, but as a person trapped within it exhaled, the carbon dioxide built up in the snow around the person’s face. Eventually it became so concentrated that the person lost consciousness. Death followed within minutes.
Kurt glanced at the oversized watch strapped to the outside of his expedition jacket. It read 3:12 a.m. If he didn’t find Joe and dig him out by 3:30, Joe would almost certainly suffer brain damage or die.
Before he began a search, Kurt needed a way to keep his bearings. Otherwise he’d be wandering around in all directions. He dug into a pocket and pulled out a rescue flare. He lit it and stuck it in the snow near the exposed tail of the old aircraft. It burned and crackled, giving off an uneven red glow.
With the flare and the dim light from the snowcat acting as reference points, Kurt began a search, zigzagging back and forth, covering a hundred feet on either side of the line.
He switched the heating unit in his coat on, knowing he needed to stay warm or he’d lose speed. Tapping a second button by the collar, he switched on the lights embedded in the front of the jacket. It made him an obvious target, but he doubted anyone from Yvonne’s crew remained alive to shoot at him. And at this point, he didn’t much care if there was.
Higher up, the ground was hard and icy. The fresh snow from this part of the ridge had been swept away. Joe had to be farther down.
Kurt moved lower until he came to an area where his boots sank halfway to his calf. Here he widened his search and picked up the pace. He soon found a glove, and then a hat, but neither item was NUMA issue. A minute later he came upon a section of tread that had been torn off the snowcat. Broken bits of plastic lay nearby, but still there was no sign of Joe.
He swung back the other way, trudging through the snow and burying his chin in the collar of his jacket to keep it out of the wind.
He looked and looked and then stopped. How many yards had he gone? He turned around to find he’d wandered farther this time. The cold and the exhaustion had started to affect him.
He dropped down a few more yards and started back toward his centerline. His watch read 3:21. “Come on, Joe,” he muttered through numb lips. “Give me a sign.”
Catching his foot on something, Kurt fell to his knees. Turning with a start, he reached for the offending object and brushed the snow away. A handlebar appeared, and then the stub of a shattered mirror. It was the NUMA snowmobile.
Common sense told him Joe should have ended up near the machine, but common sense didn’t always hold in the chaos of an avalanche. Kurt stood up, looking around in all directions. He had to start digging soon, but where?
An idea came to mind, and Kurt began digging right where he stood. He jammed his hands into the snow and scooped out large heaps of the frozen and crystallized water. He worked with absolute intensity, his heart pounding against the wall of his chest, his head throbbing.
With the snowmobile over on its side, Kurt was able to clear the area around the seat and soon found what he was looking for: the tablet computer that Joe had used to navigate.
The screen was cracked and the stand it was locked into had been bent to one side, but the device lit up when Kurt touched it.
Unlocking the clamp that held it, Kurt pulled it free and opened a program. Thankfully, NUMA gloves were designed to work with iPads and other touch screens.
After launching the tracking program, Kurt tapped the search icon. The expedition jackets contained tracking beacons. If Joe was lying in the snow somewhere, the warmth from his body and the heated clothing would melt enough ice to make the sensor think he’d fallen overboard. Or if Joe’s hand was in the right place, he could activate the beacon himself.
After Kurt waited for what seemed like an eternity, the GPS localized and a signal appeared.
Kurt estimated the bearing and charged downhill. As he closed in on the spot, the snow grew deeper and softer. Soon he was sinking halfway to his knees.
He stopped directly on top of the marker. There was no sign of Joe at the surface, but considering the GPS was accurate to within eighteen inches, Joe had to be right beneath him.
Kurt put the tablet down and started digging, excavating the first foot of snow in a few quick scoops. The second foot was removed just as easily but the deeper Kurt went, the harder it was to dig.
He widened the hole, dropped down into it, and kept digging until his hand hit something metal. Scraping the snow away, he discovered a long narrow shaft. One end had a spear-like tip while the other was wide and flat.
Kurt pulled it free and began using it as a shovel, digging with the flat end and heaving the snow over his shoulder as he went. His pace quickened. He’d soon created a pit almost as wide as it was deep. He stopped when he noticed something in the dark.
Turning his own lights off, he waited a second for his eyes to adjust. A soft glow was rising through the crystalline snow. He could see the outline of a man.
Using the pointed end of the shaft, Kurt drilled carefully downward toward the figure. Pulling the shaft out, he drilled a second hole and then a third, all of them within inches of what he hoped was Joe’s face. The idea was to vent the carbon dioxide and allow oxygen to replace it. If he was close, it would give Joe more time.
After punching a half dozen holes as deeply as he dared, Kurt got back to digging. With two more feet of snow removed, he found Joe’s arm and then his shoulder.
Tossing the improvised shovel aside, Kurt dropped to his knees and began digging with his hands once again.
A swatch of dark hair appeared. Kurt grasped it and pulled.
“Joe,” he shouted. “Can you hear me? Tell me you’re alive.”
Joe’s eyes opened just a sliver and he coughed as if he were choking on something.
Kurt began brushing the snow from Joe’s eyes, clearing it roughly from his nose and mouth. “Are you all right?”
Joe blinked and squinted. “I will be,” he said. “When you stop scraping my face with your gloves like that.”
Kurt pulled his hand back and laughed. He went back to digging, clearing Joe’s arms and then his torso. Joe was soon squirming back and forth, trying to free his legs.
Kurt offered a hand, and with a powerful heave, he pulled Joe free.
Climbing out of the pit, both men collapsed against the pile of snow Kurt had excavated.
While Kurt allowed his muscles a well-deserved rest, Joe breathed deep and slow, replenishing the oxygen in his blood. He stretched every muscle, testing his limbs one by one. Incredibly, nothing was broken. “Next time,” he said, eyeing Kurt, “you push the button.”
Kurt nodded and laughed but said nothing. He noticed Joe looking past him, out across the slope to where the exposed tail of the old German flying boat was lit up by the flare.
“When did that get here?” Joe asked, sounding puzzled.
“About eighty years ago,” Kurt said. “It’s Jurgenson’s plane.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Nope.”
“I suppose that explains your shovel,” Joe said, pointing to the makeshift tool that Kurt had used to dig him free.
Kurt turned toward it, examining it in detail for the first time. It was a three-foot shaft of metal with a weighted point at one end and broad fins at the other. Only now did Kurt see the slightly raised image of swastikas on each of its tail fins.
Kurt shook his head at the discovery, wryly amused. “Well,” he said. “At least we know
we’ve come to the right place.”
51
With no one on their tails, Paul and Gamay cruised safely across the surface of the glacier. They rode on a foot of soft powder that cushioned the ride and muffled all sound.
With the lights off, Paul was driving almost blind, but Gamay kept up a steady stream of directions, vectoring him around obstacles and toward the target.
“Wish I could see more than fifty feet ahead,” Paul announced.
“Just keep your eyes on the road and do everything I tell you,” Gamay said.
“You must be loving this,” Paul joked. “It’s every backseat driver’s fantasy.”
She laughed. “Bear to the left fifteen degrees. And pick up the speed, you’re driving like my ninety-year-old nana.”
Paul smiled and did as directed. They swung out wide and then back to the pumping station. Once he turned toward it, there was no mistaking the target. In a sea of gray and black, the station appeared on the infrared screen like an inferno. Heat poured from several individual vents, trailing away on the wind, while a few dim lights illuminated the area around it.
As they closed in on the target, Paul slowed their approach. What appeared to be blazing fires on the infrared screen were actually plumes of superheated steam blasting out of several pipes.
The steam rose into the air, streaming on the breeze and condensing into snow. It fell in huge piles, creating a small hill downwind of the station.
Paul came in behind one of them, using it to shield them from any lookouts or cameras. With the motor disengaged, the snowmobile stopped directly behind the artificial ski slope.
“A real blizzard wasn’t enough for you?” Gamay said, admiring the ice crystals falling all around them. “You had to park under a snowmaking machine, too?”
“Maybe I just want to test my hat in extreme conditions.”
Gamay laughed. “Couldn’t get much more extreme than this.”
They climbed off the snowmobile and scanned the area for trouble. “No sign of guards,” Paul said, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. They could be hiding or underground.”
Paul grabbed a backpack and slung it over one shoulder. It held four of the explosive charges. Gamay grabbed a second pack, but Paul put out a hand. “I’ll take that.”
“This is no time for chivalry.”
“I’m not trying to be gallant,” he said. “Just being smart. One of us should be armed and you’re the better shot, the more agile person and the smaller target. I’ll be the pack mule. You keep me safe.”
Gamay hesitated for a second and then handed the pack over. “Paul Trout,” she said. “You never cease to amaze me.”
Without another word, she pulled a short-barreled MP5 machine pistol from the back of the snowmobile. Having seen what happened to Yvonne’s gunmen, she checked the action and cycled it twice to make sure it wouldn’t jam.
With the weapon in her hands and the safety off, she began a careful march toward the nearest exhaust stacks.
The first thing they came across was a huge machine. It was covered in frost and partially wrapped in tattered canvas from tarps that had been ripped free by the wind before getting caught in the machinery.
“Drilling rig,” Paul said. Beside it were stacks of pipe, all covered in snow.
“They don’t seem to be using it,” Gamay replied.
“They’d use this to drill through the rock and tap into the geothermal layer,” he said. “Then they use the hot water and high-pressure steam to bore a tunnel through the glacier. We did a similar thing in Greenland last year.”
As Paul finished speaking, a sound like thunder echoed across the valley. It was muffled and distorted by the storm, but it was unmistakable.
Both he and Gamay looked up and gazed into the distance. They saw nothing but a few dim lights on the ridge, half hidden by the storm. While the lights went out quickly, the thunder continued to roll.
“Avalanche,” Paul said. “Could be Kurt and Joe.”
“Could be anything,” Gamay said. “Let’s not dawdle.”
They moved past the drilling rig, arriving beside the nearest of the exhaust ports and ducking under the high-pressure blast of steam coming out of it. They found the port to be a steel tube four inches in diameter. It stuck out of the ground a couple feet and was surrounded by a pool of water and slush where the heat from the pipe continuously melted the snow and ice.
Paul dropped the packs and pulled out the first charge. He compared it to the pipe. “I’d like to dump these down the chimney and be done with it,” he said. “But we have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Four-inch pipe, six-inch explosive.”
“Even if we could drop them into the pipes,” Gamay said, “the pressure of that steam might just launch them into the sky like mortars. We’re going to have to go inside.”
“How? I don’t see any door or hatch.”
“There were lines on Rudi’s map,” she said. “The system labeled them as fissures because they were depressions, but when I zoomed in I could see that they were all dead straight. Short and geometrical. They’re either tunnels or trenches. One of them led directly here from what we suspected was the habitat. Something tells me that’s where we’ll find the front door.”
She pointed to a spot past the other exhaust pipes.
Paul stood up, took a couple steps and then fell as gunfire rang out and searing pain cut through his right thigh.
Gamay dove to the ground and returned fire, her shots cutting through the wind and hitting the edge of the very trench she and Paul had been looking for. A pair of men hidden there ducked down as the bullets from the MP5 blasted the snow and ice around them.
Wounded in the leg but not interested in standing anyway, Paul crawled on his stomach back to Gamay.
“You’re hit,” she said.
He nodded. “I’d like to say it’s only a scratch but I think it’s more than that.” He reached down to feel for the hole. He found an entry wound on the front of his thigh and an exit wound on the back. “Think it went through the muscle and out. That’s both good and bad. At least the bullet didn’t hit the bone and shatter it.”
As Gamay unleashed another barrage from the MP5, Paul dug down into the snow, scooping out handfuls and packing the wound. That would help the blood coagulate and would reduce the searing pain.
“How many gunmen do you see out there?” he asked.
“Two or three,” Gamay said. “But they’re down in that trench.”
That didn’t sound promising. “Please tell me those trenches don’t circumnavigate our current position?”
“Not that I saw,” she said. “And I can keep them pinned down, so they won’t be too much of a threat, but we’re not going to be able to get to them either.”
“Stalemate,” Paul said, “which means they win.”
“We can’t allow that,” she said.
Gamay triggered off another couple shots. “We could use the snowmobile as an assault craft,” she said. “Charge them at high speed while keeping our heads down.”
“That might work,” Paul said. “But even if we could cross the open ground between here and the trench, we still have to get into the trench and fight those men without getting shot. Considering I’m already limping, I don’t love our chances.”
“We could hurl the explosives at them.”
“What’s your best shot put distance?” Paul asked.
Gamay looked up. “Not seventy yards into the wind. We’ll have to get closer. Unless you have another plan?”
Paul thought almost anything sounded better than trying to charge armed men in a trench. “You said something about mortars earlier.”
She looked puzzled. “You can’t fit the explosives into the pipe.”
“Not that pipe,” Paul said. “The other on
es will do just fine.”
Gamay was lying prone in the snow, looking through her sight at the trench. She scanned it back and forth to make sure she wasn’t focusing on only one spot. Every time she saw movement, she fired. “I have ten shots left and a spare magazine. I can pin them down while you do whatever it is you’re going to do.”
Paul crushed some more snow into his wound and began to crawl away. “Stay here,” he said, before switching into his best impersonation of the Terminator. “I’ll be baaack.”
With Gamay laying down sporadic shots of harassing fire, Paul made his way to the snow-covered stacked pipe. It was unused equipment meant for the original drilling rig. The long sections, called pipe string, were not going to help him. They were forty feet in length and too heavy for a person to move. Shorter sections, called couplers, designed to link lengths of pipe string together, would do the trick.
He dug the snow away from a stack of couplers and pulled a six-foot length free. Using another pipe to support it, he wedged it into the snow at a shallow angle, twisting and shoving and leaning all his weight against it until at least a foot of the pipe was buried in the snow.
Now came the tricky part—setting the elevation. This was pure guesswork, since he had no idea about the wind and the force that his homemade weapon would produce, but he kept it low, reasoning that a bouncing and rolling explosive would be more effective than a bomb that flew well past the trench.
With the pipe wedged in and roughly aimed, Paul slipped the backpack off his shoulders. He pulled out the first explosive, set a switch on the face of it to 1. He slid that charge into the end of the pipe. It fit, with an inch to spare on either side.
With the first charge at the bottom of the pipe, he pulled out the other explosive charges, lined them up and set all their detonation selectors to 2.
If everything went as planned, the first explosive would act as the powder of a cannon, launching the other three charges as projectiles.
Now all he needed was some wadding, something to prevent the explosive force from bypassing the projectiles or ripping them apart. He emptied the backpack and stuffed it in the pipe, pushing it down as far as his long arm would allow.
Fast Ice Page 27