“I can see bottom,” he said.
“AI modifications complete. Move in and perform the disabling maneuver as quickly as possible.”
“George is slowing, too—and veering off.”
“Pursue.”
Gideon maneuvered his joystick and accelerated to the max. But George was also moving at full speed, parallel to the seafloor. It seemed that Frayne was growing more accustomed to the mini sub’s controls.
“He’s heading for the Baobab,” said Glinn. “The creature’s active. Very active. Stay well away from it.”
“I’ve got it floored—I just can’t catch up.”
And now Gideon could see the faint outline of the creature, resolving itself in the glow of their headlight bars. It was moving—rippling—and the trunk was swelling frightfully, as if filling with water.
“It’s extruding its mouthparts,” said Glinn. “The Doppler sonar is picking up a current.”
Suddenly George angled upward, straight toward the extruding mouth. The funnel-like orifice was swelling with water and swinging toward the sub, pulsing and gaping.
“Break off!” Glinn ordered Frayne over the public channel. “Retreat!”
The George accelerated, caught in the current. Even as the order came in, Gideon could feel his own DSV being drawn upward and inward. Gideon jammed the joystick sideways, trying to get out of the current. He felt John being tugged toward the creature, heard the all-too-familiar thrumming of water along the hull…but then his vessel broke free, wobbling in the sudden turbulence. He immediately reversed course, pulling away from the monstrous creature and retreating at full speed. Reaching a safe distance, he stopped and turned back…
…And then he watched, horrified, as George—drawn closer and closer—began to tumble in the violent current. Moments later it was sucked bodily into the creature’s maw. In a horrible moment of déjà vu, he saw its shadow pass inside the semi-translucent gullet…and then there was a violent flexing of the trunk; a popping sound; and a sudden expulsion of air in a cascade of bubbles.
And over the hydrophone, he heard Frayne’s voice: calm, strange, distant.
Who are you…?
39
GIDEON PUSHED OPEN the personnel hatch and pulled himself up and out of John, gulping down fresh air. God, he was glad to be back on the ship. He felt badly shaken at what he’d just seen. At least Alex had struggled to the last. Frayne, on the other hand, had driven straight into the creature’s maw. Was he drunk? But he sure hadn’t looked drunk through the viewport. On the other hand, his actions had hardly been normal, either. Like a robot—or zombie.
He felt steadying hands grasping him as he came down the ladder. When he reached the deck, his legs almost collapsed from underneath him; Garza helped hold him up. The man looked flushed and tense; even Glinn was not his usual inscrutable self.
“What the hell did Frayne think he was doing?” Gideon said, gasping.
“Fuck if any of us know,” said Garza. Gideon was grateful for the man’s iron grip as he pulled himself together.
“I’m okay now,” he said after a moment. Garza eased his arm off.
“You figure out who helped him?” Gideon asked, smoothing down his clothes.
“One of his lab partners, Reece. We questioned the guy, and he insists he didn’t do anything—even though we have him on tape, clear as day, working the A-frame to lower George into the water. Claims he must have amnesia.” Garza scoffed. “Obviously bullshit. He’s in the brig now.”
Gideon turned to Glinn. “And you? What do you think?”
“The only rational explanation I can put forward at this point is that Frayne was on drugs. Maybe he himself didn’t know what he was doing.”
The focused, fixated expression he’d seen on Frayne’s face did not look like that of a drugged-out man. And how had he convinced his lab partner to help him? “Are you sure Frayne and his lab partner aren’t involved in some sort of sabotage?” Gideon asked.
“For whom?”
“Perhaps Chile is still pissed off about the Rolvaag’s sinking of the Almirante Ramirez. Inserted a saboteur on board.”
“That’s a possibility,” said Glinn.
Striding across the deck came the tall, impressive form of Chief Officer Lennart. “Mr. Glinn? We’ve got an incoming aircraft. Helicopter.”
Glinn turned sharply. “Identity?”
“It’s an EC155, originating in Ushuaia, Argentina, but registered in the US. The pilot says they’re transporting a passenger to us.”
“A passenger? Who the devil is it?”
“They won’t say. They’ve asked permission to land.”
“Deny—unless they identify their passenger.”
“I’m sorry, maritime regulations require we allow a landing. They have to refuel—they don’t have enough for a return.”
Glinn shook his head. “I want armed security at the helipad. I don’t want that chopper leaving until we have a chance to learn who it is and what they want.”
“Our bird’s on the pad,” said Lennart. “We’re going to have to take off and hover to let them land. That means we can’t hold them too long.”
Glinn turned. “We’ll hold them long enough to find out what their game is. Gideon, Manuel, arm yourselves at the arms locker and meet me by the helipad.”
The helipad was amidships, on a raised platform forward of the DSV hangar. As they collected weapons from the locker and then worked their way up stairways and corridors to the metal steps leading to the helipad, they could hear their own AStar chopper taking off. Standing in the hatchway, Gideon watched as it cleared the pad and moved off into a holding pattern to the south. Soon a new sound could be heard: the faint throbbing of another chopper, coming from the opposite direction. Emerging from the hatch, Gideon glanced toward the sound and saw a large helicopter emerging out of the clear blue sky, moving fast. The .45 he had been given was heavy and cold on his hip.
Gideon, Glinn, Garza, and a security team remained crouching to one side of the helipad, at the bottom of the stairs, to keep out of the backwash and also to provide cover if shooting began. As the chopper thundered in and began to descend above them, Gideon raised his head, squinting through the powerful rotor-wash to watch the landing.
The roar subsided. Glinn was already shouting orders into his headset. “Security, move in and cover the chopper. I want answers before we refuel and allow them to depart.”
Three security men, guns drawn, scrambled toward the cockpit. Glinn rose. “Come with me,” he said.
They mounted the stairs and crouched on either side of the chopper. Meanwhile, the rear cabin door opened; a scuffed and worn leather bag was thrown out; and then a single man emerged. He was lean to the point of gauntness, face lined and weathered to the texture of brown leather, his blue eyes glittering with suspicion and antagonism. He paused, skewering one person after another with his gaze. When Glinn saw him, he rose, then shoved the gun back into his belt. The man’s gaze paused at Glinn, then passed him by and came to rest on Garza, who was also holstering his weapon, a sour expression on his face.
“McFarlane,” Garza finally said. “Sam McFarlane. You son of a bitch.”
“Yeah,” McFarlane said after a moment, with a cold smile that held no trace of mirth. “I’m here. And now things are really going to get fucked up.”
40
GLINN QUICKLY DISBANDED security and authorized the EC155 to refuel and take off. “My cabin,” was all he said, pointing at Gideon, Garza, and the new arrival.
A few minutes later they were in Glinn’s large stateroom. Before they could even sit down, Garza turned on McFarlane. “What are you doing here?”
McFarlane returned the question with a bitter smile. “Once part of the team, always part of the team.”
“How did you find out about us? And how did you afford that chopper? The last I heard, you were broke and peddling a sack of second-rate meteorites.”
McFarlane did not answer this. Instead, he calm
ly took a seat, crossed his legs, and bestowed a cool look on Glinn. “Glad to see you looking so well, Eli.”
“Thank you.”
Garza refused to sit. “I want to know how you found out.”
“I’ve had a long journey,” McFarlane replied. “It took me forty-eight hours of travel to get here. Do you think a cup of coffee might be managed? Two creams, two sugars. A buttered scone would also be lovely.” This request he directed, in a supercilious tone pitched for maximum offensiveness, at Garza.
Gideon stared at the man. Was this really Sam McFarlane, the meteorite hunter he’d heard so much about? But of course, it had to be: he recognized the face from the video footage they’d rescued from the Rolvaag. And yet the man looked different now—very different.
Glinn picked up his radio, murmured into it, and set it down again. “All taken care of. Now, Sam, please tell us how you heard about our effort and what you’re doing here.”
“Palmer Lloyd hired me.”
This was greeted with shocked silence.
“Oh, this is classic,” said Garza. “A defective, hired by a madman.”
Glinn held up a staying hand. “Go on.”
“A few days ago, I got a call from Lloyd. He invited me to visit him in that posh asylum of his, gave me plane fare.” He shook his head. “What an experience that was. But I’ll tell you one thing: the man isn’t mad. He’s as sane as anyone. He asked, begged me to come down here.”
“For what purpose?” Garza demanded.
“To save you all from yourselves.”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Glinn asked mildly.
“He said that you, Eli, were once again acting the egotist; that your judgment was clouded—and that you thought you had everything in hand, when in fact just the opposite was true. He said you were setting yourself up to fail again, and that you were going to take down a bunch of innocents with you. Just like last time.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He said you were a man born to failure. That you instinctively seek it out.”
“I see,” said Glinn. Throughout this recitation, his expression had not changed. “And how are you going to bring about our salvation?”
“My job is to stop the stupid. To warn you when you’re about to fuck up. Lloyd tasked me with being your ‘interfering angel.’”
“How long are we going to listen to this horseshit?” said Garza. “You can interfere all you want—from the brig.”
Gideon listened, with no intention of opening his mouth and getting drawn into the argument. To him, this seemed like the last thing they needed—yet another variable in the equation. This McFarlane might be an entertaining son of a bitch, but he promised to be a disruptive presence.
A knock came at the door and a steward entered with a tray of coffee cups, a pot, cream and sugar—and buttered scones. He placed the tray on a table. Glinn thanked him and he left. As Glinn began preparing McFarlane’s coffee, he asked: “And how do you propose to become this ‘interfering angel’?”
McFarlane took the cup, drank deep. Glinn began pouring coffee for the rest.
“Put me on the team,” said McFarlane. “Give me total access. Allow me free run of the ship. And listen to what I say, for a change.”
Garza shook his head in wonder at the man’s effrontery.
“Agreed,” said Glinn.
Garza looked over sharply. “What?”
“Gideon, I’m going to put you in charge of briefing Dr. McFarlane.” Glinn turned. “Manuel, let’s put aside history and look to the future. And Sam, you would do well to change your tone, which is immature and unbecoming.”
Garza stared. “You’re really going to let this joker join the team? After all that’s happened? What’s his role?”
“Dr. McFarlane,” Glinn said, “is going to be our very own Cassandra.”
41
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, with the utmost care, wearing a radiation suit with an air supply, Gideon manipulated a small, overhead crane to maneuver the two assembled hemispheres of the nuclear device closer together. The plutonium pit was now in place, plated in twenty-four-karat gold, shining like a golden apple in the center of the layered implosion device. The two hemispheres looked like an exotic fruit, sliced down the middle. The device had been cleverly designed to slot together, with male and female plugs that fit with machined precision. The high-explosive lenses surrounding the core were also precisely machined. The shaped charges were in different colors—red for fast and white for slow—designed to focus the detonation wave into a contracting sphere so that it evenly compressed the core into a supercritical state.
The HMX explosive material gave off a faint chemical smell, a funky, plastic-like scent, that brought back memories of his years working on the Stockpile Stewardship program at the Los Alamos National Lab. Nuclear weapons aged in complex ways, and keeping the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons fresh and ready for use often meant disassembling bombs and replacing aging parts with new ones—a process not unlike what he was doing here.
Using two joysticks, he carefully worked the crane, making tiny adjustments, and finally was able to fit one hemisphere perfectly into the other, the cables and plugs slotting together, the machined HE parts sliding into place. He ran a quick electrical check and confirmed that all the electrical contacts had been made and were operating properly.
A double flange ran all the way around the stainless-steel outer shell, the holes lined up. He began inserting bolts through the holes cut into the flange and tightening them down.
He became aware of a presence behind him, and he straightened and turned. It was the new arrival, Sam McFarlane. Gideon felt a swell of annoyance at the interruption—and about how the man had crept up behind him. He had already spent an hour briefing him: what more did he want?
“This is a restricted area,” said Gideon.
McFarlane shrugged.
“You should be wearing a monkey suit.”
“Not necessary.”
Gideon stared. This was a really unwelcome visit. He should have locked the door. And then he remembered that he had; McFarlane must have procured a key.
“The HE is mildly toxic, and plutonium and polonium, in case you didn’t know, are poisonous in addition to being radioactive.”
“That concerns me not at all.”
“Well, then, is there something I can help you with?” he said, not trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
“I’m making the rounds. Trying to figure out how you plan to kill the thing. And you’re in charge of briefing me—remember?” He looked around. “So here it is—the heart of the matter. The nuke.”
Gideon nodded.
“What are the specs?”
“It’s an implosion device. Plutonium, of course.” He wondered how much McFarlane knew about nuclear device engineering.
“What’s the yield?”
“About a hundred kilotons.”
“Nobody’s ever detonated a nuclear device two miles underwater. Have you calculated just how that depth will affect the explosion?”
Gideon was a bit startled that the man had put his finger on the trickiest and most uncertain part of the whole operation. “It’s a complex computer simulation. The water pressure appears to enhance the shock wave effects, but damp down the blast effects. It will completely kill the radiation, however—water stops neutrons.”
“And how will you deliver it?”
Gideon hesitated. Some things were confidential, even on board the ship.
“Glinn gave me complete access to everything,” said McFarlane.
“We’ve got a special ROV under wraps in the hangar. It’ll deliver the weapon.”
“And your calculations show the nuke will destroy the thing?”
“The blast effects will destroy the trunk and branches. The shock wave emanating from the detonation is essentially a P-wave so strong it will destroy even the creature’s cellular structures—turn them, in effect, to mush. Th
at’s where the four-hundred-atmosphere water pressure really comes in handy.”
“And what lies below the seafloor? Will it kill that, too?”
“The pressure wave will propagate into the ground and destroy the root structure.”
“How far will it propagate, exactly?”
This was where the simulation began to break down, even pushing the limits of the onboard supercomputer. But he wasn’t going to tell McFarlane that. “Well, it seems likely it’ll sterilize the ground within a mile radius, to a depth of at least six hundred feet.”
“Six hundred feet.” McFarlane’s eyebrows rose. “And just how extensive is the root system of the creature?”
“We’re not sure. There’s always been an assumption that if we kill the structure above the seabed, we’ll kill the whole creature.”
“Isn’t that a risky assumption?”
“We think not. We can clearly see what we believe is the creature’s brain inside the top of the trunk.”
“What if it has other brains underground?”
Gideon took a deep breath. “Listen, Sam—may I call you Sam?”
“Of course.”
“We can speculate all day. I’ve got a lot of work to do here. Maybe you should take these questions up with Glinn.”
He found McFarlane looking at him rather intensely. “I’m taking them up with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I have no respect for either Glinn or Garza. I saw how both of them operated during the last hours of the Rolvaag’s existence. Glinn is a neurotic obsessive. Manuel is a superb engineer with no imagination whatsoever, which makes him doubly dangerous—talent married to convention.”
“I see.”
“If you want my opinion…” He paused, looking at Gideon. “Do you?”
Gideon was tempted to say he didn’t, but decided the better course was to hear him out. “Sure.”
“Your nuke’s not going to work. It’s going to kill the structure above the seafloor, sure, but I’ll bet the main body of the creature is underground. It’s too well engineered to be that vulnerable. You won’t get it all—the nuke’s not powerful enough.”
Beyond the Ice Limit Page 17