She drew the back of her hand across her forehead, then glanced up and caught sight of McFarlane. "Where is Mr. Glinn?" she asked. "Why isn't he responding?"
"I don't know. He disappeared soon after returning from the Chilean ship. I've been trying to reach him myself."
Britton turned to Howell.
"He may not be on the ship," the chief mate said.
"He's on the ship. I want two search parties, one forward and one aft. Have them work their way midships. Do a high-order search. Bring him to the bridge immediately."
"That won't be necessary." Glinn, noiseless as ever, had materialized at McFarlane's side. Behind him were two men that McFarlane didn't remember having seen before. Their shirts bore the small circular EES insignia.
"Eli," McFarlane began, "Palmer Lloyd has been on the phone again—"
"Dr. McFarlane, silence on the bridge, if you please!" Britton barked. The note of command in her voice was overwhelming. McFarlane fell silent.
Britton turned toward Glinn. "Who are these men, and why are they on my bridge?"
"They are EES employees."
Britton paused a moment, as if digesting this. "Mr. Glinn, I wish to remind you—and Dr. McFarlane, as the onboard representative of Lloyd Industries—that, as master of the Rolvaag, I am the ultimate authority as to the handling and disposition of this vessel."
Glinn nodded. Or, at least, McFarlane thought he did; the gesture was so slight as to be imperceptible.
"I now intend to exercise my prerogative under such authority."
McFarlane noticed that the faces of Howell and the other bridge officers were hard-set. Clearly, something was about to happen. And yet Glinn seemed to receive this stiff announcement without concern.
"And how do you plan to exercise this prerogative?"
"That meteorite is not coming aboard my ship."
There was silence while Glinn looked at her mildly. "Captain, I think it would be better if we discussed this in private."
"No, sir." She turned to Howell. "Begin preparations to vacate the island. We leave in ninety minutes."
"One moment, if you please, Mr. Howell." Glinn's eyes remained on the captain. "May I ask what precipitated this decision?"
"You know my misgivings about that rock. You've given me no assurances, beyond guesswork, that the thing is safe to bring aboard. And just five minutes ago, that destroyer painted us with fire-control radar. We're a sitting duck. Even if the meteorite is safe, the conditions aren't. A severe storm is on its way. You don't load the heaviest object ever moved by man when you're staring down the business end of a four-inch gun."
"He will not fire. At least, not yet. He believes we have his man Timmer in the brig. And he seems remarkably eager to get him back safely."
"I see. And what will he do when he finds Timmer's dead?"
Glinn did not answer this question. "Running away without a proper plan is a guaranteed way to fail. And Vallenar won't let us leave until Timmer is returned."
"All I can say is that I'd rather try running now than with a bellyful of meteorite slowing us down."
Glinn continued to regard her with a mild, almost sad expression.
A technician cleared his throat. "I've got an inbound air contact bearing zero zero nine at thirty-five miles."
"Track it and get me a call sign," Britton said, without shifting position or dropping her gaze from Glinn.
There was a short, tense silence.
"Have you forgotten the contract you signed with EES?" Glinn asked.
"I've forgotten nothing, Mr. Glinn. But there is a higher law which supersedes all contracts: the law and custom of the sea. The captain has the last word on matters pertaining to her vessel. And, under present circumstances, I will not allow that meteorite on board."
"Captain Britton, if you will not speak privately with me, all I can do is assure you there is no need to worry." Glinn nodded to his men. One of them stepped forward, sitting down at an unused computer console of black steel. The words SECURE DATAMETRICS were stamped into its side. The other man took up a position behind him, his back to the console, facing the bridge officers. McFarlane realized this console was a smaller cousin of the mysterious machine Britton had pointed out to him in the cargo control room.
Britton watched the two strangers darkly. "Mr. Howell, remove all EES personnel from the bridge."
"That," said Glinn sorrowfully, "will not be possible."
Something in his tone seemed to make Britton hesitate. "What do you mean?"
"The Rolvaag is a marvelous ship, the latest in maritime computerization. As a precaution, EES has used that computerization against a contingency such as this. You see, our systems control the main computer. Normally, this control is transparent. But after the Rolvaag was brought in to shore, I deactivated the bypass. Now we alone have the authorization codes to control the main engines. You cannot transmit any engine or rudder orders until the correct sequence is punched in."
Britton looked at him, silent fury on her face.
Howell picked up a telephone on the command console. "Security to the bridge, on the double."
Britton turned to the watch officer. "Initiate engine sequence."
There was a pause as the officer entered a series of commands. "No response from the engines, ma'am. I've got a dead board."
"Run a diagnostic," she said.
"Captain," continued Glinn, "I'm afraid you will be required to observe the letter of your contract whether you like it or not."
She wheeled suddenly, her eyes locked on his. She said something to him in a voice too low for McFarlane to hear. Glinn stepped forward. "No," he almost whispered. "You promised to captain this ship back to New York. I merely added a safeguard to prevent a violation of that promise—by you, or by others."
Britton fell silent, her tall frame quivering slightly.
"If we leave now, rashly, without a plan, they will sink us." Glinn's voice remained low, persuasive, urgent. "Our very survival now depends on your following my lead. I know what I am doing."
Britton continued looking at him. "This will not stand."
"Captain, you must believe me when I tell you that, if we are to survive, we have only one course of action. You must cooperate with me, or we will all die. It is as simple as that."
"Captain," the watch officer began, "the diagnostics check out..." His voice died away as he saw Britton had not heard him.
A group of security officers appeared on the bridge.
"You heard the captain," barked Howell, motioning the security team forward. "Clear all EES personnel from the bridge." At the console, Glinn's operatives stiffened in preparation.
And then Britton slowly held up a hand.
"Captain—" Howell began.
"They may remain. "
Howell looked at her incredulously, but Britton did not turn.
There was a long, agonized silence. Then Glinn nodded to his team.
The seated man took a stubby metal key from around his neck and inserted it into the front of the console. Glinn stepped forward, typed a short series of commands, then turned to a numeric keypad and typed again, briefly.
The watch officer glanced up. "Sir, the board's gone green."
Britton nodded. "I hope to God you do know what you're doing." She did not look at Glinn as she spoke.
"If you trust anything, Captain, I hope you will trust this. I have made a professional pact—and a personal one—to bring the meteorite to New York. I have thrown tremendous resources into solving any problem we might encounter—including this one. I—we—will not fail."
If this had any impact on Britton, McFarlane could not see it. Her eyes remained distant.
Glinn stepped back. "Captain, the next twelve hours will be the most trying of the entire mission. Success now depends on a certain subordination of your authority as captain. For that I apologize. But once the meteorite is safely in the holding tank, the ship will be yours again. And by noon tomorrow, we'll be well on our w
ay back to New York. With a prize beyond price."
As Glinn looked at her, McFarlane saw him smile: faint, tenuous, but there nonetheless.
Banks stepped out of the radio room. "I've got an ID on the bird, ma'am. It's a Lloyd Holdings helicopter, sending an encrypted call sign over the bridge-to-bridge frequency."
The smile vanished from Glinn's face. He darted a look at McFarlane. Don't look at me, McFarlane almost said. You should have kept him in the loop.
The officer at the radar console adjusted his headphones. "Captain, he's requesting permission to land."
"ETA?"
"Thirty minutes."
Glinn turned. "Captain, if you don't mind, I have a few matters to attend to. Make any necessary preparations for our departure you see fit. I'll return shortly."
He began walking away, leaving the two EES employees at the console. In the doorway, he paused. "Dr. McFarlane," he said, without looking around. "Mr. Lloyd will be expecting a welcome. Arrange it, if you please."
52: Rolvaag
12:30 A.M.
WITH A depressing sense of déjà vu, McFarlane paced the maindeck, waiting for the helicopter to approach the tanker. For interminable minutes, there was nothing more than a low thud of rotors somewhere out in the murk. McFarlane watched the frenzied activity that had begun the moment the fog concealed their ship from the Almirante Ramirez. The bluff loomed beside them, the crags of rock softened by the fog. Atop stood the shack that enclosed the meteorite. Before him, the center tank lay open. A pale light drifted upward. McFarlane watched while, with astonishing speed, swarms of workmen began assembling a tower of gleaming struts. It rose out of the tank, its metal latticework glowing softly in the sodium lights. Now, two derricks swung additional prefabricated pieces of tower into place. At least a dozen welders were at work on the tower, and continuous streams of sparks cascaded downward onto the hard hats and shoulders of the engineers below. Despite its size and bulk, the whole structure looked oddly delicate: a complex spiderweb of three dimensions. For the life of him, McFarlane could not see how the meteorite was going to get into the tank once it was dragged on top of the tower.
The thudding sound grew suddenly louder, and McFarlane trotted back along the superstructure to the fantail. The big Chinook was emerging out of the fog, its rotors sending billows of fine spray up from the deck. A man with coned flashlights in his hands maneuvered the bird into position. It was a routine landing, with none of the excitement of Lloyd's arrival during their stormy rounding of Cape Horn.
Moodily, he watched as the helicopter's oversize tires sank onto the pad. Acting as a gofer between Lloyd and Glinn was a no-win situation. He wasn't a liaison: he was a scientist. This wasn't why he had hired on, and the knowledge made him angry.
A hatchway in the helicopter's belly opened. Lloyd stood within, a long black cashmere coat billowing out behind him, a gray fedora in one hand. Landing lights gleamed off his wet pate. He made the jump, landing gracefully for a man of his size, and then strode across the deck, unbowed, powerful, oblivious to the jumble of equipment and staff that streamed out of the chopper on the hydraulic ramp deployed behind him. He grasped McFarlane's hand in his steel grip, smiled and nodded, and continued walking. McFarlane followed him across the windswept deck and out of the noise of the blades. Near the forward railing, Lloyd stopped, scanning the fantastical tower from bottom to top. "Where's Glinn?" he shouted.
"He should be back on the bridge by now."
"Let's go."
* * *
The bridge was alive with tension, faces drawn in the pale illumination. Lloyd paused in the doorway for a moment, drinking it in. Then he stepped heavily forward.
Glinn was standing at the EES console, speaking in hushed tones to his man at the keyboard. Lloyd strode toward him, enfolding Glinn's narrow hand in his own. "The man of the hour," he cried. If he had been angry on the plane, he seemed to have recovered his high spirits. He waved one hand out toward the structure rising out of the tank. "Christ, Eli, that's incredible. Are you sure it's going to hold a twenty-five-thousand-ton rock?"
"Double overage," was Glinn's reply.
"I should have known. How the hell is it supposed to work?"
"Controlled failure."
"What? Failure? From your mouth? Heaven forbid."
"We move the rock to the tower. Then we set off a series of explosive charges. These will cause the levels of the tower to fail in sequence, bringing the meteorite down, bit by bit, into the holding tank."
Lloyd gazed at the structure. "Amazing," he said. "Has it ever been done before?"
"Not in quite this way."
"Are you sure it'll work?"
A wry smile appeared on Glinn's thin lips.
"Sorry I asked. All that's your department, Eli, and I'm not going to second-guess you on it. I'm down here for a different reason." He drew himself to his full height and looked around. "I'm not going to mince words. We've got a problem here, and it's not being dealt with. We've come too far to let anything stop us now. So I've come down to kick ass and take names." He pointed out into the dense fog. "There's a warship parked right off our bow. It's sent in spies. They're just waiting for us to make a move. And, goddammit, Eli, you've done nothing about it. Well, there's to be no more chickenshit wavering. Strong action is what's needed here, and from now on I'll be handling it personally. I'm traveling back to New York with you onboard the ship. But first, I'm getting the Chilean navy to recall this damn cowboy." He turned back toward the door. "It'll take my people just a few minutes to get up to speed. Eli, I'll expect you in my office in half an hour. I'm going to make some calls. I've dealt with this kind of tinpot political situation before."
During this brief speech, Glinn kept his deep gray eyes trained steadily on Lloyd. Now he touched his brow with a handkerchief and glanced at McFarlane. As usual, it was almost impossible to read anything into his gaze: Weariness? Disgust? Nothing at all?
Glinn spoke. "I'm sorry, Mr. Lloyd. Did you say you had contacted the Chilean authorities?"
"No, not yet. I wanted to find out exactly what was happening here first. But I've got powerful friends in Chile, including the vice president and the American ambassador."
Casually, Glinn took a step closer to the EES console. "I'm afraid that will not be possible."
"What, exactly, will not be possible?" Surprise mingled with impatience in Lloyd's tone.
"Your involvement in any aspect of this operation. You would have done better to stay in New York."
Lloyd's voice sharpened with anger. "Glinn, don't go telling me what I can and can't do. I'll leave the engineering in your hands, but this is a political situation."
"I assure you I am dealing with all aspects of the political situation."
Lloyd's voice trembled. "Oh really? And what about that destroyer out there? It's armed to the teeth, and its guns are pointing at us, in case you didn't notice. You've not done a damn thing. Nothing."
Hearing this, Captain Britton glanced at Howell, and then—more significantly—at Glinn.
"Mr. Lloyd, I will say this only once. You gave me a job to do. I am doing it. Your role right now is very simple: let me carry out my plan. This is no time for drawn-out explanations."
Lloyd, instead of responding, turned to Penfold, who had been hovering unhappily in the door to the bridge. "Get Ambassador Throckmorton on the horn and conference him into the vice president's office in Santiago. I'll be down in a minute."
Penfold disappeared.
"Mr. Lloyd," said Glinn quietly. "You may remain on the bridge and observe. That is all."
"It's way too late for that, Glinn."
Glinn turned quietly and spoke to his man at the black computer. "Kill the power in the Lloyd Industries suite, and suspend ship-to-shore communications across the board."
There was a shocked silence. "You son of a bitch," Lloyd roared, recovering quickly. He turned to Britton. "I contravene that order. Mr. Glinn is relieved of authority."
It
appeared that Glinn hadn't heard. He punched in another frequency on his radio. "Mr. Garza? I'll take that report now."
He listened for a moment, then replied, "Excellent. With the covering fog, let's start an early evacuation of the island. Order all nonessential personnel back on board. But follow the game plan precisely: instruct them to leave the lights on and the equipment running. I've had Rachel set the radio transmission routines to automatic. Bring the tender around the rear of the island, but be careful to always keep it within the radar shadow of the island or the Rolvaag."
Lloyd broke in, his voice shaking with rage. "Aren't you forgetting, Glinn, who's ultimately in charge of this operation? On top of firing you, I'm stopping all payments to EES." He turned to Britton. "Restore power to my suite."
It again appeared for several moments as if Glinn had still not heard Lloyd. Britton, also, made no move. Glinn continued speaking calmly into the radio, giving orders, checking on progress. A sudden gust of wind buffeted the bridge windows, sending streamers of rain down the Plexiglas. Lloyd's face flushed a deep purple as he looked around at the captain and the crew. But no one met his eyes. The work of the bridge went on.
"Did any of you hear me?" he cried.
And then at last Glinn turned back. "I am not forgetting that you are ultimately in charge, Mr. Lloyd," he answered, his voice suddenly conciliatory, even friendly.
Lloyd took a deep breath, momentarily thrown off balance.
Glinn continued to speak softly, persuasively, even kindly. "Mr. Lloyd, in any operation, there must be a single commander. You know that better than anyone. In our contract, I made you a promise. I'm not going to break that promise. If I seem insubordinate, please know that I am doing it for you. If you had contacted the Chilean vice president, all would have been lost. I know him personally: we used to play polo together on his Patagonian ranch. He would like nothing better than to give the Americans a swift poke in the eye."
Lloyd faltered. "You played polo with—?"
Glinn went on, speaking rapidly. "I alone have all the facts. I alone know the path to success. I am not being secretive for the sake of coyness, Mr. Lloyd. There is a vital reason for this: it is essential to prevent second-guessing and freelance decision making. Frankly, the meteorite bears no intrinsic interest for me. But I promised to move this thing from point A to point B, and no one, no one, is going to stop me. So I hope you understand now why I am not going to relinquish control of this operation, or share with you explanations and prognostications. As for you withholding payment, we can settle that question like gentlemen once we are back on American soil."
The Ice Limit Page 29