The security guard ran the small boat into the dock facility without lights. He loitered about the stern undetected for several minutes, then cruised down the outboard side of the tanker. Passing the prow of the ship, he started to circle back when he caught sight of the dive gear hanging on the wharf. He quickly killed the engine and drifted to the dock, tying the boat up and then examining the equipment.
Summer saw him first, noticing a movement out of the corner of her eye as she turned to ascend the gangplank. Dirk had already taken a few steps up the ramp.
“We have company,” she whispered, tilting her head in the guard’s direction.
Dirk glanced quickly at the guard, who had his back turned to them. “Let’s get aboard. We can lose him on the ship if he spots us.”
Ducking low, he raced up the gangway taking long strides. Summer matched his pace a few steps behind. They were clearly visible from the guard’s vantage, and they expected a shout from him to stop, but it never came. Instead, they zipped to the top of the ramp, escaping his scrutiny. But when Dirk was a step from the ship’s open side rail, a faint shadow appeared on deck, followed by a dark blur. Too late, Dirk realized, the blur was a swinging truncheon aimed for the side of his face. He tried to duck in midstep but was unable to dodge the blow. The wooden club caught him with a stinging blow across the crown of his skull. His dry suit hood softened what would have otherwise been a lethal blow. A kaleidoscope of stars crossed his eyes as his knees turned to jelly. Off balance when the blow struck, he reeled sideways, his hip crushing against the gangplank’s side rail. His momentum was all high, and his torso easily flipped over the side while his feet went skyward.
He caught a brief glimpse of Summer reaching for him, but her frantic hands slipped away. Her mouth opened in a brief scream, though he failed to hear her voice. In an instant, she was gone, as he tumbled into space.
The impact seemed to take forever in coming. When he finally collided with the water, it surprisingly induced no pain. There was just a cold smell of darkness before everything turned to black.
20
THE SHADOW AT THE TOP OF THE RAMP DRIFTED into the light, revealing an ox of a man with a thick unkempt beard that brushed his chest. He stared at Summer through fiery eyes, his lips turning up in a slight grin as he waved the truncheon casually in her direction.
Summer froze on the gangplank, then subconsciously back-pedaled as her eyes darted from the brute to the murky waters below. Dirk had struck the water hard, and he had yet to surface. She felt the ramp shake beneath her feet and turned to see the dock guard sprinting up behind her. The Aleut security guard was uniformed and clean-shaven, appearing to be a safer prospect than the heathen on the ship. Summer quickly took a step toward him.
“My brother is in the water. He’s drowning,” she yelled, rushing to move past the guard. He quickly pulled the Glock automatic pistol from a side holster and leveled it at Summer’s thin midsection.
“You have trespassed on private property,” he replied in a monotone voice that was short on mercy. “You shall be held in custody until company officials can be contacted in the morning.”
“Let me take her into custody,” the shipboard brute barked. “I’ll show her some real trespassing.” He laughed with a bellow, spraying a shower of spittle across his beard.
“This is a shore facility security matter, Johnson,” the guard said, eyeing the ship’s watchman with disdain.
“The engine died on our boat. We just came looking for help,” Summer pleaded. “My brother . . .”
She looked over the side and cringed. The waters beneath the gangplank had turned flat, and there was no sign of Dirk.
The guard motioned with his gun for Summer to march down the ramp. Following behind, he turned over his shoulder and growled at Johnson.
“Fish that man out of the water, if you can find him. If he’s still alive, then bring him to the guard station.” He cut the man a sharp stare, then added, “For the sake of your own hide, you better hope he is still alive.”
The ox grunted and begrudgingly strolled down the gangplank behind them. Marched along the dock, Summer tried in vain to spot Dirk in the water. Further pleas to the guard went unheeded. Walking beneath an overhead lamp, she saw a coldness in his eyes that gave her pause. While perhaps not a sadist like the ship’s watch, he appeared more than capable of pulling the trigger on an uncooperative captive. A blow of disheartenment seemed to strike Summer, and she plodded forward with her head low, awash in helplessness. She suspected that Dirk had probably been unconscious when he hit the water. Several minutes had since elapsed, and she now choked on the bitter reality. He was gone, and there was nothing she could do about it.
JOHNSON REACHED THE BASE of the gangplank and peered into the water. There was no sign of Dirk’s body. The burly thug examined the edge of the dock but found no water marks indicating that he had pulled himself ashore. There was no way he could have swum the length of the ship without being seen. Somewhere under the surface, he knew, the man lay dead. The watch stared off the gangplank at the flat waters a last time, then ambled back onto the ship, cursing the shore guard.
Ten feet under the surface, Dirk was unconscious but far from dead. After the fall, he had fought to regain his senses, but he was hopelessly ensnarled in the blackness. For brief moments, he was able to break through the veil and seize vague notions of feeling. He sensed his body moving through the water without effort. Then something was wedged between his lips, followed by the sensation of a flowing garden hose jammed into his mouth. Soon the curtain returned, and he again drifted away into a calm darkness.
A pounding at his temple brought him back a second time. He felt a rap against his back and legs, then he felt like he was being stuffed into a closet. He heard a voice say his name, but the rest of the words were indecipherable. The voice vanished with the sound of receding footsteps. He tried with all his might to pry open an eyelid, but they were cemented shut. The pain in his head returned, growing fierce until a constellation of stars burst before his closed eyes. And then the lights and the sound and the pain blissfully departed once more.
21
SUMMER WAS LED OFF THE DOCK AND PAST THE long building housing the pumping station. The unexpected brutality against her brother had been a shock, but now she willed herself to suppress the difficult emotions and think logically. What was so important at the facility that it would warrant such behavior? Were they in fact pumping CO2 onto the tanker? She glanced over her shoulder at the guard, who marched several paces behind with his pistol drawn. Even the hired guards acted like it was a top secret installation.
The drone of the pump machinery receded as they walked past the main building and across a small open area. Approaching the administration office and adjacent security station, Summer heard a rustling in some bushes to her left. Recalling the stuffed grizzly bear in the café, she quickly stepped right to veer away from the noise. The confused guard swung his gun hand after Summer while cocking his head toward the bushes. The rustling ceased as the guard stepped closer, then suddenly a figure rose from behind the bushes swinging his arm. The guard spun his gun to fire, but an object whipped out from the prowler’s hand and struck him on the side of the face before he could shoot. Summer turned to see a dive belt, its lead weights strung to the end, clank to the ground. The guard had also dropped hard but managed to stagger to one knee. Stunned and bleeding, he slowly reaimed the pistol at the shadowy figure and squeezed the trigger.
Had the toe of Summer’s foot not struck the guard’s jaw, the bullet might have found its mark. But a hammering kick to his mouth forced the shot high and laid the man out. He slumped over unconscious, the gun slipping out of his hand.
“Those pretty legs are more dangerous than I suspected,” spoke a familiar voice.
Summer looked toward the bushes to see Trevor Miller emerge with a crooked smile. Like Summer, he was clad in a dry suit, and appeared slightly out of breath.
“Trevor,” she stamm
ered, shocked at seeing him there. “Why are you here?”
“Same reason as you. Come on, let’s get out of here.” He picked up the guard’s gun and flung it into the bushes, then grabbed her hand and began running toward the dock. Summer saw a light turn on in the building as she raced to keep up with Trevor.
They didn’t stop until they reached the dock, rushing over to where the security boat was moored. Summer stopped and gazed down at the water as Trevor scooped up the nearby dive gear and tossed it in the boat.
“Dirk went in the water,” Summer panted, pointing toward the gangplank.
“I know,” Trevor replied. He nodded toward the boat, then stepped aside.
Sprawled across the stern bench, dazed and groggy, Dirk stared up at them through glassy eyes. With a laborious effort, he raised his head slightly and winked at his sister. Summer leaped into the boat and collapsed next to him in surprised relief.
“How did you make it out?” she asked, eyeing a trickle of dried blood along his temple.
Dirk weakly raised an arm and pointed at Trevor, who untied the lines and jumped into the boat.
“No time for platitudes, I’m afraid,” Trevor said with a hurried smile. Starting the motor, he gunned the throttle and spun the small boat around the back side of the tanker and out the covered dock. Never looking back, he aimed the boat down the channel and pushed it to its top speed.
Summer tried to check Dirk’s wound under the starlight, finding a large knot on the top of his skull that was still damp with blood. His dive hood had saved him from a deeper gouge to the skin, and perhaps a worse fate as well.
“Forgot to wear my hard hat,” he mumbled, trying hard to focus his eyes on Summer.
“Your hard head is much too tough to break,” she said, laughing aloud in an emotional release.
The boat plowed through the darkness, Trevor hugging the shoreline until suddenly easing off the throttle. The darkened boat Summer had spotted earlier loomed ahead, now recognizable as Trevor’s Canadian Resources vessel. Trevor brought the outboard alongside and helped Dirk and Summer aboard, then let the security boat drift. He quickly pulled anchor and motored the research craft down the channel. When they were well out of sight of the facility, he crossed to the opposite side of the channel, then turned and crept back toward Kitimat at slow speed.
Cruising past the Terra Green facility, they witnessed several flashlight beams crisscrossing the grounds but noticed no obvious alarms. The boat slipped unseen into the Kitimat dock, and Trevor killed its motor and tied it off. On the stern deck, Dirk had begun to regain form, save for some dizziness and a pounding head. He shook Trevor’s hand after the ecologist helped him ashore.
“Thanks for fishing me out. I would have had a long sleep underwater if not for you.”
“Entirely good luck. I was swimming along the dock when I heard the small boat come in. I was actually hiding in the water beneath the gangplank when the guard came ashore. I didn’t even realize it was you until I recognized Summer’s voice right before you went over the side. You hit the water just a few feet from me. When you didn’t move, I immediately jammed my regulator in your mouth. The hard part was keeping us both submerged until we were out of view.”
“Shame on a federal employee for trespassing on private property,” Summer said with a grin.
“It’s all your fault,” Trevor replied. “You kept talking about the importance of the water samples, so I thought we needed to know if there was a link to the facility.” He handed Summer a dive bag containing several small vials of water.
“Hope they match mine,” Summer replied, showing her own samples. “Of course, I’ll need to get our boat back to complete the analysis.”
“Miller’s taxi service is always open. I have a mining site inspection in the morning but can run you back down in the afternoon.”
“That would be fine. Thanks, Trevor. Perhaps next time we should work a little closer together,” Summer said with a beguiling smile.
Trevor’s eyes twinkled at her words.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
22
SCATTERED CHUNKS OF ICE DOTTED THE ROLLING waters of Lancaster Strait, appearing in the dusk like jagged marshmallows floating in a sea of hot chocolate. Against the dim background of Devon Island, a black behemoth crept along the horizon billowing a trail of dark smoke.
“Range twelve kilometers, sir. She’s beating a path right across our bow.” The helmsman, a red-haired ensign with jug ears, peered from a radarscope to the ship’s captain and waited for a response.
Captain Dick Weber lowered a pair of binoculars without taking his gaze off the distant vessel.
“Keep us on intersect, at least until we obtain an identification,” he replied without turning.
The helmsman twisted the ship’s wheel a half turn, then resumed studying the radar screen. The eighty-foot Canadian Coast Guard patrol vessel plowed slowly through the dark Arctic waters toward the path of the oncoming vessel. Assigned to interdiction duty along the eastern approaches to the Northwest Passage, the Harp had been on station just a few days. Though the winter ice had continued the trend of breaking up early, this was the first commercial vessel the patrol craft had seen in the frosty waters this season. In another month or two, there would be a steady stream of massive tankers and containerships making the northerly transit accompanied by icebreakers.
Just a few years prior, the thought of policing traffic through the Northwest Passage would have been laughable. Since man’s earliest forays into the Arctic, major sections of the annual winter pack ice remained frozen solid for all but a few summer days. Only a few hardy explorers and the occasional icebreaker dared fight their way through the blocked passage. But global warming had changed everything, and now the passage was navigable for months out of the year.
Scientists estimate that over forty thousand square miles of Arctic ice have receded in just the past thirty years. Much of the blame for the rapid melt off is due to the ice albedo-feedback effect. In its frozen state, Arctic ice will reflect up to ninety percent of incoming solar radiation. When melted, the resulting seawater will conversely absorb an equal amount of radiation, reflecting only about ten percent. This warming loop has accounted for the fact that Arctic temperatures are climbing at double the global rate.
Watching the bow of his patrol boat slice through a small ice floe, Weber silently cursed what global climate change had done to him. Transferred from Quebec and comfortable sea duty along the Saint Lawrence River, he now found himself in command of a ship at one of the most remote locations on the planet. And his job, he thought, had been relegated to little more than that of a tollbooth operator.
Weber could hardly blame his superiors, though, for they were just following the mandate of Canada’s saber-rattling Prime Minister. When historically frozen sections of the Northwest Passage began to melt clear, the Prime Minister was quick to act, affirming the passage as Canadian Internal Waters and authorizing funds for a deepwater Arctic port at Nanisivik. Promises to build a fleet of military icebreakers and establish new Arctic bases soon followed. Powerful lobbying by a shadowy interest group propelled the Parliament to support the Prime Minister by passing tough restrictions on foreign vessels transiting the passage.
By law, all non-Canadian-flagged ships seeking transit through the passage were now required to notify the Coast Guard of their planned route, pay a passage fee similar to that imposed at the Panama Canal, and be accompanied by a Canadian commercial icebreaker through the more restrictive areas of the passage. A few countries, Russia, Denmark, and the United States among them, refuted Canada’s claim and discouraged travel through the waters. But other developed nations gladly complied in the name of economics. Merchant ships connecting Europe with East Asia could trim thousands of miles off their shipping routes by avoiding the Panama Canal. The savings were even more dramatic for ships too large to pass through the canal that would otherwise have to sail around Cape Horn. With the potent
ial to cut the shipping cost of an individual storage container by a thousand dollars, merchant fleets large and small were quick to eye the Arctic crossing as a lucrative commercial path.
As the ice melt off expanded more rapidly than scientists anticipated, the first few shipping companies had begun testing the frigid waters. Thick sheets of ice still clogged sections of the route for much of the year, but during the heat of summer the passage had regularly become ice-free. Powerful icebreakers aided the more ambitious merchant fleets that sought to run the passage from April through September. It was becoming all too evident that within a decade or two, the Northwest Passage would be a navigable waterway year-round.
Staring at the approaching black merchant ship, Weber wished the whole passage would just freeze solid again. At least the presence of the ship broke up the monotony of staring at icebergs, he thought drily.
“Four kilometers and closing,” the helmsman reported.
Weber turned to a lanky radioman wedged into a corner of the small bridge.
“Hopkins, request an identification and the nature of her cargo,” he barked.
The radioman proceeded to call the ship, but all his queries were met with silence. He checked the radio, then transmitted several more times.
“She’s not responding, sir,” he finally replied with a perplexed look. His experience with passing vessels in the Arctic was that they were usually prone to excessive chitchat from the isolated crews.
“Keep trying,” Weber ordered. “We’re nearly close enough for a visual ID.”
“Two kilometers off,” the helmsman confirmed.
Weber retrained his binoculars and examined the vessel. She was a relatively small containership of no more than four hundred feet. She was by appearance a newer vessel but oddly showed only a few containers on her topside deck. Similar ships, he knew, often carried containers stacked six or seven layers high. Curious, he studied her Plimsoll line, noting the mark was several feet above the water. Moving his gaze vertically, he looked at a darkened bridge, then at a masthead behind the superstructure. He was startled to see the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the stiff breeze.
Arctic Drift (A Dirk Pitt Novel, #20) Page 11