Fast Ice Read online

  “Meaning there’s no sign of what Cora found out on the ice,” Rudi noted.

  “None,” Kurt said. “But it stands to reason that this missing scientist might have had something to do with Cora’s discovery. If so, the people who attacked this ship may have wanted her knowledge, too.”

  Rudi scribbled something else on a notepad. “I’ll have Hiram run her name through the computer. What about the ship? Can it be salvaged? I’d like to get it back to dry dock where authorities can go over it with a fine-tooth comb.”

  Kurt nodded. “Joe and I have a plan to make her seaworthy again. But the engine room is flooded beyond repair. We’ll need a tow.”

  “The Providence can handle that,” Rudi said. “By my calculations, she’ll rendezvous with you in four hours. I want that ship ready to go when they get there.”

  With a great deal of work to do, Kurt and Joe prioritized what was necessary over what would merely be helpful.

  * * *

  —

  Joe got the power back on by diverting fuel from the main bunker to the auxiliary power unit. That got the heat on and enabled them to restart the bilge pumps once the ice began to thaw.

  The next step was to make a more permanent seal over the puncture wound.

  “If we’re going to get this ship moving, we’ll need to cut the ice off the outside of the hull,” Kurt said.

  “But the ice is keeping the seawater out,” Joe reminded him.

  “Which is perfect,” Kurt said. “As long as we’re sitting still or drifting along with the current. Once we’re under tow and out in rougher waters, the force of the waves will push that chunk of ice up and down, back and forth. When it breaks loose—which it will—it’ll rupture the hull and all our work will be for nothing.”

  “You want to trim it down?” Joe asked.

  Kurt shook his head. “Take it off clean and weld a plate over the breach, sealing it properly from the outside. But if that’s not feasible, we’ll cut the ice back as close to flush as possible. And keep the cryogenic unit on.”

  “I checked the ship’s equipment room,” Joe said. “They’re well stocked. Drysuits, oxygen tanks, welding equipment. They even have spare plating handy.”

  “Makes sense,” Kurt said. “An old rust bucket like this lives off the ingenuity of its crew.”

  After rounding up the appropriate equipment, Kurt donned a drysuit, insulated gloves and a full-face helmet. He strapped a single tank of air to his back and went into the water near the ship’s stern.

  After a minute to get adjusted to the gear, he opened a valve on the suit to release some air so that he wouldn’t be bobbing around in the water like a cork.

  Swimming around the side of the ship, he soon reached the icy protrusion. It was streamlined and teardrop-shaped. The only way to break it free without damaging the ship was to cut it away piece by piece. And the best tool for that job was high-temperature heat.

  Kurt called out to Joe over the radio. “You in position, amigo?”

  “Ready and waiting,” Joe replied.

  Looking up, Kurt saw Joe at the rail of the ship. “Lower the cylinders,” he said. “I’m ready to begin surgery.”

  Up above, Joe lifted a pair of connected cylinders onto the ship’s rail. Leaning forward, he began lowering them on a rope.

  The cylinders contained oxyacetylene, normally used for welding. Joe had connected a pair of tanks together, wrapping them in foam and linking them through a single valve to ensure there was enough pressure to do the job.

  The tanks came down slowly, one arm’s length at a time, as Joe worked the line with his bare hands.

  “Almost there,” Kurt said. “Another ten feet.”

  Kurt took ahold of the tanks as they reached the water. After connecting them to his drysuit with a clip, he released the rope.

  A twist of the valve got the gas flowing. A single click of the igniter brought a twelve-inch jet of blue flame to life. Kurt adjusted the flame and brought it up against the ice.

  “Is it working?” Joe asked over the radio.

  “Like a hot knife through butter,” Kurt said.

  The tip of the flame burned at six thousand degrees, enough to melt hardened steel. Kurt used it to cut a V-shaped section from the ice, which he broke off and shoved away before moving in to remove another section.

  As he worked, Joe offered advice over the radio.

  “I wouldn’t dawdle. As the acetylene in those tanks cools down, you’re going to lose pressure.”

  “I’m surprised it’s as strong as it is,” Kurt said. “How’d you manage that?”

  “I warmed the tanks beside the exhaust port of the APU. Then I wrapped them in the foam.”

  Kurt shook his head. “Only you would place tanks containing violent explosive gases next to a high-temperature heat source. Great idea, though. Glad you didn’t blow yourself up in the process. That would have made my job far more difficult.”

  “Don’t get all sentimental,” Joe said. “How’s the water?”

  “Balmy,” Kurt joked. “Actually, I’m working up a sweat down here.”

  Kurt quickly removed sections of ice on either side and then attacked a larger section in the center. Progress was steady. In five minutes, he’d cleared half the ice. Another five and he’d be done.

  While Kurt toiled, Joe watched from up on deck. With little to do but wait around, his mind wandered. He examined the damage to the side of the hull.

  Some of the plating was punctured, but up high. In other spots, it was dented and gouged but still watertight. The ship’s rail was bent in near the bow, part of it had been torn free and peeled back like a guardrail on a highway that had been hit hard.

  The Grishka had clearly been involved in a collision. Nothing head-on, more of a sideswipe, by the looks of it. If the ship had been a car, Joe would have found scrapes of paint and tried to match the color to the make and model, but there was no paint to be seen, just piles of ice and snow on the deck.

  Even at first glance, it struck him as odd. For one thing, there was too much of it. He could have built ten igloos from the piles littering the deck on the starboard side.

  He kicked his boot through some of the snow. The surface layer was white, but it was an odd color underneath.

  Joe dropped down to take a closer look. Instead of white, it was light beige and, in places, gray. “Number one rule of childhood. Don’t eat yellow snow,” he said to himself. “What about other colors?” he asked aloud.

  “What are you talking about?” Kurt asked.

  “Piles of snow along the rail,” Joe said. “The color of portland cement. Looks a little like New York snow a week after it comes down. But not as crusty.”

  Turning his attention from the snow to the horizon, Joe noticed something else. He squinted against the glare of the low sun, studying a mound of water moving silently toward them.

  Joe’s first thought was a killer whale approaching, sinister and dangerous. The black, oily water rose in front of it and fell off behind it, just as it did over the back of an orca, but there was no sign of a dorsal fin and the disturbance was far too large to be made by a living creature.

  “We have a problem,” he said.

  9

  Joe moved to the front of the ship to get a better look at the approaching target. “It has to be a submarine,” he said, considering the size and speed of the approaching disturbance. “Either that or a very large and angry whale.”

  “And it’s headed our way,” Kurt replied calmly.

  “Aiming for the bow,” Joe said.

  Closer now, Joe could see this was no optical illusion. The submarine was at least a hundred feet in length. It showed no signs of slowing or turning. If anything, it appeared to be picking up speed.

  “Get away from the ship,” Joe called out. “Whatever it is, it’s going to
hit us.”

  Joe took one last look. Then, realizing that he was standing almost directly above the strike zone, he took off running. He raced back along the starboard side, heading for the stern. He was amidships when the object struck home.

  The impact was jarring, but there was no detonation, no thundering wave of heat accompanied by the wrenching sound of steel plates being torn apart. Just the deck surging and tilting beneath him.

  Thrown off balance midstride, Joe tumbled and sprawled in the snow, sliding to a stop as the Grishka rolled with the tremendous undersea punch.

  Kurt’s voice came through the radio. “It’s a submarine, all right. It rammed the forward section of the ship, behind the anchor.”

  Getting back to his feet, Joe leaned out over the rail and looked toward the bow. He saw the top half of a streamlined craft, charcoal in color. Its nose was embedded in the Grishka’s side, while water churned furiously at the tail end.

  “It’s gone full reverse,” he said. “It’s trying to pull free.”

  “Get off,” Kurt suggested. “Once that thing breaks out, the ship’s going to sink like a stone.”

  Joe raced for the stern and the canisters for the inflatable lifeboat he’d seen earlier. Halfway there, he slid to a stop. He’d run right past the Grishka’s helicopter before an idea occurred to him.

  Rushing up to the helicopter, Joe pulled the heated covers from the rotors overhead. They slid off with ease, slamming to the deck and revealing the clean black surface of the protected airfoil underneath.

  He pulled a heavy plastic cover from the tail rotor and cleared the engine intake and exhaust as well. Next, he went for the tie-down chains. He yanked one free, and then felt the deck tilting beneath him once again. “What’s happening?”

  “The submarine is trying to break free,” Kurt said. “It’s surging forward and then pulling back.”

  Joe worked quickly. With the chains released, the helicopter was a free bird. Now he just had to make it fly.

  He grabbed the helicopter’s door and pulled it open. Jumping into the pilot’s seat, he flipped several switches. The instrument panel came to life. The gyros began to spool up.

  Joe thanked his lucky stars that the helicopter had been hooked to the solar array all this time. The battery registered a full charge.

  “AC power on,” Joe said, running through the bare minimum of a checklist. “Fuel pumps on . . . Starter, engage.”

  Joe held the starter switch down as whining above him announced the rotors were turning on battery power. The rapid tick-tick-tick of the igniters joined in.

  “Come on, baby,” Joe said to the helicopter. “Don’t let me down.”

  After several additional seconds, the engine roared to life. Joe released the starter as the rotors began to spin. But at almost the same time, the Grishka swayed once more. It rolled to port, briefly back to starboard and then back to port again.

  Kurt gave him the bad news. “The submarine has broken free. I can see a huge gash in the hull. Whatever you’re planning to do, now would be a good time to do it. I’d say you’ve got thirty seconds, no more.”

  Joe was amazed by how calmly Kurt reported this disaster.

  “My plan is to hail a cab,” Joe said.

  “A cab?”

  “Air taxi. How’s that sound to you?”

  “Better than treading water until the Providence gets here.”

  With the rotor blades picking up speed, Joe flexed the controls, finding all systems were operational.

  As Joe counted the seconds, a bulkhead in the front part of the ship gave way. Water surged into the next compartment and the Grishka’s list worsened.

  The helicopter, which was no longer chained down, began sliding on the ice-covered landing pad. It caught on the rail, threatening to tumble over it.

  Joe pulled back on the cyclic, applying maximum takeoff power. The helicopter left the deck at an angle, pulling free from the railing and peeling off to starboard like a drunken sailor stumbling in the dark.

  Joe leveled the craft quickly and continued away from the ship, climbing and turning to the east.

  “You’re clear,” Kurt told him. “Good work.”

  “What about you?” Joe asked.

  As Kurt began to reply, his words were drowned out by a rumbling sound, complete with high-pitched hissing and chaotic reverberations. It was the Grishka’s death rattle, picked up by Kurt’s microphone. The ship had capsized and gone down at the bow.

  10

  Knowing the Grishka was going to sink, Kurt had prudently swum away from the hull, putting as much space between himself and the ship to be safe from any undertow.

  But as the vessel rolled and twisted, a guide wire running from the superstructure to the bow snapped. It whipped outward, cutting across the water like an eel and wrapping itself around his leg. It pulled tight as the ship went down and dragged Kurt along for the ride.

  Kurt didn’t bother reaching for it in some foolish attempt to pull it loose. He knew from the pressure on his calf that no human hands would have enough strength to loosen the cable. Instead, he ignited the acetylene torch and brought it toward the braided metal line.

  With the blue light from the torch’s flame illuminating the dark water, Kurt twisted around and made contact with the cable. The torch burned hot for several seconds but then began to dim.

  The flame was dying, the victim of the icy cold and the higher pressure caused by the increasing depth. Kurt shook the tanks to stir up the liquid inside, banging them against his thigh until the blue flame grew once again.

  With fire holding steady, Kurt brought it back up against the cable. The metal strands turned red and flaked away. With a twang that echoed through the water, the cable snapped, vanishing into the darkness.

  The sudden release was almost painful. Kurt pulled the remaining section of the cable away from his leg. His calf throbbed, but a gash in the drysuit was letting enough frigid water in to numb the pain.

  Kurt turned his attention toward the surface. While the silver light seemed a long way above him, the buoyancy of the drysuit was already lifting him. With a few strong kicks, he accelerated upward, emerging amid the churning waters where the Grishka had once been.

  Turning from point to point, he spotted Joe in the helicopter and then the hull of the submarine. The menacing vessel was a long way off, but Kurt was a bright orange target in the middle of the sea. If they were looking, it wouldn’t take long for them to spot him.

  “Joe,” he called out. “Do you read?”

  “Ever since third grade,” Joe’s cheerful voice replied. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Riding a metal horse to the bottom,” Kurt replied. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Can you pick me up?”

  “As soon as I can see through this windshield,” Joe said. “It’s still frosted over.”

  Kurt glanced over his shoulder. The submarine was changing direction, coming back his way. As it turned head-on, Kurt noticed a pair of protruding globes sticking up above the bow. These “eyes” almost certainly were cameras and they were looking directly at him.

  “I’m not sure I have time for your defroster to kick in,” he said. “That mechanical shark is circling back toward me.”

  “Give me your bearing.”

  Kurt looked at the helicopter, estimating Joe’s heading. “Turn left forty degrees.”

  The helicopter pivoted, rotating slowly.

  “Too far,” Kurt said. “Come back about ten degrees . . . Perfect. You’re pointed right at me.”

  “What’s the distance?”

  “Half a mile,” Kurt said.

  Joe dipped the nose of the helicopter and began moving the craft toward Kurt.

  With Joe on the way, Kurt switched his focus to the submarine that was coming from the other direction. It was going to be close.

&n
bsp; He glanced back at Joe. “You’re three hundred yards from my position. Fifty feet off the deck. Turn five degrees to the left.”

  Kurt admired the skill with which Joe piloted the helicopter, watching as his friend brought it within ten feet of the water while correcting his course, closing in and slowing down.

  “A hundred yards,” Kurt said.

  The whirling blades grew louder. The water began whipping outward from Kurt in circles. Kurt swam toward the helicopter as it hovered, reaching for the right skid as Joe dipped it into the water.

  He pulled himself up, suddenly feeling the weight of the acetylene torch dragging him down. He disconnected the tanks and swung a leg over the skid. “Go.”

  The engine roared that much louder as Joe gave it full power. The helicopter rose up, lifting Kurt free of the water. They’d climbed no more than fifty feet when the dark submersible passed underneath.

  Kurt watched as it rammed the floating acetylene tanks, breaking them apart and shrugging off the minor explosion that resulted.

  From directly above, Kurt got a clear look at the vessel. It was completely streamlined, shaped like a tadpole, but with a more bulbous front and a longer, narrower tail. A jagged section jutting from the bow looked to be the broken shaft of the spike it had plunged into the Grishka’s side.

  The hull had an incredibly smooth texture, appearing part and parcel of the water it was slicing through. As it caught the light, it looked almost translucent. It passed beneath them, submerged and vanished from sight.

  11

  NUMA VESSEL PROVIDENCE

  The communications suite of the Providence was the modern version of a ship’s radio room. It sat behind the bridge in its own dedicated compartment. Instead of old-fashioned transmitters and a telegraph machine tapping out Morse code, the suite was filled with computers, flat-screen monitors and satellite communications gear.

  In Kurt’s mind, there was only one drawback to all the technology. Radio calls could be made while wearing pajamas, with crazy hair and three days’ stubble on one’s face. But if you were going to be on-screen in high definition, you had to be presentable to whoever was on the other side. In this case, that meant Rudi Gunn and NUMA’s Director of Technology, Hiram Yaeger.