Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

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.