Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

“Fire and ice,” Kurt said.

“Her two theories?” Rudi asked.

“Yvonne and her brother,” Kurt said. “Two people both obsessed with Antarctica for different reasons.”

“Which is why we’re considering the possibility that Ryland had a hand in the attack on the Grishka and his sister’s disappearance,” Rudi said. “Obviously, a corporation involved in deepwater drilling would have all the resources and technology needed to build and operate its own submarines. Beyond that, oil companies are intimately familiar with the value of core samples and the secrets they reveal.”

“It fits on a personal level as well,” Yaeger added. “Assuming Ryland was willing to massacre the scientists and crew of the Grishka to get what Cora discovered, he still might have a soft spot for his own sister.”

“Or he might want to take her hostage,” Joe suggested. “Just to show her he’s beaten her once and for all.”

Kurt could see it. But something didn’t fit. “One problem. It’s hard to imagine whatever Cora found down there being of interest to a guy who wanted to strip-mine the continent.”

“Unless those core samples lead to the oil or mineral bonanza he was hoping to discover,” Rudi said.

That was a possibility, Kurt thought. But at this point it was all just speculation and speculation could be dangerous. It could take you down the wrong road and make you blind to other paths. “The bottom line is, we have two leads.”

“Two?” Rudi asked.

“Ryland and the core samples,” Kurt said.

“But we don’t have the core samples,” Yaeger reminded him.

“But we might be able to find something similar,” Kurt said. “Or, more precisely, someone else may have already found something similar and they just don’t know it yet. Off the top of my head, I can think of several large facilities around the world storing frozen ice cores for research and processing. The National Science Foundation runs a warehouse and lab in Colorado. The EU funded a similar facility in Helsinki. And there’s another large storage center in Seoul, South Korea, if I’m not mistaken. Not to mention universities and national governments. If we can find core samples that were drilled in similar locations to where Cora looked, we might get an idea of what she found.”

“Except that Cora’s team was operating in total secrecy,” Rudi said. “She went dark and stayed that way. The Grishka wasn’t even broadcasting an AIS signal. And the only communication we have was the coded satellite message—and that signal is impossible to trace. In other words, we have no idea where she went.”

“I think she went to New Swabia,” Kurt said.

Rudi looked at Kurt as if he were joking. “ The new what ?”

“New Swabia,” Kurt repeated. “The section of Antarctica explored by the Deutsche Antarktische Expedition of 1938–1939.”

As Kurt spoke, he produced the printed photograph he’d found on the Grishka. “Joe and I discovered this in the ship’s laboratory. Unless you know something I don’t, Cora and her team were the furthest thing from Nazis. Which means the only purpose for having this photograph would be a scientific one. It must be related to what they were doing or it wouldn’t have been sitting around in their lab.”

Kurt held the photo in front of the camera. Rudi squinted to see it.

Off to the side, Yaeger typed furiously. “German Antarctic Expedition of 1938–1939,” he said, reading from the NUMA record. “It was sent out just prior to World War Two. Using a converted freighter that remained anchored off the coast while exploring the continent with flying boats. The flights covered large swaths of previously unseen territory. The crews photographed the terrain while dropping markers and other junk to establish the Nazis’ privilege to control the land they’d found.”

“That would be these guys,” Kurt said, pointing to the men in the picture.

“No one knows what they were searching for,” Yaeger continued. “Official records suggest oil or a place to set up a whaling station. Others insist they planned to build a U-boat base on the continent. They called the territory New Swabia because they were flying off a ship known as the Schwabenland .”

Rudi nodded at Yaeger. “And where, exactly, is New Swabia?”

“About five hundred miles southeast of where the Grishka was discovered,” Yaeger said.

“It’s a fair distance,” Kurt said. “But a ship could drift that far in eight or nine weeks.”

The look on Rudi’s face told Kurt he agreed.

“Okay,” Rudi said finally. “Two leads it is. We’ll look into this German expedition while you two get yourselves to Johannesburg. By the time you land, I’ll have set up an audience with Ryland Lloyd.”

12

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

Ryland Lloyd stood at the rail of a supply vessel as it crossed Cape Town Harbour. Two of his employees accompanied him, the boat’s pilot and a member of his protection squad. They were headed for the outer anchorage, where a scattering of ships too large for the harbor moored.

It was night and the sky was black. The lights of the city cast an orange glow along the shore, while a darker backdrop beyond was all that could be seen of Table Mountain—the majestic, flat-topped escarpment so often seen in images of the South African city.

Ryland had spent some time on Table Mountain. A cable car ran to the top, making it easy to reach. The view from up high was spectacular both day and night, taking in all of Cape Town and miles upon miles of ocean. Yet even the sharpest eyes keeping watch from it would not see what Ryland was about to do.

The supply vessel cleared the no-wake zone and turned toward the anchorage, picking up speed in the process. It passed mothballed freighters and a carrier of crude oil off-loading its supply before zeroing in on its destination—a wide-hulled, industrial-looking vessel known as the Colossus .

The Colossus was a crane ship. It was used for offshore construction and needed to be stable enough to move multi-thousand-ton loads without listing or toppling over. Most of these large ships were designed like catamarans, with two hulls with a deck between. Many of them were semisubmersible, meaning they could fill their pontoons with seawater, sinking lower and becoming heavier and more stable for construction operations.

The Colossus sported only a single hull, though it was wider than a football field and twice as long. This boxy shape gave it stability and a huge internal volume, making it possible to operate in the most distant places without the need for constant reloading. The large empty volume gave it other attributes as well, including Ryland’s ability to keep his operations secret from the world.

“They’re signaling for us to come aboard at the aft cargo bay,” Ryland’s pilot said.

“Take us in,” Ryland said. “I’ll step off and you two can wait for my return.”

The pilot nodded. The bodyguard did likewise.

They were two of Ryland’s regular employees, well paid, vetted for trustworthiness and watched for any signs of disloyalty, but they were not capable of the leap of consciousness required to witness the truth that lay inside the Colossus .

The supply boat rounded the stern of the crane ship , passing by the twenty-foot letters spelling out its name and then past the blue star Mata Petroleum logo.

Moving up the far side, the pilot cut the throttle. The rumbling of the boat’s engine faded and the vessel slowed. It coasted to a stop beside a cargo door that had been lowered by powerful hydraulic arms.