Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

The snowcat began to slide backward as if it were on ice. It was sinking and turning even as a wall of snow surged toward them.

“Move,” Yvonne shouted.

The driver was trying. When he mashed the gas pedal to the floor and moved the controls to the right, the ground beneath them was disintegrating and becoming part of the avalanche, the machine powerless to escape it.

She braced herself with both arms. The wall of snow hit, sending the big machine tumbling down the slope. Yvonne felt herself being thrown into the ceiling and then slammed to the door.

The windshield exploded inward in a shower of glass. Snow and ice poured through. The roof was crushed. Three of the four exterior lights blew out, though miraculously one remained operational even as its housing was bent downward and in.

Up and down lost all meaning, as they tumbled for another thirty seconds before slamming into some jutting volcanic rock.

The impact was like a head-on collision. It stopped the tumbling instantly, but the avalanche wasn’t over. Snow and ice poured into the cab, filling the space in a matter of seconds and trapping them.

Battered and bruised, Yvonne tried to climb free. She realized the machine was on its side, so she crawled upward, attempting to squirm through her side window.

She got her head and arms out the opening but found her legs and torso trapped by the packed snow that had forced its way into the cab.

She twisted and strained and with each passing second the pressure on her lower half increased. It felt as if her body was encased in wet concrete. She managed to get one arm through the window and to pull herself up a few more inches. There, she was stuck.

The snow continued to pour down the slope. A chunk of ice hit her in the shoulder, cracking something. Another hit her in the head. A final surge moved the snowcat a few feet, twisting it to one side. And then suddenly it was over.

The avalanche had passed on by, its thundering call still audible downslope.

Yvonne’s face and one arm were free, but she couldn’t move. The pain in her shoulder was intense yet rapidly numbing. The wind continued to howl, cutting at her face and eyes. Snow was trickling here and there, the air was filled with a diamond dust of pulverized ice and snow.

She looked around and saw nor heard any sign of anyone else. No headlights. No engines. No cries for help. Nothing but wind and snow and darkness.

A choice flicked into her mind. Given the option of her own rescue or Austin’s death in the same avalanche, she chose to hope that he’d died in the madness he’d caused.

—

While Kurt had been ready for the explosion, even he’d been surprised at how quickly the ground fell out from beneath them.

The snowmobile vanished from sight, as if sucked down into a vortex. Joe jumped to one side and began to run uphill, trying to get above and around the trouble.

Kurt did the same, turning and struggling up, but it was like running against the powerful undertow of outgoing waves at the beach. His legs just didn’t seem to move. He made it four or five steps before his feet were pulled from beneath him and he was being dragged backward by a force more powerful than any riptide.

As he slid, the snow churned around him like foam. It washed over him, swept him along and pulled him under.

He moved his arms as if swimming, because he’d heard that advice given for people caught in an avalanche. Whether it did a bit of good or not, Kurt didn’t know. He did the breaststroke with his arms anyway and kept his legs moving.

In the middle of the turmoil, his feet hit something firm. He pushed off, launching himself upward. He emerged above the snow and was soon tossed aside.

Now outside the avalanche, Kurt tumbled and slid, coming to a stop on the hard-packed snow. He ended up sprawled out, watching as the avalanche continued down the hill. It moved with the sound of a freight train, roaring through the night.

He noticed one of the snowmobiles tumbling like a child’s toy. He saw the lights of the other machines being dragged away. They dimmed as a fog of atomized snow spread across the slope and then vanished as the avalanche swallowed up the machines and buried them deep.

Eventually the sound and fury began to fade. The moving snow was now slowing, spreading out and settling in the valley below. In its wake, a kind of quiet returned. To Kurt’s surprise, it seemed almost peaceful.

He stood up wearily, studying a landscape remade. A huge swath had been gouged out from the mountain. A bed of rock had been exposed and a long tongue of debris revealed. Downslope from him, the land was featureless and white. A single amber light burned at an odd angle, pointed down into the drifts. He recognized it as belonging to the snowcat.

Looking around, Kurt saw nothing of the snowmobiles, but something else loomed out of the dark.

At first, it appeared to be an outcropping of volcanic rock, like those they’d passed in the valley, but as Kurt stepped closer, he saw it was actually a large gray fin. It resembled the dorsal fin of a giant shark but was made of metal.

The fin was canted over at an angle but connected at the base to a wide metal hull. A few feet ahead of it the blades of an old-fashioned propeller broke the surface. They were still attached to the bulky engine that powered them. Thirty feet to one side a wingtip reached through the snow like an outstretched arm.

Kurt stepped closer to the fin, which he recognized now as the tail and rudder of an aircraft. He brushed the snow from the frozen metal, revealing weathered but still readable letters. The word Thrace was painted in curving script. Next to it was the unmistakable image of a Nazi flag.

“The German expedition,” Kurt whispered.

Kurt could barely believe what he was seeing. Only then did it dawn on him that he was seeing it alone. He turned, looking for any sign of his partner.

“Joe!”

There was no answer.

“Joe! Can you hear me?”

Kurt turned from point to point. There was no answer to his calls. That could mean only one thing: Joe was buried somewhere under the snow.

50

Kurt’s mind cleared as a surge of adrenaline raced through his body. He put aside the discovery of the old plane and gazed through the dark looking for any sign of his friend.

Time was now the enemy. A person could survive being buried in the snow for a while, but the maximum duration was around eighteen minutes. In the end, it wasn’t lack of oxygen that killed him but carbon dioxide. Even hard-packed snow contained plenty of oxygen in between the ice crystals, but as a person trapped within it exhaled, the carbon dioxide built up in the snow around the person’s face. Eventually it became so concentrated that the person lost consciousness. Death followed within minutes.

Kurt glanced at the oversized watch strapped to the outside of his expedition jacket. It read 3:12 a.m. If he didn’t find Joe and dig him out by 3:30, Joe would almost certainly suffer brain damage or die.

Before he began a search, Kurt needed a way to keep his bearings. Otherwise he’d be wandering around in all directions. He dug into a pocket and pulled out a rescue flare. He lit it and stuck it in the snow near the exposed tail of the old aircraft. It burned and crackled, giving off an uneven red glow.

With the flare and the dim light from the snowcat acting as reference points, Kurt began a search, zigzagging back and forth, covering a hundred feet on either side of the line.

He switched the heating unit in his coat on, knowing he needed to stay warm or he’d lose speed. Tapping a second button by the collar, he switched on the lights embedded in the front of the jacket. It made him an obvious target, but he doubted anyone from Yvonne’s crew remained alive to shoot at him. And at this point, he didn’t much care if there was.