Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

Gamay ran to Paul as a snowmobile slid to a stop beside them. Kurt was at the controls. Joe had thrown the spear from the spot behind him.

Paul squirmed out from under the dead man, pushing and sliding backward. “Never thought I’d be happy to see someone harpooned.”

Gamay checked the man with the spear poking through his chest. He was definitely dead now.

Stepping away from him, she turned to Kurt and Joe. “We thought we’d lost you. We heard the avalanche.”

“You almost lost me,” Joe said. “Kurt took his sweet time digging me out. I think he even stopped for a coffee break halfway through.”

Kurt laughed and explained the search and rescue effort. Then he explained why they’d created the avalanche and what happened after.

“Are Yvonne and her people gone?” Gamay asked.

“Yvonne is buried and frozen,” Kurt said. “But something else was unearthed, or perhaps uncovered would be a better choice of words.”

“And what might that be?” Gamay asked suspiciously.

“The Dornier flying boat that Captain Jurgenson crash-landed. It was up there on the ridge. When Joe set off the explosives, the avalanche cleared eighty years of snow, revealing the plane’s last resting place.”

“And the spear?” Paul asked.

“It’s one of the Nazi markers from the expedition,” Joe replied. “We found several of them lying around back there.”

“That’s amazing,” Gamay said.

Kurt agreed. “Assuming we can put a stop to all of this, it might be fun to come back and excavate the old aircraft.”

“As long as we come in the summer,” Gamay said.

“Then let’s make sure there’s going to be a summer,” Kurt replied. “What’s the story here?”

Gamay explained how they’d fought their way to the front door and had finally smashed it in. “We were about to go inside. Care to join us?”

Kurt grinned. Right on time. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

53

With weapons drawn, Kurt, Joe and Gamay entered the bunker. The roof, walls and floor were plated with steel. The walls sloped inward at the top, a design that helped support the weight of the ice and snow above it.

While the three of them moved inside, Paul remained on guard near the entrance where he could be warmed by the heat escaping the station.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Kurt turned to Gamay. “How bad is Paul’s leg?”

“Worse than he’s letting on,” Gamay said. “But the bleeding has mostly stopped.”

Paul would need help soon. The loss of blood would magnify the effects of the cold. His body would struggle to compensate. Falling into shock was a distinct possibility.

“As soon as this is done, we’ll break into the habitat,” Kurt said. “We can shelter there, wait out the storm and dig around for medical supplies.”

Gamay nodded. “Do you think we’ll face any more resistance?”

Kurt shook his head. “No one bothered Joe and me after we got out of the snow. No one showed up to rescue Yvonne. If there’s any resistance left, we’re going to find it in here.”

“Or more likely,” Joe said, “down there.”

They’d come to a gap in the metal floor. It was a portal to a vertical shaft that dropped straight down.

While the bunker was steel, the shaft had been carved, or more likely melted, from the solid ice of the glacier. The walls were smooth and the hole was almost fifteen feet in diameter. A sturdy pair of steel beams stretched across the gap. Several cables hung from a pulley system connected to counterweights and a heavy-duty winch. They dropped down into the darkness, connected to something that could not be clearly seen.

“Lifting cable and counterweights,” Joe said.

“But no elevator,” Gamay said. “There’s never one around when you need it.”

“I think it’s down there,” Kurt said.

“You want to bring it up?” Joe said, pointing to the controls.

“And let them know we’re coming?” Kurt said. “No thanks.”

He swung his weapon over his shoulder and climbed onto the beam, stepping carefully until he reached the central cable.

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Gamay said.

“We only have two explosive charges,” Kurt said. “There’s no sense all of us risking our lives to set them. Besides, I might need the two of you to pull me back up if anything goes wrong.”

Dropping down, he swung his leg out and hooked the cable with his foot. Easing off the beam, he wrapped his hands around the cable and began a controlled slide.

Picking up a little too much speed, he gripped the cable tighter, allowing the friction to bite into his gloves and slow him down. He reached the bottom, touched down almost silently and pulled the MP5 from his shoulder.

Crouching near the wall, he glanced around. The shaft had brought him to the intersection of two tunnels—or galleries, as miners sometimes called them. One went off to the left, but it was narrow and short, and as he shone a light into it he could see the far end. It had either been abandoned early or excavated for some other purpose. He saw tools and gear stored in there, but nothing important.

The other tunnel was far more impressive. Twice as wide and deeper, it had electrical cables running along the wall and was an off color, to a degree. Stepping closer, Kurt found the walls to be translucent to a depth of several inches. He could see metallic mesh hidden inside. Its appearance reminded him of the submersible that had rammed the Grishka .

Touching the walls, he found them to be cold and wet yet oddly granular instead of slick. They were made of ice, but some strange form of ice he’d never seen before. Despite the heat in the complex, he saw little evidence of melting.

He wondered if Ryland and Yvonne had used their algae to shore up the walls or if they’d found some other way to manipulate the formation of ice crystals. Deciding that was something to ponder later, Kurt began exploring this larger tunnel. He could hear and feel a machine-like hum coming from the far end.

He moved cautiously, noticing that the floor led slightly downslope and was marred by parallel grooves where something heavy had been dragged along it.

Kurt hugged the wall and moved deeper. The humming grew more pronounced, a definite high-speed vibration. It had to be the turbine.

The tunnel widened at the far end. An opening yawned directly ahead of Kurt, while on the right he saw a large machine with a circular, convex front. It sat motionless on a pair of Caterpillar tracks. It reminded him of a drilling machine without the bit on the end.

After a cursory exam, he bypassed it and arrived at the opening to a large cavern.

The interior looked like the floor of a power plant or a factory left over from the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Pipes of all sizes crisscrossed the ceiling and floors. A makeshift boiler and steam engine were connected to reduction gears that were linked, in turn, to the turbine system brought in by Tunstall Industries.

The turbine was connected to a pair of large-diameter pipes that entered from one side of the room and pierced the wall on the far side, heading toward the sea. The operation buzzed and hummed like the engine room of a great ship, but Kurt saw no one at the controls.

He took a step forward and saw movement. A man with a shotgun appeared from behind the steam engine. Kurt pulled back as the man fired. The spread of buckshot tore into the wall, showering Kurt with chips of ice.

“I won’t let you stop us,” the man shouted. “Not now.”

Kurt glanced into the room and saw an older man with stevedore arms hiding behind part of the steam engine. He pumped the shotgun and fired again.

Kurt spun backward and pressed himself against the wall. The man seemed to be handy with the shotgun. Even if he hadn’t been, the twelve-gauge wasn’t the type of weapon that required a marksman.