Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

Joe tied them up using electrical tape and ropes they found. He even gagged them to keep them quiet.

With the threat of resistance quelled, Kurt pulled off his coat. “Hot in here,” he said. “Unlike the rest of the ship.”

“Steel all around,” Joe said, pointing out the walls. “Did you see how thick that hatch was? They’ve isolated this singular compartment from the rest of the ship. Probably dropped into the middle of the vessel as they built up the ice. Interesting way to construct a ship.”

“Save it for your after report,” Kurt said. “What are we looking at?”

Joe pointed to a bank of analog gauges, just beyond which stood huge levers and circular wheels designed to open and close various valves. To their right were several computer terminals.

“These are all tied into the system,” Joe told Kurt. “Like the guy said, it’s all automated. The levers and manual valves and all the analog gauges are just here for backup. In case the computers go down.”

Kurt moved to the computer terminal while keeping an eye on their prisoners. He motioned to Joe. “Can you see how much lake water they’ve taken on?”

Joe tapped into the first terminal and began to click through various screens. He found a schematic showing the diamond-shaped vessel and the vast areas of the ship given over to storage.

“The tanks are at forty-nine percent and rising,” Joe said. “They’re halfway to the top. Even if we shut this down now, Ryland has fifty million gallons of lake water on board. That’s five times what the Exxon Valdez spilled when it ran aground off the coast of Alaska.”

Kurt took the grim news without reaction. Twenty million gallons, sixty million gallons—it didn’t really matter. It was enough to wreak havoc on the world’s climate. That being the case, Kurt couldn’t allow it to leave the bay.

63

PUMPING STATION, BASE ZERO

Yvonne’s foreman had done his job well. He’d sent the members of her security team up to the surface and used the time to prepare a final line of defense in the subterranean station.

In a way, Yvonne had prepared them for this. She’d warned them from day one that they’d be attacked. She’d instilled in all those who followed her the idea that the wealthy and the powerful nations of the world would do everything they could to prevent the change she and Ryland were trying to bring about. And she’d steeled everyone to the sobering truth that they might very well have to sacrifice their lives to bring about this change.

The foreman had no doubt that Yvonne and her team had done just that. And, soon enough, it would be his turn. There was no way out for him now. No way back to the surface short of someone digging him out and that would mean capture or death.

He would die at his post, he decided. But not until my job is done.

He continued monitoring the flow of lake water, unnerved only slightly by the sound of cracking and shifting ice around him. He figured it was settling just in the collapsed hallway. But with each additional rumble, that certainty fell away.

Having checked the passageway and finding it utterly impassable, he came back to the control room, where the hum of the turbine and the soft heartbeat of the steam engine comforted him. Checking the computer panel, he saw that the backflow pressure had risen in the steam pipes, but not to a level that was dangerous.

He looked for a problem in the steam engine setup and found nothing.

Perplexed, he continued to stare at the screen until a large drop of water splattered on it from above. He looked up.

The ceiling was weeping. It had water clinging to it that had begun dripping here and there. Pear-shaped dollops fell next to him while other drops hissed as they came in contact with the hot machinery.

Another drop hit the computer. A third landed on his shoulder. He caught a fourth drop in his outstretched palm. To his surprise, it was warm, not cold.

Turning back to his computer, he wiped the screen and checked the temperature. Heat in the cavern was a problem—and it always had been—but the cooling mesh attached to the walls and ceiling was supposed to whisk it away. The resin applied to the layer of ice was supposed to insulate it to prevent the heat from being given off.

Clicking through a dozen temperature readings, he saw that the situation was contained. The cavern was the same temperature it had been for hours, a fact that would have assuaged his fears had not the dripping become more steady and grown louder.

“This makes no sense,” the foreman said, double-checking the refrigeration system only to find it working at maximum capacity.

Without warning, a crack opened up above him and a chunk of ice fell from the ceiling. It shattered as it hit the floor while water began to pour in a constant stream through the opening it left behind.

The foreman moved out of the way, dragging the workstation with him and desperately seeking an answer. He tapped away at the computer as more cracks appeared and the existing one widened.

Another crack slithered across the ceiling. A desk-sized chunk of ice broke away, again crashing to the floor, and pulled half the cooling mesh down with it. The mesh collapsed like a net, piling up in a heap on the floor, as a waterfall cascaded through the ice.

Now steam began filling the room, some of it from water hitting the hot machinery, the rest bursting through fissures above him.

More ice fell, coming down here and there like boulders dropped from the sky. The workstation was smashed, the turbine housing and other equipment dented and damaged.

The foreman dove to avoid being laid out by a hundred-pound chunk that seemed to take aim at his head.

He hit the floor and slid face-first, as the ice was now slick under an inch of water. Getting to his feet, he heard the largest displacement yet. He looked up. The center of the ceiling was bulging. Jagged fractures were spreading around it in all directions. “No,” he shouted. “This can’t be.”

All at once, the ceiling gave way.

Tons of ice and snow dropped straight down. A thousand gallons of meltwater surged into the cavern along with it. The turbine was knocked from its cradle, the pipework mangled and wrenched apart. The foreman was swept aside by the wave of water and ice and snow.

It threw him against a wall just as the rest of the ice fell—a thousand tons of it—crushing and burying everything in its path.

—

Eighty miles away, on the bridge of the Goliath , Ryland and Ober noticed the pressure drop immediately.

“Sensors going green to yellow up the line from us,” Ober said. “All the way back to the pumping station at Base Zero.”

Ryland stared at the monitor. Virtual, real-time gauges that measured the pressure along the way showed water velocity and volume dropping. Tension ripped across Ryland’s body. “Can we compensate for the drop on our end?”

Ober checked the status of their own turbine. He shook his head. “We’re already at full power.”

He turned to the Goliath ’s captain. “Have you been able to reach anyone at Base Zero?”

The captain shook his head. “No response. Nothing from Yvonne.”

Ryland found himself gripping the edge of the monitor in frustration. His knuckles were turning white. The pressure distorting the edge of the screen. “It has to be NUMA,” he whispered. “Damn them.”

The captain offered a suggestion. “We could send a team to—”

Ryland cut him off. “There’s no point. It’s too far. And remaining here is now too dangerous.”

“But Yvonne—”

“Is dead,” Ryland snapped. “Or in NUMA’s hands, which would be far worse.”