Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

“It could be anything,” Ober said calmly. “These turbines are temperamental. They may have had to shut down to reset. Give us a few minutes to see if they come back online.”

“No,” Ryland said. “Look at the screen. Water volume is zero. We’re sucking on an empty straw. It’s not the turbine. They’ve cut off the supply somehow.”

Ober turned back toward the monitor, his face a shade paler. Ryland waited for him. Finally, Ober nodded. “You’re right. The line has either been blocked or cut off. But it’s not a problem in the tunnel. It’s back at Base Zero.”

“NUMA,” Ryland said under his breath. “It has to be.” He turned to the captain. “Fire up the engines and cut the lines. Don’t even bother to bring them back in. I want this ship under way as soon as possible.”

—

The rumbling of the massive diesel engines could be felt throughout the ship, especially belowdecks in the pump room, which was only two compartments over from the engine room.

“We’ve run out of time,” Kurt said.

“The tanks are at fifty-one percent,” Joe said. “They can’t be leaving now.”

The ship’s intercom began to squawk. “Departure imminent,” a voice said. “Shut off acquisition pump and detach umbilical.”

Kurt looked at Joe, who nodded. He could do it. He pressed the talk button. “Understood,” he said in a clipped voice. “Pump room out.”

Joe found the controls. “We could leave acquisition lines attached?”

“It would just bring them running down here to find out what went wrong,” Kurt said. “Cut it loose.”

Joe disconnected the umbilical cord tying the ship to the mouth of the tunnel. He closed the valves one by one and shut off the pumps. “Can’t imagine why they’re leaving early,” he said. “Once this ship gets under way, it’s going to be impossible to stop.”

Kurt knew that. He was considering the options. They ran the whole gamut, from long shot to impossible.

The obvious option was breaking into the engine room and sabotaging the ship’s propulsion system. But they wouldn’t be able to hold it for long. And large diesel engines were notoriously robust. Any damage he and Joe might cause would be easy to fix once Ryland’s private soldiers had stormed in and taken the compartment back.

At best, they’d get themselves killed in exchange for a brief delay in the ship’s departure. Not exactly a fair trade.

He needed a better idea. “This ship is made of thick ice,” he said, thinking aloud. “Not thin steel. That ice makes it all but impervious from the outside yet also gives it odd sailing properties. It’s naturally top-heavy. Worse than the Grishka with all that frost on the superstructure.”

“Sure,” Joe said. “But it’s got a wide hull with a lot of stability. It’s drawing eighty feet of water. That’s going to make it more stable.”

“Except unlike a ship made of steel plates that would sink if disconnected from the hull, every portion of this ship would float on its own. Every slab of ice making up the hull is lighter and less dense than the water around it. From a physical standpoint, every part of the underside of this ship would prefer to be on the surface. That makes the ship unstable dynamically.”

A gleam appeared in Joe’s eye. He could see where Kurt was going. “Icebergs roll over all the time,” he said. “Once enough of the underside is worn away, they capsize like eggs trying to stand on the pointy end. But you’re forgetting one thing. Sixty million gallons of lake water. Those half-filled tanks are enough to weigh the ship down and stabilize it.”

“Not if you transfer all of them to one side.”

Joe’s eyebrows went up and a grin appeared on his face. “Now you’re making sense.”

“Can you do it from here?”

“And nowhere else but here,” Joe said confidently. “We’ve got cross-feed lines and high-pressure pumps. If I use the manual override, they won’t be able to turn them off from the bridge. Or anywhere else. But if they notice, they might come down to investigate.”

Kurt had a plan to prevent that. “I’ll go topside to give them something else to worry about. The longer I distract them, the more weight you can shift to one side.”

“If you happen to wander by the bridge,” Joe said, “a sharp turn would do nicely.”

“I’ll see what I can arrange.”

With the plan decided upon, Kurt looked over the schematics of the ship to plot out a route to the bridge. That done, he checked his weapon, jammed the magazine back into place and hid it under his heavy winter coat. Double-checking that his radio and headset were in another pocket, he turned for the door.

Joe grabbed his arm before he could walk away. “We can’t leave these people down here when it happens.”

Kurt looked at their prisoners. They were Ryland’s followers, but there wasn’t a violent one among the bunch. “Cut them loose before we go over. Give them a chance, just don’t get yourself killed in the process.”

As Joe nodded, Kurt opened the hatch and stepped into the corridor beyond.

64

Kurt cut across to the ship’s outer passageway and then back up toward the main deck, passing two men coming the other way.

Resisting the urge to salute or act official in any way, he offered a slight nod and continued on. Neither of the men even bothered to return the gesture.

Kurt continued forward, walking at a brisk pace. The ship was so lengthy, it took five full minutes to get to the forward stairs. He began climbing again, eight more flights before he reached the bridge deck.

“No need for a gym on this ship,” he whispered under his breath.

Passing a navigation room, he reached the doorway to the ship’s bridge. He could hear voices through the steel door. Three or four men.

He unzipped his coat and pulled out the MP5. Safety off, he put his hand on the door. It began to move before he applied any pressure.

Kurt stepped back. The door swung open. Ryland Lloyd appeared in the entrance.

He stopped at the sight of someone in his way. Recognition didn’t happen instantly. He stared for a split second, flummoxed at the impertinence of someone blocking his path, before realizing just who it was.

Kurt saw that realization hit him. He saw Ryland’s eyes go wide and his body tense. He tried to step back and slam the hatch shut, but Kurt knocked Ryland’s hand free and then barged forward, knocking Ryland over onto the deck.

When he landed on the plating with a hearty grunt, the eyes of the other two men in the room swung to the source of the commotion.

Kurt saw one of the men reach for a weapon. “Don’t.”

The man drew his pistol anyway. Kurt pulled the trigger, firing a two-shot burst. The first bullet hit the man in the gut, the second hit his shoulder.

The gun flew from the man’s grasp as he fell backward, clutching his stomach. But as he landed, the ship’s captain charged from the other direction, rushing Kurt from behind.

Kurt had sensed him coming. He ducked and spun, rolling his shoulders and flipping the captain over, sending him flying into a large, bearded man who’d drawn a knife and was getting ready to charge.

The two of them went down like bowling pins. Kurt turned back to Ryland, who was scrambling across the deck, grasping for the loose pistol.

Ryland managed to get his fingers on it but never raised it off the deck as Kurt stepped on his hand, crushing a few of the smaller bones and drawing blood with the spikes on his ice shoes.

Ryland pulled his hand back and Kurt kicked the pistol away. He then shoved Ryland toward the other three men and leveled the submachine gun in their direction.

Ryland slid backward and raised his hands. The others did likewise.