Arctic Drift dp-20 Page 14

  Bue considered stripping the parkas off Quinlon so that he and Case might regain some warmth but thought better of it. Although Quinlon was as good as dead, their own outlook for survival was no better. Bue stared at the turbulent gray water surrounding their frozen raft and contemplated diving into the sea. At least it would end things quickly. The idea passed when he decided it would take too much energy to walk the dozen paces to the water’s edge.

  A large swell rocked the ice platform, and he heard a sharp thump beneath his feet. A crack suddenly materialized beneath his snow-carved seat, extending rapidly across the berg. With a jolt from the next oncoming wave, the entire section of ice beneath him abruptly fell away, dissolving into the dark sea. Bue instinctively grabbed on to the sharp face of the snowbank, lodging a foot on the small ledge that held Quinlon. Case, sitting on the opposite side, never moved a muscle as Bue desperately clung to a vertical cleft of the ice, dangling just a few feet above the stinging waves.

  Bue felt his heart pounding wildly, and with a desperate lunge he jabbed his fingers into the ice and pulled himself up and on top of the remaining snow mound. Their haven had shrunk to the size of a minivan and now rocked violently in the rough seas. Bue teetered on the top, waiting for the whole mound to turn turtle and send the three men on an icy plunge to their deaths. It would be a matter of minutes now, he knew, before their ride would come to an end.

  Then through the windswept snow he saw a bright light, beaming like the sun behind a rainsquall. It blinded his eyes, and he shut his lids tightly to escape the searing beam. When he opened them a few seconds later, the light had vanished. All he could see was the white of the dry ice that peppered his face in the fierce wind. He strained to detect the light again, but there was nothing to see but the storm. Slowly, he closed his eyes in defeat, sagging as the strength ebbed from his pores.

  29

  Jack Dahlgren already had a fueled Zodiac winched above the gunwale when the call came from the bridge to launch. Dressed in a bright yellow Mustang survival suit, he climbed aboard and checked that a portable GPS unit and a two-way radio were stowed in a watertight bin. He started the outboard engine, then waited as a squat figure came charging across the deck.

  Al Giordino didn’t have time to put on an exposure suit; he simply grabbed a parka on the bridge and hustled down to the Zodiac. As Giordino leaped in, Dahlgren gave a thumbs-up sign to a waiting crewman, who quickly lowered the inflatable boat into the sea. Dahlgren waited until Giordino released the drop hook, then gunned the motor. The small inflatable burst over and through a high-rolling wave, sending plumes of icy spray skyward. Giordino ducked from the spray, then pointed an arm ahead of the Narwhal.

  “We’re after a small berg about two hundred yards off the port bow,” he yelled. “There’s an ice sheet dead ahead, so you’ll have to go hard around,” he added, waving to the left.

  Though the blinding snow, Dahlgren could just make out a fuzzy mass of white on the surface directly ahead. Taking a quick compass bearing, he eased the Zodiac to port until the ice sheet loomed up a few yards in front of him. Turning sharply, he sped along the perimeter, slowing slightly when he figured that he had reached the opposite side.

  The Narwhal was no longer in view behind them, while the ice sheet had given way to dozens of small icebergs rolling in the heavy seas. The pounding winds blew snow particles off the nearby ice sheet, reducing visibility to less than fifty feet. Giordino sat perched on the prow scanning the seas like an eagle in search of prey, motioning Dahlgren to turn this way, then that. They motored through trunk-sized chunks of ice mixed with larger bergs, all swaying and smashing into one another. Giordino had them circle several small bergs before frantically pointing at a tall, swaying spire of ice.

  “That’s the one,” he yelled.

  Dahlgren hit the throttle, racing over to the floating wedge of ice that looked to him like all the others. Only this one had a patch of darkness on the crest. As the Zodiac drew near, Dahlgren saw that it was a human body sprawled across the top. He quickly circled the berg, looking for a place to land the boat, but the ice showed only steep vertical slopes on all sides. Reaching the opposite end, he noticed two other men wedged into a crude dugout cut a few feet above the water.

  “Ram it beneath that ledge,” Giordino yelled.

  Dahlgren nodded, then replied, “Hang on.”

  He circled the Zodiac around to garner momentum, then gunned the throttle while aiming straight for the berg. The inflatable boat’s prow skidded over a slight lip of ice before plunging hard into the snowbank just beneath the two hypothermic men. Both Dahlgren and Giordino barely kept from flying out of the boat as it jarred to an immediate halt.

  Giordino quickly stood up, brushed some snow off his head and shoulders, then smiled at Case, who stared back through listless eyes.

  “Just five minutes to some hot chicken soup, my friends,” Giordino said, grabbing Quinlon like a rag doll and laying him between two bench seats. He then took Case’s arm and helped the lethargic man crawl into the Zodiac. Dahlgren retrieved a pair of dry blankets from a storage locker and quickly covered both men.

  “Can you reach the other one?” Dahlgren asked.

  Giordino gazed at the rocking mound of snow that rose six feet over his head.

  “Yes, but keep the engine running. I think this ice cube is on its last legs.”

  Stepping off the inflatable, he kicked a toehold into the hardened snow and began to climb. With each step, he’d punch his fist into the crust for a handgrip and then foothold as he climbed higher. The iceberg rocked and swayed in the rolling swells, and several times he thought he might go flying off into the water. Ascending as quickly as he could, he popped his head over the top of the ridge, finding Bue spread out on the crest with his face down. Yanking Bue’s torso, Giordino pulled the limp body closer until he could slide him over his shoulder. Clamping an arm around the frozen man’s legs, he began the unsteady descent down the face of the berg.

  Yet for all Bue’s deadweight, Giordino might have been carrying a sack of potatoes. The powerful Italian wasted no time, quickly descending several steps, then kicking off the snow wall and dropping the last several feet into the Zodiac’s rubber hull. Laying Bue down beside the other men, Giordino jumped back out and heaved his body against the bow of the Zodiac. Digging his short, powerful legs into the snow, he shoved the boat off the iceberg, hopping aboard as Dahlgren goosed the outboard motor into reverse.

  Dahlgren had barely turned and made headway when a huge swell rolled up in front of them. Giordino reached over and pinned the prone men to the deck as the wave crashed into the bow. Icy foam sprayed everywhere as the Zodiac’s bow shot skyward until the small boat stood nearly vertical. Then the big wave rolled through and away, sending the inflatable crashing into the following trough. Dahlgren steered directly into a second large wave, riding it through with slightly less violence.

  As the Zodiac shook off the effects of the second swell, Dahlgren and Giordino glanced back as the two waves pummeled the iceberg. Watching with morbid fascination, they saw the first wave pitch the towering chunk of ice nearly onto its side. Before the berg could right itself, the second wave struck, completely obliterating the iceberg. As the wave rolled past, a few large chunks of ice slowly popped to the surface.

  Had they not arrived when they did, Bue, Case, and Quinlon would have been washed into the frigid sea by the twin waves and perished within minutes.

  30

  The three Canadians, all suffering from various degrees of hypothermia, were able to cling to life until the wave-tossed Zodiac was clutched from the sea and dropped onto the deck of the Narwhal. Dahlgren had been fortunate enough to locate the research ship in just a few minutes. The storm had obliterated any satellite signals, rendering the GPS unit useless. He instead took a reverse compass heading and motored toward the general position of the ship. The large intervening ice floe had drifted past, allowing an unencumbered route through the high seas. Giordino dete
cted the wail of the ship’s air horn firing a stout blast, and the brightly lit Narwhal appeared through the swirling winds a short time later.

  A heavily bundled Rudi Gunn was standing by when the Zodiac hit the deck, and he promptly directed the transfer of the injured men to the medical bay. Bue and Case were revived before long, but Quinlon remained unconscious for several hours as the ship’s doctor worked feverishly to raise the man’s core body temperature. Twice Quinlon’s heart stopped beating and twice he was frantically resuscitated, until his body temperature gradually approached ninety-eight degrees and his blood pressure stabilized.

  After shaking the ice off their garments, Giordino and Dahlgren changed into dry clothes and met Gunn on the bridge.

  “Do we know if there are any other potential survivors out there?” Gunn asked the two weary men.

  Dahlgren shook his head. “I asked the conscious fellow the same question. He told me there were two other men in the ice camp with them but that he is certain they were both killed when the ship tore through the camp.”

  “A ship?”

  “Not just any ship,” Dahlgren nodded grimly. “An American Navy warship. Came blasting through the ice and obliterated the entire facility.”

  “That’s impossible,” Gunn replied.

  “I’m just telling you what the man said.”

  Gunn fell silent, his eyes bulging in disbelief. “We’ll search some more, all the same,” he finally said in a low voice. Then, turning a sympathetic eye toward both men, he added, “That was a heroic rescue effort under terrible conditions.”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with those guys,” Giordino remarked. “But Dahlgren a hero? That will be the day,” he added with a laugh.

  “I’ve a good mind not to share my bottle of Jack Daniel’s with you for that remark,” Dahlgren retorted.

  Giordino put an arm around the Texan and escorted him off the bridge.

  “Just one shot, my friend, and I’ll see that the Yukon is yours for the taking.”

  THE NARWHAL SEARCHED THE surrounding seas for the next two hours, finding only the battered remnants of a blue awning among the ice-infested waters. Gunn reluctantly called off the search when most of the broken floe fragments finally drifted clear of the ice shelf.

  “Prudhoe Bay would have better facilities, but Tuktoyaktuk is the closer port by about fifty miles. They do have an airfield,” Stenseth said, eyeing a chart of the North American coastline.

  “We’ll have more of a following sea-sailing to the latter,” Gunn replied, looking over the captain’s shoulder. “It would probably be best to get them ashore as soon as possible. Tuktoyaktuk it is.”

  The town was along a sparse stretch of northern Canadian shoreline, just east of the Alaskan border. The area was well north of the Arctic Circle and beyond the northern tree line as well, a rolling, rocky land covered in snow most of the year.

  The Narwhal plowed through rough waters for fourteen hours as the spring storm finally blew itself out. The Beaufort Sea still heaved with high breakers when the NUMA ship edged into the protected waters of Kugmallit Bay beside the town of Tuktoyaktuk. A Canadian Mountie patrol boat guided the ship to the city’s industrial pier, where an empty dockside berth awaited. Within minutes, the injured scientists were loaded into a pair of vans and whisked to the local medical center. A thorough checkup deemed the men stable enough for further travel, after which they were loaded onto a plane to Yellowknife.

  It wasn’t until the next day, when the trio arrived in Calgary on a government jet, that their ordeal became headline news. A media circus ensued, as every major newspaper and television network jumped on the story. Bue’s eyewitness account of an American warship battering the ice camp and leaving its inhabitants to die struck an angry chord with many Canadians weary of their southern neighbor’s worldly might.

  Fervor within the Canadian government ascended to an even higher pitch. Already stung by the embarrassing incident involving the mystery ship Atlanta, Coast Guard and military officials within the government showed particular wrath. The nationalistic Prime Minister, his popularity waning, quickly pounced on the incident for political gain. The rescued scientists Bue, Case, and Quinlon were feted as guests at the Prime Minister’s residence on Sussex Drive in Ottawa, then trotted before the television cameras to once more describe the destruction of the ice camp at the hands of the Americans. With a calculated show of anger, the Prime Minister went so far as to denounce the incident as a barbaric act of war.

  “Canadian sovereignty will no longer be violated by foreign transgressions,” he shrieked to the cameras. With an angry Parliament buttressing his rhetoric, he ordered additional naval forces to the Arctic, while threatening to close the border and shut off oil and gas exports. “The great nation of Canada shall not be bullied. If protection of our sovereignty entails war, then so be it,” he cried, his face turning beet red.

  Overnight, the Prime Minister’s popularity soared in the polls. Witnessing the public reaction, his fellow politicians clamored before the media to strike anti-American pose. The story of the ice camp survivors took on a life of its own, propelled by a manipulated media and a self-serving national leader. It became a glory-filled tale of victimization and heroic survival. Yet somehow lost in every retelling of the tragedy was the role of the NUMA research crew and the daring rescue effort that had saved the three survivors.

  31

  “Jim, do you have a moment?”

  Walking down a corridor of the White House West Wing, Vice President James Sandecker turned to find the Canadian Ambassador calling him from behind. A distinguished-looking man with bushy silver eyebrows, Ambassador John Davis approached with a taciturn look on his face.

  “Good morning, John,” Sandecker greeted. “What brings you to this neck of the woods so early in the day?”

  “Good to see you, Jim,” Davis replied, his face brightening a bit. “I’m afraid I was sent to hammer on your good President over my country’s agitation with this business in the Northwest Passage.”

  “I’m headed to a meeting with the President on that very topic. A sad tragedy about the ice camp, but I’ve been told we had no warships anywhere near there.”

  “A sticky matter nevertheless. The hardliners in our government are blowing it full out of proportion.” He lowered his tone to a whisper. “Even the Prime Minister is rattling his saber over the matter, though I know he’s doing it strictly for political gain. I just fear a foolish escalation of some sort that will lead to further tragedy.” A somber look in the Ambassador’s gray eyes told Sandecker that his fear was deep-rooted.

  “Don’t worry, John, cooler heads will prevail. We’ve got too much at stake to let something like this degenerate.”

  Davis nodded his head weakly. “I sure hope you are right. Say, Jim, I’d like to express our thanks to your NUMA ship and crew. It has been overlooked in the press, but they made a remarkable rescue.”

  “I’ll pass that along. Give my best to Maggie, and let’s plan on going sailing again soon.”

  “I’d like that. Take care, Jim.”

  A White House aide pressed Sandecker on to the Oval Office, guiding him through the northwest entrance. Seated around a coffee table, Sandecker recognized the President’s chief of staff, his National Security Advisor, and the Secretary of Defense. The President stood at a side cubby, pouring himself a cup of coffee from an antique silver pot.

  “Can I get you a cup, Jim?” Ward asked. The President still had dark circles under his eyes but appeared more energized than during Sandecker’s last visit.

  “Sure, Garner. Make it black.”

  The other administration officials looked aghast at Sandecker for calling the President by his first name, but he didn’t care. And neither did Ward. The President handed Sandecker his coffee, then sat down in a gold wingback chair.

  “You missed all the fireworks, Jim,” the President said. “The Canadian Ambassador just gave me holy blazes about those two incide
nts in the Arctic.”

  Sandecker nodded. “I just passed him in the hall. They seem to be taking it quite seriously.”

  “The Canadians are upset about our proposed plan to divert freshwater from the Great Lakes to replenish the Midwest farming aquifers,” said Chief of Staff Meade. “Plus it is no secret that the Prime Minister’s poll numbers are way down ahead of a call for parliamentary elections this fall.”

  “We have reason to believe there is also an effort to keep our petroleum companies out of the Canadian Arctic,” added the National Security Advisor, a short-haired blond woman named Moss. “The Canadians have been very protective about their Arctic oil and gas resources, which continue to grow in significance.”

  “Given our current situation, it is hardly an opportune time for them to turn their backs on us,” said Meade.

  “You mean it’s not an opportune time for us,” noted Sandecker.

  “You have a point, Jim,” the President replied. “The Canadians certainly have a few strong cards in their hand at the moment.”

  “Which they are already starting to play,” said Moss. “The Ambassador gave notice that Prime Minister Barrett intends to announce a full prohibition on U.S.-flagged vessels crossing into Canadian Arctic seaways. Any violation will be deemed a trespass on territorial waters and subject to military reprisal.”

  “The Prime Minister is not one for subtlety,” the President remarked.

  “He went so far as to have the Ambassador drop the hint that reductions in oil, natural gas, and hydroelectric power exports to the U.S. are on the table,” Meade said, speaking to Sandecker.

  “That is playing hardball,” Sandecker said. “We currently obtain ninety percent of our natural gas imports from Canada alone. And I know you are counting on the new infusion from Melville Sound to solve our immediate energy problems,” he added, addressing the President.