his senses, but he was hopelessly ensnarled in the blackness. For brief moments, he was able to break through the veil and seize vague notions of feeling. He sensed his body moving through the water without effort. Then something was wedged between his lips, followed by the sensation of a flowing garden hose jammed into his mouth. Soon the curtain returned, and he again drifted away into a calm darkness.
A pounding at his temple brought him back a second time. He felt a rap against his back and legs, then he felt like he was being stuffed into a closet. He heard a voice say his name, but the rest of the words were indecipherable. The voice vanished with the sound of receding footsteps. He tried with all his might to pry open an eyelid, but they were cemented shut. The pain in his head returned, growing fierce until a constellation of stars burst before his closed eyes. And then the lights and the sound and the pain blissfully departed once more.
21
Summer was led off the dock and past the long building housing the pumping station. The unexpected brutality against her brother had been a shock, but now she willed herself to suppress the difficult emotions and think logically. What was so important at the facility that it would warrant such behavior? Were they in fact pumping CO2 onto the tanker? She glanced over her shoulder at the guard, who marched several paces behind with his pistol drawn. Even the hired guards acted like it was a top secret installation.
The drone of the pump machinery receded as they walked past the main building and across a small open area. Approaching the administration office and adjacent security station, Summer heard a rustling in some bushes to her left. Recalling the stuffed grizzly bear in the cafe, she quickly stepped right to veer away from the noise. The confused guard swung his gun hand after Summer while cocking his head toward the bushes. The rustling ceased as the guard stepped closer, then suddenly a figure rose from behind the bushes swinging his arm. The guard spun his gun to fire, but an object whipped out from the prowler’s hand and struck him on the side of the face before he could shoot. Summer turned to see a dive belt, its lead weights strung to the end, clank to the ground. The guard had also dropped hard but managed to stagger to one knee. Stunned and bleeding, he slowly reaimed the pistol at the shadowy figure and squeezed the trigger.
Had the toe of Summer’s foot not struck the guard’s jaw, the bullet might have found its mark. But a hammering kick to his mouth forced the shot high and laid the man out. He slumped over unconscious, the gun slipping out of his hand.
“Those pretty legs are more dangerous than I suspected,” spoke a familiar voice.
Summer looked toward the bushes to see Trevor Miller emerge with a crooked smile. Like Summer, he was clad in a dry suit, and appeared slightly out of breath.
“Trevor,” she stammered, shocked at seeing him there. “Why are you here?”
“Same reason as you. Come on, let’s get out of here.” He picked up the guard’s gun and flung it into the bushes, then grabbed her hand and began running toward the dock. Summer saw a light turn on in the building as she raced to keep up with Trevor.
They didn’t stop until they reached the dock, rushing over to where the security boat was moored. Summer stopped and gazed down at the water as Trevor scooped up the nearby dive gear and tossed it in the boat.
“Dirk went in the water,” Summer panted, pointing toward the gangplank.
“I know,” Trevor replied. He nodded toward the boat, then stepped aside.
Sprawled across the stern bench, dazed and groggy, Dirk stared up at them through glassy eyes. With a laborious effort, he raised his head slightly and winked at his sister. Summer leaped into the boat and collapsed next to him in surprised relief.
“How did you make it out?” she asked, eyeing a trickle of dried blood along his temple.
Dirk weakly raised an arm and pointed at Trevor, who untied the lines and jumped into the boat.
“No time for platitudes, I’m afraid,” Trevor said with a hurried smile. Starting the motor, he gunned the throttle and spun the small boat around the back side of the tanker and out the covered dock. Never looking back, he aimed the boat down the channel and pushed it to its top speed.
Summer tried to check Dirk’s wound under the starlight, finding a large knot on the top of his skull that was still damp with blood. His dive hood had saved him from a deeper gouge to the skin, and perhaps a worse fate as well.
“Forgot to wear my hard hat,” he mumbled, trying hard to focus his eyes on Summer.
“Your hard head is much too tough to break,” she said, laughing aloud in an emotional release.
The boat plowed through the darkness, Trevor hugging the shoreline until suddenly easing off the throttle. The darkened boat Summer had spotted earlier loomed ahead, now recognizable as Trevor’s Canadian Resources vessel. Trevor brought the outboard alongside and helped Dirk and Summer aboard, then let the security boat drift. He quickly pulled anchor and motored the research craft down the channel. When they were well out of sight of the facility, he crossed to the opposite side of the channel, then turned and crept back toward Kitimat at slow speed.
Cruising past the Terra Green facility, they witnessed several flashlight beams crisscrossing the grounds but noticed no obvious alarms. The boat slipped unseen into the Kitimat dock, and Trevor killed its motor and tied it off. On the stern deck, Dirk had begun to regain form, save for some dizziness and a pounding head. He shook Trevor’s hand after the ecologist helped him ashore.
“Thanks for fishing me out. I would have had a long sleep underwater if not for you.”
“Entirely good luck. I was swimming along the dock when I heard the small boat come in. I was actually hiding in the water beneath the gangplank when the guard came ashore. I didn’t even realize it was you until I recognized Summer’s voice right before you went over the side. You hit the water just a few feet from me. When you didn’t move, I immediately jammed my regulator in your mouth. The hard part was keeping us both submerged until we were out of view.”
“Shame on a federal employee for trespassing on private property,” Summer said with a grin.
“It’s all your fault,” Trevor replied. “You kept talking about the importance of the water samples, so I thought we needed to know if there was a link to the facility.” He handed Summer a dive bag containing several small vials of water.
“Hope they match mine,” Summer replied, showing her own samples. “Of course, I’ll need to get our boat back to complete the analysis.”
“Miller’s taxi service is always open. I have a mining site inspection in the morning but can run you back down in the afternoon.”
“That would be fine. Thanks, Trevor. Perhaps next time we should work a little closer together,” Summer said with a beguiling smile.
Trevor’s eyes twinkled at her words.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
22
Scattered chunks of ice dotted the rolling waters of Lancaster Strait, appearing in the dusk like jagged marshmallows floating in a sea of hot chocolate. Against the dim background of Devon Island, a black behemoth crept along the horizon billowing a trail of dark smoke.
“Range twelve kilometers, sir. She’s beating a path right across our bow.” The helmsman, a red-haired ensign with jug ears, peered from a radarscope to the ship’s captain and waited for a response.
Captain Dick Weber lowered a pair of binoculars without taking his gaze off the distant vessel.
“Keep us on intersect, at least until we obtain an identification,” he replied without turning.
The helmsman twisted the ship’s wheel a half turn, then resumed studying the radar screen. The eighty-foot Canadian Coast Guard patrol vessel plowed slowly through the dark Arctic waters toward the path of the oncoming vessel. Assigned to interdiction duty along the eastern approaches to the Northwest Passage, the
