Arctic Drift

landing, Sergeant Bojorquez was wrestling with the door, slamming his weight against the hatch lever, before releasing a string of profanities. Noting the beam of light on him, he straightened up and faced Roman.

“No-go on the door, sir. The outside lever is chained tight. We’d need a blowtorch to get this thing off.”

“Thanks, Sergeant.” Roman turned to Murdock. “Is there another way out of here?”

Murdock pointed to the open hatchway facing the stern.

“I’m sure that leads down a ladder into the number 1 hold. This tub has four holds, each big enough to park a skyscraper in. There should be an interior passageway from one hold to the next, accessible by climbing down that ladder and up another on the opposite side.”

“What about the main hatch covers? Any chance of prying them off?”

“No way, not without a crane. Each one probably weighs three tons. I would think our only chance is out the stern. There’s probably a similar hold or separate access way to the main deck.” He stared at Roman with resolve. “It will take some time to search with just a penlight.”

“Bojorquez,” Roman called. The sergeant quickly materialized alongside.

“Accompany the captain aft,” Roman ordered. “Find us a way out of this rat hole.”

“Yes, sir,” Bojorquez replied smartly. Then with a wink to his superior, he added, “Worth a stripe?”

Roman smirked. “At least one. Now, get moving.”

A glimmer of hope seemed to inspire all of the men, Roman included. But then he remembered Murdock’s comment about a long voyage and realized the Arctic environment was still going to offer them a fight for survival. Walking about the hold once more, he began plotting how to keep everyone from freezing to death.

56

In the warm confines of the Otok’s bridge, Clay Zak sat comfortably in a high-back chair watching the ice-studded waters slip by. It had been an impulsive and dangerous act to capture the Americans, he knew, and equally impulsive to toss them into the barge and tow them along. He still wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do with the captives, but he praised his own good luck. The Polar Dawn’s crew had fallen right into his lap and, with them, the opportunity to ignite the flames of contention between Canada and the U.S. The Canadian government would be seething in the belief that the Polar Dawn’s crew had escaped via an American military operation that had crossed its territorial borders. Zak laughed at the prospect, knowing that Canada’s contemptuous Prime Minister wouldn’t be letting the Americans set foot in the Canadian Arctic for quite some time to come.

It was more than Goyette could have hoped for. The industrialist had told him of the riches in the Arctic that were there for the taking, as global warming continued to melt the barriers of access. Goyette had already struck it rich with the Melville Sound natural gas field, but there was also oil to be had. By some estimates, potentially twenty-five percent of the planet’s total oil reserves were trapped under the Arctic. The rapid melt off in Arctic ice was making it all accessible now to those with foresight.

The first to grab the rights and lock up the resources would be the one to prosper, Goyette had said. The big American oil companies and mining conglomerates had already been expanding their influence in the region. Goyette could never hope to compete head-to-head. But if they were removed from the playing field, it was a different picture. Goyette could monopolize vast chunks of Arctic resources, setting himself up for billions in profits.

That would be a bigger payoff than the ruthenium, Zak thought. But he might well score on both fronts. Finding the mineral without interference was almost assured. Eliminating the American competition from future exploration was well within reach. Goyette would owe him and owe him big.

With a contented look on his face, Zak stared back at the passing ice and casually waited for the Royal Geographical Society Islands to draw closer.

PART III NORTHERN PURSUIT

57

For a few brief weeks in late summer, Canada’s Arctic archipelago resembles the painted desert. Receding snow and ice lay bare a desolate beauty hidden beneath the frozen landscape. The rocky, treeless terrain is frequently laden with startling streaks of gold, red, and purple. Lichens, ferns, and a surprising diversity of flowers, fighting to absorb the waning summer sunlight, bloom with added bouquets of color. Hare, musk oxen, and birds are found in great numbers, softening the cold aura of morbidity. A richly diverse wildlife, in fact, thrives in the intense summer months, only to vanish during the long, dark days of winter.

For the rest of the year, the islands are a forbidding collection of ice-covered hills edged by rock-strewn shorelines — an empty, barren landscape that for centuries has drawn men like a magnet, some in search of destiny, others in search of themselves. Staring out the bridge at a ribbon of sea ice clinging to the tumbled shoreline of Victoria Island, Pitt could not help but think it was one of the loneliest places he had ever seen.

Pitt stepped to the chart table, where Giordino was studying a large map of Victoria Strait. The stocky Italian pointed to an empty patch of water east of Victoria Island.

“We’re less than fifty miles from King William Island,” he said. “What are your thoughts on a search grid?”

Pitt pulled up a stool, then sat down and studied the chart. The pear-shaped landmass of King William Island appeared due east of them. Pitt took a pencil and marked an “X” at a point fifteen miles northwest of the island’s upper tip.

“This is where the Erebus and Terror were officially abandoned,” he said.

Giordino noted a sense of disinterest in Pitt’s voice.

“But that’s not where you think they sank?” he asked.

“No,” Pitt replied. “The Inuit account, though vague, seemed to indicate that the Erebus was farther south. Before I left Washington, I had some folks in the climatology department do some modeling for me. They attempted to re-create the weather conditions in April 1848, when the ships were abandoned, and predict the potential behavior of the sea ice.”

“So the ice didn’t just melt and the ships dropped to the bottom where X marks the spot?”

“It’s possible but not likely.” Pitt pointed to a large body of water north of King William called Larsen Strait.

“The winter freeze propels the pack ice in a moving train from the northeast, down Larsen Strait. If the sea ice off King William didn’t melt in the summer of 1848, which the climatologists suggest, then the ships would have been pushed south during the winter freeze of 1849. They might have been re-boarded by a small party of survivors, we just don’t know. But it is consistent with the Inuit record.”

“Swell, a moving target,” Giordino said. “Doesn’t make for a compact search zone.”

Pitt drew his finger down the western shore of King William Island, stopping at a conglomeration of islands located twenty miles off the southwest coast.

“My theory is that these islands here, the Royal Geographical Society Islands, acted as a rampart against the