“Everyone is back aboard,” the captain reported. “Are you ready to leave or did you wish to speak to the geologists first?”
“They can brief me on the way. I’m anxious to investigate the north shore.” He looked at his watch. “Though we might want to enjoy the show before shoving off.”
Two minutes later, the bunkhouse kitchen blew up, leveling the walls of the entire structure. The propane tank, which was nearly full of gas, exploded in a massive fireball that sent waves of orange flame skyward, its concussion rattling the windows on the ship. A few seconds later, the storage-building charge went off, blowing off the front door and crumbling the roof. The hillside charges were next, creating a tumbling landslide of rocks and boulders that poured onto the mangled roof. When a thick cloud of airborne dust finally settled, Zak could see that the entire building was pulverized under a layer of rock and rubble.
“Very effective,” mumbled the captain. “I guess we don’t need to worry about an American presence in the vicinity now.”
“Quite,” Zak replied in a tone of arrogant certainty.
60
The westerly winds whipped across Victoria Strait, kicking up whitecaps that washed over the sporadic chunks of floating ice. Forging through the dark waters, the bright turquoise NUMA ship appeared like a beacon in a colorless world. With the Royal Geographical Society Islands visible off its bow, the ship steamed slowly south into the first of Pitt’s search grids.
“Looks to be a vessel rounding the northwest coast,” the helmsman reported, eyeing the radarscope.
Captain Stenseth picked up a pair of binoculars and viewed a tandem pair of dots on the horizon.
“Probably an Asian freighter making an escorted attempt through the passage,” he said. He turned to Pitt, who was seated at the chart table studying a blueprint of the Franklin ships. “We’ll be approaching the finish line shortly. Any idea when your torpedo will pop up?”
Pitt glanced at his orange-faced Doxa dive watch. “She ought to surface within the next half hour.”
It proved to be twenty minutes later when one of the crewmen spotted the yellow AUV bobbing to the surface. Stenseth maneuvered the ship alongside, and the AUV was quickly hoisted aboard. Giordino removed its one-terabyte hard drive and hustled the data to a small viewing room, where a computer and projection system awaited.
“You headed to the movies?” Stenseth asked as Pitt stood up and stretched.
“Yes, the first of two rather long double features. You have a fix on the transponders?”
Stenseth nodded. “We’ll go grab them next. They’ve actually been pushed quite far along, due to the strong southerly current here. We will have to make a bit of a dash for them before they pile up on the island rocks.”
“I’ll tell Dahlgren to be standing by,” Pitt replied. “Then we can go grab fish number 2.”
Pitt made his way down to the darkened viewing room, where Giordino already had the sonar’s collected data displayed on the screen. A gold-colored image of the seafloor was scrolling by, revealing a largely flat but rocky bottom.
“A nice crisp image,” Pitt said, taking a seat next to Giordino.
“We boosted the frequency for a higher resolution,” Giordino explained. He handed Pitt a bowl of microwave popcorn. “But it still ain’t
“That’s okay. As long as we find something worth playing again, Sam.”
The two men sat back and stared at the screen as an endless swath of sea bottom began scrolling by.
61
The Zodiac pounded over the choppy swells, careening off small chunks of ice as a freezing mist sprayed into the air. The pilot kept the throttle open until approaching a wide expanse of unbroken ice that stretched from the shoreline. Finding a section with a sloping front edge, he drove the inflatable boat up and onto the sea ice. The hardened hull of the Zodiac slid several feet before mashing to a halt against a low knoll. Seated near the stern, Zak waited for the geology team to exit the boat before he stepped out, following a guard carrying a hunting rifle whose sole job was to ward off any inquisitive bears.
“Pick us up a mile down the coast in exactly two hours,” Zak ordered the pilot, waving an arm to the west. Then he helped shove the Zodiac back into the water and watched as the rubber boat sped to the
Zak could have stayed in the warmth of his cabin, reading a biography of Wild Bill Hickok that he had brought along, but he feared the geologists would dawdle in the cold. What actually drove him ashore, he didn’t want to admit, was the disappointment he felt with their geological assessment of the Mid-America mining camp.
While it was hardly a surprise when they confirmed the rich ground content of zinc and iron on the south side of the island, he had expected that some trace elements of ruthenium might be present. But none were found. The geologists in fact found no evidence of any platinum-related elements in the exposed stratum.
It meant nothing, he assured himself, since he knew exactly where the ruthenium would be found. Digging into the pocket of his parka, he pulled out the journal pages that he had stolen from the Miners Co-op. In heavy charcoal was a hand-drawn circular diagram that clearly resembled West Island. A small X was marked on the northern shore of the island. At the top of the page, a different hand had written “Royal Geographical Society Islands” with a quill pen in a Victorian script. It was, according to an earlier page in the journal, the copied diagram of an Inuit map where the Adelaide seal hunters had obtained the ruthenium they oddly called Black Kobluna.
Zak matched the contours with a modern map of the islands and identified the targeted spot slightly west of their landing site.
“The mine should be a half mile or so down the coastline,” he announced after the group had hiked over the ice to a rock-covered beachfront. “Keep your eyes open.”
Zak marched off down the beach ahead of the geologists, anxious to make the discovery himself. The cold seemed to fade away as he envisioned the potential riches that waited just down the coast. Goyette would already owe him for ridding the Canadian Arctic of American investors. Finding the ruthenium would be frosting on the cake.
The rugged shoreline was fronted by an undulating series of gullies and bluffs that climbed toward the island’s interior. The ravines were filled with hard-packed ice, while the hilltops were bare, creating a mottled pattern like the dappled coat of a gray mare. Trudging well behind Zak, the geologists moved tentatively in the cold weather, stopping frequently to examine exposed sections of the hillsides and collect samples of rock. Reaching his target area without finding physical evidence of a mine, Zak anxiously paced back and forth until the geologists drew near.
“The mine should be in this vicinity,” he shouted. “Search the area thoroughly.”
As the geologists fanned out, the security guard waved Zak over to the edge of the sea ice. Splayed at the man’s feet, he found the mutilated carcass of a ringed seal. The mammal’s flesh had been torn from its skin in large, jagged chunks. The guard pointed to the animal’s skull, where a wide set of claw marks had scratched through the skin.
“Only a bear would have left a mark like that,” the guard said.
“By the look of the decay, it was a fairly recent meal,” Zak replied. “Keep a sharp lookout, but don’t mention this to our scientific friends. They’re already distracted enough by the cold.”
The polar bear never materialized, and, to Zak’s dismay, neither did the ruthenium. After an hour of diligent searching, the frozen geologists staggered to Zak with confused looks on their faces.
“The visual results are on par with the south side of the island,” said one of the geologists, a bearded man with droopy hazel eyes. “We see some outcrop mineralization with signs of iron, zinc, and a bit of lead content. There’s no obvious evidence of platinum-group ores, including ruthenium. However, we’ll have to assay our samples back on the ship to definitely rule out its presence.”
