Arctic Drift Part 15

"Terra Green Industries. May I help you?"

"Resources Minister Jameson," he replied brusquely. "Calling for Mitch.e.l.l Goyette."

18

DIRK AND SUMMER QUIETLY SHOVED THEIR BOAT away from the munic.i.p.al dock and drifted into the harbor. When the current had pushed them out of view of the dock, Dirk started the engine and guided them slowly down the channel. The sky overhead had partially cleared, allowing a splash of starlight to strike the water as the midnight hour was consumed. The bellow from a bay-front honky-tonk provided the only competing sound as they motored slowly away from town.

Dirk kept the boat in the center of the channel, following the mast light of a distant troll boat heading out early in search of some prize coho salmon. Easing away from the lights of Kitimat, they sailed in darkness for several miles until navigating a wide bend in the channel. Ahead, the water glistened like polished chrome, reflecting the bright lights of the Terra Green sequestration plant.

As the boat moved downstream, Dirk could see that the facility grounds were dotted with brilliant overhead floodlights, which cast abstract shadows against the surrounding pines. Only the huge covered dock was kept muted by the spotlights, shading the presence of the LNG tanker that lay moored inside.

Summer retrieved a pair of night vision binoculars and scrutinized the sh.o.r.eline as they cruised past at a benign distance.

"All quiet on the Western Front," she said. "I only got a quick glimpse under the big top but saw no signs of life around the dock or the ship."

"Security at this hour can't be more than a couple of goons in a box staring at some video camera feeds."

"Let's hope they're watching a wrestling match on TV instead, so we can grab our water samples and get out."

Dirk held the boat at a steady pace until they had traveled two miles past the facility. Safely lost from view behind several bends in the channel, he spun the wheel to starboard and brought the boat up tight along the sh.o.r.eline, then cut the running lights. The patchy starlight provided enough visibility to distinguish the tree-lined bank, but he still eased off the throttle while keeping one eye glued to the depth readings on an Odom fathometer. Summer stood alongside, scanning for obstructions with the night vision binoculars and whispering course changes to her brother.

Moving barely over idle, they crept to within three-quarters of a mile of the Terra Green facility, staying out of direct view. A small cove provided the last point of concealment before the floodlights scorched the channel surface. Summer quietly released an anchor off the bow, then Dirk killed the engine. A slight whisper of wind through some nearby pines rattled an otherwise eerie nighttime silence. The wind shifted, bringing with it the whine of pumps and the humming of electrical generators from the nearby facility, the noise easily concealing their movements.

Dirk glanced at his Doxa dive watch before joining Summer in slipping into a dark-colored dry suit.

"We're approaching slack tide," he said quietly. "We'll have a little head current going in, but that will give us a push at our backs on the return swim."

He had calculated as such earlier in the evening, knowing that they didn't want to be fighting the current to return to the boat. Though it probably wouldn't have mattered. Both Dirk and Summer were excellent swimmers, often engaging in marathon ocean swims whenever they were near warm water.

Summer adjusted the straps on her BC, which held a single dive tank, then clipped on a small dive bag containing several empty vials. She waited until Dirk had his tank on before slipping on a pair of fins.

"A midnight swim in the great Pacific Northwest," she said, eyeing the stars overhead. "Almost sounds romantic."

"There is nothing romantic about a swim in forty-two-degree water," Dirk replied, then clamped a snorkel between his teeth.

With a quiet nod, they both slipped over the side and into the chilly black water. Adjusting their buoyancy, they took their bearings and began kicking their way out of the cove and toward the facility. They swam near the surface, their heads just breaking the water like a pair of a prowling alligators. Conserving their dive tanks, they used snorkels to breathe, sucking in the brisk night air through their silicone breathing tubes.

The current was slightly stronger than Dirk had antic.i.p.ated, led by the runoff from the Kitimat River at the head of the channel. They easily overpowered the headwaters, but the extra exertion built up body heat. Despite the frigid water, Dirk could feel himself sweating inside the thermal dry suit.

A half mile from the plant, Dirk felt Summer tap his shoulder and turned to see her pointing toward the sh.o.r.e. In the shadows of a jagged ridge of pine trees, he could make out a boat moored close to land. It was darkened like their own vessel, and, in the dim night light, he was unable to ascertain its dimensions.

Dirk nodded at Summer and swam deeper into the channel, putting a wide berth between them and the boat. They continued swimming at a measured pace until they closed within two hundred yards of the facility. Stopping to rest, Dirk tried to get a lay of the land beneath the blaring spotlights.

A large L-shaped building stretched across the grounds, its base next to the covered dock. The whine of pumps and generators emanated from the structure, which processed the liquid carbon dioxide. A separate windowed building adjacent to a helicopter pad stood a few yards away and appeared to contain offices. Dirk guessed that the housing accommodations for the workers were located up the road, in the direction of Kitimat. Off to his right, a st.u.r.dy pier jutted into the channel, hosting a single boat. It was the same dark speedboat that had chased them away earlier in the day.

Summer swam alongside, then reached down to her dive bag. Uncorking an empty vial, she collected a water sample while they drifted.

"I gathered two additional samples on the way in," she whispered. "If we can collect another one or two around the dock, then we should have the bases covered."

"Next stop," he replied. "Let's take it underwater from here."

Dirk took a bearing with a compa.s.s on his wrist, then slipped his regulator between his teeth and expelled a burst of air from his BC. Sinking a few feet below the surface, he gently began kicking toward the ma.s.sive covered dock. The corrugated tin structure was relatively narrow, offering just a few feet of leeway for the ship occupying the lone berth. Yet the dock was well over a football field long, easily accommodating the ninety-meter tanker.

The luminescent dial of the compa.s.s was barely visible in the inky water as Dirk followed his set bearing. The water grew lighter from the sh.o.r.eside lights as he approached the dock entrance. He continued swimming until the dark shape of the tanker's hull loomed before him. Slowly ascending, he broke the surface almost directly beneath the tanker's stern rail. He quickly scanned the nearby dock, finding it deserted at the late hour. Pulling his hood away from one ear, he listened for voices, but the drone of the pump house would have made a shout difficult to detect. Gently kicking away from the side of the ship, he tried to get a better look at the vessel.

Though a large ship from Dirk's perspective, she was tiny as far as LNG carriers go. Designed with a streamlined deck, she could carry twenty-five hundred cubic meters of liquefied natural gas in two horizontal metallic tanks belowdecks. Built for coastal transport duty, she was dwarfed by the large oceangoing carriers that could hold more than fifty times the amount of liquefied natural gas.

The ship was probably ten or twelve years old, Dirk gauged, showing wear at the seams but judiciously maintained. He didn't know what modifications had been made for the ship to carry liquid CO2 but presumed they were minor. Though CO2 was somewhat denser than LNG, it required less temperature and pressure extremes to reach a liquid state. He peered up at the name Chichuyaa , beaded in gold lettering across the stern, noting the home registry of Panama City painted in white lettering below.

A rise of bubbles rippled the water a few yards away, then Summer's head popped through the surface. She glanced at the ship and dock, then nodded at her brother as she pulled out a vial and collected a water sample. When she finished, Dirk pointed toward the bow and dropped back beneath the surface. Summer followed suit, tracking her brother as he swam forward. Following the dark outline of the tanker's hull, they swam down the length of the ship, quietly surfacing off the ship's bow. Dirk eyed the tanker's Plimsoll line a few feet overhead, noting that the vessel was just a foot or two shy of its fully loaded displacement.

Summer turned her attention to a series of overhead feeder tubes that dangled like thick tentacles over the ship from an adjacent dockside pumping station. Called "Chiksan arms," the large articulated pipes jimmied and swayed from the surge of the liquid CO2 flowing through inside. Small wisps of white smoke spewed from the pump building roof, condensation from the cooled and pressurized gas. Summer reached down and retrieved the last empty vial from her dive bag, wondering whether the water around her was contaminated with pollutants as she took the final sample. Zipping the full vial into her dive bag, she kicked toward her brother, who had drifted near the dock.

As she approached, Dirk pointed toward the dock entrance and whispered, "Let's go."

Summer nodded and started to turn, then suddenly hesitated in the water. Her eyes fixated on the Chiksan arms above Dirk's head. With a quizzical look on her face, she raised a finger and pointed at the pipes far overhead. Dirk c.o.c.ked his head and gazed up at the pipes for a minute but didn't notice anything amiss.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"There's something about the movement of the pipes," she replied, staring at the arms. "I think the carbon dioxide is being pumped onto the ship."

Dirk stared up at the wiggling arms. There was a rhythmic movement through the pipes, but it was hardly sufficient to tell which way the liquefied gas was flowing. He looked at his sister and nodded. Her occasional hunches or intuitions were usually right. It was enough for him to want to check it out.

"Do you think it means anything?" Summer asked, looking up at the ship's bow.

"Hard to say if it has any relevance," Dirk replied quietly. "It doesn't make any sense that they would be pumping CO2 onto the ship. Maybe there is an LNG pipeline from Athabasca running through here."

"Trevor said there was only a small oil pipeline and the CO2 line."

"Did you notice if the ship was sitting higher in the water this morning? "

"I couldn't say," Summer replied. "Though she ought to be a lot higher in the water now if she's been off-loading gas for any amount of time."

Dirk looked up at the hulking vessel. "What I know about LNG ships, and it ain't much, is that pumps on sh.o.r.e move the liquid onto the ships, and they have pumps on board to move it off at the destination. From the sound of it, the pump house on sh.o.r.e is clearly operating."

"That could be to pump the gas underground or into temporary storage tanks."

"True. But it is too noisy to tell if the shipboard pumps are running." He kicked a few yards over to the dock, then poked his head up and looked around. The dock and visible portions of the ship were still deserted. Dirk slipped off his tank and weight belt and hung them from a nearby cleat.

"You're not going aboard?" Summer whispered as if her brother were insane.

Dirk's white teeth flashed in a grin. "How else will we solve the mystery, my dear Watson?"

Summer knew that waiting in the water for her brother would be too nerve-racking, so she reluctantly hung her dive gear next to his and climbed onto the dock. Following him quietly toward the ship, she couldn't help muttering, "Thanks, Sherlock," under her breath.