Arctic Drift Part 41

"Did Summer tell you that she deciphered your brother's message on the Ventura?" Dirk said.

"No," he said, suddenly sitting up in bed and staring at Summer.

"I've been thinking about it ever since we found the Ventura," she said. "It came to me on the ship last night. His message wasn't that they choked. It was that they suffered from choke damp."

"I'm not familiar with the term," Trevor said.

"It comes from the old mining days, when underground miners carried canaries with them to warn of asphyxiation. I had run across the term while investigating an old flooded quarry in Ohio that was rumored to contain pre-Columbian artifacts. Your brother was a doctor, so he would have been familiar with it. I believe he tried to write the message as a warning to others."

"Have you told anyone else?" Trevor asked.

"No," Summer replied. "I figured you'll want to have another chat with the chief of police in Kitimat when you return."

Trevor nodded but turned away from Summer with a faraway look in his eyes.

"We've got a train to catch," Dirk said, eyeing the clock. "Let's try a warm-water dive together real soon," he said to Trevor, shaking his hand.

Summer moved in and gave him a pa.s.sionate kiss. "Now, remember, Seattle is only a hundred miles away."

"Yes," Trevor smiled. "And there's no telling how long I'll have to stay in Vancouver arranging a new boat."

"He'll probably be behind the wheel before we see ours again," Dirk lamented as they walked out.

But he would be proven wrong. Two days after they returned to the NUMA regional office in Seattle, a flatbed truck showed up carrying their research boat left behind off Gil Island. It had a full tank of gas, and on the pilot's seat was an expensive bottle of French burgundy.

47

BY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE, THE U.S. COAST Guard cutter Polar Dawn steamed stridently across the maritime boundary with Canada just north of the Yukon. As it moved east across the corrugated gray waters of the Beaufort Sea, Captain Edwin Murdock stared out the bridge window in silent relief. There was no armed Canadian flotilla there to challenge him, as a few aboard the ship had feared.

Their mission had begun innocuously enough several months earlier with a proposal to seismically map the periphery sea ice along the Northwest Pa.s.sage. However, this was well before the Atlanta and Ice Research Lab 7 incidents. The President, concerned about fanning the flames of Canadian indignation, had initially canceled the voyage, but the Secretary of Defense had finally convinced him to proceed with the mission, successfully arguing that the Canadians had previously given implicit approval. It might be years, he a.s.serted, before the U.S. could challenge Canada's internal waters claim without overt provocation.

"Skies clear, radar screen empty, and seas at three-to-four," said the Polar Dawn's executive officer, a rail-thin African-American named Wilkes. "Perfect conditions in which to run the pa.s.sage."

"Let's hope they continue for the next six days," Murdock replied. He noticed a glint in the sky out the starboard bridge window. "Our upstairs escort is still holding the trail?" he asked.

"I believe they are going to keep an eye on us for the first fifty miles into Canadian waters," Wilkes replied, referring to a Navy P-3 Orion reconnaissance plane that lazily circled overhead. "After that, we're on our own."

n.o.body really expected the Canadians to oppose them, but the ship's officers and crew were well aware of the heated rhetoric that had been erupting from Ottawa the past two weeks. Most recognized it for what it was, empty posturing by some politicians attempting to capture a few votes. Or so they hoped.

The Polar Dawn moved east through the Beaufort Sea, skirting along the jagged edge of the sea ice that occasionally crumbled into a ma.s.s of irregular-shaped floes. The Coast Guard vessel towed a sled-shaped seismic sensor off the stern, which mapped the depth and density of the ice sheet as they steamed by.

The waters held clear of traffic, save for the occasional fishing boat or oil exploration vessel. Sailing through the first brief Arctic night without incident, Murdock slowly began to relax. The crew settled into their varied work schedules, which would serve them for the nearly three-week voyage to New York Harbor.

The sea ice had encroached closer to the mainland as they sailed east, gradually constricting the open waterway to less than thirty miles as they approached the Amundsen Gulf, south of Banks Island. Pa.s.sing the five-hundred-mile mark from Alaska, Murdock was surprised that they still hadn't encountered any Canadian picket vessels. He had been briefed that two Canadian Coast Guard vessels regularly patrolled the Amundsen Gulf, picking up any eastbound freighters that hadn't paid their pa.s.sage fees.

"Victoria Island coming into view," Wilkes announced.

All eyes on the bridge strained to make out the tundra-covered island through a damp gray haze. Larger than the state of Kansas, the huge island pressed a four-hundred-mile-long coastline opposite the North American mainland. The waterway ahead of the Polar Dawn constricted again as they entered the Dolphin and Union Strait, named for two small boats used by Franklin on an earlier Arctic expedition. The ice shelf crept off both sh.o.r.elines, narrowing the open seaway through the strait to less than ten miles. The Polar Dawn could easily shove through the adjacent meter-thick ice if necessary, but the ship kept to the ice-free path melted by the warm spring weather.

The Polar Dawn forged another hundred miles through the narrowing strait as its second Arctic night in Canadian waters approached. Murdock had just returned to the bridge after a late dinner when the radar operator announced first one and then another surface contact.

"They're both stationary at the moment," the operator said. "One's to the north, the other almost directly south. We'll run right between them on our current heading."

"Our picket has finally appeared," Murdock said quietly.

As they approached the two vessels, a larger ship appeared on the radar some ten miles ahead. The sentry vessels remained silent as the Polar Dawn cruised past, one on either flank. As the Coast Guard ship moved on unchallenged, Murdock stepped over to the radar station and peered over the operator's shoulder. With a measure of chagrin, he watched as the two vessels slowly departed their stations and gradually fell in line behind his own ship.

"It appears we may have trouble pa.s.sing Go and collecting our two hundred dollars," he said to Wilkes.

"The radio is still silent," the exec observed. "Maybe they're just bored."

A hazy dusk had settled over the strait, painting the distant sh.o.r.eline of Victoria Island a deep purple. Murdock tried to observe the ship ahead through a pair of binoculars but could only make out a dark gray ma.s.s from the bow profile. The captain adjusted course slightly, so as to pa.s.s the ship on his port side with plenty of leeway. But he would never get the chance.

In the fading daylight, they closed within two miles of the larger ship when a sudden spray of orange light burst from its gray shadow. The Polar Dawn's bridge crew heard a faint whistling, then saw an explosion in the water a quarter mile off their starboard bow. The startled crew watched as the spray of water from the blast rose forty feet into the air.

"They fired a sh.e.l.l at us," Wilkes blurted in a shocked voice.

A second later, the long silent radio finally crackled.

"Polar Dawn, Polar Dawn, this is the Canadian warship Manitoba . You are trespa.s.sing in a sovereign waterway. Please heave to and prepare for boarding."

Murdock reached for a radio transmitter. "Manitoba, this is the captain of the Polar Dawn. Our transit route has been filed with the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Ottawa. Request you let us proceed."

Murdock gritted his teeth as he waited for a response. He had been given strict orders not to provoke a confrontation at any cost. But he had also been given a.s.surances that the Polar Dawn's pa.s.sage would be uncontested. Now he was getting shot at by the Manitoba, a brand-new Canadian cruiser built expressly for Arctic duty. Though technically a military vessel, the Polar Dawn had no armament with which to fight. And it wasn't a particularly fast ship; certainly it was incapable of outrunning a modern cruiser. With the two smaller Canadian vessels blocking the rear, there was no place to run anyway.

There was no immediate answer to Murdock's radio call. Only a silent pause, and then another orange flash from the deck of the Manitoba. This time the sh.e.l.l from the warship's five-inch gun landed a scant fifty yards from the Coast Guard ship, its underwater blast sending a concussion that could be felt throughout the vessel. On the bridge, the radio crackled once more.

"Polar Dawn, this is Manitoba," spoke a voice with a kindly charm that was incongruous to the situation at hand. "I must insist that you heave to for boarding. I'm afraid I have orders to sink you if you don't comply. Over."

Murdock didn't wait for another orange flash from the Manitoba.

"All stop," he ordered the helmsman.

In a heavy voice, he radioed the Manitoba his concession. He quickly had the radioman send a coded message to the Coast Guard sector headquarters in Juneau, explaining their predicament. Then he quietly waited for the Canadian boarders, wondering if his career was all but over.

A HEAVILY ARMED TEAM of Canadian Special Forces pulled alongside the Polar Dawn within minutes and quickly boarded the ship. Executive Officer Wilkes met the boarders and escorted them to the bridge. The leader of the Special Forces team, a short man with a lantern jaw, saluted Murdock.

"Lieutenant Carpenter, Joint Task Force 2 Special Forces," he said. "I have orders to take command of your vessel and bring her to port at Kugluktuk."

"And what of the crew?" Murdock asked.

"That's for the higher-ups to decide."