Arctic Drift Part 62

"Ahoy," called the invisible voice. "This is the USS Santa Fe. There is a hot toddy and a warm bunk awaiting any among you that can whistle 'Dixie.' "

79

CLAY ZAK COULD NOT BELIEVE HIS EYES.

After disposing of the NUMA ship, he'd turned the icebreaker back toward the Royal Geographical Society Islands, then retired to his cabin. He'd tried to sleep but only rested fitfully, his mind too focused on locating the ruthenium. Returning to the bridge after just a few hours, he ordered the ship to West Island. The vessel plowed through the bordering sea ice, advancing to his revised location of the ruthenium mine.

The geologists were roused from their bunks as the ship slowly ground to a halt. A minute later, the helmsman noted a bright object at the edge of the sea ice.

"It's the submersible from the research ship," he said.

Zak jumped to the bridge window and stared in disbelief. Sure enough, the bright yellow submersible was wedged in the ice off to their starboard, just barely visible through the gray fog.

"How can they know?" he cursed, not realizing the submersible had drifted to the spot of its own accord. His heart began pounding fast in anger. He alone possessed the mining co-op's map to the Inuit ruthenium. He had just destroyed the probing NUMA ship and moved directly to the site. Yet he still found Pitt there ahead of him.

The icebreaker's captain, asleep in his bunk, detected the halting ship and staggered to the bridge with droopy eyes.

"I told you to stay out of the sea ice with that damaged bow," he grumbled. Receiving a cold glare in return, he asked, "Are you ready to deploy the geology team?"

Zak ignored him as the executive officer pointed out the port-side window.

"Sir, there's two men on the ice," he reported.

Zak studied the two figures, then noticeably relaxed.

"Forget the geologists," he said with an upturned grin. "Have my security team report to me. Now."

IT WAS NOT THE first time that Pitt and Giordino had been shot at, and they reacted at the sight of the first muzzle flash. Scattering as the first bullets plinked the ice just inches away, they both bolted toward the island at a sprint. The uneven surface made it difficult to run but forced them to move in a natural zigzag pattern, casting a more difficult target. Wisely splitting up, they angled away from each other, forcing the shooters to choose between them.

The trio of guns echoed a rapid tat-tat-tat-tat as chunks of ice danced off the ground around their feet. But Pitt and Giordino had gotten a good jump, and the accuracy of the marksmen waned as the two of them distanced themselves from the ship. Both men ran hard toward a thin bank of fog hanging over the beach. The gray mist eventually enveloped them like a cloak as they reached the sh.o.r.eline, rendering them invisible to the gunmen on the ship.

Panting for air, the two men approached each other along an ice-covered stretch of beach.

"Just what we needed, another warm welcome to this frozen outpost," Giordino said, huge clouds of vapor surging from his mouth.

"Look on the bright side," Pitt gasped. "There were a couple of seconds there when I forgot how cold it is."

Without hats, gloves, and parkas, both men were certifiably frozen. The abrupt sprint had gotten their blood surging, but their faces and ears tingled in pain while their fingers had nearly turned numb. The physiological effort to keep warm was already sapping their energy reserves, and the short run left them both feeling weakened.

"Something tells me our warmly dressed new pals will be along shortly," Giordino said. "Have a preference to which way we run?"

Pitt looked up and down the coastline, his visibility limited by the slowly dissipating fog. A steep ridge appeared in front of them, which appeared to rise higher to their left. The ridge eased lower to their right, rolling into another, somewhat rounder hill.

"We need to get off the ice so we're not leaving tracks to follow. I'd feel better taking the high ground as well. Looks like our best bet to move inland will be down the coast to our right."

The two men took off at a jog as a brief gust of frozen ice particles blasted their faces. A rising wind would become their enemy now, scattering the fog that provided concealment. They hugged the face of the low cliff, approaching a steep, ice-filled ravine that bisected the ridge. Deeming it impa.s.sable, they ran on, searching for the next cut that would lead them inland. They advanced a half mile down the beach when another extended gust swirled down the sh.o.r.eline.

The wind scorched their exposed skin while their lungs labored to absorb the frozen air. Just breathing became an exercise in agony, but neither man slowed his pace. Then the metallic rapping of machine-gun fire echoed again, the bullets ripping a seam across the cliff a few yards behind them.

Glancing over his shoulder, Pitt saw that the gusting wind had cleared an opening in the fog behind them. Two men were visible in the distance, advancing in their direction. Zak had split his security team into three groups, angling them ash.o.r.e in different directions. The duo sent to the west had caught a break with the wind, exposing the two men on the run.

Up the coast, Pitt saw another bank of fog billowing toward them. If they could stay clear of gunfire for another minute, the moving mist would conceal them again.

"Those guys are starting to annoy me," Giordino gasped as both men stepped up their pace.

"Hopefully, that polar bear is thinking the same thing," Pitt replied.

Another burst of fire ripped into the ice well short of them. The gunmen conceded accuracy by shooting on the run but were not too far away to rip off a lucky shot. Sprinting toward the fog, Pitt studied the ridge to his left. The cliff dropped down into another gully just ahead, this one broader than the earlier ravine. It was filled with rock and ice, but it appeared that they could climb their way up it.

"Let's try to leg up this next ravine when the fog blows over," he gasped.

Giordino nodded, struggling toward the wall of fog, which was still fifty yards away. Another burst of fire chattered into the ice, this time striking just behind their heels. The gunmen had halted their pursuit to take a clearly aimed shot.

"I don't think we're going to make it," Giordino muttered.

They were almost to the gully, but the fog still beckoned in the distance. A few yards ahead, Pitt noticed a large vertical slab of ice-covered rock jutting from the ravine. Gasping for breath, he simply pointed to it.

The hillside just above their heads suddenly erupted in debris as the gunmen found their range. Both men instinctively ducked, then stretched for the rock slab, diving behind it as a seam of bullets ripped up the ground just inches away. Sprawled on the ground, they struggled to catch their breath in the icy air, their bodies aching and nearly spent. The gunfire ceased as they lay concealed from their pursuers, while the wispy edge of the fogbank finally arrived to enshroud their location.

"I think we should climb here," Pitt said, struggling to his feet. A dark ma.s.s of icy rock filled the ravine above them, but a negotiable gulch rose to the side.

Giordino nodded, then stood up and stepped toward the slope. He started to climb, then noticed that Pitt wasn't moving. He turned to find his companion staring up at the rock slab and rubbing a hand across its surface.

"Maybe not the best time to be hanging around admiring the rocks," he admonished.

Pitt traced the slab toward the ice-covered hillside, then looked up. "It's not a rock," he said quietly. "It's a rudder."

Giordino looked at Pitt like he was crazy, then followed his gaze up the ravine. Overhead was a dark ma.s.s of rock buried beneath a thin layer of ice. Surveying the hillside, Giordino suddenly felt his jaw drop. It wasn't a mound of rock at all, he realized with astonishment.

Above them, embedded in the ice, the men found themselves staring at the wooden black hull of a nineteenth-century sailing ship.

80

THE EREBUS STOOD LIKE A FORGOTTEN RELIC OF a bygone era. Caught in an ice floe that had separated her from her damaged sister ship, the Erebus had been pushed onto the sh.o.r.e by a mammoth caravan of winter sea ice that pressed down Victoria Strait some one hundred and sixty years earlier. A shipwreck that refused to die at sea, she had been thrust into the ravine and gradually entombed in ice.

The ice had encased the hull and cemented the port side of the ship to the steep hillside. The ship's three masts still stood upright, tilted at an irregular angle and sheathed in a layer of ice that melded into the adjacent ridge. The starboard sides and deck were remarkably free of ice, however, as Pitt and Giordino found when they hiked up the gulch and climbed over the side rail. The men gazed in awe, incredulous that they were pacing the deck of Franklin's flagship.

"Melt all the ice and she looks like she could sail back to England," Giordino remarked.