Chapter 7
A mile from the Chinese ship, two men in white winter gear lay flat, hiding behind a jumbled ridge of ice.
The taller of the two gazed at the Chinese ship through a powerful spotting scope, following its blocky lines to the wide rounded stern, where the cranes were in motion, lowering vehicles to the ice.
Forward of the cranes, a cargo hatch gaped open.
A long metal gangplank descended from it to the ice.
A few men could be seen coming down the ramp.
Others were already out on the ice. From this range, they looked like tiny red dots on the field of white.
“See anything interesting?” Joe Zavala asked.
Kurt thought all of it was interesting, but it was difficult to tell what might be going on.
The men were spreading out across the frosty white plain.
They carried or towed various kinds of equipment, stopping here and there to perform various tasks.
In one area they’d set up a couple of tents.
Nearby, a stream of ice particles could be seen blasting up into the air.
Pulling the hood of his jacket back and inclining his ear correctly, Kurt could just make out the buzz of a chainsaw. “Is it the Chinese New Year?”
“Not even close,” Joe said. “Why do you ask?”
“Someone’s carving an ice sculpture,” Kurt said. “Looks like they’re setting up for a party.”
He panned slowly across the scene. To the left of the ice-carving station, he saw men using a small, tracked vehicle with a robotic arm to lift something off the ice.
The mystery object twisted slightly as it rose, revealing itself to be a flexible grid of metal links.
It reminded Kurt of the runway matting used on dirt airstrips to keep them from developing potholes during the rainy season.
The Chinese crew cleared some debris from the metal grating and then lowered it back down. Once it was lying flat, the small truck rolled over it slowly, pressing it into the surface.
Having seen enough, Kurt handed the scope over to Joe. “See for yourself.”
Pulling off an outer glove so he could better handle the device, Joe wiped some condensation from the lens and then put it to his eye. After scanning the scene for a moment, he spoke. “The equipment coming off the ship is heavy stuff. Most of it would be right at home at a construction site.”
Kurt nodded. “What do you think they’re up to?”
“I’d say they’re smoothing out the runway,” Joe said. “Getting rid of pressure ridges like the one we’re hiding behind.”
From the air, or any appreciable distance, the sea ice looked like a flat surface, an endless unbroken plain that stretched to the horizon. In reality, it was a mosaic, made up of countless small tiles. Some covered acres, others grew to the size of small towns and cities, many were much smaller.
The wind and currents moved them about the way tectonic forces moved the continents around the globe. Pushing them together. Pulling them apart.
They tended to stick together, where they rubbed shoulders, much like ice cubes floating in one’s drink. Sloshing water froze them together, but those connections were tenuous and could be broken if the wind shifted.
Where they pushed up against each other they formed pressure ridges, much like how the continents formed mountain ranges when they crashed into each other.
The ridge Kurt and Joe were hiding behind was typical, five to six feet in height, running across the ice in a zigzag-like pattern.
In some places the ridges were larger, rising twenty to thirty feet.
The higher the ridge protruded above the ice, the thicker the ice grew below it.
A ten-foot ridge jutting upward was supported by a fifteen-foot keel of ice underneath.
When the wind or current pulled instead of pushed, sections of this great field were drawn apart. This created gaps and lengthy crevices, called leads, or irregular-shaped openings known as polynya or skylights, as they led back up from under the ice to the outside world.
It seemed logical that the Chinese runway would sustain some damage from these processes over time, especially since the wind had shifted overnight. What didn’t make sense was bothering to repair it at all.
“They can’t still be waiting for the plane,” Kurt asked.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Joe said. “But they might be waiting for another plane.”
“Another plane?”
“I’m just guessing,” Joe said. “But if they do have the EAGL—and they pushed it into the water to do the salvage work far from prying eyes—they might want to send the parts home by airmail instead of taking them on a literal slow boat to China.”
Kurt appreciated the reasoning. “One that our Navy might stop and inspect,” he said. “Regardless of the international repercussions.”
“Submitting to an inspection is easy peasy when you have nothing to hide,” Joe added.
Joe’s logic was sound. But they were just guessing at this point. “We need to get closer,” Kurt said. “If they do have the EAGL sitting on the bottom, we need to confirm it and let Washington know.”
Joe handed the scope back to Kurt. They were wearing white snow gear, but it didn’t make them invisible. “I wouldn’t do it on foot.”
They’d already come a long way on foot, having landed three miles to the southwest. But they hadn’t come alone.
Kurt turned around. Behind them, a torpedo-shaped object rested on a sled beside a circular polynya filled with black water. “That’s why we brought the Otter.”
“And I thought we dragged that thing all this way so we could work up a sweat,” Joe said.
“I noticed you’d stopped complaining about the cold,” Kurt replied.
“Hauling a five-hundred-pound tub across miles of ice like a sled dog will do that to you.”
Kurt laughed. Joe’s complaints were not well-founded.
Like a self-propelled lawn mower, the sled had powered wheels underneath it that handled most of the load.
He and Joe were really only guiding the thing.
In most cases they got a free ride, having to put their backs into it only when the wheels spun or got stuck.
“You or me?” Joe asked. The Otter was a one-man sub.
“Since I can’t fly the helicopter out of here if you get lost, I’ll go,” Kurt said. He had no intention of letting Joe take the risk anyway, but using this logic, Joe couldn’t fight him over it.
“And what am I supposed to do while you’re down there?”
“Get back to the helicopter, check your email, take a nap,” Kurt said. “And run the engine every hour or so to make sure it’s warm enough to start when we’re ready to leave town.”
They backed away from the pressure ridge and moved to the waiting sled.
Removing the tarp revealed a tube-shaped device about twelve feet in length.
It had a rounded nose and a slightly flattened profile, wider than it was tall.
Aside from several vents and an impeller exhaust nozzle, it sported a completely smooth exterior.
At the touch of a button the cockpit opened on hydraulic arms. Kurt pulled off his bulky jacket, content to wear the mid- and base layers he had on underneath. He handed it to Joe.
“You might want to put this on, you look a little blue.”
“You really must be a Viking. In case you forgot, we designed this thing to do salvage work in harbors and rivers. A heater is not standard equipment.”
It didn’t matter. There was simply no way he could operate in the cramped space with the bulky jacket on. “The impeller motor will keep things warm enough.”
The Otter was designed to work in small spaces; it was controlled completely by water jets.
It had no external dive planes, propellers, or appendages that could snag on wreckage, debris, or submerged trees.
It maneuvered by opening and closing various vents through which high-pressure water could be directed.
It couldn’t dive much past three hundred feet, but its portability and minimal weight had made it a favorite on NUMA expeditions.
Kurt climbed in, folding his six-foot-two frame into the space.
He ended up in a position similar to a man riding a high-speed motorcycle with his arms extended, his chest resting against a padded support, and his legs bent and stretched out behind him.
Reaching forward, he gripped a pair of handlebar-like controls.
Flicking a single switch brought power to the systems. A quick check of the battery and oxygen readings showed them both close to a hundred percent.
“You have six hours of battery power and about four hours of oxygen,” Joe said, looking over Kurt’s shoulder.
“With a little luck I’ll be back here in two,” Kurt said.
“I’ll try to time my nap accordingly,” Joe said.
He tossed a beacon into the dark water in the gap between the ice floes.
A leash connecting it to the sled would keep it from drifting away.
“You should be able to pick this up from a half mile out. The internal navigation system will easily get you within that range.” He handed Kurt a radio. “Call me when you surface.”
The radio was a compact device, no bigger than a cell phone. Kurt slid it into a breast pocket, gave Joe a quick salute, and pressed the button to close the cockpit.
“Watch out for angry whales,” Joe said as the acrylic hatch lowered.
“You too,” Kurt said. “Not to mention polar bears. I’m told they’re particularly hungry this time of year.”
“Polar bears?” Joe said. “Up here?”
Kurt shrugged as the canopy met the Otter’s frame and locked itself down. When the pressure light turned solid green, confirming that he was sealed in, Kurt gave Joe the thumbs-up signal.
Out on the ice, Joe hiked to the rear of the sled and began cranking a lever around in circles, like a man raising the sails on an America’s Cup yacht.
Each winding lifted the tail end of the Otter a few inches higher, tipping the nose downward. At a fifteen-degree angle, the submersible slid forward into the frigid water, knifing under and then bobbing back to the surface.
A rush of air escaped the vents, and the Otter went under for a second time, vanishing as the black waters closed over the top.
Joe stood transfixed by the churning water for a moment. It was impossibly black in contrast to the pristine white ice, more like printer’s ink or crude oil. Not a hint of the small, gray submersible could be seen once it dropped below the surface.
That could be a good thing. Especially if Kurt got too near the Chinese ship. But it left Joe with an uneasy feeling that he struggled to explain or shake off.
Though he’d built and operated at least fifty different submersibles over the years, Joe had never liked climbing into the Otter.
It was too tight and too dark. It triggered a vague sense of claustrophobia that he’d never felt before.
It made him think of the old submariners who called their boats iron coffins.
He hoped it wouldn’t prove to be Kurt’s.
Standing there he began to feel the chill. He’d been still for too long. He got back to work, lowering the rails on the sled and then pulling the white tarp over the top and lashing it down with bungee cords.
With the sled hidden and the hydrophone clicking, his work was done for the moment. With Kurt’s jacket pulled over his own, Joe turned toward the west, heading for the relative warmth and shelter of the helicopter.
It would be no more than a few hours before Kurt returned. But time, he sensed, was already slowing down.