Arctic Drift

57

For a few brief weeks in late summer, Canada’s Arctic archipelago resembles the painted desert. Receding snow and ice lay bare a desolate beauty hidden beneath the frozen landscape. The rocky, treeless terrain is frequently laden with startling streaks of gold, red, and purple. Lichens, ferns, and a surprising diversity of flowers, fighting to absorb the waning summer sunlight, bloom with added bouquets of color. Hare, musk oxen, and birds are found in great numbers, softening the cold aura of morbidity. A richly diverse wildlife, in fact, thrives in the intense summer months, only to vanish during the long, dark days of winter.

For the rest of the year, the islands are a forbidding collection of ice-covered hills edged by rock-strewn shorelines — an empty, barren landscape that for centuries has drawn men like a magnet, some in search of destiny, others in search of themselves. Staring out the bridge at a ribbon of sea ice clinging to the tumbled shoreline of Victoria Island, Pitt could not help but think it was one of the loneliest places he had ever seen.

Pitt stepped to the chart table, where Giordino was studying a large map of Victoria Strait. The stocky Italian pointed to an empty patch of water east of Victoria Island.

“We’re less than fifty miles from King William Island,” he said. “What are your thoughts on a search grid?”

Pitt pulled up a stool, then sat down and studied the chart. The pear-shaped landmass of King William Island appeared due east of them. Pitt took a pencil and marked an “X” at a point fifteen miles northwest of the island’s upper tip.

“This is where the Erebus and Terror were officially abandoned,” he said.

Giordino noted a sense of disinterest in Pitt’s voice.

“But that’s not where you think they sank?” he asked.

“No,” Pitt replied. “The Inuit account, though vague, seemed to indicate that the Erebus was farther south. Before I left Washington, I had some folks in the climatology department do some modeling for me. They attempted to re-create the weather conditions in April 1848, when the ships were abandoned, and predict the potential behavior of the sea ice.”

“So the ice didn’t just melt and the ships dropped to the bottom where X marks the spot?”

“It’s possible but not likely.” Pitt pointed to a large body of water north of King William called Larsen Strait.

“The winter freeze propels the pack ice in a moving train from the northeast, down Larsen Strait. If the sea ice off King William didn’t melt in the summer of 1848, which the climatologists suggest, then the ships would have been pushed south during the winter freeze of 1849. They might have been re-boarded by a small party of survivors, we just don’t know. But it is consistent with the Inuit record.”

“Swell, a moving target,” Giordino said. “Doesn’t make for a compact search zone.”

Pitt drew his finger down the western shore of King William Island, stopping at a conglomeration of islands located twenty miles off the southwest coast.

“My theory is that these islands here, the Royal Geographical Society Islands, acted as a rampart against the southerly moving ice pack. That rock pile probably diverted some of the ice floe, while breaking up a good deal more piling up on its northern shore.”

“That is a pretty direct path from your X,” Giordino noted.

“That’s the presumption. No telling how far the ships actually moved before falling through the ice. But I’d like to start with a ten-mile grid just above these islands and then move north if we come up empty.”

“Sounds like a good bet,” Giordino agreed. “Let’s just hope they dropped to the bottom in one piece so they’ll give us a nice, clean sonar image.” He looked at his watch. “I better rouse Jack and get the AUV prepped before we get on-site. We’ve got two aboard, so we can lay out two separate grids and search them simultaneously.”

While Pitt laid out the coordinates for a pair of adjoining search grids, Giordino and Dahlgren prepared the AUVs for launching. The acronym stood for autonomous underwater vehicles. Self-propelled devices that were shaped like torpedoes, the AUVs contained sonar and other sensing devices that allowed them to electronically map the seafloor. Preprogrammed to systematically scan a designated search grid, they would cruise a few meters above the seabed at nearly ten knots, adjusting to the changing contours as they ran.

As he passed just north of the Royal Geographical Society Islands, Captain Stenseth slowed the Narwhal as they entered the first of Pitt’s search grids. A floating transponder was dropped off the stern, then the ship raced to the opposite corner of the grid where a second buoy was released. Keyed to the orbiting GPS satellites, the transponders provided underwater navigation reference points for the roving AUVs to keep on course.

On the stern of the ship, Pitt helped Giordino and Dahlgren download the search plan into the first AUV’s processor, then watched as a crane hoisted the large yellow fish over the side. With its small propeller spinning, the AUV was released from its cradle. The device shot forward and quickly dived beneath the dark, rolling waters. Guided by the bobbing transponders, the AUV scooted to its starting point, then began weaving back and forth, scanning the bottom with its electronic eyes.

With the first vehicle safely released, Stenseth piloted the ship north to the second grid area and repeated the process. A biting wind cut through the men on the deck as they released the second AUV, and they hurried to the warmth of the nearby operations center. A seated technician already had both search grids displayed on an overhead screen, with visual representations of both AUVs and the transponders. Pitt slipped out of his parka as he eyed several columns of numbers quickly being updated on the side of the screen.

“Both AUVs are at depth and running true,” he said. “Nice work, gentlemen.”

“They’re out of our hands now,” Giordino replied. “Looks like it will take about twelve hours for the fish to run their course before surfacing.”

“Once we get them back aboard, it won’t take long to download the data and swap batteries, then we can set ’em loose again on the next two grids,” Dahlgren noted.

Giordino raised his brows while Pitt shot him a withering look.

“What did I say?” he asked in a bewildered tone.

“On this ship,” Pitt replied, a razor-sharp grin crossing his face, “the first time’s the charm.”

58

Sixty miles to the west, the Otok churned through the wind-whipped waters on a direct path to the Royal Geographical Society Islands. In the wheelhouse, Zak studied a satellite image of the islands through a magnifying glass. Two large islands dominated the chain, West Island separated by a thin channel from the smaller East Island. The Mid-America mining operation was located on the southern coast of the West Island, facing Queen Maud Gulf. Zak could make out two buildings and a long pier in the photograph, as well as evidence of an open-pit mine nearby.

“A message came in for you.”

The Otok’s unshaven captain approached and handed Zak a slip of paper. Opening it up, Zak read the contents:

“Alaska,” he said aloud. “They can’t very well go anywhere else now, can they?” he added with a smile.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, just a tardy effort by the competition.”

“What’s our approach to the islands?” the captain asked, peering over Zak’s shoulder.

“The south coast of West Island. We’ll make for the mining operation first. Let’s run right up to the pier and see if anyone is home. It’s early in the season, so they may not have opened up summer operations yet.”

“Might be a good place to dump our captives.”

Zak gazed out the aft window, watching the barge that was tailing behind wallow in the turbulent seas.

“No,” he replied after contemplation. “They should be quite comfortable where they are.”

Comfortable was hardly the sentiment that came to Rick Roman’s mind. But under the circumstances, he had to admit they had made the best of things.

The cold steel deck and bulkheads of their floating prison quickly sapped their efforts to keep warm, but a solution lie in the debris left behind. Roman organized the men under penlight and had them attack the mound of tires. First, a layer of the old rubber was laid on the deck, then a series of walls were built up, creating a smaller den where all the men could still fit. The mooring ropes were then unwound and draped over the tire walls and floor, creating an extra layer of insulation, as well as padding for the men to lie on. Huddled into the tight enclave, the men had a combined body heat that gradually forced a rise in the temperature. After several hours, Roman flashed his light on a bottle of water at his feet and noted an inch or two of liquid sloshed atop the frozen contents. The insulated den had warmed above freezing, he noted with some satisfaction.

It was the only satisfaction he had received in some time. When Murdock and Bojorquez returned after a two-hour inspection of the barge’s interior, the news was all bleak. Murdock had found no other potential exit points astern of their storage hold, save for the cavernous holds themselves. The mammoth overhead hatch covers might as well have been welded shut for the chance they had at moving them.

“I did find this,” Bojorquez said, holding up a small wood-handled claw hammer. “Somebody must have dropped it in the hold and didn’t bother to retrieve it.”

“Even a sledgehammer wouldn’t do us a lot of good on that hatch,” Roman replied.

Undeterred, Bojorquez began attacking the locked hatch lever with the small tool. Soon the tap-tap-tap of the pounding hammer became a constant accompaniment to the creaking sounds of the moving barge. Men lined up to have a go at the hammer, mostly out of boredom, or in an attempt to warm themselves from the exertion. Against the incessant rapping, Murdock’s voice suddenly raised over the din.

“The tow ship is slowing.”

“Cease the hammering,” Roman ordered.

Ahead of them, they could hear the engines of the icebreaker slow their deep-throated drone. A few minutes later, the engines dropped to an idle, then the barge bumped against a stationary object. Listening in silence, the men anxiously hoped that their frozen imprisonment was over.

59

The Royal Geographical Society islands appeared as a mass of buff-colored hills rising above the choppy slate waters. The islands were christened by the explorer Roald Amundsen in 1905, during his epic voyage on the Gjoa, when he became the first man to successfully navigate the length of the Northwest Passage. Remote and forgotten for over a century, the islands remained a footnote until a freelance exploration company found an exposed deposit of zinc on West Island and sold its claims to Mid-America.

The Mid-America mining camp was built on a wide cove along the island’s rugged southern coast, which zigzagged with numerous inlets and lagoons. A naturally formed deepwater channel allowed large ships to access the cove, providing that the sea ice had vanished for the season. The company had built a three-hundred-foot semifloating dock that stretched from the cove, sitting empty and alone amid the chunks of ice bobbing in the surrounding waters.

Zak had the captain pull to the dock while he scanned the shoreline through a pair of binoculars. He viewed a pair of prefabricated buildings perched beneath a small bluff alongside a gravel road that ran inland a short distance. The windows of the buildings were dark, and piles of drifting snow could be seen accumulated in the doorways. Satisfied that the facility was still abandoned from the winter shutdown, he had the Otok tie up to the dock.

“Have the team of geologists assembled and put ashore,” Zak instructed the captain. “I want to know the mineral content of the ore they are extracting here, as well as the geology of the general area.”

“I believe the team is anxious to get ashore,” the captain quipped, having seen a number of the geologists suffering from seasickness in the galley.

“Captain, I had a large package sent to the ship before I arrived. Did you receive a delivery in Tuktoyaktuk?”

“Yes, a crate was taken aboard there. I had it placed in the forward hold.”

“Please have it delivered to my cabin. It contains some materials that I’ll need on shore,” he said.

“I’ll have it taken care of right away. What about our captives on the barge? They’re probably near death,” he said, eyeing a digital thermometer on the console that indicated the outside temperature was five degrees.

“Ah yes, our frozen Americans. I’m sure their disappearance has a few people excited by now,” Zak said with an arrogant tone. “Toss them some food and blankets, I suppose. It may still do for us to keep them alive.”

While the geologists made their way ashore accompanied by an armed security team, Zak stepped down to his cabin. His package, a metal-skinned trunk toting a heavy padlock, sat waiting for him on the carpeted floor. Inside was a carefully organized array of fuses and detonators, along with enough dynamite to flatten a city block. Zak selected a few of the items and placed them in a small satchel, then relocked the trunk. Slipping into a heavy parka, he made his way to the main deck and was about to step off the ship when a crewman stopped him.

“You have a call on the bridge. The captain asks that you come right away.”

Zak took a companionway to the bridge, where he found the captain talking on a secure satellite telephone.

“Yes, he’s right here,” the captain said, then turned and handed the phone to Zak.

The testy voice of Mitchell Goyette blared through the earpiece.

“Zak, the captain tells me that you are tied up at the Mid-America facility.”

“That’s right. They haven’t initiated their summer operations yet, so the place is empty. I was just on my way to make sure they stay out of commission for the season.”

“Excellent. The way things are heating up in Ottawa, I doubt an American would even be able to set foot up there.” Goyette’s greed began to chime in. “Try not to destroy any infrastructure that might be useful for me when I purchase the lot at a fire-sale price,” he said with a snort.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Zak replied.

“Tell me, what have you learned about the ruthenium?”

“The geologists are just now making an initial survey around the mining camp. But we’re presently on the south side of the island, and the trader’s map indicated that the Inuit mine was located on the north coast. We’ll reposition there in a few hours.”

“Very well. Keep me apprised.”

“There is something you should be aware of,” Zak replied, dropping the bombshell. “We have the American crew of the Polar Dawn in our captivity.”

“You what? ” Goyette howled, forcing Zak to pull the receiver away from his ear. The industrialist’s temper burned white-hot, even after Zak described the circumstances of the abduction.

“No wonder the politicians are going ballistic,” he hissed. “You’re about to set off World War Three.”

“It makes it a sure thing that the Americans won’t have access to this region for a long time,” Zak argued.

“That may be true, but I won’t enjoy profiting from their absence if I’m sitting in a jail cell. Dispose of the matter, and without incident,” he barked. “Whatever you do, there had better be no link to me.”

Zak hung up the phone as the line went dead. Just another unimaginative thug who had bullied his way to billions, Zak thought. Then he slipped his parka back on and went ashore.

A brown ring of rock and gravel encircled the island’s cove, melding into a white sheet of ice as one moved inland. The exception was a large rectangular rut that ran several hundred feet into the hillside, ending in a flat, vertical wall clearly cut by machine. The zinc-mining operation was simply cutting straight into the landscape, where the mineral-rich ore was readily accessible. In the distance, Zak noticed a few of the geologists poking around the tailings of the most recent diggings.

The interior of the cove was protected from the worst of the westerly winds, but Zak still moved quickly down the dock, not wishing to prolong his exposure to the cold. He quickly sized up the mining operation before him, which was simple and low-tech. The larger of two buildings was a warehouse that housed the mining equipment — bulldozers, backhoes, and a dump truck — which dug up the island soil and transferred it onto a small conveyor system for shipboard loading. A smaller building next door would be the crew’s bunkhouse and administrative office.

Zak made his way to the smaller building first, curiously finding that the door had been locked. Pulling a Glock automatic from his pocket, he fired twice at the deadbolt, then kicked the door open. The interior was like an expansive house, with two large bedrooms filled with bunk beds, plus an oversize kitchen, a dining room, and a living area. Zak walked directly to the kitchen and looked at the stove, which trailed a gas line to a storage closet containing a large tank of propane. Digging into his satchel, he removed a charge of dynamite and placed it beneath the tank, then affixed a blasting cap with a timed fuse. Checking his watch, he set the fuse to ignite in ninety minutes, then exited the building.

He walked to the equipment-storage building, studying its exterior for some time before hiking around to the back side. Towering over the building was a small bluff, which was strewn with ice-covered rocks and boulders. He struggled up the steep slope to a slight ledge that ran horizontally across the upper face of the hill. Kicking a divot in the frozen ground beneath a car-sized boulder, he removed his gloves and placed another charge of dynamite under the rock. With his fingers freezing, he quickly set the fuse to the blasting cap. Moving a few yards away, he set a second charge beneath a similar clump of large boulders.

Scampering down the hillside, he returned to the front of the building and set one more charge by the hinge of a large swinging door. After setting the fuse, he quickly stepped back to the dock and headed for the icebreaker. As he approached the ship, he could see the captain peering down at him from the bridge. Zak pumped his arm, motioning for him to blow the ship’s horn. A second later, two deafening blasts echoed off the hills, signaling the geologists to return to the ship.

Zak turned to see that the geologists took note of the message, then he walked to the barge at the end of the pier. The dock just reached to the bow of the barge, and Zak waited until the current nudged the vessel against the pylons before jumping onto an embedded steel ladder that rose to the vessel’s deck. Climbing up, he made his way astern, passing the number 4 hold on the way to an indented well on the aft side. Kneeling against an exterior bulkhead, he packed his remaining explosives, this time affixing a radio-controlled detonator. It wasn’t positioned beneath the waterline as he would have liked, but he knew it would do the job in the rolling seas that they had been encountering. Ignoring the lives of the men huddled a few feet away, Zak stepped off the barge with a wry sense of satisfaction. Goyette wasn’t going to be happy losing a newly built barge, but what could he say? Zak’s instructions were to leave no evidence, and disposing of the barge where nobody could find it was the perfect solution.

The last of the geologists and security guards were climbing aboard the icebreaker when Zak reached the gangplank. He headed straight to the bridge, thankful to enter its warm interior.

“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 Casablanca, I’m afraid.”

“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 Otok, idling a half mile away.

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.”

“What about indications of a mine?” Zak asked.

The geologists all looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Any mining performed by the Inuit one hundred and sixty years ago would be by primitive means at best,” the lead geologist said. “There would have been evidence of surface disruptions. Unless it is under one of these ice sheets, we didn’t see any such indications.”

“I see,” Zak said in a pallid tone. “All right, back to the ship, then. I want to see your assay results as soon as possible.”

As they marched across the sea ice to their pickup site, Zak’s mind churned in bewilderment. It didn’t make sense. The journal was clear that the ruthenium had come from the island. Was it possible that the ore had all been played out in a small quantity? Was there a mistake in the journal or was it all a ruse? As he stood waiting for the Zodiac to arrive, he stared offshore, suddenly spotting a turquoise research ship bearing down on the island.

His bewilderment quickly turned to rage.

62

Pitt and Giordino were three hours into their review of the sonar data when the shipwreck appeared. Giordino had set the viewing speed at double the capture rate, so they were nearly complete with the first grid’s results. The rapidly scrolling seabed images had turned the men glassy-eyed, but they both popped out of their seats when the wreck appeared. Giordino immediately hit a keyboard command that froze the image.

It was a distinct shadow image of a large wreck sitting upright on the bottom, tilted at just a slight angle. The perimeter of the wreck appeared fully intact, except for a mangled crevice running horizontally across the bow.

“She’s a wooden ship,” Pitt remarked, pointing to a trio of long, tapering masts that stretched across the deck and onto the adjacent seafloor. “Looks to have a blunt-shaped bow, characteristic of the bomb ships that the Erebus and Terror were originally built to be.”

Giordino used the computer’s cursor to measure the wreck’s dimensions.

“How does thirty-two meters in length fit?” he asked.

“Like a glove,” Pitt replied, flashing a tired smile. “That’s got to be one of the Franklin ships.”

The door to the viewing room burst open and Dahlgren strode in, carrying a hard drive under his arm.

“Second AUV is back on board, and here’s what she’s got to say,” he declared, handing Giordino the device. He glanced at the screen, then stared with bulging eyes.

“Shoot, you already found her. Mighty fine-looking wreck,” he added, nodding at the clear image.

“Half of the pair,” Pitt said.

“I’ll start getting the submersible prepped. That will make for a sweet dive to the bottom.”

Pitt and Giordino finished reviewing the first AUV’s imagery, then tore through the data from the second vehicle. The remaining data came up empty. The sister shipwreck was somewhere outside the two initial search grids. Pitt decided against expanding the grids until they determined which wreck they had found.

He made his way to the bridge with the wreck coordinates, where he found Captain Stenseth gazing out the starboard wing. Less than two miles away, the icebreaker Otok came steaming north with its empty barge in tow.

“Lo and behold, a match for one of your friend Goyette’s barges,” Stenseth remarked.

“A coincidence?” Pitt asked.

“Probably,” Stenseth replied. “The barge is riding high, so she’s empty. Likely headed for Ellesmere Island for a load of coal, then back through the passage to China.”

Pitt studied the vessels as they moved closer, marveling at the massive size of the barge. He stepped over to the chart table and retrieved the photograph Yaeger had provided of the Goyette barge under construction in New Orleans. He looked at the picture and saw it was an exact duplicate of the vessel approaching off the starboard beam.

“We have a match,” Pitt remarked.

“You think they’ll report our position to the Canadian authorities? ”

“I doubt it. But there’s a chance they’re here for the same reason we are.”

Pitt kept a wary eye on the icebreaker as it steamed past a quarter mile away. There was no friendly chitchat over the radio, just the silent rocking from the barge’s wake as the vessels passed by. Pitt continued to watch as the icebreaker held a steady north-bound course.

Stenseth must be right, he thought. It only made sense that an empty barge in these parts was headed to pick up a shipment, and Ellesmere Island was well to the north of them. Still, there was something uncomfortable about the appearance of the two vessels. Somehow, he knew, their appearance was no simple coincidence.

63

“Her name’s the Narwhal. She’s Canadian.” Zak reached over and snatched the binoculars out of the captain’s hands and looked for himself. Studying the research ship, he read her name in white letters across the transom. Peering astern, he found a yellow submersible on the rear deck with NUMA painted on the side. He noted with chagrin a maple leaf flag flying atop the bridge.

“A bold move, Mr. Pitt,” he muttered. “That’s no Canadian ship, Captain. That is an American research ship operated by NUMA.”

“How could an American research ship make its way here?”

Zak shook his head. “With some measure of deception, apparently. I have no doubt that they are here after the ruthenium. The fools must think that it is underwater.”

He watched the NUMA ship fade from view as they continued steaming north.

“Hold our course until we are clear of radar coverage. Stay out of range for an hour or two, then creep back just to the point where you can detect them. If they move, then tail them.” He glanced at the bridge clock. “I’ll return shortly before nightfall with our next move.”

Zak climbed down a companionway to his cabin, intending to take a nap. Failure was making him irritable, however. The mineral assays for the rocks collected on the north shore had come back negative for ruthenium, and now there was the presence of the NUMA ship. Reaching for a bottle of bourbon, he poured himself a glass but spilled a shot when the ship took a sudden roll. A few drops landed on the Inuit map, which he had set on his nightstand. He grabbed the map, holding it up as a trail of bourbon ran down the page. The liquid bisected the island like a brown river, making it appear to be two separate islands. Zak stared at the map a long while, then hurriedly yanked out a satellite image of the island grouping. Comparing the images of West Island, he matched the south and west coastlines exactly but not the eastern shoreline. Sliding the Inuit map over, he then compared its shape to the satellite image of East Island. The eastern coastlines matched perfectly, but there the similarities ended.

“You idiot,” he muttered to himself. “You’re looking in the wrong spot.”

The answer was right in front of him. The narrow waterway that had split the West and East islands had obviously been frozen solid one hundred and fifty years ago. The Inuit map had actually represented both islands, drawn as one landmass. The difference shifted the position of the ruthenium source nearly two miles farther east than he had estimated.

Climbing into his bunk, he swallowed the glass of bourbon, then lay down with a renewed sense of hope. All was not lost, for the ruthenium mine must still be there. It had to be. Content in the knowledge, he turned his thoughts to more immediate issues. First, he reasoned, he had to figure out what to do with Pitt and the NUMA ship.

64

The strong westerly winds finally began to abate, reducing the seas to a moderate chop. The settling winds brought with it a wispy gray fog that was common to the region during the spring and summer months. The thermometer finally climbed into double digits, prompting shipboard jokes about the balmy weather.

Pitt was just thankful that the weather had calmed enough to launch the submersible without risk. Climbing through the hatch of the Bloodhound, he settled into the pilot’s seat and began checking a bank of power gauges. Beside him in the copilot’s seat, Giordino reviewed a predive checklist. Both men wore just light sweaters, shivering in the cold cabin they knew would soon turn toasty from the electrical equipment aboard.

Pitt looked up as Jack Dahlgren stuck his poker face into the hatch.

“You boys remember, those batteries don’t hold their charge so well in this cold weather. Now, you go bring me back the ship’s bell and I might just leave the lights on for you.”

“You leave the lights on and I just might let you keep you job,” Giordino uttered back.

Dahlgren smiled and started humming the Merle Haggard standard “Okie from Muskogee,” then closed and sealed the hatch. A few minutes later, he worked the controls of a small crane, lifting the submersible off the deck and depositing it in the center of the ship’s brightly illuminated moon pool. Inside, Pitt signaled for its release, and the yellow cigar-shaped submersible began its descent.

The seafloor was just over a thousand feet deep, and it took the slowly drifting Bloodhound almost fifteen minutes to reach the bottom. The gray-green waters quickly melded to black outside the submersible’s large viewing port, but Pitt waited until they passed the eight-hundred-foot mark before powering up the bright bank of exterior high-intensity lights.

Rubbing his hands together in the slowly warming cabin, Giordino looked at Pitt with mock suffering.

“Did I ever tell you that I’m allergic to the cold?” he asked.

“At least a thousand times.”

“My mama’s thick Italian blood just doesn’t flow right in these icebox conditions.”

“I’d say the flow of your blood has more to do with your affinity for cigars and pepperoni pizzas than with your mother.”

Giordino gave him a thankful look for the reminder and pulled the stubby remains of an unlit cigar out of his pocket and slid it between his teeth. Then he retrieved a copy of the shipwreck’s sonar image and spread it across his lap.

“What’s our plan of attack once we reach the wreck site?”

“I figure we have three objectives,” Pitt replied, having earlier planned the dive. “First, and most obvious, is to try and identify the wreck. We know that the Erebus had a role in the ruthenium that was obtained by the Inuit. We don’t know if the same holds true for the Terror. If the wreck is the Terror, there may well be no clues whatsoever aboard. The second objective is to penetrate the hold and determine if there are any significant quantities of the mineral still there. The third objective is the most tenuous. That would be to search the Great Cabin and the captain’s cabin to determine if the ship’s log still exists.”

“You’re right,” Giordino agreed. “The log of the Erebus would be the holy grail. It surely would tell us where the ruthenium was found. Sounds like a long shot to hope that it survived intact, though.”

“Admittedly, but far from impossible. The log was probably a heavy leather-bound book stored in a chest or locker. In these cold waters, there’s at least a chance that it’s still in one piece. Then it would be up to the preservationists to determine if it could be conserved and ultimately deciphered.”

Giordino eyed the depth gauge. “We’re coming up on nine hundred and fifty feet.”

“Adjusting for neutral buoyancy,” Pitt replied, regulating the submersible’s variable ballast tank. Their descent slowed to a crawl as they passed the thousand-foot mark, and, minutes later, a flat, rocky seafloor appeared beneath them. Pitt engaged the propulsion controls and drove the vessel forward, skimming a few feet off the bottom.

The craggy brown seafloor was mostly devoid of life, a cold and empty world not far removed from the frozen lands protruding above the surface. Pitt turned the submersible into the current, guiding the vessel in a sweeping series of S turns. Though the Narwhal had been stationed directly above the wreck, Pitt knew that they had drifted considerably south during their descent.

Giordino was the first to spot the wreck, pointing out a dark shadow on their starboard flank. Pitt steered the Bloodhound hard to the right until the stately wreck materialized under their spotlights.

Before them sat a nineteenth-century wooden sailing ship. It was one of the most remarkable shipwrecks Pitt had ever seen. The frigid Arctic waters had retained the ship’s condition in a near-perfect state of preservation. Covered in a fine layer of silt, the ship appeared fully intact, from its bowsprit to its rudder. Only the masts, which had slipped from the deck during the long plunge to the bottom, lay out of place, dangling over the side railing.

Mired in its desolate eternal mooring, the ancient ship exuded a forlorn aura. To Pitt, the ship appeared like a tomb in an empty graveyard. He felt an odd chill thinking about the men who had sailed her, then been forced to abandon their home of three years under desperate conditions.

Slowly engaging the submersible, Pitt cruised in a tight arc around the vessel while Giordino activated a forward-mounted video camera. The hull timbers still appeared thick and sound, and in places where the silt was thin they could see a coat of black paint still adhering to the wood. As they rounded the stern, Giordino was startled to see the tips of a propeller protruding from the sand.

“They had steam power?” he asked.

“A supplement to sail, once they reached the ice pack,” Pitt confirmed. “Both ships were equipped with coal-fired locomotive engines installed for added propulsion through the thinner sea ice. The steam engines were also used to provide heat for the ship’s interior.”

“No wonder Franklin had the confidence to try to plow through Victoria Strait in late summer.”

“What he may not have had enough of by that point in the expedition was coal. Some figure they ran short of their coal supplies, and that may have accounted for the ships becoming trapped in the ice.”

Pitt pushed the submersible around to the ship’s port side, anxious to find lettering on the bow that might reveal the ship’s name. But he was disappointed to find instead the only real evidence of damage to the ship. The hull beneath the bow was blown out in a jagged mass of timbers, caused by the constricting ice. The damage had extended to the topside deck when the weakened section had struck the seafloor, causing the timbers above to buckle. A broad section of the bow on both sides of the centerline had crumpled like an accordion just a few feet astern of the vessel’s blunt prow. Pitt patiently hovered off both sides of the bow as Giordino brushed aside the silt with an articulated arm, but no identifying script work could be found.

“I guess this one wants to play hard to get,” Pitt muttered.

“Like too many of the women I’ve dated,” Giordino grimaced. “I guess we’ll have to take Dahlgren up on his ship’s bell offer after all.”

Pitt elevated the submersible above the deck, then swept toward the stern. The deck was remarkably clear of debris, the ship obviously configured in its winter hibernation mode when it was abandoned. The only unusual item was a large canvas structure that lay across the deck amidships. Pitt knew from the historical accounts that a tentlike covered structure was set up on the deck in winter so that the crew could escape the interior confines of the ship for exercise.

Pitt continued aft, where he found the helmsman’s station and the large wooden ship’s wheel, still standing upright and attached to the rudder. A small bell was mounted nearby, but, after careful scrutiny, he could find no markings on it.

“I know where the ship’s bell is,” Pitt stated, cruising back toward the bow. Hovering over the tangled mass of timbers and debris where the bow had buckled, he pointed down.

“It’s in the garbage pit here.”

“Must be,” Giordino agreed with a nod. “It’s not our day. Or night.” He checked a console of dials in front of him. “We have just under four hours of battery power remaining. Do you want to rummage around for the bell or have a look inside?”

“Let’s take Rover for a walk. There’s one upside to this damage, I suppose. It will allow us easier access to the interior.”

Pitt edged the Bloodhound to a clear section of the deck, then carefully set the submersible down. When the ship’s timbers gave no indication of stress, he powered off the propulsion motors.

In the copilot seat, Giordino was busy engaging another device. Tucked between the submersible’s support skids was a small, tethered ROV the size of a small suitcase. Equipped with a micro-sized video camera and small array of lights, it could maneuver into the smallest corners of the shipwreck.

Jockeying a controlling joystick, Giordino guided the Rover out from its cradle and toward the open section of the deck. Pitt flipped down an overhead monitor, which displayed the live video feed from the device. Methodically weaving above and around the debris, Giordino finally found a large gap in the deck and guided the ROV into the bowels of the ship.

Pitt unrolled a cutaway diagram of the Erebus and tried to track the ROV’s location as it moved beneath the main deck. The ship had two levels belowdecks, plus a dank hold where the engine, boiler, and coal reserves were housed below the waterline. The living and dining areas for both crew and officers were located on the lower deck, one level down from the main deck. Beneath the lower deck was the orlop deck, which was strictly a storage area for provisions, tools, and ship’s spares.

“You should be dropping near the galley,” Pitt remarked. “It’s adjacent to the crew’s living quarters, which is a sizable compartment.”

Giordino guided the Rover down until the deck came into view, then he turned and panned the bay. The still water inside the ship was exceedingly translucent, providing perfectly clear visibility. Pitt and Giordino could see, not five feet away from the ROV, the galley’s large cookstove, built up on a layer of bricks. It was a massive structure made of cast iron and crowned by six large burners on its flat cooking surface. Sitting atop it were several black iron pots of varying sizes.

“One galley, as ordered,” Giordino remarked.

He then steered the ROV aft, slowly scanning back and forth. The thin bulkheads surrounding the galley had fallen to the deck, revealing the open crew’s quarters. The bay was mostly empty of debris, save for a large number of planked wooden slabs that lay evenly spaced across the deck.

“Mess tables,” Pitt explained as the Rover’s cameras focused in on one of the tabletops. “They were stowed overhead to make way for the crew’s hammocks but lowered on ropes at meal-times. They’ve fallen to the deck as the ropes deteriorated.”

The ROV moved aft as the compartment narrowed until fronting a wide bulkhead.

“That will be the main hatchway,” Pitt explained. “Keep moving aft and we should reach a ladderway that descends to the orlop deck. They covered it with an enclosure to keep out the draft from below, but we’ll have to hope it was dislodged when the ship sank.”

Giordino steered the ROV around the hatchway, then brought it to a sudden halt. Tilting it toward the deck, the camera revealed a large circular hole cut through the deck.

“No door here,” he said.

“Of course, we can drop through the deck collar,” Pitt replied.

The deck collar held one of the ship’s three masts as it ran down to the hold. When the masts pulled free during the sinking, they left an open passageway into the lowest depths of the ship.

The Rover squeezed through the opening, then sprayed its lights on the black orlop deck. For the next fifty minutes, the ROV scoured the corners of the deck, Giordino methodically searching for possible traces of the ore. But all they found was a vast supply of tools, weapons, and the ship’s stowed canvas sails, which would never feel a sea breeze again. Returning to the mast stand, they delved into the lower hold, finding only a few scraps of coal near the massive steam boiler. Coming up empty on both levels, Giordino began threading the ROV back up to the lower deck, when the submersible’s radio crackled.

“Narwhal to Bloodhound, have you got your ears on? ” came the readily distinguishable voice of Jack Dahlgren.

“Bloodhound here. Go ahead, Jack,” Pitt replied.

“The captain wanted me to let you know that our friend with the barge has moseyed back onto the radar screen. Appears to be sitting stationary about ten miles north of us.”

“Affirmative. Please keep us advised.”

“Will do. You boys having any luck down there?”

“We sure are, but it has all been bad. We’ve got Rover on the leash and are about to try for the captain’s cabin.”

“How are you doing on power?”

Pitt eyed a bank of dials and meters overhead. “We’re good for another ninety minutes on the bottom, and we’ll probably need it all.”

“Roger. We’ll look for you up top in less than two. Narwhal out.”

Pitt stared at the dark abyss beyond the submersible, contemplating the icebreaker on the surface above. Were they in fact monitoring the Narwhal? His gut told him so with certainty. It wouldn’t be his first encounter with the forces of Mitchell Goyette, he now knew. And what of Clay Zak? Could it be possible that Goyette’s thug was aboard the icebreaker?

Giordino nudged him back to the task at hand.

“Ready to move aft.”

“The clock is ticking,” Pitt said quietly. “Let’s get it done.”

65

A dense, icy fog crept across the Otok as dusk settled over Victoria Strait. The Narwhal was long lost from physical view, and Zak searched for her on the radarscope, finding the research ship as a narrow smudge on the top of the screen. Across the bridge, the icebreaker’s captain paced back and forth, having grown bored with holding his ship stationary for the past few hours.

But the captain saw no signs of boredom in Zak’s face. On the contrary, there was an odd intensity about him. Like in the moment before an assassination, he was fully alert, his senses in high gear. While he had murdered many times before, he had never done so on a large scale. It was a test of cunning, he liked to think, that made his blood run fast. It gave him a sensation of invincibility, inflated by the knowledge that he had always come out on top.

“Bring us to within eight kilometers of the Narwhal,” he finally directed the captain. “And do so nice and easy.”

The captain engaged the helm and brought the ship and attached barge around on a southerly heading. Aided by the swift-moving current, the icebreaker ran just above idle, covering the distance in less than an hour. Reaching the new position, the captain swung his bow around to the current in order to remain stationary.

“Eight kilometers and holding,” he reported to Zak.

Zak eyed the gloomy darkness outside the bridge window and creased his lips in satisfaction.

“Prepare to release the barge at my command,” he said.

The captain stared at him as if he were insane.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“You heard me. We are going to release the barge.”

“That’s a ten-million-dollar vessel. In this fog and current, there’s no way we’ll be able to tie back up to her. She’ll rip her hull open on some ice or run aground on the islands. Either way, Mr. Goyette will have my head.”

Zak shook his head with a thin smile. “She won’t be traveling very far. As for Goyette, please recall the signed letter I gave you in Kugluktuk giving me complete authority while I’m aboard this ship. Believe me, he will consider it a small price to pay to eliminate a problem that could cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Besides,” he added with a conniving grin, “isn’t that what marine insurance is for?”

The captain reluctantly ordered his deckhands to the stern of the ship to man the towlines. The men waited in the cold while Zak ran down to his cabin, then returned to the bridge carrying his leather satchel. At Zak’s command, the captain reversed power and backed down on the barge until the thick towlines fell slack in the water. The deckhands released a lock plate, then heaved the looped ends of the towlines up and off the stern bollards. The men watched morbidly as the lines slid down the stern and disappeared into the black water below.

When the bridge received an all-clear signal, the captain pulled the ship forward, then came around the barge’s starboard flank at Zak’s urging. The dark mass of the barge could barely be seen a few yards away as the fog continued to thicken. Zak reached into his satchel and pulled out a high-frequency radio transmitter, then stepped out onto the bridge wing. Extending a small antenna, he powered on the device and immediately pushed a red TRANSMIT button.

The radio signal only had to travel a short distance to trigger the detonator cap planted on the stern of the barge. Less than a second later, the dynamite charge ignited.

The explosion was neither loud nor visually impressive, just a resounding pop that reverberated within the barge, followed by a light puff of smoke that rose from the rear deck. Zak observed the scene for just a few seconds, then returned to the warmth of the bridge, putting the transmitter back into his bag.

“I don’t like having the blood of those men on my hands,” the captain grumbled.

“But you have it all wrong, Captain. The loss of the barge was quite accidental.”

The captain simply stared at Zak with a look of dismay.

“It’s very simple,” Zak continued. “You shall write in your log, and report to the authorities back in port, that the American research ship inadvertently collided with our barge in the fog and both vessels sank. We, of course, were most fortunate to release the towlines in the nick of time and suffered no casualties. Regrettably, we were unable to find any survivors in the water from the NUMA ship.”

“But the NUMA ship has not sunk,” the captain protested.

“That,” Zak replied with a snarl, “is about to change.”

66

A thousand feet below the surface, the intervening hour had been one of complete frustration for Pitt and Giordino. While guiding the Rover aft along the lower deck, Giordino watched as the ROV jerked to a standstill and refused to move forward. Retracing its trail of cable, he found the power cord had become tangled in some debris at the head of the galley. Matters only got worse when the ROV’s thrusters kicked up a huge cloud of silt around the snagged area. He had to wait ten minutes just for the visibility to return before he could see enough to free the cable.

The interior of the submersible had finally grown hot, and sweat dribbled down Giordino’s face as he tensely guided the ROV back through the crew’s quarters and down the main passageway toward the stern of the ship.

“Where’s the lounge on this boat? I think Rover and I could both use a cold beer about now,” he muttered.

“You would have needed to break into the Spirit Room belowdecks, where the rum was stored. Of course, if this is the Erebus, then you might be out of luck, as Franklin was a teetotaler.”

“That seals it,” Giordino said. “No further proof required. My present state of luck dictates that this has to be the Erebus.”

Despite the minutes ticking down on their bottom time, neither man was ready to give up. They pressed the ROV onward, striking down the single aft passageway, past the cramped officers’ cabins, until finally arriving at a large compartment at the very stern of the ship. Called the Great Cabin, it stretched from beam to beam, offering the one truly comfortable haven for the men of the ship, or at least its officers. Stocked with a library, chess sets, playing cards, and other sources of entertainment, it was also a potential repository for the ship’s log. But like the rest of the vessel, the Great Cabin offered no clues to the ship’s identity.

Scattered across the deck and around an upturned table was a knee-deep pile of books. Lined on wide shelves across each side of the cabin, the large collection of books had smashed through the glass cases during the sinking and been strewn everywhere. Giordino slowly flew the ROV back and forth across the cabin, surveying the wall-to-wall mess.

“Looks like the San Francisco Library after the great earthquake,” Giordino said.

“The ship’s library contained twelve hundred volumes,” Pitt replied, studying the mess with disappointment. “If the ship’s log is buried in there, it will take a couple of fortnights and a good rabbit’s foot to find it.”

Their frustration was interrupted by another radio transmission from Dahlgren.

“Sorry to break up the fiesta, but the big hand on the clock says it’s time for you to begin your ascent,” he said.

“We’ll be on our way shortly,” Pitt replied.

“Fair enough. The captain says to tell you that our shadow has closed to within four miles and is sitting pretty again. I think the captain would feel a whole lot better if you boys got yourselves aboard pronto.”

“Understood. Bloodhound out.”

Giordino looked at Pitt and noticed a look of concern in his green eyes.

“You think that pal of yours from the Miners Co-op is aboard the icebreaker?”

“I’m beginning to wonder,” Pitt replied.

“Let’s try the captain’s cabin and then we’ll skedaddle.”

The captain’s cabin was located off the far side of the Great Cabin and represented a faint hope for containing the ship’s log. But a small sliding door to the cabin was locked and no amount of bumping or cajoling by the ROV would shake it loose. With less than an hour of battery power left and a twenty-minute ride to the surface, Pitt called the survey off and told Giordino to fetch Rover back home.

Giordino steered the ROV back to the galley and toward the entry gap in the bow, as a take-up spool reeled in the power cable. Pitt powered up the submersible’s thrusters, then gazed out the view port at the Bloodhound ’s electronic pod while waiting for the ROV.

“How did the mineral sensor test out?” he asked, pointing at the pod.

“Seems to work like a champ,” Giordino replied, his eyes glued to the overhead monitor as he threaded the ROV through the forward debris. “We won’t be able to gauge its full accuracy until we can assay our samples back at headquarters.”

Pitt reached over and powered on the sensor, watching a nearby monitor as it computed the mineral readings. Of no surprise to Pitt, the screen registered a very large iron concentration nearby, along with some trace elements of copper and zinc. The iron made perfect sense, as the ship was loaded with it, from the anchors and anchor chains directly below them to the locomotive engine in the hold. But it was one of the other trace elements that caught his eye. Waiting until the ROV snaked out of the lower deck, he engaged the thrusters and elevated the submersible. Moving slowly, he brought the craft to a hover over the damaged section of the bow while keeping one eye on the sensor’s output.

“If you can find us some gold on this tub, it would redeem an otherwise forgettable dive,” Giordino said.

Pitt danced the submersible over the debris area, gradually focusing on a small section near the ship’s centerline. Easing to a stable section of the deck, he again set the submersible down. Giordino had pulled the ROV’s cable slack and was preparing to drop it into its cradle.

“Hold on,” Pitt said. “Do you see that broken timber standing upright about ten feet in front of us?”

“Got it.”

“There’s a covered object near its base, a little to the right. See if you can blast it off with the ROV.”

Giordino had the Rover in place within seconds. He cut the power and let the ROV sink to a small pile of debris covered in silt. When the ROV made contact, he applied full power to its tiny thrusters. The little ROV shot upward, kicking up a thick cloud of silt in the process. The steady bottom current that rippled over the ship quickly cleared away the murky water. Both men could see a curved object with a gold luster lying in the debris.

“My gold bars,” Giordino said facetiously.

“Something better, I think,” Pitt replied. He didn’t wait for Giordino to fly the ROV over the object, instead propelling the submersible over for a close-up look. Peering down through the view port, they saw the unmistakable shape of a large bell.

“Holy smokes, how did you pick that out of the muck? ” Giordino asked.

“The Bloodhound’s sniffer did it. I noticed a small reading of copper and zinc, and remembered that they’re the two components of brass. I figured it was either a cleat or the ship’s bell.”

They stared down at the bell, observing an engraving on the side, which they couldn’t quite make out. Pitt finally backed off a few feet and let the ROV zoom in for a closer look.

The bell was still caked with silt and crustaceans, but a close-up view from the Rover’s camera revealed two of the engraved letters: ER.

“Can’t spell Erebus without it,” Giordino remarked with some relief.

“Give it another blast,” Pitt directed.

While Giordino maneuvered the ROV in for another go at the silt, Pitt checked their battery reserves, finding their remaining power was down to thirty minutes. There was little time left to lose.

The silt burst upward in a massive cloud of brown particulates from the Rover’s second burst. It seemed to Pitt that the water took hours to clear when in fact in was just a few seconds. Giordino immediately guided the ROV back over the bell as they waited for the murky cloud to drift away. They both stared silently at the monitor as the bell’s engraved lettering slowly materialized in its entirety.

It spelled TERROR.

67

After three days of confinement in the frozen darkness, the barge captives were living a different kind of terror. Roman had ordered the fading penlights to be used sparingly, so most of the time the men spent groping around in complete blackness. Initial feelings of anger and determination to escape had waned to despair in the bleak hold, where the men huddled close together to stave off hypothermia. Hope had flourished when the barge had come to a rest at the dock and the hatch was briefly thrown open. It proved to be nothing more than an inspection from several armed guards, but at least they had provided some food and blankets before their hasty exit. Roman took it as a good sign. They wouldn’t be given food if they were not intended to be kept alive, he reasoned.

But now he wasn’t so sure. When Bojorquez had awakened him to report a change in the sound of the icebreaker’s engines, he suspected that they had reached their destination. But then the rhythmic tugging of the towropes had suddenly ceased while the rocking motion from the choppy seas remained. He could sense that they had been cut adrift.

Second’s later, Zak’s explosives detonated with a jolt. The explosion reverberated through the empty holds of the barge like a thunderstorm in a bottle. Instantly, the commandos and Polar Dawn’s crew were on their feet, wondering what had happened.

“Captain Murdock,” Roman called out, turning on his penlight.

Murdock shuffled forward, a haggard look to his eyes from a lack of sleep.

“Speculation?” Roman asked quietly.

“Sounded well aft. I suggest we go take a look.”

Roman agreed. Then seeing the apprehensive look in the faces of the nearby men, he called over to Bojorquez.

“Sergeant, get back to work on that hatch. I’d like some fresh air in here before breakfast.”

Moments later, the stocky sergeant was pounding away at the locked hatch again with his small hammer. The clanging racket, Roman hoped, would give the men a small lift while masking the sound of whatever was happening aft.

Roman led Murdock to the open stern hatchway and shined his light over the threshold. A steel-rung ladder led straight down into an empty black void.

“After you, Captain,” Murdock said curtly.

Roman slipped the penlight between his teeth, then grabbed the top rung and slowly started climbing down. Though not afraid of heights, he found it unnerving to climb into a seemingly bottomless black hole inside a rolling ship.

The bottom rung seemed elusive, but after a forty-foot drop he reached the base of the number 1 hold. Shining his light at the foot of the ladder, Murdock appeared right behind him. A rock solid man just over sixty, the gray-bearded captain was not even breathing hard.

Murdock led the way across the hold, startling a pair of rats that somehow flourished even in the bitter cold.

“Didn’t want to say it in front of the men but that sounded like an onboard explosion to me,” he said.

“My thoughts as well,” Roman replied. “Do you think they mean to sink us?”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

The two men found another steel ladder on the opposite side of the hold, which they climbed up to a short passage that led to the number 2 hold. They repeated the process twice more, crossing the next two holds. As they climbed up the far side of the third hold, they could hear a distant sound of sloshing water. Reaching the last passageway, Roman scanned the number 4 hold with his light.

On the opposite corner, they spied a small river of water streaming down the bulkhead, splashing into a growing pool below. The explosion had left no gaping hole in the side of the hull but rather created a series of buckled steel plates that let the water seep in like a broad sieve. Murdock studied the damage and shook his head.

“Nothing we can do to slow that down,” he said. “Even if we had the proper materials, it’s too widely dispersed.”

“The water inflow doesn’t look too extreme,” Roman said, searching for something positive.

“It will only get worse. The damage appears to be just above the waterline, but the rough seas are spilling in. As the hold fills, the barge will begin to settle by the stern, allowing more water to rush in. The flooding will only accelerate.”

“But there’s a hatch on the passageway that we can lock. If the water is confined to this hold, shouldn’t we be all right?” Roman asked.

Murdock pointed overhead. Ten feet above their heads, the bulkhead ended, replaced by a series of support beams that rose several more feet to the overhead deck.

“The holds are not watertight compartments,” he said. “When this hold floods, it will spill over into the number 3 hold and keep moving forward.”

“How much flooding can she withstand?”

“Since she’s empty, she should stay afloat with two holds flooded. If the seas are calm, she might hang on with a third flooded. But once the water starts hitting that number 1 hold, it will be all over.”

Dreading the answer, Roman asked how much time they had left.

“I can only guess,” Murdock said, his voice turning low. “I’d say two hours, tops.”

Roman aimed the dimming bulb of his penlight toward the trickle of water and slowly traced it down toward the bottom of the hold. A growing pool of black water was reflected in the distance, its shimmering surface a calling card of death.

68

At the first visible signs of a listing stern, Zak ordered the Otok to pull away from the barge. The sinking black hulk was quickly swallowed up by a bank of fog, its death throes proceeding without an audience. Zak himself quickly turned his back on the barge and its condemned occupants.

“Make for the NUMA ship,” he ordered. “And kill the running lights.”

The captain nodded, bringing the helm in line with the research ship’s fixed position, then gradually building speed until the icebreaker was running at ten knots. The lights of the Narwhal were unseen under the blanket of fog, so its pursuit was accomplished by radar. The research ship still held to a stationary position as the icebreaker quickly closed the gap between the vessels.

“Captain, when we approach to within three kilometers, I want to accelerate under full power. We’ll cross her bow about a kilometer off, to make her think we are running inland, then we will arc back as we draw near and strike her amidships.”

“You want me to ram her?” the captain said incredulously. “You’ll kill us all.”

Zak gave him a bemused look. “Not hardly. As you well know, this vessel has a five-foot-thick steel prow fronting a highly reinforced double hull. She could bull through the Hoover Dam without a scratch. Providing you avoid the Narwhal ’s own heavy bow, we’ll slice through her like butter.”

The captain peered at Zak with grudging respect. “You’ve studied my vessel well,” he said brusquely. “I just hope that Mr. Goyette takes the dry-dock repairs out of your salary and not mine.”

Zak let out a deep chortle. “My good Captain, we play our cards right and I’ll personally buy you your own fleet of icebreakers.”

Though the dark night and fog masked the sea, Bill Stenseth attentively tracked every movement of the icebreaker. With his radar operator absent, one of the many crewmen sent ashore in Tuktoyaktuk, Stenseth sat down and monitored the radar set himself. He had become alerted when he noted the distant radar image slowly split in two. Correctly guessing that the barge had been separated from the tow ship, he carefully began to track both images.

He anxiously watched the icebreaker close within three miles on an intercept course when he reached for the marine VHF radio.

“Unidentified vessel approaching south at 69.2955 North, 100.1403 West, this is the research vessel Narwhal. We are presently conducting an underwater marine survey. Please give clearance of two kilometers, over.”

Stenseth repeated the call but received no reply.

“When’s the Bloodhound due up?” he asked the helmsman.

“Dahlgren’s last report was that they were still on the wreck site. So they are at least twenty minutes off.”

Stenseth watched the radar screen closely, noticing a gradual increase in speed by the icebreaker as it approached within two miles. There looked to be a slight change in the ship’s course, drifting off the Narwhal ’s bow as if to pass on her starboard beam. Whatever their intent, Stenseth was not in a trusting mood.

“Ahead a third,” he ordered the helmsman. “Bearing three hundred degrees.”

Stenseth well knew that the prospect of a collision in thick fog was one of a mariner’s worst nightmares. With visions of the Stockholm striking the Andrea Doria in his mind, he powered his ship to the northwest, in order to avoid a similar head-on collision. With a minute degree of relief, he saw that the other vessel was holding to its southeast course, widening the angle between their paths. But the appearance of a safe passing was short-lived.

When the two vessels approached within a mile, the icebreaker suddenly accelerated, nearly doubling its speed in short order. Driven by a massive pair of gas turbine engines capable of towing a string of heavy barges, the icebreaker was a behemoth of torque. Freed to run unencumbered, the tow ship turned into a greyhound, capable of slicing through the water at over thirty knots. Under Zak’s order, the ship found its full legs and blasted through the waves under maximum throttle.

It took only a few moments for Stenseth to detect the change in the icebreaker’s speed. He held his course steady until the radar told him that the other vessel was sharply veering to the west.

“Ahead flank speed!” he ordered, his eyes glued to the radar screen

He was aghast at the track of the icebreaker as it swept in a short arc toward his own vessel. He shook off any doubts about the intent of the other vessel. It clearly intended to ram the Narwhal.

Stenseth’s order to accelerate thwarted Zak’s attempt to catch the ship and crew off guard. But the icebreaker still had a decided advantage in speed, if no longer surprise. The Otok had closed to within a quarter mile before the research ship could break twenty knots. Stenseth peered out the aft bridge window but could see nothing through the black fog.

“She’s coming up quick,” the helmsman said, watching the icebreaker’s radar smudge approach the center of the radar screen. Stenseth sat down and readjusted the range to read in hundred-yard increments.

“We’ll let her come in tight. But when she touches the hundred-yard mark, I want you to bring us hard to starboard, on a due east heading. There’s still plenty of sea ice along the shore of King William Island. If we can get close enough, they might lose our radar signature against it.”

He gazed at an open chart, noting their distance to King William Island was over fifteen miles. Much too far away, he knew, but his options were few. If they could parry a bit longer, maybe the pursuers would give up the hunt. He stood and watched the radar screen until the tailing target drew near, then he nodded at the helmsman.

The heavy research ship shook and groaned as the rudder was jammed full over, the vessel heeling onto its new course. It was a lethal game of blindman’s bluff. On the radar screen, the icebreaker seemed to merge with their own position, but Stenseth still caught no sight of the icebreaker. The Otok continued on its westerly course for nearly a full minute before detecting the Narwhal ’s maneuver and turning sharply to the east in pursuit.

Stenseth’s action gave the ship precious seconds to build more speed while the crew was alerted and ordered topside. But it wasn’t long before the icebreaker was closing in on their stern once again.

“Hard to port this time,” Stenseth ordered, when the Otok crossed the hundred-yard mark once again.

The icebreaker anticipated the move this time but guessed wrong and veered to starboard. She quickly took up the chase again as Stenseth attempted to angle closer to King William Island. The faster ship quickly moved in and the Narwhal was forced to juke again, Stenseth opting to turn hard to port once more. But this time, Zak guessed correctly.

Like a hungry shark striking from the depths of a murky sea, the icebreaker suddenly burst through the fog, its lethal prow slashing into the flank of the Narwhal. The shattering blow struck just aft of the moon pool, the icebreaker’s bow slicing fifteen feet in from the rail. The Narwhal nearly keeled over from the impact, shuddering sideways into the waves. A massive spray of freezing water poured over the deck as the ship struggled to regain its center of gravity.

The collision brought with it a thousand cries of mechanical agony — steel grating on steel, hydraulic lines bursting, hull plates splintering, power plants imploding. As the destruction reached its climax, there was an odd moment of silence, then the wails of violence turned to the gurgling moans of mortality.

The icebreaker slowly slid free of the gaping wound, breaking off a section of the Narwhal’s stern as it backed away. The vessel’s sharp bow had been bludgeoned flat, but the ship was otherwise fully intact, its double hull not even compromised. The Otok lingered on the scene a few moments, as Zak and the crew admired their destructive handiwork. Then like a deadly wraith, the murderous ship disappeared into the night.

The Narwhal, meanwhile, was on its way to a quick death. The ship’s engine room flooded almost instantly, tugging the stern down in an immediate list. Two of the bulkheads fronting the moon pool were crushed, sending additional floodwaters to the lower decks. Though built to plow through ice up to six feet thick, the Narwhal was never designed to withstand a crushing blow to its beam. Within minutes, the ship was half underwater.

On the bridge, Stenseth picked himself up off the deck to find the bridge a darkened cave. They had lost all operating power, and the emergency generator located amidships had also been disabled in the collision. The entire ship was now as black as the foggy night.

The helmsman beat Stenseth to an emergency locker at the rear of the bridge and quickly produced a flashlight.

“Captain, are you all right?” he asked, sweeping the beam across the bridge until it caught Stenseth’s towering figure.

“Better than my ship,” he replied, rubbing a sore arm. “Let’s account for the crew. I’m afraid we’re going to have to abandon ship in short order.”

The two men threw on their parkas and made their way down to the main deck, which was already listing heavily toward the stern. They entered the ship’s galley, finding it illuminated by a pair of battery-operated lanterns. Most of the ship’s skeleton crew was already assembled with their cold-weather gear, a look of fear etched in their eyes. A short man with a bulldog-like face approached the two men.

“Captain, the engine room is completely flooded and a section of the stern has been torn away,” said the man, the Narwhal ’s chief engineer. “Water has reportedly breached the forward hold. There’s no stopping it.”

Stenseth nodded. “Any injuries?”

The engineer pointed to the side of the galley, where a grimacing man was having his left arm wrapped in a makeshift sling.

“The cook broke his arm in a fall when she hit. Everyone else came through clean.”

“Who are we missing?” Stenseth asked, quickly counting heads and coming up two short.

“Dahlgren, and Rogers, the ship’s electrician. They’re trying to get the tender launched.”

Stenseth turned and faced the room. “I’m afraid we must abandon ship. Every man onto the deck — now. If we can’t board the tender, then we’ll use one of the port-side emergency rafts. Let’s make it quick.”

Stenseth led the men out the galley, stopping briefly to note that the water had already crept to the base of the superstructure. Quickening his pace, he moved onto the frozen expanse of the forward deck, fighting to keep his balance against the increasing slope underfoot. Across the deck, he saw a beam of light flash between two men cranking on a manual winch. A twelve-foot wooden skiff dangled in the air above them, but the rakish angle of the deck prevented the skiff’s stern from clearing the side railing. The sound of obscenities embroidered in a Texas accent rattled through the cold night air from one of the men.

Stenseth rushed over and, with the help of several more crewmen, heaved the stern up and over the railing. Dahlgren reversed the lever on the winch and quickly lowered the skiff into the water. Grabbing its bow line, Stenseth walked the boat aft twenty feet until the water on the deck reached his boots. The crew then quickly climbed aboard by simply stepping off the Narwhal ’s side rail.

Stenseth counted off a dozen-plus heads, then followed the injured chef as the last man aboard, stepping into the cramped wooden tender and taking a seat near the stern. A light breeze had picked up again, blowing scattered holes in the fog while casting an added chop to the seas. The tender quickly drifted a few yards away from the dying ship, staying in sight of her final moments.

They were barely away when the bow of the turquoise ship rose high into the night air, struggling against the forces of gravity. Then releasing a deep moan, the Narwhal plunged into the black water with a hiss of bubbles, disappearing to the depths below.

A burning anger welled within Stenseth, then he gazed upon his crew and felt relief. It was a minor miracle that no one had died in the collision and everyone had made it safely off the ship. The captain shuddered to think of the death toll had Pitt not put most of the crew and scientists ashore in Tuktoyaktuk.

“I forgot the dang rocks.”

Stenseth turned to the man next to him, realizing in the dark that it was Dahlgren sitting at the tiller.

“From the thermal vent,” he continued. “Rudi left them on the bridge.”

“Consider yourself lucky that you escaped with your skin,” Stenseth replied. “Good work in getting the tender away.”

“I didn’t really want to bob around the Arctic in a rubber boat,” he replied. Lowering his voice, he added, “Those guys play for keeps, don’t they?”

“Fatally serious about the ruthenium, I’m afraid.” He held his head to the air, trying to detect the presence of the icebreaker. A faint rumbling in the distance told him the ship wasn’t lingering in the area.

“Sir, there’s a small settlement called Gjoa Haven on the extreme southeast tip of King William Island,” the helmsman piped in from a row up. “A little over a hundred miles from here. Nearest civilization on the charts, I’m afraid.”

“We should have enough fuel to make King William Island. Then it will have to be on foot from there,” Stenseth replied. Turning back to Dahlgren, he asked, “Did you get a message off to Pitt?”

“I told them we were vacating the wreck site, but we lost power before I could warn them we wouldn’t be coming back.” He tried to make out the dial on his watch. “They should be surfacing shortly.”

“We can only guess as to where. Finding them in this fog would be a near impossibility, I’m afraid. We’ll try a pass through the area, then we’ll have to break for the coastline and seek help. We can’t risk being offshore if the winds should stiffen.”

Dahlgren nodded with a grim look on his face. Pitt and Giordino were no worse off than they were, he thought. Coaxing the tender’s motor to life, he turned the boat south and disappeared into a dark bank of fog.

69

Pitt and Giordino had been hovering over the ship’s bell when they received a brief transmission from Dahlgren that the Narwhal was moving off-site. Preoccupied with uncovering the bell’s inscription, they had not followed up the call.

The discovery that the shipwreck was the Terror proved to be a small relief for Pitt. With no indication that there was any ruthenium aboard, there was still room for hope. The Inuit must have obtained the ore from the Erebus, and perhaps she alone held the secret to the coveted mineral. The question lingered as to where had the Erebus ended up. The two ships were known to have been abandoned together, so presumably they would have sunk close to each other. Pitt felt confident that expanding the AUV’s search area would turn up the second ship.

“Bloodhound to Narwhal, we’re beginning our ascent,” Giordino radioed. “What’s your status?”

“We’re on the move at the moment. I’m trying to get an update from the bridge. Will let you know when I do. Over.”

It was the last they were to hear from Dahlgren. But having extended their bottom time, they were more concerned about reaching the surface with auxiliary power to spare. Pitt shut off the external lights and sensing equipment to save power, while Giordino did the same with the nonessential interior computers. As the submersible fell dark and they began gliding upward, Giordino sat back in his chair, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes.

“Wake me when it’s time to let in some fresh ten-below air,” he muttered.

“I’ll make sure that Jack has your slippers and newspaper waiting.”

Pitt again reviewed the electrical power readings with a wary eye. There was plenty of reserve power for the life-support systems and the ballast-control pumps, but little else. He reluctantly shut down the submersible’s propulsion system, knowing they would be subject to the strong currents during their ascent. Plugging the Narwhal’s moon pool would be out, as they would likely end up a mile or two down current when they broke the surface. And that’s only if the Narwhal was back on-site.

Pitt shut down a few more electrical controls, then stared out at the black abyss beyond the view port. Suddenly, an urgent cry rang out on the radio.

“Bloodhound, we’ve been…”

The transmission was cut midsentence and was followed by complete silence. Giordino popped forward in his chair and was returning the call even before he had his eyes open. Despite repeated attempts, his transmissions to the Narwhal went unanswered.

“We might have lost their signal in a thermocline,” Giordino offered.

“Or the transponder link was broken when they began running at speed,” Pitt countered.

They were manufactured excuses to reason away the truth neither man wanted to accept, that the Narwhal was in real trouble. Giordino continued making radio calls every few minutes, but there was no response. And there was nothing either man could do about it.

Pitt looked at the submersible’s depth gauge and wondered if they were tied to the bottom. Since receiving the interrupted call, their ascent rate had slowed to a crawl, or so it seemed to Pitt. He tried to keep his eyes away from the gauge, knowing the more he watched it, the slower it moved. Sitting back, he closed his eyes for a time, imagining the troubles the Narwhal might be facing, while Giordino diligently kept up his radio vigil.

He finally opened his eyes to see they were just over a hundred feet deep. A few minutes later, they rocked to the surface amid a rush of bubbles and foam. Pitt kicked on the external lights, which simply reflected back a surrounding billow of fog. The radio remained silent as they rocked back and forth in the heaving waters.

Alone in a cold and empty sea, Pitt and Giordino both knew that the worst had happened. The Narwhal was no more.

70

“What do you mean the rescue team disappeared? ”

The President’s angry voice echoed off the walls of the White House Situation Room on the lower level of the West Wing. An Army colonel, brought in by the Pentagon generals to serve as a sacrificial lamb, responded in a quiet monotone.

“Sir, the team failed to appear at the extraction site at the appointed time. The airfield support squad was not advised of any problems from the strike team and were themselves evacuated on schedule.”

“I was promised a low-risk mission with a ninety percent probability of success,” the President said, glaring at the Secretary of Defense.

The room fell silent, no one wishing to antagonize the man further.

Seated two seats down from the President, Vice President Sandecker found a touch of amusement to the inquisition. When called to an emergency meeting by the National Security Advisor, he was surprised to find no less than five generals seated around the Secretary of Defense in the conference room. It was not an omen of good things to come, he knew. Sandecker was no fan of the secretary, a man he found to be narrow-minded and trigger-happy. Yet he quickly put his personal feelings aside for the crisis at hand.

“Colonel, why don’t you tell us exactly what you know,” Sandecker said, deflecting the President’s anger.

The colonel described the planned mission in detail and the intelligence that supported the rescue strike. “The befuddling aspect is that there are indications that the team was successful in freeing the captives. Radio intercepts from Canadian forces in Tuktoyaktuk report an assault on the holding complex and the subsequent escape of the Polar Dawn’s crew. We’ve detected no indications that they were recaptured.”

“What if the Special Forces team was simply delayed?” Sandecker asked. “The nights are short up there right now. Perhaps they were forced into hiding somewhere for a period before making it back to the airfield.”

The colonel shook his head. “We sent an aircraft back to the extraction site under darkness just hours ago. They touched down briefly, but no one was there, and additional radio calls went unanswered.”

“They couldn’t have just vanished,” the President grumbled.

“We’ve analyzed satellite reconnaissance, radio traffic, and local contacts on the ground. They’ve all come up empty,” stated Julie Moss, the President’s National Security Advisor. “The only conclusion that can be made is that they were quietly recaptured and relocated to a new location. They might be back on the Polar Dawn or possibly flown out of the area.”

“What has been the official Canadian response to our request for release of the ship and crew?” Sandecker asked.

“There has been no response,” Moss said. “We’ve been curtly ignored through diplomatic channels, while the Prime Minister and Parliament continue to make outlandish claims of American imperialism that are straight out of a banana republic.”

“They have not limited themselves to words,” the Secretary of Defense interjected. “They have placed their military forces on alert status, in addition to their recent port closures.”

“That’s true,” Moss echoed. “The Canadian Coast Guard has started turning away all American-flagged ships approaching Vancouver and Quebec, as well as Toronto-bound barge traffic. It’s expected that their border crossings will be temporarily closed in a day or two.”

“This is getting quite out of hand,” the President said.

“It is even worse. We’ve received word that our pending natural gas imports from Melville Sound have been suspended. We have reason to believe the gas has been diverted to the Chinese, although we don’t know if this was directed by the government or the gas field operator.”

The President slunk into his chair with a dazed look on his face. “That threatens our entire future,” he said quietly.

“Sir,” the Secretary of Defense declared, “with all due regard, the Canadian government has wrongfully blamed us for the loss of their Arctic ice lab and damage to one of their patrol craft. They have illegally captured a U.S. Coast Guard vessel in international waters and are treating the crew as prisoners of war. They have done the same to our Delta Forces team, or perhaps killed them and the ship’s crew as well, for all we know. On top of that, they are threatening our entire nation with energy blackmail. Diplomacy has failed, sir. It is time for another option.”

“We’ve hardly met the threshold for a military escalation,” Sandecker said bitterly.

“You may be right, Jim, but those men’s lives are at stake,” the President said. “I want a formal demand presented to the Prime Minister for the release of the crew and rescue team within twenty-four hours. Do it privately, so that the media-happy PM can save face. We can negotiate for the ship later, but I want those men freed now. And I want a reversal on those natural gas shipments.”

“What’s our response if they don’t comply?” Moss asked.

The Secretary of Defense piped up. “Mr. President, we’ve drawn up several options for a limited first-strike engagement.”

“A ‘limited engagement’… What is that supposed to mean?” the President asked.

The conference room door opened and a White House aide silently entered and handed a note to Sandecker.

“A limited engagement,” the Secretary of Defense continued, “would be deployment of the minimum resources required to incapacitate a high percentage of Canada’s air and naval forces through surgical strikes.”

The President’s face turned red. “I’m not talking about a full-blown war. Just something to get their attention.”

The Secretary of Defense quickly backed down. “We have options for single-target missions as well,” he said quietly.

“What do you think, Jim?” the President asked, turning to Sandecker.

A grim look spread across the Vice President’s face as he finished reading the note and held it up before him.

“I’ve just been informed by Rudi Gunn at NUMA that their research vessel Narwhal has gone missing in the Northwest Passage, off Victoria Island. The ship is presumed captured or sunk with all hands, including the Director of NUMA, Dirk Pitt.”

The Secretary of Defense broke into a wolfish grin as he gazed across the table at Sandecker.

“It would seem,” he said pointedly, “that we have suddenly found your threshold.”

71

The United States has launched armed incursions into Canada on at least a half dozen occasions. The bloodiest invasion occurred during the Revolutionary War, when General Richard Montgomery marched north from Fort Ticonderoga and captured Montreal, then moved on Quebec City. He was joined by a secondary force that had entered Canada via Maine, led by Benedict Arnold. Attacking Quebec City on December 31, 1775, the Americans briefly captured the city before being beaten back in a fierce battle with the British. A shortage of supplies and reinforcements, as well as the loss of Montgomery during the fight, meant that the Americans had little choice but to break off the foray into Canada.

When hostilities heated up again during the War of 1812, the Americans launched repeated strikes into Canada to fight the British. Most ended in failure. The most notable success occurred in 1813, when Toronto (then York) was sacked and its parliamentary buildings burned to the ground. The victory would prove to haunt the U.S. a year later when the British marched on Washington. Angered by the earlier destructive act, the British returned the favor by taking a torch to the public buildings of the American capital.

With colonial independence achieved in 1783, Canada and the United States quickly grew to be amicable neighbors and allies. Yet the seeds of distrust have never completely vanished. In the 1920s, the U.S. War Department developed strategic plans to invade Canada as part of a hypothetical war with the United Kingdom. “War Plan Red,” as it was named, called for land invasions targeting Winnipeg and Quebec, along with a naval assault on Halifax. Not to be outdone, the Canadians developed “Defence Scheme No. 1,” for a counterinvasion of the United States. Albany, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Great Falls, Montana, were targeted for surprise attacks, in hopes that the Canadians could buy time until British reinforcements arrived.

Time and technology had changed the world considerably since the 1920s. Great Britain no longer stood in Canada’s defense, and America’s military might made for a dominating power imbalance. Though the disappearance of the Narwhal angered the President, it hardly justified an invasion. At least not yet. It would take weeks to organize a ground offensive anyway, should things degrade that far, and he wanted a quick and forceful response in forty-eight hours.

The strike plan agreed to, barring the release of the captives, was simple yet pain-inducing. U.S. Navy warships would be sent in to blockade Vancouver in the west and the Saint Lawrence River in the east, effectively blocking Canada’s foreign trade. Stealth bombers would strike first, targeting Canadian fighter air bases at Cold Lake, Alberta, and Bagotville, Quebec. Special Forces teams would also be on standby to secure Canada’s major hydroelectric plants, in case of an attempted disruption in exported electric power. A later strike would be used to seize the Melville gas field.

There was little the Canadians could do in response, the Secretary of Defense and his generals had argued. Under threat of continued air strikes, they would have to release the captives and agree to open terms on the Northwest Passage. All were in agreement, though, that it would never come to that. The Canadians would be warned of the circumstances if they didn’t comply with the twenty-four-hour deadline. They would have no choice but to acquiesce.

But there was one problem that the Pentagon hawks had failed to consider. The Canadian government had no idea what had become of the Polar Dawn’s crew.

72

Trapped in their sinking iron coffin, the Polar Dawn’s crew would have begged for another twenty-four hours. But their prospect for survival was down to minutes.

Murdock’s prediction had so far held true. The barge’s number 4 hold had steadily filled with water until spilling over into the number 3 compartment. As the stern sank lower under the weight, the water poured in at a faster rate. In the small forward storage compartment, the deck listed ominously beneath the men’s feet as the sound of rushing water drew nearer.

A man appeared at the aft hatch, one of Roman’s commandos, breathing heavily from scaling the hold’s ladder.

“Captain,” he gasped, waving a penlight around the bay until spotting his commander, “the water is now spilling into the number 2 hold.”

“Thank you, Corporal,” Roman replied. “Why don’t you sit down and take a rest. There’s no need for further recon.”

Roman sought out Murdock and pulled him aside. “When the barge starts to go under,” he whispered, “will the hatch covers pop off the holds?”

Murdock shook his head, then gave a hesitant look.

“She’ll surely go under before the number 1 hold is flooded. That means there will be an air pocket underneath, which will build in pressure as the barge sinks. There’s probably a good chance it will blow the hatch cover, but we might be five hundred feet deep before that happens.”

“It’s still a chance,” Roman said quietly.

“Then what?” Murdock replied. “A man won’t last ten minutes in these waters.” He shook his head with irritation, then said, “Fine. Go ahead and give the men some hope. I’ll let you know when I think this tub is about to go down, and you can assemble the men on the ladder. At least they’ll have something to hang on to for the ride to perdition.”

At the entry hatch, Bojorquez had listened to the exchange, then resumed his hammering on the locked latch. By now, he knew it was a futile gesture. The tiny hammer was proving worthless against the hardened steel. Hours of pounding had gouged only a small notch in the lock spindle. He was many hours, if not days, away from wearing into the lock mechanism.

Between whacks, he looked over at his fellow captives. Cold, hungry, and downcast, they stood assembled, many staring at him with hopeful desperation. Surprisingly, there was little trace of panic in the air. Their emotions frozen like the cold steel of the barge, the captive men calmly accepted their pending fate.

73

The Narwhal’s tender was perilously overloaded. Designed to hold twelve men, the boat easily accommodated the fourteen crewmen who had evacuated the ship. But the extra weight was just enough to alter her sailing characteristics in a rough sea. With choppy waves slapping at her sides, it was only a short time before a layer of icy water began sloshing around the footwells.

Stenseth had taken hold of the tiller after a laborious effort to start the frozen motor. With a pair of ten-gallon cans of gasoline, they had just enough fuel to reach King William Island. But Stenseth already had an uneasy feeling, realizing that they would have to march in the footsteps of Franklin’s doomed crew if they were to reach safety at Gjoa Haven.

Leery of swamping the boat, the captain motored slowly through the whitecapped seas. Fog still hung heavy over the water, but he could detect a faint lightening of the billows as the brief Arctic night showed signs of passing. He refrained from turning directly east toward King William Island, holding to his word to make a brief search for Pitt and Giordino. With next to no visibility, he knew the odds of locating the submersible were long. To make matters worse, there was no GPS unit in the tender. Relying on a compass distorted by their nearness to the magnetic north pole, Stenseth dead reckoned their way back to the site of the shipwreck.

The helmsman estimated that they had collided with the icebreaker some six miles northwest of the wreck site. Guessing at the current and their own speed, Stenseth piloted the boat southeast for twenty minutes, then cut the motor. Dahlgren and the others shouted out Pitt’s name through the fog, but the only sound they heard in reply was the slap of the waves against the tender’s hull.

Stenseth restarted the motor and cruised to the southeast for ten minutes, then cut the motor again. Repeated shouts through the fog went unanswered. Stenseth motored on, repeating the process once more. When the last round of shouts fell empty, he addressed the crew.

“We can’t afford to run out of fuel. Our best bet is to run east to King William Island and try and locate some help. Once the weather clears, the submersible can be found easily. And I can tell you that Pitt and Giordino are probably a lot more comfortable in that sub than we are.”

The crew nodded in agreement. Respect ran high for Pitt and Giordino, but their own situation was far from harmless. Getting under way once more, they ran due east until the outboard motor sputtered to a halt, having sucked dry the first can of gas. Stenseth switched fuel lines to the second can and was about to restart the motor when the helmsman suddenly cried out.

“Wait! ”

Stenseth turned to the man seated nearby. “I think I heard something,” he said to the captain, this time in a whisper.

The entire boat fell deathly quiet, each man afraid to breathe, as all ears were trained to the night air. Several seconds passed before they heard it as one. A faint tinging sound in the distance, almost like the chime of a bell.

“That’s Pitt and Giordino,” Dahlgren shouted. “Has to be. They’re tapping out an SOS on the Bloodhound ’s hull.”

Stenseth looked at him with skepticism. Dahlgren had to be wrong. They had moved too far from the submersible’s last-known position. But what else could be signaling through the bleak Arctic night?

Stenseth engaged the outboard motor and sailed the tender in an ever-widening series of circles, cutting the throttle at periodic intervals to try to detect which direction the sound was coming from. He finally noted a rising pitch emanating from the east and turned in that direction. The captain motored slowly but anxiously, fearful that the tapping might cease before he had determined a true bearing. The fog blew in thick wisps while the morning dawn still struggled to appear. As close as they might be, he knew it would be all too easy to lose the submersible if it fell silent.

Fortunately, the clanging went on. The rapping only grew louder, audible even over the rumble of the outboard. Changing course with slight shifts to the tiller, Stenseth zeroed in on the sound until it echoed in his ears. Cruising blindly through a dark bank of fog, he suddenly cut the throttle as a huge black shape rose up in front of them.

The barge seemed to have lost its mammoth scale since Stenseth had last seen it, being towed by the icebreaker. Then he saw why. The barge was sinking by the stern, with nearly half of its length already submerged. The bow rose at a rakish angle, reminiscent of the last minutes of the Narwhal. Having just witnessed his own ship’s demise, he knew the barge was down to its last minutes, if not seconds.

Stenseth and the crew reacted with disappointment at their discovery. Their hopes had been pinned on finding Pitt and Giordino. But their disillusionment quickly turned to horror when they realized that the barge was about to go under.

And that the tapping sound came from someone locked aboard.

74

Dahlgren played a flashlight beam across the exposed deck of the barge, searching for an entry point, but found only fixed bulkheads ahead of the forward hold.

“Take us around to the starboard side, Captain,” he requested.

Stenseth motored the tender around the towering bow of the barge, slowing as he approached the forward hold. The rhythmic metallic rapping suddenly became noticeably louder.

“There,” Dahlgren exclaimed, finding the side-compartment hatch with his light. A chain was visible, wrapped around the hatch door lever and secured to a rail stanchion.

Without a word, Stenseth ran the tender alongside the barge until it bumped into a metal railing that angled out of the water. Dahlgren was already on his feet and leaped onto the barge’s deck, landing aside the partially flooded number 3 hold hatch cover.

“Be quick, Jack,” Stenseth yelled. “She’s not long above water.”

He immediately backed the tender away from the barge, not wanting to get caught in its suction should it suddenly plunge to the bottom.

Dahlgren had already sprinted across the angled deck and up a short flight of steps to the locked storage compartment. Banging a gloved hand on the hatch, he shouted, “Anybody home?”

The startled voice of Sergeant Bojorquez replied instantly.

“Yes. Can you let us out?”

“Will do,” Dahlgren replied.

He quickly studied the securing length of chain, which had been crudely knotted around both the hatch lever and the deck stanchion. There had been little slack to begin with, but the twisting girders of the sinking ship had pulled the chain drum tight. Checking each end under the beam of his flashlight, he quickly realized that the stanchion knot was more accessible, and he focused his efforts there.

Yanking his gloves off, he grabbed hold of the knot’s outer links and pulled with all his might. The frozen steel links dug into his flesh but refused to budge. Gathering his breath, he tugged again, putting the full power of his legs into the effort while nearly ripping his fingers from their sockets. But the chain wouldn’t move.

The deck beneath his feet took a sudden lurch, and he felt the ship twist slightly from the uneven pull of the rapidly flooding holds. Releasing his mangled and frozen fingers from the links, he looked at the chain and tried another tack. Leaning over the landing in order to attack from a right angle, he began kicking at the knot with his boots. Inside the storage compartment, he could hear panicked shouts from several voices urging him to hurry. From the water nearby, a few of the Narwhal’s crew yelled over, echoing the sentiment. As if to add its own pressure, the barge let out a deep metallic groan from somewhere far beneath the surface.

With his heart pounding, Dahlgren kicked at the chain with his toe. Then he stomped with his heel. He kicked harder and harder, with a growing sense of anger. Furiously he kicked, as if his own life depended on it. He kept on kicking until a single link of chain finally slipped over the tightly wound coil.

It created just enough slack to allow the next link to slip through with a subsequent kick, and then one more. Dahlgren dropped to his knees, jerking the free end of the chain through the loosened knot with his numb fingers. He quickly uncoiled the chain from the stanchion, allowing the hatch lever to move free. Rising to his feet, he yanked up on the lever, then pulled the hatch open.

Dahlgren didn’t know what to expect and fumbled with his flashlight as a number of shapes moved toward the hatch. Turning the light inside, he was shocked to find forty-six gaunt, frozen men staring back at him like a savior. Bojorquez was closest to the hatch, still clutching his small hammer.

“I don’t know who you are, but I’m sure glad to see you,” the sergeant said with a toothy smile.

“Jack Dahlgren, of the NUMA research ship Narwhal. Why don’t you boys come on out of there?”

The captives rushed through the hatchway, staggering out onto the listing deck. Dahlgren was surprised to see several of the men dressed in military garb, small U.S. flags on their shoulders. Roman and Murdock were the last to exit and approached Dahlgren with a relieved look on their faces.

“I’m Murdock of the Polar Dawn. This is Captain Roman, who tried to rescue us in Kugluktuk. Is your vessel standing by?”

Dahlgren’s astonishment at the realization he had found the captured Americans was tempered by the news he had to bear.

“Our ship was rammed and sunk by your tow vessel,” he said quietly.

“Then how did you get here?” Roman asked.

Dahlgren pointed to the tender just visible a few yards off the sinking barge.

“We barely escaped ourselves. Heard your rapping on the hatch and thought it was a submersible of ours.”

He looked around at the beaten men standing around him, quietly trying to fathom their ordeal. Their escape from death was temporary, and now he felt like their executioner. Turning to Roman and Murdock, he spoke a grim apology.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you, but we don’t have room to take on a single man.”

75

Stenseth watched the waves lap over the barge’s number 2 hold, leaving just the number 1 hold and bow section still above water. Why the barge hadn’t yet headed for the bottom, he couldn’t say, but he knew her time was short.

He turned his gaze to the haggard men lining the rail with looks of pleading desperation in their eyes. Like Dahlgren, he was shocked to count so many men step out of the storage hold. The blatant attempt at mass murder by the crew of the icebreaker astounded him. What sort of animal was commanding the tow ship?

His fears turned toward the safety of his own men. When the barge went under, he knew it would turn into an ugly free-for-all as the castaway men tried to climb aboard the tender. He couldn’t risk swamping the already overloaded boat and sending his own men to their grave. He kept the tender at a safe distance from the barge, wondering how he could get Dahlgren off without the rest of the men trying to climb aboard with him.

He spotted Dahlgren talking to two men, one of whom pointed toward the flooded stern of the barge. Dahlgren then stepped to the rail and shouted for Stenseth to approach. The captain eased the tender up the barge just beneath Dahlgren, keeping a wary eye on the other men. But none of them rushed the boat as Dahlgren climbed aboard.

“Captain, please head to the stern of the barge, about two hundred feet back. Quickly,” Dahlgren urged.

Stenseth turned the tender around and cruised past its sinking hulk toward the hidden stern. He didn’t notice Dahlgren pull off his boots and strip down to his underwear before pulling his parka back on.

“They had two Zodiacs stowed aft,” he shouted by way of explanation.

Little good they would do now, Stenseth thought. They’ve either drifted off or are tied to the deck forty feet underwater. He noticed Dahlgren standing in the bow pointing his flashlight toward something bobbing in the water.

“Over there,” he urged.

Stenseth guided the tender toward a number of dark objects floating on the surface. They were two pairs of conical-shaped protrusions that bobbed in unison several feet apart. Drawing closer, Stenseth recognized them as the tapered pontoon ends of a pair of Zodiac boats. The two inflatable boats were standing on end under the water, their bows affixed by a common line to the barge below.

“Anybody have a knife?” Dahlgren asked.

“Jack, you can’t go in the water,” Stenseth exhorted, realizing that Dahlgren had stripped off his clothes. “You’ll die of exposure.”

“I ain’t planning a long bath,” he grinned in reply.

The chief engineer had a folding knife and pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to Dahlgren.

“A little closer, please, Captain,” Dahlgren asked, slipping out of his parka.

Stenseth inched the tender to within a few feet of the Zodiacs, then cut the throttle. Dahlgren stood in the bow, flipped open the knife, then without hesitation took a deep breath and dove over the side.

An expert diver, Dahlgren had dived in cold seas all over the world, but nothing had prepared him for the shock of immersion into twenty-eight-degree water. A thousand nerve endings instantly convulsed in pain. His muscles tensed and an involuntary gasp of air burst from his lungs. His entire body froze rigid from the shock, ignoring the commands from his brain to move. A panic sensation then took hold, urging him to immediately head for the surface. Dahlgren had to fight the instinct while forcing his dead limbs to move. Slowly he overcame the shock, mentally forcing his body to swim.

He had no flashlight, but he didn’t need one in the black water. Brushing a hand against one of the Zodiac’s hulls gave him all the guidance he needed. Kicking forcefully, he descended several feet along the hull before feeling it angle inward toward the prow. Using his fingers to see, he reached beyond the bow until grazing the threads of the taut bow line. Grasping it with his free hand, he pulled and kicked his way down the line, searching for the mooring point to both Zodiacs.

The exposure to the frigid water quickly began to slow down his motor skills and he had to will himself to keep descending. Twenty feet below the Zodiac, he reached the barge, his hand sliding against a large cleat that was securing the lines to both boats. He immediately attacked the first line with the knife, sawing furiously to break it. The blade was not sharp, however, and it took him several seconds before he cut the line free and it jerked toward the surface. Reaching for the second line, his lungs began to ache from holding his breath while the rest of his body turned numb. His body signaled him to let go of the line and kick to the surface, but his inner determination refused to listen. Shoving the knife forward until it met the line, he sawed the blade back and forth with all his remaining energy.

The line broke with a twang that was audible underwater. Mimicking the other inflatable, the second Zodiac shot to the surface like a rocket, arching completely out of the water before splashing down onto its hull. Dahlgren missed most of the ride, being jerked only a foot or two toward the surface before losing his grip on the line. The momentum propelled his ascent, though, and he broke the surface gasping for air as he flailed to stay afloat with his frozen limbs.

The tender was on him instantly as three sets of arms reached over and plucked him from the water. He was briskly rubbed dry with an old blanket, then dressed in multiple layers of shirts and long underwear contributed by his fellow crew members. Lastly wedged into his parka and boots, he stared wide-eyed at Stenseth while shivering incessantly.

“That’s one cold pond,” he muttered. “Don’t care to try that again.”

Stenseth wasted no time, whipping the tender alongside the Zodiacs until their bow lines could be grabbed, then he gunned the motor. With the Zodiacs bounding in tow, the tender shot across the open expanse of water toward the rapidly diminishing bow structure. The water level had crept partway across the number 1 hold hatch cover, yet the big vessel still refused to let go.

The captives were huddled forward of the hold, certain that the tender had left them to die. When the outboard motor suddenly grew louder, they peered into the darkness with anxious hope. Seconds later, the tender appeared out of the gloom with the two empty Zodiacs in tow. A few of the men began to cheer, and then more joined in, until the barge erupted in an emotionally charged howl of gratitude.

Stenseth drove the tender right up the face of the number 1 hold, skidding to a halt as the two Zodiacs rushed alongside. As the haggard men quickly climbed in, Murdock stepped over to the tender.

“God bless you,” he said, addressing the entire crew.

“You can thank that frozen Texan up front as soon as he stops shivering,” Stenseth said. “In the meantime, I suggest we both get away from this behemoth before she sucks us all under.”

Murdock nodded and stepped over to one of the Zodiacs. The inflatable boats were filled in no time and quickly pushed away from the barge. With flooded motors and no paddles, they were at the mercy of the tender for propulsion. One of the Narwhal ’s crew tossed a towline to one of the Zodiacs while the other inflatable tied on in tandem.

The three boats drifted off the sinking barge before Stenseth took up the slack and engaged the outboard motor. There was no lingering or emotional farewell to the dying barge, which had represented only misery to its men held captive. The three small boats plowed east, quickly leaving the stricken vessel behind in the fog. With nary a gurgle, the black leviathan, its holds nearly filled to the top, silently slipped under the waves a moment later.

76

“It’s as black up here as the bottom is at a thousand feet.”

There was little exaggeration in Giordino’s assessment of the scene out of the submersible’s view port. Just moments before, the Bloodhound had punched through the surface amid a boil of foam and bubbles. The two occupants still had hopes of finding the lights of the Narwhal twinkling nearby but instead found a cold, dark sea enshrouded in a heavy mist.

“Better try the radio again before we’re completely out of juice,” Pitt said.

The submersible’s battery reserves were nearly extinguished, and Pitt wanted to conserve the remaining power for the radio. He reached down and pulled a lever that sealed the ballast tanks closed, then shut down the interior air-filtration system, which was barely functioning on low voltage. They would have to crack the top hatch for fresh but bitterly cold air.

They called on the surface, but their radio calls continued to go unanswered. Their faint signals were picked up only by the Otok and blithely ignored at the order of Zak. The Narwhal, they were now convinced, had vanished from the scene.

“Still, not a word,” Giordino said dejectedly. Contemplating the radio silence, he asked, “How friendly would your pal on the icebreaker be if he had a run-in with the Narwhal?”

“Not very,” Pitt replied. “He has a penchant for blowing things up with little regard for the consequences. He’s after the ruthenium at all costs. If he’s aboard the icebreaker, then he’ll be after us as well.”

“My money says that Stenseth and Dahlgren will be a handful.”

It was little consolation to Pitt. He was the one who had brought the ship here and it was he who had placed the crew in danger. Not knowing what had happened to the ship, he assumed the worst and blamed himself. Giordino sensed the guilt in Pitt’s eyes and tried to change his focus.

“Are we dead on propulsion?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes,” Pitt replied. “We’re at the mercy of the wind and current now.”

Giordino gazed out the view port. “Wonder where the next stop will be?”

“With any luck, we’ll get pushed to one of the Royal Geographical Society Islands. But if the current throws us around them, then we could be adrift for a while.”

“If I had known we were going to take a cruise, I would have brought a good book… and my long underwear.”

Both men wore only light sweaters, not anticipating the need for anything warmer. With the submersible’s electronic equipment shut down, the interior quickly turned chilly.

“I’d settle for a roast beef sandwich and a tequila myself,” Pitt said.

“Don’t even start with the food,” Giordino lamented. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, trying to maintain warmth. “You know,” he said, “there are days when that cushy leather chair back in the headquarters office doesn’t sound so bad.”

Pitt looked at him with a raised brow. “Had your fill of days in the field?”

Giordino grunted, then shook his head. “No. I know the reality is, the second I set foot in that office, I want back on the water. What about you?”

Pitt had contemplated the question before. He’d paid a heavy price, both physically and mentally, for his adventurous scrapes over the years. But he knew he’d never have it any other way.

“Life’s a quest, but I’ve always made the quest my life.” He turned to Giordino and grinned. “I guess they’ll have to pry us both off the controls.”

“It’s in our blood, I’m afraid.”

Helpless to control their fate, Pitt sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Thoughts of the Narwhal and her crew scrolled through his mind, followed by visions of Loren back in Washington. But mostly his mind kept returning to a lone portrait of a broad-shouldered man with a menacing face. It was the image of Clay Zak.

77

The submersible pitched and rolled through the choppy seas while driven south at nearly three knots. The Arctic dawn gradually emerged, lightening the thick gray fog hanging low over the water. With little to do but monitor the radio, the two men tried to rest, but the plunging interior temperature soon rendered it too uncomfortable for sleep.

Pitt was adjusting the overhead hatch when a scraping sound filled the interior and the submersible jarred to a halt.

“Land ho,” Giordino mumbled, popping open his sleepy eyes.

“Almost,” Pitt replied, peering out the view port. A light breeze blew a small opening in the fog, revealing a white plateau of ice in front of them. The unbroken expanse disappeared into a billow of mist a hundred feet away.

“A good bet there is land on the opposite side of this ice field,” Pitt speculated.

“And that’s where we’ll find a hot-coffee stand?” Giordino asked, rubbing his hands together to keep warm.

“Yes… roughly two thousand miles south of here.” He looked at Giordino. “We have two options. Stay here in the cozy confines of our titanium turret or take a crack at finding relief. The Inuit still hunt in the region, so there could be a settlement nearby. If the weather clears, there’s always a sporting chance of flagging down a passing ship.” He looked down at his clothes. “Unfortunately, we’re not exactly dressed for a cross-country excursion.”

Giordino stretched his arms and yawned. “Personally, I’m tired of sitting in this tin can. Let’s go stretch our legs and see what’s in the neighborhood.”

“Agreed,” Pitt nodded.

Giordino made one last attempt to contact the Narwhal, then shut down the radio equipment. The two men climbed out of the top hatch and were promptly greeted by an eight-degree chill. The bow had wedged tightly into the thick sea ice, and they were easily able to step off the submersible and onto the frozen surface. A stiffening breeze began to scatter the low-hanging mist. Nothing but ice lay in front of them, so they started trudging across the pack, the dry snow crunching under their feet.

The sea ice was mostly flat, sprinkled by small hummocks that rose in tiny uplifts at scattered points. They had hiked only a short distance when Giordino noticed something off to his left. It appeared to be a small snow cave, crudely carved into a ridge of high ice.

“It looks man-made,” Giordino said. “Maybe somebody left us a pair of earmuffs inside.”

Giordino walked over to the cave’s entrance, then hunched down on one knee and stuck his head in. Pitt approached, then stopped to study an imprint in the snow nearby. He stiffened when he recognized the shape.

“Al,” he whispered in a cautionary tone.

Giordino had already hesitated. A few feet up the darkened passageway, he saw the cave expanded into a large den. Inside the darkened interior, he barely distinguished a large tuft of white fur rising and falling with heavy breaths. The polar bear was past hibernating but revisiting its winter haunt for a spring nap. Known for its unpredictability, a hungry polar bear could easily make a meal out of both men.

Immediately recognizing the danger, Giordino silently backed out of the cave. Mouthing the word “bear” to Pitt, they hurriedly moved away from the cave, stepping lightly on the ice. When they were well out of earshot, Giordino slowed his gait while the color returned to his pale face.

“I only hope the seals are slow and plentiful in these parts,” he said, shaking his head at the discovery.

“Yes, I’d hate to see you end up as a throw rug inside that bear’s den,” Pitt replied, suppressing a laugh.

The danger was all too real, they knew, and they kept a sharp lookout behind them as they moved farther from the sea.

As the bear cave vanished in the fog behind them, a dark rocky ribbon of land appeared through the mist ahead. Patches of brown and gray rose off the near horizon in a wavy pattern of ridges and ravines. They had come aground on the northern coast of the Royal Geographical Society Islands, as Pitt had predicted, landing on West Island. Heavy ice, built up from the winter floes that churned down Victoria Strait, clogged the shoreline in a wide band that stretched a half mile wide in some areas. Approached from the frozen sea, the barren island landscape nearly shrieked of cold desolation.

The two men were nearly to the shoreline when Pitt stopped in his tracks. Giordino turned and saw the look on Pitt’s face, then cocked an ear to the wind. A faint crackling sound echoed in the distance, accompanied by a dull rumble. The noise continued unabated, growing louder as the source drew near.

“Definitely a ship,” Giordino muttered.

“An icebreaker,” Pitt said.

“The icebreaker?”

Giordino’s question was answered a few minutes later when the hulking prow of the Otok emerged from the mist a hundred yards offshore. Its high bow cut through the foot-thick ice like it was pudding, spraying chunks of frozen detritus in all directions. As if detecting Pitt and Giordino’s presence, the icebreaker’s rumbling engines slowly quieted to a low idle, and the vessel ground to a halt against the buckling ice.

Pitt stared at the vessel, a sick feeling gripping his frozen insides. He had immediately observed that the ship’s bow was mashed blunt, the obvious result of a hard collision. It was a recent blow, as evidenced by several of the steel plates being stripped of paint by the impact and yet to show any signs of oxidation. More telling were the flecks of turquoise paint, which overlaid portions of the scraped and mangled bow.

“She rammed the Narwhal,” Pitt stated without speculation.

Giordino nodded, having come to the same conclusion. The sight numbed both men, since they knew that their worst fears had been realized. The Narwhal was surely at the bottom of Victoria Strait, along with her crew. Then Giordino noticed something nearly as disturbing.

“The Narwhal isn’t the only thing that she has rammed,” he said. “Look at her hull plates around the hawsehole.”

Pitt studied the hull, noticing a light gouge mark incurred during the collision. The icebreaker’s red hull paint had been scraped away, revealing a gray undercoating. A rectangular patch of white surfaced at the tailing edge of the gouge.

“A gray warship in a former life?” he ventured.

“How about FFG-54, to be exact. A Navy frigate of ours known as the Ford. We passed her in the Beaufort Sea a few weeks back. The survivors of the Canadian ice camp offered a similar description. That sure as beans looks like a number 5 painted underneath in white.”

“A quick repaint in U.S. Navy gray and, next thing you know, you have an international incident.”

“Zapping through the ice camp in the middle of a blizzard with the Stars and Stripes flying, it’s not hard to see how the ice lab scientists could have been fooled. The question is, why go to the trouble?”

“Between the ruthenium and the oil and gas resources around here, I’d say Mitchell Goyette wants to play Arctic ice baron,” Pitt said. “It’s a lot easier game for him to win if the U.S. presence is cleared from the region.”

“Which, at the moment, is pretty much down to you and me.”

As he spoke, three men bundled in black parkas appeared on the icebreaker’s deck and approached the rail. Without hesitation, they each raised a Steyr light machine gun, trained their sights on Pitt and Giordino, and opened fire.

78

Miles to the northeast, a loud sputtering and coughing sound resonated over the waves. Gasping for fuel, the tender’s outboard motor wheezed through its last few drops of gasoline, then gurgled to a stop. The men aboard remained silent as they looked at one another nervously. Finally, the Narwhal ’s helmsman raised an empty ten-gallon gas can into the air.

“She’s bone-dry, sir,” he said to Stenseth.

The Narwhal ’s captain knew it was coming. They would have made it to shore had they sailed solo. But the two fully laden Zodiacs tailing behind had acted like a sea anchor, sapping their forward progress. Fighting choppy seas and a strong southerly current had not helped matters. But there was never a thought of abandoning the men in the other boats.

“Break out the oars, a man to a side,” Stenseth ordered. “Let’s try and hold our heading.”

Leaning over toward the helmsman, who was an expert navigator, he quietly asked, “How far to King William Island, would you estimate?”

The helmsman’s face twisted.

“Difficult to gauge our progress under these conditions,” he replied in a low tone. “It seems to me that we ought to be within five miles or so of the island.” He shrugged his shoulders slightly, indicating his uncertainty.

“My thoughts as well,” Stenseth replied, “though I hope we’re a far sight closer.”

The prospect of not reaching land began to gnaw at his fears. The seas had not turned, but he was certain that the breeze had stiffened slightly. Decades at sea had honed his senses to the weather. He could feel in his bones that the waters were going to roughen a bit more. In their precarious state of navigation, it would probably be enough to do them all in.

He gazed back at the black inflatable boats trailing behind in the mist. Under the faintly brightening dawn, he could begin to make out the faces of the rescued men. A number of them were in poor shape, he could tell, suffering the ill effects of prolonged exposure. But as a group, they were a model of quiet bravery, not a one lamenting their condition.

Murdock caught Stenseth’s gaze and shouted out to him.

“Sir, can you tell us where we are?”

“Victoria Strait. Just west of King William Island. Wish I could say that a passing cruise liner is on its way, but I have to tell you that we’re on our own.”

“We’re grateful for the rescue and for keeping us afloat. Do you have an extra set of oars?”

“No, I’m afraid you are still at our mercy for propulsion. We should reach landfall before long,” he called out in a falsely optimistic tone.

The Narwhal ’s crew took turns pulling at the oars, with even Stenseth working a shift. It was a laborious effort to make headway, made frustrating by the inability to gauge their progress in the misty gloom. Stenseth occasionally strained his ears to detect the sound of waves rolling against a shoreline, but all he could hear was the sound of swells slapping against the three boats.

True to his forecast, the seas began to gradually rise with the stiffening breeze. More and more waves started splashing over the sides of the tender, and several men were soon assigned bailing detail to stem the flooding. Stenseth noted that the Zodiacs were suffering the same fate, taking on water repeatedly over the stern. The situation was rapidly becoming dire, and there was still no indication that they were anywhere near land.

It was when a change of oarsmen took place that a crewman seated in the bow suddenly yelled out.

“Sir, there’s something in the water.”

Stenseth and the others immediately gazed forward, spotting a dark object at the edge of the fog. Whatever it was, Stenseth thought, he knew it wasn’t land.

“It’s a whale,” somebody shouted.

“No,” Stenseth muttered quietly, noting that the object sitting low in the water was colored black and unnaturally smooth. He looked on suspiciously, observing that it didn’t move or make a sound.

Then a loud voice, electronically amplified to thundering proportions, burst through the fog. Every man jumped, losing a beat of the heart at the sudden divulgence. Yet the words came forth with a puzzling sentiment, incongruous with the harsh surrounding environment.

“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 shoreline, 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 impassable, 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 shoreline.

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 ashore 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 mass 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 mass 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 shore 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.

“If she’s carrying any ruthenium, then I might consider a side trip up the Potomac first,” Pitt replied.

“I’d settle for a couple of blankets and a shot of rum.”

The men were shivering nonstop with cold, their bodies fighting to keep their internal temperature from dropping. Each felt a touch of lethargy, and Pitt knew they would have to find warmth soon. He stepped over to a ladderway aft of the main hatch and pulled off a crumbling canvas cover.

“Got a light?” he asked Giordino while peering down into the darkened interior.

Giordino pulled out a Zippo lighter and tossed it to him. “I’ll need that back if there should be any Cuban cigars aboard.”

Pitt led the way down the steeply inclined steps, snapping on the lighter as he reached the lower deck. He spotted a pair of candle lanterns mounted to the bulkhead and ignited their blackened wicks. The ancient candles still burned strong, casting a flickering orange glow over the wood-paneled corridor. Giordino found a whale oil lamp hanging on a nail nearby, which provided them a portable light.

Stepping down the passageway, the lamp illuminated a bizarre scene of murder and mayhem aboard the ship. Unlike the Terror, with its spartan appearance, the Erebus was a mess. Crates, garbage, and debris littered the corridor. Tin cups were scattered everywhere, while the distinct smell of rum hung in the air, along with a number of other dank odors. And then there were the bodies.

Moving forward to take a quick peek in the crew’s quarters, Pitt and Giordino were met by a macabre pair of shirtless frozen men sprawled on the deck. One had the side of his skull crushed, a bloodied brick lying nearby. The other had a large kitchen knife protruding from his rib cage. Frozen solid and in an eerie state of preservation, Pitt could even tell what color eyes the men had. Inside the crew’s quarters, they found an additional array of bodies in a similar state. Pitt couldn’t help noticing that the dead men had a tormented look about them, as if they had perished from something more terrible than just the elements.

Pitt and Giordino spent little time examining the gruesome scene, backtracking to the ladder well and descending to the orlop deck. They took a break from searching for ruthenium when they reached the Slop Room. A storeroom for the crew’s outerwear, the bay contained racks of boots, jackets, caps, and thick socks. Finding a pair of heavy wool officer’s coats that nearly fit their frames, the two men bundled into the clothes, adding watch caps and mittens. At last feeling a slight semblance of warmth, they quickly resumed their search of the deck.

Like the deck above, the orlop deck was a scattered mess. Empty casks and food containers were stacked in huge piles, attesting to the large amount of food stores once housed on the ship. They entered the unlocked Spirit Room, which housed the ship’s supply of alcohol and weapons. Though a rack of muskets lay untouched, the rest of the bay was a mess, with splintered rum and brandy casks scattered on the deck and tin cups everywhere. They moved aft to find large bins that housed a portion of the steam engine’s coal. The bins were empty, but Pitt noticed some silvery dust and nuggets lying at the base of one bin. He picked up one of the nuggets, noting it was far too heavy for coal. Giordino observed a rolled-up burlap sack nearby, kicking it over to read BUSHVELD, SOUTH AFRICA printed on the side.

“They had it here, but it was evidently all traded to the Inuit,” Pitt mused, tossing the nugget back into the bin.

“Then it’s down to finding the ship’s log to reveal the source,” Giordino said.

A faint shout was suddenly heard outside the ship.

“Sounds like our friends are drawing near,” Giordino said. “We better get moving.” He took a step toward the ladderway but noted Pitt didn’t follow. He could see the wheels churning in Pitt’s mind.

“You think it’s worth staying aboard?” Giordino asked.

“It is if we can give them the warm welcome that I think we can,” Pitt replied intently.

Waving the oil lamp, he led Giordino back to the Spirit Room. Setting the lamp on a long ice-covered crate, he stepped to a rack of Brown Bess muskets he had eyed earlier. Pulling one off the rack, he held it up and examined it closely, finding the weapon to be in pristine condition.

“It’s not an automatic, but it should even the odds a bit,” he said.

“I guess the previous owner won’t mind,” Giordino replied.

Pitt turned around, puzzled at his friend’s comment. He found Giordino pointing at the crate that supported the lamp. Pitt stepped closer, suddenly realizing it was no crate but a wooden coffin supported by a pair of sawhorses. The light from the whale oil lamp shimmered off a tin plate hammered to the enlarged end of the coffin. Leaning forward, Pitt brushed off a layer of loose ice, revealing a script of white lettering hand-painted on the tin. A chill ran up his spine as he read the epitaph.

81

Zak waited until his security team had closed in on Pitt and Giordino before leaving the warm confines of the icebreaker. Though he had no way of knowing for sure whether either man was Pitt, his instincts told him it was so.

“Thompson and White trailed them trying to move inland,” reported one of the mercenaries, who had returned to the ship. “There’s an old boat up on shore that they apparently climbed into.”

“A boat?” Zak asked.

“Yes, some old sailing ship. It’s lodged in a ravine and covered with ice.”

Zak glanced at the stolen co-op map, which was lying on the chart table. Had he miscalculated again? Was it no mine at all but a ship that was the source of the Inuit ruthenium?

“Take me to the ship,” he barked. “I’ll go sort this out.” The wind still blew in sporadic gusts, stinging his face as they trudged across the sea ice. The freshening winds began to clear the ground fog, and Zak could see down the coastline to where several of his men stood at the base of a narrow bluff. There was no sign of any ship, and he started to wonder if his security team had been out in the cold too long. But when he approached the ravine, he saw the massive black hull of the Erebus wedged against the ridge and he stared in wonderment. His attention was diverted by one of his approaching men.

“Their tracks lead up the gulch. We’re pretty certain they climbed aboard the ship,” said the man, the gap-toothed tough named White.

“Select two other men and board the ship,” Zak replied, as an additional five men gathered around him. “The rest of you spread out on the beach, in case they try to backtrack.”

White pulled two men aside and began climbing up the gulch with Zak trailing behind. The ice-strewn terrain rose to within a few feet of the upper deck, requiring a short climb up the hull sides and over the rail to get aboard. White was the first to climb up, slinging his gun over his shoulder as he scaled the hull and threw a leg over the railing. As his foot touched the deck, he looked straight across to find a black-haired man stepping up the ladderway with an armful of old muskets.

“Freeze!” White yelled with deafening authority.

But Pitt didn’t.

It was instantly a deadly race to bring their arms to bear, neither man hesitating a second. White had the advantage of a smaller weapon, but he was caught in an awkward position with one leg still over the rail. He quickly grabbed at the gun grip and flipped the barrel forward but nervously squeezed the trigger before taking aim. A harmless seam of bullets ripped across the deck and into a mound of ice near the ladderway before a loud pop erupted from across the deck.

With nerves as cold as the ice that encompassed the ship, Pitt had calmly dropped all the weapons but one, pulling the thick stock of a loaded Brown Bess musket to his shoulder. The gunman’s bullets ricocheted off the deck nearby as he quickly aimed the long barrel, then squeezed the trigger. It felt like minutes to Pitt before the external percussion cap ignited the black powder charge and sent a lead ball blasting out the muzzle.

At short range, the Brown Bess was deadly accurate, and Pitt’s aim held true. The lead ball struck White just below the collarbone, the impact throwing him clear off the rail. His body cartwheeled over the side, slamming into the frozen turf at Zak’s feet. With a confused look in his eye, he stared up momentarily at Zak, then died.

Zak callously stepped over the body while pulling out his Glock automatic pistol.

“Take them,” he hissed at the other two men, waving his gun at the ship.

The gun battle quickly descended into a deadly game of cat and mouse. Pitt and Giordino took turns popping out of the ladder well and rapidly firing two or three of the antique weapons, ducking bursts from the incoming automatic weapons. A heavy pall of smoke from the burnt black powder soon obscured visibility on the deck, making aim difficult for the shooters on both sides.

Pitt and Giordino established an ad hoc reloading station at the base of the ladderway, allowing one man to shoot while the other reloaded additional weapons. Pitt had found a small cask in the Spirit Room containing five pounds of black powder, which he carried to the lower deck. The cask was used to fill a number of small hand flasks, which in turn were used to load black powder into the muskets, shotguns, and percussion pistols found below. In the lengthy reloading process from the days of old, the powder was poured into the barrel and compressed with a ramrod, followed by the lead shot and a layer of wadding, which was rammed yet again. Pitt was no stranger to firing antique weapons and showed Giordino the proper quantity of powder and ramming technique to speed the process. Loading a long-barreled musket took half a minute, but with repeated efforts both men were soon reloading in less than fifteen seconds. Popping out of the ladderway, they would then fire singly or in succession, trying to keep their opponents guessing.

Despite their superior firepower, Zak and his men had a tough time getting a clean shot off. Forced to climb up the hull, they had to grab the side rail and cower behind its planking while trying to bring their guns to bear. Pitt and Giordino could easily spot their movements and soon had bloodied the hands of the gunmen by splintering the rail with lead. Zak quietly moved in front of the other two gunmen, clinging deftly to the outer rail. He turned and whispered to the other men between rounds.

“Rise and fire together after the next shot.”

Both men nodded, holding their heads down while waiting for the next burst of musket fire. It was Pitt’s turn to fire, and he crouched atop the ladderway with a flintlock pistol on the top step and two muskets across his lap. Shouldering one of the muskets, he peered over the lip of the deck, scanning the side rail through the gun smoke left from Giordino’s last shots. The top of a black parka wavered above a point on the rail, and he quickly drew a bead on the target. He waited for a head to pop up but the gunman refused to budge. Deciding to test the stopping power of the side rail, Pitt lowered his aim a foot and pulled the trigger.

The shot bore through the aged planking and into the calf muscle of the gunman crouching behind. But his body was already reacting to the sound of the musket shot, and he rose with his machine gun to fire. Ten feet down the rail, the second gunman followed suit.

Through the black haze, Pitt detected both men rising and immediately ducked into the ladderway. But as he back-stepped, his instincts took over, and he grabbed the pistol on the step. As his body ducked below the deck, his arm went up with the pistol. His hand was aligned closer to the second gunmen, and he whipped the barrel toward the man’s head and quickly squeezed the trigger.

A simultaneous explosion of lead ripped across the surrounding deck, blasting a shower of splinters on top of him. His ears told him that one of the machine guns had ceased firing, while the other still peppered the ladderway. Sinking to the lower deck with a slight dizziness, he turned to Giordino, who was headed up with a pair of wood-handled pistols and a Purdey shotgun.

“I think I got one of them,” he said.

Giordino stopped in midstep, noticing a pool of blood growing on the deck next to Pitt’s feet.

“You’ve been hit.”

Pitt looked down, then raised his right arm. A V-shaped hole had been ripped through the sleeve beneath his lower forearm, dripping a steady flow of blood. Pitt squeezed his hand, which still gripped his pistol.

“Missed the bone,” he said.

He slipped off the wool jacket as Giordino stepped over and ripped open the sleeve on Pitt’s sweater. Two ugly holes tore through the meaty part of his forearm, somehow missing nerves and bone. Giordino quickly tore strips from Pitt’s sweater and wrapped them tightly around the wound, then helped Pitt back into his jacket.

“I’ll reload,” Pitt said, regaining some color in his pale face. Gritting his teeth, he looked Giordino in the eye with a determined plea.

“Go finish them off.”

82

Zak had remained hidden behind the rail when his two gunmen rose and fired. Using their barrage as a cover, he then stood and rolled over the rail, scurrying across the deck to the ice-encased foremast. He looked aft, but there was no way he could make a clean shot on the ladder well, as a mound of ice amidships created a high barrier between the two positions.

It was an absurd situation, he thought, being held up by men armed with weapons over a century and a half old. He had to admire their cunning, which seemed noticeably absent from his own security team. He looked for another vantage point from which to fire, but, finding none, he searched for a way belowdecks. He spotted the forward hatch, but it was buried under two feet of ice, and there was no forward ladderway on the ship. Then he looked up, noticing that the foremast was tilted at an awkward angle. A cross-spar had ground onto the ridge and jammed the mast to starboard. The heavy mast had cracked the deck around its base, opening a two-foot gash that led below.

Had Zak looked back at the exchange of gunfire, he might have witnessed the death of his second gunman and reconsidered his next move. But he was already thinking three steps ahead as he tucked the Glock into his pocket, then lowered himself through the gap in the deck and dropped into the black interior below.

Giordino climbed cautiously to the head of the ladderway and quickly peered over the ledge. The deck was silent, and he caught no sight of any movement. Then he heard a cry, close by but not from aboard the ship. With the shotgun cocked and at the ready, he crept out of the ladderway and tentatively stepped to the side rail.

Aside the exterior hull, he observed two bodies lying faceup on the ice. The mercenary White, the first casualty, lay with his eyes still open, a pool of red around his torso. Beside him was a second gunman, who had a large hole through his forehead from Pitt’s last pistol shot. Giordino spotted a third man down on the beach, who was shouting for help. He clutched his leg and moved with a limp, trailing a thin stain of red.

Giordino heard a noise behind him and turned to see Pitt climb uneasily out of the ladderway, a pistol in his good hand and a musket over his shoulder.

“Did we manage to scare them off?” he asked.

“Thanks to your eagle-eyed marksmanship,” Giordino replied, motioning over the rail at the two dead gunmen. “I’d say you won the turkey shoot today.”

Pitt eyed the bodies with little remorse. Though he felt no comfort in killing another man, he had no pity for hired murderers, especially those that had had a hand in sinking the Narwhal.

“Sounds like they have some companions on the beach,” he said. “They’ll be back in force shortly.”

“My thoughts as well,” Giordino replied. Looking at Pitt’s bloodied sleeve, he gave his friend a concerned look. “No offense, but I don’t relish making this old tub my personal Alamo.”

“Better odds up the ravine?”

Giordino nodded. “I think it’s time to vacate the premises. They could wait until dark and overrun us, or, worse, set fire to this matchbox. There’s only so long we can hold out with these popguns. They’ll come back slow and cautious, which will give us some time to get up the hill. We can carry plenty of shot and powder to discourage them from following too close. Hopefully, they’ll just give up the chase and let us freeze to death on our own,” he added wryly.

“There’s one other thing that we’ll be needing,” Pitt remarked.

“I can’t believe you haven’t already absconded with it,” Giordino replied with a grin. “The key to the whole shebang. The ship’s log.”

Pitt simply nodded, hoping the log could be found and that its contents would prove worthy of the sacrifices already incurred.

“Take a rest, I’ll go find it,” Giordino said, stepping toward the ladderway.

“No, I’ll go,” Pitt replied, rubbing his wounded arm. “With this maimed wing, I’ll have trouble aiming the long gun if company arrives.” He slipped the musket off his shoulder and passed it to Giordino, along with the pistol. “Go ahead and shoot well before you see the whites of their eyes.”

Pitt climbed down the ladderway, feeling somewhat dizzy from the loss of blood. Moving aft, he made his way down the passageway toward the officers’ quarters under the dim light of the bulkhead candles he had lit earlier. The passageway eventually turned black as he reached an unexplored portion of the ship. He cursed himself for forgetting to grab the whale oil lamp and was about to turn back when he noticed a faint glow ahead in the darkness. Taking a few steps forward, he saw that there was a flickering light at the end of the passage. It was a light that neither he nor Giordino had left behind.

Stepping lightly, he approached the end of the passageway, which opened into the Great Cabin. A candle light flickered within, casting long black shadows on the bulkheads. Pitt crept to the doorway and peered in.

With his teeth glimmering under the amber light, Clay Zak looked up from a large table at the center of the room with a malicious smile.

“Come on in, Mr. Pitt,” he said coldly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

83

A dozen yards from the edge of the sea ice, a bearded seal frolicked in the dark green water, searching for a stray Arctic cod. The gray-coated mammal caught sight of a black protrusion rising out of the water and swam over to investigate. Pressing a whiskered snout against the cold metal object, it detected no sign of potential nourishment, so turned and swam away.

Sixty feet beneath the surface, Commander Barry Campbell chuckled at the close-up image of the seal. Refocusing the viewing lens of the Type 18 search periscope at the red-hulled icebreaker a quarter mile away, he carefully examined the ship. Stepping away from the periscope, he waved over Bill Stenseth, who stood nearby in the USS Santa Fe’s cramped control room.

Stenseth had taken an immediate liking to the submarine’s energetic captain. With sandy hair and beard, sparkling eyes, and a ready laugh, Campbell reminded Stenseth of a youthful Santa Claus, pre belly and white hair. A twenty-year Navy man, the jovial Campbell operated with a sense of purpose. There was no hesitation when Stenseth urged him to conduct an electronic search for Pitt and Giordino and the missing submersible. Campbell immediately piloted the attack sub to the south, with its full complement of sonar at play. When the icebreaker was detected lingering in the area, Campbell had ordered the sub to dive in order to maintain its stealth.

Stenseth stepped over to the periscope and peered through its dual eyepiece. A crystalline image of the red icebreaker burst through the magnified lens. Stenseth studied the flattened bow of the vessel, surprised that the damage wasn’t greater from its high-speed collision with the Narwhal.

“Yes, sir, that’s the vessel that rammed us,” he said matter-of-factly. Keeping his face pressed against the eyepiece, he focused on a man in black approaching the ship on foot. Tracing his path, he observed several additional men congregated on the beach.

“There are several men on the shoreline,” he said to Campbell. “They appear armed.”

“Yes, I saw them, too,” Campbell replied. “Swing the periscope to your right about ninety degrees,” he requested.

Stenseth obliged, rotating the periscope until a bright yellow object blurred past. Moving back, he refocused the lens while a lump grew in his throat. The Bloodhound appeared through the lens wedged against the sea ice, its top hatch thrown open.

“That’s our submersible. Our men Pitt and Giordino must have gone ashore,” he said, a rising tone of urgency in his voice. He stood up and faced Campbell.

“Captain, the men on that icebreaker sank my ship and tried to murder the crew of the Polar Dawn. They’ll kill Pitt and Giordino, too, if they haven’t already. I have to ask you to intervene.”

Campbell stiffened slightly. “Captain Stenseth, we sailed into Victoria Strait for the strict purposes of a search-and-rescue mission. My orders are clear. I am not to engage Canadian military forces under any circumstances. Any deviation will require a request up the chain of command, which will likely take a twenty-four-hour response.”

The submarine captain exhaled deeply, then gave Stenseth a crooked smile as his eyes suddenly gleamed. “On the other hand, if you tell me that two of our own are lost in the elements, then it is within my duty to authorize a search-and-rescue mission.”

“Yes, sir,” Stenseth replied, reading his drift. “I believe two of the Narwhal’s crew are either aboard the icebreaker awaiting transfer or are ashore without proper food, clothing, or shelter, and require our assistance.”

“Captain Stenseth, I don’t know who these people are, but they sure don’t look or act like the Canadian military to me. We’ll go get your NUMA boys. And if these jokers interfere with our rescue ops, I guarantee you they will wish they hadn’t.”

There was no way Rick Roman was going to be denied. Though he and his commando team were severely weakened by their ordeal on the barge, they knew there was unfinished business to take care of. When word filtered down that a SEAL team was being assembled to search for Pitt and Giordino, Roman pleaded with the Santa Fe’s captain to participate. Knowing that his SEAL team was undermanned, Campbell reluctantly agreed. And in a nod toward just retribution, he let Roman lead the team to board and search the icebreaker.

With a hot shower, dry clothes, and two extended trips to the officers’ mess, Roman almost felt human again. Dressed in a white Arctic assault suit, he stood assembled with his team and the SEAL commandos in the enlisted mess area.

“Ever thought you’d be making an amphibious assault off a nuclear sub?” he asked Bojorquez.

“No, sir. I’m still and always will be a landlubber. Though after tasting the chow they serve these squids, I am beginning to rethink my choice about joining the Army.”

A deck above them in the control room, Commander Campbell was easing the submerged Santa Fe to the edge of the ice field. He had spotted a large hummock nearby that appeared to offer some measure of concealment from the distant icebreaker. Dropping the periscope, he watched as the diving officer inched the submarine under the ice, then stopped and gently rose to the surface.

With uncanny precision, the Santa Fe’s sail barely broke through the ice, protruding just a few feet above the surface. Roman’s team and a pair of SEALs were quickly ushered out the bridge and onto the adjacent sea ice. Five minutes later, the sail and masts sank out of sight and the submarine again became a phantom of the deep.

The commandos quickly split up, the two SEALs moving to investigate the Bloodhound, while Roman and his men crept toward the icebreaker. The ship was a half mile away across a mostly flat sheet of ice that offered only sporadic ridges and hummocks for concealment. In their Arctic whites, however, they blended perfectly. Moving methodically, Roman approached the vessel from the sea side, then circled wide around its bow, having to avoid the watery lead that tailed the stern. Spotting a side stairwell that dropped down the ship’s port hull, he moved the team within twenty yards, then ducked behind a small ridge. A few anxious seconds ticked by when a pair of men in black parkas descended the steps, but they turned toward shore without even a glance in the direction of Roman and his team.

With their position secure, Roman sat and waited as a chill wind rifled over their prone bodies.

84

A deckhand posting watch duty on the Otok’s bridge was the first to detect it.

“Sir,” he called to the captain, “there’s something breaking up the ice off our port beam.”

Seated at the chart table drinking a cup of coffee, the visibly annoyed captain rose and walked slowly to the port bridge window. He arrived in time to witness a house-sized mass of ice rise up and crumble as a pair of gray-speckled tubes poked through the surface. A second later, the black teardrop-shaped sail of the Santa Fe burst through, scattering shards of ice in all directions.

A 688-I Los Angeles class attack submarine, the Santa Fe had been modified for under-the-ice operations. With strengthened hull, fairwater, and mast components, she was easily capable of penetrating ice three feet thick. Rising fifty yards off the Otok’s beam, the Santa Fe’s full hull cracked through the ice field, exposing a narrow black strip of steel three hundred feet long.

The Otok’s captain stared in disbelief at the sudden appearance of the nuclear warship. But his mind began to race when he saw a steady flow of white-clad men burst out of the sub’s forward hatch armed with machine guns. He felt only minimal solace when he noticed that the armed men all raced toward the island rather than his ship.

“Quick, pull up the drop steps,” he shouted at the deckhand. Turning to a crewman seated at the radio set, he barked, “Alert whatever security force is still aboard.”

But it was too late. A second later, the bridge wing door burst open and three figures dressed in white charged in. Before the captain could react, he found the muzzle of an assault rifle jammed into his side. With a shocked sense of submission, he raised his arms, then stared into the brown eyes of the tall man wielding the weapon.

“Where… where did you come from? ” he stammered.

Rick Roman looked the captain in the eye, then gave him a frosty grin.

“I came from that icebox of a caboose you decided to sink last night.”

85

Zak sat comfortably at the head of the thick wooden table positioned in the center of the Great Cabin. A flickering candle lantern on the table illuminated a large leather-bound book pushed to one side. In front of Zak was stacked a pile of glass plates, each the size of a large post-card. Lying a few inches from his right hand was his Glock pistol.

“A rather remarkable old ship,” Zak said, “with an interesting record of documentation.”

“The Erebus came very close to being the first to navigate the Northwest Passage, Clay,” Pitt replied.

Zak’s brow rose a fraction at the mention of his name.

“I see you’ve done your homework. Not surprising, I suppose. You are quite an accomplished man, I have learned. And rather dogged in the chase.”

Pitt stared at Zak, angry with himself for not bringing the percussion-cap pistol. With an injured arm and no weapon, he was nearly helpless against the assassin. Perhaps if he could stall for time, Giordino would come looking armed with his shotgun.

“I’m afraid that all I know about Clay Zak is that he is a lousy janitor and enjoys murdering innocent people,” Pitt said coldly.

“Joy doesn’t enter into it. A necessity of business, you might say.”

“And exactly what business of yours requires ruthenium at any cost?” Pitt asked.

Zak flashed a humorless grin. “It is little more than a shiny metal to me. But it is worth much more to my employer. And it is obviously of strategic value to your country. If one were to prevent the mineral from feeding your artificial-photosynthesis factories, then my employer continues to be a very rich man. If he can control the supply of ruthenium outright, then he becomes an even richer man.”

“Mitchell Goyette has more money than he could ever hope to spend. Yet his pathological greed outweighs the potential benefit to millions of people around the world.”

“A sentimentalist, eh? ” Zak said with a laugh. “A sure sign of weakness.”

Pitt ignored the comment, still stalling for time. Zak didn’t seem to notice or care that the gunfire above deck had ceased. Perhaps he assumed that Giordino had been killed.

“A pity that the ruthenium is but a myth,” Pitt said. “It would appear that both of our efforts have been in vain.”

“You searched the ship?”

Pitt nodded. “There’s nothing here.”

“A clever deduction that the Inuit ore had come off a ship. How did you rationalize that? I was searching for a mine on the island.”

“The records that you neglected to steal from the Miners Co-op referred to the ore as Black Kobluna. The name and dates matched up to Franklin’s ship Erebus, but it was a wrong assumption on my part,” Pitt lied.

“Ah, yes, that decrepit Miners Co-op. Apparently, they obtained all the ruthenium that was aboard. And it was aboard,” he added with a penetrating gaze.

Zak picked up one of the glass plates and slid it across the table. Pitt picked it up and studied it under the candlelight. It was a daguerreotype, the output of an early photographic process whereby an image was captured on a polished silver surface, then encased in glass for protection. Pitt recalled Perlmutter’s having mentioned that Franklin had carried a daguerreotype camera on the expedition. The exposed plate showed a group of Erebus crewmen hauling a number of heavy sacks aboard that bulged as if loaded with rocks. A glimpse of the horizon behind the ship showed an ice-covered terrain, indicating that the ore had been taken on somewhere in the Arctic.

“You were quite right in your assumption,” Zak said. “The ore was aboard the ship. Which leaves the question as to where it was mined.”

He reached over and patted the leather book near the center of the table.

“The captain was kind enough to leave the ship’s logbook aboard,” he said smugly. “The source of the ruthenium would be recorded inside. What do you think this book is worth, Mr. Pitt? A billion dollars?”

Pitt shook his head. “Not the lives that it has already cost.”

“Or the lives that it is about to cost?” Zak added with a twisted grin.

Beyond the thick timbers of the ship’s hull, the sound of automatic gunfire suddenly erupted. But the noise was oddly distant. It was clearly too far away to be directed at the ship, and there was no return fire from Giordino above deck. There were also two distinct tones of fire, representing different types of weaponry. Somewhere out on the ice, a pitched battle was going on between unknown parties.

Under the dim light of the cabin, Pitt could detect a subtle look of concern cross Zak’s face. There was no sign of Giordino, but the wheels of determination in Pitt’s head had finally devised an alternative game plan. Though he felt faint from loss of blood, he knew the time to act was now. He might not get another chance.

He stood back a bit and lowered the glass plate, as if he was done studying it. Then he casually flipped it back toward Zak, or at least attempted to make it look casual. But instead of sliding it across the table, he flung it sharply a few inches above the surface. And rather than aiming for Zak, he whipped it toward the candle lantern in the center of the table.

The heavy glass plate easily smashed through the side of the lantern, scattering glass shards across the table. But of more importance to Pitt, the plate knocked debris across the candlewick, extinguishing the short flame that burned inside. In an instant, the Great Cabin plunged into total darkness.

As the plate struck the lantern, Pitt was already on the move. He immediately dropped to the deck, falling to one knee behind the end of the table. Zak was not a fool, however. The professional assassin had his hand on the gun even before the candle flickered out. He quickly raised the gun and fired at the opposite end of the table.

The bullet flew harmlessly over Pitt’s head. Ignoring the shot, he placed his hands on the two stubby table legs beside him and started shoving the table toward Zak. The assassin fired two more shots, using the muzzle flash to try to locate Pitt in the black room. Realizing Pitt was shoving the table forward, he fired at the far tabletop while trying to rise from his seat. His aim was dead-on, but his move to stand was too slow.

A short seam of bullets struck the tabletop inches from Pitt’s head, but the thick mahogany surface devoured the lead slugs. Protected by the hard wood, Pitt propelled the table with rising momentum. Driving against the wooden legs, he bulled forward with every ounce of energy he could muster, ignoring the ache in his arm and the dizziness in his head.

The far edge of the table caught Zak in his midsection, throwing him back into his chair before he could get to his feet. The pile of glass plates dumped on top of him, disrupting his attempts to keep firing. Pitt continued to drive his rectangular battering ram, which now took Zak with it, sliding him backward in his chair. Both bits of furniture slid several feet until the rear legs of the chair struck an uneven deck plank. The legs held while the table kept coming, knocking Zak over and backward, where he fell to the deck with a crash. In his hand, the Glock still barked, firing harmlessly into the tabletop even as Zak tumbled over.

Pitt heard the crash, but it was only through the brief muzzle flash that he knew Zak was knocked down. He was now exposed to Zak’s fire from under the table, but he didn’t hesitate, even as he heard the gun discharge again. Digging his shoulder into the underside of the table, Pitt drove his legs into the deck and pushed upright with his last burst of strength, tilting the burly table up on its end, until it landed on Zak’s legs. Pitt nearly had the table turned over when he felt his left leg buckle from under him. Lying on his back, Zak had fired three blind shots under the table, then slid his legs free. Two rounds whizzed by harmlessly but the third found Pitt’s leg, burying the bullet into his thigh. Losing his balance, Pitt quickly shifted his weight onto his right leg and leaned into the table.

He was a second too late. Zak had got to his knees and deflected the table to the side, shifting Pitt’s momentum. As the massive table began to totter, Zak rose and used his superior strength to twist it aside.

Suddenly lacking in leverage, Pitt was thrown sideways with the table, crashing into the bookshelves in the stern. The sound of shattering glass filled the darkened bay as Pitt was flung into the paned shelf doors. He then dropped to the deck, followed by the hefty table that collapsed onto him with a dull thud. The table ripped through a half dozen bookshelves along the way, releasing a cascade of books and wooden shelves and glass that tumbled on top of the overturned table.

Zak stood nearby, breathing heavily as he caught his wind, while keeping the gun pointed at the table. But straining his ears, he heard not a sound. There were no groans, no shuffles or movements at all from Pitt’s buried body. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Zak could faintly detect Pitt’s lifeless legs protruding from beneath the table. Scouring the floor around his own feet, he put his hands on the heavy ship’s logbook. Pulling it to his chest, he stepped cautiously toward the lighted passageway, then moved slowly down the corridor without looking back.

86

Above deck, Giordino was having his own troubles. After a lengthy break in the action, he spotted three new gunmen broaching the base of the ravine undercover. While he crouched at the rail waiting to get a clear shot, additional gunfire broke out somewhere on the ice. Blocked by the ravine and misting fog, Giordino had no clue what the firing was about but noted that it had no effect on the three men advancing toward the ship. He let them draw closer before popping up with the musket and firing at the nearest gunman. The man dropped to the ground at the sight of the defender, and Giordino’s shot just barely missed, the bullet ripping harmlessly through the man’s parka. The gunmen learned their lesson and began to provide covering fire alternately, allowing the others to advance. Giordino moved along the ship’s rail, sprouting up and firing from different locations before having to duck the return fire. He wounded one of the gunmen in the leg before the other two closed on the ship under combined fire. Emptying the last of his loaded muskets, Giordino was forced to fall back to the ladder well, wondering what was taking Pitt so long. Focused on his own firefight, he had not noticed the gunshots fired below in the Great Cabin.

“Dirk, I need a reload on the muskets,” he shouted down the ladderway, but there was no answer. He aimed the shotgun at the side rail, then readied two percussion-cap pistols in his lap. Just a few more shots and he’d be helpless, unless Pitt arrived quickly.

Near the base of the ladderway, a tall figure slowly waded through a mass of antique armament lying on the deck and peered up. Giordino sat ten feet above, perched on the top two steps with his eyes fixated on the side rail. Had he looked down, he probably wouldn’t have even spotted Zak staring at him from the dimly lit lower deck. Zak contemplated letting his security team finish the job but figured it would be more expedient to kill Giordino himself. Shifting the ship’s logbook into his left arm, he steadied his feet and raised his automatic pistol at Giordino.

He failed to detect the sound of pained steps shuffling down the passageway somewhere behind him. But he flinched when a loud warning cry suddenly echoed down the corridor just as he was about to squeeze the trigger.

“Al! ”

Zak turned and gazed down the passageway in disbelief. Standing beneath a candle lantern twenty feet away and looking like death personified was Dirk Pitt. His face was a bloody mess from a dozen glass cuts while an ugly purple knot glistened on his forehead. His right sleeve was wet with crimson, matching his left leg, and a bloody trail followed him down the corridor. He held no weapons and leaned on his good leg with a grimace of agony on his face. But battered and shot, he stared at Zak with complete defiance.

“You’re next,” Zak hissed, then turned his focus back up to Giordino, who had returned Pitt’s call but was still unaware of the situation below. Zak aimed the Glock at Giordino a second time but was distracted by a bright blur that flashed toward him. Turning to Pitt, he saw that the wounded man had hurled the candle lantern at him. A weak throw, Zak thought to himself, as the lantern fell short of the mark. He gazed at Pitt and snickered with a shake of his head as the lantern shattered near his feet.

Only the throw wasn’t weak. The lantern struck the deck exactly where Pitt had aimed it, a few inches shy of the black powder cask they were using to reload the muskets. Awash with powder spilt from their rapid reloadings, the deck beneath the ladderway was an inferno-in-waiting. The shattered lantern immediately ignited the loose powder in a flash of smoke and sparks that flared at Zak’s feet. The assassin instinctively recoiled, backing away from the flare-up while unknowingly moving closer to the black powder cask. An instant later, a trail of black powder burned up to the cask and it detonated in a deafening explosion.

The blast rocked the ship, shooting smoke and flames up and out the ladder well. Pitt was knocked to the deck and showered with flying debris, most of which was absorbed by his heavy wool jacket. With his ears ringing, he waited several minutes for the smoke to clear before limping over to the ladderway, coughing from the acrid residue in the air. The side bulkheads were blown out and a large hole in the deck now opened through to the orlop deck, but the remaining damage was relatively limited.

Pitt saw a boot lying near the hole and realized grimly that a detached foot was still inside. Looking up, he saw the boot’s owner a few feet away.

Clay Zak had been blown partially up the ladder well, and his mangled body was now embedded in the steps. He hung upside down, his open eyes staring vacantly off into space. Pitt stepped closer and stared at the dead assassin without pity.

“I think you were due for a blast,” he said to the corpse, then turned and peered up the smoky ladder well.

87

The force of the black powder explosion had launched Giordino up and off the top steps of the ladderway, throwing him onto the deck eight feet away. His clothes singed, his lungs burning, and his body nicked by a bounty of splinters and bruises, he had nonetheless survived the blast in one piece. As the explosion’s thick cloud of black smoke drifted away from the ship, he struggled to shake off the daze. He fought a pounding in his head and a symphony of bells ringing in his ears as he painfully rolled to his side. Wiping some grit from his eyes, he stiffened as one of the black-clad gunmen poked his head over the rail.

Giordino had lost his weapons in the explosion and the gunman quickly realized it. Rising without fear, he stood at the rail and calmly swung his machine gun to bear on Giordino.

The burst was short, just four or five shots. Giordino could barely hear it through his ringing ears. Yet he saw the results. Not a ripping seam through his own flesh or the deck about him. Instead, it was the gunman himself who was ruptured by the shots. A mouthful of blood spilled from his lips, and then he slowly sunk beneath the rail, dropping to the ice-covered ground below.

Giordino stared blankly, hearing additional bursts of gunfire. Then another body appeared at the rail, armed like the last and pointing a gun in his direction. Only this gunman was dressed in white, with an ivory ski mask and protective goggles covering his entire face. A second armed man in white joined him, and the two scaled the rail and stepped toward Giordino, their guns trained on him.

Giordino was too focused on the approaching men to notice a third man appear at the rail. The newcomer looked across the deck at Giordino, then shouted something at the other two men. It took a second or two for Giordino’s ringing ears to decipher the words.

“Hold your horses, Lieutenant,” the third man yelled in a familiar Texas accent. “That man is one of ours.”

The two Navy SEALs from the Santa Fe stopped in their tracks but held their weapons fixed until Jack Dahlgren rushed to Giordino’s side. Grabbing the sleeve of Giordino’s antique wool jacket and helping him to his feet, Dahlgren couldn’t help but ask, “You go and join the Royal Navy?”

“We got a little chilly when you weren’t around to pick us out of the drink,” Giordino managed to reply, stunned at Dahlgren’s appearance.

“Where’s Dirk?”

“He was below. That’s where the explosion originated,” he replied with a concerned look.

Wincing in pain, Giordino staggered past Dahlgren to the edge of the ladderway and peered down. A few feet below, he saw the singed and smoking body of a dark-haired man sprawled on the steps, and he shut his eyes. It was nearly a minute before he could open them again, by which time Dahlgren and the SEALs had crowded around him. When he looked down, he suddenly saw a light wavering from the deck below. A bloody and battered Pitt slowly staggered into view at the base of the steps and peered up at his friend. In his arms, he clutched a large and slightly singed leather book.

“Somebody got a light?” he asked with a pained grin.

Pitt was immediately carried back to the Santa Fe and ushered into the submarine’s sick bay with Giordino in tow. Despite a severe loss of blood, Pitt’s injuries were not life-threatening, and his wounds were quickly cleaned and bandaged. Though the ship’s surgeon ordered him to remain in bed, Pitt found a cane and was hobbling around the sub an hour later, reuniting with the crew of the Narwhal. Limping into the officers’ mess with Giordino, they found the three captains, Campbell, Murdock, and Stenseth, seated at a table discussing the icebreaker.

“Shouldn’t you two be bedridden?” Stenseth asked.

“There will be plenty of time to sleep on the voyage home,” Pitt replied. Stenseth helped him to a chair while Campbell grabbed coffees, and the men swapped tales of their ordeals and discoveries.

“You boys flipping a coin to see who drives the icebreaker?” Giordino asked a short while later.

“We boarded her strictly to search for you two,” Campbell replied. “I had no intention of confiscating her, but these gentlemen were just telling me the details of her full role in the Polar Dawn crew’s abduction and the sinking of the Narwhal.”

“There’s something else you need to know about her,” Pitt said. “Al?”

Giordino described the underlying coat of gray paint on the icebreaker’s hull and the partial appearance of the number 54 in white lettering.

“I’d bet the farm she destroyed the Canadian ice camp while masquerading as a Navy frigate,” he said.

Campbell shook his head. “These people are some serious maniacs. They’re on the verge of starting World War Three. I guess we’ve got no choice but to take her to port in U.S. waters as soon as possible.”

“She’s a known Canadian-flagged ship, so there shouldn’t be any trouble clearing the passage,” Pitt said.

“And you’ve got two captains ready and willing to take her back,” Stenseth said, with Murdock nodding in agreement.

“Piracy it is, then,” Campbell said with a smile. “We’ll head for Anchorage, and I’ll be your underwater tail just in case of trouble.” He gazed around the small confines of the mess. “Truth be told, we’re a bit overcrowded as it is.”

“We’ll take both our crews to man the ship,” Murdock said, nodding his head toward Stenseth. “Captain Roman reported plenty of empty berths on the icebreaker.”

“Al and I will be happy to accompany the icebreaker,” Pitt said. “Al’s claustrophobic, and I’ve got some reading to catch upon.”

“Then we have our traveling orders,” Campbell agreed. “I’ll transfer half my SEAL team aboard to help with security, then we can be on our way.”

The three captains excused themselves to organize the crews as Pitt and Giordino finished their coffees. Giordino leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling with a broad smile.

“You seem awful merry,” Pitt remarked.

“You heard what the man said,” Giordino replied. “We’re going to Anchorage. Anchorage, Alaska,” he repeated lovingly. “South of the Arctic Circle. Did ever a place sound so warm and inviting?” he asked with a contented grin.

88

The B-2 Spirit had been airborne for over five hours. Taking off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the wedge-shaped stealth bomber had flown west on what appeared to be a normal training flight. But five hundred miles out over the Pacific, the black-and-gray aircraft, which resembled a giant manta ray in flight, turned northeast, flying toward the coast of Washington State.

“AC-016 bearing zero-seven-eight degrees,” the mission commander said in a soft Carolina accent. “She’s right on time.”

“I’ve got her,” replied the pilot.

Tweaking the throttles on the four turbofan jet engines, he banked the plane by thrust until matching the flight bearing, then closed in on a small white target visible out the cockpit window. Satisfied with his position, the pilot backed off on the throttles to match the speed of the leading aircraft.

Less than a quarter mile ahead and a thousand feet below was an Air Canada Boeing 777, bound for Toronto from Hong Kong. The pilots aboard the commercial airliner would have choked had they known that a billion-dollar bomber was tailing them into Canadian airspace.

With a nearly invisible radar signature, the crew of the B-2 need not have worried about hiding in the 777’s shadow to complete their mission. But with heightened military alerts on both sides of the border, they were taking no chances. The bomber tailed the jetliner over Vancouver and across British Columbia into Alberta. Approximately fifty miles west of Calgary, the Canadian airliner made a slight course adjustment to the southeast. The B-2 held its position, then veered sharply to the northeast.

Its target was the Canadian Forces Base at Cold Lake, Alberta, one of two Canadian air bases that housed F-18 fighter jets. A “quarter stick” of seven five-hundred-pound laser-guided bombs was to be dropped on the airfield, with the intent to damage or destroy as many fighter jets as possible while minimizing loss of life. With no response from the Canadian government after his twenty-four-hour admonition, the President had elected to halve the first-strike recommendation from the Pentagon and proceed with an attack on a single military installation.

“Eight minutes to target,” the mission commander announced. “Performing final weapons arming now.”

As he cycled through a computerized weapons-control sequence, an urgent radio call suddenly transmitted over their headsets.

“Death-52, Death-52, this is Command,” came the unexpected call from Whiteman. “You are ordered to abort mission. I repeat, we have a mission abort. Please stand down and acknowledge, over.”

The mission commander acknowledged receipt of the last-minute command, then immediately cycled down the bomber’s armaments. The pilot slowly reversed course, flying back toward the Pacific before setting a course to their home air base.

“The boss man cut it a little close there,” the pilot said a short while later.

“You’re telling me,” the mission commander replied, a deep sense of relief in his voice. “That’s one mission I’m glad was scrubbed.”

Gazing out at the Canadian Rockies passing beneath their wings, he added, “I just hope nobody else finds out how close we really came.”

89

Bill Stenseth listened to the deep rumble of the icebreaker’s powerful gas turbine engines, then nodded at the Narwhal ’s helmsman beside him to get the big vessel under way. As the ship slowly began to bull its way through the ice, Stenseth stepped out onto the frozen bridge wing and gave a friendly salute to the Santa Fe, still positioned in the ice a short distance away. Standing atop the sail, Commander Campbell returned the gesture, then prepared his own vessel to return to the depths.

The Otok turned and forged its way through the ice toward the NUMA submersible, easing to a halt just alongside. A pair of crewmen were let down onto the ice, where they attached a lifting cable to the Bloodhound. A large swing crane then lifted the submersible aboard the icebreaker, depositing it in a tight corner on the stern deck. In an adjacent unheated storage shed, the bodies of Clay Zak and his dead security team mercenaries were laid out, wrapped in makeshift canvas body bags.

A short distance across the ice, a polar bear stuck his head over a ridge and observed the operations. The same bear that Giordino had nearly awakened, it stood and stared at the icebreaker with annoyed disturbance, then turned and padded across the ice in search of a meal.

Once the Bloodhound was secured, the icebreaker moved on again, breaking into open water much to Stenseth’s relief. The ship steamed west, on a tack through Queen Maud Gulf and on toward the Beaufort Sea. The Santa Fe had by now slipped under the ice and trailed the icebreaker a mile or two behind. Stenseth would have been surprised to learn that by the time they’d leave Canadian waters, there would be no fewer than three American submarines sailing a silent escort, while a bevy of long-range patrol aircraft monitored their progress high overhead.

Along with Murdock, Stenseth enjoyed the opportunity to command a new vessel. With his own crew from the Narwhal and most of the Polar Dawn’s crew aboard, he was surrounded by able assistants. The icebreaker’s former crew was safely under guard belowdecks, watched closely by the Santa Fe’s SEAL contingent and Rick Roman’s commando team. Almost every man had wanted to sail home on the icebreaker, as a show of retribution for the ordeal suffered at the hands of her crew.

Once the ship was free of the sea ice, Stenseth turned toward a noisy congregation behind him. Crowded around the chart table with his bandaged leg propped up on a folding chair, Pitt sat sipping a hot coffee. Giordino and Dahlgren were wedged alongside, wagering over the contents of the thick leather logbook that sat at the table’s center.

“Are you going to find out what’s in the Erebus log or continue to torture me with suspense?” Stenseth asked the trio.

“The captain is right,” said Giordino, who, like Pitt, had an assorted array of bandages taped to his face. He gingerly shoved the logbook over to Pitt.

“I believe you have the honors,” he said.

Pitt looked down with expectation. The Erebus logbook was bound in hand-tooled leather, with an etching of a globe on the front cover. The book had received little damage from the black powder explosion, showing only a few small burn marks on the binding. Zak had held the logbook opposite the powder cask when it exploded, unwittingly protecting it with his body. Pitt had found the book wedged in a step beside his mangled corpse.

Pitt slowly opened the cover and turned to the first formal entry.

“Going to build the suspense, eh?” Stenseth asked.

“Cut to the chase, boss,” Dahlgren implored.

“I knew I should have kept this in my cabin,” Pitt replied.

With prying eyes and endless questions, he gave up thoughts of digesting the journal chronologically and skipped to the last entry.

“ ‘April 21, 1848,’ ” he read, silencing the crowd. “ ‘It is with regret that I must abandon the Erebus today. A portion of the crew remains in a maniacal state, imposing danger to the officers and other crewmen alike. It is the hard silver, I suspect, although I know not why. With eleven good men, I shall embark for the Terror, and therewith await the spring thaw. May the Almighty have mercy on us, and on the ill men who stay behind. Captain James Fitzjames.’ ”

“The hard silver,” said Giordino. “That must be the ruthenium.”

“Why would it cause the men to go crazy?” Dahlgren asked.

“There’s no reason that it should,” Pitt said, “though an old prospector told me a similar tale of lunacy that was blamed on ruthenium. The crew of the Erebus faced lead poisoning and botulism from their canned foods, on top of scurvy, frostbite, and the hardship of three winters bound on the ice. It might have just been an accumulation of factors.”

“He seems to have made an unfortunate choice to leave the ship,” Giordino noted.

“Yes,” Pitt agreed. “The Terror was crushed in the ice, and they probably figured the Erebus would be as well, so it is easy to see their rationale for going ashore. But the Erebus somehow remained locked in the ice and was apparently driven ashore sometime later.”

Pitt moved backward through the logbook, reading aloud the entries from the prior weeks and months. The journal told a disturbing tale that quickly silenced the anxious bridge crowd. In tragic detail, Fitzjames wrote of Franklin’s ill-fated attempt to dash down Victoria Strait in the waning summer days of 1846. The weather turned rapidly, and both ships became trapped in the unprotected sea ice far from land. Their second Arctic winter set in, during which Franklin became ill and died. It was during this time that signs of madness began to afflict some of the crew members. Curiously, it was recorded that such behavior was notably absent aboard the sister ship, Terror. The Erebus’s crew’s lunacy and violent behavior continued to proliferate until Fitzjames was forced to take his remaining men and withdraw to the Terror.

The earlier logbook entries turned routine, and Pitt began skipping pages until finding a lengthy entry that referenced the hard silver.

“I think this is it,” he said in a low tone, as every man on the bridge crowded in close and stared at him silently.

“ ‘August 27, 1845. Position 74.36.212 North, 92.17.432 West. Off Devon Island. Seas slight, some pancake ice, winds westerly at five knots. Crossing Lancaster Sound ahead of Terror when lookout spots sail at 0900. At 1100, approached by whaler Governess Sarah, Capetown, South Africa, Captain Emlyn Brown commanding. Brown reports vessel was damaged by ice and forced into Sound for several weeks, but is now repaired. Crew is very low on provisions. We provide them one barrel of flour, fifty pounds of salt pork, a small quantity of tinned meats, and ¼ cask rum. It is observed that many among G.S.’s crew exhibit odd behavior and uncouth mannerisms. In gratitude for provisions, Captain Brown provides ten bags of ‘hard silver.’ An unusual ore mined in South Africa, Brown claims it has excellent heat retention properties. Ship’s crew has started heating buckets of ore on galley stove and placing under bunks at night, with effective results.

“ ‘We make for Barrow Strait tomorrow.’ ”

Pitt let the words settle, then slowly raised his head. A look of disappointment hung on the faces of the men around him. Giordino was the first to speak.

“South Africa,” he repeated slowly. “The burlap bag we found in the hold. It was marked Bushveld, South Africa. Regrettably, it supports the account.”

“Maybe they’re still mining the stuff in Africa?” Dahlgren posed.

Pitt shook his head. “I should have remembered the name. That was one of the mines that Yaeger checked out. It essentially played out some forty years ago.”

“So there’s no ruthenium left in the Arctic,” Stenseth said soberly.

“Nope,” Pitt replied, closing the logbook with a look of defeat. “Like Franklin, we’ve pursued a cold and deadly passage to nowhere.”