Pinnacle Event

44

“We are essentially a light- to medium-sized ice breaker, research station, and heliport. Only one of two in the world that aren’t owned by a government,” Captain Andrey Sobko explained to his American guest. “And the other one is our sister ship, the Rothera.”

“Well. It’s great to see the work that the Purpose Fund is doing down here, tracking the glacial melt is extraordinarily important,” Glenn Rollins said. He was a geologist from the University of Colorado, working at McMurdo Station on a National Science Foundation grant. “And the work you are doing with the drilling stations, getting down to the bottom of the ice and seeing what the surface is like after five hundred centuries of being covered up.”

“Well, the European Union began the drilling work down here, but we have taken it much further with five drill sites now operating,” Sobko said in fluent English. “Now that spring has arrived and things are warming up down here, we are bringing in new equipment to each of the five sites. The helo you flew in on will be leaving shortly for the Wilkes Basin glacier.”

The American looked puzzled. “Really? But the Wilkes glacier is not deep. It doesn’t need deep drilling.”

“You are right. What we are doing there is examining the subglacial ponding effects. When the ice melts in the summer and runs down through the troughs, it creates ponds below the glacier. If they get big enough and touch, creating lakes, there is the possibility that the glacier will float off into the sea faster,” Sobko said.

“Don’t I know it. There’s only about eighty millimeters of ice creating a wall, a plug, holding back the Wilkes Basin glacier. If that were to melt, we think you’d get three to four meters of sea rise in a few years,” Rollins replied. “That’s why I’m here. I’m looking at the entire East Antarctica glacier. My calculation is that the East Antarctic glaciers alone hold enough water to create eighteen to twenty meters of sea rise. Thank god that could only happen over a couple of centuries, long after I’m gone. And my kids.”

“Yes, but we have to worry about what will happen after even our children. Imagine what a terrible place it will be for our grandchildren if we do not plan now for the world changing,” Captain Sobko replied. “I hope you enjoyed your day and your sleepover with us. Our scientists enjoyed having you visit, I know.”

“It was a great experience. I am so jealous of the equipment you have. How long will you be down here this time?”

“We leave today for New Zealand. Between us and the Rothera, we have flown in all the new equipments to the five Purpose Fund drill sites in East Antarctica. We will come back at the end of the summer to swap out crews and the like,” Sobko explained. “Now, I see your little helicopter coming for you. Let me go see that its landing is all set. Excuse me.”

The captain left the deck and went inside to the control room, leaving Glenn Rollins to wonder why these two great research ships would leave Antarctica just as the spring was here, just as researchers from all the other Antarctic countries were arriving. But then, he thought, there were so many strange things about MV Nunatak and indeed about the Purpose Fund’s polar and glacial research. The scientists he had spoken with over dinner on board last night said they weren’t even sure what was in the big equipment pods that were being flown out to the five Purpose Fund bases. One thing was sure, they were pretty heavy to need such a big Russian helicopter to haul them out there.

If only the National Science Foundation had the kind of money for glacier research that the Purpose Fund had. At least somebody understands how important the East Antarctic glaciers are for potential sea level rise, but try to tell that to the Congress, he thought, as he watched the little American helicopter, a Dauphin, circling the ship’s helipad.

Sergey Rogozin loved the tree-lined blocks of the Upper East Side. He had insisted that their New York offices be in twin town houses on a leafy street. Also, he did not trust high-rise buildings, too many other tenants, too much shared telecommunications equipment.

With his own building, he could install the satellite dish that would connect directly with the Express-AM7 satellite of the Russian Satellite Company. His encrypted link to that bird would be safe, as would the satellite itself. There was no other way he would connect, certainly not over the Internet. This gave him a dedicated link to his Moscow office and from there he had a virtual private network to Kuznetzov in Yakutsk.

The data rate was slow, but he could still do voice and exchange short documents. Today he began by downloading the daily briefing his team had been sending out to him and the board members throughout the operation, beginning in August. As it slowly opened on his laptop, he could see the map of Antarctica. Each of the five research stations was shown, along with the position of the two ships, Rothera and Nunatak. Four of the five sites indicated red, armed. The fifth, Wilkes Basin, would be armed today.

The ships’ captains were told to take up positions at a safe distance and monitor the explosions and the aftermath, to see how fast the ice melt happened, to measure the sea level rise. Only the captains and a handful of the Olympus men on each ship were read into the operation and knew what would happen. Or thought they did. What none of them knew was that the ships would explode at the same time that the bombs did, from hidden conventional explosives on board.

Sergey did not like loose ends. That’s why he had killed all the Trustees after they sold the bombs. Everyone, except Potgeiter, of course. He had been useful. It was he whom Rogozin had originally contacted with the proposal to buy the bombs, he who had persuaded the others that it was all right to sell them to Taiwan. Of course, Taiwan had been a false flag for the Trustees to see, just as al Qaeda and Hezbollah had been false flags raised once the Americans and Israelis learned about the bomb theft. Sergey liked false flags.

Ray Bowman was a loose end, Sergey thought, he and his South African friend. They had been getting too close. They had somehow managed to trace the bombs to Madagascar and then to Comoros. But they had been stopped there, he was sure. There was no way that they would figure out that the bombs were bought by the Purpose Fund, no way that they could learn that the Purpose Fund owned Polis Holdings and Olympus Security, no way that they would ever connect anything back to the Czar. In any event, Bowman would be eliminated, this time successfully, as would the South African woman.

When the detonations take place, Sergey knew, there would be a major investigation. Time for more false flags, but soon enough every nation would be diverted to dealing with the effects of the bombs. If not, if they did somehow find a trail, it would maybe mean that Kinder or Sir Clive were at risk. If that happened, they would disappear before the authorities could arrest them. No one would ever get near Kuznetzov and himself, not in the middle of Russia.

“You said you would be gone by now,” Professor McFarland said, as his normally pallid face turned red. “I am taking it back. The computer center is mine now. I have an important project for the President’s Science Advisor.”

“Yes, you do,” Dugout replied. “In fact, I have the Science Advisor waiting by the secure telephone to personally tell you all about it. Seems the National Security Advisor asked him to get you to run your model on a specific scenario, one in which there is rapid and significant sea level rise. We want to see what the climatic effects are.

“We also want to see how that theoretical possibility would effect certain real estate and other investments. It’s all set up on the network for you.”

McFarland looked confused, but then Dugout handed him the phone. “Yes, this is Professor McFarland,” the professor said into the phone. “Yes, sir, I can run that model right away. Oh, probably no more than a few hours now that I have the world’s fastest processor back under my control. No, sir, thank you.”

The professor was smiling as he handed the phone back to Dugout. He then wandered off to begin applying his model to the data set Dugout had set up for him.

Dugout reconnected the videoconference with USUN, where Ray and Mbali had been poring over the partial list of Purpose Fund holdings that Dugout had found.

“Between the Fund itself and the five board members, they have almost six hundred billion dollars in assets,” Mbali observed. “And these boys have been busy lately buying up land in strange places.”

“Well, I don’t need the professor’s model to tell me that when that much fresh water hits the ocean, the climate patterns will change. Dry places may become wet and vice versa. Frozen places may become warm. Certainly some inland places will become coastal. A lot of cities will be abandoned and inland cities or cities on higher elevations will grow,” Dugout said.

“So they used Victoria’s model to figure out all of that and buy up what will become important,” Ray Bowman added. “And now they are going to create the biggest flood since Noah, using nuclear bombs to melt the glaciers, playing God on a global scale.”

“And the bombs are already in place,” Dugout said.

“How do you know that?” Ray asked.

“I tracked down the two ships, Rothera and Nunatak. They both arrived in Port-aux-Français in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands a week ago. That would have been en route from Comoros to where they are now, off Ross Island in East Antarctica.”

“But how do you know they have put the bombs ashore?” Mbali asked.

“Because I just read Sergey Rogozin’s mail. I knew he had to connect to a real network at some point so I hacked into the satellite dish on the roof of his office in New York and then down the wire to his laptop, where the traffic is decrypted. I know where all five bombs are, all on glaciers.”

“Maybe sixty hours until they go off?” Bowman asked Dugout.

“If that timeline is right, yeah, but maybe less.”

On the small television screen on the side wall of the conference room, the news channel was showing the President-elect meeting with the President in the Oval Office before having a one-on-one lunch together in the Private Dining Room off the Oval.

“I think Winston Burrell has a lunch he has to crash,” Ray said as he picked up the secure phone.