Arctic Fire (20 page)

“Glad to have the help,” Pike said as he reached
out his hand.

“Thank you sir. When do you want to leave?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Yes sir. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll
get us a cart.” Centers turned and walked out the door.

“This is your baby.” Pike said. “How long do you
think it will take to check out all the service tunnels?”

Miles thought for a moment “Four, maybe five
long days if you really want to cover every inch of every tunnel,
though I don’t think that will really be necessary.”

“Why’s that?”

“Most of the tunnels are redundant in their
features, just servicing the cooling/heating piping and ducting. If
it’s structural integrity you’re worried about,” Miles took the pad
and pulled up and overall view of the barge, “as you can see, none
of the tunnels are closer than ten feet to the outside. Obviously
you can check anywhere you’d like but I might suggest that you
start with the four main coolant/heat exchangers above the ships.”
Miles brought up another screen showing where the four relay
stations were and the piping going out from them.

“Ready to go when you are sir.” Centers said as
he popped his head in the door. “Be right there.” Pike replied
looking at Centers then back to Miles. “Thanks Dean, I appreciate
your advice.” Pike shook his hand then left.

“Where to sir?” Centers asked as Pike climbed
into a modified golf cart.

“It’s Gabe or Gabriel, which ever you
prefer.

Centers relaxed a little. “Okay Gabe, where
would you like to go?”

“Let’s head in the general direction of the bow,
front or forward, whatever you call it on this thing.”

Centers nodded and with a small fishtail on the
ice, they entered the main tunnel.

“How long have you been on board?” Pike
asked.

“Almost since the beginning.”

“So you really do know your way around this tub
then?”

“Oh yes sir.” Centers replied, a prideful smile
on his face. “I helped lay nearly every foot of pipe on this
thing.”

Pike nodded his head. “Good. Then where would
you suggest I start?”

“Start? What are you looking for?”

“Mr. Cain has me doing the final safety
inspection for the Coast Guard so we can get approval to bring the
barge into New York harbor.”

“Where did Mr. Miles tell you to go?”

Pike smiled and shook his head. “I know where he
suggested. I want to know where would
you
suggest?”

Centers thought for a moment then stopped the
cart. “May I see the pad please?”

“Are you looking at the safety of the structural
integrity of the barge or the mechanical?”

“Both.”

“Okay. For the mechanical, I would start here.”
He brought up a screen showing the four-coolant/heat exchangers.
Pike was just about to say that that was where Miles suggested when
Centers took his finger and ran it across the screen, moving past
the exchangers to another set of relays.

“What are these?” Pike asked, staring at the
screen.

“These are the secondaries for the juice.”

“Juice?”

“Sorry, that’s what we call the mix we pump
through the piping. The juice flows up from the ships to these four
main exchanges. From here they are sent, under pressure, to the
next set of relays and so on. Each set of relays increases the
pressure so the juice can reach the outer pipes.” Centers flipped
through the screens showing the pipes branching out, going from the
primary to the secondary to the sub relays, giving Pike an overall
view of the piping network. Then he scrolled back to the secondary
relays.

“Like I said, I would start here because this is
where the most initial pressure will come from, shooting out the
juice to all the sub-relays.”

“What would happen if one or more of these
secondary relays failed?”

“It’s hard to say. In theory, nothing. There are
back up systems in place to take over in case of a failure. In
theory, the juice would stop flowing and eventually that section of
the barge would begin to melt. But that shouldn’t be a problem
because of the extremely slow rate of melting; a brand new pump
could be flown in and installed before any appreciable ice would be
lost. I suppose at the other end of the scale the worst case
scenario would be that one or more lines would rupture and they
couldn’t turn off the main pump for whatever reason, then the back
flow would flood the cavern.” The barge wouldn’t sink, but Mr. Cain
would be out a whole lot of money. This is new technology and such
a departure from established engineering, so who really knows?”

“Okay.” Pike said, thinking for a moment. “You
said you would start here at the secondary relays for any
mechanical safety issues. Where would you go then for any
structural concerns?”

“Here.” Centers said, bringing up another
screen. The screen came to life showing the front half of the
iceberg with two spots glowing red. He tapped again and the view
zoomed in and turned into a digital, 3-D animation. The view
pierced through the layers of ice and emerged in the cavern housing
the four ships. The animation circled around two large towers that
rose from the decks of the two lead ships then disappeared into the
ice.

“I saw these towers yesterday. What are they?”
Pike asked.

“Those are the towing bridal support towers.
They support the harness that’s used to hook up to the cable the
tug pulls the barge with.” Centers replied.

Pike nodded, “yeah, I can see where they’d be
subject to a lot of stress.” Pike thought for a moment then checked
the pad again. “Stress testing the load factors should be
relatively easy so we’ll come back to the towers. Let’s check out
the relays first.”

“You got it.” Centers said. “Right this
way.”

Chapter Twenty
Two

Pike fell on his bed exhausted, not even
bothering to take off his parka. He lay there not wanting to move
but as much as his muscles told him to relax, his stomach was
ordering him up. He decided to compromise, stay in and order room
service.

He had just mustered the energy to sit up and
was gathering more strength to actually get off the bed and take a
shower when the phone rang. He didn’t know why, but he half
expected, half hoped that it was KD.

“Hello?”

“Hi Gabe, it’s me, Tabatha.”

“Oh...hi.”

“It sounds like you’re disappointed. Were you
expecting someone else?”

“No, no, it’s not that, it’s just that I’m
really tired. I spent the whole day running all over this thing
doing my inspection.”

“Sounds interesting. Have you eaten yet? Nothing
like a good hot meal to bring you back to life. You can tell me all
about your adventure over dinner.”

“Well I was just going to get something from
room service.”

“You hero types do work fast don’t you? Inviting
me to your room for dinner after we only just met.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” Pike felt
himself getting flustered and embarrassed. “What I meant was…” Pike
stopped in mid-sentence when he heard laughter on the other
end.

“It’s okay Gabe, I was only teasing.”

“Whew, you had me going there for a minute.”

“Good; well, unless you throw me out, I’ll be
over in half an hour.”

“Why don’t you make it forty-five minutes; I
have to take a quick shower.”

“In that case, I’ll be over in ten.”

There was dead silence on the phone. Pike didn’t
know what to say. Finally after what seemed like an hour all he
could come up with was “Ahhh...”

Suddenly more laughter filled Pike’s earpiece.
“I’ll see you in forty-five minutes,” then she hung up.

He hung up the phone and suddenly felt like he
was in junior high again. Well, at least he wasn’t tired anymore
and actually looked forward to spending a little more time with the
lady reporter.

Thirty minutes later he heard a knock on the
door. “You’re early …” he started to say but stopped when he saw it
was two waiters with serving carts.

“Early sir?” One of the waiters asked.

“Never mind. There must be some mistake, I
haven’t ordered anything yet.”

“Yes sir.” He replied as he took out a folded
piece of paper and handed it to him. The note read;
Sorry, I
took the liberty of ordering, see you in a few minutes.
Tabatha.

“Sir?” The waiter asked, looking into the
room

“Yes, please come in.” The waiter nodded as they
rolled the two carts in. The first one was covered with silver
dome-topped food servers and the second had all their dishes and
silverware.

“Where would you like us to set up sir?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take it from here.”
He started to reach into his pocket for their tip. “It’s all taken
care of sir. Enjoy your meal.” With that, both waiters smiled and
left.

Pike noticed that there was a bottle of wine and
two glasses sitting on one of the carts. She must not be much of a
reporter, he thought, otherwise she would know that I don’t drink.
Pike’s stomach was shouting praises as heavenly aromas were
beginning to escape from their silver cages. Was it impolite to
peek and see what she had ordered? Should he wait for her? He
decided, or should he say his stomach decided that it would be okay
to take a peek since she was the one who ordered it. He lifted the
lid on the closest platter and saw a beautiful porterhouse steak,
still sizzling.

Suddenly he heard a knock on the door and
quickly put the lid back. A twinge of nervousness shot through his
body. What was he going to do if she was in a slinky black cocktail
dress with the top cut down to there and the hemline way up to
here? He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, blew it out
slowly, then opened the door.

“I’m sorry to disturb you sir, but this was left
off the cart.” The waiter said, holding a pitcher of iced tea.

“Please.” Pike motioned for him to come in. The
waiter quickly came in, set the pitcher down then left. You’re
losing it Gabriel, he said to himself. Just then there was another
knock on the door. He opened the door wondering what the waiter had
forgotten this time. Instead, he was standing face to face with
Tabatha Amies.

“Well there’s a look I don’t get every day.” She
said.

It took Pike a second to snap out of his
surprise. “Sorry. It’s just that…never mind, please come in.” There
was no slinky cocktail dress as she was wearing blue jeans, a white
button down blouse with a jean jacket over it. He wasn’t sure if he
was relived or disappointed.

“What’s for dinner? It sure smells good.” Pike
said.

“You didn’t look.”

“No, that would be rude, not waiting for my
guest.” He paused for a second, “Okay, yes I did, curiosity and the
aroma got the better of me.”

“It’s okay; I won’t report you to the manners
police.”

“Good, because I’m starved. Allow me to set the
table.” Yesterday’s newspaper was spread out over the small table
in the corner by the window. With a sweeping motion of his hand, he
sent all the papers flying into the corner onto the floor. Tabatha
did nothing to hide the curiosity that flooded her face as she
watched her host going about his business. Pike disappeared into
the bathroom and returned a moment later with two hand towels and
laid them on the table as place mats. “Don’t worry, they’re clean.”
He smiled, then walked over and took her by the hand, “If you
please Madame,” and seated her at the table.

He served the food, consisting of salad, dinner
rolls and a steak for each of them. When he was done, he stood back
for a moment, tapping his chin, thinking. “That’s it!” He said,
snapping his fingers. He walked over to the desk and entered a few
commands on to his laptop then grabbed it and brought it over to
the table. He set it down and opened it up to a scene of a
fireplace burning brightly.

“I thought this was appropriate, being as we’re
floating on a giant chunk of ice.” Pike smiled.

“You’re good.” She laughed. “Now all we need is
some good music.”

“I’d serenade you, but since you said
good
music….” He reached over and pushed another key. Violin
and cello chamber music began playing.

Tabatha sat up a little bit, tilting her head to
one side, listening intently. “I know that.” She said excitedly.
“That’s Haydn’s Opus 20, the “Sun” quartet. I played that when I
was in college. How did you know?”

Pike smiled, “I may not be a reporter, but I do
know how to use the internet. You’re a famous person so it was easy
to find information about you. By the way, I think you would have
won the talent contest you entered if you hadn’t had that wardrobe
malfunction.”

Suddenly her face was flush with embarrassment,
and then she reached over and hit him on the arm. “I was four years
old!”

“You know,” Pike said between a bite of salad,
quickly changing the subject, “Haydn is generally credited with
creating the modern form of chamber music as we know it.”

“My music instructor often told us that. He was
a great fan of Haydn.”

“Yes, but it was Beethoven who transformed
chamber music, raising it to a new plane don’t you think? Both in
terms of its content and in terms of the technical demands it made
on its performers and its audiences?”

“That’s true, although I prefer the depth and
variety that Mozart brought to his compositions. I liked the way he
brought an independent role for the string instruments to chamber
music, how he used them to counter the piano.”

Pike nodded his head in approval as he ate a
large piece of steak. Tabatha looked at him for a moment then a
suspicious smile began forming on her face. “You really don’t have
a clue about what I’m talking about do you?”

Pike stopped in mid-chew, looking like the cat
with the canary caught in his mouth. He grunted as he shrugged his
shoulders and shook his head. “I read it on the internet right
before you got here.” He replied sheepishly.