Arctic Fire (7 page)

The top of the iceberg was crowded with building
of various sizes and shapes, all adorned with flashing neon lights.
It looked like Cain had scooped up a city block from downtown Las
Vegas and put it on top of the iceberg. One large ocean going tug
was in the front towing it, with two more in the stern pushing.

When the initial buzz of excitement and
conversation died down, Cain continued.

“I’ll not bore you by throwing more facts and
figures at you but I do need to touch on just a few of the
highlights here. You’ll find all the complete details and specific
information inside your press binders.” Cain walked around the
display, gesturing passionately as he spoke. He wasn’t just
reciting facts, he was introducing his “baby” to the world, and
spoke with almost the same fervor as a new father does while
passing out cigars in the waiting room.

“The ice block is a thousand feet long, one
hundred feet high, and one hundred feet deep. As you can see,
buried within the ice are four support vessels. Each ship is four
hundred and forty feet long, and in this day of reduce, reuse,
recycle, all four ship are recycled WWII mothballed merchant ships,
cleaned up and brought back to service.

“The elaborate piping system throughout the
block has a two-fold purpose; one, during transport the pipes will
circulate coolant to keep the block intact. And two, once it
arrives at its destination, they will be used to help melt the ice.
The entire system is self-contained. Once the ice starts to melt,
it will be gathered and filtered in one of the ships which has a
built-in processing station, making it safe to drink, then pumping
it to shore. As the ice melts and the pipes become exposed, they
will be dismantled and loaded back into another of the ships to be
reused again and again.

“Once the tops of the ships are exposed,
remaining chucks of ice will be loaded directly into the ship’s
melters and processed, giving us a 60-70% usage rate. And what does
that 60-70% get you…? About 42 million gallons of water. To break
that down into more practical terms, at least for now and for our
thirsty friend in the back there, that’s enough to make 28,000
barrels of beer, and that’s the whole plan in a nutshell.”

Chapter
Seven

…and here are several more reasons the Apollo
moon landings in the 60’s and 70’s were a hoax. If debris from the
Apollo missions was left on the Moon, then it would be visible
today through powerful telescopes. However, no such debris can be
seen. The Clementine probe that recently mapped the Moon’s surface
failed to show any Apollo artifacts left by Man during the
missions. Where did the Moon Buggy and base of the LM go? And for
that matter, why were blueprints and plans for the Lunar Module and
Moon Buggy destroyed if this was one of history's greatest
accomplishments?

Gabriel Pike pushed himself back from the small
desk that was situated in the corner of his hotel room. He’d been
reading for the past hour on his computer and he needed a break. He
stood and stretched his muscles, which he could feel starting to
tighten up, protesting his aerobatics earlier in the day. He wasn’t
looking forward to feeling their full wrath in the morning. As he
stretched, he took a moment to look out at the view.

He was on the 28
^th
floor of the
Treasure Island. The night was clear and the dazzling lights of the
casinos along the strip blazed brightly, beckoning all to come
visit Lady Luck and win their fortune. What most tourists didn’t
know was that Lady Luck had had already left town last night on the
red-eye back to Pomona.

It was a warm night and the strip was crowed as
usual. He watched as the crowds moved in packs between the blocks,
governed by the traffic signals, followed by the inevitable
stragglers who were heeding the Siren’s call and were in too much
of a hurry to lose their money to wait for the next light.

It was a nice view, certainly better than a jail
cell, which was what he half expected after his little super-sonic
stunt in the desert earlier that day. He sighed as he watched the
lights of a Boeing 767 making its approach into McCarren and
wondered if he would ever fly again. Thankfully his brush with the
blues was cut short by a knock on the door.

Pike opened the door to see the smiling face of
Tony Roberts. Tony was one of the interns who had been with Pike’s
engineering firm for about three months with one more year to go
before he graduated from the University of Washington. He was a
bright kid, tall with sandy blond hair and dimples that attracted
girls like bees to honey when he smiled, which was most of the
time. At 25, he was living the dream; he was single, in Las Vegas,
and
on a company expense account, a kid in a candy store
with a pocket full of quarters.

“Howdy boss.” Tony beamed.

“Hey Tony, come on in.” Tony walked in and saw
the laptop on the table. “What ya looking at there boss? Please
don’t tell me its porn, my whole image of you would be so
shattered. I’d be scarred for life,” he said with a mischievous
grin.

“Very funny. I was just relaxing a little.”

Tony walked over and started reading. “More
conspiracy stuff huh? Let me guess: it was Dr. Pepper on the grassy
knoll with a loaded widget, ...and he wasn’t working alone because
he was sponsored by a covert, black ops government agency, secretly
working out of area 51 using alien technology, right?”

“Oh, you read the post too huh?” They both
laughed.

“Come on boss, everyone is waiting downstairs
for you.”

“Why? Are they giving me a going away wake
before they ship me out to the big house?”

“You mean haven’t seen the news?”

“No, I’ve been reading for the past couple of
hours; why?

Tony shook his head and smiled as he led Pike
out of his hotel room. “You really are more cleaver or lucky than
you think you are.”

As the elevator doors opened, Pike was
immediately assaulted by a shock wave of sight and sound. Bleeps,
chirps, buzzers and bells filled the cavernous main casino floor.
Slot machines lined the floor like soldiers awaiting orders. The
flashing lights and cheery sounds all helped to deaden the pain for
the gamblers as the money went in but very little came out.

Though he wasn’t much of a gambler, there was
one thing he did miss. In the old days when the quarter was king,
when you hit the jackpot, you heard the joyous sound of the
quarters spewing out and clunking into the metal tray. With each
clunk, you could hear and feel yourself getting richer and richer.
The efficiency of modern business had taken over and now the
machines spit out a little pieces of paper stating your winnings.
No cascade of quarters to run your fingers through; just a slip of
paper shot out, like the machine was sticking its tongue at you,
being a sore loser.

Tony was in the lead as they pushed through the
throngs of people toward the bar. Having lived in Las Vegas for a
few years, Pike always enjoyed watching the people in the casinos,
picking out the tourists from the locals. The tourists were usually
overdressed, thinking they were high rollers, or they had the
ever-present fanny pack and camera hanging around their neck.

Parting through the last wall of people, they
entered the Mist Bar. Pike said a silent prayer of relief as they
walked in and looked around. He was thankful that George hadn’t
picked a noisy sports bar with a bunch of beer chugging guys
cheering at every point scored or arguing over who was the greatest
player to ever play, whichever game was on the television at the
moment. He was also grateful that it wasn’t a fern bar, where
everyone was afraid to join in a conversation, usually dominated by
one person— afraid to reveal to the rest of the world that they
really didn’t have a clue about the economy, global warming or what
the latest Hollywood starlet was thinking when she wore that
dress.

Instead, the Mist had a casual atmosphere, but
like everything else in Vegas, it had a little glitz and glamour
thrown in. Clustered around a group of overstuffed chairs at the
side, Pike saw all the members of the firm. The owner, George
Talbot, and his wife Marilyn were there, along with Nathaniel
Grant, Arthur Dunmeyer, and K.D. Crooks, all partners like him.
Halfway through the bar, Talbot spotted the pair and stood up and
waved them over.

“You two are just in time,” Talbot said as he
grabbed and shook Pike’s hand.

“In time for what?” Pike shouted over the noise
in the bar.

“For the news of course. Are you kidding?”

“He hasn’t seen the news yet, Mr. Talbot.” Tony
said. “He was upstairs reading his conspiracy theory stuff, wearing
a little hat made out of aluminum foil.”

Talbot grinned from ear to ear. “Sit back and
watch Gabriel. You’re a star.”

The news came on the television and Talbot
hollered at the bartender to turn it up.

“And our top story today, in what they are
calling the ‘Blast from the Past,’ a vintage jet fighter flown by
this man….” The screen switched from the news anchor to a picture
of Pike, one that he thought looked worse than his driver’s license
picture. As soon as Pike’s face flashed across the screen, everyone
at the table whooped and hollered and cheered. Pike instantly felt
his face turn red. “…Gabriel Pike, in a bit of quick thinking,
averted certain disaster by derailing a car full of deadly bank
robbers from two busloads of high school kids, by flying his Korean
War era F-86 Sabre jet at supersonic speed and forcing the alleged
bank robber’s car off the road, where police captured them moments
later.”

While the newscaster was speaking, the film
showed the
Yankee Clipper
circling over the disabled
bandit’s car. In either in a bit of good film editing or sheer
luck, the
Clipper
circled and then flew off into the sunset
toward Las Vegas.

“Did you see that?” Dunmeyer shouted, “You’re a
hero Gabe, a real life hero, man.” Pike knew Arthur’s enthusiasm
was genuine but he also knew it was bolstered by the four beers he
had already downed; still he felt himself blushing again. For the
next few minutes Talbot kept ordering more drinks and Pike was
beginning to feel like a piñata from all the pats on the back he
was receiving.

Pike looked at Grant and just rolled his eyes.
Grant just smiled and tipped his glass, clearly enjoying his
friend’s predicament. Pike mouthed the words “I hate you,” then got
up and excused himself. He walked up to the bar and sat down.

“What’ll you have?” The bartender asked as he
walked up polishing a glass, but before Pike could answer, two
girls came up behind him. They were about 25 years old and looked
like they belonged to the local clubbing scene. One was wearing a
black, low-cut cocktail dress and the other had on a white tank top
and a mini-skirt with knee-high black leather boots.

“Hey,” the girl in the cocktail dress said,
“aren’t you that hero pilot guy on the TV?”

Pike didn’t think it was possible but he felt
himself turning red once again.

“Yes.”

“Cool.” She opened her purse, took out a piece
of paper, wrote something on it, then took Pike’s hand and placed
it inside, then the two girls walked away. As she walked away, she
turned around and smiled seductively at him and whispered, “call
me,” winked and disappeared into the crowd.

Pike was a little stunned as he looked at the
piece of paper in his hand then to the bartender who was smiling.
“This is Vegas. Enjoy your fifteen-minutes of fame. What’ll you
have?”

“Ahhh, ah…diet coke please.” Pike stammered out.
He half expected someone to jump out and say he was on some kind of
reality show, but thankfully no one did. The bartender returned
with his drink and Pike started reaching for his wallet.

“Put your money away,” the bartender said as he
set down the drink down. “My neighbor’s kid was on one of those
buses you help save today. That was quick thinking on your part,
and gutsy too. It’s on the house; it ain’t much, but it’s my way of
saying thank you.”

“Well, thank you.”

The bartender just nodded, then left to fill an
order brought by one of the waitresses. Pike took a sip of his
drink, trying to wrap his head around all the attention he was
getting. He wasn’t particularly shy, but having a complete
stranger, and a beautiful one at that, just walk up to him and give
him her phone number was not something he was used too.

“Hail to the King.” Grant said as he placed his
hand on Pike’s shoulder and sat down on the barstool beside
him.

“Not you too, Nate.” Pike groaned.

“It’s not every day I get to sit down next to—
he paused a moment in mock thought. “— how did Art put it, oh yeah,
‘a real hero.’”

“Keep it up and guess who’ll be getting all the
bridge retrofit inspections for the next six months?”

“Okay, okay, but seriously man, that was some
piece of flying you did.”

“I got lucky, that’s all. I just hope the FAA
doesn’t pull my license.”

Grant took a sip of his beer and set it down. “I
don’t think so. You’ve seen all the press; the media loves you. The
FAA might slap your hands in private and tell you never to do that
again, but publicly there would be such an outcry if they took your
license and I don’t think that’s something they want to deal
with.”

“Maybe. I sure hope you’re right.” Pike took a
sip of his coke and swished the ice around in this glass, it made a
clinking sound, almost like ones of the old poker machines paying
out a jackpot, but the ice also reminded him of something else.

“Have we heard anything from the Cain
Corporation and the final inspection of his iceberg? Since I missed
the press conference I wonder if we still have the contract?”