Arctic Gold (43 page)

Playing dolphin to his shark, Admiral.

You’ll kill us!

Where your faith in good old, solid Russian engineering, Admiral?

At twelve knots, the Mir slammed into the construction sub, bow to bow. There was a savage bang

that rang through the hull, followed by the scrape and tear of metal.

And all of the lights went out.

Nomer Chiteereh

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 34’ N, 177a! 26’ E

1218 hours, GMT12

Braslov had been puzzled when the Mir work lights winked off, then decided the American was hoping to lose his dogged pursuer. Idiot! Nomer Chiteereh

had sonar and would be able to hunt him down easily even in the pitch blackness of the depths.

Braslov was reaching for the sonar switch when he caught a shiver of movement in his forward view port. The Mir was just ahead, coming into the illumination cone of his own work lights.

His full attention was yanked back onto the other craft. It was close impossibly close, and swelling to fill the forward port as though racing down to meet him.

The shock threw Braslov out of his seat, slamming him to the deck as the construction submarine heeled far over to port. The sound was an explosion of raw noise, the shock indescribable. Several internal pipes gave way, and streams of ice- cold water blasted into the construction ship compartment.

Braslov struggled to get up, to get back to the control panel, but the deck was now a bulkhead and threatening to become a ceiling, and it was all he could do to cling to the deck grating as the submarine heeled over.

Then salt water hit wiring, and the interior lights flicked off, came on, then flickered off once more, leaving Braslov in the deepest, most profound darkness he had ever known.

Mir

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 34’ N, 177a! 26’ E

1219 hours, GMT12

Golytsin! Dean shouted. Blow all ballast!

Give me a moment! I can’t see!

We don’t have

a moment!

An alarm was shrilling, and a recorded voice was saying something in Russian. The outside lights were off, but he could still hear the whine of the motors, and the instrument lights and LED readouts were still on.

A moment later, the Mir emergency lights switched themselves on. You see, Admiral? Dean said brightly. He reached out and thumped the console with his fist. You Russians know how to build these things solid!

Don’t hit that too hard, Golytsin warned. Not until we know the full extent of the damage!

Dean was pretty sure the man was cracking a joke.

Golytsin hauled down on a large handle, and there was a sudden jar as several hundred kilograms of iron suddenly dropped clear of the Mir keel. He pulled another handle, and they heard the shrill hiss of pressurized air forcing its way into the ballast and trim tanks. As the water was forced out, the Mir rose faster.

Emergency surface, Golytsin explained.

Yeah, but there ice up there, Dean said. What happens when we hit it?

Golytsin smiled. Where is your faith in good, solid Russian engineering, my friend?

The Mir rose rapidly up from the abyss.

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 44’ N, 176a! 50’ E

1219 hours, GMT12

Some five miles away now, the first of the Russian 650mm torpedoes slammed into the seabed. Had the ocean floor consisted of soft mud and sediment, like so much of the abyssal plain elsewhere, the contact detonator likely would have failed to go off and the weapon would have buried itself harmlessly in the ooze.

Unfortunately, large stretches of the seabed in this region were covered by and penetrated by immense shelves of ice, methane ice clinging to the ocean floor like permafrost.

The detonator triggered and nearly one ton of high explosives went off.

With no oxygen to support combustion, the methane clathrates on the floor couldn’t ignite, but the blast did break a very great deal of ice loose and send it rocketing toward the surface.

It also liberated a large amount of methane gasseveral

hundred million tons of itfrom the sea floor, the bubbles rising in massive clouds out of the deep.

Mir

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 33’ N, 177a! 45’ E

1225 hours, GMT12

How long before we reach the surface? Kathy asked.

We’re passing two hundred meters now, Dean told her, glancing at the instrument readout screen. Maybe another minute? He looked to Golytsin for confirmation.

Something like that, the Russian replied. His hand was on the ballast control. But I’m going to begin slowing the ascent now. You’re right, of course. We don’t want to hit the ice ceiling too hard.

It would be nice to be able to break through, Dean said. But if we happen to hit a thick patch

Exactly. Even with recent climatic warming, the ice is as much as a meter thick in places, and the Mir might not be able to break through. There is also the chance, a small one, that we could come up beneath the keel of the Lebedev or one of the other ships up there. So we will come up close to the surface, and attempt to find a polynya.

Do you think Braslov will be able to come after us? Kathy asked.

I don’t know, Dean said. We hit him damned hard. If we’re lucky, he on his way down, now, while we’re going up. He sighed. Just one problem.

What that?

My boss is going to kill me. I was supposed to bring Braslov back alive

.

Nomer Chiteereh

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 34’ N, 177a! 26’ E

1225 hours, GMT12

The construction submarine was

sinking, as water continued to leak in from a ruptured seal, dragging the craft down tail first. In total darkness, drenched in icy water, Braslov struggled upward toward the forward part of the compartment. If he could just reach the controls and trip the main circuit breakers, perhaps the emergency power circuits were still good. He needed to blow ballast and surface or at least try to regain neutral buoyancy long enough for them to come out and rescue him from GK-1.

His arm felt like it was broken. The cold was a living thing, leeching the heat from his body, leaving him trembling and exhausted.

Almost there

The methane cloud struck from beneath, totally unexpected, a sudden shock slamming into the construction submarine belly and stern. Braslov had the sudden sensation that he was rising, and then the submarine flipped end for end and he hurtled into the forward end of the compartment, screaming as he slammed into the control panel. Water cascaded over and around him, stunning him, immobilizing him.

And above the roar, he could plainly hear the shriek of metal as the tortured vessel began to tear open amidships.

Mir

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 33’ N, 177a! 45’ E

1231 hours, GMT12

I can see light! Dean said, peering up through the view port. I can see the surface!

Let me have the controls, Golytsin said. I’ll see if I can find open water.

The Mir was drifting toward the surface slowly now, the weight of the water in its ballast tanks counteracting the lift induced by the release of the heavy keel plates. Under his guidance, one of the electric motors was coaxed to life, and the Mir began to respond.

The cloud of methane, expanding enormously as it rose out of the constricting pressure of the depths, caught the Mir, sending it rocketing upward as the vessel rode the shock wave for a moment. Then, with a savage jolt, the Mir dropped through a methane bubble, hit water beneath, then hit another bubble. For several interminable seconds, the Mir tumbled in the frothing sea, its occupants slammed from deck to overhead and bulkhead to bulkhead like rag dolls.

Water came thundering in.

Nearby, the bubble mass struck GK-1, ripping the anchoring cables free. The drill train, extending into the depths, snapped, then snapped again, again, and yet again as the shock wave worked its way up out of the abyss.

The shock wave ruptured ballast and trim tanks, flooding the forward section first. Unimaginable stresses clawed at the ship, and the relatively slender and unarmored midships section ripped apart as conflicting forces tried to draw the stern higher while dragging the bow down.

Then watertight seals ripped open and the ocean came pouring in.

The Art Room

NSA Headquarters

Fort Meade, Maryland

2032 hours EDT

My God! Jeff Rockman said, staring at the big screen on the wall. What in hell is that

?

The view, a real- time image of the Arctic ice around the Russian base, showed an awesome transformation, worked in an instant. The ice crazed like shattered glass, then appeared to blur. At the same moment, geysers erupted around all three of the Russian ships, still holding position in the ice, and from the open- water footprint left behind by the Ohio as well.

What is it? Rubens asked, leaning forward. A volcanic eruption?

The geysers were growing in size. The Lebedev

was swallowed whole. The cargo ship was ponderously rolling over onto her port side. In places, solid ice was breaking open now as enormous blocks of ice shattered and broke free.

I don’t know, Marie Telach said. But it big. The view receded several clicks as the magnification on the spysat optics was cut back. The polar ice cap seemed to recede suddenly as the curve of the Earth itself was revealed. Below, a vast stretch of the ice cap was smoking.

Whatever it is, it affecting an area of over three hundred square miles, Rockman said, his voice awed. Too big to be a nuke

Rubens nodded his understanding and sighed. I’m guessing it Dean.

Mir

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 33’ N, 177a! 45’ E

1235 hours, GMT12

Dean recovered consciousness first. The Mir was riding on the surface; he could tell by the way the deck swayed and rocked as the stubborn little craft bobbed with the surface chop.

Come on! he shouted. He pulled Kathy head out of the water, slapped her face until her eyes fluttered open. Get up! Get up!

Nearby, Golytsin struggled to his feet. Benford, still bound hand and foot, struggled in the aft part of the compartment, panicking as water rose steadily around him. Help me! Help me! Don’t let me drown!

Golytsin! Dean yelled. Get Benford. Cut those ropes! We’ve got to get out of here!

Dean cracked the dorsal hatch, blinking as sunlight streamed into his face. He looked around, feeling curiously out of place. There was no ice visible at all only mile upon mile of intensely blue and open ocean.

Let me, Golytsin said. There is an emergency raft.

Dean stepped back out of the way as Golytsin climbed the ladder, leaning out of the hatch to free the raft. The Mir was flooding slowly, settling gently by the bow as water continued to pour into ruptured flotation tanks.

Quickly! Golytsin called from outside. Into the raft!

Dean helped Kathy climb the ladder, then Benford, his hands and feet free now. Dean took a last look around, then climbed the ladder after them. Golytsin and Kathy helped him slide off the back of the Mir and into the raft.

What happened to the ice? Kathy asked, looking around. My God

! What happened to the ice?

The ice wasn’t completely gone; there were still numerous floes. But where before there’d been an uninterrupted plain of solid, windswept ice and blowing snow, now there was a horizon- to- horizon expanse of open water littered by blocks of ice.

I don’t know, Dean replied. Admiral? You guys didn’t have a nuke or two on board that underwater base, did you?

No. No nukes. I think

What?

I don’t know how it happened, but I think there must have been a release of gas from the bottom. A very large

release.

Methane?

Golytsin nodded. We know the sea floor here was covered in methane clathrates. That was why we were forced to stop drilling, while Gazprom decided what to do. He shivered. Something must have triggered an enormous explosion.

Nearby, with a loud gurgle, the Mir was slipping at last beneath the surface of the water.

It would have a long fall to the bottom.