Beneath the Ice (11 page)

Kicking off her shoes beneath the desk, Bear turned towards the window. From the fifteenth floor of the office block she could see the twin towers of Notre Dame rising above the morning mist. For nine years she had led investigations that uncovered the truth behind mining incidents all over the world. If there was one thing she was good at, it was telling when someone was holding back.

She checked her watch. Another eight hours before the scheduled call time and a chance to speak to Luca directly. In the meantime, she wanted some more answers.

Opening the door, she called to her assistant.

‘Please ask Louis to come in. I’ve got some digging for him to do.’

KIERAN BATES LEANT
back in his chair and let his mind linger on an image of Bear. He had anticipated that she might call, and hoped that the affable, ‘English gent’ routine he had affected had been enough to assuage any doubts she might have had. The last thing they needed was a professional investigator getting curious.

His eyes then passed across the features of his Whitehall office. The décor was tired and monotone, in direct contrast to the elegantly dressed woman sitting opposite him. She had her head tilted down, reading an open file on her lap, causing long strands of silver hair to fall across her face. After a moment more, Eleanor Page looked up and let her quick green eyes settle on him.

At fifty-nine years old, Eleanor still retained something of the attractiveness of her youth, and what age had diminished she had mostly compensated for with classic styling and impeccable tailoring. Her hair, although no longer dark brown, was thick and luxuriant, while the lines on her face had been carefully softened by a plethora of expensive moisturisers and even a few laser treatments. Perched on top of her head like a tiara was a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses.

For the last sixteen years, Eleanor Page had been chief adviser to the Director General of the FBI. In all that time she had witnessed a succession of new administrations come and go, and with each, had viewed their passing with unshakeable equanimity. Long ago she had realised that such events were mere blips in the course of history and that, for as long as the underlying factors remained constant, life would continue largely as is. It was this perspective alone that had kept her diastolic 80 under 120.

But in the last six months all that had changed. There had been a fundamental shift that would affect all US interests, both foreign and domestic. So far only four people in the US administration had seen the same report, with the Director General specifically labelling it a ‘game changer’. The document had concluded with the warning that they would be able to keep the status quo for precisely eighteen months, after which time the full horror of their country’s predicament would be laid bare on the world stage.

Eleanor had been personally tasked with finding a solution, and after a chance report had hit the desk of one of her contacts at the FBI, she felt she had one. It was a complicated plan, involving a number of third parties and big geo-political plays – all of which made her feel very uncomfortable. She would have preferred to keep this firmly within her own sphere of influence, but unfortunately that just wasn’t an option. Instead she needed the British, and they in turn had assigned her Kieran Bates.

Staring across the desk at him, Eleanor brightened her expression into a smile, carefully masking the doubts she had about this man. Was Bates really up to the task? Then again, Parker himself had put him forward for the job.

When she had initially made contact with the head of MI6, Fabian Parker had told her that he had just the man for her. He had first pointed to Bates’ aptitude tests, before going through his list of previous assignments. They had been impressive, with only one notable exception in the Yemen where one of his field operatives had been killed. But no career was perfect. If one seemed to be, there was usually something missing from the file.

But more than Bates’ list of achievements was the fact that he had been physically absent from MI6 for the last three years. Continuous tours of Afghanistan and, prior to that, the Yemen had made him all but a stranger to his own department. It was exactly what Eleanor Page was looking for. She needed someone detached from the normal remit of MI6, but who could ensure that the British kept their end of the bargain.

With so much at stake, it was vital that as few people as possible knew of the plan’s existence. Parker had even decided that the British Prime Minster need not be fully informed. Instead, a desultory report had been sent upriver that was as vague as he could make it without piquing the interest of the oversight committee.

Adjusting the glasses on top of her head, Eleanor’s smile widened a fraction. It was a knowing look, as though she and Bates had been friends for years.

‘So, who exactly is this Beatrice Makuru?’ she asked, her voice tinged with the slightest trace of a New York accent.

‘My man’s ex-girlfriend. She’s a mining investigator for Anglo-Africa, so I thought a little reassurance wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘Well, I’m sure a man like you can handle her easily enough. No doubt you’ll do whatever it takes to keep her from asking any more questions.’

Bates nodded, trying to ignore the flattery.

‘And this contact of yours, Luca Matthews. You seem confident he’ll get the job done.’

‘He’ll be fine,’ Bates replied, nodding again, but almost as soon as he said the words, an image came to him of Luca crumpled into that decrepit armchair on the oil rig. Only now that everything had been set in motion did it really sink in that Bates was entrusting everything to a man who was all but broken. Was Luca really up to the challenge? Bates’ single consolation was that the task itself was incredibly simple: insert the memory stick into GARI’s satellite terminal. That was all Luca had to do. Whether the British scientists made it to the drill site or not was an irrelevance.

‘An ideal opportunity presented itself, and it seemed a great deal neater than trying to hack in remotely to the Antarctic station as originally planned. We couldn’t have sent in one of our own chaps. The Russians would never have bought it. Had to be a real climber, you see.’

Eleanor seemed to accept Bates’ appraisal of the situation. She then shifted in her seat, her mind switching to the next item in a long list.

‘We got word yesterday from the Chileans. They will follow the initial land claim of the British and ratify it. The only caveat is that they want the Argentinian claim rejected out of hand.’

Bates smiled knowingly. ‘Nothing like hatred of one’s neighbour, eh?’

Ignoring the quip, Eleanor widened her eyes slightly to ensure that she had his full attention.

‘Everything has to follow one after the other, in the right order. Each land claim must fall in succession, like dominoes. The Russians will be too busy defending themselves to realise what’s really at stake.’

‘And the others?’

Eleanor shrugged. ‘The only other major contenders are the Chinese and Indians, but relatively speaking they’re still bit players in Antarctica. They are building a lot of new bases at the moment, with the Indians just having completed Larsemann Hills, but we’re still ahead of the curve. My analysts suggest there shouldn’t be too much fallout from them.’

Closing the folder that had been resting on her lap, Eleanor placed it on the desk in front of her.

‘It’s all in here. The Antarctic Treaty will be dismantled under Part Twelve, Protocol Seven.’ She said the last words slowly, keeping her eyes locked on his. ‘The Americans will be granted an official mandate to go in and clean up the mess. And that’s when we will stake our claim.’

‘So everything is set?’

‘Not quite. There’s still one piece left.’

Bates waited for her to elaborate, but her expression remained fixed. Eleanor had previously decided she would disclose this part of the operation, but now old doubts resurfaced and she found herself instinctively holding back.

‘The other piece?’ he prompted.

Eleanor’s lips pursed while she deliberated. Eventually she decided to stay on track. ‘The final piece in all of this is to trigger the event itself. And that’s all in the hands of a man named Richard Pearl.’

Bates’ forehead creased as he tried to place the name.

‘You mean, the US senator?’

Eleanor nodded.

‘Isn’t he the one who survived the submarine incident all those years back?’ Bates added, trying to recall the details of an event that had been global news nearly a decade ago. ‘He made it out with that other guy . . .’

‘Fedor Stang,’ Eleanor interjected.

‘That’s right,’ Bates replied. ‘I read Stang’s obituary in
The Times
a while back. The submarine was a new class they were testing when its reactor failed. They were trapped down there for nearly two weeks or so.’

‘Sixteen days. And it was the prototype of the new Virginia Class submarine currently in production,’ Eleanor corrected. ‘There was a skeleton crew of twenty-seven men on board, but in the end only Pearl and Stang made it out alive.’

There was silence as Bates imagined being trapped a mile under the ocean with a dwindling supply of oxygen. The waiting, the desperation, then the horror of watching the entire crew slowly suffocate. Stang and Pearl would have had to witness each man’s death, never knowing that their own rescue was just at hand.

Bates could remember the disbelief among the world’s media when one of the submersibles had finally reached the stricken vessel. No one had expected there to be anything on board but corpses as the scientists on the surface had done their calculations and there just wasn’t enough air to sustain the crew. But somehow two men had survived.

Now that Bates thought back to it, he could remember an image of Fedor Stang from his obituary. The picture was of him being helped off the rescue boat by two young marines. Fedor had broken both legs when the submarine had first become stricken and was being carted off to hospital in a wheelchair. But even sitting, it was clear that he was a giant of a man. He also looked far from American with his white-blond hair and classic Scandinavian looks, but reading further down the page Bates had discovered that, although born in Norway, Fedor had been raised in America from an early age.

He had been the ranking officer on board the submarine and, after surviving such an ordeal, had become something of a legend in the US navy. His celebrity status helped to secure his next promotion, and from then on he had achieved a meteoric ascent through the ranks. Two years ago he had become a full Vice Admiral before suddenly falling prey to a particularly virulent form of stomach cancer. He had died only two months after his discharge.

Eleanor retrieved the glasses from her forehead and carefully studied them.

‘Richard Pearl was only a petty officer during the submarine incident,’ she said. ‘According to our reports, he dropped out soon afterwards and suffered nearly three years of depression. Somehow he managed to pull himself out of it and successfully reinvent himself. He went on to found a voice-recognition tech company back in 2006, which made him very wealthy, very quickly. Then he founded a few other companies before running for Senate last year in what was a very slick campaign.’

‘Isn’t he the senator who won’t travel to any city with certain levels of air pollution?’ Bates added, an incredulous smile appearing on his lips. ‘Didn’t he turn down the chance to go on a trade mission to Shanghai recently because of the smog there?’

Eleanor nodded. ‘Pearl believes he has chronic asthma as a direct result of oxygen depletion suffered during the submarine incident. He uses an inhaler almost constantly, and even has oxygen pumped into his residence in San Diego. But according to our sources there is no physical basis for this. His condition is purely psychosomatic.’

Bates shook his head, then grunted. ‘Guess I’d have a few foibles if I had seen my entire crew suffocate in front of me. But what is his connection to this project exactly?’

‘Pearl is the one who’s going to start the ball rolling. It’s all in the file. I just wanted to give you some background on the man, as . . . well, let’s just say, he is complicated.’

Pushing the inch-thick file across the desk, Eleanor raised herself to her feet, slipping her cashmere overcoat across her shoulders.

Bates looked up at her. ‘Before you go, I wanted to clarify something. Parker has gone a long way down the line on this and for obvious reasons. The British will get a slice of Antarctica and that’s something we have been after for a long time. But we’re essentially working blind here and, I think you’ll agree, the risk is significant.’

Eleanor remained silent, to all intents and purposes waiting for him to continue while inwardly her mind had suddenly filled with unspeakable doubts. ‘Significant’ didn’t even come close. If word of this got out it would tear apart US foreign policy for the next decade.

‘Why is all this happening now?’ Bates continued. ‘The Antarctic Treaty has been in effect since the sixties, with the US never recognising a single land claim. No one owns the land down there and you’ve been happy in that knowledge for nearly fifty years. What’s suddenly changed? I’m only asking because what we are planning is seriously going to upset the apple cart.’

A brief smile passed across Eleanor’s lips at the Englishman’s turn of phrase, then it faded and she suddenly looked very tired. What they were attempting was the greatest land grab of the last two centuries, which if successful would ensure the continuation of the US as the world’s leading superpower. If not, it would undoubtedly start them on a downward trajectory from which they would probably never recover. It took several seconds for her to regain her composure. Then, tilting her head to one side, she fixed Bates with a coy smile. ‘All in good time,’ she purred. ‘Now, why don’t you order me a car?’

THE CONVOY OF
tractors ground on.

Luca sat in the back seat of one, trying to ignore the stench of diesel fumes and clouds of cigarette smoke wafting back from the driver. The lingering taste of vodka had finally gone; but with it went the heady self-confidence he had felt on first leaving GARI. As the hours had passed, new doubts had risen like bile in his throat, while his mouth had gone so dry that he was finding it hard to swallow.