Beneath the Ice (44 page)

Behind him, Stang heaved his body up. He managed to get his barrel chest over the edge of the crane arm, then jerking his legs back and forth, wormed the rest of his body on top. Now astride the metal beam, he steadied his aim with the rifle. This time, he would not miss.

‘Hold on!’

The shout came from somewhere directly beneath Luca and he saw a figure standing on the main deck. The captain was there, holding a fire axe above his head. In a single movement he severed one of the rubber pipes feeding into the crane’s main controls. There was a loud hiss of escaping air as the hydraulic pressure suddenly drained from the system, sending a jolt through the entire crane and spoiling Stang’s aim. Then the massive crane arm came pitching down, accelerating under its own weight. It smashed into the side of the ship, crumpling the side rail like a twig and sending a huge reverberation across the ship’s metal hull.

Luca slipped, but managed to grab on to one of the running cables to break his fall. He tumbled down on the deck and lay in a heap until a second later he felt a pair of hands grab his shoulders as Nicolai wrenched him clear of the destruction.

On the opposite end of the crane, Stang was ripped from his perch and sent spinning off into the void. He fell nearly sixty feet down the side of the ship, with his body striking the surface of the water at an angle and immediately snapping his right knee joint. On he went, tunnelling deeper and deeper into the icy depths, as clouds of bubbles blinded him.

Finally resurfacing, Stang gasped for air. The force of the fall had winded him and he bobbed up and down in the swirling current, using his one good leg to try to keep afloat. All the while, he stared up at the towering expanse of the ship’s hull just in front. The helmsman had killed the engines and now the ship lay stationary in the water only a few feet away. He wondered if he could climb on board somehow, but the hull’s sheer sides looked utterly unassailable.

Swivelling round in the water, he stared across at the ice cliff directly behind, hoping it would offer a better chance of escape. But he couldn’t see a single handhold in the glistening wall of ice, let alone a route up to the top. As he turned slowly in the current, he could feel water lap over his cheeks and mouth, while the cold seemed to wrap around his body, robbing him of every last ounce of his heat. Turning full circle once more, he frantically searched for some means of escape, but there was nowhere left to go.

Seawater washed over his head and Stang gulped as he sank beneath the surface. By the time he came up for air once again, he was shivering uncontrollably. His teeth were chattering and his back muscles were rigid from hypothermia. Already the cold was starting to confuse his mind, while the constant ebb and flow of the water was making him feel sick and disorientated.

Staring up towards the ship’s rail, Stang suddenly spotted a figure gazing down at him. Its face was blurred by distance and he squinted harder, trying to make out the features. The figure on the boat moved a little to one side, causing him to cry out in recognition. He was convinced that the rough features of the Russian captain were, in fact, Richard Pearl’s.

‘Richard!’ Stang cried, raising his hand. But there was no reply. The figure only stared down at him impassively. ‘Please,’ Stang begged, spluttering mouthfuls of icy water. ‘Richard!’

He dipped below the surface and this time stayed under, sinking lower and lower into the depths. As his vision blurred, he held the image of Pearl in his mind, bewildered as to why he hadn’t done anything to help, or even uttered a single word. Sinking further now, Stang could feel the weight of the water pressing on his skull. The pressure grew and grew, with each atmosphere building on top of the next, until finally he screamed. As his mouth opened in panic, the water rushed in, surging down his throat and filling his lungs, until at last everything went black.

A WEEK LATER,
the helmsman of the
Akademia Federov
sighted land.

The four-thousand-kilometre journey from Antarctica to Cape Town had been a frustrating period of enforced inactivity. Luca had spent most evenings alone in his tiny cabin, just staring at the ceiling and thinking, while the soporific noise of the engines droned on and on. He knew he needed time to make sense of all that had happened. To make matters worse, he had broken three ribs falling from the ship’s crane and, whenever he moved too quickly, a spike of pain shot through his abdomen. The constant discomfort put him in a foul mood, while the frustration of trying to track Bear down only made things worse.

During the day, he spent hours on the ship’s satellite phone trying to garner the slightest information as to where she might be, but it seemed as though she had simply fallen off the planet. All he had managed to find out was that her last known location was in the Nyanga Township on the Cape Flats. After that, she had simply disappeared. Luca’s repeated calls to Kieran Bates at the British Foreign Office always ended with assurances from a secretary that his friend would get back to him, but nothing happened. As the silence continued, his frustration mounted. Soon, he was willing the days to pass, desperate to reach land and the chance to actually
do
something.

When not in his cabin or pressing the satellite phone to his ear, Luca found himself drinking coffee with Nicolai. The Russian captain was a quiet and steady companion, and helped to calm Luca’s mercurial mood. Silence punctuated their conversations as they stared out at the uninterrupted view of the Southern Ocean and discussed all that had happened.

But this contemplative calm only lasted so long. Three days into the voyage, a flood of news bulletins appeared on the ship’s computers as they came close enough to land for their internet systems to connect properly. Every few minutes, another bulletin would ping across the screen as the situation played out in the world’s media. All eyes were on Antarctica and events there were unfolding fast.

Already the Russian Duma had insisted that a joint task force be used to clean up the disaster, and not just the American fleet as previously agreed. Although the full extent of the Americans’ involvement had yet to be established, the Russians had tabled a motion that the Antarctic Treaty should be held in effect until such time as a full investigation was completed. It was passed the next day.

With the Treaty now back in force, the situation was fast turning against the Americans. Newsfeed followed newsfeed, and with each one their position seemed to weaken further. Soon even the most patriotic US newspapers had conceded that ‘an American citizen had been involved in the environmental disaster down south’.

Richard Pearl quickly came under the spotlight, with WikiLeaks churning out a plethora of information about how he researched and financed the production of the seed. Although none of this evidence directly linked Pearl to the US administration, it did lift the stain of suspicion from the Russians, who then acted quickly to regain the moral high ground. While they forced themselves centre-stage, the Americans, by contrast, were in full damage-control mode. Already, they were confining themselves to the occasional press conference where they emphatically denied any link to Pearl, despite his status as a US senator, and gave repeated calls for ‘calm and the chance for a full and proper investigation’.

As Luca and Nicolai scanned each headline, the vilification of Richard Pearl became ever more complete. Someone in the American government was doing everything they could to serve him up on a plate and paint him as the Lee Harvey Oswald of his generation – the lone gunman responsible for the whole tragedy. Reports poured on to the news screens, documenting everything from Pearl’s early childhood to discrepancies in the official report filed on the submarine incident all those years ago.

The reversal of Pearl’s fortunes was extraordinary for both its speed and its scope. Arrest warrants were issued in the US and almost every other signatory of the Antarctic Treaty followed suit. By virtue of the fact that so many countries were involved, Pearl was left with almost nowhere to run.

But for now he had disappeared. His Bombardier jet had altered course en route for America and that had been the last anyone had heard of him. While the news channels featured his image on a near-hourly basis, for now one of the world’s greatest manhunts continued.

While all this unfolded via the ship’s email, elsewhere on board Joel had been confined to bed. The ship’s doctor had worked on his shoulder for much of the time they had been at sea and although the bullet from Stang’s rifle had passed through relatively cleanly, splinters of collarbone still remained. They were beginning to become infected and so, like Luca, Joel was counting the days until they reached Cape Town and the chance for proper medical treatment. For now, his only release from the pain was an occasional shot of morphine, which blurred time and made him waft through the days in a detached haze.

Katz, meanwhile, skulked around the ship, avoiding contact with Luca at all costs. Shamed by his assertion that they should just leave him on the barrier, he only spoke to Joel and Nicolai occasionally, while the rest of his time was spent inside his cabin. He was filing a report that ran into hundreds of pages, detailing every facet of the expedition and allocating blame for each part of it.

Aside from the report, Katz’s other main motivation for staying inside his cabin was the two remaining cylinders of lake water. They had survived intact inside the Pelican case and now he guarded them like a dragon might his treasure. He mumbled his plans for what he would do with them as if they were his alone and not the product of years of research by an international team. The closer they got to dry land, the more Katz withdrew into himself. The flash of humility that he had shown to Luca in the old Soviet base was long-since gone, replaced by his habitual sneer and brooding self-interest.

As the helmsman sighted Table Mountain and the boat drew ever closer to Africa’s southernmost tip, Luca and Nicolai went out on deck. They stood side by side, letting the heat of Africa beat down upon their backs. There was silence for a moment, before Nicolai turned away from the view.

‘The winter is finally over,’ he said. ‘We are free from the ice once more.’

Luca nodded. ‘Thank you. For everything, I mean.’

As he spoke, his eyes drifted across to the heap of crane wreckage still littering the deck. The crew had lashed down the smaller parts, but the main arm of the crane lay buried in the side rail.

‘We receive radio message that helicopter will be coming as soon as we are in range,’ Nicolai said, ignoring his thanks. ‘As soon as we pass out of international waters, I have to comply with their demand.’ He shrugged. ‘And I do not have enough fuel to take you anywhere else.’

‘I guessed they would be coming,’ Luca replied. Despite the lack of contact with Kieran Bates, he was sure the British Foreign Office would want to debrief them, but the idea of being cramped in a tiny room while some bureaucrat went through every detail of what had happened only filled him with dread. He didn’t have time to waste. He needed to find Bear.

‘After all that’s happened,’ Luca added, ‘I’m not sure which country’s worse.’

‘
Individual
worse,’ Nicolai corrected. ‘Country is just country.’

Luca nodded again, now accustomed to the Russian’s straight-talking philosophy and, as many times before in their conversations, a long spell of silence ensued.

It was some time later that they heard the first sounds of a helicopter coming in low across the water. As the aircraft slowed to a hover and then carefully touched down on the deck, a bulbous man dressed in a white shirt and flannel trousers stepped out. Keeping his back arched against the swirling rotors, he came close, revealing a bright streak of sunburn across his nose and a shirt stained at the armpits by sweat. As he stood in front of Nicolai, he raised a hand in greeting.

‘The name’s Jacobs,’ he said, voice raised above the noise of the helicopter. ‘My men radioed ahead.’

Nicolai nodded.

‘I’m here to pick up Joel Cable-Forbes and Jonathan Katz,’ Jacobs continued, with a lopsided smile on his face that suggested he might be dealing with a halfwit.

He motioned back to the helicopter and a side door was opened. Another two men clambered out. As Nicolai signalled to one of his crew to lead them to Joel’s and Katz’s quarters, Jacobs stayed on deck, eyes switching between Luca and the captain.

‘So, where we headed?’ Luca asked.

‘Afraid you’re being picked up later,’ Jacobs replied. ‘I have orders just to bring in the other two.’

‘And where are they going?’

Jacobs’ smile widened a fraction. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll be well looked after.’

Luca knew there was little to be gained by pressing the point and the next couple of minutes passed in silence. Jacobs stood patiently, his gaze turned out towards the sea, until Katz appeared through one of the storm doors under the main bridge. He was clutching a thick file of A4 paper taken from the ship’s printer and tied tightly with string, while in his other hand was the Pelican case.

Moving out on deck he kept his eyes down, still unable to meet Luca’s gaze. He walked straight across to the helicopter and, without looking back, climbed on board.

Joel emerged a moment later, shuffling out into the bright sunshine. He looked pale and drawn, his gaze drifting unsteadily. The morphine made him barely aware of what was happening and for a moment, he paused halfway to the helicopter before spotting Luca standing to one side. Then a weak smile appeared on his face.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ he said, reaching out his good arm to shake Luca’s hand.

‘Yeah, I’ll be right behind you in the next chopper,’ Luca lied. He knew it would only confuse Joel further to tell him they were being split up. ‘Take care of yourself, Joel.’

His smile widened as he raised his wounded shoulder a fraction. ‘That’s easy. Just got to stay clear of psychotic Norwegians.’

As Jacobs gave a terse nod and shepherded him over to the helicopter, they heard the engine pitch rise and the rotors begin to quicken. Soon the downdraft washed across the deck, causing Luca and Nicolai to cover their eyes. No sooner had the aircraft gone than they saw another approaching, following the same trajectory but this time much faster. It landed on the deck with military precision and, glancing across, the pilot gestured for Luca to climb on board. ‘I have no doubt that we will see each other again,’ Nicolai shouted above the noise. ‘Now go!’