Arctic Drift (Dirk Pitt 20)

“Range twelve kilometers, sir. She’s beating a path right across our bow.” The helmsman, a red-haired ensign with jug ears, peered from a radarscope to the ship’s captain and waited for a response.

Captain Dick Weber lowered a pair of binoculars without taking his gaze off the distant vessel.

“Keep us on intersect, at least until we obtain an identification,” he replied without turning.

The helmsman twisted the ship’s wheel a half turn, then resumed studying the radar screen. The eighty-foot Canadian Coast Guard patrol vessel plowed slowly through the dark Arctic waters toward the path of the oncoming vessel. Assigned to interdiction duty along the eastern approaches to the Northwest Passage, the Harp had been on station just a few days. Though the winter ice had continued the trend of breaking up early, this was the first commercial vessel the patrol craft had seen in the frosty waters this season. In another month or two, there would be a steady stream of massive tankers and containerships making the northerly transit accompanied by icebreakers.

Just a few years prior, the thought of policing traffic through the Northwest Passage would have been laughable. Since man’s earliest forays into the Arctic, major sections of the annual winter pack ice remained frozen solid for all but a few summer days. Only a few hardy explorers and the occasional icebreaker dared fight their way through the blocked passage. But global warming had changed everything, and now the passage was navigable for months out of the year.

Scientists estimate that over forty thousand square miles of Arctic ice have receded in just the past thirty years. Much of the blame for the rapid melt off is due to the ice albedo-feedback effect. In its frozen state, Arctic ice will reflect up to ninety percent of incoming solar radiation. When melted, the resulting seawater will conversely absorb an equal amount of radiation, reflecting only about ten percent. This warming loop has accounted for the fact that Arctic temperatures are climbing at double the global rate.

Watching the bow of his patrol boat slice through a small ice floe, Weber silently cursed what global climate change had done to him. Transferred from Quebec and comfortable sea duty along the Saint Lawrence River, he now found himself in command of a ship at one of the most remote locations on the planet. And his job, he thought, had been relegated to little more than that of a tollbooth operator.

Weber could hardly blame his superiors, though, for they were just following the mandate of Canada’s saber-rattling Prime Minister. When historically frozen sections of the Northwest Passage began to melt clear, the Prime Minister was quick to act, affirming the passage as Canadian Internal Waters and authorizing funds for a deepwater Arctic port at Nanisivik. Promises to build a fleet of military icebreakers and establish new Arctic bases soon followed. Powerful lobbying by a shadowy interest group propelled the Parliament to support the Prime Minister by passing tough restrictions on foreign vessels transiting the passage.

By law, all non-Canadian-flagged ships seeking transit through the passage were now required to notify the Coast Guard of their planned route, pay a passage fee similar to that imposed at the Panama Canal, and be accompanied by a Canadian commercial icebreaker through the more restrictive areas of the passage. A few countries, Russia, Denmark, and the United States among them, refuted Canada’s claim and discouraged travel through the waters. But other developed nations gladly complied in the name of economics. Merchant ships connecting Europe with East Asia could trim thousands of miles off their shipping routes by avoiding the Panama Canal. The savings were even more dramatic for ships too large to pass through the canal that would otherwise have to sail around Cape Horn. With the potent

ial to cut the shipping cost of an individual storage container by a thousand dollars, merchant fleets large and small were quick to eye the Arctic crossing as a lucrative commercial path.

As the ice melt off expanded more rapidly than scientists anticipated, the first few shipping companies had begun testing the frigid waters. Thick sheets of ice still clogged sections of the route for much of the year, but during the heat of summer the passage had regularly become ice-free. Powerful icebreakers aided the more ambitious merchant fleets that sought to run the passage from April through September. It was becoming all too evident that within a decade or two, the Northwest Passage would be a navigable waterway year-round.

Staring at the approaching black merchant ship, Weber wished the whole passage would just freeze solid again. At least the presence of the ship broke up the monotony of staring at icebergs, he thought drily.

“Four kilometers and closing,” the helmsman reported.

Weber turned to a lanky radioman wedged into a corner of the small bridge.

“Hopkins, request an identification and the nature of her cargo,” he barked.

The radioman proceeded to call the ship, but all his queries were met with silence. He checked the radio, then transmitted several more times.

“She’s not responding, sir,” he finally replied with a perplexed look. His experience with passing vessels in the Arctic was that they were usually prone to excessive chitchat from the isolated crews.

“Keep trying,” Weber ordered. “We’re nearly close enough for a visual ID.”

“Two kilometers off,” the helmsman confirmed.

Weber retrained his binoculars and examined the vessel. She was a relatively small containership of no more than four hundred feet. She was by appearance a newer vessel but oddly showed only a few containers on her topside deck. Similar ships, he knew, often carried containers stacked six or seven layers high. Curious, he studied her Plimsoll line, noting the mark was several feet above the water. Moving his gaze vertically, he looked at a darkened bridge, then at a masthead behind the superstructure. He was startled to see the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the stiff breeze.

“She’s American,” he muttered. The nationality surprised him, as American ships had informally boycotted the passage at the urging of their government. Weber focused the glasses on the ship’s bow, just making out the name ATLANTA in white lettering as the evening light began to fade.

“Her name is the Atlanta,” he said to Hopkins. The radio operator nodded and tried hailing the ship by name, but there was still no response.

Weber hung the binoculars on a metal hook, then located a binder on the chart table and flipped it open, searching for the name Atlanta on a computer printout. All non-Canadian vessels making a transit of the Northwest Passage were required to file notification with the Coast Guard ninety-six hours in advance. Weber checked to see that his file had been updated by satellite link earlier in the day but still found no reference to the Atlanta.

“Bring us up on her port bow. Hopkins, tell them that they are crossing Canadian territorial waters and order her to stop for boarding and inspection.”

While Hopkins transmitted the message, the helmsman adjusted the ship’s heading, then glanced at the radar screen.

“The channel narrows ahead, sir,” he reported. “Pack ice encroaching on our port beam approximately three kilometers ahead.”

Weber nodded, his eyes still glued to the Atlanta. The merchant ship was moving at a surprisingly fast clip, over fifteen knots, he guessed. As the Coast Guard vessel edged closer, Weber again observed that the ship was riding high on the water. Why would a lightly laden ship be attempting the passage? he wondered.

“One kilometer to intercept,” the helmsman said.

“Come right. Bring us to within a hundred meters,” the captain ordered.

The black merchant ship was oblivious to the Coast Guard patrol craft, or so it seemed to the Canadians. Had they tracked the radar set more closely, they would have noticed that the American ship was both accelerating and subtly changing course.