Arctic Drift (Dirk Pitt 20)

repay you, please let me know.”

Dirk thought for a minute, then said, “Well, Captain, at some point I would like to have my boat back.”

DIRK AND SUMMER HAD little choice but to remain aboard the Dauphine until she docked in Vancouver late the following evening. Trevor was back on his feet by the time they reached port but was sent to the hospital for overnight observation. Dirk and Summer stopped for a visit before catching a train to Seattle.

“Are you finally thawed out?” Summer asked, finding Trevor under a mountain of blankets in the hospital room.

“Yes, and now they are trying to cook me alive,” he replied, happy to see her so soon. “Next time, I get the dry suit.”

“Deal,” she said with a laugh.

“Have they nailed the LNG tanker?” he asked, turning serious.

“The Dauphine saw her headed to sea as we skirted around Gil Island, so they must have cut and run once they saw the helicopter. Fortunately, the Coast Guard chopper had their video camera rolling and so captured them at the floating terminal.”

“No doubt they’ll be able to trace the ship back to one of Goyette’s holdings,” Dirk added. “Though he’ll find a way to palm off the blame.”

“That’s what killed my brother,” Trevor said solemnly. “They almost got us, too.”

“Did Summer tell you that she deciphered your brother’s message on the Ventura?” Dirk said.

“No,” he said, suddenly sitting up in bed and staring at Summer.

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since we found the Ventura,” she said. “It came to me on the ship last night. His message wasn’t that they choked. It was that they suffered from choke damp.”

“I’m not familiar with the term,” Trevor said.

“It comes from the old mining days, when underground miners carried canaries with them to warn of asphyxiation. I had run across the term while investigating an old flooded quarry in Ohio that was rumored to contain pre-Columbian artifacts. Your brother was a doctor, so he would have been familiar with it. I believe he tried to write the message as a warning to others.”

“Have you told anyone else?” Trevor asked.

“No,” Summer replied. “I figured you’ll want to have another chat with the chief of police in Kitimat when you return.”

Trevor nodded but turned away from Summer with a faraway look in his eyes.

“We’ve got a train to catch,” Dirk said, eyeing the clock. “Let’s try a warm-water dive together real soon,” he said to Trevor, shaking his hand.

Summer moved in and gave him a passionate kiss. “Now, remember, Seattle is only a hundred miles away.”

“Yes,” Trevor smiled. “And there’s no telling how long I’ll have to stay in Vancouver arranging a new boat.”

“He’ll probably be behind the wheel before we see ours again,” Dirk lamented as they walked out.

But he would be proven wrong. Two days after they returned to the NUMA regional office in Seattle, a flatbed truck showed up carrying their research boat left behind off Gil Island. It had a full tank of gas, and on the pilot’s seat was an expensive bottle of French burgundy.

47

BY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE, THE U.S. COAST Guard cutter Polar Dawn steamed stridently across the maritime boundary with Canada just north of the Yukon. As it moved east across the corrugated gray waters of the Beaufort Sea, Captain Edwin Murdock stared out the bridge window in silent relief. There was no armed Canadian flotilla there to challenge him, as a few aboard the ship had feared.

Their mission had begun innocuously enough several months earlier with a proposal to seismically map the periphery sea ice along the Northwest Passage. However, this was well before the Atlanta and Ice Research Lab 7 incidents. The President, concerned about fanning the flames of Canadian indignation, had initially canceled the voyage, but the Secretary of Defense had finally convinced him to proceed with the mission, successfully arguing that the Canadians had previously given implicit approval. It might be years, he asserted, before the U.S. could challenge Canada’s internal waters claim without overt provocation.

“Skies clear, radar screen empty, and seas at three-to-four,” said the Polar Dawn’s executive officer, a rail-thin African-American named Wilkes. “Perfect conditions in which to run the passage.”

“Let’s hope they continue for the next six days,” Murdock replied. He noticed a glint in the sky out the starboard bridge window. “Our upstairs escort is still holding the trail?” he asked.

“I believe they are going to keep an eye on us for the first fifty miles into Canadian waters,” Wilkes replied, referring to a Navy P-3 Orion reconnaissance plane that lazily circled overhead. “After that, we’re on our own.”

Nobody really expected the Canadians to oppose them, but the ship’s officers and crew were well aware of the heated rhetoric that had been erupting from Ottawa the past two weeks. Most recognized it for what it was, empty posturing by some politicians attempting to capture a few votes. Or so they hoped.