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Dirk Pitt [20] Arctic Drift Clive Cussler; Dirk Cussler Series: Dirk Pitt [20] Published: 2009 Rating: ★★★ Tags: Northwest Passage, Action Adventure, Global warming, General, Pitt; Dirk (Fictitious character), Marine biologists, Thrillers, Men's Adventure, Fiction, Arctic regions Northwest Passagettt Action Adventurettt Global warmingttt Generalttt Pitt; Dirk (Fictitious character)ttt Marine biologiststtt Thrillersttt Men's Adventurettt Fictionttt Arctic regionsttt * * * From Publishers Weekly Bestseller Cussler and son Dirk imagine the U.S. and Canada on the brink of war in their third collaborative Dirk Pitt novel (after Treasure of Khan and Black Wind). In 2011, as the price of gas hits $10 a gallon, President Garner Ward must contend with a corrupt Canadian cabal that's subverting efforts to solve America's energy problems. Pitt barely escapes serious injury when a bomb destroys a D.C. lab along with records of research into an artificial photosynthesis process that could, almost immediately, eliminate the threat of global warming. That discovery may be connected with a legendary failed 19th-century sailing expedition to the Arctic as well as a series of deaths due to the phenomena that the Native Americans of British Columbia know as the Devil's Breath. The Cusslers won't suspend many readers' disbelief, but thriller fans in search of a quick, exciting read should be satisfied. 750,000 printing; author tour. (Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review Impossible to put down... a compelling sense of adventure that can rival any cinematic blockbuster Big Issue Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication PART I - DEVIL'S BREATH Chapter 1 - APRIL 2011 THE INSIDE PASSAGE BRITISH COLUMBIA Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Ch; apter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 PART II - BLACK KOBLUNA Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 PART III - NORTHERN PURSUIT Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Chapter 84 Chapter 85 Chapter 86 Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Chapter 89 EPILOGUE - THE ROCK Chapter 90 Chapter 91 Chapter 92 Chapter 93 Chapter 94 Chapter 95 DIRK PITT ® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER Treasure of Khan (with Dirk Cussler) Black Wind (with Dirk Cussler) Trojan Odyssey Valhalla Rising Atlantis Found Flood Tide Shock Wave Inca Gold Sahara Dragon Treasure Cyclops Deep Six Pacific Vortex Night Probe Vixen 03 Raise the Titanic! Iceberg The Mediterranean Caper KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH PAUL KAMPRECOS The Navigator Polar Shift Lost City White Death Fire Ice Blue Gold Serpent OREGON FILES ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH JACK DU BRUL Plague Ship Skeleton Coast Dark Watch WITH CRAIG DIRGO Sacred Stone Golden Buddha OTHER FICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER The Chase NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO The Sea Hunters The Sea Hunters II Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed DRIFT CLIVE CUSSLER A N D DIRK CUSSLER G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Publishers Since 1838 Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Copyright © 2008 by Sandecker, RLLLP All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cussler, Clive. Arctic drift / Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler. p. cm. eISBN : 978-1-440-65427-5 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. http://us.penguingroup.com In memory of Leigh Hunt. And yes, there really was a Leigh Hunt. A dear friend, bon vivant, wit, and madcap Don Juan who had a way with women that made him the envy of every man in town. I killed him off in the prologues of ten Dirk Pitt books. He always wanted to play a bigger role in the stories but didn't complain because he enjoyed the fame. So long, old pal, you are sorely missed. PROLOGUE PASSAGE TO DEATH APRIL 1848 VICTORIA STRAIT THE ARCTIC OCEAN THE CRY RATTLED THROUGH THE SHIP LIKE THE howl of a wounded jungle beast, a mournful wail that sounded like a plea for death. The moan incited a second voice, and then a third, until a ghoulish chorus echoed through the darkness. When the morbid cries ran their course, a few moments of uneasy silence prevailed until the tortured soul initiated the sequence again. A few sequestered crewmen, those with their senses still intact, listened to the sounds while praying that their own death would arrive more easily. In his cabin, Commander James Fitzjames listened as he squeezed a clump of silver rock in his hand. Holding the cold shiny mineral to his eye, he swore at its luster. Whatever the composite was, it seemed to have cursed his ship. Even before it had been brought aboard, the mineral carried with it an essence of death. Two crewmen in a whaleboat had fallen overboard while transporting the first sample rocks, quickly freezing to death in the icy Arctic waters. Another sailor had died in a knife fight, after trying to barter some of the rocks for tobacco with a demented carpenter's mate. Now in the last few weeks, more than half his crew had gone slowly and inexorably mad. The winter confinement was no doubt to blame, he mused, but the rocks somehow played a role as well. His thoughts were interrupted by a harsh banging on the cabin door. Conserving the energy needed to stand and answer, he simply responded with a raspy, "Yes?" The door swung open to reveal a short man in a soiled sweater, his ruddy face lean and dirty. "Cap'n, one or two of 'em are trying to breach the barricade again," the ship's quartermaster stated in a thick Scottish accent. "Call Lieutenant Fairholme," Fitzjames replied, rising slowly to his feet. "Have him assemble the men." Fitzjames tossed the rock onto his bunk and followed the quartermaster out the door. They stepped down a dark and musty passageway, illuminated by a few small candle lanterns. Passing the main hatchway, the quartermaster disappeared as Fitzjames continued forward. He soon stopped at the base of a tall pile of debris that blocked his path. A mass of barrels, crates, and casks had been strategically wedged into the passageway, piled to the overhead deck and creating a temporary barricade to the forward compartments. Somewhere on the opposite side of the mound, the sound of shifting crates and human grunts resonated through the mass. "They're at it again, sir," spoke a sleepy-eyed marine who stood watch over the pile with a Brown Bess musket. Barely nineteen, the guard had a dirty growth of beard that sprouted off his jaw like a patch of briar. "We'll be leaving the ship to them soon enough," Fitzjames replied in a tired voice. Behind them a wooden ladder creaked as three men climbed up the main hatchway from the orlop deck below. A cold blast of frigid air surged through the passageway until one of the men tugged a canvas hatch cover in place, sealing it shut. A gaunt man in a heavy wool officer's jacket emerged from the shadows and addressed Fitzjames. "Sir, the arms locker is still secure," Lieutenant Fairholme reported, a frozen cloud of vapor rising from his mouth as he spoke. "Quartermaster McDonald is assembling the men in the officers' Great Cabin." Holding up a small percussion-cap pistol, he added, "We retrieved three weapons for ourselves." Fitzjames nodded as he surveyed the other two men, haggard-looking Royal Marines who each clutched a musket. "Thank you, Lieutenant. There shall be no firing except by direct order," the commander said quietly. A shrill cry erupted from behind the barrier, followed by a loud clanging of pots and pans. The sounds were becoming more manic, Fitzjames thought. Whatever abominations were taking place on the other side of the barricade, he could only imagine. "They're turning increasingly violent," the lieutenant said in a hushed tone. Fitzjames nodded grimly. Subduing a crew gone mad was a prospect he could never have imagined when he first signed on for the Arctic Discovery Service. A bright and affable man, he had quickly risen through the ranks of the Royal Navy, attaining command of a sloop of war by age thirty. Now thirty-six and in a fight for survival, the officer once referred to as "the best-looking man in the Navy" faced his toughest ordeal. Perhaps it was no surprise that part of the crew had become deranged. Surviving an Arctic winter aboard an icebound ship was a frightful challenge. Bound for months in darkness and unrelenting cold, the men were trapped in the cramped confines of the ship's lower deck. There they battled rats, claustrophobia, and isolation, in addition to the physical ravages of scurvy and frostbite. Passing a single winter was difficult enough, but Fitzjames's crew was coming off a third consecutive Arctic winter, their ills compounded by short rations of food and fuel. The death of their expedition leader, Sir John Franklin, earlier only added to the fading sense of optimism. Yet Fitzjames knew there was something more sinister at work. When a bosun's mate tore off his clothes, climbed topside, and ran screaming across the ice floes, it could have been marked down as a single case of dementia. But when three-fourths of the crew began yelling in their sleep, staggering around listlessly, mumbling in confused speech patterns, and hallucinating, there was clearly something else at play. When the behaviors gradually turned violent, Fitzjames had the afflicted quietly moved to the forward deck and sequestered. "It's something on the ship driving them mad," Fairholme said quietly, as if reading Fitzjames's mind. Fitzjames started to nod in reply when a small crate came hurtling off the upper reaches of the barrier, nearly striking him in the head. The pale face of an emaciated man burst through the opening, his eyes glowing red under the flickering candlelight. He quickly squeezed himself through the opening and then tumbled down the face of the barrier. As the man staggered to his feet, Fitzjames recognized him as one of the stokers for the ship's coal-fired steam engine. The stoker was shirtless despite the freezing temperatures inside the ship, and in his hand he wielded a heavy butcher knife taken from the ship's galley. "Where be the lambs for slaughter?" he cried, holding up the knife. Before he could start slashing, one of the Royal Marines countered with a musket stock, striking the stoker on the side of the face. The knife clanged against a crate as the man crumpled to the deck, a trickle of blood running down his face. Fitzjames turned from the unconscious stoker to the crewmen around him. Tired, haggard, and gaunt from an inadequate diet, they all looked to him for direction. "We abandon ship at once. There is still more than an hour of daylight left. We will make for the Terror. Lieutenant, bring the cold-weather gear up to the Great Cabin." "How many sledges shall I prepare?" "None. Pack what provisions each man can carry but no extra equipment." "Yes, sir," Fairholme replied, taking two men with him and disappearing down the main hatch. Buried in the ship's hold were the parkas, boots, and gloves worn by the crew when working on deck or while exploring away from the ship on sledging parties. Fairholme and his men quickly hauled up sets of foul-weather gear and dragged them to the large officers' lounge at the stern of the ship. Fitzjames made his way to his stateroom, retrieving a compass, a gold watch, and some letters written to his family. He opened the ship's log to the last entry and wrote a final notation in a shaky hand, then squeezed his eyes shut in defeat as he closed the leather-bound book. Tradition would dictate that he take the logbook with him, but instead he locked it in his desk atop a portfolio of daguerreotypes. Eleven crewmen, the sane remnants of the ship's original complement of sixty-eight men, were waiting for him in the Great Cabin. The captain slipped into a parka and boots alongside his crew, then led them up the main hatchway. Shoving aside the top hatch, they climbed onto the main deck and into the elements. It was like stepping through the gates of a frozen hell. From the dark, dank interior of the ship, they entered a blistering world of bone white. Howling winds hurled a trillion specks of crystalline ice at the men, peppering their bodies with the force of a hundred-degrees-below-zero windchill. The sky could not be distinguished from the ground, nor up from down, in the dizzying vortex of white. Fighting the gusts, Fitzjames felt his way across the snowbound deck and down a stepladder to the frozen ice pack below. Unseen a half mile away, the expedition's sister ship, HMS Terror, sat locked in the same ice sheet. But the relentless winds reduced visibility to just a few yards. If they should miss locating the Terror in the ravaging winds, they would wander around the ice pack and die. Wooden marker posts had been planted every hundred feet between the two ships for just such a contingency, but the blinding conditions made finding the next marker post a deadly challenge. Fitzjames pulled out his compass and took a bearing at twelve degrees, which he knew to be the direction of the Terror. The sister ship was actually due east of his position, but her nearness to the magnetic north pole produced a deviated compass reading. Silently praying that the ice pack had not materially moved since the last bearings were taken, he hunched over the compass and began trudging across the ice in the targeted direction. A rope line was passed back to all the crewmen, and the party proceeded across the ice field like a giant centipede. The young commander shuffled along, head down and eyes glued to the compass, as the frigid wind and blowing snow stung his face. Counting a hundred paces, he stopped and peered about. With an initial sense of relief, he spotted the first marker post through the cottony swirls. Moving alongside the post, he took another bearing and proceeded to the next marker. The string of men leapfrogged from marker to marker, clambering over uneven mounds of snow that often rose thirty or forty feet high. Fitzjames focused all his energy on the journey, shaking off the disappointment of abandoning his ship to a contingent of madmen. Deep down, he knew it was a matter of survival. After three years in the Arctic, nothing else now mattered. Then a deep boom shook his hopes. The sound was deafening, even over the howling winds. It sounded like the report of a large cannon, but the captain knew better. It was the ice beneath his feet, layered in massive sheets that moved in a rhythmic cycle of contraction and expansion. Since the two expedition ships had become trapped in the ice in September 1846, they had been propelled over twenty miles, pushed by the massive blanket of ice called the Beaufort ice stream. An unusually frigid summer kept them icebound through 1847, while the current year's spring thaw had materialized only briefly. The ravages of another cold spell again made it doubtful that the ships would break free over the coming summer. In the meantime, a shift in the ice could be fatal, crushing a stout wooden ship like it was a box of matches. In another sixty-seven years, Ernest Shackleton would watch helplessly as his ship the Endurance was crushed by an expanding ice pack in the Antarctic. With his heart racing, Fitzjames increased his pace as another thunderous crack echoed in the distance. The rope in his hands grew taut as the men behind struggled to keep up, but he refused to slow. Reaching what he knew was the last marker pole, he squinted into the tempest. Through the blasting swirls of white, he caught a brief glimpse of a dark object ahead. "She's just before us," he shouted to the men behind him. "Step lively, we're nearly there." Moving as one, the group surged toward the target. Climbing over a rugged mound of ice, they at last saw the Terror before them. At one hundred and two feet, the vessel was nearly identical in size and appearance to their own ship, down to the black-painted hull with a wide gold band. The Terror barely resembled a ship now, however, with its sails and yardarms stowed away, and a large canvas awning covering her stern deck. Snow had been shoveled up in mounds nearly to the rails for insulation, while the mast and rigging were coated in a thick layer of ice. The stout bomb ship, as she was originally designated, now looked more like a giant spilt carton of milk. Fitzjames boarded the ship, where he was surprised to see several crewmen scurrying about the ice-covered deck. A midshipman approached and led Fitzjames and his men down the main hatch and into the galley. A steward passed around shots of brandy while the men shook the ice from their clothes and warmed their hands by the cookstove. Savoring the liquor as it warmed his belly, the captain noticed a beehive of activity in the dim confines, with crewmen shouting and shoving stores about the main passageway. Like his own men, the crew of the Terror were frightful souls to look at. Pallid and emaciated, most of the men fought the advanced ravages of scurvy. Fitzjames had already lost two of his own teeth to the disease, a vitamin C deficiency that causes spongy gums and bleeding scalp. Though casks of lemon juice had been carried aboard and rationed regularly to all the crew, the juice had lost its efficacy over time. Combined with a shortage of fresh meat, the disease had left no man untouched. And as the sailors all knew, left unchecked, scurvy could eventually prove fatal. The captain of the Terror presently appeared, a tough Irish-man named Francis Crozier. An Arctic veteran, Crozier had spent the better part of his life at sea. Like many before him, he had been drawn to the search for a passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific through the unexplored regions of the Arctic. The discovery of the Northwest Passage was perhaps the last great feat of seaborne exploration left to conquer. Dozens had tried and failed, but this expedition was different. Armed with two Arctic-ready ships under the command of an enigmatic leader in Sir John Franklin, success had been all but guaranteed. But Franklin had died the year before, after attempting a dash for the North American coastline too late in the summer. Unprotected in the open sea, the ships became trapped when the ice closed in around them. The strong-willed Crozier was determined to lead his remaining men to safety and salvage glory from the failure that was lying before them. "You've abandoned the Erebus?" he asked Fitzjames pointedly. The younger captain nodded in reply. "The remaining crew members have gone out of their heads." "I received your earlier message detailing the troubles. Most peculiar. I've had one or two men lose their wits for a time but have not experienced such a mass breakdown." "It is damned perplexing," Fitzjames replied with obvious discomfort. "I am just thankful to be off that lunatic asylum." "They are dead men now," Crozier muttered. "And we might be as well, soon enough." "The pack ice. It's fracturing." Crozier nodded. Pressure points in the ice pack ruptured frequently from the underlying movements. Though most of the fracturing occurred in the fall and early winter as the open seas initially froze, the spring pack was also witness to dangerous thaws and convulsions. "The hull timbers are groaning in protest," Crozier said. "It's right upon us, I'm afraid. I've ordered the bulk of our food stores moved onto the ice and the remaining boats put off. Looks like we are destined to give up both ships earlier than planned," he added with dread. "I just pray the storm blows out before we have to vacate in earnest." After sharing a measured meal of tinned mutton and parsnips, Fitzjames and his men joined the Terror's crew in offloading provisions onto the ice pack. The thunderous convulsions seemed to lessen in frequency, though they still bellowed over the blasting winds. Inside the Terror, the men listened to the unnerving creaks and groans of the ship's wooden timbers straining against the shifting ice. When the last of the crates was placed on the ice, the men huddled in the murky interior and waited for nature to deal its hand. For forty-eight hours, they anxiously listened to the fickle ice, praying that the ship would be spared. But it was not to be. The deathblow came quickly, striking with a sudden rupture that came without warning. The stout ship was pitched up and onto its side before a section of its hull burst like a balloon. Only two men were injured, but the destruction was beyond any hope of repair. In an instant, the Terror had been consigned to a watery grave, only the date of her interment left to be settled. Crozier evacuated the crew and loaded provisions into three of the remaining lifeboats, each affixed with runners to help navigate the ice. With foresight, Crozier and Fitzjames had already hauled several boats topped with provisions to the nearest landfall during the past nine months. The cache on King William Land would be a welcome asset to the homeless crew. But thirty miles of rugged ice separated the weary crew from land and the stockpile. "We could retake the Erebus," Fitzjames suggested, peering at the masts of his former ship rising above the jagged crests of white. "The men are too spent to fight each other and the elements," Crozier replied. "She'll either find her way to the bottom like the Terror or spend another wretched summer icebound, I have no doubt." "God have mercy on their souls," Fitzjames muttered under his breath as he took a final gaze at the distant vessel. With teams of eight men harnessed to the heavy lifeboats like mules to a plow, they trudged over the uneven ice floe toward land. Mercifully, the winds settled, while the temperature climbed to near zero. But the exertions required of the starved and frozen crewmen began to break the body and the spirit of every man. Tugging and shoving the burdensome loads, they reached the pebble-strewn island after five torturous days. King William Land, known today as King William Island, could hardly have been a less hospitable place. A low, windswept landmass the size of Connecticut, its ecosystem supported a bare minimum of plant and animal life. Even the indigenous Inuit avoided the island, recognizing it as a poor hunting ground for the food staples of caribou and seal. None of this was known by Crozier and his men. Only their own exploratory sledge parties would have told them that the land was even an island, disputing the common geographic belief of 1845 that it was a finger of the North American continent. Crozier likely knew that, and one other thing. From where he stood on the northwest tip of King William Land, he recognized that he was nearly a thousand miles from the nearest civilization. A meager Hudson's Bay Company trading settlement located far to the south on the banks of the Great Fish River offered the best hope of rescue. But open water between the southern tip of King William Land and the mouth of that river, some one hundred and fifty miles away, meant that they had to keep dragging the cursed boats with them across the ice. Crozier rested the crew a few days at the stockpile, allowing a temporary reward of full rations to boost their strength for the arduous journey ahead. Then he could wait no longer. Every day would count in the race to the Hudson Bay settlement before the autumn snows began to fall. The seasoned captain had no illusions that the full crew could make it that far or anywhere close. But with luck, a few of the heartiest men might make it in time to send a relief party to the others. It was their only chance. Once again hauling the boats foot by foot, they found the shoreline ice less imposing. But the bitter reality quickly set in that they were on a death march. The physical rigors of unending exertion in the biting cold were too much for the malnurished body to bear. The worst agony, perhaps more than frostbite, was the sense of unquenchable thirst. Since their portable gas stoves mostly depleted of fuel, there was no efficient way to produce fresh water from the ice. Men desperately stuffed snow in their mouths to melt a few drops, then shivered with cold. Like a caravan crossing the Sahara, they fought the vestiges of dehydration along with the other ailments. Day by day and one by one, men began to wither and die as the contingent marched south. Shallow graves were dug at first, but then the dead were left on the ice as all energy was conserved for the migration. Cresting a small snow-covered ridge, Fitzjames held up his hand and stopped in his tracks. Two sledge crews of eight men apiece staggered to a halt behind him, letting loose the harness ropes attached to a wood-planked pinnace. The heavy wooden boat, packed with food and gear, weighed over two thousand pounds. Transporting it was like dragging a rhinoceros across the ice. All of the men fell to their knees to rest, sucking deep breaths of icy air into their starved lungs. The sky was clear, showering the landscape with bright sunlight that reflected off the snow in a blinding dazzle. Fitzjames slipped off a pair of wire-mesh snow goggles and walked from man to man, offering words of encouragement while checking their extremities for frostbite. He was nearly through the second crew when one of the men shouted. "Sir, it's the Erebus! She's free of the ice pack." Fitzjames turned to see one of the seamen pointing toward the horizon. The man, a yeoman's mate, slipped out of his harness and began scampering toward the shoreline and onto the ice pack. "Strickland! Stand where you are!" Fitzjames ordered. But the command fell on deaf ears. The seaman slowed not a step, stumbling and careening over the uneven ice floe toward a dark smudge on the horizon. Fitzjames adjusted his gaze in the same direction and felt his jaw drop. Three leagues distant, the black hull and upright masts of a large sailing ship were clearly visible. It could be no vessel but the Erebus. Fitzjames stared for several seconds, barely breathing. Strickland was right. The ship was moving, appearing to drift clear of the ice pack. The startled commander stepped to the pinnace and rummaged under a bench seat until locating a folding telescope. Training the glass on the vessel, he readily identified his former command. She looked like a ghost ship, though, with sails furled and her decks empty. He idly wondered if the crazed men below even knew they were adrift. His excitement at seeing the vessel was tempered when he studied the surface area around the ship. It was unbroken ice. "She's still locked in the pack ice," he muttered, noting that the ship was moving stern first. The Erebus was in fact encased in a ten-mile-long sheet of ice that had splintered from the frozen sea and was drifting south. Her survival prospects had improved slightly, but she still faced the risk of pulverization from rupturing ice. Fitzjames let out a sigh, then turned to two of his fittest crewmen. "Reed, Sullivan, go retrieve Seaman Strickland at once," he barked. The two men rose and charged after Strickland, who had now reached the ice pack and was disappearing over a large hummock. Fitzjames peered again at the ship, searching for damage to the hull or signs of life above deck. But the distance was too great to observe any detail. His thoughts turned to the expedition's commander, Franklin, whose body lay packed in ice in the depths of the hold. Maybe the old bird will yet get buried in England, Fitzjames mused, knowing that his own prospects of making it home, dead or alive, were looking quite thin. A half hour passed before Reed and Sullivan returned to the boat. Fitzjames noticed that both men stared at the ground, while one of them clutched a scarf that Strickland had been wearing around his face and neck. "Where is he?" the commander asked. "He broke through a snow-covered lead in the pack ice," replied Sullivan, a ship's rigger with plaintive blue eyes. "We tried to pull him out, but he went under before we could get a good grip on him." He held up the frozen-stiff scarf, showing all they had been able to grasp. It was no matter, Fitzjames thought. Had they pulled him out, he would have likely died before they could have got him into dry clothes anyway. Strickland was actually lucky. At least he got to die quickly. Shaking the image from his mind, Fitzjames shouted harshly to the somber crew, "Back in the harnesses. Let's get the sledge moving," dismissing the loss without another word. THE DAYS PASSED WITH growing strain as the men trudged south. Gradually, the crewmen broke into separate parties, divided by their physical stamina. Crozier and a small party from the Terror blazed a path down the coastline ten miles ahead of everyone else. Fitzjames followed next but was tailed several miles behind by three or four groups of stragglers, the weakest and sickest who could not keep pace and for all practical purposes were already dead. Fitzjames had lost three men of his own, forging ahead with only thirteen to haul the heavy load. Light winds and moderate temperatures had given the men hope for escape. But a late-spring blizzard turned their fortunes. Like an approaching veil of death, a black line of clouds appeared to the west and rolled in with a fury. Blistering winds blasted across the ice pack, pounding the low island without mercy. Buffeted by the winds and unable to see, Fitzjames had no choice but to turn the boat turtle and seek refuge beneath its wood-planked hull. For four days, the winds pounded them like a mallet. Imprisoned in their shell with scant food and no source of heat but their bodies, the emaciated men slowly began to succumb. Like the rest of his men, Fitzjames drifted in and out of consciousness as his bodily functions slowly shut down. When the end was near, an odd burst of energy surged through him, driven perhaps by a dying curiosity. Climbing over the bodies of his comrades, he slipped under the gunwale and pulled himself upright against the exterior hull. A brief respite in the gale winds let him stand unmolested in the elements as the fading light of dusk approached. Peering over the ice, he forced himself to look one more time. She was still there. A dark projectile scratching the horizon, the Erebus loomed, creeping with the ice like a black wraith. "What mystery hath thou?" he cried, though the final words left his parched lips in barely a whisper. With its glistening eyes locked on the horizon, Fitzjames's dead body wilted against the pinnace. Across the ice, the Erebus silently sailed on, an ice-encrusted tomb. Like her crew, she would eventually fall victim to the harsh Arctic environment, a last vestige of Franklin's quest to navigate the Northwest Passage. With her disappearance, the saga of Fitzjames's mad crew would be obscured from history. But unbeknownst to her commander, the ship held a greater mystery, one that over a century later would impact man's very survival on the planet. PART I DEVIL'S BREATH 1 APRIL 2011 THE INSIDE PASSAGE BRITISH COLUMBIA THE SIXTY-FOOT STEEL-HULLED TRAWLER WAS what all commercial fishing boats ought to look like but seldom did. Her nets were stowed neatly on their rollers, the deck was free of clutter. The boat's hull and topside were absent of rust and grime, while a fresh coat of paint covered the most weathered areas. Even the boat's worn dock fenders had been regularly scrubbed of grit. While not the most profitable fishing boat plying the northern waters of British Columbia, the Ventura was easily the best maintained. Her shipshape appearance reflected the character of her owner, a meticulous and hardworking man named Steve Miller. Like his boat, Miller didn't fit the bill of the average independent fisherman. A trauma doctor who'd grown tired of patching up mangled auto accident victims in Indianapolis, he'd returned to the small Pacific Northwest town of his youth to try something different. Possessing a secure bank account and a love of the water, commercial fishing had seemed the perfect fit. Steering the boat through an early morning drizzle now, he wore his happiness in the form of a wide grin. A young man with shaggy black hair poked his head into the wheelhouse and called to Miller. "Where they biting today, skipper?" he asked. Miller gazed out the forward window, then poked his nose up and sniffed the air. "Well, Bucky, I'd say the west coast of Gil Island, without a doubt," he grinned, taking the bait. "Better grab some shut-eye now, as we'll be reeling them in soon enough." "Sure, boss. Like, a whole twenty minutes?" "I'd say closer to eighteen." He smiled, gazing at a nearby nautical chart. He cinched the wheel a few degrees, aiming the bow toward a narrow slot dividing two green landmasses ahead of them. They were cutting across the Inside Passage, a ribbon of protected sea that stretched from Vancouver to Juneau. Sheltered by dozens of pine-covered islands, the winding waterway inspired comparisons to the scenic fjords of Norway. Only the occasional commercial or tourist fishing boat, casting its lines for salmon or halibut, was found dodging the Alaska-bound cruise ship traffic. Like most independent fishermen, Miller chased after the more valuable sockeye salmon, utilizing purse seine nets to capture the fish near inlets and in ocean waters. He was content to break even with his catches, knowing few got rich fishing in these parts. Yet despite his limited experience, he still managed a small profit due to his planning and enthusiasm. Sipping a mug of coffee, he glanced at a flush-mounted radar screen. Spotting two vessels several miles to the north, he let go of the wheel and walked outside the pilothouse to inspect his nets for the third time that day. Satisfied there were no holes in the mesh, he climbed back to the bridge. Bucky was standing by the rail, forgoing his bunk for a cigarette instead. Puffing on a Marlboro, he nodded at Miller, then looked up at the sky. An ever-present blanket of gray clouds floated in an airy mass yet appeared too light to dispense more than a light drizzle. Bucky peered across Hecate Strait at the green islands that bound it to the west. Ahead off the port bow, he noticed an unusually thick cloud rolling along the water's surface. Fog was a common companion in these waters, but there was something peculiar about this formation. The color was a brighter white than that of a normal fogbank, its billows heavier. Taking a long drag on his cigarette, Bucky exhaled deeply, then walked to the wheelhouse. Miller had already taken note of the white cloud and had a pair of binoculars trained on the mist. "You seen it too, boss? Kind of a funky-looking cloud, ain't it?" Bucky drawled. "It is. I don't see any other vessels around that could have discharged it," Miller replied, scanning the horizon. "Might be some sort of smoke or exhaust that drifted over from Gil." "Yep, maybe somebody's fish smoker blew," the deckhand replied, his crooked teeth in a wide grin. Miller set down the binoculars and grabbed the wheel. Their path around Gil Island led directly through the center of the cloud. Miller rapped his knuckles on the worn wooden wheel in uneasiness, but he made no effort to alter course. As the boat approached the cloud's periphery, Miller stared at the water and crinkled his brow. The color of the water changed visibly, from green to brown to copper-red. A number of dead salmon appeared in the crimson broth, their silver bellies pointing skyward. Then the fishing boat chugged into the haze. The men in the wheelhouse immediately felt a change in temperature, as if a cold, wet blanket had been thrown over them. Miller felt a dampness in his throat while tasting a strong acidic flavor. A tingling sensation rippled through his head, and he felt a sudden tightening in his chest. When he sucked in a breath of air, his legs buckled, and stars began to appear before his eyes. His pain was diverted when the second deckhand burst into the cabin with a shriek. "Captain . . . I'm suffocating," gasped the man, a ruddy-faced fellow with long sideburns. The man's eyes bulged from his head, and his face was tinted a dark shade of blue. Miller took a step toward him, but the man fell to the deck unconscious. The cabin started to spin before Miller's eyes as he made a desperate lunge for the boat's radio. In a blur, he noticed Bucky sprawled flat on the deck. With his chest constricting tightly, Miller grasped at the radio, scooping up the transmitter while knocking over some charts and pencils. Pulling the transmitter to his mouth, he tried to call a Mayday, but the words refused to leave his lips. Falling to his knees, he felt like his entire body was being crushed on an anvil. The constriction tightened as blackness slowly crept over his vision. He fought to stay conscious but felt himself slipping into the void. Miller struggled desperately, then let out a final deep gasp as the icy hand of death beckoned him to let go. 2 CATCH IS ABOARD," SUMMER PITT SHOUTED TOWARD the wheelhouse. "Take us to the next magic spot." The tall, lithe oceanographer stood on the open stern deck of the research boat, dressed in a turquoise rain jacket. In her hands, she reeled in a polypropylene line wrapped around the spool of a mock fishing pole. The line stretched to the end of a guided rod where her prize catch dangled in the breeze. It wasn't a fish but a gray plastic tube called a Niskin bottle, which allowed seawater samples to be collected at depth. Summer carefully grabbed the bottle and stepped toward the pilothouse as the inboard motors suddenly revved loudly beneath the deck. The abrupt propulsion nearly threw her off her feet as the workboat leaped forward. "Easy on the acceleration," she yelled, finally making her way into the cabin. Seated behind the wheel, her brother turned and chuckled. "Just wanted to keep you on your toes," Dirk Pitt replied. "That was a remarkable imitation of a drunken ballerina, I might add." The comment only infuriated Summer more. Then she saw the humor in it all and just as quickly laughed it off. "Don't be surprised to find a bucket of wet clams in your bunk tonight," she said. "As long as they're steamed with Cajun sauce first," he replied. Dirk eased the throttle back to a more stable speed, then eyed a digital navigation chart on a nearby monitor. "That was sample 17-F, by the way," he said. Summer poured the water sample into a clear vial and wrote down the designation on a preprinted label. She then placed the vial in a foam-lined case that contained a dozen other samples of seawater. What had started as a simple study of plankton health along the south Alaska coastline had grown in scope when the Canadian Fisheries and Oceans Department had gotten wind of their project and asked if they could continue their assessment down to Vancouver. Besides cruise ships, the Inside Passage also was an important migratory route for humpbacks, grays, and other whales that attracted the attention of marine biologists. The microscopic plankton was a key to the aquatic food chain as it attracted krill, a primary food source for baleen whales. Dirk and Summer realized the importance of obtaining a complete ecological snapshot of the region and had obtained approval to expand the research project from their bosses at the National Underwater and Marine Agency. "How far to the next collection point?" Summer asked, taking a seat on a wooden stool and watching the waves roll by. Dirk peered at the computer monitor again, locating a small black triangle at the top of the screen. A HYPACK software program marked the previous collection sites and plotted a route to the next sample target. "We have about eight miles to go. Plenty of time for a bite before we get there." He kicked open a cooler and pulled out a ham sandwich and a root beer, then tweaked the wheel to keep the boat on track. The forty-five-foot aluminum workboat skimmed over the flat waters of the passage like a dart. Painted turquoise blue like all National Underwater and Marine Agency research vessels, it was fitted with cold-water dive gear, marine survey equipment, and even a tiny ROV for underwater videotaping. Creature comforts were minimal, but the boat was the perfect platform for performing coastal research studies. Dirk swung the wheel to starboard, giving wide berth to a gleaming white Princess Lines cruise ship headed in the opposite direction. A handful of topside tourists waved heartily in their direction, whom Dirk obliged by waggling his arm out a side window. "Seems like one goes by every hour," Summer remarked. "More than thirty vessels run the passage in the summer months, so it does seem like the Jersey Turnpike." "You've never even laid eyes on the Jersey Turnpike." Dirk shook his head. "Fine. Then it seems like Interstate H-1 in Honolulu at rush hour." The siblings had grown up in Hawaii, where they developed a passion for the sea. Their single mother fostered an early interest in marine biology and encouraged both children to learn to dive at a young age. Fraternal twins who were both athletic and adventurous, Dirk and Summer spent much of their youth on or near the water. Their interest continued into college, where both studied ocean sciences. They somehow ended on opposite coasts, Summer obtaining an advanced degree from Scripps Institute while Dirk garnered a graduate degree in marine engineering from New York Maritime College. It was on their mother's deathbed that they first learned the identity of their father, who ran the National Underwater and Marine Agency and shared the same name as Dirk. An emotional reunion led to a close relationship with the man they had never known. They now found themselves working under his tutelage in the special projects department of NUMA. It was a dream job, enabling them to travel the world together, studying the oceans and solving some of the never-ending mysteries of the deep. Dirk kept the throttle down as they passed a fishing boat headed north, then pulled up a quarter mile later. As the boat approached the designated target, he killed the engines and drifted over the position. Summer walked to the stern and rigged her fishing line with an empty vial as a pair of Dall's porpoises broke the surface nearby and eyed the boat with curiosity. "Watch out for Flipper when you cast that thing," Dirk said, walking onto the deck. "Beaning a porpoise brings bad karma." "How about beaning your brother?" "Much, much worse." He smiled as the marine mammals ducked under the surface. He scanned the surrounding waters, waiting for them to resurface, when he noticed the fishing boat again. She had gradually changed course and was now turning south. Dirk noted that it sailed on a circular course and would soon bear down on his own craft. "You better make it quick, Summer. I don't think this guy is watching where he's going." Summer glanced at the approaching boat, then tossed the water vial over the side. The weighted apparatus quickly sank into the murk as a dozen feet of loose line was let out. When the line drew taut, Summer jerked it, causing the inverted vial to flip over and fill with subsurface water. Reeling in the line, she looked toward the fishing boat. It continued to turn in a lazy arc barely a hundred feet away, its bow easing toward the NUMA vessel. Dirk had already returned to the wheelhouse and hit a button on the cowl. A honking blast erupted from a pair of trumpeted air horns mounted on the bow. The loud bellow echoed across the water but incited no reaction from the fishing boat. It continued to turn lazily toward a rendezvous with the research boat. Dirk quickly fired up the engine and shoved the throttle forward as Summer finished pulling in the water sample. With a quick surge, the boat knifed to port a few yards, then slowed as the fishing boat edged by just a few feet away. "Doesn't look like anyone is on the bridge," Summer shouted. She saw Dirk hang up the radio transmitter. "I get no reply on the radio," he confirmed with a nod. "Summer, come take the wheel." Summer rushed into the cabin and stowed the water sample, then slid into the pilot's seat. "You want to get aboard?" she asked, gauging her brother's intent. "Yes. See if you can match speed with her, then bring us alongside." Summer chased after the fishing boat, following in its wake, before pulling up alongside. She could tell that the fishing boat was traveling in ever-widening circles, then looked in alarm at its projected path. A widening arc along with a peaking flood tide was driving it in a loop toward Gil Island. In just a few minutes, the boat would reach the fringe of the island and rip its hull out on the rocky shoreline. "Better act quick," she yelled to her brother. "She'll be on the rocks in no time." Dirk nodded and motioned with his hand to bring the boat closer. He had scrambled onto the bow and hunched with his feet over the low side railing. Summer held steady for a moment, getting a feel for the other boat's speed and turning radius, then inched closer. When she pulled within two feet of the other boat, Dirk leaped, landing on the deck beside a net roller. Summer instantly pulled away, then followed the fishing boat a few yards behind. Scrambling past the nets, Dirk headed straight for the fishing boat's wheelhouse, where he found a scene of horror. Three men were sprawled on the deck, a look of agony etched on their faces. One of the men stared through open, glassy eyes and oddly clutched a pencil with a frozen hand. Dirk could tell by their gray pallor that the men were dead, but he quickly checked for pulses all the same. He noted curiously that the bodies were unmarked, with no visible blood or open wounds. Finding no signs of life, he grimly took the wheel and straightened the boat's course, calling Summer over the radio to follow him. Shaking off a chill, he anxiously piloted the vessel toward the nearest port, silently wondering what had killed the men lying dead at his feet. 3 THE WHITE HOUSE SECURITY GUARD STOOD AT the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance and stared in puzzlement at the man approaching on the sidewalk. He was short yet walked with a bold stride, his chest out and chin up, with an air of command. With fire-red hair and matching goatee, he reminded the guard of a bantam rooster stalking the henhouse. But it wasn't his appearance or demeanor that most caught the guard's attention. Rather, it was the large unlit stogie that protruded from the man's lips. "Charlie . . . isn't that the VP? " he asked his companion in the guard box. But his fellow agent was on the telephone and didn't hear him. By now, the man had approached the small entryway alongside the guardhouse. "Good evening," he said in a gritty voice. "I have an eight o'clock appointment with the President." "May I see your credentials, sir?" the guard asked nervously. "I don't carry that nonsense around," the man replied gruffly. He stopped and took the cigar out of his mouth. "The name's Sandecker." "Yes, sir. But I still need your credentials, sir," the guard replied, his face turning bright red. Sandecker squinted at the guard, then softened. "I understand that you are just doing your job, son. Why don't you call Chief of Staff Meade and tell him I'm at the gate?" Before the disheveled guard could respond, his partner stuck his head out of the guard box. "Good evening, Mr. Vice President. Another late meeting with the President?" he asked. "Good evening, Charlie," Sandecker replied. "Yes, I'm afraid this is the only time we can talk without interruption." "Why don't you go on in," Charlie said. Sandecker took a step, then stopped. "See you've got a new man on the job," he said, turning to the numb guard who had stopped him. The Vice President then reached out and shook hands with the man. "Keep up the good work, son," he said, then turned and ambled up the drive to the White House. Though he had spent the better part of his career in the nation's capital, James Sandecker was never one for official Washington protocol. A retired admiral, Sandecker was well known within the Beltway for the blunt manner in which he had administered the National Underwater and Marine Agency for many years. He'd been startled when the President asked him to replace his elected running mate, who had died in office. Though he lacked a political bone in his body, Sandecker knew he could be a stronger proponent for the environment and the oceans that he loved and so had readily accepted the offer. As Vice President, Sandecker tried his best to shun the trappings that came with the office. He continually frustrated his Secret Service contingent by ditching them at will. A physical-fitness fanatic, he was often seen out jogging solo along the Mall. He worked out of an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building rather than utilizing a similar space in the West Wing, preferring to avoid the political haze that enveloped all White House administrations. Even in poor weather he would stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue for meetings in the White House, preferring a dose of fresh air to the underground tunnel that connected the two buildings. In good weather, he was even known to hike up to Capitol Hill for congressional meetings, tiring the Secret Service agents assigned to keep up with him. Passing through another security checkpoint at the entrance to the West Wing, Sandecker was escorted by a White House staffer to the Oval Office. Shown through the northwest doorway, he crossed the blue-carpeted room alone and took a seat across from the President at his desk. It wasn't until he was seated that he took a good look at the President and nearly winced. President Garner Ward was a mess. The populist independent from Montana, who bore a passing resemblance in character and appearance to Teddy Roosevelt, looked like he hadn't slept in a week. Puffy sandbags of flesh protruded beneath his blotchy red eyes while his facial skin appeared sullen and gray. He stared at Sandecker with a grim demeanor that was uncharacteristic of the normally jocular Chief Executive. "Garner, you've been burning the midnight oil a bit too much," Sandecker said in a concerned tone. "Can't be helped," the President replied in a weary voice. "We're in a helluva state at the moment." "I saw the news that the price of gasoline has hit ten dollars a gallon. This latest oil shock is hitting quite hard." The country was facing yet another unexpected spike in oil prices. Iran had recently halted all oil exports in response to Western sanctions, while labor strikes in Nigeria had reduced African oil exports to nearly zero. Worse for the U.S. was the suspension of oil exports from Venezuela, orchestrated by the country's volatile President. The price of gasoline and fuel oil quickly skyrocketed while shortages erupted nationwide. "We haven't seen the worst of it," the President replied. He slid a letter across his desk for Sandecker to read. "It's from the Canadian Prime Minister," Ward continued. "Because of legislation passed by Parliament that drastically curtails greenhouse gas emissions, the Canadian government is forcing closure of most of the Athabasca oil sands operations. The Prime Minister regrets to inform us that all associated oil exports to the U.S. will be halted until they can solve the carbon emission problem." Sandecker read the letter and slowly shook his head. "Those sands account for nearly fifteen percent of our imported oil. That'll be a crushing blow to the economy." The recent price surge had already been felt hard across the country. Hundreds of people in the Northeast had died during a winter cold snap when fuel oil stocks ran dry. Airlines, trucking companies, and related transport businesses were driven toward bankruptcy, while hundreds of thousands of workers in other industries had already been laid off. The entire economy seemed on the brink of collapse, while public outrage swelled at a government that could do little to alter the forces of supply and demand. "There's no sense in getting angry at the Canadians," the President said. "Shutting down Athabasca is a rather noble gesture, in light of the accelerated global-warming figures we keep seeing." Sandecker nodded. "I just received a National Underwater and Marine Agency report on ocean temperatures. The seas are warming much faster than previously predicted, while rising at the same pace. There seems to be no stopping the melting of the polar ice caps. The rise in sea level is going to create a global upheaval that we can't even imagine." "As if we don't have enough problems," the President muttered. "And not only that, we're also facing potentially devastating economic repercussions. The global anti-coal campaign is gaining real support. A lot of countries are considering the proposed boycott of American and Chinese goods unless we give up burning coal." "The problem is," Sandecker noted, "coal-fired power plants are the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions—but they also provide half of our electricity. And we have the largest coal reserves in the world. It's a painful dilemma." "I'm not sure that our nation could survive economically if an international boycott gained momentum," the President replied in a low voice. The exhausted Chief Executive leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "I fear we are at a tipping point, Jim, in terms of both the economy and the environment. Disaster awaits if we don't take the right steps." The pressures of the situation were building, and Sandecker could see that they were clearly taking a toll on the President's health. "We're in for some tough choices," Sandecker replied. Taking pity on a man he considered a close friend, he added, "You can't solve it all yourself, Garner." An angry fire suddenly lit in the President's tired eyes. "Maybe I can't. But I shouldn't have to try. We've seen this coming for a decade or more yet nobody had the will to act. Prior administrations spent their time propping up the oil companies while throwing peanuts at renewable-energy research. The same goes for global warming. Congress was too busy protecting the coal industry to see that they were setting the planet up for destruction. Everyone knew that our economic reliance on foreign oil would someday come to haunt us, and now that day has arrived." "There's no debating the shortsightedness of our predecessors," Sandecker agreed. "Washington has never been a town known for its courage. But we owe it to the American people to do what we can to right the wrongs of the past." "The American people," the President replied with anguish. "What am I supposed to tell them now? Sorry, we had our head in the sand? Sorry, we're now facing rampant fuel shortages, hyperinflation, staggering unemployment, and an economic depression? And, sorry, the rest of the world wants us to stop burning coal, so the lights are going out, too?" The President slumped in his chair, staring at the wall in a lost gaze. "I can't offer them a miracle," he said. A long silence lingered over the office before Sandecker responded in a low tone. "You don't need to offer a miracle, just a sharing of the pain. It will be a tough pill to swallow, but we'll have to take a stand and redirect our energy use away from oil. The public is resilient when it counts. Lay it on the line, Garner, and they will stand with us and accept the sacrifices to come." "Perhaps," the President replied in a defeated tone. "But will they stand with us when they figure out that it may be too late? " 4 ELIZABETH FINLAY STEPPED TO THE BEDROOM window and glanced at the sky. A light drizzle beat down, as it had for most of the day, and showed no signs of letting up. She turned and gazed at the waters of Victoria Harbor, which lapped at a stone seawall behind her house. The harbor waters appeared calm, broken by a sprinkling of whitecaps kicked up by the light breeze. It was about as good a spring sailing day as it got in the Pacific Northwest, she thought. Pulling on a thick sweater and a weathered yellow rain slicker, she padded down the stairs of her expansive shoreline home. Built by her late husband in the 1990s, it featured a honeycomb of broad glass windows, which captured a dramatic view of downtown Victoria across the harbor. T. J. Finlay had planned it that way, as a constant reminder of the city he loved. A larger-than-life character, Finlay had dominated the local political scene. An heir to the Canadian Pacific Railway fortune, he had entered politics at an early age, becoming a popular and long-standing MP for greater Victoria. He had died unexpectedly of a heart attack but would have been delighted to know that his wife of thirty-five years had easily won election to his seat in Parliament. A delicate yet adventurous woman, Elizabeth Finlay came from a long line of Canadian settlers and was fiercely proud of her heritage. She was troubled by what she saw as unjust external influences on Canada and was a vocal critic for tougher immigration standards and tighter restrictions on foreign ownership and investment. While ruffling feathers in the business community, she was widely admired for her courage, bluntness, and honesty. Stepping out a back door, she made her way across a manicured lawn and down a flight of steps to a heavy wooden dock that marched into the bay. A happy black Lab followed at her heels, wagging its tail in tireless bliss. Moored at the dock was a sleek sixty-five-foot offshore motor yacht. Though nearly twenty years old, it sparkled like new, the product of impeccable care. Opposite the yacht was a small wooden Wayfarer sailboat of sixteen feet, emblazoned with a bright yellow hull. Like the yacht, the vintage racing sailboat was kept looking new with polished brightwork and fresh lines and sails. At the sound of her footsteps across the wooden slats, a thin gray-haired man stepped off the yacht and greeted Finlay. "Good morning, Mrs. Finlay. Do you wish to take out the Columbia Empress?" he asked, motioning toward the yacht. "No, Edward, I'm up for a sail today. It's a better way to clear my head of Ottawa politics." "An excellent proposition," he replied, helping her and the dog into the sailboat. Untying the bow and stern lines, he shoved the boat away from the dock as Finlay raised the mainsail. "Watch out for freighters," the caretaker said. "Traffic seems a bit lively today." "Thank you, Edward. I shall be back by lunchtime." The breeze quickly filled the mainsail, and Finlay was able to maneuver into the harbor without use of the outboard motor. As the harbor opened up before her, she tacked to the southeast, maneuvering past a Seattle-bound ferry. Seated in the small cockpit, she clipped on a safety harness, then took in the view around her. The quaint shore of Victoria Island receded on her left, its gabled, turn-of-the-century structures resembling a row of dollhouses. In the distance ahead, a steady stream of freighters rolled in along the Juan de Fuca Strait, splitting their forces between Vancouver and Seattle. A few other hardy sailboats and fishing boats dotted the sound, but the open expanse of water left a wide berth to the other vessels. Finlay watched as a small runabout roared past, its lone occupant tossing her a friendly wave before plowing on ahead of her. She sat back and soaked in the salt air, turning up her collar to the damp sea spray. She sailed toward a small group of islands east of Victoria, letting the Wayfarer run free while her mind did likewise. Twenty years before, she and T.J. had sailed across the Pacific on a much larger boat. Crossing remote stretches of ocean, she found that the solitude gave her a sense of comfort. She always considered the sailboat to be a remarkably therapeutic device. Just a few minutes on the water purged away the daily stresses while calming her emotions. She often joked that the country needed more sailboats and fewer psychologists. The small boat skimmed through quietly building swells as Finlay crossed the open bay. Approaching Discovery Island, she tacked to the southeast, breezing into a sheltered cove on the green island that stretched only a mile long. A pod of orcas broke the surface nearby, and Finlay chased after them for several minutes until they disappeared under the surface. Tacking again back toward the island, she saw that the nearby waters were clear of other vessels, save for the runabout that had passed earlier. The powerboat seemed to be running in large circles ahead of her. Finlay shook her head in loathing at the disruptive noise from its large outboard motor. The runabout suddenly stopped a short distance ahead of her, and Finlay could see the occupant fidgeting with a fishing pole. She shifted the rudder and tacked to her port, intending to pass offshore. Skirting by a few yards away, she was startled to hear a loud splash followed by a cry for help. Finlay looked to see the man flailing his arms wildly in the water, a sure sign that he didn't know how to swim. He appeared to be weighed down by a heavy jacket and plunged under the water for a moment before struggling back to the surface. Finlay cut the tiller sharply, catching a quick burst of wind in the mainsail that shoved the boat toward the stricken man. Drawing closer, she quickly dropped the sails and drifted the last few yards, steering the sailboat alongside the flailing man. Finlay could see that he was a hefty man, with short hair and a weathered face. Despite his panicked motions, the man looked at his rescuer with penetrating eyes that showed a complete lack of fear. He turned and gave an annoyed look at the black Lab, who stood at the sailboat's rail barking incessantly. Finlay knew enough not to try and struggle with a drowning victim, so she scanned the deck for a boat hook. Not finding it, she quickly coiled up the sailboat's stern line and expertly tossed it to the man. He managed to loop an arm around the rope before slipping once more underwater. With a leg braced against the gunwale, Finlay pulled on the line, heaving the deadweight toward her. A few feet off the stern, the man popped to the surface, wheezing and sputtering for air. "Take it easy," Finlay assured the man in a comforting voice. "You're going to be all right." She pulled him closer, then tied off the line on a cleat. The man regained his composure and pulled himself to the stern while breathing heavily. "Can you help me aboard? " he rasped, extending an arm skyward. Finlay instinctively reached down and grabbed the man's thick hand. Before she could brace herself to pull, she felt herself roughly tugged toward the water. The man had gripped her wrist and flung himself backward, pushing off the sailboat's stern with his feet. Taken off balance, the slight older woman flew over the railing and struck the water headfirst. Elizabeth Finlay's surprise at being pulled over the rail was surpassed by the shock of immersion in the frigid waters. She gasped at the cold, then regained her bearings and kicked to the surface. Only she couldn't get there. The drowning man had let go of her wrist but now gripped her about the arm above the elbow. To Finlay's horror, she found herself being dragged deeper under the water. Only her safety harness, stretched to its full extension, kept her from descending farther into the depths. Caught in the middle of a lethal tug-of-war, she looked through a churning veil of bubbles at her underwater assailant. She was shocked to see that he had a dive regulator in his mouth spewing a stream of exhaust bubbles. Writhing to break free of his grasp, she pushed against him and felt a spongy layer beneath his clothes. A dry suit. The horror of it all suddenly set in. He was trying to kill her. Fear and panic preceded a surge of adrenaline, and the tough little woman kicked and flailed for all she was worth. A swinging elbow connected with the man's face, knocking the regulator from his mouth. He momentarily let go of her arm, and she made a desperate kick for the surface. But his other hand reached out and clutched her ankle just before her head broke the water, and her fate was sealed. Finlay struggled desperately for another minute, her lungs screaming for relief, before a shroud of darkness clouded her vision. Amidst the terror, she curiously fretted about the safety of her pet Lab, whose muffled bark could be detected underwater. Slowly the struggle eased as the oxygen flow to her brain ceased. Unable to hold her breath any longer, she involuntarily gasped for air, filling her lungs with cold salt water. With a spastic choke and a final flail of the arms, Elizabeth Finlay collapsed. Her assailant held her limp body underwater for another two minutes, then cautiously surfaced alongside the sailboat. Seeing no other vessels about, he swam to the runabout and hoisted himself over the side. He pulled off a loose overcoat, revealing a dive tank and weight belt that he quickly unbuckled. Stripping out of the dry suit, he threw on some dry clothes, started the outboard, and quickly sped past the sailboat. On board the dinghy, the black Lab barked morosely as it eyed its owner drifting lifelessly off the stern. The man gazed at the dog without pity, then turned from the scene of death and calmly cruised toward Victoria. 5 THE VENTURA'S ARRIVAL AT ITS HOME PORT OF Kitimat created an immediate stir. Most of the hamlet's eleven thousand residents knew the dead fishermen as neighbors, friends, or acquaintances. It was only minutes after Dirk docked the boat at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wharf that word leaked out to the local townspeople. Family and friends quickly assembled on the dock until being pushed behind a temporary barricade erected by a bull-sized Mountie. Tying up the NUMA research boat just astern, Summer joined her brother, attracting curious gazes from the nearby onlookers. A hospital van was backed down the dock and the three bodies loaded aboard on covered stretchers. In a dingy bait shack a few feet away, Dirk and Summer chronicled their morbid discovery. "All three were dead when you went aboard?" The monotonous tone of the questioner's voice matched his face. Kitimat's police chief peered at Dirk and Summer with unblinking gray eyes that glared over a small nose and an expressionless mouth. Dirk had immediately pegged the inspector as a frustrated lawman trapped in a job too small for his ambitions. "Yes," Dirk replied. "First thing I did was check for a pulse, but it was evident by their color and skin temperature that they had died at least a short while before I got aboard." "Did you move the bodies?" "No. I just covered them up with some blankets when we got close to port. They looked to me like they died where they fell." The chief nodded blankly. "Did you hear any distress calls on the radio beforehand? And were there any other vessels in the area?" "We heard no calls on the radio," Summer replied. "The only other vessel I noted was a cruise ship sailing down the passage. She was several miles to the north of us when we found the Ventura," Dirk added. The chief stared at them for an awkward minute, then closed a small notebook he had been scribbling in. "What do you think happened?" he asked, arching brows finally cracking his stone face. "I'll leave that for the pathologists to determine," Dirk said, "though if you forced me to guess, I'd say carbon monoxide poisoning. Maybe an exhaust leak under the wheelhouse allowed gases to accumulate inside." "They were all found together in the bridge, so it might figure," the chief nodded. "You don't feel any ill effects?" "I'm fine. Opened all the windows, just to be safe." "Anything else you can tell me that might be of help?" Dirk looked up for a moment then nodded. "There's the odd message on the footwell." The chief's brows arched again. "Show me." Dirk led him and Summer onto the Ventura and into the bridge. Standing near the wheel, he poked a toe toward the helm. The chief dropped to his knees for a closer look, disturbed that he had missed something during his initial crime scene investigation. A faint penciled inscription was scribbled on the face of the helm, just a few inches above the deck. It was a spot where a prone man dying on the deck might try to leave a last message. The inspector pulled out a flashlight and aimed it at the inscription. In a shaky hand was spelled the word CHOKE D, with a small gap in front of the D. The chief reached over and picked up a yellow pencil that had rolled against the bulkhead. "The writing was in reach of the captain's body," Dirk said. "Maybe he fell quickly and couldn't reach the radio." The chief grunted, still upset he had missed it earlier. "Doesn't mean much. Might have already been there." He turned and stared at Dirk and Summer. "What is your business in Hecate Strait?" he asked. "We are with the National Underwater and Marine Agency, conducting a study of phytoplankton health along the Inside Passage," Summer explained. "We are sampling the waters between Juneau and Vancouver, at the request of the Canadian Fisheries Department." The inspector looked at the NUMA boat, then nodded. "I'm going to have to ask you people to stay here in Kitimat for a day or two until the preliminary investigation is complete. You can keep your boat tied up here; this is a municipal dock. There's a motel just a block or two up the road, if you need it. Why don't you plan on coming by my office tomorrow afternoon around three? I'll send a car to pick you up." "Glad to be of help," Dirk replied drily, slightly annoyed at their being treated as potential suspects. The interview complete, Dirk and Summer jumped to the dock and started walking back to their boat. They looked up as a fiberglass workboat nearly identical to their own came roaring toward the dock. The pilot brought it in way too fast, the bow kissing the dock hard just seconds after the engines had been cut. A tall man in a flannel shirt burst from the wheelhouse, grabbed a bow line, and leaped to the dock. Quickly tying the line behind the NUMA boat, he stomped along the pier, his boots pounding the wooden planks. Summer noted his rugged features and shaggy hair as he approached but sensed a measure of grace in his wide, dark eyes. "Are you the folks who found the Ventura?" he asked, giving Dirk and Summer a hard stare. The voice was refined and articulate, which seemed to Summer an odd contrast to the man's appearance. "Yes," Dirk replied. "I brought her in to port." The man nodded briskly, then stormed down the dock, catching the police inspector as he stepped ashore. Summer watched as the man engaged the Mountie in an animated conversation, their voices elevating to a high pitch. "Can't say we've had the warmest of welcomes," Dirk muttered, climbing into the NUMA vessel. "Does everybody here have the demeanor of a grizzly bear?" "Guess we brought too much drama to sleepy little Kitimat," Summer replied. Securing their boat and retrieving their water samples, they headed into the north-woods town, finding it not so sleepy after all. A miniboom was taking place in Kitimat, an outgrowth of the deepwater port facility located southwest of downtown. International industry had quietly taken notice of the shipping capabilities and was turning the town into the busiest Canadian port north of Vancouver. A longtime Alcon Aluminum smelter had recently undergone a billion-dollar expansion, while logging operations and tourism continued to grow. Locating a shipping office, they overnighted their water samples to a NUMA lab facility in Seattle, then grabbed a late dinner. Walking back to their motel, they took a detour to the dock to retrieve a few items from the boat. Standing on the bridge, Summer found herself staring at the Ventura, moored in front of them. The police had finished their investigation and the boat sat empty, a silent blanket of morbidity hanging over it. Dirk stepped up from belowdecks, noticing his sister's concentration. "Can't do anything to bring them back," he said. "It's been a long day. Let's head to the motel and turn in." "Just thinking about that message on the footwell and what the captain was trying to say. I wonder if it was a warning of some sort." "They died quickly. We don't even know if it was a last message." Summer thought about the inscription again and shook her head. It meant something more than it appeared to, of that much she was certain. Beyond that, she had no clue. Somehow, she told herself, she would figure it out. 6 THE RESTAURANT'S DECOR WOULD NEVER BE FEATURED in Architectural Digest, Dirk thought, but the smoked salmon and eggs certainly rated five stars. He grinned at the moose head protruding above Summer as he swallowed another bite of breakfast. The moose was only one of a dozen stuffed animal heads mounted on the wall. Each seemed to be staring at Summer through hard glassy eyes. "All this roadkill is enough to make a person turn vegan," Summer grimaced, shaking her head at the bared snout of a grizzly bear. "Kitimat's taxidermist must be the richest guy in town," Dirk replied. "Probably owns the motel." She sipped at a cup of coffee as the door to the café opened and a tall man entered the restaurant. He strode directly to their table as Dirk and Summer recognized him as the agitated man they'd encountered on the dock the day before. "May I please join you?" he asked in a nonthreatening manner. "Please do," Dirk said, pushing out a chair. He stuck his hand out at the stranger. "I'm Dirk Pitt. This is my sister, Summer." The man's brow rose a fraction as he gazed at Summer. "Glad to know you," he replied, shaking hands. "My name is Trevor Miller. My older brother, Steve, was captain of the Ventura." "We're sorry for what happened yesterday," Summer replied. She could tell by the look in the man's eyes that he was deeply shaken by the loss of his brother. "He was a good man," Trevor said, his gaze turning distant. He then looked at Summer and offered a sheepish grin. "My apologies for the gruff behavior yesterday. I had just received word of my brother's death over the marine radio and was a little upset and confused." "A natural reaction," Summer said. "I think we were all a little confused." Trevor inquired about their involvement, and Summer told of their discovery of the fishing boat while surveying the Hecate Strait. "Your brother fished these waters for some time?" Dirk asked. "No, only two or three years. He was actually a doctor who sold his practice and turned to fishing out of passion. Did pretty well at it, too, despite all the restrictions placed on commercial fishing these days to protect the stocks." "Seems like an odd career transition," Summer remarked. "We grew up on the water. Our father was an engineer for the local mining company and an avid fisherman. We traveled around a lot but always had a boat. Steve would be on the water every chance he got. He even crewed on a trawler in high school." "He sure kept a smart boat," Dirk said. "I've never seen such an immaculate fishing boat." "The Ventura was the pride of the Northwest, he used to joke. Steve was a bit of a perfectionist. He always kept his boat spotless and his equipment maintained in the highest order. That's what makes everything so troubling." He gazed out the window, a faraway look in his eyes. Then he turned to Dirk and asked quietly, "They were dead when you found them?" "I'm afraid so. The boat was circling haphazardly with no one at the helm when we first spotted it." "The Ventura would have piled onto the rocks of Gil Island if Dirk hadn't jumped aboard," Summer added. "I'm glad you did," Trevor said. "The autopsies revealed that the men died of asphyxiation. The police are certain that carbon monoxide poisoning was the cause. Yet I went all over the Ventura and could find no evidence of an exhaust leak." "The engine is well astern of the wheelhouse, which makes it perplexing. Perhaps there is no leak and it was just an odd mix of wind and running conditions that allowed the exhaust fumes to accumulate in the cabin," Dirk suggested. "It does seem odd that the three men succumbed so quickly." "It might not be that unusual," Summer said. "There was a mystery several years ago when a high number of drowning deaths began plaguing houseboat vacationers on Lake Powell. They finally discovered that exhaust fumes were accumulating off the stern of the houseboats and incapacitating swimmers in the water." "Steve was such a cautious man," Miller noted. "It's not difficult to be overcome by an unseen killer," Dirk said. The discussion was taking a toll on Trevor, and he paled from the strain. Summer poured him a cup of coffee and tried to move the conversation elsewhere. "If there is anything we can do to help, please ask," she said, her soft gray eyes showing genuine concern. "Thank you for trying to help my brother and his crew, and for saving the Ventura. My family is grateful." Trevor hesitated, then added, "There is one favor I would like to ask you. I wonder if you would consider taking me to the site where you found them." "It's over fifty miles from here," Dirk said. "We can take my boat. She cruises at twenty-five knots. I'd just like to see where he was at the time." Summer glanced at a clock mounted beneath a sneering mountain lion. "We don't have to meet with the police inspector until three o'clock," she said to her brother. "We might be able to make a quick run out and back." "I need to check out the ROV and see if we get anything back from the Seattle lab," Dirk replied. "How about you go with Mr. Miller, and I'll handle the inspector in case you're late getting back." "Call me Trevor. And I'll have her back on time," Trevor said, smiling at Summer as if he were asking her father's permission to take her out. She was surprised to feel a slight blush cross her cheeks. "Save me a seat under the hot interrogation light," she said to Dirk, rising from her chair. "I'll see you at three." 7 TREVOR HELPED SUMMER ABOARD HIS BOAT, THEN quickly cast off the lines. As the workboat edged away from the dock, she leaned over the side and noted a NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA logo painted on the hull. When the boat had safely slipped past the port dockage and was speeding down Douglas Channel, Summer walked into the cabin and sat on a bench near the pilot's seat. "What do you do for the Natural Resources Department?" she asked. "Coastal ecologist for the department's Forestry Service," he replied, steering around a logging ship chugging down the center of the channel. "I work mostly with industrial concerns in the northern British Columbia coastal region. I have been fortunate to base out of Kitimat, since the ongoing port expansion provides plenty of activity." He turned to Summer and smiled. "Tame stuff compared to what you and your brother do for NUMA, I'm sure." "Collecting plankton samples along the Inside Passage isn't too wild and crazy," she replied. "I would be interested in seeing your results. We've had reports of concentrated marine mortality in a few areas around here, though I've never been able to successfully document the occurrences." "Be only too happy to work with a fellow disciple of the deep," she laughed. The boat snaked through the winding channel at high speed, gliding easily over the calm water. Green fingers of land laden with thick pines jutted into the sound, a series of scenic obstacles. Following their progress on a navigation chart, Summer instructed Trevor to slow as they entered the main cross channel of Hecate Strait. A brief rain shower pelted them for a few minutes, leaving them in a gray gloom. As they approached Gil Island, the rain lifted, increasing visibility to a mile or two. Looking from the radar to the horizon, Summer could see that there were no other vessels around them. "Here, let me steer," Summer said, standing and putting a hand on the wheel. Trevor gave her a reluctant look, then stood and stepped aside. Summer angled the boat toward the island, then slowed and swung north. "We were situated about here when we noticed the Ventura running from the northwest, a mile or so off. She made a lazy turn, gradually coming up on our beam. Would have struck us if we hadn't jumped off her path." Trevor stared out the window, trying to visualize the scene. "I had just taken a water sample. We saw no one at the helm, and a radio call went unanswered. I brought us alongside, and Dirk was able to jump aboard. That's when he found your brother," she said, her voice trailing off. Trevor nodded, then walked to the stern deck and gazed across the water. A light drizzle began to fall, streaming his face with moisture. Summer left him alone with his thoughts for several minutes, then approached quietly and grabbed his hand. "I'm sorry about your brother," she said softly. He squeezed her hand but continued staring off in the distance. His eyes suddenly sharpened as he focused on something nearby. A white cloud had materialized on the water a few dozen yards off the bow. The vapor grew rapidly until it encroached upon the boat. "Awfully white for a fogbank," Summer said with a curious look. She noted that the air took on a pungent odor as the mist drew closer. The cloud had billowed to the tip of the bow when the light drizzle overhead suddenly thickened into a downpour. Trevor and Summer ducked into the wheelhouse as a deluge of rainwater pelted the boat. Through the window, they watched the approaching white cloud disappear under the gray canopy of falling water. "That was odd," Summer remarked as Trevor fired up the motor. He aimed the boat toward Kitimat, applying a heavy throttle, as he noticed a scattering of dead fish whir by in the water. "Devil's Breath," he said quietly. "Devil's what?" "Devil's Breath," he repeated, turning a troubled eye toward Summer. "A local native Haisla was fishing in this area a few weeks ago and washed up dead on one of the islands. The authorities said he drowned, possibly run over by a vessel that didn't see him in the fog. Maybe he had a heart attack, I don't really know." The rain outside had let up, but Trevor kept his eyes on the boat's path ahead. "Go on," Summer prodded after a lengthy pause. "I never thought much about it. But a few days ago, my brother recovered the man's skiff while fishing out here and asked me to return it to the family. The man had lived in Kitamaat Village, a Haisla settlement. I had done some water studies for the village, so I was friendly with a number of residents. When I met with the family, the deceased man's uncle kept crying that Devil's Breath had killed him." "What did he mean?" "He said that the devil had decided his time had come and cast down a cold white breath of death that killed him and everything around him." "The reported fish and marine life kills?" Trevor turned and gave Summer a half grin. "I'm pretty sure the old guy was drunk when he told me that. The Haisla have no shortage of supernatural deeds in their storytelling." "It does sound like an old wives' tale," Summer agreed. But her words didn't stop a sudden chill from tingling up her spine. The rest of the journey was made in silence, as they both contemplated the strange words of the Haisla native and how it fit with the things they had seen. THEY WERE WITHIN A few miles of Kitimat when an executive helicopter whisked across their bow low overhead. The chopper angled toward a protruding chunk of land on the north bank, where an industrial facility was nestled in the trees. A wooden pier stretched into the sound, berthing several small boats and a large luxury yacht. On an adjacent grass clearing was pitched a large white party tent. "Private hunting lodge for the rich and famous?" Summer asked with a tilt of her head. "Nothing that glamorous. It's actually a prototype carbon sequestration plant, built by Terra Green Industries. I was involved in some of the site approval and inspection work as it was being built." "I'm familiar with the concept of carbon sequestration. Collecting and liquefying industrial carbon dioxide gases and pumping them deep into the earth or beneath the ocean floor. Seems like an expensive way to keep pollutants out of the atmosphere." "The new greenhouse gas emission limits make it a hot technology. The clampdown on industrial carbon dioxide releases in Canada is especially stringent. Companies can now trade carbon credits, but the cost is much higher than many had anticipated. Mining and power companies are particularly desperate to find lower-cost alternatives. Goyette expects to make a lot of money from his sequestration technology if he is allowed to expand the process." "Mitchell Goyette, the environmental magnate?" "Yes, he's the owner of Terra Green. Goyette is something of a cultural hero to many Canadians. He's built dams, wind farms, and solar panel fields all over the country while touting hydrogen fuel technologies." "I'm familiar with his call for offshore wind farms along the Atlantic seaboard to produce clean energy. I have to tell you, that doesn't exactly look like a hydrogen-powered yacht," Summer said, pointing toward the Italian-built luxury vessel. "No, he doesn't live the self-deprived life of a true greenie. He's become a billionaire off the environmental movement, yet nobody holds it against him. Some people say that he doesn't even believe in the movement, that it's just a means for him to make money." "Apparently he has succeeded," she said, still eyeing the yacht. "Why did he build a sequestration facility here?" "In a word, Athabasca. The oil sands of Athabasca, Alberta, require a tremendous amount of energy to refine into crude oil. A by-product of the process is carbon dioxide, apparently in large quantities. The new greenhouse gas agreement will shut down the refinery operations unless they can find a way around their CO2 problem. Enter Mitchell Goyette. The oil companies were already building a small pipeline from the oil fields to Kitimat. Goyette convinced them to build an extra pipeline to run liquefied carbon dioxide." "We noticed a pair of small oil tankers in the channel," Summer said. "We fought the pipelines hard for fear of oil spills, but the commerce powers won out. Goyette, meanwhile, convinced the government that a coastal location was key for his facility, and even received a land grant from the Natural Resources Department." "A shame it ended up in such a pristine location." "There was a lot of dissent in the department, but the natural resources minister ultimately signed off on it. In fact, I'm told he is one of the guests visiting the official grand opening today." "And you didn't make the cut?" Summer asked. "My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. No, wait, the dog ate it." He laughed. It was the first time Summer had caught Trevor in a light moment, and she observed a sudden warmth in his eyes. They sped on into Kitimat, Trevor easing the boat to berth behind the docked NUMA vessel. Dirk could be seen inside the research vessel's cabin, typing on a laptop computer. He closed the computer and stepped out with a morose look on his face as Summer and Trevor tied up the other vessel, then walked alongside. "Back before three, with room to spare," Summer greeted, eyeing her wristwatch. "I think the police chief's visit is the least of our worries," Dirk replied. "I just downloaded the lab results from the water samples we sent to Seattle yesterday." "Why so glum?" Dirk handed the printout to Summer, then gazed across the waters of the sound. "The pristine-looking waters lying off Kitimat are threatening to kill anything that swims through them." 8 MITCHELL GOYETTE DRAINED THE GLASS OF Krug Clos du Mesnil champagne with a smug look of satisfaction. He placed the empty crystal flute on a cocktail table just as the wash from the helicopter's rotor rippled the tent overhead. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said in a deep voice. "That would be the Prime Minister." Extricating himself from a small group of province politicians, Goyette exited the tent and strode toward a nearby landing pad. A large and imposing man, Goyette had a polished demeanor that bordered on slick. With wide eyes, greased-back hair, and a permanent grin, he had the look of a wild boar. Yet he moved in a fluid, almost graceful manner that belied his simmering arrogance. It was the conceit of a man who had amassed his wealth through shrewdness, deceit, and intimidation. Though not the product of a rags-to-riches story, Goyette had parlayed a family land inheritance into a small fortune when a power company solicited a portion of the site for a proposed hydroelectric project. Goyette astutely negotiated a percentage of the power revenues for use of the land, correctly predicting the insatiable power demands of a booming Vancouver. He leveraged one investment after another, acquiring mineral and logging rights, thermal power resources, and his own hydroelectric plants. A powerful publicity campaign carefully focused on his alternative energy holdings and painted him as a man of the people in order to increase his negotiating strength with the government powers. With his assets privately held, few knew of his major holdings in gas, coal, and oil properties, and the complete hypocrisy of his carefully cultivated image. Goyette watched as the Sikorsky S-76 hovered briefly, then touched its wheels down onto a wide circular landing pad. The twin engines were shut down, then the copilot climbed out and opened the side passenger door. A short man with shiny silver hair stepped out and held his head low under the swirling rotor blades, as two aides followed him close behind. "Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to Kitimat and our new Terra Green facility," Goyette greeted with an extrawide smile. "How was your flight?" "That's one plush bird. I'm just glad the rain let up so we could enjoy the view." The Canadian Prime Minister, a polished man in his own right named Barrett, reached over and shook Goyette's hand. "Good to see you again, Mitch. And thanks for the lift. I didn't realize that you were also abducting one of my own cabinet members." He motioned toward a droopy-eyed man with a receding hairline who stepped off the chopper and approached the group. "Natural Resources Minister Jameson was instrumental in approving our facility here," Goyette beamed. "Welcome to the finished product," he added, turning to Jameson. The resources minister didn't return the exuberance. With a forced grin, he replied, "I'm happy to see the facility operational." "The first of many, with your help," Goyette said, winking at the Prime Minister. "Yes, your firm's capital planning director tells us that you already have a site under development in New Brunswick." Barrett pointed back toward the helicopter. "My capital planning director?" Goyette asked in a confused tone. He followed the Prime Minister's gaze and turned toward the helicopter. Another man exited the side door and stretched his arms skyward. He crinkled his dark eyes at a fleeting burst of sunlight, then ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. The tailored blue suit he wore failed to hide his muscular build but passed the mark for corporate executive attire. Goyette had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping as the man approached. "Mr. Goyette"—he grinned with a self-confident smile—"I have the papers on our Vancouver property divestiture for your signature." He tapped a leather satchel held under one arm for effect. "Excellent," Goyette snorted, regaining his composure at the sight of his hired hit man strolling off his private helicopter. "Why don't you wait in the plant manager's office, and we'll attend to it shortly." Goyette turned and hurriedly escorted the Prime Minister into the white tent. Wine and hors d'oeuvres were served to the accompaniment of a string quartet before Goyette led the dignitaries to the entrance of the sequestration facility. A droll-faced engineer identified as the plant manager took charge of the group and led them on a short tour. They walked through two large pump stations, then moved outside, where the plant manager pointed out several mammoth holding tanks that were partially concealed in the surrounding pines. "The carbon dioxide is pumped as a liquid from Alberta and received into the holding tanks," the manager explained. "It is then pumped under pressure into the ground beneath us. An eight-hundred-meter well was dug here, driving through a thick layer of caprock until reaching a porous sedimentary formation filled with brine. It is the ideal geology to hold CO2 and virtually impervious to surface leakage." "What would happen if an earthquake should strike here?" the Prime Minister asked. "We are at least thirty miles from the nearest known fault line, so the odds of a large quake occurring here are quite remote. And at the depths we are storing the product, there is virtually no chance of an accidental release from a geological event." "And exactly how much of the Athabasca refineries' carbon dioxide output are we sequestering here?" "Just a fraction, I'm afraid. We'll need many more facilities to absorb the full output from the oil sand fields and allow them to operate at peak production again." Goyette capitalized on the line of questioning to insert a sales pitch. "As you know, Alberta oil production has had to face serious cutbacks because of the tighter carbon emission mandate. The situation is equally dire for the coal-fired power plants back east. The economic impact to the country will be enormous. But you are standing at the heart of the solution. We've already scouted more locations in the region that are suitable for sequestration facilities. All we need is your help to move forward." "Perhaps, but I'm not sure I like the idea of British Columbia's coastline being a receptacle for Alberta's industrial pollution," the Prime Minister said drily. A product of Vancouver, he still had a homegrown pride in his native province. "Don't forget the tax that British Columbia imposes for each metric ton of carbon transferred across its border, a fraction of which goes back to the federal coffers. The fact is, it is a safe moneymaking play for the province. Plus, you may have noticed our dock facility." Goyette pointed to a huge covered building across the grounds that sat adjacent to a small inlet. "We have a five-hundred-foot covered dock capable of accommodating tanker ships that can carry liquid CO2. We're already receiving shipments and intend to show that we can process carbon waste from Vancouver industry, as well as logging and mining businesses up and down the coast. Allow us to build similar facilities across the country and we'll be able to manage a large portion of our national carbon quotas. And with excess capacity built into the new coastal facilities, we can even bury American and Chinese carbon at a nice profit." The politician's eyes glimmered at the prospect of additional revenues flowing to the government's ledgers. "The technology, it is perfectly safe?" he asked. "We're not talking nuclear waste here, sir. This facility was built as a prototype and has been operating flawlessly for several weeks now. Mr. Prime Minister, it is a no-lose proposition. I build and operate the plants, and ensure their safety. The government just gives me the go-ahead and receives a cut off the top." "And there is plenty left for you?" "I'll get by," Goyette replied, roaring like a hyena. "All I need is the continued site and pipeline approvals from you and the resources minister. And that won't be a problem, will it, Minister Jameson?" Jameson looked at Goyette with a beaten subservience. "I should think there is little to interrupt our trusting relationship," he replied. "Very well," Barrett said. "Send me your draft proposals and I'll run it past my advisers. Now, where's some more of that fine champagne? " As the group made their way back to the refreshment tent, Goyette quietly pulled the resources minster aside. "I trust you received delivery of the BMW?" Goyette asked with a sharklike grin. "A generous gift that my wife is quite ecstatic about. I would prefer, however, that future compensations remain less conspicuous." "Not to worry. The contribution to your offshore trust account has already been made." Jameson ignored the comment. "What is this nonsense about building new facilities along the coast? We both know the geology here is marginal, at best. Your so-called aquifer at this site will reach capacity in just a matter of months." "This site will run indefinitely," Goyette lectured. "We have solved the capacity issue. And as long as you send me the same geological assessment team as before, there will be no problem with our coastal expansion plans. The chief geologist was quite amenable to revising his conclusions for a rather nominal price." He grinned. Jameson grimaced at the knowledge that corruption flourished within the department well beyond his own dirty hands. He could never recall the exact day that he woke up and realized that Goyette had owned him. It was several years past. The two had met at a hockey game, when Jameson was making his first bid for a seat in Parliament. In Goyette, he had seemingly found a wealthy benefactor who shared a progressive vision for the country. The political campaign contributions grew as Jameson's career advanced, and somewhere along the way he had foolishly crossed the line. Campaign contributions progressed to jet rides and free vacations, ultimately leading to outright cash bribes. With ambition in his heart and a wife and four children to support on a civil servant's salary, he blindly took the cash, convincing himself that the policies he promoted for Goyette were just. It wasn't until he was appointed natural resources minister that he saw the other side of Goyette. The public perception of him as an environmental prophet was just a cleverly designed façade, he came to learn, disguising Goyette's true nature as a money-hungry megalomaniac. For every wind farm he developed with public fanfare, there were a half dozen coal mines he operated, his actual ownership buried in a laundry list of corporate subsidies. Phony mining claims, forged environmental impact statements, and outright federal grants to Goyette's holdings were all jury-rigged by the minister. In return, the bribes had been steady and generous. Jameson had been able to purchase an elegant house in the upscale Ottawa neighborhood of Rockcliffe Park and accumulate more than enough cash in the bank to send his kids to the finest schools. Yet he had never intended for things to slip so far, and he knew there was nothing he could do to escape. "I don't know how much more of this I can support," he told Goyette in a tired voice. "You will support as much as I need," Goyette hissed, his eyes quickly turning ice cold. "Unless you wish to spend the rest of your days at Kingston Penitentiary." Jameson physically wilted, accepting the reality with a weak nod. Confident in Jameson's indenture, Goyette, features softened, waved an arm t