“That would be a novelty,” said Chairman Baliev with an edge to his voice.
“But best of all,” went on Piatakov, warming to the subject, “we would be providing a concrete goal for workers in Room 101. Its acquisition would affect the motherland’s entire strategic posture. Installed here in Room 101, the BAM-IX would be visible evidence of the value of the Foreign Intelligence Directorate’s teamwork and discipline. Its could increase every worker’s productivity by as much as 50 percent.”
The chairman did not reply. Silence echoed from the plate-glass sides of the duty officer’s kiosk. Piatakov waited. He waited for what seemed an awfully long time.
Finally the chairman spoke. “I shall look forward, Comrade Piatakov, to receiving your full report. Meanwhile, I want to congratulate you on your exceptionally perceptive analysis of the faults you have detected in 101. Such outstanding work demands commensurate recognition. Tomorrow morning, I shall recommend to the Presidium your immediate promotion to lieutenant general.”
Piatakov was stunned.
“Don’t thank me,” Director Baliev said. “You have earned the rank. But that raises another problem.”
“Problem?” Piatakov, bathed in the euphoria of his elevation, could see no problem. At the rate he was going, he would be Marshal of the Soviet Union before he was fifty. No problem there.
“Yes. You see, I can think of no assignment where a lieutenant general with your particular combination of talents would fit.” He paused. “Unless…”
A curtain of sudden apprehension descended upon Piatakov.
“Sir?” he croaked.
“Unless you would graciously consent to serve, as you have served throughout your distinguished career, where your unique capabilities could best promote the vital interests of the USSR.”
The apprehension turned to cold fear.
“I wonder if you would agree, Lieutenant General Piatakov,” said KGB Chairman Baliev, “to put your stimulating and promising theories into practice as director of Room 101. After all, no one can convert theory to action so ably as its creator.”
“But, sir,” protested Piatakov, struggling to hold back his panic, “Room 101 already has a director.”
Baliev chuckled. “No problem.”
PART II
SNOW
13. SALVATION
19 JANUARY 2006
IT LOOKED LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF AN OLD NORSE EDDA: an enormous mist-shrouded floating white island of a magnitude to be peopled by Vikings as tall as pine trees, impervious alike to the raging waves churned up by Njord, god of the seas, and thunderbolts sent crashing down by Thor, son of Odin. For the moment, though, the seas around it were serene, the skies overhead were clear of storm clouds, and neither Viking nor other race of man had yet glimpsed its virgin surface.
But far overhead, an ever-vigilant satellite had witnessed its birth, when it calved some twenty hours earlier from the Ross Ice Shelf.
“It’s what we’ve been looking for, Mrs. Red Cloud,” announced Randy Gustafson, striding into the chairman’s office with the computer printout streaming behind him. He spread the printout across her desk, cluttered by not so much as a paper clip.
“What’s the berg’s size?”
“Just about the perfect parallelepiped, Mrs. Red Cloud: 2 kilometers long, a shade over 1 kilometer wide, and 229 meters thick.”
“Randy, you know very well that the metric system and I don’t see eye to eye.”
“About a mile and a half long, six-tenths of a mile wide, and 680 feet high, or about 130 feet higher than the Washington Monument, but only a hundred feet shows above the waterline.”
“That’s better,” she purred. “And how much water does it contain?”
“Very roughly, 200 million tons. Close to 50 billion gallons. Enough for a tribe of thirsty Arabs.”
“And their goats and camels. Its position?”
Randy Gustafson aimed a remote control at the wall opposite Mrs. Red Cloud’s desk. The wall sprang alive, showing a smooth blue surface. Barely visible in midscreen was a white dot the size of a postage stamp. Gustafson did things with the control, and the postage stamp expanded to the size of a bedsheet.
“This tape was taken about ten minutes ago as the ROR satellite passed over in polar orbit. We’ll have an update available in forty minutes. The berg’s just the size we’ve been looking for, and it couldn’t be better placed. It’s at 77°40′ S, 172°12′ W.”
He switched to a Mercator projection of the globe. “As you can see, that position is just south of the islands of Samoa and Midway, and Adak, Alaska.”
“And where are our ships?”
“About fifty nautical miles to the north of the berg.” A blinking red light indicated the fleet’s position.
“It’s not ‘the berg’ now, Randy. It’s the Salvation. Instruct Dr. Lepoint to capture the Salvation at once and take it in tow.”
“Roger,” said Randy, and was on his way. Despite the fact that her presence automatically improved the quality of the scenery about a hundred percent, Gustafson never felt quite comfortable around her. She was a little too volatile for his taste, too ready to kiss or kill, with what seemed to him a natural predilection for the latter.
She stared morosely at the wall display, with its blinking red light now become an arrow, pointing at the stationary white light representing the Salvation.
Salvation. It had better be. When Raynes Oceanic Resources was awarded the prime contract, Castle had agreed that ROR would put up 10 percent of the capital. But after the letter of intent had been prepared, President Turnbull had overruled his Secretary of Water Resources. He had insisted that the prime contractor for such a potentially profitable enterprise must commit one-third of the funds, with the government supplying the rest. To back out now, after Raynes’s publicity men had been portraying the company in the media as the best qualified to handle this historic project, would have made Jennifer Red Cloud a laughingstock. Ripley Forte especially would have
laughed his head off, and that would have killed her. Her only course was to go discreetly to the banks and mortgage Raynes’s future on the outcome of this one mammoth project. If she succeeded in bringing the berg into San Francisco Bay, ROR would automatically have a monopoly on iceberg recovery technology and within a few years dwarf Exxon and IBM. If she failed…
Dr. Valery Daniel Lepoint was a small man whose profile was that of an inverted turnip. He was rich in reputation, honors, diplomas, self-esteem, and energy. A Parisian, he had graduated from not one but two of les grandes ecoles. He had published (though not, following academic custom, had he in every case written) some three hundred papers on glaciology and oceanography and was considered by many the world’s foremost authority on the theory of iceberg recovery and transport. He held fourteen patents on devices designed for this purpose. At the University of Paris, he currently occupied the chair of theoretical fluid dynamics. That he had never led an expedition to the Arctic or Antarctic or, indeed, had even actually seen an iceberg in its native habitat–he had, to be sure, once seen a one-ton specimen at an iceberg symposium in Iowa–he considered no handicap as leader of the first-ever expedition to bring a commercial-scale iceberg into port. Whatever shortcomings he might have in practical applications, he felt, were more than compensated by his immense knowledge of theory, thorough acquaintance with the literature, and ripe Gallic intuition.
Within minutes of receiving news that an ideal candidate for recovery had been sighted, Dr. Lepoint’s fleet was on its way, even before the order had been received from ROR’s head office. As operational chief, Dr. Lepoint didn’t feel that he needed direction from a distant headquarters, especially one headed by a woman.
His fleet was a heterogenous one. It consisted of a flagship–a converted U.S. Navy command ship bristling with radar antennas and other navigation and communications gear–six huge oceangoing tugs, five supply ships, a submarine mother ship, two tenders, two oilers, a small troop transport to accommodate the personnel who would
work aboard the iceberg, a seaplane tender that had been converted into a floating laboratory and informationprocessing station, and a helicopter carrier with twelve personnel choppers and three huge transports with sixbladed counterrotating props capable of lifting twenty-five tons.
Within three hours the first of Lepoint’s motley fleet had closed on the Salvation and the exploration group had been airlifted to its center.
Two hours later, the berg was pronounced free of maneating crevices, and the seismographic party took charge. At intervals across the entire surface they planted rows of sensors and then set off calibrated charges of blasting powder in order to anaylze the reverberation patterns.
Forty hours later, the chief seismographer pronounced the Salvation “aussi solide que le roc de Gilbralter.”
Relays of helicopters were soon shuttling back and forth, discharging a steady stream of men and cargoes.
The mounds of equipment in the center of the berg grew in number and volume as the January sun rose feebly in the sky. First to arrive were the makings of eight twelve-man bunkhouses.