“But if the wind didn’t change and the snowmobiles didn’t move, that means the ice we’re on…”
His voice trailed away.
They were both silent.
Neither of them wanted to put his fear into words.
At last Pete finished the thought: “…so the ice must have revolved one full quarter of the compass.”
“But how’s that possible?”
“I have one good idea.”
Harry nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, so do I.”
“Only one explanation makes sense.”
“We better have a look at the compass on my machine.”
“We’re in deep shit, Harry.”
“It’s not a field of daisies,” Harry agreed.
They hurried to the second vehicle, and the fresh snow crunched and squeaked under their boots.
Pete tapped the Plexiglas face of the compass. “This one’s facing south too.”
Harry brushed at his goggles but said nothing. Their situation was so dire that he didn’t’ want to have to put it into words, as if the worst wouldn’t actually have happened until they spoke of it.
Pete surveyed the inhospitable wasteland that surrounded them. “If the damn wind picks up and the temperature keeps dropping… and it will keep dropping… then how long could we survive out here?”
“With our current supplies, not even one day.”
“The nearest help…”
“Would be those UNGY trawlers.”
“But they’re two hundred miles away.”
“Two hundred and thirty.”
“And they’re not going to head north into a major storm, not with so many ice floes to negotiate.”
Neither of them spoke. The banshee shriek of the wind filled their silence. Furies of hard-driven snow stung the exposed portions of Harry’s face, even though his skin was protected by a layer of Vaseline.
Finally, Pete said, “So now what?”
Harry shook his head, “Only one thing’s certain. We won’t be driving back to Edgeway Station this afternoon.”
Claude Jobert joined them in time to hear that last exchange. Even though the lower part of his face was covered by a snow mask and though his eyes were only half visible behind his goggles, his alarm was unmistakable. He put one hand on Harry’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
Harry glanced at Pete.
To Claude, Pete said, “Those waves… they broke up the edge of the icefield.”
The Frenchman tightened his grip on Harry’s arm.
Clearly not wanting to believe his own words, Pete said, “We’re adrift on an iceberg.”
“That can’t be,” Claude said.
“Outrageous, but it’s true,” Harry said. “We’re moving farther away from Edgeway Station with every passing minute… and deeper into this storm.”
Claude was a reluctant convert to the truth. He looked from Harry to Pete, then around at the forbidding landscape, as if he expected to see something that would refute what they had told him. “You can’t be sure.”
“All but certain,” Pete disagreed.
Claude said, “But under us…”
“Yes.”
“…those bombs…”
“Exactly,” Harry said. “Those bombs.”
CHAPTER TWO: SHIP
1:00
DETONATION IN ELEVEN HOURS
One of the snowmobiles was on its side. The safety cutout had switched off the engine when the machine overturned, so there had been no fire. The other snowmobile was canted against a low hummock of ice. The four headlamps parted the curtains of snow, illuminating nothing, pointing away from the precipice over which George Lin had disappeared.
Although Brian Dougherty was convinced that any search for the Chinese was a waste of time, he scrambled to the edge of the new crevasse and sprawled facedown on the ice at the jagged brink. Roger Breskin joined him, and they lay side by side, peering into a terrible darkness.
Queasiness coiled and slithered in Brian’s gut. He tried to dig the metal toes of his boots into the iron-hard ice, and he clutched at the flat surface. If another tsunami set the world adance, he might be tipped or flung into the abyss.
Roger directed his flashlight outward, toward the distant wall of the crevasse. Except for falling snow, nothing was revealed within the reach of the yellow beam. The light dwindled away into perfect blackness.
“Isn’t a crevasse,” Brian said. “It’s a damned canyon!”
“Not that either.”
The beam moved slowly back and forth: Nothing lay out there. Nothing whatsoever. Less than astronauts could see when they peered from a porthole into deep space.