ICEBOUND By Dean Koontz

“The nearest package of explosives is three hundred yards from our position. Nine hundred feet. If we can retrieve and disarm it, then we’ll be nine hundred and forty-five feet from the next nearest bomb. Each charge is forty-five feet from the one in front of it. So, if we take up ten of them, we’ll be over a quarter of a mile from the nearest explosion. The other fifty will detonate at midnight—but none of them will be directly under us. Our end of the iceberg might well survive the shock. With luck, it might be large enough to sustain us.”

“Might,” Fischer said sourly.

“It’s our best chance.”

“Not a good one,” the German noted.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“If we can’t dig up the explosives, which you apparently agree is out of the question, then how do we get to them?”

“With the auxiliary drill Reopen the shafts.”

Fischer frowned. “Perhaps not so wise. What if we drill into a bomb casing?”

“It won’t explode,” Harry assured him.

Johnson said, “The plastic charge responds only to a certain voltage of electric current. Neither shock nor heat will do the job, Franz.”

“Besides,” Harry said, “the bits for the ice drill aren’t hard enough to cut through a steel casing.”

“And when we’ve opened the shaft?” the German asked with obvious skepticism. “Just reel in the bomb by its chain, as if it’s a fish on a line?”

“Something like that.”

“No good. You’ll chew the chain to pieces when you reopen the shaft with the drill.”

“Not if we use the smaller bits. The original shaft is four inches in diameter. But the bomb is only two and a half inches in diameter. If we use a three-inch bit, we might be able to slip past the chain. After all, it’s pulled flat against the side of the original shaft.”

Franz Fischer wasn’t satisfied. “Even if you can open the hole without shredding the chain, it’ll still be welded to the ice, and so will the bomb casing.”

“We’ll snap the upper end of the chain to a snowmobile and try to pop it and the cylinder out of the shaft.”

“Won’t work,” Fischer said dismissively.

Harry nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”

“There must be another way.”

“Such as?”

Brian said, “We can’t just lie down and wait for the end, Franz. That doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense.” He turned to Harry. “But if your plan works, if we can get the bombs out of the ice, will it be possible to uncover ten of them in ten hours?”

“We won’t know till we try,” Harry said, resolutely refusing either to play into Fischer’s stubborn pessimism or to raise false hopes.

Pete Johnson said, “If we can’t get ten, maybe eight. If not eight, surely six. Every one we get buys us more security.”

“Even so,” Fischer said, his accent thickening as he became more defensive of his negativism, “what will we have gained? We’ll still be adrift on an iceberg, for God’s sake. We’ll still have enough fuel to keep us warm only until tomorrow afternoon. We’ll still freeze to death.”

Getting to her feet, Rita said, “Franz, goddamnit, stop playing devil’s advocate, or whatever it is you’re doing. You’re a good man. You can help us survive. Or for the lack of your help, we may all die. Nobody is expendable here. Nobody is dead weight. We need you on our side, pulling with us.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Harry said. He pulled his hood over his head and laced it tightly beneath his chin. “And if we can buy some time by retrieving a few of the bombs, even just three or four—well, there’s always the chance we’ll be rescued sooner than seems possible right now.”

“How?” Roger asked.

“One of those trawlers—“

Glancing at Rita, but with no less contention in his voice, as though he and Harry were somehow engaged in a competition to win her backing, Fischer said, “You and Gunvald already agreed that the trawlers can’t possibly reach us.”

Harry shook his head emphatically. “Our fate here isn’t written in stone.

We’re intelligent people. We can make our own fate if we put our minds to it. If one of those captains is damned good and damned-all bullheaded, and if he has a really top-flight crew, and if he’s a bit lucky, he might get through.”