Part 17 (1/2)
Sprawled across the stern bench, dazed and groggy, Dirk stared up at them through gla.s.sy eyes. With a laborious effort, he raised his head slightly and winked at his sister. Summer leaped into the boat and collapsed next to him in surprised relief.
”How did you make it out?” she asked, eyeing a trickle of dried blood along his temple.
Dirk weakly raised an arm and pointed at Trevor, who untied the lines and jumped into the boat.
”No time for plat.i.tudes, I'm afraid,” Trevor said with a hurried smile. Starting the motor, he gunned the throttle and spun the small boat around the back side of the tanker and out the covered dock. Never looking back, he aimed the boat down the channel and pushed it to its top speed.
Summer tried to check Dirk's wound under the starlight, finding a large knot on the top of his skull that was still damp with blood. His dive hood had saved him from a deeper gouge to the skin, and perhaps a worse fate as well.
”Forgot to wear my hard hat,” he mumbled, trying hard to focus his eyes on Summer.
”Your hard head is much too tough to break,” she said, laughing aloud in an emotional release.
The boat plowed through the darkness, Trevor hugging the sh.o.r.eline until suddenly easing off the throttle. The darkened boat Summer had spotted earlier loomed ahead, now recognizable as Trevor's Canadian Resources vessel. Trevor brought the outboard alongside and helped Dirk and Summer aboard, then let the security boat drift. He quickly pulled anchor and motored the research craft down the channel. When they were well out of sight of the facility, he crossed to the opposite side of the channel, then turned and crept back toward Kitimat at slow speed.
Cruising past the Terra Green facility, they witnessed several flashlight beams crisscrossing the grounds but noticed no obvious alarms. The boat slipped unseen into the Kitimat dock, and Trevor killed its motor and tied it off. On the stern deck, Dirk had begun to regain form, save for some dizziness and a pounding head. He shook Trevor's hand after the ecologist helped him ash.o.r.e.
”Thanks for fis.h.i.+ng me out. I would have had a long sleep underwater if not for you.”
”Entirely good luck. I was swimming along the dock when I heard the small boat come in. I was actually hiding in the water beneath the gangplank when the guard came ash.o.r.e. I didn't even realize it was you until I recognized Summer's voice right before you went over the side. You hit the water just a few feet from me. When you didn't move, I immediately jammed my regulator in your mouth. The hard part was keeping us both submerged until we were out of view.”
”Shame on a federal employee for trespa.s.sing on private property,” Summer said with a grin.
”It's all your fault,” Trevor replied. ”You kept talking about the importance of the water samples, so I thought we needed to know if there was a link to the facility.” He handed Summer a dive bag containing several small vials of water.
”Hope they match mine,” Summer replied, showing her own samples. ”Of course, I'll need to get our boat back to complete the a.n.a.lysis.”
”Miller's taxi service is always open. I have a mining site inspection in the morning but can run you back down in the afternoon.”
”That would be fine. Thanks, Trevor. Perhaps next time we should work a little closer together,” Summer said with a beguiling smile.
Trevor's eyes twinkled at her words.
”I wouldn't want it any other way.”
22
SCATTERED CHUNKS OF ICE DOTTED THE ROLLING waters of Lancaster Strait, appearing in the dusk like jagged marshmallows floating in a sea of hot chocolate. Against the dim background of Devon Island, a black behemoth crept along the horizon billowing a trail of dark smoke.
”Range twelve kilometers, sir. She's beating a path right across our bow.” The helmsman, a red-haired ensign with jug ears, peered from a radarscope to the s.h.i.+p's captain and waited for a response.
Captain d.i.c.k Weber lowered a pair of binoculars without taking his gaze off the distant vessel.
”Keep us on intersect, at least until we obtain an identification,” he replied without turning.
The helmsman twisted the s.h.i.+p's wheel a half turn, then resumed studying the radar screen. The eighty-foot Canadian Coast Guard patrol vessel plowed slowly through the dark Arctic waters toward the path of the oncoming vessel. a.s.signed to interdiction duty along the eastern approaches to the Northwest Pa.s.sage, the Harp had been on station just a few days. Though the winter ice had continued the trend of breaking up early, this was the first commercial vessel the patrol craft had seen in the frosty waters this season. In another month or two, there would be a steady stream of ma.s.sive tankers and containers.h.i.+ps making the northerly transit accompanied by icebreakers.
Just a few years prior, the thought of policing traffic through the Northwest Pa.s.sage would have been laughable. Since man's earliest forays into the Arctic, major sections of the annual winter pack ice remained frozen solid for all but a few summer days. Only a few hardy explorers and the occasional icebreaker dared fight their way through the blocked pa.s.sage. But global warming had changed everything, and now the pa.s.sage was navigable for months out of the year.