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MYSTIC:
Mike and Dieter climb the stairs to the bridge to determine a new course through the islands, and Alex and Okana stay in the lounge and move a short distance away from the group to talk in private.
“Do you know where everybody came from when the engines died?” Alex asks.
“Mike came from his quarters. Everyone else was below, and no one came up until you talked on the intercom.”
“I need to be sure who did this. I’ll use Mike’s Office and start with Bartram.”
They turn and walk back to the group. Alex looks at Josh, Lisa, and Rita standing together, and Bartram sitting on the edge of the table. “I need to find out what’s going on. I’ll start with you, Leroy.”
Bartram stands. “Who the hell made you chief prosecutor? You’re just a visitor on the ship. It’s up to Captain Dieter to decide what to do.”
Alex leans forward and down, his face only inches from Bartram’s, and looks him in the eyes. “I don’t know what your problem is, but you don’t want a problem with me.”
Bartram feels intimidated by the venomous look in Cave’s eyes and looks at the others for sympathy, but no one backs him up. “Sure. Let’s go talk.”
Alex leads Bartram out to the walkway, up toward the bow, and through the doorway into Mike’s office and living quarters. Alex continues around the desk and sits in the comfortable tan leather chair, and Bartram sits in a chair across from him. He feels the Mystic gain speed and notices Leroy glancing around the interior to avoid making eye contact. “What did you do before you came onboard?”
“I worked tramp ships, mostly. You know, just sailed from here to there.”
“I understand you came aboard with Dieter. Where did you meet him?”
Bartram folds his arms across his chest and stares across the desk. “I met him at a bar in North Dakota.”
Alex realizes this won’t work without evidence. “Mind if Okana searches your cabin?”
The corner of Bartram’s mouth curls up in a wry smile, knowing there is nothing in his cabin to incriminate him. “Go right ahead. You’ve got nothing on me, Professor Cave.”
Alex stares back. Leroy’s attitude tells him he’s the saboteur, but without evidence, there is nothing he can do. He stands, leans across the desk, and stares into Bartram’s eyes. “You can go now, Lee-roy.”
Bartram tries to maintain a casual demeanor, but the look in Cave’s eyes gives him a chill. Cave doesn’t act like a teacher. More like someone who knows how to kill in cold blood. He slowly stands and steps back from the desk, then turns and quickly leaves the office.
Alex follows Bartram back to the lounge, and Bett has returned from watching Harrison on the bridge. She and Josh pull Alex to one side of the room, and Josh leans close to whisper. “We’ve got your back, Alex.”
“I know. I appreciate it.” When they walk away, he sees Lisa standing near the table with a pleading expression in her eyes, so he gives her a nod to come over.
Lisa grabs Alex’s arm and pulls him from the room into the walkway. “When we stopped, I peeked out from my cabin and saw Bartram coming out of the engine room.”
“Did he have anything with him? Wire, tools, anything like that?”
“Not that I noticed. He went straight to his cabin.”
“All right. Thanks.” He turns to leave and Lisa grabs his arm again.
“Aren’t you going to arrest him or something?”
“I’m just a geology instructor, not the sheriff. No offense, but all I have is your word and no evidence. Go back inside and I’ll talk to you later.”
Lisa lets go of his arm, and Alex heads out onto the stern and stares out across the water. He knows Dieter will talk his way out of any wrongdoing, so it’s a waste of time to try. Harrison was with him on the bridge when it happened, and even though he’s certain Bartram is the saboteur, there is nothing he can prove. Mike suddenly walks up beside him.
“What are you thinking, Alex?”
“I can’t prove anything, Mike.” He looks around and they are alone. “Tell me about Dieter.”
“I found him on the internet. His credentials checked out, so I arranged a meeting with him and we got along fine. He’s never acted suspiciously. Why do you ask?”
Alex tells him what Okana discovered. “He’s not who he claims, Mike. I’m waiting for a background check. A real one.”
“What do we do?”
“Nothing until we can recover that device. No one’s been injured yet, so let’s keep it that way.”
“Works for me.”
“Do you have a lock we can put on the engine room door?”
“I’ll ask Rita. Those pirates can’t catch us, so we shouldn’t have any more problems until we try to locate the device.” They feel the Mystic suddenly slow down .
“Mike? Professor?”
They look up at Dieter leaning over the railing behind the bridge, and Mike answers. “What’s going on?”
“We just received a call from the U.S. Coast Guard. They discovered unusual ice floes in the Arctic Ocean.”
Mike looks at Alex. “I guess I jinxed us.”
“You’re the second person to tell me that. Let’s find out what’s going on.”
Alex follows Mike across the deck and up the outside stairs onto the bridge.
Dieter waves them over to a computer monitor. “They transmitted a digital video recording of the ice flows.”
As Alex and Mike crowd around the screen, Dieter starts the recording from the beginning. The view is from a helicopter as it approaches assorted sized slabs of clear ice scattered across the ocean. They are not high above the water, like a white iceberg, just large flat slabs of transparent ice bobbing on the surface. They will be impossible to see from a ship until it’s too late to avoid a collision.
Alex looks over at Dieter. “How long until we arrive in that area?”
“I checked the charts and we will start to encounter the ice in another hour.”
Alex turns to Mike. “When we get close, we should have Bett guide us through from the helicopter.”
Mike is silent for a moment, thinking. “We still don’t know where that device might be located, Alex. I think we should avoid those ice floes until we have a definite location to start our search.”
Alex knows he’s correct. “Okay. I’d better make some phone calls.”
Alex leaves the bridge and stands at the railing. Even at the slower speed, the breeze across the deck gives him a chill as he unzips his lightweight coat to retrieve the sat phone from the inside pocket. When he enters his code for his voicemail, a message from Sonja states it’s urgent he calls her back. She answers on the second ring.
“I am so glad you called, Alex. Our computer model is predicting that within twenty-four hours the water will freeze all the way down into the south Bering Sea.”
“Have you found a location to start my search?”
“After the last expansion, we have narrowed the location to a sixty mile area of the ice, one hundred-miles north of the Bering Sea. We cannot narrow it down to a smaller area. I am sorry, Alex, but that is the best I can do for you. Here are the GPS coordinates.”
“All right. I appreciate your help with this. We’ve been informed large pieces of transparent ice will make our trip hazardous.”
“The ice blocks in the ocean are breaking off from the ice sheet as it rises out of the water. I collected a sample of the ice, and it did not contain a single trace of minerals. It is pure H20.”
“Okay, thanks for getting the coordinates. I’ll call when I find the device.”
He shoves the phone into his coat pocket and zips the front closed, then turns and heads back into the ship to tell the others what he learned about the ice cap. “Follow me down to the lounge so I don’t need to repeat myself.”
When he enters the lounge with Mike and Dieter, everyone else is sitting at the table, so he continues over and stands at the end. “There are some interesting events happening because of these devices. The strange ice we will encounter is breaking off from the polar ice sheet, which is spreading south, and will reach the south Bering Sea within twenty-four hours.”
“Have they located the device for us?” Okana asks.
“Not exactly. I can get us to a GPS location to start the search, but it could be within a sixty-mile radius.”
“My baby can do that.” Bett informs him.
“The GPS location might already be hundreds of miles from the edge of the ice by now. We just don’t have enough information. I don’t want to waste the time and fuel until we can narrow the search area. We can’t risk hitting one of those big slabs of ice, so it’s going to take some time to reach the northern end of the Bering Sea.”
Alex slowly looks at every face around the table and stops when his eyes settle on Bartram. “With the number of guns onboard this ship, only a fool would try to sabotage the engines again.” He looks around the table. “That’s all I have for now.”
Bett slides her chair back and gets up. “I could use something to eat.”
Okana remains sitting at the table while everyone stands and goes to the kitchen. He stares at Dieter, who separates from the group and is walking down the stairs to the cabins. He waits until Alex sits down. “While everyone is still up here, I’ll try to find that CD case. I overheard Dieter mention needing a shower.”
Okana slides his chair away from the table and gives Alex a mischievous grin as he stands. “Hell of a thing, not having locks on the doors.”
He continues across the room to look down the stairs and hears water running in one of the showers. He slowly walks down to the bottom and sees Dieter left his cabin door open. He tiptoes past the shower, down the hallway to Dieter’s cabin, and slowly peers around the corner of the doorway. He glances down the hall in the direction of the running water, then steps into the room.
He quickly glances around the interior, but does not see the plastic case. He looks through the doorway and can still hear the running water, so he opens the top dresser drawer and slides his fingers under the flat rows of socks, but it’s not there. He quickly does the same with the remaining three drawers. No luck. He raises the side of the mattress just enough to look underneath, but the plastic case isn’t there, so he turns around and opens the double doors on the closet. The disk is not on the top shelf, so he moves the clothes out of the way to look at the floor. The edge of a portable DVD player protrudes from beneath a pile of dirty clothes.
“Got it.” He reaches down for the player to check inside for the disk.
“What do you think you are doing, Okana?”
Okana slowly stands and turns to face Dieter, only then noticing the corner of the plastic case protruding from his folded towel. He leans against the side of the cabinet. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on that disk.”
Dieter hides his surprise. How does he know about the disk? He steps back into the hallway. “Get out.”
Okana casually strolls out of the room, and once in the hallway, turns, and glares at Dieter. “This is a small ship, Captain. It’s hard to keep things hidden.”
“It is password protected, so you need not bother, Okana.”
Okana searches Dieter’s eyes for a hint he’s lying, but they remain impassive. He turns and continues along the hallway, and up the stairs.
Dieter waits until Okana is out of sight and releases the breath he’s holding and grins. Okana believes it.