White Plague Read Online Free Page A

didn’t need a map to understand why we had to move fast and secure the sub.
    “But why shut off my crew’s communication?”
    “I don’t want anyone else knowing our route. I don’t want anyone getting a fix on a phone and monitoring us.”
    I also told him with some delicacy that the reason I’d asked him ashore was that I intended for the Marines to sweep his cabin, the wardroom, and also my quarters—former chief scientist’s room—for listening devices before we could have serious talks on the ship.
    He bridled. “That’s a bit paranoid, Colonel. We’re a science ship. In all my years on the
Wilmington
, the State Department never asked for this.”
    “Then they should have. The Marines will also activate jammers, in case someone on board,” I said, meaning a spy, “has access to a foreign satellite, or a corporate one. Once the ship is secure, you’ll announce we’re on an emergency drill, simulated rescue of a tourist ship taken by terrorists. Further north, we’ll tell them the truth.”
    He saw holes in the story. “We’ve done other rescue drills, and Marines weren’t part of them.”
    “Neither were terrorists. You need Marines.”
    “We need satellite information for navigation.”
    “My understanding,” I said, having spoken to the director about this, “is that your officers are quite competent with charts, in case sat access goes down.”
    His silence acknowledged this. “It’s happened in bad weather.”
    “Your crew will do what they’re told,” I said. “Also, if we need sat access, we can open it up every once in a while, stagger it, in ten-minute increments, but only we know when. Now! My understanding is that we can reach the sub in two days. Is that correct? What’s your top speed?”
    “Seventeen knots, at first,” he said, “but once we get into ice, we slow down. In heavy ice we back and ram. We can push through four-foot masses at a couple miles an hour. That pack may not be ten feet thick like it used to be, but it’s still heavy in places. Hit it the wrong way, it can crack us
open. Plus we’ve got that storm up there.”
    “Two days,” I said.
    “Two to five, depending on conditions. I determine speed,” he said. “Unless you want another hundred and fifty people in need of a rescue.”
    I blew out air. He made sense and even four days would get us there before the nearest U.S. sub could reach the victims. But would anyone still be alive? Would anyone else get there first?
    DeBlieu’s mind was on other matters and he asked, with some tightness, “Colonel, do you have any evidence to support this idea of yours that I may have a spy on board?”
    “Evidence, no. But it’s a logical possibility.”
    The brown eyes veered between irritation, doubt, and amusement over my cautious behavior. He’d come up through the ranks as an engineer, his file said. He had no combat experience. “Why logical?”
    “Because trillions of dollars are at stake up here; because the Russians have declared the Arctic to be the probable site of the next big war, over mineral rights or trade routes. The Chinese want the minerals and routes, too. We spy on them. They spy on us.”
    “The Cold War is over,” he said.
    “The cold peace never is. It’s perfectly logical for them to try to keep track of the research, screw it up or try to slow you down.
They’ve
made the Arctic a priority, even if we haven’t.”
    I preferred to make this man an ally, not an enemy, so I explained further, in a softer voice.
    “Saudi Arabia was wasteland two hundred years ago, and the countries who got control of that oil and those Mideast trade routes ruled the world. You ever read Rudyard Kipling, Captain? It’s the great game, jockeying for power in remote places. Hell, if not the Russians or Chinese, just an oil company that wants access to your surveys.
We need to keep this mission secret.
”
    To his credit, he thought about it. Slowly, he said, his voice losing some stiffness, “We