Ice Station Death Read online

  ICE STATION: DEATH

  Gustavo Bondoni

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by Gustavo Bondoni

  Prologue

  July, 1980

  Captain Yevgeny Petrov cursed the KGB. He cursed the idiot who’d decided it would be a good idea to reach Africa by going around the far side of the world. The grey and nameless bureaucrat responsible had condemned his crew to sail across the Pacific and more than a hundred kilometers south of Tierra del Fuego.

  The analysts had justified it by saying that it was the route least likely to be watched by the Americans, and that sailing around the Horn of Africa on their way to Congo might get them spotted by the South Africans which, for some reason, they considered infinitely worse than being spotted by the navies of Chile or Argentina.

  He cursed the weather. Proud of being Russian born, he felt that he could take anything the planet could throw at them, but he was shocked to find that, once you got under the Antarctic Circle, the wind bit like the worst Siberian gale. Add snow and ten-meter waves, and he wished he was back in Ossora.

  He particularly cursed whoever had decided that the innocuous-looking grey drums, marked only with the word ‘Sverdlovsk’, that they were carrying should be further disguised by loading them onto a barely seaworthy trawler built sometime in the 1950s.

  His first mate, one of the few men on board who didn’t work for the KGB, came onto the bridge, appearing like a spirit from the night. “We’re taking on water faster than the pumps can deal with it, sir.”

  Petrov sighed. “Give the order to abandon ship. I don’t know if the lifeboats can deal with these seas, but I’m sure this piece of junk can’t. I’ll try to keep us afloat as long as possible. Come and get me for the second lifeboat.” There were only two covered lifeboats on board. Luckily, someone had updated them in the past couple of decades. They might survive, and he had no intention of throwing his life away to go down with this particular ship.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The man disappeared and, for some minutes, Yevgeny had his hands full negotiating the swells. He imagined the ship groaning beneath his feet as they rose and fell at the whim of the sea. It might have been more than just his imagination, but the howling wind made it impossible for him to be certain. It would have been much safer to sail the Straits of Magellan, but that suggestion had been met with an icy refusal that left no doubt that he shouldn’t ask again. These orders were not meant to be questioned.

  So, in sinking between Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica, they would have to ditch too far from civilization for help to arrive until the storm abated. Ice clutched at his heart in the knowledge that his two little girls would have to grow up without a father. He hoped the State did well by them.

  A new face appeared in the doorway. Vitaly Kyvat glared at him as he attempted to hold on to the frame of the door. He dripped copious amounts of water.

  “Petrov,” he barked. “I have cancelled your order. We are staying with the ship.”

  “That’s madness, Kyvat. We’ll die, every last one of us.”

  “You are a coward. Do the job you were assigned to do and stop complaining.”

  “This ship is going to sink.”

  A Makarov pistol appeared in Kyvat’s hand as if by magic. “You will do your job, or I will first shoot you and then report you as a traitor to the Soviet Union. Your family will starve in the gulag. I will see to it myself.”

  Yevgeny gave him a curt nod and put his eyes back on the sea ahead of them. It was a hopeless task he’d been set, but he wouldn’t argue. The KGB pig would make good on his promise, regardless of whether Petrov saved his life or not.

  Much better to drown trying to save his family. The only comfort he had was that, if he died, so would the monster with the gun.

  He miscalculated a wave and it hit them broadside, swamping the deck and causing the ship to tilt alarmingly to one side. Worse, it didn’t right itself after the water receded.

  The KGB man was gone, washed into the night, but that had become the least of Petrov’s concerns as he wrestled with the wheel.

  The controls were sluggish, even by the tub’s standards. He wouldn’t be able to turn into the next swell in time.

  The prow disappeared beneath the dark sea again.

  This time it didn’t come back up.

  This surprised Yevgeny. Maybe, if the ship sank slowly enough, he could get some of his men onto the lifeboats. He left the bridge and began to climb down the ladder to the deck.

  In the dark night, without the prow-mounted floodlights, he never saw the next wave.

  It washed him into the depths of the icy ocean and finished sinking the small ship.

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  Javier Balzano looked up at the ship with a mixture of pride and annoyance. The ARA Almirante Irizar was a national treasure; Argentina’s only icebreaker was famous for patrolling near Antartica and rescuing the crews of disabled science vessels.

  National pride notwithstanding, he didn’t want to board her a week early. He’d been given only ten days’ leave, and had been looking forward to spending time in Buenos Aires with his friends. He’d begged, cajoled, threatened to resign and even asked to be airlifted to the icebreaker by helicopter while the ship was in transit.

  His requests had been denied. The last one had been laughed off as an insane expense for the cash-strapped Argentine Navy.

  So there he was, heading up the forward gangplank. He saluted the ship’s ensign and then faced the lieutenant on watch and repeated the salute. “Permission to come aboard.”

  The man looked up from his clipboard, surprise evident that one of the days’ arrivals would honor naval tradition. When he saw the uniform, however, he quickly snapped to attention and returned the salute. “Permission granted. Welcome aboard, Colonel.” He looked back at his clipboard. “The captain asked me to tell you that we’ve stowed your gear, and that he’d be honored if you would join him on the bridge. I’ll leave your bag in your cabin.”

  The bridge, Balzano knew, was perched above the four-story cream-colored cube that loomed above him. To his soldier’s eye, the Irizar’s shape looked like anything but a military vehicle. Much too tall and ungainly with its weight concentrated in the front, the thing should topple into the waves. And who went about painting anything military in red and cream? Well, maybe the red hull would be invisible under the ice and the cream would blend… but still.

  He trudged up the stairs. The bridge, at least, was what he imagined. Spartan, but modern, it smelled like a mix of new car and the glue used to install rubber flooring after its recent ten-year refurbishment. The view from the bridge only reinforced Javier’s sense that something tall and thin shouldn’t be on the water and that, as soon as they cast off, it would capsize, drowning all hands.

  “Colonel Balzano,” a smiling man said. “Glad you could make it.”

  “Captain Celmi.” Javier nodded a greeting. “It wasn’t by choice, let me tell you.”

  “I understand.”

  Javier knew the man would. Being a soldier in Argentina, a country with no foreign wars or overseas territories to defend, was an honorable profession, but not one that attracted fanatics or young men looking to etch their name in the history books. It was a job for family men, solid citizens who appreciated their time off.

  The captain continued. “Please make yourself at home in the meantime. Ask for anything you need.”

  “Did anyone tell you why we’re leaving in such a hurry? All they told me was that the schedule had been moved up for reasons of force majeure. Then they declined my requests not to come along. Is it a PR stunt?”

  It was the conclusion he’d reached, since none other was availab
le. The ship had been in the news about fifteen years before when it rescued the crew of a German ship stuck in the ice, but had subsequently caught fire and been drydocked for a decade amid all kinds of political bickering and finger-pointing. The fact that it was about to set sail again was major national news.

  Javier didn’t think the president would be above generating a little more goodwill by sending the ship out a week early on some fabricated emergency. Like all democracies in the 21st century, Argentina’s ran on headlines.

  Celmi smiled. “It actually looks like the real reason is legit. Belgrano II went offline a few days ago. They’d been having trouble with their uplink for months, and it finally went kaput.”

  Belgrano II was the southernmost of Argentina’s Antarctic bases. It was the Irizar’s final destination, after a stop in Comodoro Rivadavia for stock and supplies.

  “And it couldn’t wait a week?”

  “Would you want to wait an extra week if you were in Antarctica without any way to contact your family… or anyone else?”

  “So send the antenna in by plane.”

  “They’re having crap weather. Supposedly, we’ll be there before it clears. And before you ask, no, the ice around the base won’t finish melting until mid-February, so yes, the Irizar is the only viable option.”

  “Damn.” But Javier knew that any further discussion would just be griping for the hell of it—also an honored Argentine military tradition, but not one that would help at the moment. The reasons as stated were more than enough to bump up a mission that was already slated to ship out anyway. Besides, he’d always thought that griping was beneath the dignity of officers. Let the enlisted men do that. “Fair enough.” He smiled. “Thanks for the welcome, and you won’t hear any more complaints from me.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. Just promise me that you won’t talk to any of my men that way and I’ll be happy to listen. But under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You have to listen to me as well. Have you got any idea what it was like getting this thing shipshape for a real mission? All we’d done out of dry dock were a few test runs with a skeleton crew. My nightmare is that we’ll arrive at Antarctica to find that some welding team down below came along for the ride.”

  Javier chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  He left the bridge to see if he could find his quarters. A few minutes after he’d gotten settled in, his cell phone buzzed.

  The science team he was supposed to be babysitting had arrived.

  ***

  Camila Lopez Tirante wiped the sweat from her brow. She couldn’t wait to get to Antarctica and leave the absurd heat and humidity of Buenos Aires behind. And why did they have to be on board before three o’clock? The ship was scheduled to leave at eight.

  But excitement soon overcame annoyance. She was actually, finally, going.

  Her own team of three geology students was already standing on the sweltering dock when she arrived. Ernesto and Martin were both Argentines, while Anderson was one of the countless Venezuelans who’d emigrated to the country in search of a better life than the socialist paradise could offer... She thought he was misguided, but then again, he was still young, with a lot to learn. All three were in their early twenties, and she’d found them at the intern program from the University of La Plata. Brilliant, hardworking kids who’d just landed the dream summer internship. On one hand, she wondered if she’d ever been that enthusiastic but, on the other, envied them. She’d had to wait until she was a well-established geologist to be able to take the trip they were about to enjoy.

  Her phone buzzed. It was Clark Smith, the Australian geologist who’d begged to come along. She answered.

  “Which dock did you say you were on again?” the man said.

  “None of the numbered ones. The ship is moored just before the restaurants at Puerto Madero.”

  “Ah, yes, I see it now. Thanks.”

  A small grey Volkswagen with a beautiful dark-haired woman at the wheel stopped in front of them. The man sitting beside her leaned over for a long kiss before descending.

  He was a tall, rangy guy with blue eyes, light brown hair and a five-day stubble broken only by a short scar that ran from his chin up his cheek on the right side of his face. He looked around and waved when he spotted Camila.

  “Dr. Lopez-Tirante?” he said in strangely accented English.

  “Yes. You must be Dr. Smith.”

  “At your service,” the man replied with a smile that made Camila more than a little jealous of the young woman who’d just driven off. Although she knew that the Australian had only arrived in Buenos Aires two nights before and would likely only be there a couple of days on their way back and she immediately pegged him as the kind of guy whose heart was never really owned, only rented for a few hours at a time. For a moment, she wondered whether it would be worth it.

  “We’re still waiting for the Götthelm sisters. You can go find your cabin if you like.”

  “I’ll wait with you,” he replied. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting this team for ages.” He took the time to introduce himself to the three students. That was easier said than done. Anderson, the Venezuelan, came from an upper-middle-class family and had gone to American schools in his youth, but the other two were working-class Argentines with no English language skills to speak of. Still, the outgoing Australian used the few words of Spanish he’d picked up to show that he was delighted to see them.

  Camila found herself warming to the man despite her reservations about having such an obvious player on board.

  Anna and Ingrid Götthelm piled out of a taxi. They hugged Camila, shook hands with Clark and the students and beamed at the sun. Anyone would have guessed they were Swedish from a mile away. Pale, with hair so blond it was almost white, tall and broad-shouldered, they looked more like Olympic swimmers than scientists.

  But anyone assuming that would have been in for a shock. The sisters were probably the world’s most renowned microbiologists. When they’d heard that Camila—whom they knew from a symposium on soil composition at Harvard—was mounting an Antarctic expedition, they’d signed up for it in a heartbeat. Had Camila known they were interested, she would have begged them to come. Their presence legitimized everything.

  “Your equipment has been packed on board. You may want to uncrate it once we’re underway. I have a feeling that Javier doesn’t want us to do anything but look pretty until the ship leaves port.”

  “Did I hear my name?”

  Javier appeared, and Camila’s hackles rose immediately. She’d accepted the man’s presence as a practical matter: if one wanted to get to Argentina’s Antarctic bases, one needed to speak to the military. But the fact that her expedition was under this guy’s command was more than she could take with good grace.

  Making things worse, he was unbearably upper class. Argentine society was stratified along social lines, and many traditional families had a military background. Javier’s, she suspected by the way he spoke, was one of them.

  He was well-groomed, with brown hair slightly longer than she’d have expected from a soldier, and pale skin. His smile, at least, was genuine. “I apologize for making everyone run to catch the ship,” he told them, “but trust me when I say that it was completely out of my hands.” Even the guy’s English had private school written all over it. “Now that everyone’s here, we should probably get on board.”

  “Not yet. The American’s still missing,” Camila said.

  “Dr. Breen? He’s on board already. He arrived before I did, to supervise the loading of his equipment.”

  Again, Camila chafed. She’d been assured that her team’s equipment would be fine and firmly discouraged from supervising the loading operation. But Breen, it appeared, was the victim of no such restrictions. Worse, he wasn’t anywhere near as important as the other men and women on her team, just some undistinguished biologist from Brown that she’d had to google to learn anything about. As always, Argentina bent
over backwards to make the Americans happy. But what did one expect when one voted for a rightwing government?

  She followed her team up the gangway, rolled her eyes at the little ceremony performed by the Colonel when asking permission to board and followed the instructions to find her cabin.

  ***

  Carl Breen watched a couple of marine cadets manhandle his boxes. The equipment he’d brought with him was not particularly delicate, but it was heavy, and he wanted to be sure it was securely in place before the ship sailed. If the crates moved and broke to reveal what was inside, he’d have to answer a hell of a lot of questions. It was bad enough that the Colonel in charge of the scientists had been briefed. If the rest of the crew found out, nothing would keep it from the press… and that would, once again sour the always delicate relations between the U.S. and Argentina.

  Breen didn’t particularly care. He was there for a reason and if some sanctimonious journalist took offense… well, that was a problem he wouldn’t have to deal with.

  The loading crew appeared to know what they were doing. He’d never worked with the Argentine Navy before, but found their loaders to be about the same as loaders anywhere else. They went about their business efficiently, hoping to get it done so they could goof off. To his eye, they appeared to be professionals, but not fanatical about it.

  When the final crate was lashed down in an enclosed area at the back of the ship beneath the heliports, he moved towards the fo’c’sle, where he would pose for the cameras along with everyone else. It would look bad if he missed it.

  He sighed.

  ***

  Javier stood to one side and sweated. The scientists, clearly uncomfortable in the presence of massed journalists, sheltered behind him. That was exactly how Javier preferred it. If any scientific questions were asked, he could field them. He wasn’t a scientist himself, but he’d read the material, and could easily spout all the official answers. The last thing anyone needed was a scientist speechifying about some obscure rock layer for fifteen minutes.