“And you think the three of us can handle it?” Ira asked.
“Four would have been better. Since we can borrow someone from Geo-Research, we should be okay,” Mercer answered and glanced over Marty’s shoulder to see Werner Koenig approaching.
When their eyes met, Koenig smiled broadly and put out his hand. “You have to be Mercer. Willie Haas said to say hello and remind you that, the next time you’re in Hamburg, you’re buying dinner.”
Mercer laughed, totally unprepared for the German’s easy use of English and friendly greeting. “You tell Willie that his taking me to McDonald’s the last time I saw him doesn’t count for a real meal.” He shook Koenig’s hand. “How do you know him?”
Willie Haas was a staff geologist for a German mining concern that had hired Mercer for a consulting job a few years ago. The two saw each other about once a year, usually at trade conferences.
“We’ve been friends since our days at university,” Werner explained. “He told me you saved his company a fortune when you worked for them. He’s convinced you sold your soul to the devil for your geological insights.”
“I bartered my soul to escape hangovers,” Mercer joked. “The insight comes from a Ouija board.”
“Whatever works.” Werner smiled. “I’m glad to have you with us. With Greenland’s surface covered by a few miles of ice, there won’t be much for you to study, but I bet your skills will come in handy anyway. In fact, when we get our ice-coring drill running, I would appreciate if you took a look at the samples we draw up to the surface.”
“I’d be delighted,” Mercer answered. Koenig was making the first effort to breach the gulf between his team and the others, and for that, Mercer was thankful. That task should have fallen on Marty Bishop since the Surveyor’s Society had ruined Geo-Research’s plans, but Mercer didn’t think Bishop understood how important it was to keep all three teams as cohesive as possible.
Koenig had a cloth bag in one hand, and he reached in to extract a small green bottle of brennivin, the Icelandic version of aquavit commonly known as Black Death. “I’ve prohibited alcohol at the base camp for safety reasons. However we won’t reach Ammassalik until noon tomorrow, so sharing a few bottles tonight won’t do any harm.”
“Mighty neighborly of you,” Bishop said, taking the bottle and twisting off its cap. He poured a measure into his empty coffee cup and passed the bottle to Ira Lasko.
Koenig knelt next to Mercer so only he could hear what he said next. “Greta told me what happened this morning, about your confrontation outside the hotel.”
“Ah, I wouldn’t call it a confrontation, just a simple misunderstanding.”
“Yes, well, she can be… difficult. I have not seen her for about a year, and she is very different from the woman I once knew. The woman I almost…” He wanted to say “married” but couldn’t. “Anyway, she was made number two person on this expedition over my objections, and if she tries to overstep her bounds, please tell me.”
“I thought you made all the personnel decisions for Geo-Research,” Mercer said to cover his confusion. Koenig’s admission wasn’t something he had expected.
“Normally, yes. This trip is a little different. You see, I no longer own Geo-Research and my parent company wanted her along. She is dating my new boss. You know how it is.” He stood suddenly as if he’d said too much. “Enjoy the brennivin, gentlemen.” He moved on to have a few words with those at the next table and give them a bottle of their own.
Igor Bulgarin eyed the caraway-flavored liquor with a glassy look. He stood abruptly. “I must wish you a good night.” This startled everyone but Erwin Puhl. “I’m afraid I like alcohol a bit too much. One drink becomes ten and laughter becomes tears. Quickly my hands become fists. Is best I leave now. But watch out for Erwin. Turn your back and bottle gone” — he snapped his fingers — “just like that.”
The dour Puhl’s face split into an impish smile. “I’ve never taken that long to finish a bottle of anything.” After Igor left the wardroom, Erwin poured himself a dram. “He’s been sober for about a year. It’s still tough for him to be around alcohol.”
“Known him long?”
Before Puhl answered, his eyes swept the room as if he were afraid of being overheard. “Eighteen years or so. I studied at Moscow University when East Germany was still a Soviet satellite, and I worked at the Soviet Academy of Sciences up until the Wall came down in 1989. We have worked together a few times since then.”
“What’s the goal of your team?” Mercer asked.
“We are at the end of a particular solar cycle that culminates in an event called the solar max, a time of intense sunspot activity and the ejection of tremendous volumes of charged particles. It’ll disrupt communications and power distribution all over the globe. We’re going to measure the intensity of the particles as they follow earth’s magnetic lines. So far north, the activity should be particularly intense.”
“Isn’t there some big religious meeting on a cruise ship coming up this way to take advantage of the aurora borealis?” Ira asked.
“The Universal Convocation,” Erwin answered at once. “The route’s a secret but I heard they’re going to circle Iceland from the north. If they want inspiration from above, they’re going to get it.”
Mercer wasn’t really listening to their conversation. He was thinking about what Koenig had told him and decided to do nothing with the information. He had enough to do without worrying about Geo-Research’s internal squabbles. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see an undercurrent of tension between Greta and Werner. It was actually more a unidirectional thing. Greta seemed secure in her position. It was Werner who was uncomfortable. Mercer felt bad for him, imagining what it must be like to work with a former lover, especially since it appeared Koenig had yet to get over her.
He finally took a sip of the brennivin and nearly choked. “This stuff’s like drinking gravel.” As he spoke, he adjusted his Tag Heuer back an hour to put it on Greenland time. “I’m going to call it a night. We should recheck our equipment before we reach Ammassalik.”
During a severe winter, pack ice extended all the way from Greenland to Iceland, a distance of about three hundred miles. This ice wasn’t the cause of the North Atlantic’s famous icebergs. Those calved from glaciers on Greenland’s west coast. Rather, the pack ice was a frozen surface accumulation that reached only a few yards in thickness. It melted as it broke up and offered little hazard to navigation during summer. The difficulty reaching Greenland came from the fact that the deepwater fjords that ring the island like a necklace were ice choked until early July and refroze again in late September. The three-month window is the only time that ships can call on the few settlements on the eastern coast.
As the Njoerd nosed her way toward the Ammassalik Fjord, thin ice still layered much of the water, which was dotted with huge bergs held immobile like white islands. The ship rammed her way through. None of the expedition members were allowed on the bridge during icebreaking operations, so the best view was from the forward windows in the wardroom.
When Mercer arrived the next morning, he found himself alone except for the cooks preparing breakfast in the galley. He poured a cup of coffee from the continuously refilled urn and took a seat. In moments he realized that the ice was too thin and rotten to make an impression on the Njoerd. Even at a slower speed, she knifed through the pack without check. If it weren’t for the scrape of ice against her hull plates and the occasional slab that showed above her bows before being thrust aside, he wouldn’t have known they had reached the pack.