‘Message received. Out,’ he said. Just as he did so, the first gust of the next squall hit the helicopter and the little Huey dived closer to the hungry waves. The pilot turned the dive into a swoop and the turned-up nose came up into the stormy air again, frustrating the waves anew.
‘They say they’re just about to push the button over there,’ the pilot yelled to Richard Mariner as soon as he had the helicopter steady.
‘We’d better hurry then.’
‘What?’ yelled Colin Ross, for the brief conversation had been lost beneath the battering of the squally wind.
‘They’re just about to detonate the explosives,’ yelled Richard in reply.
‘Hell. I want to see that!’
‘I’ve told Sam here to hurry.’
Son of a bitch, thought the pilot, he knows my name!
The instant the thought entered Sam’s head, the full squall hit and, as it did so, the wind which accompanied it snatched away the overcast ahead and the first of the ice cliffs towered above them, tall, sheer and startlingly close.
‘There it is!’ yelled Richard. It was some months since he had last seen it and he was stunned anew by the scale of the thing. It was incredible that something this big could exist up here. It was as though the incalculable weight of it should have unbalanced the world.
Colin had been living on it for nearly a year now, on and off. He was more blasé.
From sea level, the wall of blue-grey ice rose through three hundred metres sheer. It stretched away on either hand as though determined to join Canada and Greenland. The Bell helicopter was so low that no one aboard could guess what lay beyond the crest of the cliff, but both of the passengers had been on the ice and they knew well enough. The wind roared over the high edge of it, pulling great streamers of spray off its crests. The crystalline cliffs ahead of them streamed with a deluge of rain, spray and meltwater. The helicopter dipped and swooped again.
‘Over or round?’ asked the pilot.
‘Over!’ ordered Richard.
The Huey climbed vertiginously, as though it was an express elevator. The cliff face seemed to plunge in and down at once, falling towards them like a great wave breaking. The illusion was compounded by the spray which foamed over them in the wind. Foamed towards them, overwhelmed them and was gone in a flash as they broke through into the higher reaches.
The strength of the wind keeping the overcast at bay allowed them a brief glance along the length of the iceberg — nearly fifty kilometres of it above water — before the helicopter pirouetted and dived west across the narrow southernmost section towards the south-western corner where the explosive charges had been laid. On their left hand, the cliffs which they had just passed stood in a long, curving line at an angle to the rest of the berg. They came in towards the central axis as though trying to form a point. Beyond the centre, however, the cliffs of the south-western section curved out into a hook, which over the last months had dragged the berg westward one kilometre for every kilometre south it had drifted, spinning it slowly on its axis. This was not easily achieved; the length of the berg under the water was more than one hundred kilometres, and forcing it to spin required forces which were almost incalculable.
As things stood, the monster berg, the ice island, largest of its kind ever seen in these waters, was just about to enter the Western Ocean shipping lanes. Unless something was done, it would cross them slowly and unpredictably, drifting south-westwards, spinning lethargically and presenting a massive danger. What it would do as it grated across the Newfoundland Banks defied calculation. What it would do if it drifted onto the eastern seaboard of the United States and ground down the edge of the continental shelf from Boston to Barbados went beyond imagining.
But, as the two tall men in the Huey knew, if the iceberg had an almost unlimited potential for destruction, it had an equal potential for good. By their rough calculation they were looking at about one and a half billion metric tonnes of water. All of it fresh. All ice cold.
So, before the US authorities called upon the full power of the armed forces to destroy it, these two extraordinary men were going to try and make some use of it — if they could manage to control, and ultimately direct, its movement. And they had sold their idea to the United Nations so that they had some backing and a little financial support, for the moment, if things went well.
The radio crackled into life again and Sam switched over to RECEIVE.
Below the helicopter, the southern section of the iceberg wheeled, the massive hook of ice seemingly trying to catch at Baffin Island, as though the distant land was some kind of fish. Abruptly, black figures came into view, scurrying across the milky surface below, and as soon as the eye discerned the existence of life down there, so it immediately discovered the geometric shapes of tents and even huts, and the rude beginnings of roads. There was an encampment on the berg and it was manned.
‘Five!’ relayed the pilot, the volume of his voice more than was needed just to overcome the noise.
‘We won’t be down in time, Sam. Keep clear!’ called Richard.
‘Four!’ The helicopter danced obediently eastwards, but remained hanging high enough on the wind for the men aboard to see what was going on.
‘Can we get round for a close look…’
‘THREE!’
‘… after the detonation?’ bellowed Colin Ross. This was his baby, after all. He was in charge on the ice.
‘Good idea. Sam …’
‘TWO!’
‘… get us in under the cliff there as soon as it blows.’
‘SURE! ONE!’
The helicopter swung back, tail up, to give the three men aboard a grandstand view as Sam yelled ‘ZERO!’ and in majestic series a line of explosions erupted across the base of the ice hook as though a stick of bombs had been dropped there. The burgeoning thunder of the explosions overwhelmed even the engine noise. The power of the blast made the little craft dance back in a way that even the squall wind could not enforce. A wall of ice dust and fragments hurled high into the lightening air, then thinned, billowed, became a cloud which joined the others scurrying southwards to rain on Newfoundland. The helicopter darted in behind it to overlook the destruction the explosions had wrought.