“Not acoustical detonation, or a timer?”
Krail shrugged.
“Charon says he doesn’t like them, especially with so many charges so close together. The bastard’s got a high enough potential for short-circuiting without my questioning his area of expertise.”
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Scott,” Garner said. “When you get mobilized, you do it in a big way.”
“I could say the same thing about you. It’s easier for me I’ve got the toys and the authority to use them.” Authority, Garner noted, continued to be Krail’s word of choice.
Charon entered the van just then, shaking the cold out of his limbs.
Zubov was a step behind, closing the door as they entered.
“The crew’s been briefed,” he said. “They’ll have the shop closed no later than oh-nine-hundred tomorrow.”
“What’s the script?” Krail asked.
“Two-week shutdown for structural inspection. Mandatory R and R for all nonessential personnel,” Charon said, meaning the Global' workers. The shutdown in production would end up costing Global Oil Corporation about three million dollars a day in lost revenue.
“I’m supervising the loading of the Voyager from the fuel cells in the GBS myself should be done by morning. Then Global will supervise the transfer of the oil from here back to port.”
“We’re going to need your ice-wrangling equipment,” Garner said. He was referring to the myriad of devices that the rigs had available to deflect the ice from possibly destructive collision with the GBS everything from water cannons to reinforced seines, Kevlar rigging, and kegs of dynamite.
“No way,” Charon said. “If this activity sends some of the pack our way, I’ll need it to protect the GBS.”
“Then how about some of Global’s other wrangling equipment?”
“Maybe. The Vagabond will have some on board and I can ask the boatswain on the Voyager.”
“I’ll need three ships’ worth.”
Charon thought this was funny.
“Who the fuck are you? Christopher Columbus?”
Garner showed Charon the diagrams he had made of the proposed Ulva sponge.
“We’ll use three ships with ice breaking potential the Phoenix, the Vagabond, and the North Sea. The Phoenix is already cooked, so she’ll mark a course down the inside of the slick with the Vagabond and the North Sea flanking her. Stretched out from the Phoenix on either side I’ll want a set of nets and ice slings. The ice will be scooped into the nets and the Ulva seeded onto the ice by bombing and spraying. The three ships will then move along the length of the slick, several times if necessary, until the radionuclides are stripped from the water.”
“You’re joking,” Charon said, looking at Garner’s diagram.
“I wish he was, Commander,” Zubov replied. “This is just the easy part.”
“Oh really?” Charon asked. “The wrangling equipment is designed for use by rig support ships, not the full-sized vessels you’ll be using.”
“I know.” Garner nodded. “We’ll be depending heavily on the ships’ captains and Sergei’s skills with winches and rigging. But first we need the SEAL team to stop the leak.”
Charon turned to Krail.
“How’s that coming?”
“We have the Hawkbill guarding the C-4 canisters as they’re brought in. The North Sea will dispatch the rest of the team ahead to meet the Phoenix. The men are all yours at that point. We’ll pull back and you can drop the curtain on the Devil’s Finger.”
“What’s the tonnage?” Charon asked. Krail grabbed a pocket calculator off the chart table and calculated the total combined explosive force of both the C-4 and the cratering charges. Charon glanced at the result and nodded.
“Enough.”
“I hope so,” Krail said. “As it is, we’re gonna trip every seismometer between here and Tokyo.”
There was a knock at the door of the van. Stimson poked his head inside.
“The Voyager’s captain wants a word with you,” he nodded at Charon.
“Good to go?” Charon asked Krail.
“Whenever you say so. Commander,” Krail agreed. “Unless there’s anything else we’ll need from them.”
“Wranglers,” Zubov suggested. “The human kind.”
“Can we take a couple of your ice wranglers?” Garner asked Charon, referring to the specially trained crewmen on the rig whose job was to fend the ice from the GBS.
“I’ve only got five and one’s a civilian,” Charon said. “You take two and I’m left with only three.”
“Three more than us,” Zubov said.
“Sergei and Byrnes are good, but they’ll need some expertise in setting the apparatus,” Garner explained to Charon.
“All right,” Charon grumbled. “But I don’t want them more than a quick helo ride away from the rig, in case I need them.” They agreed to keep the helicopter on B-82’s deck for shuttling personnel back and forth over the operations area, then Zubov and Stimson left to arrange the transfer of equipment and personnel to the Phoenix.
“Thanks, Matt,” Krail said to Charon. “We appreciate your cooperation.” The masked condescension in Krail’s comment sparked Charon’s anger.
“Like I’ve got a fuckin’ choice here, Krail. I’m just trying to protect my charge and get all you off my deck ASAP.” He picked up an armload of SASS plots and left the van.
“What the hell was that about?” Krail muttered, then went back to his charts. “ “Like I got a choice here,” ” he said in a fair imitation of Charon. “Like any of us do, asshole.”
Garner opened a secured line to the Phoenix and radioed the latest information to Carol.
“Charon is giving us some rigging and ice wranglers,” he explained. “When the Vagabond gets here, she’ll follow you and the latest PATRIC plot to the eastern most location of the slick at the surface. The North Sea will meet you there, then you can find a suitable floe and yoke up. Once the ships are rigged to the ice, we’ll bring in the Ulva by water bomber.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“Long enough for us to finish plugging the leak.”
“Are we going to be able to get enough of the Ulva she asked.
“Alvarez figures we’ve got the season on our side. With the breakup of the sea ice, there should be plenty of Ulva spores in the surface waters south of Greenland. Once the bombers transplant the Ulva to us, it’s just a matter of towing the ice through it mowing the lawn until all the Thiouni is absorbed.”
“There’s a lot of room for something to go wrong,” Carol grumbled. “Even without Murphy’s Law.”
“Murphy? Never heard of the guy. Use as much ice as you need,” Garner continued. “Just as long as it’s corralled in some stable location. The buildup of ice leading into Fury and Hecla is ideal, but we’ll still need more containment.”
“Oil spillage booms, something like that?”
They worked out the approximate latitude and longitude for a potential holding pen for the contaminated ice. It would be difficult getting the booms through the narrow Fury and Hecla Strait, but the land itself provided a natural holding pen too ideal to ignore.
“I’ll get back to you with details as soon as we have them.” Garner smiled as he heard Carol transcribing the information and barking orders to Byrnes and the others aboard the Phoenix.