Having seen enough, Kurt handed the scope over to Joe. “See for yourself.”
Pulling off an outer glove so he could better handle the device, Joe wiped some condensation from the lens and then put it to his eye. After scanning the scene for a moment, he spoke. “The equipment coming off the ship is heavy stuff. Most of it would be right at home at a construction site.”
Kurt nodded. “What do you think they’re up to?”
“I’d say they’re smoothing out the runway,” Joe said. “Getting rid of pressure ridges like the one we’re hiding behind.”
From the air, or any appreciable distance, the sea ice looked like a flat surface, an endless unbroken plain that stretched to the horizon. In reality, it was a mosaic, made up of countless small tiles. Some covered acres, others grew to the size of small towns and cities, many were much smaller.
The wind and currents moved them about the way tectonic forces moved the continents around the globe. Pushing them together. Pulling them apart.
They tended to stick together, where they rubbed shoulders, much like ice cubes floating in one’s drink. Sloshing water froze themtogether, but those connections were tenuous and could be broken if the wind shifted.
Where they pushed up against each other they formed pressure ridges, much like how the continents formed mountain ranges when they crashed into each other.
The ridge Kurt and Joe were hiding behind was typical, five to six feet in height, running across the ice in a zigzag-like pattern. In some places the ridges were larger, rising twenty to thirty feet. The higher the ridge protruded above the ice, the thicker the ice grew below it. A ten-foot ridge jutting upward was supported by a fifteen-foot keel of ice underneath.
When the wind or current pulled instead of pushed, sections of this great field were drawn apart. This created gaps and lengthy crevices, called leads, or irregular-shaped openings known as polynya or skylights, as they led back up from under the ice to the outside world.
It seemed logical that the Chinese runway would sustain some damage from these processes over time, especially since the wind had shifted overnight. What didn’t make sense was bothering to repair it at all.
“They can’t still be waiting for the plane,” Kurt asked.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Joe said. “But they might be waiting for another plane.”
“Another plane?”
“I’m just guessing,” Joe said. “But if they do have the EAGL—and they pushed it into the water to do the salvage work far from prying eyes—they might want to send the parts home by airmail instead of taking them on a literal slow boat to China.”
Kurt appreciated the reasoning. “One that our Navy might stop and inspect,” he said. “Regardless of the international repercussions.”
“Submitting to an inspection is easy peasy when you have nothing to hide,” Joe added.
Joe’s logic was sound. But they were just guessing at this point. “We need to get closer,” Kurt said. “If they do have the EAGL sitting on the bottom, we need to confirm it and let Washington know.”
Joe handed the scope back to Kurt. They were wearing white snow gear, but it didn’t make them invisible. “I wouldn’t do it on foot.”
They’d already come a long way on foot, having landed three miles to the southwest. But they hadn’t come alone.
Kurt turned around. Behind them, a torpedo-shaped object rested on a sled beside a circular polynya filled with black water. “That’s why we brought the Otter.”
“And I thought we dragged that thing all this way so we could work up a sweat,” Joe said.
“I noticed you’d stopped complaining about the cold,” Kurt replied.
“Hauling a five-hundred-pound tub across miles of ice like a sled dog will do that to you.”
Kurt laughed. Joe’s complaints were not well-founded. Like a self-propelled lawn mower, the sled had powered wheels underneath it that handled most of the load. He and Joe were really only guiding the thing. In most cases they got a free ride, having to put their backs into it only when the wheels spun or got stuck.
“You or me?” Joe asked. The Otter was a one-man sub.
“Since I can’t fly the helicopter out of here if you get lost, I’ll go,” Kurt said. He had no intention of letting Joe take the risk anyway, but using this logic, Joe couldn’t fight him over it.
“And what am I supposed to do while you’re down there?”
“Get back to the helicopter, check your email, take a nap,” Kurtsaid. “And run the engine every hour or so to make sure it’s warm enough to start when we’re ready to leave town.”
They backed away from the pressure ridge and moved to the waiting sled. Removing the tarp revealed a tube-shaped device about twelve feet in length. It had a rounded nose and a slightly flattened profile, wider than it was tall. Aside from several vents and an impeller exhaust nozzle, it sported a completely smooth exterior.
