Polar Shift (50 page)

"Thanks," Barrett said. "Now, if you'll excuse me." Following Karla's example, he yawned and crawled onto the next row of sets where he, too, stretched out and immediately fell asleep.

Austin made a note of the longitude and latitude at the position on his computer,
then
went up to the cockpit to give the plane's navigator the coordinates. He asked how long before they would be on-site and was told it would be approximately two hours. Austin looked out the cockpit window at the layer of cottony clouds that stretched out as far as the eye could see.

The crew was made up entirely of volunteers who were fully aware that they were flying on a dangerous mission. While the navigator laid out a flight plan, Austin and Zavala returned to the passenger cabin.

"From what you said in the cockpit, we'll arrive on target about the same time as the ship," Zavala said.

"It's an even tighter squeeze. We'll be in the same neighborhood. When we get there, we'll have to launch a search pattern. I don't know how long it will take to find the transmitter ship."

"Any delay could be fatal. That low cloud cover won't help."

"I've been thinking about that. The Trouts reported that they saw a lot of electrical activity in the sky minutes before their boat was sucked into the whirlpool."

"That's right. And Al said there were celestial fireworks when the U.S. and the Soviets were fooling around with electromagnetic warfare based on the Kovacs Theorems."

"Then there's every reason to think that we'll see the same phenomenon when Margrave and Gant gear up their zapper. I think we should be looking at the
sky
rather than the sea. The clouds might actually
help
us find the ship."

"Brilliant! I'll alert the crew to look for fireworks."

Austin reluctantly awakened Karla and Barrett. He gave them a few minutes to rub the sleep out of their eyes. As the plane sped toward the South Atlantic Anomaly, he brought them up to date on the situation. They agreed to split up when the time came, with Karla on one side of the plane, Barrett on the other. Austin would alternate back and forth and serve as liaison with Zavala, who would keep watch from the cockpit.

Zavala's voice came over the speakers. He said the plane would pass over the outer limits of the search area in fifteen minutes. Austin could feel the growing tension in the cabin. The atmosphere grew even tenser when Zavala announced that they were in the hot zone. They took up their positions at the aircraft's windows. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Austin moved back and forth across the wide cabin, offering encouragement. It was hard to believe that a vast ocean lay below the thick layer of clouds.

Austin had suggested that the plane fly a series of parallel runs back and forth across the search area. It was the same lawn mower pattern Austin would have used to search for a lost ship and would cover many square miles in a comparatively short time. They finished one run, then made another and were on their third when Austin began to wonder if he had made a mistake. He was checking his watch every few seconds.

The plane had turned to make another run when Karla called out, "I see something. Around three o'clock."

Austin and Barrett scrambled across the cabin to the other side of the plane and peered through the windows. The sun was low in the sky and its slanting rays had created blue shadows in the cloud cover.

But off to the right, the sky pulsated with a golden-white radiance that was similar to the glow a thunderstorm would produce in the clouds. Austin grabbed a microphone connected to the cockpit. Zavala replied over the speakers that he had seen the glow in the clouds as well.

The plane banked into a turn and, like a moth attracted to a flame, began its long glide toward the light that bubbled in the distance like a giant witch's cauldron.

42

With time short,
it had been necessary to opt for simplicity in setting up the control panel in the spacious cargo section. The console was a flat board that rested on supports raising it to waist level. The layout was deliberately uncomplicated, consisting of a main switch that controlled the flow of power to all the dynamos. Various dials and gauges kept tabs on different parts of the operating system.

Zavala's voice came over the speakers. "We're going into the clouds."

Austin felt a prickling on his scalp and his hair stood on end, not because of fear, but from the sudden electrical charge that saturated the air. Karla's long blond tresses were standing on end like the hair on the Bride of Frankenstein. She reached up and patted her hair down, with limited success. With his shaved scalp, Barrett had no such problem, although the spider tattoo had goose bumps.

The electrical show was only beginning. Every surface of the cargo section began to glow an electrical blue like the Saint Elmo's fire that sailors used to see dancing in the rigging of their sailing ships. The plane's interior lights blinked on and off, as if a child were playing with the switch. Then the lights went out completely.

Stroboscopic flashes from outside lit up the rows of windows and illuminated the bewildered faces in the cargo section like dancers in a disco. The plane seemed to be in the midst of a lightning storm. But there was no thunder, only the muted roar of the jet engines. The relative silence heightened the eeriness of the scene.

The intercom must have operated on a separate system, because Zavala's voice crackled over the speakers. His message was brief and to the point:

"We've lost the cockpit instruments."

A second later, he relayed a message that was even more terrifying. "Oh hell, the controls are gone too."

Austin knew that a plane the size of a 747 wouldn't go into an instantaneous dive, but it wasn't built to soar on the updrafts like a glider. Once the aircraft discovered it was on its own, it would lapse into a tumble that would rip its wings off. He put his arm protectively around Karla's shoulders.

Something was happening in the cargo area. The electrical display seemed less brilliant. The cold fire playing along the walls and ceiling seemed to be dying down. Dark spots appeared in the shimmer and dampened the ghostly blue light. There was one last, brilliant burp of radiance. The interior lights blinked on.

A second later, Zavala's voice came over the speaker with a welcome announcement:

"The instruments and controls are back on," he reported.

Austin removed his arm from around Karla's shoulders and went over to check the control panel. He was worried that the surge of static electricity that had put on such a dramatic light display might have burned out the switches. To his relief, everything was in order.

Karla had noticed a change in the light coming through the window and went to investigate. She pressed her nose against the Plexiglas and called the others over. Austin peered out a window and saw that they were through the overcast. Blue ocean was visible through the vaporous tatters of low-lying clouds. A flickering brilliance from above caught his eye. Instead of the underside of the cloud cover, he saw an aurora of swirling whites, blues and purple that formed a luminous canopy. The very heavens seemed on fire; it was as if a hundred lightning storms were discharging simultaneous bolts.

The plane had made it through the electrical barrier in one piece, but they weren't out of the woods yet. Although the electrical assault was fading, the farther they dropped below the clouds, the plane was being buffeted by gut-wrenching turbulence. Power-packed winds slammed into the 747 from every direction. Despite its massive size, the plane pitched and yawed like a kite on a string.

The buffeting was only a softening up. The plane was slammed like a boxer on the ropes by a series of head-on wind gusts. The cargo space reverberated with loud bangs as the winds hammered the plane as if it were rolling along a road full of deep potholes. Just as it seemed that another pounding would pop every rivet in the plane, the blows became less violent and less frequent. Then they stopped completely.

"Are you all right back there?" Zavala said.

"We're fine, but you need a new set of shock absorbers."

"I need a new set
of teeth,"
Zavala said.

"Tell the pilot that was a nice save. Are the wings still attached?"

"He says thanks, and who needs wings anyhow?"

"That's reassuring. Can you see the ship?"

"Not yet.
Still a few clouds."
There was a pause, and when Zavala's voice came back on Austin could hear the excitement in it. "Look to the port side, Kurt. Around nine o'clock."

Austin looked out the window and saw the liner below. The ship looked like a toy boat in the ocean. There was no wake, which confirmed what Austin already knew from the turbulence and light show the plane had encountered. The ship was stationary, and the electromagnetic assault had begun.

The ship was surrounded by a ring of waves that were moving away from the vessel in an expanding circle. Although it was hard to judge the size of the waves, the fact that their foamy crests were so clearly visible at the altitude the plane was flying meant that the seas were monstrous.

Austin got on the intercom and asked the pilot to level out at ten thousand feet and to circle the ship, dropping one thousand feet with each circuit. He turned to Barrett, who was standing at the control panel, and told him to get ready. The scientist nodded and began to increase the power to the dynamos. An electrical hum like a thousand bee hives filled the plane's interior.

Something was burning. Austin looked down the length of the cargo space and saw a cloud of purple smoke and sparks coming from one of the dynamos. He yelled at Barrett to kill the power, and, with Karla right behind him, he dashed down the long length of the plane.

Barrett had seen the gauge signifying a problem and had already hit the kill switch. Austin found the source of the sparks was a lead into one of the dynamos. The connection had come loose while the plane was being bounced around by the violent turbulence.

He examined the connection for damage, found nothing serious and quickly reconnected the cable. Austin yelled at Barrett to power up. The humming of the bees began, and rose to a pitch where it drowned out the roar of the jet engines. Karla had joined Barrett at the control panel. Austin stood near the intercom where he could keep in close touch with the cockpit.

"How does it look?" Austin asked.

Barrett's eyes swept over the control panel and he smiled. "Everything is on track."

Austin gave him the thumbs-up, and called to Zavala, "What's our altitude?"

"Eight thousand feet."

"Good. Bring her down to four thousand, and then make a level pass directly over the ship. Let me know when we're starting the approach to the target."

"Aye, aye, sir."

As the plane dropped lower, the pilot had to contend with an unexpected burst of turbulence. He got the plane back on an even keel with some skillful flying. Zavala called to say that they were making their approach to the ship.

Austin called out to Barrett to give it the juice. He hesitated with his hand over the power switch, and for a second Austin thought he hadn't understood. Then Barrett stepped aside and put Karla's hand on the switch.

"This is in honor of your grandfather."

Karla replied with a broad grin and threw the switch. Power flowed into the antenna, where it was converted to pulses of electromagnetic energy. Austin had no precedent or experience to work with, so he was laying down a pattern of energy bursts in much the same way a sub hunter saturates the ocean with depth charges.

They were over the ship an instant later. Austin ordered the pilot to repeat the procedure, coming in at another angle. The 747 wasn't built for strafing runs, and the big plane seemed to take forever as it banked around in a wide turn and started back to lay down another series of charges.

Again Zavala yelled out the five-hundred-yard mark. Again Karla laid on the power.

Another pass, another barrage of electromagnetic pulses flowed into the sea around the ship.

"How long do we need to do this?" Zavala said.

"Until we run out of fuel, and then some," Austin said with a steely determination in his voice.

The mood
was euphoric on the observation platform of the
Polar Explorer.

Margrave and Gant gazed up through the glass-paneled ceiling, their faces bathed in the pulsating, multicolored light emanating from the aurora high above the ship. Margrave's strange face never looked more satanic.

"Spectacular!" Gant said in a rare show of emotion.

Margrave stood behind the control consol. He had been gradually accelerating the dynamos to full power, and the console was lit up like a pinball machine.

"The aurora indicates we've reached critical mass," he said. "The electromagnetic waves have penetrated the ocean floor. They'll change the electromagnetic flux and nudge the pole over. Keep an eye on the compass for the big flip."

Gant glanced at the compass dial, and then gazed out one of the big picture windows.

"Something is happening to the sea."

The ruffled surface of the ocean immediately around the ship had gone flat.