TITLES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES
Celtic Empire (with Dirk Cussler)
Odessa Sea (with Dirk Cussler)
Havana Storm (with Dirk Cussler)
Poseidon’s Arrow (with Dirk Cussler)
Crescent Dawn (with Dirk Cussler)
Arctic Drift (with Dirk Cussler)
Treasure of Khan (with Dirk Cussler)
Black Wind (with Dirk Cussler)
Trojan Odyssey
Valhalla Rising
Atlantis Found
Flood Tide
Shock Wave
Inca Gold
Sahara
Dragon
Treasure
Cyclops
Deep Six
Pacific Vortex!
Night Probe!
Vixen 03
Raise the Titanic!
Iceberg
The Mediterranean Caper
SAM AND REMI FARGO ADVENTURES®
The Wrath of Poseidon (with Robin Burcell)
The Oracle (with Robin Burcell)
The Gray Ghost (with Robin Burcell)
The Romanov Ransom (with Robin Burcell)
Pirate (with Robin Burcell)
The Solomon Curse (with Russell Blake)
The Eye of Heaven (with Russell Blake)
The Mayan Secrets (with Thomas Perry)
The Tombs (with Thomas Perry)
The Kingdom (with Grant Blackwood)
Lost Empire (with Grant Blackwood)
Spartan Gold (with Grant Blackwood)
ISAAC BELL ADVENTURES®
The Titanic Secret (with Jack Du Brul)
The Cutthroat (with Justin Scott)
The Gangster (with Justin Scott)
The Assassin (with Justin Scott)
The Bootlegger (with Justin Scott)
The Striker (with Justin Scott)
The Thief (with Justin Scott)
The Race (with Justin Scott)
The Spy (with Justin Scott)
The Wrecker (with Justin Scott)
The Chase
KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES
Novels from the NUMA Files®
Fast Ice (with Graham Brown)
Journey of the Pharaohs (with Graham Brown)
Sea of Greed (with Graham Brown)
The Rising Sea (with Graham Brown)
Nighthawk (with Graham Brown)
The Pharaoh’s Secret (with Graham Brown)
Ghost Ship (with Graham Brown)
Zero Hour (with Graham Brown)
The Storm (with Graham Brown)
Devil’s Gate (with Graham Brown)
Medusa (with Paul Kemprecos)
The Navigator (with Paul Kemprecos)
Polar Shift (with Paul Kemprecos)
Lost City (with Paul Kemprecos)
White Death (with Paul Kemprecos)
Fire Ice (with Paul Kemprecos)
Blue Gold (with Paul Kemprecos)
Serpent (with Paul Kemprecos)
OREGON FILES®
Marauder (with Boyd Morrison)
Final Option (with Boyd Morrison)
Shadow Tyrants (with Boyd Morrison)
Typhoon Fury (with Boyd Morrison)
The Emperor’s Revenge (with Boyd Morrison)
Piranha (with Boyd Morrison)
Mirage (with Jack Du Brul)
The Jungle (with Jack Du Brul)
The Silent Sea (with Jack Du Brul)
Corsair (with Jack Du Brul)
Plague Ship (with Jack Du Brul)
Skeleton Coast (with Jack Du Brul)
Dark Watch (with Jack Du Brul)
Sacred Stone (with Craig Dirgo)
Golden Buddha (with Craig Dirgo)
NONFICTION
Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt
Built to Thrill: More Classic Automobiles from Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt
The Sea Hunters (with Craig Dirgo)
The Sea Hunters II (with Craig Dirgo)
Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (with Craig Dirgo)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cussler, Clive, author. | Brown, Graham, author.
Title: Fast ice: a novel from the Numa files / Clive Cussler and Graham Brown.
Description: New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2021] | Series: A Kurt Austin adventure.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020048520 (print) | LCCN 2020048521 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593327869 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593327876 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Austin, Kurt (Fictitious character)—Fiction. | Marine scientists—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Adventure fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3553.U75 F37 2021 (print) | LCC PS3553.U75 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048520
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048521
Title page photo: Ship among icebergs by I. Noyan Yilmaz/Shutterstock.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0
CONTENTS
Cover
Titles by Clive Cussler
Title Page
Copyright
Cast of Characters
Prologue: The Bottom of the World
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 4
1
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
About the Authors
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ANTARCTICA, 1939
CAPTAIN GUNTHER JURGENSON—Lufthansa pilot, expert at piloting seaplanes and flying boats, recruited for the Bremerhaven expedition to Antarctica
LIEUTENANT SCHMIDT—Navigator on Jurgenson’s aircraft, devoted member of the Nazi Party
Grishka Expedition
CORA EMMERSON—Climate expert and microbiologist, also a former member of NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency)
ALEC LASKEY—Captain of the Grishka, a forty-year-old polar research vessel
National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA)
KURT AUSTIN—Director of Special Projects, salvage expert, world-class diver, and boating enthusiast
JOE ZAVALA—Kurt’s assistant and closest friend, helicopter pilot, and mechanical genius
RUDI GUNN—Assistant Director of NUMA, graduate of the Naval Academy, runs most of the day-to-day operations at NUMA
HIRAM YAEGER—NUMA’s Director of Technology, designed and runs their most powerful computers and processing systems
PAUL TROUT—NUMA’s chief geologist, graduate of Scripps Institute, married to Gamay
GAMAY TROUT—NUMA’s leading marine biologist, also graduated from Scripps
ST. JULIEN PERLMUTTER—World-class historian and gourmet cook, keeps a large collection of rare nautical books and charts in his home
LEE GARLAND—Director of Remote Sensing and Communications, known as a satellite wrangler
South Africa—Limpopo Province
YVONNE LLOYD—Environmentalist and microbiologist studying ancient bacteria, part of Cora Emmerson’s expedition on the Grishka
RYLAND LLOYD—Yvonne’s older brother, CEO of Mata Petroleum, caught up in a continuing feud with his sister
ZHAO LIANG—Owner of Liang Shipping, a large tanker operation, associate of Ryland Lloyd
SERGEI NOVIKOV—Russian construction magnate, builder of ports and shipping terminals, also an associate of Ryland Lloyd
EILEEN TUNSTALL—Canadian industrialist, her company builds turbines and pipeline equipment, also an associate of Ryland Lloyd
South Africa—Johannesburg
LEANDRA NDIMI—NUMA liaison officer in South Africa and a friend of Rudi’s
PROFESSOR NOAH WATSON—Microbiologist at the University of Johannesburg
LIEUTENANT CLARENCE ZAMA—Special-operations commander in the South African Navy
Europe
MATTHIAS RÄIKKÖNEN—Director of Research at the European Ice Core Depository in Helsinki
ANDREA BAUER—Lead curator at the Berlin Document Center
P-8 Poseidon Flight Crew
COMMANDER WALTER HANSEN—Commander of P-8 Poseidon aircraft code-named Hermes 51
LIEUTENANT REBECCA COLLIER—Reconnaissance Systems Operator on Hermes 51
PROLOGUE
THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD
TERRA AUSTRALIS (ANTARCTICA)
JANUARY 1939
The droning of aircraft propellers echoed across the stark winter landscape. It caromed off snowfields and along rivers of ice, a reverberating hum never heard before in this part of Antarctica.
A colony of emperor penguins nesting on the land below caught wind of the noise. They looked skyward for the cause of the disturbance, turning their heads in unison. Finding the source, they watched in rapt curiosity as a large gray “bird” lumbered across the sky.
That bird was a Dornier flying boat. An all-metal silver aircraft with a registration number painted in large block letters. It boasted a high-mounted wing and two powerful radial engines arranged sequentially along the centerline of the fuselage—one engine pulled the plane forward while the second pushed it from behind.
Those who flew this model of the Dornier called it The Whale, mostly because of its great size, but also because the plane’s ribbed sheet metal resembled the distinctly folded blubber on the underside of many ocean-dwelling leviathans.
Inside the aircraft, a middle-aged pilot sat at the controls. He had brown eyes and graying hair, but with a thick growth of dark stubble on his face. He wore a buttonless blue jacket known as a Fliegerbluse. A captain’s badge on the collar indicated his rank, while an eagle grasping a swastika on his breast identified him as a Luftwaffe pilot. A temporary name tag, only recently sewn onto the Fliegerbluse, gave his name as Jurgenson.
Tilting the wings and glancing down at the penguins through the heated cockpit glass, Jurgenson marveled at how the birds lined themselves up in near-perfect rows.
“Kleine Soldaten,” he said in German. Little soldiers.
The copilot laughed and then pointed to something else. “Blaues Wasser,” he said. Blue water. “It must be another lake. That makes three in the last fifty kilometers, all along the same line.”
Jurgenson turned his attention to the lake up ahead. He saw a long, narrow stretch of aquamarine water shimmering in the sun. The color was intense, standing out like a sapphire in the endless field of white snow.
“This one’s larger than the others.” He pressed the intercom button. “Navigator, I need a position report.”
From deeper inside the plane, the navigator responded with the current latitude and longitude, adding, “We’re nearing the two-hundred-kilometer waypoint. Time to perform our duty for the Reich.”
Jurgenson rolled his eyes and exchanged a knowing glance with the copilot. They were officially here as explorers, photographing large swaths of the unexplored continent, but in 1939 exploring unknown lands meant claiming them for King and Country—or, in this case, for Führer and Fatherland.
To press that claim, they were required by the high command to deposit evidence of their journey every fifty kilometers. That meant dropping weighted markers through the cargo door of the plane and hoping they would land in the ice like flags.
The markers were three feet long, made of steel and shaped like arrows. They were weighted in the nose, designed to fall like spears and embed themselves in the snow and ice. If all went well, they would remain erect, proudly displaying the swastikas emblazoned on their tails.
Jurgenson found the exercise a ridiculous waste of time. As far as he could tell, the arrows either fell down upon impact or plunged so deeply that they’d vanished from sight.
Jurgenson made a quick decision and pressed the intercom button. “Our true duty to the Reich is to find things of value. Liquefied snow and ice suggest geothermal heat, which shall be of tremendous use should the high command decide to build a base here. Strap yourself in. We’re turning back for a landing.”
With the intercom silent, Jurgenson addressed the copilot. “Contact the Bremerhaven. Tell them we’re landing.”
As the copilot reported back to the freighter they’d launched from, Jurgenson adjusted the controls and put the Dornier into a slow, descending turn. He passed over the lake once, eyeing it for rocks or obstructions, and then set up for the landing. On the approach, he lowered the flaps and feathered the throttle.
There was no wind to speak of, which made th
ings easy. The Dornier touched down at one end of the narrow lake, splitting the calm water in two and carving a long, thin wake down the middle.
The drag of the water reduced the plane’s speed as effectively as any brakes and the big craft was soon coasting along like a heavily laden boat. Jurgenson maneuvered the craft using the pedals at his feet that were attached to a small rudder under the plane’s keel. As the speed dropped further, he added some power, turned the plane to the right and then shut the engines down.
The Dornier went quiet, drifting to a stop against the far end of the lake.
“Time to stretch our legs,” Jurgenson said.
As Jurgenson released his shoulder harness, the navigator popped his head into the cockpit. “Captain,” the navigator said. “I must insist that we—”
Jurgenson cut him off. “Lieutenant Schmidt,” he said. “I insist that you join us. You may bring as many markers as you wish. We can even outline the lake with them, if you please. As a further honor, you shall be given the right to name this lake for the Fatherland.”
Silence for a second, and then, “Danke, Kapitän.”
The navigator disappeared back into the fuselage of the plane. The copilot grinned. “We’ll make a politician out of you yet.”
“Not in a million years.”
Jurgenson couldn’t have cared less for the National Socialist Party—in fact, he’d been an opponent of the Nazis in their early years, back when that sort of thing was still allowed. It had driven the Gestapo to put a red flag next to his name and they’d tried to keep him off the expedition. But after years working the overseas routes with Lufthansa, his level of skill in flying The Whale could not easily be matched. Those skills—along with a written rejection of his unionist past—had gotten him onto the expedition and out of working a coal mine in the Ruhr.
Reaching up, Jurgenson opened a hatch above his head. Most versions of the Dornier had an open cockpit, but the aircraft chosen for the Antarctic expedition had been given a glassed-in canopy for obvious reasons.