Arctic Drift

  The noontime traffic clogged the streets until Pitt maneuvered onto M Street, which led to the heart of Georgetown.

  “How’s Lisa coming along?” he asked.

  “She’s being released from the hospital today and is anxious to get back to work. I’m arranging a briefing with the White House Office on Science and Technology once she has the chance to document and summarize her findings. That might take a few weeks, though. Lisa called me this morning a little upset—her lab assistant has apparently taken another position out of state, just quit on her without notice.”

  “Bob Hamilton?”

  “Yes, that’s his name. The one you don’t trust.”

  “He’s supposed to talk to the FBI later this week. Something tells me he won’t be leaving for that new job anytime soon.”

  “It started out as such a promising breakthrough, but it’s certainly turned into a mess. I saw a private report from the Department of Energy which forecasts a much bleaker environmental and economic impact from global warming than anybody else is letting on. The latest studies indicate the atmospheric greenhouse gases are growing at an alarming rate. Do you think a source of ruthenium can be found quickly enough to make the artificial-photosynthesis system a reality?”

  “All we’ve got is a tenuous historical account of a long forgotten source. It might turn up empty, but the best we can do is track it down.”

  Pitt turned down a quaint residential street lined with historic mansions that dated to the 1840s. He found a parking spot beneath a towering oak tree, and they made their way to a smaller residence constructed from the carriage house of an adjacent manor. Pitt rapped a heavy brass knocker, and the front door flew open a moment later, revealing a colossal man clad in a red satin smoking jacket.

  “Dirk! Loren! There you are,” St. Julien Perlmutter boomed in a hearty voice. The bearded behemoth, who tipped the scales at nearly four hundred pounds, gave them each a spine-crushing hug as he welcomed them into his house.

  “Julien, you are looking fit. Have you lost some weight?” Loren said, patting his ample belly.

  “Heavens, no,” he roared. “The day I stop eating is the day I die. You, on the other hand, look more ravishing than ever.”

  “You’d best keep that appetite of yours focused on food,” Pitt threatened with a grin.

  Perlmutter leaned down to Loren’s ear. “If you ever get tired of living with this adventuresome old cuss, you just let me know,” he said, loud enough for Pitt to hear. Then rising like a bear, he pounded across the room.

  “Come, to the dining room,” he beckoned.

  Loren and Pitt followed him past the entryway, through a living room, and down a hallway, all of which were filled to the ceiling with shelved books. The entire house was similarly cluttered, resembling a stately library more than a personal residence. Within its walls was the largest single collection of historic maritime books and journals in the world. An insatiable collector of nautical archives, Perlmutter himself stood as a pre-eminent expert on maritime history.

  Perlmutter led them to a small but ornate dining room, where only a few piles of books were discreetly stacked against one wall. They took their seats at a thick mahogany table that featured legs carved in the shape of lion paws. The table had come from the captain’s cabin of an ancient sailing ship, one of many nautical antiques tucked among the legion of books.

  Perlmutter opened a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé, then poured each of them a glass of the dry white wine.

  “I’m afraid I already finished off that bottle of airag that you sent me from Mongolia,” he said to Pitt. “Marvelous stuff.”

  “I had plenty while I was there. The locals consume it like water,” he replied, recalling the slightly bitter taste of the alcoholic drink made from mare’s milk.

  Perlmutter tasted the wine, then set down his glass and clapped his hands.

  “Marie,” he called loudly. “You may serve the soup.”

  An apron-clad woman appeared from the kitchen carrying a tray of bowls. The physical opposite of Perlmutter, she was lithe and petite, with short dark hair and coffee-colored eyes. She silently placed a bowl of soup in front of each diner with a smile, then disappeared into the kitchen. Pitt took a taste and nodded.

  “Vichyssoise. Very flavorful.”

  Perlmutter leaned forward and spoke in a whisper. “Marie is an assistant chef at Citronelle here in Georgetown. She is a graduate of one of the top culinary schools in Paris. Better than that, her father was a chef at Maxim’s,” he added, kissing his fingertips in delight. “She agreed to come cook for me three times a week. Life is good,” he declared in a deep bellow, the folds of fat around his chin rolling as he laughed.

  The trio dined on sautéed sweetbreads with risotto and leeks, followed by a chocolate mousse. Pitt pushed his empty dessert plate away with a sigh of satisfaction. Loren threw in the towel before finishing hers.

  “Outstanding, Julien, from start to finish. If you ever grow tired of maritime history, I do believe you’d have a fantastic future as a restaurateur,” Loren said.

  “Perhaps, but I believe there would be too much work involved,” Perlmutter said with a laugh. “Besides, as you surely have learned from your husband, one’s love for the sea never wanes.”

  “True. I don’t know what you two would do with yourselves if man had never sailed the seas.”

  “Blasphemous thought,” Perlmutter boomed. “Which reminds me, Dirk, you said your calling involved something more than just fine dining with a dear friend . . .”

  “That’s right, Julien. I’m on the hunt for a scarce mineral that made an appearance in the Arctic around 1849.”

  “Sounds intriguing. What’s your interest?”

  Pitt summarized the importance of ruthenium and the tale of the Inuit ore from the Miners Co-op.

  “Adelaide Peninsula, you say? If my memory serves, that’s just below King William Island, dead center in the Northwest Passage,” Perlmutter said, stroking this thick gray beard. “And in 1849, the only explorers in that region would have been Franklin’s party.”

  “Who was Franklin?” Loren asked.

  “Sir John Franklin. British naval officer and renowned Arctic explorer. Fought at Trafalgar on the Bellerophon as a young lad, if I recall. Though a little past his prime at age fifty-nine, he sailed with two stoutly built ships in an attempt to find and navigate the fabled Northwest Passage. He came within a hair of pulling it off, but his ships became trapped in the ice. The surviving men were forced to abandon the ships and attempt to reach a fur-trading camp hundreds of miles to the south. Franklin and all one hundred and thirty-four men of his expedition party ultimately died, making it by far the worst tragedy in Arctic exploration.”

  Perlmutter excused himself to visit one of his reading rooms, returning with several old books and a crudely bound manuscript. Flipping through one of the books, he stopped at a page and read aloud.

  “Here we are. Franklin sailed from the Thames in May of 1845 with two ships, the Erebus and the Terror. They were last seen entering Baffin Bay, off Greenland, later that summer. With provisions to last the crew three years, they were expected to winter at least one year in the ice before attempting a path to the Pacific, or else return to England with proof that a passage did not exist. Franklin and his crew instead perished in the Arctic, and his ships were never seen again.”

  “Didn’t anyone go looking for them when they failed to appear after three years?” Loren asked.

  “Oh my dear, did they! Concern grew by the end of 1847 when no word had been heard, and relief efforts commenced the next year. Literally dozens of relief expeditions were sent in search of Franklin, with vessels prodding both ends of the passage. Franklin’s wife, Lady Jane Franklin, famously financed numerous expeditions single-handedly to locate her husband. Remarkably, it wouldn’t be until 1854, nine years after they departed England, that the remains of some of the crewmen were found on King William Island, confirming the worst.”

  “Di
d they leave any logbooks or records behind?” Pitt asked.

  “Just one. A chilling note that was placed in a rock cairn on the island and discovered in 1859.” Perlmutter found a photocopy of the note in one of his books and slid it over for Loren and Pitt to read.

  “There’s a notation that Franklin died in 1847, but it doesn’t say why,” Loren read.

  “The note raises more questions than answers. They were tantalizingly close to transiting the worst section of the passage but may have been caught by an exceedingly short summer, and the ships probably broke up in the ice.”

  Pitt found a map in the book, which showed the area of Franklin’s demise. The point where his ships were presumed abandoned was less than a hundred miles from Adelaide Peninsula.

  “The ruthenium found in the region was referred to as Black Kobluna,” Pitt said, searching for a potential geographic clue on the chart.

  “Kobluna. That’s an Inuit word,” Perlmutter said, pulling out the crudely bound manuscript. Opening the ancient parched papers, Loren saw that the entire document was handwritten.

  “Yes,” Pitt answered. “It is an Inuit term for ‘white man.’ ”

  Perlmutter rapped a knuckle on the open document. “In 1860, a New York journalist named Stuart Leuthner sought to unravel the mystery of the Franklin Expedition. He traveled to the Arctic and lived in an Inuit settlement for seven years, learning their language and customs. He scoured the region around King William Island, interviewing every inhabitant he could find who had possibly interacted with Franklin or his crew. But the clues were few, and he returned to New York disillusioned, never finding the definitive answers he was looking for. For some reason he decided against publishing his findings and left his writings behind, to return to the Arctic. He took a young Inuit wife, then ventured into the wild to live off the land and was never heard from again.”

  “Is that his journal from his time among the Inuit?” Pitt asked.

  Perlmutter nodded. “I was able to acquire it at auction a few years back, picking it up at a reasonable price.”

  “I’m amazed it was never published,” Loren said.

  “You wouldn’t be if you read it. Ninety percent of it is a discourse on catching and butchering seals, building igloos, and surviving the boredom of the dark winter months.”

  “And the other ten percent?” Pitt asked.

  “Let us see,” Perlmutter smiled.

  For the next hour, Perlmutter skimmed through the journal, sharing occasional passages where an Inuit described witnessing a sledge party on the distant shores of King William Island or noted the two large ships trapped in the ice. Near the very end of the journal, Leuthner interviewed a young man whose story put Loren and Pitt on the edge of their seats.

  The account was from Koo-nik, a thirteen-year-old boy in 1849 when he went on a seal-hunting excursion with his uncle west of King William Island. He and his uncle had climbed a large hummock and found a massive boat wedged in a large ice floe.

  “Kobluna,” the uncle had said, as they made their way to the vessel.

  As they moved closer, they heard much yelling and screaming coming from the depths of the ship. A wild-eyed man with long hair waved for them to come alongside. With a freshly caught seal for barter, they were quickly invited onto the deck. Several more men appeared, dirty and emaciated, with dried blood covering their clothes. One of the men stared at Koo-nik, babbling incoherently, as two other men danced around the deck. The crew sang an odd chant, calling themselves the “men of blackness.” They all seemed possessed by evil spirits, Koo-nik thought. Frightened by the specter, Koo-nik clung to his uncle as the elder man traded the seal meat for two knives and some shiny silver stones that the Koblunas said had unique warming powers. The Koblunas promised more cutting tools and silver stones if the Inuit returned with more seal meat. Koo-nik left with his uncle but never saw the boat again. He reported that his uncle and some other men took a large number of seals to the boat a few weeks later and returned with many knives and a kayak filled with the Black Kobluna.”

  “It had to have been the ruthenium,” Loren said excitedly.

  “Yes, the Black Kobluna,” Pitt agreed. “But where did Franklin’s crew acquire it?”

  “It might possibly have been discovered on one of the neighboring islands during a sledging excursion, while the ships were locked in the ice,” Perlmutter ventured. “Of course a mine could have been discovered much earlier in the expedition, anywhere from Greenland to Victoria Island, covering a distance of thousands of miles. Not much to go on, I’m afraid.”

  “What I find strange is the behavior of the crew,” Loren noted.

  “I heard a similar tale of some mill workers in South Africa going loony, which was blamed on possible exposure to ruthenium,” Pitt replied. “None of it makes sense, though, as there is nothing inherently dangerous about the mineral.”

  “Perhaps it was just the horrible conditions they endured. Starving and freezing all those winters, trapped in a dark, cramped ship,” Loren said. “That would be enough to drive me crazy.”

  “Throw in scurvy and frostbite, not to mention botulism brought on from a shoddy supply of tinned foods sealed with lead, and you would have plenty to test a man’s wits,” Perlmutter agreed.

  “Just one of several unanswered questions associated with the expedition,” Pitt said.

  “The account seems to confirm your trader’s story from the Miners Co-op,” Perlmutter noted.

  “Maybe the answer to where the mineral came from still lies on the ship,” Loren suggested.

  Pitt was already mulling the same thought. He knew that the frigid waters of the Arctic allowed for remarkable preservation of antiquities. The Breadalbane, an 1843 wooden ship sent on one of the Franklin rescue expeditions and crushed in the ice near Beechey Island, had recently been discovered fully intact, its masts still rising over the deck. That a clue to the source of the ruthenium might still exist on the ship was entirely possible. But which ship was it, and where was it located?

  “There was no mention of a second ship?” he asked.

  “No,” Perlmutter replied. “And the approximate location they provide is quite a bit farther south than where the Franklin ships were recorded to have been abandoned.”

  “Maybe the ice drifted, moving them apart,” Loren suggested.

  “Entirely plausible,” Perlmutter replied. “Leuthner has an interesting tidbit later in the journal,” he said, flipping a few pages forward. “A third-party Inuit claims to have seen one of the ships sink while the other one disappeared. Leuthner could never quite decipher the distinction from the Inuit.”

  “Assuming it is one of the Franklin ships, it might well be critical to identify the vessel, in case the mineral was not brought aboard both Erebus and Terror,” Pitt noted.

  “I’m afraid Koo-nik never identified the ship. And both vessels were nearly identical in appearance,” Perlmutter said.

  “But he said the crew had a name for themselves,” Loren said. “What did he call them, the ‘black men’?”

  “The ‘men of blackness’ is how they were described,” Perlmutter replied. “Somewhat odd. I suppose they called themselves that for having survived so many dark winters.”

  “Or there might be another reason,” Pitt said, a wide grin slowly spreading across his face. “If they were indeed the men of blackness, then they just told us which ship they served.”

  Loren looked at him with a quizzical gaze, but the light went on for Perlmutter.

  “But of course!” the big man roared. “It must be the Erebus. Well done, my boy.”

  Loren looked at her husband. “What did I miss?”

  “Erebus,” Pitt replied. “In Greek mythology, it is an underworld stopping place on the road to Hades. It is a place of perpetual darkness, or blackness, if you will.”

  “Fair to say that’s where the ship and crew ended up,” Perlmutter said. He gave Pitt a studious look. “Do you think you can find her?”

&nb
sp; “It will be a sizable search area, but it’s worth the gamble. The only thing that can prevent us from succeeding is the same peril that doomed Franklin: the ice.”

  “We’re nearing the summer season, where the melting sea ice is navigable in the region. Can you get a vessel there in time to conduct a search?”

  “And don’t forget the Canadians,” Loren cautioned. “They might not let you in the door.”

  Pitt’s eyes sparkled with optimism. “It just so happens that I have a vessel in the neighborhood and the man in place to find the way,” he said with a confident grin.

  Perlmutter located a dusty bottle of vintage port wine and poured small glasses all around.

  “Godspeed to you, my boy,” he toasted. “May you shed some light on the darkened Erebus.”

  After thanking Perlmutter for the meal and receiving a promise from the marine historian that he would provide copies of any materials he had on the ship’s likely position, Loren and Pitt stepped out of the carriage house and returned to the car. Climbing into the car, Loren was unusually quiet. Her sixth sense had kicked in, warning of an unseen danger. She knew she couldn’t stand in the way of Pitt pursuing a lost mystery, but it was always hard for her to let him go.

  “The Arctic is a dangerous place,” she finally said in a low voice. “I’ll worry about you up there.”

  “I’ll be sure to pack my long underwear and stay well clear of icebergs,” he said with cheery comfort.

  “I know this is important, but, still, I wish you didn’t have to go.”

  Pitt smiled in reassurance, but in his eye there was a distant and determined look. Loren took one look at her husband and knew that he was already there.

  42

  MITCHELL GOYETTE WAS SITTING ON THE FAN-TAIL of his yacht reviewing an earnings report when his private secretary appeared with a secure portable phone.

  “Natural Resources Minister Jameson is on the line,” the winsome brunette said as she handed him the phone.

  Goyette gave her a smug leer, then picked up the receiver.