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the scars and wear of twenty years' hard usage. It had been towed to Eskimo Point from Winisk, in Polar Bear Provincial Park, three hundred kilometers to the south. The tugboat that had brought it was long gone, dispatched south to safety. |
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She had hung back at the end of the journalists' final night tour of the icebreaker. The executive officer had been busy answering technical questions from the reporters, and she could see that he was exhausted. The rest of the reporters were bored and anxious to check on the Starlifter's new arrival time, exasperated that the plane carrying the divers was so late. It had been easy to slip away when it was time to board the Zodiac to return to shore, hoping that in the dark, and in his present state, the officer would not count heads. She could use one of the small craft moored to the platform to escape from this empty, abandoned deck when Arkady Karmann had been dispatched to his fate. |
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Above Marina's head, the flank of the Trudeau rose into the night like a steel cliff. Fenders fashioned of pairs of huge truck tires squealed softly to each other as the wave action moved the ship and platform. Now the brilliant gleam of stars had vanished, leaving a wet, icy darkness. Another cold front was moving east across the Northwest Territories to the bay, bearing with it a promise of more nasty sleet storms and blustery winds. She could only hope that the weather wouldn't delay the departure of the press plane. |
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Marina scanned the perimeter of the work platform again. It was fully a hundred meters in circumference. The supporting gear for the remote vehicle was stacked near the gangway to the icebreaker, as was the large suction pump that powered the airlift. The Canadians had done their work properly, all right. The missile was clear of the bottom mud. It lay directly below the platform at a depth of nineteen meters. Fallen, damaged, leaking plutonium into the waterand still very much alive. I simply must get out of here, she thought, suppressing a feeling close to terror. |
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Now Marina could hear the burble of the approaching Zo- |
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