But he would be proven wrong. Two days after they returned to the NUMA regional office in Seattle, a flatbed truck showed up carrying their research boat left behind off Gil Island. It had a full tank of gas, and on the pilot’s seat was an expensive bottle of French burgundy.

Chapter 47

47

BY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE, THE U.S. COAST Guard cutter Polar Dawn steamed stridently across the maritime boundary with Canada just north of the Yukon. As it moved east across the corrugated gray waters of the Beaufort Sea, Captain Edwin Murdock stared out the bridge window in silent relief. There was no armed Canadian flotilla there to challenge him, as a few aboard the ship had feared.

Their mission had begun innocuously enough several months earlier with a proposal to seismically map the periphery sea ice along the Northwest Passage. However, this was well before the Atlanta and Ice Research Lab 7 incidents. The President, concerned about fanning the flames of Canadian indignation, had initially canceled the voyage, but the Secretary of Defense had finally convinced him to proceed with the mission, successfully arguing that the Canadians had previously given implicit approval. It might be years, he asserted, before the U.S. could challenge Canada’s internal waters claim without overt provocation.

“Skies clear, radar screen empty, and seas at three-to-four,” said the Polar Dawn’s executive officer, a rail-thin African-American named Wilkes. “Perfect conditions in which to run the passage.”

“Let’s hope they continue for the next six days,” Murdock replied. He noticed a glint in the sky out the starboard bridge window. “Our upstairs escort is still holding the trail?” he asked.

“I believe they are going to keep an eye on us for the first fifty miles into Canadian waters,” Wilkes replied, referring to a Navy P-3 Orion reconnaissance plane that lazily circled overhead. “After that, we’re on our own.”

Nobody really expected the Canadians to oppose them, but the ship’s officers and crew were well aware of the heated rhetoric that had been erupting from Ottawa the past two weeks. Most recognized it for what it was, empty posturing by some politicians attempting to capture a few votes. Or so they hoped.

The Polar Dawn moved east through the Beaufort Sea, skirting along the jagged edge of the sea ice that occasionally crumbled into a mass of irregular-shaped floes. The Coast Guard vessel towed a sled-shaped seismic sensor off the stern, which mapped the depth and density of the ice sheet as they steamed by.

The waters held clear of traffic, save for the occasional fishing boat or oil exploration vessel. Sailing through the first brief Arctic night without incident, Murdock slowly began to relax. The crew settled into their varied work schedules, which would serve them for the nearly three-week voyage to New York Harbor.