The men stopped at the harbormaster’s office, where Stenseth paid the docking fees. Leaving the office, they bumped into Pitt stepping out of a small hardware store with a triangular package under one arm.

“Were we missing something aboard?” Stenseth asked,

“No,” Pitt replied with a tight grin. “Just an added insurance policy for when we get to sea.”

The sky overhead had grown dark and threatening when the Narwhal slipped its lines two hours later and slowly cruised out of the harbor. A small fishing boat passed in the opposite direction, seeking refuge in port from the pending rough weather. Pitt waved out the bridge, admiring the black-painted boat and its hearty breed of fishermen who braved the Beaufort Sea for a living.

The waves began rolling in six-foot swells when the Northwest Territories coastline fell from view behind them. Light snow flurries filled the air, cutting visibility to less than a mile. The foul weather aided the Narwhal’s stealth voyage, and the ship quickly altered course to the east. The Korean freighter had built a twenty-fi ve-mile lead, but the faster research ship quickly began closing the gap. Within hours, the oblong image of the freighter appeared on the fringe of the Narwhal’s radar screen. Captain Stenseth brought the NUMA ship within three miles of the freighter, then slowed until he had matched speed with the larger ship. Like a coal tender behind a locomotive, the research ship tailed the freighter’s every turn as it steamed along the uneven coastline.

Sixty-fi ve miles ahead, Cape Bathurst jutted into the Beaufort Sea like a bent thumb. It was an ideal location to monitor the marine traffic entering the western approach to Amundsen Gulf. Though the nearest northerly landmass, Banks Island, was still a hundred miles away, the sea ice encroached to within thirty miles of the cape. With radar coverage extending more than fifty miles, the small Coast Guard station could easily track all vessels sailing through open water.

As Pitt and Stenseth studied a chart of the approaching cape, Dahlgren entered the bridge lugging a laptop computer and a string of cables. He tripped over a canvas bag near the bulkhead, dropping his cables but hanging on to the computer.

“Who left their laundry lying around?” he cursed.

He realized the bag contained a sample of rocks and picked up a small stone that had skittered out of the bag.

“That happens to be your laundry,” Stenseth said. “Those are the rock samples that you and Al brought back from the thermal vent. Rudi was supposed to take them to Washington for analysis, but he left them on the bridge.”

“Good old Rudi,” Dahlgren lauded. “He could make an atom bomb out of a can of dog food, but he can’t remember to tie his shoes in the morning.”