“Look at those numbers. Altitude 58,000 feet. Groundspeed 1,554 miles per hour, roughly Mach 2, twice the speed of sound. We’re in the air a little more than thirty minutes, and we’ve got only two and a half more hours to go. Absolutely mind-blowing for a jet this size, which I’d guess is about the same profile as a typical Gulfstream. Can you imagine the thrust this thing must put out to overcome the drag? I didn’t even hear a sonic boom.”
He stopped for a second and looked around.
“Did you hear anything?”
Nobody answered him. Everyone else seemed to have their minds on the destination, the mission, and the mysterious nature of the two men in the other room. How they were getting to the mission was beside the point. To Luke, the plane was just another big boy toy, probably overpriced.
But Swann loved his toys. “Notice something about our flight path. We’re on our way to the Alaskan Arctic, and by far the most efficient way to get there is by crossing into Canada and moving diagonally north and west across their heartland. But we hug the border instead. Why?”
“Because we like inefficiency?” Ed Newsam said, and smiled.
Swann didn’t even catch the joke. He shook his head. “No. Because if we cross into Canada, we have to explain to them what this thing is that’s moving twice the speed of sound above their airspace. They might be one of our closest allies, but we don’t want to tell them about this plane. That tells me it’s classified.”
“As a practical matter,” Trudy said, without glancing up from her computer, “we’ll have to cross into Canada at some point. Alaska isn’t attached to the rest of the United States.”
Swann stared at Trudy.
“Ouch,” Ed said. “Geography lesson. That had to hurt.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Murphy said. “Please?”
Luke looked at Trudy Wellington, sitting next to him. She was curled up on the sofa in a customary pose for her, legs curled under her. She could be sitting on her couch at home, eating popcorn and about to watch a movie. Her curly hair was hanging down, and her red glasses were at the end of her nose. She was scrolling through a screen.
“Trudy?” Luke said.
She glanced up. “Yes?”
“What are we doing here?”
She stared at him. Her owlish eyes went wide in surprise.
“Best guess,” he said. “Who are the terrorists, what do they want, why did they hit an oil rig, and why now?”
“Is that going to help you?” she said. “I mean, with the mission?”
Luke shrugged. “It could. We seem to be in the dark about everything, and no one seems interested in enlightening us even a little bit.”
“Or talking to us, for that matter,” Murphy said. He was still staring at the men on the other side of the glass.
“Okay,” Trudy said. “I’ll give you the easy part first. Why hit an oil rig and why now. Then I’ll do a very hazy guess about who they are and what they want.”
Luke nodded. “We’re all ears.”
“I’m going to assume no prior knowledge,” Trudy said.
Ed Newsam was slouched so low in his chair he looked like he might slide off onto the floor. “That’s probably the safest assumption I’ve heard all day.”
Trudy smiled. “The Arctic Ocean is melting,” she said. “People, countries, the media, large corporations, they’re all debating the long-term effects of global warming, or whether it even exists. The consensus among the vast majority of scientists is that it’s happening. No one has to agree with them. But what can’t be denied is that the polar ice caps, which have largely been frozen since the beginning of recorded human history, are now melting, they’re doing it quickly, and at an accelerating pace.”
“Scary,” Mark Swann said. “The end of the world as we know it.”
“And I feel fine,” Murphy added.
Trudy shrugged. “Let’s not go there. Let’s just stick with what we know. And what we know is that each year, the Arctic Ocean has less ice on top of it than the year before. Soon, possibly within our lifetimes, it’s not going to freeze over anymore at all. Already, the ice cover is thinner, and covers less of an area, for less of the year, than at any time we know of.”
“And this means…” Luke said.
“It means the Arctic is opening up. Shipping lanes that never existed before are going to open for traffic. On this side of the world, we’re talking about the Northwest Passage that runs between Canadian islands, and which Canada considers inside its sovereign territory. On the other side of the Arctic, we’re talking about the Northeast Passage, which hugs the northern coastline of Russia, and which Russia considers its territorial waters. In particular, when the ice opens for good, the Russian Northeast Passage will become the shortest and fastest shipping route between factories in Asia and consumer markets in Europe.”
“And if the Russians control it…” Murphy began.
Trudy nodded. “Correct. They will control much of the world’s trade. They can tax it, charge tariffs, and Russian ports that have been mostly frozen outposts for hundreds of years may suddenly become bustling ports of call.”
“And if they so desired, they could…”
Trudy was still nodding. “Yes. They could shut it down. Meanwhile, the Northwest Passage is a little dicey. If you look at a map, it really is part of Canada. But the United States wants to lay claim to it, potentially setting up strife between two neighboring countries, long-term allies, and trading partners.”
“So you think the Russians…” Ed began.
Trudy held up a hand. “But that’s not all. There are eight countries that ring the Arctic Ocean. The United States, Canada, and Russia of course, but also Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, and Denmark. Denmark’s claim is from owning the territory of Greenland. And the much bigger issue here is that up to one-third of the world’s untapped oil and natural gas reserves are thought to be under the ice in the Arctic.”
They all watched her.
“Everybody wants those fossil fuels. Countries that have no valid land claims in the Arctic, like Britain and China, are also getting in on the action, seeking to build alliances and obtain drilling rights. China has started referring to itself as a near-Arctic country. Britain has begun talking a lot about their Arctic partners.”
“That doesn’t explain who did it,” Luke said.
Trudy shook her head and her curls bounced the slightest bit. “No. As I said, I was giving you the easy part first. Why attack an oil rig in the Arctic, and why now. The answer is the race is on for Arctic natural resources, and it’s going to be a death race. People are going to get killed, in the same way they’ve been getting killed since oil was discovered in the Middle East in the early part of the twentieth century. The Arctic is an emerging flashpoint for competition among the major powers, and as a result, for violence and even war. It’s coming.”
Luke smiled. Trudy always seemed to have the answers, but sometimes she needed to be drawn out a little bit to share her conclusions.
“So… who was it?”
But she wasn’t ready to play that game. She just shook her head again.
“Impossible to say with any certainty. There are more actors than just those countries involved. There are indigenous groups spread throughout the Arctic, such as Eskimos, Aleut, Inuit, and many others. All of these groups are worried about the new interest in the Arctic. They’re concerned about losing their lands, their cultures, and their traditional hunting rights. They’re concerned about oil spills and other environmental disasters. In general,