The Swarm (43 page)

‘We'll be fine,' said the pilot.

‘What's the forecast?'

‘High winds.' The pilot glanced at the barometer on the control panel. ‘Looks as though we're in for a hurricane.'

‘Now you tell me.'

‘Well, I didn't know before.' He shrugged. ‘Weather forecasts aren't that reliable, you know. Are you afraid of flying?'

‘Oh, no,' said Johanson, emphatically. ‘It's just the thought of falling I don't like.'

‘You won't be falling anywhere. For an offshore pilot, this stuff is child's play. We'll get a good shaking, but that's about all.'

‘How long have we got?'

‘We're half-way there already.'

‘OK.' He opened his book again.

A thousand other noises were mixed with the roar of the engines. Bangs, whistles, crackles. There was even a ringing sound, which came at regular intervals from somewhere behind him. Amazing what the wind could do to the acoustics. Johanson turned towards the seat behind him, but the noise had stopped.

He focused on Walt Whitman.

Storegga Slide

Eighteen thousand years ago, at the peak of the last ice age, the sea level was some 120 metres lower than it was at the start of the third millennium. A large proportion of the world's water was trapped in glaciers, so the water pressure on the shelves was less intense. Some of the planet's seas hadn't yet formed, while during the glacial period others levelled out, some drying up entirely, leaving vast swathes of marshland in their wake.

One consequence of the worldwide drop in water pressure was its dramatic impact on the stability of gas hydrates. Vast quantities of methane were released in a short space of time, particularly in the upper regions of the slopes. The ice crystals that trapped and compressed the methane melted. For thousands of years the hydrates had held the slopes together, like glue, but now they acted like dynamite. As the methane escaped, it swelled to 164 times its former volume, breaking open crevices and craters as it pushed through the sediment to the surface, transforming the seabed into a porous, crumbling ruin, incapable of supporting its own weight.

The continental slopes began to collapse, tearing swathes of shelf as they fell. Enormous landslides, carrying huge amounts of debris, hurtled hundreds of kilometres through the depths. Methane entered the atmosphere, causing disastrous climate change. But the slides had other, similarly drastic effects - not just on the sea, but on coastal regions and islands as well.

It wasn't until the second half of the twentieth century that scientists made an incredible discovery. Off the coast of central Norway, they found traces of several landslides, which over 40,000 years had swept away a large proportion of the slope. A number of factors had contributed to them: warm periods, in which the average temperature of the currents near the slope had risen, and glacial periods, like the one 18,000 years ago, when the water had remained cold but the pressure had decreased. Strictly speaking, in terms of the Earth's geology, phases of hydrate stability were the exception.

And the people of the modern world were living in an exception, happy to let the calm deceive them. They liked to think it was the rule.

All in all, over 5500 cubic kilometres had been ripped out of the Norwegian shelf by the landslides that had sent the seabed crashing to the depths. In the sea between Scotland, Iceland and Norway, scientists
found a trail of sediment more than 800 kilometres long. The really worrying fact was that the biggest slide had taken place not so very long ago - within the past 10,000 years. The scientists named it a Storegga Slide, and hoped it would never happen again.

It was a futile hope but, even so, there was a chance that the peace could have lasted several thousand years. New ice ages or warm periods might have caused slides that unfolded at bearable intervals. Instead the worm had invaded with its cargo of bacteria and, aided by the attendant circumstances, had brought things to a head.

On board the
Thorvaldson
, Jean-Jacques Alban had guessed that the silence from the submersible meant they would never see it again. What he didn't know was the true extent of the events occurring just a few hundred metres beneath the vessel's keel. He was in no doubt that the breakdown of the hydrates had reached a critical phase: over the past quarter of an hour the smell of rotten eggs had become unbearably intense, while the battery of enormous waves had thrown up ever larger chunks of fizzing hydrate. He knew that to stay on the slope was tantamount to suicide. The gas would thin the surface of the water and the vessel would sink. Whatever was going on down there, neither he nor anyone else could predict the effect. He hated to give up on the Deep Rover and its passengers but he knew somehow that Stone and the pilot were dead.

By now the scientists and crew were in a state of agitation. Not everyone understood the significance of the smell and the fizzing, but the rough seas compounded the mood of anxiety. Like a vengeful god the storm had swept down from the heavens, hurling towering waves across the sea. It would soon be impossible to stay upright on deck.

Alban had to weigh up all the factors and decide what to do. It wasn't a question of looking at the safety of the research vessel from the viewpoint of the shipping line or as an asset to science. The safety of the
Thorvaldson
meant the safety of human lives - including those of the two men on the submersible, whose fate Alban's instincts had accepted, even though his mind had not. Both staying and leaving were equally wrong - and right.

He squinted up at the dark sky and wiped the rain off his face. At that moment a brief calm descended on the choppy sea. But the storm wasn't abating, just drawing breath before it continued with increased force.

Alban decided to stay.

 

In the depths, disaster had struck.

The hydrates, transformed by the worms and bacteria from stable icefields and veins to porous, brittle tatters, had suddenly disintegrated. Across 150 kilometres of the slope, the ice crystals of water and methane broke open explosively, releasing the gas. While Alban was persuading himself to stay, the gas was rushing upwards, breaking through walls, cracking rocks, and causing the shelf to rise up and slide forward. Cubic kilometres of stone caved in. As more layers collapsed further down, the whole seabed along the shelf margin was thrown into motion and started to slide. A violent chain reaction pulled one landslide after the another, as debris rained down on the remaining stable layers, reducing them to mud.

The shelf between Scotland and Norway, with its oil wells, pipelines and platforms, showed signs of cracking.

Someone shouted through the storm at Alban. He spun round and saw the chief scientist waving at him frantically. He could barely hear the man's words. ‘The slope,' was all he could make out. ‘The slope.'

After the lull the sea had whipped up into a frenzy. Black waves battered the
Thorvaldson
. Alban looked despairingly at the boom from which the Deep Rover had been lowered into the water. The water was foaming. The stench of methane was overpowering. He started to run amidships where the scientist grabbed his arm.

‘This way, Alban! Oh, God - there's something you should see.'

The ship shook. Alban heard a low rumble. It was coming from beneath the water. They staggered up the narrow swaying stairway to the bridge.

‘Look!'

Alban stared at the control panel. The sonar was scanning the depths. He couldn't believe his eyes. The seabed was gone. It was as though he was looking at a maelstrom. ‘The slope's collapsing,' he whispered.

At that moment he knew there was nothing he could do for Eddie or Stone. His foreboding had become a dreadful certainty. ‘We've got to get out of here,' he said. ‘At once.'

‘But which direction?' the helmsman asked.

Alban tried to think. He knew what was happening down there and what lay in store. Heading for port was out of the question. The
Thorvaldson
's only chance was to sail out to sea as fast as she could. ‘Put out a radio message,' he said. ‘Norway, Scotland, Iceland and all the
other North Sea states. They need to evacuate their coasts. Do it now. Get through to everyone you can.'

‘But what about Stone and—' the scientist began.

‘They're dead.'

He didn't dare think about how powerful the slide might have been. The images on the monitor had sent shivers down his spine. And they weren't out of danger yet. A few kilometres closer to the shore and the ship would capsize. Further out to sea there was a chance they'd escape, despite the fury of the storm.

Alban tried to remember how the slope was shaped. Towards the north-west the seabed descended downwards in a series of large terraces. If they were lucky, the avalanche would come to rest before it reached the bottom. But there was no stopping a Storegga Slide. The whole slope, hundreds of kilometres of it, would slip into the depths, descending 3500 metres. The slide would penetrate as far as the abyssal plains east of Iceland, sending apocalyptic tremors through the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea.

Alban looked up from the console. ‘Head for Iceland,' he ordered.

 

When the first branch of the avalanche reached the Faroe-Shetland Channel, the submarine terraces between Scotland and the Norwegian Trench had already disappeared, transformed into a slurry of debris that gathered pace as it crashed into the depths, pulling with it everything in path. Nothing of shape or structure survived in its wake. One part of the avalanche split off to the west of the Faroe Islands and came to a halt in the underwater banks surrounding the Icelandic Basin. Another part headed along the mountain range between Iceland and the Faroes.

But the bulk thundered down the Faroe-Shetland Channel as though it were a chute. The same basin that had absorbed the Storegga Slide thousands of years earlier was filled by an even bigger avalanche, pushing forwards relentlessly.

Then the edge of the shelf broke away.

Over a stretch of fifty kilometres the shelf snapped off. And that was just the start.

Sveggesundet, Norway

Once the helicopter had taken off, Tina Lund had loaded her luggage into Johanson's jeep and driven away fast through the rain. God knows what Johanson would have said, but Lund believed in pushing a car to its maximum.

A weight lifted from her mind with every passing kilometre. It had all clicked into place. Once she'd cleared up that business with Stone, she'd called Kare and volunteered to spend a few days with him on the coast. Kare had seemed pleased, if a little bewildered. Something in his voice made her suspect that Johanson had been right and that she'd settled on the right course just in time.

As the jeep rolled down Sveggesundet's high street towards the seafront, her pulse quickened. She left the vehicle in a car park just along from the Fiskehuset. A track and a path led down towards the sea. It didn't look like a typical beach: the boulders and slabs of stone were covered with moss and ferns. Although the area around Sveggesundet was flat, it was wild and romantic, and the view from the Fiskehuset, with its dining terrace on the front, was impressive - even on a misty, rainy morning like today.

Lund strolled to the restaurant and went in. Kare was out, and they hadn't started serving. A kitchen assistant walked past with a crate of vegetables, and told her that the boss had business in town. He didn't know when he'd be back.

It's your own fault, Lund told herself.

They'd agreed to meet there, but - probably because she'd driven like a mad thing - she was an hour early. She'd just have to sit and wait.

She stepped out onto the terrace. Rain pelted her face. Some people would have fled indoors, but Lund barely noticed it. She'd spent her childhood in the country. Sunny days were wonderful, but she enjoyed rain and gales too. Suddenly it occurred to her that the gusts that had rocked the jeep for the final half-hour of the journey had turned into a severe storm. The mist had thinned, but the clouds had sunk and were scudding low across the sky. White spray billowed from the furrowed sea.

Something wasn't right about it.

She'd been here often enough to know the place quite well, but now the beach looked longer than usual. The pebbles and rocks seemed to
extend for ever, despite the crashing waves. Like an impromptu ebb tide, she thought.

On impulse she pulled out her mobile and called Kare. She might as well tell him she had arrived - rather than risk taking him by surprise. She didn't want anything to go wrong.

His mobile rang four times, then switched to voicemail.

Fate had ruled otherwise. In that case, she'd just wait.

She wiped the dripping hair from her eyes and went inside, hoping that, if nothing else, the coffee machine was ready for action.

Tsunami

The sea was full of monsters. Since the beginning of human history it had been a place for symbols, myths and primal fears. The six-headed Scylla had preyed on Odysseus's companions. Angered by Cassiopeia's boastfulness, Poseidon had created Cetus, a sea monster, and cast sea snakes at Laocoön when he foretold the fall of Troy. Sirens were lethal to sailors unless they stopped their ears with wax. Mermaids, aquatic dinosaurs and giant squid haunted the imagination.
Vampyroteutis infernalis
was the antithesis of every human value. Even the horned creature of the Bible had risen from the sea. And then, to top it all, science, whose first allegiance was to scepticism, had taken to preaching the message of truth that lay at the heart of the legends. The coelacanth was alive. The giant squid existed. For thousands of years people had feared the creatures of the deep, but now they followed them excitedly. Nothing was sacred to the modern scientific mind, not even fear. Deepsea monsters had become man's favourite playthings, the soft toys of science.

Except one.