The Hwanung Solution by David Middleton

Author:David Middleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2017-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

“You’ve missed a turning,” he told the taxi driver.

“What’s that?” the rather chunky taxi driver asked.

“We’re too far north. I’ve just seen a sign to the North Pole. So you must have missed a turn.”

The driver chuckled more out of politeness than anything else. He could not count the number of times this old joke had been uttered to him.

“But at least we’re not in danger of sinking if the ice goes!” he responded. “You can’t say the same of the North Pole. So people come here to see Santa at our North Pole in Fairbanks. They’ve been posting letters to him here for nearly 70 years.”

The condition of the ice at the North Pole was something Bond had not thought of before so, as the taxi sped down the conifer lined highway cutting through the rolling countryside, he searched the internet on his iPhone for a status report. He found an article published in The Independent newspaper with the heading:

Arctic could become ice-free for first time in more than 100,000 years, claims leading scientist

The article was largely based on the findings of Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University. It said he “predicts the Arctic ice may well disappear, that is, have an area of less than one million square kilometres by September of this year.”

The article reported that provisional satellite data produced by the US National Snow & Ice Data Centre showed there are now just over 11.1 million square kilometres of sea ice compared to the average for the last 30 years of nearly 12.7 million square kilometres. This difference – more than 1.5 million square kilometres – is about the same size as six United Kingdoms.

As usual, such published opinion had stimulated a barrage of responses both from those who supported it and those who criticised it. And for the umpteenth time Bond thought if we believe those who say the evidence is wrong, and it turns out they are wrong, what then? How do we go back beyond the point of no return? Clearly, we would not be able to.

The taxi was crossing the Chena River now. It was not far from the airport to the International Arctic Research Center, a 15 minute drive at the most. It was a clear, sunny day and the comparatively flat view from the taxi showed a countryside well covered by conifers and gently rolling hills in the distance. They turned off the main highway onto a secondary road that climbed uphill to the Center, the first sight of which was the rotunda end of the imposing, smart and clean looking building.

It was now pushing towards 24 hours since Bond had left Georgi after they had flown back down to London from where Bond had gone on to Chicago and ultimately Fairbanks. Georgi had been shocked by Bond’s reaction to what they both took to be the work of South Korean havoc entrepreneur Sum Taeyoung even though “The Declaration” was signed by The Spirit of Hwanung.

“There’s a lot here

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