That night Seine remained in the Com Shack as ice settled around North Dock in floaters called growlers and sections of grease ice like slicks running down-current. Seawater froze at 28.6 degrees F, so Seine figured the water a half degree above that. The Arctic Odyssey remained along the dockface, three hundred feet of inert steel, her icebreaking bow raked like a shark’s nose, her deck piled high with rig cargo, lashing lines angling down to the deck to hold everything in place.
‘That’s damned near it, then.’
Seine spun to the voice, the Wolf standing like a gnarled length of tow wire. Right off, Seine noticed he was wearing a prosthetic nose and was dressed up as if for a meeting, so Seine knew he’d been out at the BP offices, or over at Exxon trying to drum up work, and didn’t want to look like the Elephant Man while doing it.