by A P Bateman
King wasted little time getting back on the snowmobile and checked the heading before easing off, mindful not to do anything rash that would spell disaster if he tipped the machine over. He checked over his shoulder, the polar bear now just fifty metres from him as he thumbed the throttle and lurched forward into the night. He risked another glance, surprised he had not put a great distance between them. He took the machine up to eighty-kilometres-per-hour and settled into his seat. Another glance and the bear was still scarily close. Trepidation setting in, King accelerated harder and it was an effort to keep his grip on the handlebars as the machine shot forwards like a bullet. He turned and looked again, but the tremendous beast had slowed to a lumber and broken off to King’s right. The speed and agility of the animal had shocked him, and he wouldn’t have to remind himself again of the danger they presented. He checked behind him regularly as he rode, and he kept well clear of ridges of ice the size of upturned vehicles, shaped by the savage and relentless north wind.
It was easy to lose track of time this deep inside in the Arctic Circle. The reflection of the snow and ice, even from just starlight and a sliver of moon, created a hue of white that was never truly extinguished by the darkness. An ambient glow. It hadn’t changed since dusk at around three-thirty pm. After an hour of riding at half to three-quarters of throttle and keeping his distance from the large jutting forms of wind-blown ice on his right, and the icebergs peppering the shore to his left, he saw more polar bears ahead of him. King checked behind him, and sure enough a large bear was lumbering after him. A steep range of mountains rose a short distance inland and he got the sense he was entering a bottleneck where he would be forced to run the gauntlet against the bears. Another glance behind him revealed another bear entering the chase, and the former bear slowing and turning back towards the shore. King checked the coordinates. He wasn’t far away now, and the timing would be spot on, but he hadn’t allowed for the bears. Even when he reached his destination, he would need time to get organised, and he wondered whether the animals would turn to cannibalisation if he was to put down one of the beasts with the rifle. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to take the risk of adding an angry wounded bear into the mix. Perhaps a single gunshot nearby would simply scare them away. King increased the revs and veered inland, heading away from the shoreline. The bears ahead of him looked on, resolutely guarding the beach. Behind him, the pursuing bear had given up much like its predecessor and was heading for the icy grey sheet of ocean. Seals were more likely an easier prey than a man on a snowmobile.
King had just crested a hill, but the landing was hard and the scene ahead of him was difficult to take in. Dark and textured, the terrain giving way to shale, black sand, rock, and grass. The ice and snow had abruptly ended, and the snowmobile dug in hard, its steering next to useless and the skids catching. He tried in vain to regain control and the machine pitched and he was thrown clear, landing heavily on pebbles and sand. He rolled onto his back, winded from the fall and aware that he was wet and freezing cold. He had landed in a stream with ice on each bank and fast flowing water soaking into his clothes. Puzzled that it shouldn’t be frozen, he assumed it was too fast flowing and had likely started to thaw in the daytime sunshine. He tried to sit up, but the layers of clothing restricted his movements. The snowmobile had spun and tumbled end over end and was resting the wrong side up, its engine stalled. King supposed there was an automatic safety cut-out, much like on a modern motorcycle. He had no idea where to start looking for the reset, but then again, he had more to worry about. A huge twelve-hundred-pound male polar bear was paused on top of the same hill, its head turning from side to side sniffing the air. King could hear a throaty gargling sound and rapid snorts. He hastily took the rifle off his shoulder, checked the muzzle to see if any debris had gotten into the end of the barrel. Firing it with a barrel blockage would be catastrophic and the entire barrel could split, and the breech could explode. He took out the magazine and worked the bolt to empty the chamber, then upended the weapon and blew down the barrel. The metal was cold and stuck to his lips, but his breath travelled freely down the barrel, steaming out of the breech. King looked back at the ridge where the polar bear was making its descent. He hastily slipped the bullet directly into the chamber and pushed the bolt forward, then he inserted the magazine. It was a backward load, but got the bullet where it was meant to be sooner. The Browning had a thumb safety behind the bolt, and he flicked it into the fire position. The bear was fifty metres from him when it hesitated, raised its head, and sniffed the air again. King watched the massive beast stare right at him, then lift his head and look past him. He was about to shoulder the rifle, when he glanced behind him and saw what the bear had been looking at. Less than a hundred metres behind him, two bears – one smaller than the other – were making their way towards him. The smaller bear, which King took to be a female, stopped walking while the large male continued, and King realised that he was in the centre of a triangle. He turned back to the bear on the slope, except it wasn’t. In the time it had taken to spot the other two bears, it had traversed the gradient and was now standing thirty metres from him. King aimed at the beast’s chest, then lowered his aim and fired between the animal’s legs. The .30-06 sounded thunderous in the still, night air. Stones and sand sprayed into the bear’s neck and face and it turned and bolted sideways a few paces, before looking back at King and raising itself to a full ten-feet tall as it half-roared, half-snorted. King worked the bolt and turned to face the other two bears. The female had closed the gap somewhat unnervingly, and King suddenly realised that it would possibly take more time than he had to get the box of ammunition out of his jacket and reload the magazine if the three animals charged at him. He was in it now, but he knew what standoffs could be like, and if he took another shot without killing one of the animals, then he was setting himself up for defeat. King visualised the box of bullets in his pocket. He would need to ditch his gloves, dig out the box, open it with already cold fingers and fish out another round. He decided he would be best off tipping the contents onto the ground and scooping up several of the bullets at once. He would need to eject the magazine with the push button. Would his hands be too cold already? Possibly. He’d have to take the chance. The snowmobile would act as cover between him and the bears, but not for long. He would have to be quick on the reloading.
King heard the other two bears join in on the aural display of prowess. Not a full roar, but the same snorting, moaning half-roar of the somewhat irked beast at the base of the slope. The humming seemed to grow loader and for a moment his heart sunk as he imagined more bears behind him. He turned and the noise grew louder, then reached a crescendo of pitch, but King now knew why and ducked his head instinctively as the shadow filled the sky.
The gatling guns opened fire and tracer rounds cut the ground just feet from the two polar bears. The Hercules C130 gunship banked hard to port, its wing precariously close to the jutting terrain below, then as it straightened and levelled, one of the gunners sent the burst of 7.62mm from its rear mini-gun close enough to the other bear for the tracer fire to light up its face in the darkness. King watched the three bears bounding off in all directions. The great aircraft was banking again and climbing, still way under the thousand feet hard deck it had been flying in on to keep below radar. King heard the engine pitch grow low and saw the airplane slow considerably in the sky. It must have been near to its stalling speed when the ramp lowered and one of the RAF “loadies” heaved out the crate and the parachute was instantly activated on its short tug line. It opened fully only fleetingly, then the crate hit the ground and the parachute billowed like a triumphant flag in the northerly wind.
King checked for bears again, but he doubted there would be one within a mile after the two bursts of machine gun fire. He looked back at the Hercules, but it had already settled to a height of five-hundred feet and was heading back out to sea. After a hundred miles or so it would climb back up to a cruising altitude of twenty-thousand feet and
head back to RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.
King wasted no time in righting the snowmobile back onto its skis. It was an effort, as he still felt the effects of the crash. He had landed heavily, but had assessed that nothing was broken, he was merely winded and bruised and he suspected he would feel it more acutely in the morning. He found the reset and started the machine, making slow and tentative progress on the rock and tundra, reflecting how bizarre it was that the ice and snow should randomly thaw. Although he soon got his answer as he passed several reindeer carcasses which had been mauled and torn apart by bears. There was little left but bone and hide and he imagined that the herd of reindeer had found the grass underneath the snow and ice and had dug and stamped at it as they had grazed. No wonder there were so many polar bears in the area.
The crate had snagged against two boulders and the parachute was wafting at the end of its lines like a kite. King gathered up the parachute and unclipped it from the webbing strapping on the crate. He used the Leatherman to cut the webbing, his hands already struggling with the cold, and after he had used the tool’s handy pliers to prise open the crate, he put the Leatherman back in his pocket and put the gloves back on. King checked once again for bears, then loaded the cases onto the rear seat of the snowmobile and secured them in place with the set of bungees which had been strapped across the pillion seat. Next, he bundled the parachute underneath a reindeer carcass that had been picked clean, he supposed by Arctic foxes and seabirds. The bones had frozen against the ground, and he had to heave it free, before ensuring the parachute could not catch the wind. He kicked and stamped on the crate, then tossed the plywood lengths across the tundra so that it wouldn’t be noticeable from a distance. It was the best he could do but reasoned it unlikely that people would venture this close to the remote coastline, the very essence of polar bear safety precautions.
King turned the snowmobile around in a gentle half-circle and started back up the slope. As he crested the hill, the skis met ice and snow and the belt-fed blades were once more at home. Sticking as closely as he could to his earlier tracks, he kept a vigilant eye on the coast to his right and the icy monoliths to his left in the shadows of the mountains. He was cold and hungry and wary of bears and looking forward to some hot food and the warmth of his hotel room as he unpacked and checked the equipment and explosives he would need for the mission. Anticipation and concerns about the objective had given way to excitement and adrenalin. He loved his work, enjoyed the challenges he faced and the feeling of worth he had adored since his recruitment all those clouded years ago when a tough Scotsman had handed him a lifeline in prison, and he had subsequently been recruited into MI6. He lived for the mission and never truly felt he was living unless he was operational. Caroline had seen it in him, knew what he was and what he needed to do. And, as he dodged a large male polar bear and checked over his shoulder as it chased him through the night, he knew it, too. He would no longer talk of retiring his skills, of settling down and starting a family. He wouldn’t be the person he really was that way. He would merely be existing and living a lie. King enjoyed not looking past the mission, of taking each moment as his last and striving to win. He just hoped that the task ahead of him gave him at least a fighting chance of survival.
Chapter Nine
As was the case living in Arctic conditions, King found himself overheated once he was back inside the hotel. Living in these extremes was always a case of being too cold or too hot. The clothing which made living in such places possible, made inside habitation uncomfortable. King had dropped the two bags of equipment and shed the jacket and gloves, his leather bomber jacket, undone the bib of the trousers and untucked his sweatshirt on his way up to his room. He opened the door and dumped the bundle of clothing inside as he heaved the bags into the room and closed the door behind him. Once inside, he kicked off the boots and tore off the trouser and bib set and the rest of his clothing until he was in just his chinos and a thin T-shirt.
King looked around the room, then checked under the bed, in the wardrobe and the tiny bathroom. Nothing seemed out of place, but he stood on the bed and unscrewed the smoke alarm, took out the tiny wireless pinhole camera he had installed earlier and opened an app on his phone, then placed the phone beside the camera for them to sync. As they were working the magic of Bluetooth, he picked up the phone and ordered some room service. It was just after ten-pm and he was tired and hungry and needed a good night’s sleep. A medium-rare reindeer steak and a basket of fries should settle his empty stomach and enable him to relax a little. The cold climate had sapped his energy, and he ordered a strong Norwegian beer and a slice of brownie to send him towards a good night’s sleep. He picked up his phone and scrolled through the app’s menu and headed to ‘last action’. He watched himself clumsily enter the room bogged down with the cases and extra clothing, then headed back into the menu and searched ‘previous action’. He watched the door open and smiled as he saw who entered and checked through what little belongings and luggage he had. He smiled again as he saw them rifle through his wallet and passport – both under the legend he was travelling under. He then watched them leave the room. King was not in the habit of leaving his wallet or passport behind when he operated overseas, but it had served its purpose. A breadcrumb of disinformation for his enemies.
“Interesting, but not unexpected…” he said quietly to himself. He closed the app and opened his newly set-up Facebook account. Ramsay had provided him with the login details and told him about the tracking pixel he had installed. King could see who had been looking at his account, that they had searched his photos and the limited number of posts and had flicked around what little they could see of his carefully displayed settings. It was enough to know that they were interested in him, but anything they had found tonight pointed to a divorced forty-something salvage diver who shared diving posts, pictures of reefs and sharks and oil rigs and displayed a potted history of college and university and work placements around the world. The friends displayed were all pictures of low-ranking MI5 admin staff who had volunteered a snapshot and the information was all fictional. Ramsay had been thorough and by using one of hundreds of existing accounts he had built King’s ‘legend’ by simply changing the name and personal info displayed on one of these ‘clone’ accounts, which showed congruence and validity to the casual observer, and the tight security settings meant that they hadn’t been able to dig any further. King smiled. It had been a good night. He had the equipment he needed, and he had weeded out the competition. And they had only learned enough to validate his cover and legend. They may not believe it, but they had showed their hand. The game had begun, and King was a little closer to knowing who all the players were.
Chapter Ten
MI5 wasn’t getting its deposit back for the snowmobile anytime soon. King had apologised to the young woman behind the counter, but after several minutes of her admonishing him and declaring he’d been unduly reckless with one of her snowmobiles, he had simply shrugged his shoulders and left the store. He had taken out the insurance and if you were in the vehicle hire business, then those were the breaks.
After breakfast he drove the Toyota to the beach and watched polar bears lazily stalking seals on the shoreline, the cat and mouse game of bears pouncing and seals taking to the water played out in front of loaded tour buses with raised windows on gullwing latches for the tourists to photograph the animals in action. The seals were able to lurk in the water and the polar bears seemed so well fed as to appear lacklustre in their efforts, barely bothering once the seals came ashore fifty metres away. The bears certainly weren’t hungry enough to bother with a small troop of enormous walruses at the far end of the beach. King wasn’t interested in the local wildlife, and certainly not the polar bears. He’d seen enough of those last night for a lifetime. But he had heard Daniel suggest to Madeleine at breakfast that they go and watch the bears on the beach. The breakfast dining had taken the form of two large tables made from the smaller tables pushed together. It wa
s an informal affair, and he hadn’t eaten communally in such a manner since he and his wife Jane had once eaten at a restaurant frequented by locals near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. The thought had made him sad. And the realisation that he seldom thought about her now, nor felt the loss more regularly saddened him deeply. Time truly was a great healer, if only by erosion of the soul.
