Hunt for the Holy Grail

by Preston W Child

  “I hope it’s a hotel. I hope we don’t leave immediately too,” she said, smiling.

  Peter leaned close to her. “You are not planning to hit the bottle in Chile, are you?”

  Olivia’s jaw tightened.

  “You must take no offense, Olivia. I did a search on you. Assume that Frank Miller did the same thing. If we are going to get along with the crew and not let our guards down we must be sober at all times.”

  Peter went back to watching the road ahead. They were on a long lonely road cutting through tall, craggy hills. The sky above was grey with sharply contrasting white clouds. Olivia was quiet for the rest of the ride.

  She suspected that Peter was the one she needed to watch out for. His sanctimonious face annoyed her.

  —

  They arrived at an estate upon a brown hill. It looked like a different country. All the beautiful seaside and architecture was gone. It was replaced by dreary walls and colorless flowers.

  Frank Miller was waiting in what looked like a warehouse. With him was a hard-faced man. Peter Williams quickly recognized the rough-faced man from the staff club. He wore army fatigues. Other men busied about the place. There were scraps of machinery, black and oily metal lumps lying around being attended to by men in jumpsuits.

  “Welcome, Professor Williams,” Miller called from the back of the hall.

  He bowed slightly. “Ms. Newton. Welcome to Punta Arenas.”

  Miller was clean-shaven. He looked youthful and less menacing than in the pictures she’d seen.

  “Thank you, Mr. Miller.”

  “Oh, it’s Frank.” He gestured at beach chairs. “Please sit and make yourselves comfortable.”

  Olivia noted the faces of the men standing around. She profiled and memorized them all. They all look like men from some military outfit: muscular and brusque in manner.

  “Where’s the crew?” Pete asked.

  “Come with me,” Miller invited.

  They walked up a hill. The hill topped out into level ground. There was an airplane waiting on the windy grass.

  “What the hell is that?” Peter called.

  “That’s a Russian aircraft, a multipurpose strategic airlifter. The first of its kind was made in 1976, planned to be a passenger craft, but the military has better uses for them these days.”

  Peter grunted his agreement. “Must cost a fortune on the black market.”

  Miller glanced at Peter to see if he had him. He said, “I had this made for me. I travel to rough places a lot.”

  The hatch behind the aircraft was open and three men were seated on crates of equipment.

  Miller said, “Professor Williams, here is your crew.”

  “Here is marine biologist Anabia Nassif,” Miller gestured at a white-haired, hawk-nosed man. The small-framed man nodded. He had expectant eyes.

  “And here is Liam Murphy, he’s an expert in polar and ice terrains. We need him to guide us through the hazards of the Antarctic.”

  Liam waved. “Hi, pleased to meet you two.” He wore a black armless windbreaker on a red flannel shirt and jeans. He had a boyish look about him. He had a crop of brown beard on his chin.

  “And this is Victor Borodin, also an expert in all things Antarctica.” Miller tapped the tall Russian's shoulder. “He’ll be leading this expedition.”

  There was a murmur of greetings.

  “And oh, let me introduce my personal bodyguard.” He looked at the man with the pitted face.

  “His name is Itay Friedman. He is former Israeli military.”

  Frank Miller checked his watch. He walked over to Peter Williams and Olivia. Olivia stopped speaking into her Dictaphone. Miller gave the device a bored look. To Peter he said, “Any questions before we leave, Professor?”

  “I saw that guy in the university the other day.” Peter pointed at Friedman.

  Miller smiled. “He is also my emissary, Professor Williams. Don’t worry he’s harmless, when he needs to be.”

  He told the crew to be ready in ten minutes and left.

  —

  Ted Cooper had been in the cockpit all along. He walked out of there like a burly ghost. Peter was talking with the marine biologist, Anabia Nassif. The scientist had been querying about the expedition.

  Ted Cooper wore a baseball cap with the NYC logo on it. He was pulling up the zipper on his red windbreaker. He waved at Peter.

  “Hello there, Peter.”

  Miller had come back from wherever he went and was asking everyone to board. He saw the surprise on Peter’s face. Olivia looked lost.

  “And that’s Professor Ted Cooper, I believe you know each other, yes,” Miller said with a broad smile.

  “What is he doing here?” Peter hissed.

  “Get on the plane, Professor,” Miller whispered. “We are going to Russia.”

  2

  Thousands of feet in the air, Frank Miller strolled over to Peter Williams. He sat beside him on a crate of equipment. The others were seated similarly. Olivia was caught in an animated discussion with Liam Murphy, the Polar expert.

  Ted Cooper sat by himself on a beach chair he had brought along, reading a National Geographic. He shot Peter blank stares every minute or so.

  “I understand your anger, Professor Williams,” Miller said quietly, a little above the drone of the plane. “But this expedition is more than each of our feelings.”

  “These guys, do they know exactly what we’re after?” Peter asked, changing the subject.

  Miller looked around the holding area. “No, they don’t. The only ones who know are you and Ms. Olivia, me and Ted Cooper. The rest of the crew think we are looking for signs of global warming in the Antarctic.”

  “Global warming? These are scientists, you could have done better.”

  “It’s the best I can come up with, given the circumstances. But I made sure the lie looks good enough.” He tapped the crate they sat on. “We have all equipment and tools for the research, and Liam there has some experience in geology. He’d be doing most of the fronting. He still doesn’t know, though.”

  “That leaves you, Mr. Miller.” Peter glanced at the man. “I know why the cock sucker Ted Cooper is here. He likes to reap where he hasn’t sown. But you, what do you really get out of this?”

  Frank Miller matched his stare. “What do you get out of this?”

  Peter thought for a moment but no ready response came to him. None that would sound altruistic, that is. Just then he realized how every man was selfish in the final analysis, some more so than others.

  Miller looked away. He nodded slowly.

  “When I first got the news about the laboratories, and what may be down there, I knew I had to make a move. I talked to Ted Cooper then. But somehow it was you whom the lady called—”

  “It was supposed to be him?”

  Cooper was still engrossed in his magazine. Peter felt some of his anger towards his colleague chip.

  “Yes, Professor,” said Miller without looking. “I didn’t factor in the journalistic instinct of your lady friend. I was hoping she’d go on right up to your faculty and meet with Ted Cooper, but she went on the Internet and found a certain Hans Rutherford. You know him?”

  “Sure, an old acquaintance.”

  Miller pursed his lips. He slipped into deep thought for a moment. Olivia laughed with Liam Murphy. It drew the attention of the crew except for Ted Cooper who stared at Peter Williams, and then at the billionaire.

  Ted averted his eyes again as Peter focused on him.

  “What do you think we’ll find, Mr. Miller?”

  “I think it is time you called me Frank, most of my partners call me Frank.”

  Peter said it was okay to “call me Peter.”

  Miller shook his head. “No one knows exactly. No one except the ones who have been there.”

  “Robert Lehmann?”

  “Yes, when word reached me that Harald Kruger had been killed, I had known I had to protect Lehmann. I assigned bodyguards to his home. Althoug
h, he knows nothing of it.” Miller glanced at Peter then, “I wasn’t sure you’d want to work with me, that you’d think I had Harald killed.”

  “Then who did?”

  Miller ignored the question. He said, “It is not in my favor to have Harald Kruger killed. He would have made a better guide than any of these men. And Lehmann I didn’t want to take away from his family.”

  After a moment, Miller looked at Peter. It wasn’t an apparent change in Miller’s features but Peter thought he saw fear, uncertainty.

  “There are powerful people, more ruthless people who want what is buried under the snow where we are headed. They’d do anything”—his voice dropped an octave—“and I mean anything, to stop us. You must be prepared.”

  “They killed Harald Kruger. They stole the documents from my office—”

  Miller turned sharply. “What are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t know that one, huh.”

  Peter told him how he had locked copies of the documents from Harald Kruger’s box in his file cabinet in his office. Someone had broken in, opened his cabinet, and took the documents.

  “I take it you didn’t go to the police?”

  “I wouldn’t be here now if I did, would I?”

  “I guess not,” Miller concurred. “I hope we would find more answers in Maud Land.”

  “What’s down there?”

  “Novolazarevskaya,” Miller mouthed rapidly. “It’s a Russian Antarctic expedition base. I have permission to use the facility. You’ll see when we land.”

  Peter repeated the name in his head; he got only as far as the fourth syllable and stopped. He thought about Frank Miller’s warning again and he forgot that long place name entirely.

  He felt a chill around his back. The air in the plane was cool. Yet, sweat broke out on his neck. He searched the faces of the crew members. Who would he trust when the time comes?

  Peter felt a sudden urge to protect Olivia Newton. Something about the whole show told Peter that Olivia was the star act, the character without whom the show was nothing.

  Getting up from beside Peter, the billionaire said, “Trust no one.”

  Miller patted Peter’s leg and stumbled off.

  The pilot’s voice broke through the speakers: “Hold on to something, people. We are about to do a rough landing.”

  —

  Schirmacher Oasis, Queen Maud Land was 75 kilometers from the Antarctic’s west coast. There, it is separated from the Lazarev ice shelf, a 90 kilometers-long fringe of ice.

  The runway stretched below like a shiny blue piece of rope. It became shorter and wider as they got closer.

  The crew readied. Peter was close to a window, he turned to look.

  He said to Miller, who had come back to sit beside him, “That runway looks so small, you think—”

  “It is 3,299 meters long, Professor. It is the surface I always worry about,” Miller said as he shut his eyes.

  Peter looked outside again. “What’s wrong with the surface?”

  “It is ice.”

  “Oh shit!”

  Olivia’s eyes had grown bigger. She gripped her harness and swallowed. She had taken a seat opposite Peter, and beside Liam Murphy.

  Ted Cooper had disappeared again into the cockpit. This knowledge worried Peter Williams beyond measure.

  Olivia grinned at him. “Hey, Peter, don’t puke.”

  “Screw you, ma’am.”

  Olivia smirked.

  Fifteen minutes passed and the airplane rolled to a shuddering stop in front of the Russian Antarctic Research Station. A simple establishment, it consisted of a long aluminum padded structure like a construction storehouse with a single step running half its length. A single entrance was located close to the edge. Beside it was another structure. It looked like a generator house. And nothing else could be seen but black earth where the ice had been scraped off.

  Two snowmobiles plumed spurted ice in the distance as they sled towards the station.

  “Poachers?” someone asked.

  “Station keepers,” Miller said as he put on his gloves.

  Ted Cooper whirled around and sneered, “What’s there to poach?”

  The crew followed Miller’s example, each one doubling their attire. Miller had a supply of down jackets shared among the crew. Olivia was wearing a red one with a yellow hood. Peter slipped on rubber boots and dark shades.

  The two snowmobiles skidded to a stop where the ice ended about three meters away.

  Two men jumped off the vehicles. One with long yellow hair and a beard like a magician wore a black sweatshirt and blue denim. The other wore a blue short sleeved t-shirt and combat shorts and he took the lead. When he smiled he had such huge incisors.

  “Hey, people,” he said in passable English. “Welcome to our station.”

  Miller went forward and spoke with them in perfect Russian. The one with the big front teeth raised his hands. “Oh yes, yes, you Mr. Miller, the rich American. Colonel Ivanov sent word about you. Please come in, come in very much.”

  Olivia whispered to Peter as they went up the metal stairs into the station, “Miller speaks Russian, fluently.”

  It wasn’t a question, neither was it an observation. When Peter looked at her, he saw that Olivia was making a statement. Peter nodded in agreement, to whatever she meant.

  —

  Olivia got permission from the Russian with the big teeth to take a look at the lab, take pictures, and get an interview, if there was time. His name was Nicolai and the other was called Jude.

  “Are you Jewish?” Olivia asked Jude.

  The man pumped his hands. “Since birth, yes.”

  The station was split into two. The half where the expedition crew was being entertained served as living quarters for the keepers. The other half was the laboratory and research hub.

  There was a screen door and a glass door behind that.

  Olivia walked towards it with her portable camera. Jude jumped in front of her.

  “No, Mama. You no go inside.”

  His teeth were better, but his eyes were suddenly cold.

  “I just need to take pictures, for the magazine,” Olivia explained. “The magazine, in America.”

  Olivia made to take a photo of the man. Jude posed, spreading his teeth, two fingers in the air. Olivia took the photos of him and his companion. But they wouldn’t let her in the labs.

  Sitting by Peter Williams later, and the rest of the crew talking, Olivia saw Miller and Ted Cooper walk into the lab. Irked, she gestured at the Russian with the big teeth. “You discriminate against me? I have rights.”

  “They are friends,” said Nicolai. “You are not.”

  Olivia said to Peter, “Something about your colleague, and the billionaire, Peter.”

  They watched them disappear behind the door. Whatever those two were up to, he was going to find out.

  “Stay sharp,” he said.

  —

  Frustrated by the Russians, Olivia resigned herself to making recordings about the living quarters. Speaking into her Dictaphone, she went through the bookshelves. There was mostly Russian literature, a few German. She found a Mark Twain book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It was severely thumbed.

  Olivia noted drawers on the shelf. On second thought she opened one of them and found stacks of dust-covered photos. The Russians were now distracted; a chess game had begun between the Russians and the expedition crew. Ted Cooper and Frank Miller were still absent.

  Olivia began searching through the photos. Old black and white army photos, blurry with age, and a few that were taken recently. Most of it, group photos that had been taken in front of the building they were in.

  “What the…”

  In one of the newer group photos she saw, there were four men in street clothes and one in military fatigue. Frank Miller had his hand around the shoulders of the army man.

  And one of the men in street clothes was Harald Kruger.

  —

 
Three hovercrafts left the Russian Research Station in Novolavarevskaya on a 400-kilometer ride across slippery ice. The Russian named Jude rode one of the hovercrafts. It was loaded with the disassembled parts of a control station for the crew. The other three crafts bore the weight of the members of the crew.

  Olivia and Peter rode on the same hovercraft. Ted Cooper kept on a dry monologue about the next location. He sat behind Peter.

  “The Germans' first expedition was in early '39. They named the place New Schwabenland, after their ship. And you know what they were searching for?” he asked no one in particular.

  Olivia rolled her eyes. Peter shrugged. “What?”

  “Fat,” Ted said. “They were looking for whale fat. They stuck poles with German swastikas along the coast. Those sons of bitches came here looking for goddamn fat. How about that, huh?”

  Frank Miller’s hovercraft was in the lead. Olivia watched the man as he gave directions from a map that the wind tried to tear out of his hands. She itched to tell Peter what she found in the Russian station. But she didn’t quite trust Ted Cooper.

  “I saw you taking pictures, Ms. Olivia.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They don’t like it.” Ted gestured at Nicolai on the far left. “That station contains top-secret material. Just like where we are going. I hope you bear that in mind.”

  “Sure.”

  Olivia got her camera out. “Smile, Professor.”

  “What?”

  She snapped the protesting face of Ted Cooper.

  And that was when the crew had its first drawback.

  As they made a turn around a hill that flanked them, blocking the sun and much of the harsh wind, Frank Miller’s hovercraft suddenly started jerking. The rider, Liam Murphy, tried to compensate for the lag. He pumped the engine, the vehicle lurched.

  Within seconds Liam Murphy was thrown off the craft. Frank Miller fell sideways, together with his bodyguard Itay Friedman.

  —

  Anabia Nassif, the marine biologist, sprained his elbow when he hit the ice and skidded for about a meter and a half. Ted Cooper attended to the injury using medicine from a first aid box.

  Victor Borodin said, looking up in the grey skies, “We should camp somewhere at this time.”