by Mark Aitken
From the washroom, he could hear a female’s scream.
‘One more block, boss,’ said McCann, and Gallen drove up with his legs and hips. As he did so, the door was ripped away, thrown outwards along its horizontal hinge.
The cold tore the air out of Gallen’s lungs. Immediately his body went into shock, the same kind of reaction the Marines had tried to induce in the special forces guys all those years ago at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in California, where the instructors would make the candidates take a plunge in ice-cold water and then get them to perform small actions like unlocking a padlock or dialling a phone. By the end of that day, the trainees got the point: the cold makes you uncoordinated, it makes you slow, it makes you fuck things up. The lesson: don’t get cold.
As the noise and cold ripped at him, messing with his orientation, Gallen could feel the air trying to drag him out while McCann pulled on the cargo strap.
The wind smashed the hood of the parka around his face, deafening him, as he peered out of the Thinsulate balaclava, trying to concentrate on the job. Reaching for his parka pocket, against the pressure of the wind, he found the BlackBerry but couldn’t make his gloved hand close around it. The wind-driven cold was intense and he could feel his body shutting down fast.
‘Fuck,’ he said, as the BlackBerry refused to stick in his hand. He couldn’t form a grip, couldn’t make his hand operate properly
‘You got it, boss,’ said McCann. ‘Take your time.’
Gallen realised he was running out of oxygen. He couldn’t take a breath of the fifty-below air and his lungs were shutting down. He couldn’t feel his legs or his face, didn’t know if he could move his lips to talk. Grabbing at the BlackBerry again, he finally held it in his hand with a chicken-grip, his vision blurry as ice formed over his eyeballs.
‘Throw it,’ said McCann over the headset and Gallen pushed his hand outside the plane, where the rushing air tried to rip off his arm. He was clumsy now and didn’t realise until he focused on his hand—as if it were some disembodied thing hanging outside the plane—that the BlackBerry was no longer in it.
‘Did I get it?’ said Gallen, slurring like he was tired and drunk.
McCann’s voice screamed over the radio: ‘It’s on the floor! You dropped it!’
Looking down, slowly, as though walking on the moon, Gallen saw the glittering abalone of the BlackBerry between his feet, like it was a hundred miles away, separated by a storm of noise and confusion.
‘Kick it, boss!’ McCann’s panicked voice rose above the terrible noise.
Using his last vestiges of consciousness, Gallen wondered what would happen if he kicked the bomb. Would it trigger the timer? He kicked at the phone clumsily, connecting with his toe.
The BlackBerry slid with aching slowness to the aluminium rails along which the door would seal, and then the air caught the device, hurtling it to the left so fast that it disappeared. Leaning back to concentrate on closing the cabin door, Gallen saw a flash of orange and white and felt the quick scorch of heat. The blast knocked him back into the cabin and falling to the floor he felt the plane lurch and a new sound start, a screaming death-noise.
‘Fire,’ said McCann, pulling back on the cargo strap and dragging Gallen into the cabin. Gallen’s legs and mind had become useless; he felt like a passenger in his own body, as if he was looking down on his lethargic self in a dream. He was in shock from the cold and felt McCann pull him into the forward-facing seat, giving him an oxygen mask; he was gasping to breathe, but had no strength for it. McCann wrapped him with the cargo strap as the open door continued its screaming suction attempts, creating a tornado of paper and cushions, shoes, coffee cups and pens.
Gallen wanted to tell McCann to look after himself, to stay away from the suck of that door, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.
Then there was a loud bang from the aft cabin area, way down behind the washroom. It shook the cabin frame and one of the cabin windows popped out, creating another source of the screeching howl, and then the air was filled with clothes, swirling at high speed and blowing out the door like smoke in an exhaust fan.
Looking back, McCann’s mouth fell open. ‘Fucking cargo hold exploded!’
Gallen tried to voice a question but the plane lurched violently, first left and then to the right, in a swinging barrel roll that didn’t stop, just took them over and over like a clothes dryer.
The hastily secured cargo strap gave way on the third loop and as Gallen’s face raced down towards the ceiling console, he wondered if that was smoke he was smelling.
The ceiling accelerated at him and then there was nothing.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 19
The light came in slowly, edging into his head like a flashlight beam under a door. Gallen was aware of warm on cold, and pain, a dull ache in his head, not unlike a hangover, not unlike the morning after a fist-fight.
Opening one eye, he saw snow and rapidly closed the eye again as a splitting, glare-induced headache threatened. Moving his mouth, he felt blood and missing teeth: the upper right incisor and the one behind it.
As he sucked, he opened his eyes again. He was surrounded by snow, with daylight visible, and he could hear a groaning sound.
Trying to keep his breathing low, remembering the arctic survival lessons about not panicking when buried in snow, he moved his head and found an air pocket.
Breathing shallowly, he made a quick check of his faculties: he could see, he could hear and he could distinguish hot and cold. Wiggling his left toes, he could just feel them. Didn’t feel like anything was broken, but his foot was certainly cold. It was the same on the other foot and he wondered how long he’d lain like that.
His arms moved too, and by circling his wrists he managed to hollow out a small passage so he could bring his hands up to his face. Touching his cheeks and jaw, he found no breaks, at least not bad enough that he couldn’t eat.
He looked at his gloves in the snow-filtered light and saw a wet sheen. Licking it, he confirmed blood: his face had been smashed and he’d lost some teeth, but the pain was being managed by the intense cold of the snow.
Moans rang out. He had no idea which way was up or down, and pushing his hands down to the front pockets of his arctic parka, he fossicked for a cigarette lighter. His hands were too numb and he couldn’t find the lighter, but as he dragged his hand back, it rubbed against something under his parka. Pulling at the chin domes, Gallen got his thumb under a cord of some sort and pulled out the bear’s head he’d been given by Billy and Sami at the kayak workshop. The black eyes glinted and what was yellowish tusk in daylight now came into its own: it had a faint luminescence in the half-light, its carved face glowing at the edges, creating a mesmerising effect. As he held it up by the cord, the head dangled down by his chin, telling him that upwards was a line that rose perpendicular from his left shoulder.
‘Bear’s not a killer,’ he mumbled. ‘She’s a survivor.’
Hearing the moans again, he started burrowing upwards.
~ * ~
The sun made him wince as he broke out of the snow drift. As his eyes adjusted to the intense brightness, he got an idea of how lucky he’d been.
About a mile distant, a pall of black smoke rose thousands of feet into the still air, a furrow twenty feet deep leading to where the plane’s fuselage had slammed into a rock face. On the left side of the deep furrow, there was a section of wing from the Challenger. Random pieces of debris from the corporate jet were littered around the rolling dales of snow, a piece of leather chair here, a landing wheel there.
Looking down, he saw red splashes, and pushing his tongue into his cheek he realised there was a deep gash on the left side of his face. Refastening the wolverine-lined hood of the parka to keep his head warm, he pulled his glove off and immediately felt the cold, which he estimated was at least minus thirty on the ground. Warmer than he’d been at altitude with the wind-chill factor, but colder than any daytime temperature he’d ever ex
perienced, either in Afghanistan or Wyoming.
His de-gloved hand still had a silk liner over it but the chill went into his bones like someone had hit him with a mallet. Exploring in the chest pocket of his parka, Gallen pulled out an unused handkerchief and quickly got the glove back onto his hand. Laying the opened handkerchief on the ground, he filled it with snow and tied the ends of it together as best he could. Then he held it against the facial gash, hoping to staunch the wound before he lost too much blood.
As the cold dug deep into his facial tissue, making tears of pain run, Gallen raised his G-Shock. The watches were favoured in the military because they were simple to use and because of their toughness: Gallen had started life with a stainless-steel analogue watch from the Pendleton PX but he’d switched to a G-Shock after a troop truck had driven over a colleague’s and the thing had still worked.
Now he was on to his second, a present to himself when coming back through Guam for the last time after his final tour in the Ghan. He’d discarded his old trusty and bought himself the top of the line. Looking at it now, it worked fine: 11.18 am, it said. Gallen remembered a feature that he’d never used, thinking it too gimmicky for a military professional. Pressing the ‘comp’ button on the lower right of the dial, he watched the face blink twice and a black display came up showing ‘SE’. Turning slowly, Gallen brought the G-Shock around until the dial showed a large ‘N’. Fixing his north as a mountain saddle in the distance that had a distinctive U-shape followed by a sharp peak, he turned back to the plane and fixed it in a south-west position.
The moaning continued and Gallen looked around, trying to find the source. He could vaguely remember McCann holding him down in the seat, and then not being able to hold on anymore. What had happened to them? Had they been thrown from the plane?
Tramping north, struggling in snow up to his armpits, Gallen croaked through the hoarseness in his larynx.
‘Donny!’ he said, trying to put strength into it. ‘Donny, talk to me.’
The moans got louder as he struggled over a crest and looked down into a bowl, his energy sapped after just ten minutes of moving through that terrain.
There was no sign of his colleague in the bowl and Gallen paused: he either used his energy to find Donny McCann or he used it to get to the plane wreck, look for survivors and ransack the cabin for food and fire. He breathed deep, turned, saw a trek of perhaps a thousand yards to the plane, then looked back at the endless snow bowls in front of him. Fuck it: he’d give it thirty minutes to find his man, and then he’d summon the energy to get to the plane. He had the whole day to find food but he may have only a few minutes to find Donny alive.
He heard the moan again.
‘Donny!’ he yelled.
Stepping over the crest, Gallen started downwards into the bowl but he only took one step and he was through the snow layer, dropping like a stone. The snow raced past him and then his feet were hitting something solid and he bounced across a hard floor until he came to rest on a small knoll of ice.
Looking around, he saw an ice cave formed by the winds and covered over by a crusted bridge of snow, just waiting for someone to tread on it and fall to their death. The moan of pain was closer now and, turning to find it, he gasped as his ribs spasmed.
‘Shit,’ he said to himself, his body in a rictus of pain. He could barely breathe and he knew why, having sprung a rib as a hockey player in high school.
Struggling to his feet, trying to find a pain-free way of moving, he stood still on the subterranean ice knoll until he could balance without flashes of light at the edges of his vision.
Moving gingerly through the cave, avoiding the large fissures on the floor which seemed to go forever into the earth, he followed the moans, yelling his encouragement, trying to hear McCann’s echoes long enough to get a fix on him.
Pushing through a small gap in the ice wall, Gallen padded into a larger ice gallery and found Donny McCann lying on the ice floor, a hole in the roof above.
‘Shit, Donny,’ he said, wincing with pain as he kneeled beside his comrade. ‘What’s up?’
‘Back,’ whispered McCann, his mouth quivering with cold. ‘Broke my fucking back.’
‘You sure?’ Gallen looked down the inert length of what had once been the most vital person he’d ever known.
‘I’m sure, boss,’ said McCann, lips dark blue. ‘Anyone else make it?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Gallen.
‘Take the headset.’ Following the line of the injured man’s nod, Gallen saw the radio headset and cabling lying in the ice. He retrieved it and, reaching down to McCann’s belt, plugged it into the radio set and installed it around his head and throat.
‘Kenny, Mike, anyone there?’ said Gallen into the mic, blood dripping off his face again.
‘Try all the channels,’ said McCann in a hoarse whisper. ‘There’s five.’
Reaching into McCann’s parka, Gallen tried each channel, his fingers barely able to grasp the tuning button.
‘You got the volume up?’ said McCann, eyelids drooping.
Looking again at the radio set, lost in the layers of clothing at McCann’s belt, Gallen found the volume control and turned it up. The headset crackled and Gallen heard a voice.
‘Boss, that you?’ came the Canadian drawl. ‘Donny? Gerry? This is Kenny Winter, copy?’
‘Gotcha, Kenny,’ said Gallen, his jaw seizing. ‘We’re in an ice cave, I’ve got a man down. Can you assist? Over.’
‘Can try. Where are you?’ came the voice.
‘Look for a dome of snow, directly north-east of the plane wreck. My guess, eight hundred to one thousand yards.’
‘Got no compass, boss,’ said the Canadian, his voice wavering in and out.
‘Okay, take a fix on the saddle in the distance, along the line the plane landed on,’ said Gallen, the rib starting to ache. ‘There’s a U-shaped saddle on the mountain horizon, with a sharp peak right beside it. Walk towards it and after eight hundred yards, look to your right for footprints around a big snow dome.’
Gasping for breath as the rib muscle gripped like a clenching fist, Gallen fought for consciousness. He panted as Winter’s voice surged into the headset.
‘On our way, boss,’ said the Canadian.
‘Bring ropes,’ said Gallen through his gasps. ‘And don’t walk on the dome. Repeat, do not walk on the dome, it’s hollow underneath.’
Gallen heard the crackle of reply but passed out before he could make out the words.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 20
Gallen came out of a deep dream to a knocking sensation on the back of his head: Donny McCann, head-butting him.
‘Get up, boss,’ said McCann. ‘Got company.’
Pushing himself off the ice, groggy as a drunk, Gallen shook his head clear and looked around. ‘Where?’
‘In the roof, boss.’
Looking up, Gallen saw a dark shape flat against the snow, about fifteen yards from the hole McCann had fallen through.
‘Kenny?’ he said, as loud as he could before the rib spasmed again.
The reply echoed around the ice walls. ‘Boss.’
‘Don’t come any closer, I can see your body through the snow.’
‘I’m roped,’ said Winter. ‘Got Mike anchored in the hard stuff.’
The shape wriggled further along the snow and Gallen hunched his body over McCann, giving him some protection should the roof cave in.
Winter looked down through the hole. ‘You two okay?’
‘No,’ said Gallen. ‘Donny’s got a broken back. I’ve got a rib and hypothermia.’
Rope appeared in the hole and then it was falling to the floor about nine feet from McCann. Picking it up, Gallen checked it was still attached to Winter.
‘I’m going to move back to the anchor,’ said Winter. ‘Secure Donny and give three tugs when you want him outa there.’
As carefully as he could, Gallen attached the end of the rope under McCann’s armpits and around his ch
est. In all other circumstances, the military advised against moving a man with spinal and neck injuries. But this was different. Donny McCann was dying of hypothermia and shock from the broken back. He needed a hospital.
Gallen was about to tug on the rope three times, but he realised McCann was unconscious again. Slapping him, he felt emotions coming up. ‘Don’t slip away on me, you tough bastard. Don’t you dare.’
