by Karen Dionne
“We’ll take care of the others later,” Ross said once they were back inside the station. “I’m going to see if an answer came in from McMurdo; then I’m going to move some more stuff before the weather gets worse. We’ll need a head count. Find out who can walk, and who will have to be carried.”
Relocating to the emergency shelter was their Plan B. It was also Plans C through Z. With no doctor, no support staff to maintain essential systems, no rescue ship on the horizon, no communication with the outside world thanks to the storm, and no reply to their SOS e-mail to McMurdo because of the same, all they could do was retreat, and wait. The emergency shelter was located inland from the station, constructed of cement block, three-quarters underground; a single, low-ceilinged room as spare as an army barracks with a kerosene generator for heat and lights and bunks along three walls. Previously she’d considered the shelter a joke. Now she could appreciate the wisdom of having redundant systems.
They split up and she moved off down the hall, ignoring the pleas for help her footsteps engendered. “Zo? Is that you? I need another blanket; this one’s soiled.” “My puke bucket’s full; can you empty it for me?” “I need a drink. Please. I’m so thirsty.” “Look out! He’s got a gun!” This from a staff member she knew only as Scott. She glanced into the room. Scott was yelling and flailing as he fought a losing battle with his blanket. In the other bed, his room-mate lay ominously still.
She paused outside her bedroom door. Please, God, she whispered—a prayer for the living—and went inside, recoiling at the odor of vomit and sweat. She crossed to the bed. Elliot’s face was pale and his breathing was shallow, but at least he was breathing, she told herself fiercely. She took off her outerwear and laid it on the bed, then bent to pick up the pile of candy wrappers surrounding the wastebasket and refilled his water glass from the jug in the fridge. She wet a cloth for his forehead and took a swig for herself, then put the jug back, the insulin bottles reminding her that it had been hours since she’d checked her glucose level. Not that it mattered. For some reason, her insulin needs had diminished dramatically in recent days. She presumed the reduction was because of the hormonal changes associated with pregnancy, though right now, figuring out why was the least of her concerns. She was just happy to have one less thing to worry about.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. Elliot didn’t stir.
She picked up his hand and laid it in her lap, absently tracing out the corded veins that twined between his liver spots like rivers. “We don’t know how much longer we can keep going,” she told him, though she wasn’t at all sure that he could hear. “Once the heat fails, it won’t be long before we’ll be out of water as well. Ross says the cistern is already down by half.” “And believe me, you don’t want to know what’s at the bottom,” he’d added, then told her anyway: “Twenty years’ worth of flotsam and jetsam, including one very bloated, very dead rat.” She shuddered. At least Pinky wouldn’t be giving them any more trouble.
“And when the heat goes, the lights will go, too.” She sighed. “It’s all a bit of a mess. So we’re moving everyone to the shelter. Ross is stocking it with food and water. We’re hoping once the storm quits, we can get a message through—” She stopped. She supposed she should be telling him that everything was fine and that help was on its way, but after all of the lies she’d told over the past weeks, she couldn’t bear to tell another—especially considering these might be their last words. She blinked. Incredible, to think that after twenty years of operation during which Raney’s personnel had overcome every conceivable challenge, the station should be brought low by a virus.
She kissed Elliot’s hand, then tucked his arm under the blanket and stretched out beside him on the bed. She was so tired. If she’d slept during the last thirty-six hours, she couldn’t remember.
She woke to a draft blowing across her cheek. Her first thought was that Elliot was hogging the covers again. She reached for her share, then remembered that she was on top and he was underneath. She sat up. The room was freezing. Had the heat failed? She shrugged on her parka and scrounged another blanket from the closet, laid it over him, and took her gloves and wool cap from her jacket pocket and put them on him as well. As she went into the hallway and closed the door, she thanked God that the room was small. Elliot’s body heat should be enough to maintain temperature for the next few hours.
In the hallway, the draft turned into a full-fledged gale. She followed it down the corridor and around a corner to its source.
Of all the idiotic—She shook her head in disgust. Unbelievable. She and Ross had been killing themselves for two days trying to hold everything together, and he goes and leaves the door standing open. She waded through the drift that was rapidly accumulating on the tiles and reached for the handle, then squinted. Outside, almost obscured by the blowing snow, a figure was running toward the shore.
What in the world? The shelter was the opposite direction. She went outside, making sure the door latched behind her, and hurried after, zipping her coat as she ran.
She cupped her hands. “Ross! Stop! What are you doing?”
The figure turned.
It wasn’t Ross, it was Mac—she could tell by the frizzy blond hair whipping around his head. But that was all that was blowing, because except for a pair of boxers flapping around his skinny, pipestem legs, Mac was naked.
She caught up to him at the water’s edge.
“Are you crazy?” She grabbed his arm and spun him around. His skin felt like frozen lunch meat. His lips were blue, and he was shaking so hard he could barely stand.
“I w-was h-hot.”
“I guess you were.” The twin red circles on his cheeks spoke not of cold, but of fever. “Come on. We’ve got to get you inside.”
“Nuh-uh. It’s t-too hot in there.”
“You have to. You’ll freeze out here.” She tugged on his arm.
“I have to ch-check on my ch-ch-chicks.” He pulled free and took off in the direction of the Zodiac.
She sprinted after, ice and gravel crunching beneath her boots. How could he run so fast barefoot? His feet must be frozen. She hoped all he’d lose were his toes. Though with Rodriguez gone, who would perform the amputation was up for grabs. She pictured herself and Ross drawing straws. Impossible. Doctors in Antarctica had performed all manner of surgeries under extreme conditions—even operating on themselves—but she hadn’t even had EMT training.
She put on a burst of speed. A pain shot through her gut. Gasping, she clutched her stomach. Stress. It was only stress. That, or she’d pulled a muscle. It wasn’t a cramp. It couldn’t be a cramp. Please, God, don’t let it be a cramp—
She bent over with her hands on her knees and used the Lamaze breaths she’d been practicing in secret until the spasm eased. By the time she lifted her head, Mac had already reached the Zodiac and was fumbling with its moorings. She took off running again.
He looked up at the sound of her footsteps. “You c-can’t c-c-catch me!” he laughed, and dashed out into the bay.
“No! Stop! Come back!”
He slogged on, not hearing or not caring, his movements slowing dramatically as the water deepened and the cold took hold. How long could he last? A minute? Two?
The answer came when his limbs stiffened abruptly and he pitched forward. She held her breath, hoping he was holding his, and waited for him to reappear.
Nothing.
She stripped off her parka and ran in after him, crying out as every blood vessel in her legs constricted and the pain shot straight up her chest. She pushed it back and floundered over to where Mac had vanished and felt about with her feet.
Still nothing.
She thought of her infant in its warm, watery womb; then grabbed a deep breath and plunged beneath the waves, swinging her arms in a wide arc, hoping to connect with something—anything; half-walking, half-swimming as she reached blindly into the void, the water so stupefyingly cold it barely registered.
She stood up, panting from shock and fear, a
nd shook the water from her hair.“Mac!” she screamed as soon as she was able to draw breath. “Where are you?”
A shorebird screeched. She hugged herself to keep from shivering and scanned the surface. There was no movement anywhere, no telltale stream of silvery bubbles, no pale flesh bobbing beneath the waves—nothing but angry gray water reflecting an angrier sky, while the wind blew the tops off the waves and the gull mocked her distress in a rasping falsetto as it swooped effortlessly toward the shore.
Then Mac burst out of the water a dozen feet to her right.
She sloshed over and grabbed him as his eyes rolled back and his knees went limp. Slinging his arm over her shoulders, she started for the shore. His weight seemed to double with every step as they reached the shallows and he lost buoyancy. She shifted him higher onto her shoulders and staggered on: up the graveled headland, past her discarded jacket; one determined foot in front of the other, keeping her eyes fixed on the station door, teeth clenched against the burn in her shoulders and the paralyzing cold.
She traversed the final yards on sheer willpower and opened the door. Dropping him on the floor, she noted the trail of bloody footprints from the beach to the door.
“Ross! Come here! I need your help!”
Mac curled in the fetal position, his body racked with deep, shuddering shivers. She unfolded his limbs enough to grab him by the armpits and dragged him down the hall, thankful for the lubricating mix of blood and snow. Her jeans felt like cardboard and her whole body was on fire. Pain is good, she told herself. Pain is normal. Not being able to feel anything would mean trouble.
Mercifully, his room was the third door on the right. She dragged him inside and hefted him onto his bed. Mac’s body was so battered, he looked like he’d just fought off a serial killer, or a surgeon gone berserk. She hoped his cuts were superficial; she couldn’t stitch his wounds any more than she could tend to his poor, frozen feet. Shock; gangrene; the unknown virus—this week, Antarctica was offering specials on any number of ways to die.
She stripped off his boxers and toweled him dry with a blanket, then dressed him in thermals and sweats and piled all the blankets she could find on top.
Ten minutes later, dressed in dry clothes and with her hair in a wet ponytail, she was sitting at the kitchen table inhaling the steam from a cup of hot chocolate; too tired to pick it up; too tired to cry.
Chapter 28
Los Angeles, California
Adam drained his morning Starbucks and returned the travel mug to the cup holder as Soldyne’s parking lot came into view. He gripped the wheel. So far, no one had thrown anything more damaging than a bucket of water, but there was always a first time, and given his rather unfortunate history of making the long odds, it was pretty much a given that when the protesters decided to up the ante, he’d be the one to cash in. An IRS audit three years in a row, the new love interest with a job offer in Australia—it seemed as though whenever the gods got together for an evening of unholy fun, Adam Washburn was their favorite target. Which was why he was driving a rental to work these days instead of his Miata.
He showed his ID to the security guard and pulled into the lot, keeping an eye on the rearview as the protesters closed in behind. He’d heard the rumors: POP was responsible for spiking trees in the Pacific Northwest, trashing research labs in Massachusetts, torching luxury homes in upstate New York, and given what he’d seen of this group, he believed them. He’d caught the Sweet woman enough times on the eleven o’clock news to know that she was anything but.
A woman broke from the crowd; not POP’s fearless leader, but someone who could have been her soul sister: a zealous twenty-something in a white shirt and black pants and a Baja Fresh apron who’d stopped off for a few hours of protesting on her way to work; shaking her fist and shouting what Adam presumed were obscenities judging by the expression on her face. He shook his head and drove on. He didn’t care how worthy the cause; 6:00 a.m. was too early to be that worked up.
He parked, grabbed yesterday’s L.A. Times off the front seat, and crossed the lot to the lobby. After exchanging pleasantries with the new hire behind the information desk, he took the elevator to the third floor, topped off his mug from the never-ending pot in the break room, set both mug and paper on his desk, and fired up his computer. While he waited for the machine to boot, he put the phone on speaker and punched in the iceberg’s number. After an interminable succession of clicks and pauses, the call went through.
“You’re home,” he said, and opened up a game of Mine-sweeper while he waited for Ben’s reply. Patience had never been his long suit. Multitasking helped.
“Yeah, I was just about to head out to the donut shop for a latte and a croissant, but you caught me,” Ben joked after three tedious seconds had passed. “I hope you’re calling with good news.”
“Good news” for Ben would have meant that the supply ship was on its way. Unfortunately, while the Polar Sea had made the crossing to Punta Arenas in record time, the storm that was delaying its return wasn’t expected to end anytime soon.
“Sorry.”
“Damn,” Ben said after another long pause during which Adam managed to beat his best score by ten. “Paula’s going to kill me if I don’t get home soon. I just got off the phone with her. Sarah’s still acting out.”
“What’s she done now?” Adam didn’t have kids, but he could sympathize. Sarah’s increasingly outrageous misbehavior culminated last week when she and her girlfriend were caught shoplifting at the mall. The store manager hadn’t pressed charges, but security still held the girls long enough to give everyone a good scare. And for what? A freaking book—a picture book about Shackleton’s Antarctic misadventure, no less. If that wasn’t sending dear old dad a message, Adam had forgotten entirely what it was like to be thirteen.
“She hasn’t done anything this time, thank God,” Ben said. “It’s what she wants me to do. You know that Internet classroom project her social studies teacher has going with a scientist over at Raney? Apparently the class got an e-mail from him yesterday saying everyone at the station is sick and dying and they need help. Now Sarah’s begging me to go save her precious Iceman.”
“Holy crap. What kind of thing is that to say to a bunch of kids?”
“Oh, it’s not real. Who’d send an SOS to a classroom in the States? I’m sure it’s just an exercise—you know, a what-if scenario to get the kids thinking. But just try convincing Sarah of that. Ever since Mr. McMurtry started this project, it’s been ‘the Iceman says this,’ and ‘the Iceman does that.’ She’s so nuts about this guy, she’s totally bought into it. When I told her I couldn’t fire up the old helicopter and take off in the middle of a snowstorm on her say-so, well—let’s just say right now, I’m not exactly flavor of the month.”
“Sorry to hear that. Though in a way,” Adam said as he studied the newspaper spread open on his desk, “it’s too bad the emergency isn’t real. You could use the PR. It’s hard to hate a hero.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m gonna read you a headline from an article in yesterday’s Times, okay? You sitting down? Here we go. It’s a question: ‘Was Engineer a Victim of His Own Technology? ’ ” He paused to let the significance sink in, then added the kicker: “The article speculates that Quentin was killed by the microwave beam.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“Well yeah, I know that, and you know that. Unfortunately, there’re about a million Los Angelinos right now who aren’t quite so sure. You should see the article. The argument’s pretty convincing.”
“How’d the story end up in the paper? And why would anybody care?”
“Oh, I dunno. Maybe because Quentin died in an exotic location under mysterious circumstances? Or maybe because his body was cremated before his widow even had a chance to see it? Or how about this? Maybe somebody doesn’t want your microwave method to succeed.”
Ben sighed. “All right. I see where you’re going.”
“Dam
n straight. How did Quentin die, anyway? No one’s ever said.”
“You know I can’t tell you. I signed a nondisclosure agreement before I came down. We all did. What happens on the berg, stays on the berg.”
