by Karen Dionne
“Well now, you see, there’s your problem. Looks a tad suspicious, wouldn’t you say?”
Silence. While he waited for Ben’s response, Adam’s hand strayed to the mouse to start another game before he caught himself and called it back. He closed out the program.
“Okay,” Ben said after a pause that lasted considerably longer than three seconds, “I can tell you this much. You know the microwave levels fall off rapidly as soon as you get outside the melt zone. Quentin’s body was found at the pumphouse. That’s a good half mile away. That proves he wasn’t killed by the beam. Make sure the papers understand that.”
“Won’t do any good. First one out of the gate wins. Once an idea is out there, you can’t call it back. People are going to believe what they want, no matter what you say. And you gotta admit, Gillette’s version makes good copy.”
“I guess you’re right.” Ben sighed again. “Okay. Gillette may have won this round, but I’ll figure out a way to deal with this after I get back. Meanwhile, let me know if anything else comes up. And for God’s sake—get me off this iceberg.”
“Will do.”
Adam clicked off and walked over to the window. As he stared down at the protesters, briefly, he envied them their conviction. If only the world really were that black and white. He thought about the storm brewing inside Soldyne’s hallowed halls. It wasn’t hard to tell which way the wind was blowing. The question was, was he going to keep the wind at his back, or was he going to let it knock him flat? If he had a choice, he’d pick Ben over Gillette any day, but this wasn’t a popularity contest. Whichever way their tug-of-war ended, Adam needed to be on the winning team. Payments on the Miata weren’t cheap.
Chapter 29
lceberg, Weddell Sea, 68° S, 60° W
Ben handed the phone off to Toshi and grabbed his parka. As he shut the door, it was all he could do to keep from slamming it. My method. Your method. Gillette’s never-ending rivalry made him feel like a two-year-old. My ball. No, it’s mine. Bottom line: The world needed water desperately, and Soldyne was in a position to supply it. That should have been their focus. Instead, Donald had turned their entire water-making endeavor into one giant pissing contest.
He zipped up his coat and charged off to the mess hut. The sky as black as his mood. As long as Ben was stuck on the berg, Gillette held all the cards. Donald could disseminate all the misinformation he wanted, and there wasn’t a thing Ben could do about it. Ben was beginning to suspect that even his coming was the result of a carefully contrived plot. What better way to gain the upper hand than to send your rival to the most isolated place on earth? Gillette was clever enough and powerful enough to have massaged events to a particular outcome. Not the rats, of course, but everything else: the chewed up hoses (or had they been cut?), the buggy uplink code (or was it sabotage?), and all of the myriad other “problems” could have been concocted with the sole objective of Ben’s coming along as “problem solver.” Since Quentin’s death, everything had been running smooth as butter. Coincidence? Ben didn’t think so. He wondered if there was a more sinister explanation behind the Polar Sea’s delay.
He was still fuming when he opened the double doors to the mess hut and stomped inside. Susan was standing at the counter eating a sandwich. She looked up, frowning. Too late, he composed his features.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
He offered the most innocuous explanation. “I just got off the phone with Adam. Looks like we’re going to be here for a while.”
“Ah.” She looked at her sandwich. “Perhaps I should save this then.”
“Maybe you should.” He laughed, but even to his ears, the joke rang hollow. They both understood the situation. The team had enough food for several weeks, and thanks to the microwave process, they could always make more water, but Antarctica was a harsh mistress. Better men than he had died at her hands for lack of resources and supplies. Ben liked to think of himself as a leader, but he was no Shackleton. Sarah wanted him to rescue the Iceman, but if the supply ship didn’t return, who would rescue them?
He rummaged through the cupboard for peanut butter and jelly—not his favorite choice of sandwich, but he wasn’t complaining. Nothing like doing without to realize how spoiled you’d become. The iceberg was a microcosm of the entire globe. Here, their supplies were limited in a visible, tangible way, but Earth’s resources were just as finite—except that when the earth ran out, there was no place to go for more.
“Ben!” Toshi’s voice over the intercom interrupted. “We need you! Get back here quick! Something’s come up.”
Inside the operations hut, Toshi, Eugene, and the helicopter pilot, Cam Kessler, were huddled over a table. On the table, a radio was emitting bursts of static.
Ben hurried over. “What is it?”
“It’s the radio,” Eugene said.
Toshi rolled his eyes.
“I know it’s the radio,” Ben said. “What’s going on?”
“Listen.” Toshi held up his hand.
Ben leaned closer. Interspersed among the electronic pops and hisses was a man’s voice, faint, and laced with static.
“—ation. ¡Aytación . . . resca—”
“Turn off your heaters,” he said. “Quickly. Anything with a blower or a motor. They’re causing interference.”
Hands scrambled to yank the offending plugs.
“—ation. ¡Ayuda! Ésta es estación de Raney.” Now the voice was clear. “¡Tenemos una emergencia médica y necesitamos rescate inmediato.”
“That’s Spanish,” Susan said.
“What’s he saying?”
“Sorry. I’m not fluent.”
“Anyone?”
More shrugs. The speaker repeated his message, then switched to English:
“Help! This is Raney Station. We have a medical emergency and need immediate rescue—”
Raney? Sarah’s SOS e-mail was real? “Answer it,” Ben said, his heart thumping. “Hurry.”
Toshi grabbed the mike. “Hello! Yes! We hear you! Can you hear me?”
“Help! Ayuda! This is Raney Station—”
Toshi looked helplessly at Ben.
“Keep trying.” He signaled the pilot off to the side. Raney was fifty miles across the peninsula, within easy helicopter range. “What do you think?” he asked. “Can we help?”
Cam stroked his chin. The gesture would have looked weighty and thoughtful if he’d had the beard to go with it, or even a hint of five o’clock shadow. Instead, Cam looked like a boy pretending to be a man, his cheeks soft and full, with a face more suited to a Calvin Klein commercial than a Marlboro man. Ben touched his own stubble. When had he reached the age where the experts he relied on were younger than him?
“I don’t see why not,” Cam said. “I did three years search and rescue with the Coast Guard. Flown in all kinds of weather. I’d like to talk to someone on the other end first, though. Find out the wind speed, local weather conditions, what kind of terrain to expect. We could get over there and find out there’s no place to land.”
“I understand. We’ll keep trying to raise them. And if we can’t get a response?”
Cam grinned, a perfect orthodontic smile bursting with the confidence of the highly trained—or the very young. “I’m game if you are.”
Ben considered. There was so much he didn’t know. “Medical emergency” could mean almost anything. According to Sarah’s class’s e-mail, Raney’s personnel were sick and dying, but from what? Was it contagious? Would effecting a rescue put his own people in danger? His primary responsibility was to his own crew—yet could he live with himself if he ignored the call for help?
“Help! Ayuda! This is Raney—”
“Okay. We’re in.” He shrugged on his jacket and walked back to Toshi. “We’ll give it ten minutes. If we don’t have an answer by then, Cam and I will take off regardless. Keep trying to raise them after we’re gone. Let them know we’re coming. Susan—you’re in charge.”
He began a mental
checklist: blankets, whatever medicine they could scrounge, maybe some high-protein bars and a case of water. Not too much, since their helicopter was only a six-seater, but enough to make the victims comfortable while they were airlifted to McMurdo.
As the minutes counted down, Ben’s crew watched him with a mix of admiration and awe. He noted their expressions and tried not to grin. Adam was right. It was hard to hate a hero.
Chapter 30
Raney Station, Antarctic Peninsula
“Someone’s coming?” Zo shook her head in disbelief. “My God, Ross. Who?”
“I have no idea. The reception was terrible. All I could make out were the words ‘helicopter,’ and ‘be right there.’ That’s good enough for me.”
“Me, too.” She laughed, a high, giddy giggle that sounded so out of place after the stress of the past days, it bordered on lunacy. “It has to be someone from McMurdo. You’re a genius to have thought of the radio.”
She shook her head again. In her heart, she truly hadn’t expected to survive. Now in a few short hours, they’d be on their way to a station that, compared to Raney, was a regular city. McMurdo had over a hundred buildings, daily flights to Christchurch, New Zealand. Best of all, the station boasted a fully equipped (and by Antarctic standards, state-of-the-art) hospital.
“I wonder how big the helicopter will be. How many it can carry.”
“McMurdo has a couple of ski-equipped Hercules. Those things are huge. We’ll have to mark out a landing pad on top of the glacier. That’s the only place big enough.”
“On top? We can’t get people up there. Half of them can’t even walk.” And the other half are comatose. She pictured the glacier’s leading edge: a steeply sloped, hundred-foot-high cliff that served as backdrop to the station. Access to the top was by means of a set of stairs cut into the ice that were steep and narrow, with heavy-gauge wire handrails strung along both sides. The first time she saw them, she was reminded of the Golden Stairs that had been cut into the Chilkoot Pass in the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush days. Zo assumed the construction for their set had been justified by some crucial, planet-saving research being carried out on top. She got a better understanding of Antarctic priorities when she learned the stairs provided access to Raney’s softball field.
“Don’t worry,” Ross said. “They’ll send the necessary manpower and equipment. McMurdo’s a major station. They know how to handle an emergency. These people are pros.”
Professionals or not, Zo couldn’t imagine any viable means of transporting their victims to the top. “We can’t presume they’ll send a Hercules. They could just as easily send something smaller. If they do, a landing site on the beach would be ideal. The winds are less erratic, and it would be far simpler to get our people on board.”
“We don’t have time to prep two sites. Whatever they’re sending, it’ll be here inside of an hour. Better to mark out one site that can accommodate any size craft. If they send a smaller helicopter, it can land on top, and hop on down to the beach.”
“Okay.” Ross’s presuming the leadership role rankled. Zo wasn’t a follower by nature, but he was right about one thing: The clock was ticking. Sometimes the most expedient thing to do was to give in and go along.
“What should we use to mark out the landing pad?” she asked. “Flares?”
He laughed. “Not unless you’re planning to blow the thing up. You don’t want open flame around a helicopter. Anything brightly colored and easily visible will do.”
“Then how about survival suits? They’re bright red. There are a few dozen in the storage room. We could use lengths of pipe as stakes to fasten them down.”
“Works for me. You get the coats, and I’ll get the rest of the stuff and meet you on top. Be sure to wear your snow goggles. The helicopter’s going to kick up a lot of debris. And dress warmly. In cold weather, the downdraft from a craft that size can cause a drop in temperature severe enough to give you instant hypothermia or frostbite. And while we’re talking safety, don’t go running up to the helicopter as soon as it lands. This won’t be like the movies. In real life, you never approach a helicopter until the pilot gives the okay. Stand at two o’clock where he can see you, then wait for his signal.”
“Got it. I suppose you’re going to tell me you learned all this from your three tours of duty in Iraq, where among other things, you picked up a Purple Heart, and a Silver Star, and a Medal of Honor.”
“No.” He flushed.
Ross was blushing? This was going to be good.
“Actually, I learned that from reading Tom Clancy.”
She burst out laughing. Ross didn’t join in.
Zo was long past laughing as she bundled the last of the survival suits together forty-five minutes later and slipped her arms through the ropes. Three contiguous trips to the top of the glacier and back were enough to kill anyone’s good mood. She shifted the bundle higher onto her shoulders like a peasant carrying a load of straw and turned sideways to fit through the door, then trudged past the emergency shelter, past her old ice cave, and on to the Stairs of Affliction. She was out of breath by the tenth step, but kept climbing, gripping the guide wires with both hands as the winds tore at her from above and below, ignoring her leg muscles that twitched in refusal.
When at last she cleared the top, she kept her profile low until she was well away from the edge. Straightening, she staggered over to Ross and dropped her bundle.
“You okay?” He had to shout to be heard. Zo judged the gusts to be topping out at forty to fifty.
“I’m fine,” she shouted back. “Just a little winded.” She smiled wryly.
Ross nodded absently and went back to hammering a section of pipe through the chest of a suit as though it were a vampire.
She cocked an ear. “Do you hear that?”
He stopped to listen, then shoved the hammer into the back of his jeans. “Come on,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “It’s showtime.”
Together, they carried the last bundle to what Clancy presumably deemed a safe distance and scanned the sky. The air reverberated with increasingly concussive thumps. At last the helicopter appeared, a blue-and-white dot against the gray ceiling.
“It’s so small,” she said as it came closer.
“That’s no Hercules,” he agreed. “Must be a reconnaissance flight. Looks like they’re going to scope out the situation first. Find out what we need, and then come back for us.”
A chink in his Clancy-armor. What else had he gotten wrong?
The helicopter circled the airfield and began its descent, hovering like a dragonfly coming to water. Then it was lost in a wall of snow that welled up from the rotor wash. She turned her head as the pressure wave engulfed them. The thumps diminished, buried by the sound-deadening blanket.
When at last the air cleared, she wiped the snow from her face and lifted her goggles. The ballfield was empty.
“Where—?”
“Too windy. They’ll have to come in from a different angle.”
The minutes dragged past. As the sky remained empty, she shivered, not only because of the wind, but because she’d never warmed up from her earlier swim. Ross slipped his arm around her shoulders. She tensed, then decided he was offering body heat and nothing more, and leaned in.
At last, the helicopter reappeared. It flew around to the far side of the ballfield just as Ross had predicted. Zo held her breath as it descended, rocking from side to side. Then abruptly, it stopped pitching and rose straight up into the air as if yanked by a string—twenty feet . . . fifty feet—She gasped.
