The Ice Star (Konstabel Fenna Brongaard Book 1)

by Christoffer Petersen

  They rounded the corner of the fjord in this way, Fenna’s nose resting against the rim of the stiff collar, her breath freezing in tiny pearls upon her cheeks and bleaching the ends of her hair with a rime of frost, stiff and white. If she dreamed it was the soundless dream of fatigue, her body too tired to seek a more comfortable position, her mind too exhausted.

  She woke at the jerk of the sledge as the dogs laboured up and over the ice foot that marked the boundary between the sea ice and the land. Diamond hard it was a minefield of sharp edges, crazy paving flipped vertical. The ice foot rose and fell with the tide. The tide was out and the dogs had to work to reach the safety of the hunter's winter camp. They whined as the sledge runners caught, and the lines tangled around the mini bergs barring their way. Kula worked the dogs back and forth, lifting the lines and lifting the dogs when they stumbled, confused within the labyrinth of ice, as if the sea was reluctant for them to leave and the land was too stubborn to receive them.

  Fenna opened her eyes and stepped off the sledge, stamping her numb toes to life and clapping her hands, urging the blood into her fingers. Her cheeks, the prominent parts just below her eyes, were thick like putty. She removed a mitten and pressed her fingertip against each cheek, cursing at the stubby resistance – the early stages of frostbite, her penance for fifty minutes of rest. She walked to the rear of the sledge and helped guide it up and over the ice foot as Kula untangled the dogs and led them into camp.

  They were met with a chorus of whines and the familiar half-bark of Greenlandic sledge dogs, tethered with short lengths of chain to bolts hammered into cracks in the rock. Fenna recognised their voices and felt a tear begin to freeze beneath her left eye as she recognised one canine voice in particular.

  “Lucifer,” she whispered and choked back another tear. The remaining dogs from call-sign Fever Dog, tugged at the chains and lifted their paws in the air, snapping at the new arrivals and howling at the sight of Fenna. She let go of the sledge and let Kula lead his team up to the dirty canvas tent another twenty metres from where her team was anchored. Fenna dropped to her knees in front of Lucifer and buried her nose in the fur around his neck as he wriggled within her grip and strained to bump noses.

  “I've missed you,” she said, her words lost in the lead dog's fur. Lucifer leaned against her side and Fenna felt the reassuring weight of his body and the tickle of sharp claws pressing through her trouser leg.

  “Fenna,” Kula called and she pulled away from the dog and looked up. The hunter beckoned for her to come and help secure his team. He tugged the bight of rope leading to all seventeen dogs and freed it from the line attaching it to the centre thwart between the sledge runners.

  “You don't want to tie them individually?” Fenna said as she helped him haul the dogs to a large iron ring sealed in a crack of exposed rock with cement.

  “Eeqqi,” he said and flicked his eyes towards the blue sky. “Good flying weather. We might want to leave in a hurry.”

  Fenna nodded and helped Kula secure the dogs in the fan formation. She knew they would twist the lines, as they roamed, but was surprised when they flopped to the ground as one and lay quietly, gnawing at the ice and wind-packed snow.

  “We'll feed them later,” Kula said and gestured for Fenna to follow him.

  Inside the tent, Kula pulled Fenna's sledge bag out from behind a packing crate. He let her rummage through it while he lit the wood-burning stove, peeling off his smock as the temperature inside the tent rose. He picked at the holes in his thermal top while Fenna arranged the items from the sledge bag on the flimsy cot beside the stove. She placed the spare battery for the satphone beside the antenna, spare ammunition for the Glock and a handful of bullets for the Webley. She pulled the pistol out and handed it to Kula. He turned it one way and then the next.

  “Good for bears,” he said, admiring it in the yellow light of the tent.

  Fenna nodded and pulled spare clothes out of the bag, together with the component she had unscrewed from the satellite. She tossed it onto the cot and unzipped her jacket. Fenna turned her back to Kula as she peeled off Maratse's spare clothes and replaced them with her own thermal layers, olive drab windpants, thick socks and a Norwegian wool sweater. She paused before pulling the sweater over her head and turned to look at the hunter.

  “Dina wore this,” she said. Kula raised his eyebrows in silent affirmation. “Where is she?”

  “I don't know.”

  “But the sledge? The gear?”

  “I found the sledge and your dogs on the ice. Alone. They were tired,” he said. “I brought them here and fed them. Then I went to look for Dina.”

  “You found nothing?”

  Kula pointed at the satellite phone Fenna removed from Maratse's jacket. “I found that,” he said. “On the ice.”

  “But no trace of Dina?” Fenna sat down on the cot as Kula set a black kettle on the rusty stove. “Kula,” she said. “Do you think Dina is still alive?”

  Kula fiddled with two enamel mugs, preparing a mug of strong tea with lots of sugar for both of them before he answered. “Iiji,” he said. And then, “Maybe.”

  Fenna thought about the distance the dogs had travelled. Even with a light sledge, it was a long way. A few hundred kilometres. When the going was good, a Sirius patrol with a fully-loaded sledge averaged fifty kilometres a day. Dina had travelled four times that distance, perhaps stopping to feed the dogs, and to dump the satellite. That's what I would have done. It's just dead weight.

  Kula handed Fenna a mug of sweet tea and fished inside a cardboard box for a packet of ship's biscuits – hard crackers full of fat. Fenna nibbled at one as she replaced the battery in the satphone. The cold had sapped it of energy, but there was just enough power to check the call history. She turned the display towards Kula and pointed at the last three numbers dialled.

  “That's Daneborg,” Fenna said and pointed at the last of the three numbers. “I made that call when we found the satellite.” Kula nodded and pointed at the second number.

  “Me,” he said and took a sip of tea.

  The last number was a long one that Fenna didn't recognise. “And this one?” she said.

  Kula shook his head and brushed biscuit crumbs from between the hairs of his trousers.

  Do I call it? Fenna wondered and rested the satphone in her lap. She powered off the phone and placed it on the cot. Kula handed her the Webley and she added it to her gear.

  “What did Dina do for work?” she asked.

  “She worked on a ship, as a guide.”

  “A guide,” Fenna said and glanced at the satphone. Then she would be familiar with satellite phones. “Who did she work for?”

  Kula shrugged and sipped his tea.

  “She spoke Danish and English?”

  “Iiji,” he said. “and East Greenlandic.”

  “How long had she been a guide?”

  “Three years,” Kula said. He put down his empty mug and stood up. He reached behind the stove and plucked a faded photograph from its place on a wooden shelf tacked between two crates. He handed it to Fenna. “When she graduated school,” he said. Fenna smiled at the glow of pride that flushed the hunter's wrinkled cheeks.

  “She looks so young,” Fenna said.

  “1991.”

  “The year she graduated?” Fenna said and frowned.

  “The year she was born.”

  “Okay,” she said and handed the photograph to Kula. He smoothed a wrinkled corner with his thumb and returned it to the shelf.

  “Dina,” he whispered and sat down. On the cot opposite Fenna. She waited for him to speak, but Kula closed his eyes and took several breaths before he said another word. Fenna emptied the sledge bag while she waited. Other than the spare clothes and the Webley, the spare battery was the only other useful item. She slipped the pistol and phone into the bag and rolled it at her feet.

  “Sorry,” Fenna said as Kula opened his eyes. “I didn't mean to disturb you,” she said and nodded at the bag. />
  “You didn't,” he said and cocked his head to one side. “Listen.”

  Fenna listened as a breath of chill wind flapped at the tent door. She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, stopping as Kula raised his hand.

  “Helicopter,” he said. “From the south.”

  Fenna heard it then and picked up the sledge bag. She glanced at Kula and he nodded, pulling the smock over his head as he stood up. As an afterthought, Fenna picked up the satellite component and thrust it into the sledge bag, pausing briefly to scan the tent for useful items before following Kula outside.

  The dogs pricked their ears at the sudden activity as Kula pulled Fenna behind the tent to where he had hidden the Sirius sledge. Kula ripped off the plastic tarpaulin and shoved the sledge past the tent, stopping for a moment as Fenna looped the sledge bag over the uprights and helped him slide it down to her team. They wrangled Fenna's dogs into harness and clipped them into the ganglines.

  “There's nowhere to hide,” Kula said and nodded towards the ice. “Best to keep moving.”

  “Where to?”

  “Out there,” he said and gestured into the distance. Fenna peered in the direction he pointed and squinted at the grey fog lapping at the ice to the east. “We can lose them in the fog.”

  “Okay,” Fenna said and tugged Lucifer to the front of the team. Kula had arranged the lines in fan formation. Or was it Dina? Fenna wondered. Once they were through the ice foot maze, running in fan formation would be faster. And speed, Fenna realised, was everything. She turned at the click of a rifle bolt and watched as Kula slung it around his chest. It was a small calibre with a rusty barrel and a sling made of bailing twine, but Fenna didn't doubt the old man knew how to use it. Kula grinned and pointed two fingers at the sky, shaking his hands and spluttering like a machine gun.

  “Yes,” she said. “If only we had one of those.” Fenna stopped as her stomach turned a somersault. She steadied herself with a hand on the uprights, before checking the sledge and walking the gangline to fuss the dogs.

  “Fenna,” Kula said as he joined her at the head of the team.

  “Yes?”

  “Go east, into the fog, all the way to the open sea.”

  “And then?”

  “North, to Daneborg.”

  “Yes,” Fenna nodded. It made sense to try to get to the Sirius base. “It's a long way.”

  “Iiji,” Kula said. “And dangerous.”

  “Because of them?”

  “Eeqqi,” he said and wrinkled his brow. “Because of bears.” He pointed at the sledge bag. “Keep the pistol close.”

  “I will.”

  “Good,” he said and paused at a new sound whining beneath the whop whop of the helicopter. “Snowmobiles.”

  Fenna brushed her hair behind her ear and listened. “Two of them,” she said.

  “Go,” Kula said and waved Fenna towards the ice. “I’ll follow you.”

  Fenna watched as Kula jogged back to his own team. He slid the rifle from his shoulder and secured it between the cords criss-crossing the thwarts on his sledge. Kula pushed a plastic fish crate onto the sledge, fastened it and then heaved a clear plastic sack of dried fish into the crate.

  He thinks of everything, Fenna mused before the whine of the snowmobiles forced her into action and she ran to the rear of the sledge.

  “Come on boys,” she yelled and pushed at the sledge uprights. Lucifer tugged at the harness and picked a route through the jagged barrier of the ice foot and down onto the sea ice. Fenna found her skis tucked beneath a cord on the sledge and clipped them into her boots as the dogs paused for direction. She turned to see Kula move his team through the ice to join her, and flicked her head to the south and west for sign of the snowmobiles. Fenna saw the helicopter first, the same one that had landed at the cabin. “Burwardsley,” she said and suppressed a tremble through her body. She reached into the sledge bag and tucked the pistol into the waistband of her windpants. “This time, you British bastard,” she said. “We'll see who owns the ice.”

  Kula whistled that he was ready and his sledge shushed past her. He tossed Fenna the sealskin mittens and clapped his hands for his team to pick up speed. Lucifer jerked Fenna's team into motion and she slipped behind the uprights as the helicopter worked its way overland towards Kula's camp. Fenna glanced over her shoulder as the snowmobiles whined around the point.

  “Come on, boys,” she yelled. “Let's go.”

  Chapter 19

  The remnants of call-sign Fever Dog clawed at the ice. Nine dogs and one bitch raced after the hunter's team of ten lean dogs and Maratse's additional seven. The ice was smooth, with only the occasional ridge or bump to jar their progress. Fenna alternated from the left to the right-hand side of the sledge, correcting the team depending upon Kula's course towards the open sea.

  The petrel grey fog licked at the ice in the distance and Fenna blinked at a cream blur ahead of the team. Polar bear, she wondered only to have Lucifer confirm it as the lead dog slowed to sniff the air, much like when the team had encountered the wolf. Kula's dogs had spotted it also, and the distance between the two sledges increased. The whine of the snowmobiles behind Fenna turned her head. The drivers hunkered behind the low plexiglas windshields and increased the throttle, leaping ahead and splitting up to flank the sledges, one on either side. Fenna reached for the pistol in her waistband, reassured by the weight. She tapped the butt and returned her hand to the upright as the snowmobiles closed the distance.

  “Come on, boys,” she shouted, her breath misting and freezing in front of her face, it pearled upon her sweater and froze on the fleece around her neck. She licked at the ice beading above her lip and cast another quick glance at the snowmobiles. Burwardsley, she observed, was on the one to her right, his large awkward frame instantly recognisable. She shuddered at the thought of what he would do when he caught up with her. But the fog, Fenna noticed, was thickening.

  She scanned the horizon, twisting her neck to stare at the sky behind her, where the camp should be on the coastline. There was no sign of the helicopter and she couldn't hear the beat of its rotorblades above the grating of the runners on the ice and the incessant buzz of the snowmobiles. And the bear, she remembered and flicked her eyes to the horizon. Where is it?

  Burwardsley was the first to draw his weapon, the snap of the bullet from his Browning caused Fenna to duck and ski to the other side of the sledge. She watched as Kula tugged his rifle free of the cords on his sledge. He dropped to one knee and leaned against the uprights, tracking the approach of the Gurkha on his snowmobile. Kula fired, chambered another round and fired again, forcing the Nepali to swerve out of range. Fenna reached for the Webley only to duck again as Burwardsley fired two shots in quick succession. The second splintered the right runner as it clipped the sledge and skittered across the ice.

  “Fuck it,” Fenna yelled and drew the Webley from her windpants. The handgun was heavy in her hand. She leaned into the left hand upright, curled her left arm around it, and straightened her right arm, pointing the Webley in the general direction of Burwardsley's snowmobile. She pulled the trigger and almost smiled at the reassuring boom, only to feel the shot go wild as her arm flicked with the recoil from the unsupported firing position. Lucifer skittered at the head of the team, but Fenna made her point and Burwardsley throttled down and swung further to the right. She thrust the pistol back into her waistband and swung to the right of the sledge, holding on to the uprights and yelling encouragement to the dogs.

  “Come on, boys. Let's go.”

  In the confusion of the snowmobile chase and the exchange of bullets, the dogs had all but lost the scent of the polar bear. It came back with a vengeance as Lucifer changed direction, veering to the northeast, and the sledge surged ahead with renewed vigour. Fenna caught sight of the bear as she passed behind Kula's team. The hunter waved his arms into a cross above his head.

  “I know,” she shouted. “I can't slow them.” She braked her skis into a vee only t
o feel the vibration rumble through the bindings and threaten to tear the skis from her boots. Fenna straightened them, placed them flat on the ice and held on.

  Bahadur, she realised, had also seen the bear. He slowed his snowmobile to a stop and pulled the SA80 from the holster he had jury-rigged to the passenger seat. Fenna watched as he slipped off the snowmobile and stepped behind it, resting the assault rifle on the seat, tracking the bear as it loped across the ice. The Gurkha's first shot, however, lifted Fenna's wheel dog off the ice. It tumbled in its traces and slid across the surface as the team continued to chase the bear.

  “Fuck,” she said and drew the Webley. He's going to take out my team.

  Bahadur's second shot clipped the end of the sledge, and Nansen, the second of the two wheel dogs, lost its footing, skidding to its knees and yelping as the rounded tip of the right sledge runner pressed into its back. The dog clawed at the ice and staggered into a running position as its running mate was dragged lifeless alongside it.

  Fenna fired a random shot in Bahadur's direction. As the Nepali ducked she gritted her teeth, rested the pistol on the crossbar between the two uprights, and fired again. The satisfying crack of the bullet piercing the engine casing of the snowmobile brought a smile to her face. She turned away from Bahadur to scan the ice for Burwardsley. She found him, in front of her and to her right. He was trying to cut her off. Fenna looked for the bear and realised that Lucifer had pulled the team to within a few hundred metres.

  If I can get in front of it, I can use it. Fenna let Lucifer lead the team as she worked her way along the sledge towards the sledge knife the hunter had secured just behind the runners. “Thank you, Kula,” she whispered as she pressed her bottom onto the sledge thwarts and let the ice bump her skis. Fenna inched forwards until she could draw the knife and cut the dead wheel dog from its traces. The sledge rode up and over the dog's body with barely a missed beat. Fenna slid the knife back into its scabbard and searched the ice for Burwardsley.

  The Royal Marine was behind her, easing down on the throttle and signalling to Bahadur to run to him. Fenna watched as Bahadur jogged across the ice to Burwardsley. Behind them, the helicopter blurred into view as it thundered towards them, just twenty metres above the ice.