In Cold Pursuit

by Sarah Andrews

  “What did they ask you?”

  “Oh, you can just imagine: If someone’s never been down here, they don’t know how things are. They demanded that someone go out to Dr. Vanderzee’s camp and investigate. They didn’t understand that after February, nobody flies anywhere. The planes and helicopters leave the ice, and there’s no way someone is going to try to make a run up to the mountains in the dark. That would be suicidal.”

  Michael’s gaze drifted toward the window. She saw his jaw sag as he considered what it would be like to be out there in that cold, and in that darkness. The window was tiny, triple-paned, and set in a very thick wall. Staying warm in Antarctica was not a joke. “But something changed,” he said.

  “I came in at WinFly—early September, before Main Body comes in October. Nothing had changed by then. Then two weeks ago the investigators arrived with Emmett. I don’t think I’m supposed to be talking about that, though.”

  Michael ran his thumb and forefinger across his lips, sealing them with an imaginary zipper.

  She looked anxiously over her shoulder. She hadn’t liked the investigators. They had set up shop in the lab manager’s office, which was next door to hers, and they had treated her as if she were their private secretary. “They asked a lot of questions.”

  “I remember them hanging around up there on phase 1, but I didn’t realize who they were until they were gone,” said Michael. “One of them came down here to get a repair on a piece of equipment, but they didn’t tell me what it was for, just as you say.”

  “Right. Real closemouthed.”

  “But they found something that suggested that it wasn’t just death by mischance.”

  “Apparently. I don’t know what they found, but they had the Airlift Wing fly them out there, and when they came back, they came to me and had me phone Chad Hill and tell him to come over. Tell him to come. Imagine. Chad’s one of the two top reps for NSF on site and a federal marshal to boot, and they were ordering him around.”

  Michael’s face glowed with concern. “And then what happened?”

  “Well, Chad said he’d take care of it, as it was his jurisdiction, but they said they were on their way out next flight and wanted Emmett with them.” She had let her voice rise to normal speaking tones, but again dropped it to a whisper. “I was right there in the office with them, because they had me making arrangements for their departure, calling the people at the Chalet. I overheard the whole thing.”

  “That must have been very upsetting for you.”

  “Yes.” This was why Brenda liked to talk to Michael. He understood her feelings without having to be told, a gentleman in the truest sense of the word.

  “You look like you need a hug.”

  “Oh, boy, do I.” She sighed, and stood up to meet him as he wrapped his big, strong arms around her and squeezed. This was the best and worst thing about Antarctica all in one: How kind everybody was, and how desperately she needed their kindness, considering how deeply she missed her friends and family back home. It was wonderful coming to the ice. The landscape was more beautiful than anyone could imagine, and the community was wild and full of fun. But always there was that longing for those who were not here with her.

  Michael patted her hair, cuddling her closer to his massive chest. “There,” he said. “It’s okay. There. And don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye out for your little gal Valena.”

  7

  VALENA WENT STRAIGHT FROM CUPCAKE’S DORM ROOM to the building with all the antennae on it, in search of Mac Ops. It was building number 165, according to the little map she had picked up at the in-brief.

  She climbed up the stairs over the pipes that ran between buildings and down into a bald gravel yard, then let herself in through the main door, which, like most doors in McMurdo, was built to keep out the cold. The hallway inside was narrow and led unceremoniously through a catacomb of offices to a staircase, which she climbed. At the top of the stairs she came across a man sitting behind a desk. Arrayed around him were maps and charts of the continent. “Can I help you?” he inquired.

  “I’m looking for Mac Ops.”

  “Down that way. This is the weather station.”

  Valena headed down another network of hallways and again got lost. She found a room labeled 109AW SKIER OPERATIONS. Inside were two men in uniform. “Can I help you?” asked one. His name tape read LANSING.

  She stepped into the doorway. “Well, I’m looking for Mac Ops, but do you guys fly those LC-130s lined up out there on the ice?”

  Lansing pointed at the dry-mark board he had been writing on. “Yes, ma’am, we do. That’s all the flights that are scheduled for the next week, though it looks like the weather’s going to dish up some cancellations. Storm coming.”

  “My bad luck. I’m going to Happy Camp tomorrow.”

  “A little storm will add verisimilitude to your exercises. They won’t have to put five-gallon white buckets on your heads to simulate a whiteout.”

  “They really do that?”

  “I’m not making that up, Ms….Walker,” he said, reading her name off the tag on her parka.

  “Valena,” she said. “And you’re Mr….I don’t know your rank…Lansing.”

  “Master Sergeant John Lansing at your service.”

  She awarded him a smile, thinking she might possibly harvest some information here. She decided to oil the gears with some background chat. “Thank you. So this is a military base?”

  “Not exactly. McMurdo was built as a Navy base back in the fifties, but they pulled out in the nineties. The US Air Force flies the C-17s and we fly the LC-130s. The lone C-130 out there belongs to the Kiwis, the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The US Coast Guard brings in the icebreakers. Otherwise, McMurdo is now civilian.”

  “Are the planes here year round?”

  Lansing shook his head. “No, ma’am, the fuel lines would freeze. We fly our birds home to New York.”

  “New York?”

  “We fly out of Stratton Air Force Base, near Schenectady. We’re with the New York Air National Guard.”

  “So this is something you do just a few weekends each year? How do you get all the way down here in that time?”

  Lansing chuckled. “Not all guardsmen are weekend warriors. Skiers are full-time. I came down a few weeks ago. I’ll go home for Christmas, then back again in January and February, to wrap up the season.”

  “Hah,” said the man who was sitting behind the desk. He had settled back in his swivel chair with his hands folded across his fatigues to listen to the conversation. “You aren’t going home for Christmas. They’ll keep you in this jug until you’re gray and pushing a walker.”

  Lansing lifted his chin at his compatriot. “I’m already bald, so what’s to go gray?”

  “You’re a long way from home for a long time,” said Valena. “You must miss your families.”

  Lansing acknowledged this with a brief pursing of his lips.

  “So then, it’s not just a jug to you. What is it, the setting or…?”

  “The food,” said the man behind the desk.

  Lansing raised an eyebrow at his colleague. “I haven’t gained an ounce since high school, which is more than I can say for you. You’re just going to have to lay off those desserts.”

  “What does bring you?” asked Valena, now shamelessly pursuing his confidence.

  Lansing pondered a moment, taking her question seriously. “You’re a scientist, so I’ll assume you always knew what you wanted to do. But me? No. Some of us find our way by trial and error. I was an above-average student, but I didn’t see the advantages of going to college. I was bored with all the hoops you have to jump through. So I decided on a hitch in the military, figuring I’d make a difference by doing my bit for my country, and then pursue my little corner of the American dream.”

  “That’s you,” said the other man. “Our beautiful dreamer.”

  Lansing rolled his eyes eloquently before continuing. “I left for basic training three weeks after gra
duating high school, then went on for advanced training. I spent six years in. When my hitch was up, I got a job as a computer salesman. It was a good job, and I made quite a bit of money selling. But to be honest, my life was a hollow shell.” He shrugged. “Then one day I realized that the only time I felt right—you know, fulfilled—was when I was around my buddies in the Guard.”

  The other man said, “Gosh, honey, I didn’t know you cared.”

  Lansing picked up a pencil and cheerfully threw it at him. It clattered across his desk and into his lap.

  “Hey!” the man said. “Enough with the government property!”

  “So you reenlisted,” said Valena.

  Lansing said, “I was a reservist at that point, but when the opportunity came for me to get a full-time job in the Guard, I jumped at the chance.” He chuckled to himself. “I took a ten-thousand-dollar pay cut, but my self-esteem rose, my self-confidence returned, and once again I’m part of something and making a difference. And I’ve returned to school, heading toward retirement with a degree in hand.” He smiled into space a moment, then brought his attention back to Valena. “But you’ve got something on your mind, and it’s not my life story. What can I do for you?”

  She blushed with the realization that he had seen through her craftiness. She decided to lay it out straight. “I’m working with Dr. Emmett Vanderzee, and I understand that someone from here flew him out to a high camp day before yesterday. I’d like to talk to the pilot. Might that be you, by chance?”

  Lansing laughed. “No, ma’am, I’m just a ground-pounding, nonaviating, enlisted puke.” He sat down at his desk and tapped a few keys on his computer and read from his screen. “You want Major Bentley,” he said. “He’s not here just now. Anything else?”

  “Well… I’m told that your Airlift Wing flew the missions that dropped the medical supplies in his camp last year, and also that you brought the group out after the storm abated.”

  Lansing nodded, a slight movement in a body held upright and straight. The other man glanced back and forth between them, alert but silent. “Again, Major Bentley’s your man.”

  The clock was ticking. Thoughts and associations cascaded through Valena’s mind. Did these men trust her? Could she ever hope to have a life as comfortably structured as theirs, with its built-in sense of belonging? She hadn’t always known what she wanted to do with her life, and in fact wondered if she was all that sure even now. She looked Master Sergeant Lansing up and down, taking in every inch of his uniform. She had considered joining the military—melting into something larger than herself, the ultimate extended family of choice—but had opted instead for scientific pursuits. She said, “Cool. Well, I’ve got to find the radio station.”

  “Mac Ops is down that way. Come back anytime, we love the company.”

  ONE MORE KINK DOWN THE HALLWAY, VALENA FOUND the transmitter station: a room filled desktop to ceiling with radio equipment.

  The array of switches, microphones, telephone handsets, computer monitors, and lighted dials wrapped around two sides of the room, and charts labeled SEA ICE MAP and LANDING LOCATIONS were tacked to the remaining wall spaces. A young woman sat at the center of the desk eating a brownie and sipping from a quart-sized Nalgene water bottle. She turned around in her chair and smiled at Valena. “Hi, can I help you?”

  “Yes, please. I understand that I can call people in a field camp from here.”

  “Sure. Who do you need to call?”

  “His name is Dan Lindemann. He’s somewhere in the Dry Valleys.”

  “There are nine different events out in the Dry Valleys right now. Do you know which one?”

  Valena’s brain suddenly felt tired. “No.”

  “Is he the PI?”

  “The principal investigator? I don’t think so.”

  “What category of event, then?”

  “As in …”

  “Geology, glaciology, biology …”

  “Glaciology.”

  “Well, that narrows it down. Let’s see…” She hit a couple of keys on her computer and referred to a list. “He’s out on Clark Glacier with Naomi Bosch. Do you want me to get him on the radio for you?”

  “Radio?”

  Just then, a slightly garbled, static-ridden voice came in over a speaker. “Mac Ops, Mac Ops, this is Whiskey-218 on Mount Aurora, how read?”

  “Excuse me a moment,” the woman told Valena, then leaned toward her microphone and keyed it. “Go ahead, 218.”

  “Can you pass a message to the Boss at Fleet Ops? Over.”

  “That’s affirmative, 218. Standing by to take your message. Over.”

  “Message follows: Sorry, cannot make Black Island traverse. Over.”

  “Let me read that back. Cannot make Black Island traverse. Is that correct?”

  “Please emphasize my gratitude for the opportunity. I hate to miss it. Thanks for your help. Whiskey-218 clear.”

  “Mac Ops clear.” The woman glanced at a clock. “Naomi’s event number is 1-299. They’re due to check in at eighteen hundred, but they’re a drilling camp, so somebody’s usually near the radio. Do you want me to whistle them back?”

  Valena said, “I take it if I talk to them on the radio, that’s not very private.”

  The woman shook her head. “Depending on conditions, about half of the continent can hear you. Or should I say, everyone who’s tuned in to that frequency.” She smiled uncertainly, wanting to please. “It is the main frequency for all the science events in that area.”

  Valena’s heart sank. The discussion she needed to have with Dan Lindemann was not for anyone else to hear. She stared at her feet, trying to figure out what to do next.

  The radio operator asked, “Do you need to get a private message to them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can write it out and take it down the Helo Ops. Maybe they have someone stopping in that camp sometime soon, and they could drop it off. I’m not sure when you’d get your reply, but it’s better than nothing. Oh, wait.” She tapped a few more keys on her computer. “No, sorry. I was thinking maybe they had an iridium phone out there, or Internet, but they don’t have them at that camp.”

  A hundred miles from the nearest flush toilet, but they might have satellite phones or Internet, thought Valena. “Where’s Helo Ops?”

  “Just down the hill. You can’t miss it.”

  IT TOOK VALENA SEVERAL MINUTES TO FIND HER WAY back out of the building and through the maze of trails and pipelines that led to the road down to the helicopter pads, but at last she succeeded, managing not to slip on any of the ice-glazed banks of snow she had to surmount to make her shortcuts. She could see four helicopters, two larger ones with four blades and two smaller ones with only two blades. She found her way past a dive locker and a gymnasium to the building that housed the offices and storage bays for the helicopter crews. It was closed. Of course, thought Valena. It’s Sunday, everybody’s day off.

  She turned and looked back up at Mac Town. The tumbling architecture of Crary Lab, which had been built in steps coming down the steep hill, seemed forbidding, a palace for people whose professors did not get arrested. She stood for a while with her hands in the warming pockets of her big red, trying to decide what to do next. Back to the galley, she decided. It’s almost dinnertime now, and maybe I can find Major Bentley there. Everybody has to eat. But first, I’ll stop through Crary and see if there are replies to my e-mails.

  At Crary, she found only junk mail. Ten losses at computer solitaire followed, further depressing her mood. Finally, she went online and noodled around on the New York Financial News Web site, discovering what she could about Morris Sweeny. Little of significance appeared from her search. He hadn’t been at the paper long before he came to Antarctica and died. But then she noticed something odd: none of his articles were about science. He appeared to report primarily on politics. So why jump onto this story? she wondered. Because it’s political?

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, VALENA ONCE AGAIN BEHELD THE dining r
oom of the galley, this time holding a tray laden with pork chops, canned vegetables, and two desserts. She stared across the room, trying to figure out which of the uniformed personnel present flew the LC-130s. She felt an urge to march back over to Cupcake’s room and demand that Ted point out Major Bentley, but she imagined that Cupcake and Ted were by now either pretty well gassed up and taking the kind of flight that doesn’t leave the room or sleeping the good sleep that should follow it.

  At last she sorted out the insignia on the fatigues worn by several of the people who were sitting at the table nearest the coffee urns and soft-serve ice cream dispenser. There were no empty chairs at the table, but Valena sucked up her courage and said, “Hi, I’m looking for Major Bentley.”

  A man with a graying buzz-cut and military-short mustache leaned back and gave her a friendly smile. He swatted one of his mates on the elbow and said, “Hey, you were just leaving, give the lady your seat.”

  The man jumped up, nodded courteously, and disappeared with his empty tray.

  Valena sat down. “Are you Major Bentley?”

  “Nope. He’s not here. Anything I can help you with?”

  “Know where I can find him?”

  A slender woman dressed in olive drab fatigues said, “He’s in New Zealand. He’ll be back tomorrow, weather permitting, though the weather does not look like it’s going to permit tomorrow.”