Valena murmured, “And this is where you are telling me something that I never heard.”
He leaned so close that he was almost kissing her. “You never even heard that we found the unit.”
“Never at all,” she said, staring into his eyes. “But there was more.” She waited.
Larry spoke very softly. “The chute was underneath the sled.”
“You mean—”
Larry pressed his lips to her temple. “Precisely,” he breathed. “Someone had purposely bunched up the chute and stuffed the whole works in one of the excavation holes left when they pulled out the first thirteen barrels. Someone had buried it so that it would not be found. And that, dear Valena, is why the reporter with the altitude sickness died in that camp.”
18
THE EDGE OF ANTARCTICA DROPPED AWAY TO THE south as Major Hugh Muller piloted the LC-130 out over the Southern Ocean, willing the craft to move faster than it was built to fly. The man behind him was not doing well.
He turned to look at the stretcher, which they had managed to lift up onto the flight deck and mount on the bench at the back wall. The man’s hand protruded from under the fleece blankets they had wrapped around him. It was gray.
Hugh returned his attention to his job, to the controls, to anything that would occupy his mind and help him think positively.
The evening was clear and the air was still, and the miles of ocean slid by, turning increasingly gray as the sun dipped toward the horizon. It would be dark by the time they reached Christchurch. Too bad; he always loved to watch the cloud-shrouded islands of New Zealand slide down over the horizon. Ao Tea Roa, the Maoris called it: the Land of the Long White Cloud.
As they crossed sixty degrees south latitude, Major Marilyn Wood’s voice reached his ears through his headphones. “Leaving grid navigation,” she said, referring to Antarctica’s system of grid lines laid parallel and perpendicular to the Greenwich meridian. In the world north of the Antarctic Circle, lines of longitude approached parallel, but over Antarctica, the lines of longitude converged until they were too close to be useful for navigating, necessitating the grid system. And the magnetic south pole was somewhere off the coast and in the ocean.
Hugh looked at the compass in front of him. From its grid course of 170, it spun 180 degrees, coming to rest pointing 350 in the standard system, his bearing for Christchurch.
The minutes rolled past, and a lengthening twilight covered the sea. His copilot yawned and stretched, then murmured that he was going to get a cup of coffee. He glanced at his wristwatch; it was 1100 Zulu. That made it 2200 McMurdo and New Zealand time. Back home in New York it would be 0600. His wife would be waking soon, putting on the coffee, putting the dog outside to do its business. In half an hour his younger daughter would awaken, then his son, and finally his older daughter. She was the night owl in the family, next to him. He loved Antarctica, but he loved his family much, much more.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder. He looked up to see the strained face of the doctor. Her lips moved, but he could not hear her words.
The strange tricks of wave skip over the curve of the earth brought radio calls from San Francisco Approach to his headphones. Home, half a world away, was calling to him. Suddenly, his need to hear his wife’s voice weighed on his heart with a thousand atmospheres of pressure.
19
VALENA HEADED FOR CRARY LAB TO RETRIEVE THE sleeping bag that Emmett Vanderzee had checked out for her and stored in his office. She marched down the path between the buildings, dodging around banks of filthy snow and ice, her mind spinning with the information she had just been given. Was Emmett Vanderzee a killer? Somebody had prevented aid from reaching that reporter, and if James Skehan was correct—that Sweeny had made Emmett’s life a living hell, misstating his findings at a national level, keeping him busy defending his right to do science rather than doing the science itself—then, regardless of Skehan’s assertion that scientists prefer a live adversary to a dead one, Emmett might have seen the chute, chased it, and buried it just to shut the man up.
Was he capable of such an act? She did not know.
She jogged up the wooden steps that bridged the gang of heating pipes that ran between buildings, grinding on these questions.
At the top of the stairs, she stopped, suddenly transfixed by an object mounted on the railing. It was a sundial. She had noticed it before, but it hadn’t really sunk in that it read as a twenty-four-hour clock.
She realized that until this time she had hurried almost everywhere she went like an astronaut so busy doing her job that she forgot to look out the window of the spacecraft. Standing still for the first time, she noticed that a poem ran up the steps and down the other side, carved into the soft pine, an anonymous gift to all who passed this way. And there were unusual objects on the steps. A mobile made of shiny discs. Plastic toys nailed to the wood. And underneath the steps, a scrap metal sculpture of a troll swinging a sword or some kind of axe. The whimsy of McMurdo Station suddenly delighted her.
Putting herself back into gear, she crossed the ground between the steps and Crary Lab. With a smile, she noted that it was beginning to seem usual to get into her office by pulling open a heavy steel door that looked like the entrance to a walk-in freezer. Though it was the reverse walk-into-the-warm-place door.
Inside, she ran down the ramp that led to phase 2, hung a right, and hurried to the door of her office, pulling her key out as she went. As she closed the last few yards of distance, her brain registered a change in the way things looked: the door stood open, and there was nothing whatsoever inside the room except her computer and the furniture that was attached to the wall.
She came to a stop with the key at the ready position, four feet from the yawning doorway. This did not compute. Did she have the wrong phase of the building? No, Vanderzee’s name was still on the plate in the bracket beside the door. She stepped forward and looked inside. Everything, down to the last pen and pencil, was gone. Why?
A man cleared his throat behind her.
She turned. It was Michael, the electrical technician. What was he doing there at ten at night?
“They told the head office to pack up his equipment and ship it to Hawaii,” he said.
“Who told the head office to do that?”
“The feds, I guess. The people from Berg Field Center picked up the field equipment.”
“But I need—”
“Wow, was any of that equipment yours? I got them to leave your computer.”
“No … I…” Yes, that was her laptop and she had taken Emmett’s. Did that make her an accessory after the fact?
“Anything I can help you with?”
Her heart pounded. Somebody had killed that man, just as surely as if they had run a knife through his heart, and now more than ever she wanted to know who had done it. The Black Island traverse was the next task and she needed a sleeping bag in order to join it. She needed to be at Building 17 with that sleeping bag at 7:00 a.m. “When does Berg open?”
“I don’t know. Seven-thirty? Eight?”
Valena began to tremble. Just when things were looking up, they came crashing down.
“Hey,” said Michael. “You look like your puppy died.”
The trembling was getting worse. She could feel her lips begin to go. “I n-need a sleeping bag,” she said.
Michael stepped toward her and put his arms around her, scooping her up into a great, warm hug. “There,” he said. “There.”
The tenderness of that hug unhinged her and she leaned against him, fighting tears. “I’m just so—I don’t know what to do!”
Michael ran his hands down her back, stroking her like a kitten. He said, “Surely there’s another sleeping bag to be had in this great expanse of ice. When do you need it?”
“Seven tomorrow morning. I—I’m supposed to help drive some equipment up to Black Island.” With that, she remembered that there was another person whom she could call on for help. Matt. Tractor Matt. Because m
embership is free, lifelong, and irrevocable … Her tears immediately began to subside. She straightened up, wiped her cheeks with her sleeve, and said, “How can I get in touch with Matt?”
“I don’t know. Matt who?”
“I don’t know his last name.”
Michael let his hands drop from her shoulders. “Come with me.”
Valena followed him up to the library at the top of the lab and watched as he sat down at one of the computers there. He woke up the screen and clicked quickly through a menu that brought him around to what looked like a phone list. “Matt with two t’s, right?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, that’s the standard spelling.” He typed the name and clicked the mouse. “Okay, we have three Matts in McMurdo just now. Not bad, out of twelve hundred people, a third of which are women. One’s a cook. Looks like the second is in the carpenter’s shop. And number three is Fleet Ops. What’s your guess?”
“He had a khaki parka.”
“That rules out the kitchen. You’ve described a tradesman, so he’s either a carpenter or a heavy equipment operator. What else do you know about him? Who introduced him to you?”
“He—” The wheels inside Valena’s mind were finally turning again. “Wait, he knew the Boss, who’s in charge of the people who are driving out to Black Island. Is that Fleet Ops?”
“Bingo. Here’s his number.” Michael pulled a pen out of his pocket, wrote the number on the palm of his hand, got up, crossed to a telephone, and dialed. When the call was answered, he said, “Excuse me, but I got a young lady here in search of a sleeping bag. Can you help her?” Grinning, he handed the phone to Valena.
“Yes, is this Tractor Matt? Oh, thanks. Yeah, I thought I could get the one out of the lab, but no dice. Can I still borrow yours? Hey, thanks. Yeah, just drop it off at Building 17, and I’ll get it there. You’re a champ.”
After hanging up the phone, Valena turned to Michael and threw her arms around him, mashing a huge squeeze on him. “Thank you, Michael.”
“Hey!” said another male voice from somewhere behind her. “I hear love blooms even in this cold excuse for a continent, but so quickly!”
Valena jerked clear of Michael and turned. It was James Skehan. He didn’t look as big without his ECWs, but that did not abate the embarrassment she felt. It cut like a hot knife clear down to her socks. “We were just—what business is it of yours?” she demanded.
Skehan held his hands up in mock defense. “Whoa! I didn’t mean to step on any tender toes here. Just being sociable. So how goes the detective work?”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw Manny Roig an hour ago at Gallagher’s, and he was telling folks all the questions you were asking. Sure sounds like a Sherlock Holmes job to me.”
Valena felt the blood go out of her face. This was bad. She glanced from Skehan to Michael.
Michael had adjusted his face into a mask of pleasant civility. She realized too late that she was asking an employee of Raytheon to defend her to an NSF grantee, and a very powerful one, at that. Would Skehan, or Roig, or anyone else for that matter go to George Bellamy and report her before she could leave McMurdo Station in the morning?
Skehan’s beard hid most of his expression, and his eyes were equally opaque.
“I think I’ll get some sleep,” said Valena, as she hurried toward the door.
20
THE NEXT MORNING, VALENA DODGED DOWN THE hallway and into the galley exactly as the food lines opened. She carried a day pack that held her essential little yellow notebook, her camera, a water bottle, hat, gloves, and a change of skivvies. Everything else needed for the Black Island traverse she already wore on her body, from two layers of polypropylene underwear right out to her blue FDX boots, wind pants, and big red parka. She quickly filled her water bottle with orange juice, then hurried around the room grabbing anything and everything that would fit in her pockets without soaking through them. She did not want to chance running into George Bellamy or anyone else.
The man standing behind the omelet griddle watched her run past. “Hey, what’s the hurry? Can I fry you some eggs this morning?” he inquired.
“Me?” she asked, stuffing a corn muffin into her mouth.
“You look like an owl in a searchlight factory. Going out into the field?”
“How’d you—”
“You’ve got your big red on. People usually leave them on the coat hooks out in the hall.”
“Oh. I’m …” She looked over her shoulder. A few people had come into the lines behind her and were moving slowly past the homemade granola.
The man said, “I know that look. I had a daughter once, and she got to looking like you do each time some boy she didn’t want to meet up with was chasing her. Come here.”
Valena stepped toward the griddle.
Lowering his voice, he said, “You that young thing who’s going to Black Island with Fleet Ops?”
“I—”
“Just tell me what you want on your eggs. Thing is, you don’t want an omelet, because that stuff that’s already whipped up is made from a box. These eggs over here are still in the shell. See? Now, here …” He pointed at a row of small stainless steel bins with his spatula. “These are toppings you can have. What you say is, ‘Give me three fresh eggs with,’ well, whatever you want on them. Then you put this thing on”—he handed her a paper chef’s hat—”and you head through that door into the kitchen. Back beyond that big, gruff guy who’s baking bread—don’t mind him, his face broke like that ten years ago—you’ll find a little office or two, nice and private. Young ladies need good nutrition and a place to sit down so they can hope to digest it. Okay? I’ll make your eggs up and send them along to you. Now, what do you want on it?”
Valena managed a faltering smile. “I’ll take cheese, black olives, and mushrooms, please.”
“Good enough. When you’re done eating, the folks back there will hand you a box of flight lunches to take up the hill to the Boss. Anything else you need?”
“No, sir, I think that’ll do it.”
“Git.”
Valena got.
At a quarter to seven, she left Building 155 by the dock door beyond the kitchen carrying the box of flight lunches. Turning her face away from the sea ice, she climbed the hill that led up to Building 17. The call to adventure rose in her heart, and it was time to get the hell out of McMurdo. The place was making her crazy with its strange mixture of kind people and frontier-town haggardness. And if the Boss had any trouble making his need of her free assistance stick with the NSF, it would be to her advantage—and his—if she could not be located in McMurdo.
It was a bright, cloudless day with little wind. She could see why the Boss wanted to take advantage of the weather to get his crew out to the telecommunications station. She turned and walked backward up the hill so that she could look out across McMurdo Sound. Black Island seemed to float above the glistening ice, a vague slash of distant volcanic rubble rising from the frozen sea. Sixty miles was a long way to go on a tractor. I’m going to drive a Challenger! she told herself.
Turning back around, she continued her climb with a big, fat smile on her face. Presently, she heard the crunching foot-falls of another pedestrian on the road. Glancing nervously over her shoulder, she saw a woman carrying an orange duffel. She was a freckled kind of pretty, her cherry-glossed lips a contrast above the collar of her Carhartt jacket, which was streaked with grease and grime. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey yourself.”
The woman grinned, snapping a mouthful of gum. “You must be Valena. I’m Edith.”
“Edith?”
“Yeah, I’m your crew foreman. You’re replacing Steve, right?”
“Right.” Valena’s mouth sagged open. It simply had not occurred to her that her crew would have a foreman, much less a good-looking girly woman.
“I’m starting you out in the Delta with one of the guys,” said Edith, “but then you can take your turn on the
snow machines if you like. We’ll also have a Challenger, but that will be pulling a goose—that’s a sort of plow thing on skis—so with apologies I’m not going to let you learn how to drive it while we’re off the main routes because if you screw up we’re stuck. You can drive it on the way back tomorrow, after we get off the soft stuff. Dave will be driving it. He’ll teach you.”
“Dave.” There was a David on Ted’s list, thought Valena. Manny called him Dave.
“Yeah, he’s our Cat skinner.”
“Not a blaster.”
“Dave? No, he drives a Cat. The blasters are part of another outfit.”
“That’s a common name.”
“You’d be amazed how many Daves we have this year. Some years we’ll have only one Dave and thirteen Alistairs. Anyway, then we got Wee Willy and Hilario. So the Boss says you’ve driven heavy equipment during a potato harvest.”
“Yes, I have.”
“Aces.” They had arrived at a small prefabricated building. “Okay, here we are: Home sweet Building 17. You can load those lunches straight into the cab of the Delta.”
Valena turned. Instead of a passenger box on the back, this Delta had a flatbed on which had been loaded a huge PVC water barrel, several large wooden packing crates, and a heap of bamboo poles tipped with bright nylon flags. There was a short person on top of the load dressed in Carhartts. He was wrangling a water hose into the barrel to fill it. This will be either Dave, Wee Willy, or Hilario, she presumed.
She got the box of sack lunches up into the Delta, taking a moment to look the machine over more carefully than she had when she had been a mere passenger on her way to Happy Camp. Its wheels were almost as tall as she was. It had a huge engine mounted behind the front axle and the cab, which was a six-foot cube cantilevered out in front, hanging about shoulder height above the ground. Unconcerned with aerodynamics, its designers had simply constructed a metal box with square corners, giving the cab the appearance of having been added as an afterthought, like a brick left sitting on a board. It had two doors on each side, with the handles set at the bottom so that she could hope to reach them from the ground. Access to the cab was up metal ladders, the bottom rungs suspended from metal chains. The whole mess had once been red but was now faded to a soft rose, and the forward doors had been embellished with a lovely cartoon of a leaping porpoise above lyric yellow lettering that read FLIPPER. Somehow this did not inspire confidence.
In Cold Pursuit Page 18
