by Tom Harper
Another shot made up his mind. As if he’d never been interested in the first place, he turned and loped off.
I would have cheered – but something had stung my face. A splinter, gouged out by the bullet that had just hit the woodwork. Flowing blood warmed the frozen skin on my cheek.
I leaned over the platform edge. ‘Look out,’ I warned. ‘You nearly hit me.’
He put the rifle to his shoulder and sighted it – straight at my head. I rolled away, just as the bullet passed through where I’d been a second earlier and buried itself in the top of the A-frame. It almost did for me anyway: dodging it on the icy platform, I nearly went over the edge. I grabbed for the posts and just managed to hang on, my legs dangling into space. If he’d been quicker with the next round, he’d have had me.
He wants to kill me.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you had to face that? It’s a hell of a thing to realise. All the good things you’ve tried to do in your life, everything you thought was right and important and moral, none of it matters a damn. You’re on your own, and the only question is, can you do what it takes to save yourself? To tell the truth, it’s surprisingly liberating. If you survive it.
The odds didn’t look good. He had a gun; I was stuck on an icy platform ten metres up. But you see the world differently when you don’t have a choice – like a cornered animal.
A little way from the platform, one of the old coal cars dangled from the cableway, like a mine car without wheels. Probably two metres away – two metres of space with nothing underneath except a long drop on to ice, and a man waiting there to kill me. In normal circumstances, I’d never have dreamed of trying to make it. I didn’t even know if the cable would hold, or the rusting arm that the car hung on. But these were pretty far from normal circumstances.
I got to my feet, crouching so he wouldn’t get a clear shot. The gap yawned in front of me, hypnotising me. I remembered something I’d read about basketball, that the mistake most people make is to focus on where they might miss, rather than on the hoop itself. I stared at the coal car, concentrating like mad. It still looked a long way off.
Our minds are fickle things. Even on the highest diving board, there’s a moment your attention wanders and you forget the big drop you’re so frightened of. That’s the moment to go.
I jumped.
In a perfect world, I’d have worn something more flexible than a heavy coat and thick trousers; I wouldn’t have had such stiff legs, or numb hands. But then, in a perfect world I’d not have been there. All I could count on was the adrenalin charging me up, and the focus that comes when there’s no alternative.
I slammed into the side of the car and just managed to hook my arms over the edge. It was like trying to clamber into a boat without capsizing it. The more I pulled, the more it tried to tip me out. My legs kicked air; the rusted metal scraped holes in my jacket. Too late, I realised the whole contraption was designed to swing ninety degrees to tip out the coal.
But twenty-five years out in the cold had gummed it shut. I pressed my arms against the rim, heaved – and was stuck. The radio on my chest had caught on the lip. I heaved some more. Velcro tore; the radio came loose and fell. I popped up like a cork, wriggled forward and somersaulted over the edge with a thud. The car swayed; I waited for something to snap.
It held.
The whole manoeuvre had taken a matter of seconds. Too quick for my enemy to get off a shot, but not by much. I heard the shot and the impact almost simultaneously. The coal car rang like a bell, trembling all around me, but the metal – good, Soviet steel – turned the bullet away.
The sound died. Cowering in the bottom of the coal car, all I could see was the sky, and three cables dissecting it. The bullet’s echo rang in my ears, mingling with the moan of the wind in the wires.
Had he run out of bullets? I counted back in my head. There might have been five shots – I couldn’t think straight enough to be sure – or there could have been four.
Five would be good news. Four was a problem.
Do ya feel lucky? Clint Eastwood enquired.
The metal under me shivered again. Not the hard clang of an impact, but a steady vibration. Tremors were coming through the wire, down into the bucket. Feet climbing the ladder up the pylon.
What could I do to stop him? If he tried to jump, we’d probably both tip out. My hands were so numb now I couldn’t have held a football. Second-degree frostbite, the doctor in my head diagnosed, though at that moment it was a long way down my list of concerns.
The tremors stopped. I had to look. I raised my head over the edge of the bucket – and there he was. The wind puffed out his parka so he seemed more massive than ever, a yellow monster with black eyes, crouching to spring at me.
We stared at each other. If we’d both reached out, we’d almost have touched, but even that close I couldn’t see anything of his face. The hood, goggles and ski mask hid it completely.
‘Who are you?’ I shouted. I don’t know if he heard. The wind whipped my voice away from me.
He spread his arms against the posts of the pylon and leaned back, ready to throw himself at me. Then paused. I saw him look around, checking something.
I’m not a brave man. That face – the mirrored goggles, the slit mouth and what he wanted to do to me – I couldn’t look at it. I must have closed my eyes. From down on the snow, I heard the radio squawking. Eastman at last – but too late, and nobody to answer it.
The vibrations started again. Not the hard impact I’d expected; the gentle knock of feet on a ladder. I opened my eyes.
He’d gone. The vibrations faded, until I couldn’t feel them at all. Only the coal car rocking gently in the wind.
I lifted my head as high as I dared and strained to listen. I thought I heard footsteps, crunching quickly through the snow. Then silence.
I still didn’t dare look. I imagined him waiting behind a rock, my own gun trained on the coal car, ready to shoot the minute I put my head above the parapet. Four shots or five? The first thing Greta teaches you at Zodiac is to count your shots, but it’s harder when it’s your own gun being shot at you. And what if he had his own weapon?
More footsteps, punching through the dry snow at a run. I huddled lower in the coal car.
‘Doc?’
Eastman’s voice. I was shivering so badly I could hardly haul myself over the edge of the coal bucket. I pulled myself up, resting my chin on my sleeve so that the steel didn’t freeze to my skin.
Down below, through the wooden girders, I saw Eastman in his red coat. He had his back to me, walking towards the town.
‘Here,’ I called. My teeth were chattering so hard I could barely speak. I cursed myself for dropping the radio. I tried again – louder, but still not enough to carry.
Eastman turned. Hope soared; I waved like an idiot. But he was looking at the ground, and it’s hard to see ten metres up when you’ve a fur hood around your eyes. He turned away again.
In a fury, I thumped my frozen hand against the coal car. The metal rang: a low, mournful noise like a funeral bell. This would be my coffin. Frozen in the dry air, I wouldn’t rot: I’d stay preserved for centuries, maybe until global warming made coal mining economical again and some future miner got the shock of his life when he dumped the first shovelful of coal in the bucket.
I pounded on the steel. I kicked and thumped. The coal car swayed. Eastman was almost behind the barracks now. When he vanished, that would be that. The angels could sing, and Francis Quam would write an empty note to my daughter in Dublin.
They say low frequencies can travel for miles. I don’t know how far my banging went, but it was far enough. Eastman heard. He turned, and this time – glory be – he looked up. I waved a limp arm at him, saw him start to run. I slumped down in the car.
Shock, cold, adrenalin, terror – I had it all. I could hardly hold on for him to climb the ladder. At last his face appeared over my steel horizon.
‘What the h
ell are you doing in there?’
Twenty
Kennedy
Eastman stood where the monster had been a few minutes before, so close we could almost touch. But those last two metres were a problem. I couldn’t jump back to the pylon – the coal car wasn’t a stable platform, even if I’d had the strength – and the idea of me swinging along the cable like a monkey was laughable, if I’d been in the mood for humour.
Quam liked to say that in a place like the Arctic, procedure will save your life. Ever so pompous, but it’s true. Procedure says that any party in the field has to carry a survival pack, and in that pack there’ll be a thirty-metre length of nylon rope. Eastman fetched the pack and found the rope.
‘Can you tie it round yourself?’
I shook my head. I hadn’t stopped shaking since he got there. He frowned.
‘OK.’
He tied a carabiner to the rope end, so I could clip it around me without having to knot it, and tossed it to me. He looped the rope over the steel hawser, wrapped a couple of turns around one of the wooden posts, and lowered me to the ground. Not gentle, but I was in no state to care. I almost kissed the ground when I landed.
He dragged me to the nearest building and found a room where the walls were tolerably intact. It wasn’t any warmer than outside, but he shoved me into the bivvy bag and got the MSR stove going. We didn’t speak. For now, the priority was survival. The blood coming back in my hands made me cry out in pain: they’d look pretty ugly in a week or so. At least I had feeling.
Eastman warmed some chocolate between his hands for me, and chipped icicles off the building outside. While they melted, he made me a cup of sweet tea with water from our Thermos. The heat from the cup sent tremors through my hands; when I sipped it, I thought my teeth would explode. I forced it down.
‘You picked one hell of a time to play hide and go seek,’ Eastman said.
I told him everything that had happened. I didn’t think he’d believe me – with a cup of tea in my hand, I hardly believed it myself – but he never challenged me. I was grateful for that. If anything, he seemed slightly distracted. He kept glancing at the door. Perhaps he was worried the gunman would come back. I certainly was. Each time the ice popped and cracked in the pot, I imagined a heavy footstep on the stairs, that faceless man approaching through the rotten building.
‘DAR-X wear yellow jackets,’ Eastman said when I’d finished.
‘I thought of that too.’
‘You didn’t recognise him? From when we visited Echo Bay?’
‘There wasn’t much to go on.’
The water had finally melted and boiled. He made me another cup of tea, then poured the remainder into two of the dehydrated meal packs.
‘I called Jensen. He was heading back to Zodiac. He has to refuel, then he’ll come right out. Should be a couple of hours.’
I lay back in the bivvy bag. A blissful glow had started warming through me. If I closed my eyes I saw euphoric white light.
Don’t go to sleep, I warned myself. The gunman was still out there. So, for that matter, was the bear. I forced my eyes open.
Across the room, Eastman was giving me a crooked look.
‘What?’
‘There’s another option, of course.’
‘Another option for what?’
‘There’s how many people on this island? A couple dozen, maybe thirty if you count the students? That guy who just tried to kill you, he’s still around. Do you want to go back to Zodiac, wait until he finds us again?’
Extraordinary question. ‘I want to go back to Zodiac so I can get away from him.’
‘Or do we try and get him where we know he’s at?’ Eastman leaned forward, a predatory set to his jaw.
‘Get him?’ I repeated. ‘I’m not John Wayne.’
Eastman picked up his rifle and squinted down the sight. ‘We’ll be ready for him.’
‘And what makes you so sure he’ll come back?’
A bright white grin. Wolfish, you might say, if wolves had access to modern orthodontics.
‘Because you’re still alive.’
And that seemed like a fine reason to go home. Quit while I was ahead. It’s a thin line you walk in the Arctic at the best of times, and I’d very nearly gone over the edge. I needed food, warmth and rest. Then there was the matter of my patients, Anderson and Trond, who needed my care back at base.
But I’d spent days blundering around, and it had nearly killed me. The figure on the cableway terrified me, true, but running away wouldn’t cure that. The only way to escape – really, truly escape – was to get answers.
Eastman called Jensen on the satphone and said we were spending the night. ‘Tell Quam we’ve got high winds at Vitangelsk. We’ll let you know when it’s safe.’
I heard Jensen’s surprise through the speaker. It must have been a calm day at Zodiac.
‘Just tell him,’ Eastman said, and rang off.
‘Do you trust Jensen?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’
I hesitated. I’d spoken without thinking – but now that I had, I wanted to go on. I was too tired for games. And Eastman had saved my life.
‘Someone at Zodiac’s been leaking information to the oil companies,’ I began. ‘Whoever it is, I think that person killed Hagger – either because he was in on it, or because he found out.’
It was the first time I’d mentioned the possibility of Hagger’s murder to him. He didn’t look shocked, not even surprised. He must have been thinking along the same lines.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Hagger was moonlighting for DAR-X,’ I went on. ‘They were up here the day he died, and then they kindly helped bring in his body.’
‘So they were in the same place. Why would they go for Hagger?’
‘You know, it’s not oil they’re drilling at Echo Bay. It’s something called methane …’ I stumbled over the word ‘… clathrate. So bad, it’ll make oil and gas look like eco fuels.’
‘Who told you that?’
I decided to leave Fridge out of it. ‘Hagger found out. I don’t know who else knows. It might be a secret worth keeping.’
Eastman took a silver hip flask out of his coat. ‘JD. You want some?’
I demurred. He took a long swig. ‘If you’re right – and it sounds kind of crazy to me – then Hagger must have been acting alone. He was the only one of our guys up this end of the island that day.’
‘He wasn’t.’ I sat up in the bivvy bag and leaned forward. ‘Ash was, too. Jensen dropped him off right here in Vitangelsk.’
For the first time, I sensed he might be taking me seriously. ‘Jensen kept that quiet.’
‘Ash warned him he’d get in trouble if he told.’
Eastman put away the flask and picked up the rifle. Working quickly, hardly looking, he unclipped the magazine and ejected the cartridges.
‘You think the guy on the cableway could have been Ash?’
I’d wondered. ‘He seemed too big. It was hard to get a good look.’
‘Maybe we’ll get a better view tonight.’ Eastman reloaded the magazine, pressing the bullets down one by one with his thumb. He snapped it back into the rifle and chambered a round.
‘I’ll keep watch. You get some rest.’
As well as the rifle, he kept a flare pistol strapped to his thigh – a snub black thing that looked like a child’s toy. He loaded a flare into the pistol but left it broken open. He put it on the floor next to me.
‘For you. Just in case.’
I didn’t sleep well. My hands ached like an old lady’s; even in the bivvy bag, I couldn’t stop shivering. With my eyes open, the room seemed dark and dim; when I closed them, the night seemed far too bright. Every creak in the building had my imagination working overtime. And every time I started to drift off, the man in the yellow parka reared up in my mind’s eye like a bear, killing my dreams before they began.
But I must have fallen asleep – or I wouldn’t have woken up. Eastman wa
s shaking my arm. The first thing I saw was the rifle on his shoulder.
I glanced at my watch: 4 a.m.
‘What is it?’
‘Come and see.’
I’d slept fully clothed. I pulled on my boots and gloves, and followed Eastman out the door. Even that close to the twenty-four-hour day, some primitive part of my circadian clock picked out the signs of morning: the empty streets, the dewy silence.
I was fooling myself. A ghost town’s streets are always empty, and there hasn’t been dew on Utgard for about ten million years. In the distance, I heard a faint drone like a buzzing fly.
We tramped over the crisp snow to the edge of town. The noise got louder. On my left, the pylons marched away across the ridge. Down the slope, the sun gleamed off a lone snowmobile racing up the valley from the south.
We crouched behind the snow that had drifted against the barracks. Eastman handed me his binoculars and pointed. ‘Is that the guy?’
Through the binoculars, the snowmobile jumped into focus. I could even read the manufacturer’s name: Polaris, the same as we used at Zodiac. A hunched figure in a red suit straddled it, though the glare on his visor hid his face.
‘He looks too small,’ I said. But fear grows in memory. Perhaps I’d misremembered him.
Eastman took a turn with the binoculars. ‘He’s hammering that thing.’
We ducked lower. I expected the snowmobile to turn towards Vitangelsk – there was nowhere else to go – but instead it carried straight on, to the end of the valley and up towards the ridge. The engine whined as it fought the steep slope.
Eastman lay flat on the snow bank. I lay beside him, and watched the snowmobile crawl on up. It swerved this way and that, either to avoid obstacles I couldn’t see, or perhaps because the driver was looking for something.
Eastman gave me the binoculars again. I needed a moment to pick out the snowmobile; when I did, it had stopped, just below the line of the cableway.
The driver got off, walking in that stiff, bandy-legged way you do when you’ve been riding a snowmobile for hours. He must have come from Zodiac. The snowmobile suit, the machine, the rifle on his back – they were all standard-issue equipment.
