Tundra

by Tim Stevens

  ‘You know about permafrost, right?’ Montrose said.

  Purkiss nodded. ‘Soil or rock that’s remained below the freezing point of water for at least two years.’

  ‘The permafrost in this part of Siberia is around three kilometres deep. On top of it, there’s an active layer, a covering of soil and sediment which freezes and thaws seasonally. The active layer’s where we find our interesting stuff. In my case it’s microbes. Here at Outpost 56-J the active layer doesn’t often get cold enough to completely freeze. That means it’s a virtual paradise for the likes of me and Medievsky and Budian.’

  To Wyatt, Purkiss said, ‘What sort of data will you be gathering here?’

  ‘Wind profiling,’ said Wyatt. ‘Come on. I’ll show you.’

  Purkiss pulled his goggles down once more and followed Wyatt out into the cold. He strode behind the man, watching his back. Was Wyatt intending to confront Purkiss directly, to tell him he knew who he was and why he was there?

  Twenty yards or so from the hut, a squat canvas shape stood alone on a flat stretch of ground. Wyatt removed the canvas cover. Underneath was something that looked like a large, functional office desk, with a square dish mounted on the top and facing skywards.

  ‘This is a SODAR system,’ said Wyatt. ‘SOnic Detection And Ranging. It measures wind speeds at different heights, and the thermodynamic structure of the troposphere. That’s the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere.’

  He moved around the instrument, pointing out working features, talking with a scholar’s earnestness about the uses to which it might be put and the scientific benefits thereof. To Purkiss he sounded like an expert lost in his topic and eager to convey a sense of its importance to a lay person.

  He didn’t sound like a man who had something to hide, and had just met the person who was there to expose him.

  Purkiss acted his own part, asking questions, requesting clarification now and again. At no point did he get personal, asking Wyatt how he come to pursue this line of work. Those weren’t the sort of questions for a field trip.

  When the conversation had run its course, Purkiss headed back towards the hut, grateful for the warmth within. He found Clement there on her own, seated with a mug of coffee in hand and a dictaphone in the other. She stopped in mid-word.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Purkiss. ‘Should’ve knocked.’

  Clement gave another of her faint smiles. She nodded at the coffee urn. Purkiss helped himself, taking it black and scalding. He’d been intending to go out and find Montrose, but the coffee gave him an excuse to linger in the hut a little longer.

  ‘Recording your observations of me?’ he asked. It was rude of him, and gauche, but it was something that would have come up eventually.

  She raised her eyebrows mildly. ‘Of course. I probably creep you out at first. But you’ll get used to me. The others did.’

  ‘You’ve had no opposition at all?’

  ‘Oh, some. But this is what I do. I study groups of people in unusual workplaces. Remote research facilities, oil rigs, air traffic control stations. By their very nature, the staff there are under pressure. It’s normal for people to feel uneasy with me hovering around. As I say, they get used to it.’

  She tipped her head a fraction. ‘Your question’s interesting, though. Why did you ask it? Have you experienced opposition since you arrived here, Mr farmer?’

  ‘John.’

  ‘John, yes.’

  Purkiss shrugged. ‘I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours. It’s too soon to tell how I’m going to be received.’

  ‘Evasive answer, John.’ Her smile was gently chiding. ‘I’ve noticed a few things. A few looks people have been giving you.’

  Purkiss’s interest was piqued. He decided to make the first move. ‘Well, Ryan Montrose doesn’t seem to like me much.’

  ‘I’ve seen that, yes.’

  ‘Neither does Dr Keys.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why?’

  He thought she’d become coy, and cite confidentiality or something. But then he remembered these weren’t her clinical patients. They were simply people she was observing. ‘Doug Keys is annoyed with everybody. It’s not personal in your case. He’s a fairly competent doctor - I sustained a suspected wrist fracture after a fall on the ice a few months back, and he was entirely professional in his approach to me - but not what you’d call a people person. And he’s nearing retirement, which can’t come soon enough for him. He’s open about that.’

  ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘You mean the restlessness, the sweating?’ Clement raised her eyebrows, seeming to approve Purkiss’s sense of detail. ‘He’s diabetic. Not that well controlled, I suspect. He’s often verging on the hypoglycaemic.’

  It made sense.

  ‘What about Montrose?’ said Purkiss.

  Clement hesitated for a second, though it wasn’t through reluctance, in Purkiss’s view. ‘This is pure speculation on my part.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Ryan wants to be head of station. It’s an open secret. He sees himself as the best qualified of the staff, and he quite possibly is. His PhD’s from Princeton, he was a Rhodes scholar. Oleg on the other hand has the advantage of age, and of far more years in the field. He knows his stuff first-hand in a way Ryan doesn’t. It rankles with Ryan, though.’

  ‘Why should he dislike me?’

  ‘Because you’re the journalist who’s going to come away with the impression that this is Oleg’s station, and you’ll write glowingly about his leadership of the place. Ryan will feel further eclipsed.’

  Purkiss thought about it. ‘It’s plausible.’ He took another sip of the coffee, which had cooled so quickly it was hard to believe this tepid brew had burned his lips a couple of minutes earlier. ‘Dr Clement – Patricia – can I ask why you’re telling me all this?’

  Over the rim of her own mug she looked amused. ‘My job is mainly to observe. But also, sometimes, to provoke.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit unscientific? The whole point is that the observer shouldn’t influence what’s being observed.’

  ‘But that’s unavoidable, John. You must know that from quantum physics.’

  The door opened and Montrose appeared. ‘There you are. Want to come and see what I do?’

  Purkiss put down his mug, gave Clement a brief nod and followed Montrose out.

  *

  The first sign that there was a problem was the smell.

  Purkiss was wearing a woollen mask which covered his nose, and his olfactory sense was markedly restricted as a result. But the tang was so sharp and so characteristic that it cut through the barrier.

  They’d spent just over two hours at Outpost 56-J, and were heading back to the station in convoy once more, Wyatt leading the way and Montrose and Clement bringing up the rear. If anything the temperature had dropped since their arrival, and Purkiss felt the cold wrenching and twisting at him.

  The smell was that of fuel.

  Purkiss crouched lower over the controls of the Arctic Cat and peered at Wyatt’s vehicle, fifty yards ahead. There was nothing obviously wrong there, no slick trailing behind him. He risked a look over his shoulder. Montrose’s snowmobile was slightly further back, but it too appeared to be following normally.

  The second sign of something wrong was the spark and flash behind Purkiss and to his left.

  He jerked his head round, saw the flame licking blue-and-orange from beneath the chassis, and reacted by instinct, the answer to the sum fuel plus flame driving his reflexes so that he punched the release on the safety belt and leaped to the right and up and out even without slowing the vehicle.

  The churning white ground rushed towards Purkiss and he braced himself, tucking his head in and raising his arms to cushion the impact of landing. An instant before the snow exploded in his face he felt the blast of light and heat at his back. He landed hard, plunging into the coating of snow so deeply that the bedrock beneath slammed his shoulder, but he welcomed i
t, clinging to it and flattening himself as far as possible because the sound hit him then, the thump-roar of the snowmobile’s engine going up, and he kept his head down because there’d be shrapnel, black ragged chunks of metal speeding at him with lethal force. He felt something whine over his head and bit the numbing frost smothering his face, sucking life and sustenance from it as if it would protect him from a shard of hot steel embedded in his back.

  For two seconds, three, five, Purkiss held his breath, the dissolving snow filling his mouth and disappearing into warm fluid, and suddenly it felt as though he should lie here forever, safe in the tundra’s embrace, the earth shielding him against the madness of the human race that stalked about on its surface.

  The realisations struck him like a pair of tightly-spaced gunshots.

  He was in danger of frostbite.

  More imminently, he was in danger of drowning.

  Purkiss rolled, keeping his head against the ground because he didn’t know what was happening behind him, and looked back. Over the curve of the snow surface he saw a messy ribbon of black smoke spilling towards the sky, many yards away.

  Purkiss sat up, the sudden movement making him feel groggy. To the left, Montrose’s snowmobile had pulled up. To the right, further away, Wyatt’s had veered in an arc and was heading back towards him.

  His own vehicle had ploughed into a bank fifty yards away and was unrecognisable, a smashed and charred pile of flickering metal. Behind it, the ground was furrowed by scorched tracks.

  Purkiss rose to his feet, the world tilting for a moment. His hearing was muffled, a high mosquito buzz in both ears. His shoulder ached, but that was good. The ability to feel was good.

  The cold drove its blade deep into his viscera.

  Wyatt’s Arctic Cat eased to a halt a few yards away. The man was off the vehicle and running. For an instant, Purkiss readied himself, searching the approaching silhouette for the glint of a weapon of some kind.

  ‘Farmer. Are you all right?’ Wyatt’s voice was a shout against the wind.

  Purkiss reeled, the reality of the situation catching up with him; because he wasn’t all right, not in the slightest.

  ‘Fine.’ He grasped Wyatt’s extended arm, steadied himself, staring at the twisted wreckage of the snowmobile.

  Montrose came loping over, Clement stumbling a few paces behind him.

  ‘What the hell?’ Montrose hung back, as if Purkiss was likely to detonate the way the vehicle had.

  Purkiss arched his back, flexed his limbs. ‘Fuel leak,’ he said. The white noise in his ears made him uncertain whether or not he was speaking loudly enough to be heard.

  ‘How’s that again?’ Montrose leaned in.

  Purkiss stared at him, at the man’s half-obscured face beneath its layers of wrapping. He looked at Clement, beyond. Then at Wyatt.

  ‘The fuel tank leaked,’ he said. ‘It sparked, and caught fire.’

  As one, the others gazed at the hissing pyre in the near distance. Purkiss studied them in turn. Montrose. Clement.

  Wyatt.

  The silence bore down heavily, nullifying everything but the crackle of the rising smoke and the thin howl of the wind.

  Eight

  ‘Out of the question,’ said Haglund.

  He stood, tall and burly, his head lowered, truculence set in his face, distress twitching at it.

  ‘It’s not out of the question at all,’ said Purkiss. ‘It’s one of several possibilities.’

  They were all there, the entire team, for the first time. The living room could have seated all nine of them, but nobody appeared to want to sit down. Even those who had taken chairs, Oleksandra Budian and Avner, looked ill at ease. Only Clement sat quietly, without restlessness, gazing at Purkiss.

  ‘A complete assessment of the vehicles’ functionality,’ said Haglund. ‘I conducted it immediately before you set out.’

  ‘You might have missed something.’ Purkiss said it neutrally. The Swede raised his head, stared into his eyes.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Medievsky pushed himself away from the wall, unfolded his arms. ‘Okay. No arguing.’ He stepped forward, not quite between Purkiss and Haglund but positioning himself so that he made it clear he would intervene if he had to. ‘It is highly unlikely that the leak was present before you set out. Highly unlikely, but – and you have to admit this, Gunnar – not impossible. So. The other explanations are that the fuel tank was damaged on the way to the outpost, or that the fault occurred on the return journey.’ He looked at Purkiss, Montrose and Wyatt in turn. ‘Most likely it was this last scenario. I ask again: was there any obstacle in the terrain which might have caused the damage?’

  After a moment’s silence, Montrose said, ‘Nothing I saw, or felt.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Wyatt. ‘And we were riding in convoy. It was a straight route, Oleg. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

  Haglund hadn’t taken his eyes off Purkiss. ‘Something about the way you handled the machine?’

  Montrose spoke up first. ‘No, Gunnar. He rode it well. I was right behind him.’

  They’d arrived back at the station ninety minutes earlier, the remaining snowmobiles side by side, Purkiss on the back of Wyatt’s. Halfway there, the all-terrain truck had approached from the opposite direction, slowed briefly, then moved on as Montrose waved it past. Montrose had called the station on his satellite phone before they’d set off. Purkiss saw two men’s indistinct shapes through the truck’s windscreen as it passed: Haglund and Medievsky.

  The truck had returned to the station three quarters of an hour after the snowmobiles, the remains of the ruined Arctic Cat salvaged. Purkiss was in the living area, drinking sweet tea and surrounded by the others, most of whom peered at him with a combination of alarm and embarrassment. The medic, Keys, had given him the once-over in the infirmary, checked his limbs and his lungs, muttered a terse: ‘You’re okay.’

  Haglund said: ‘I will examine the vehicle in more detail. But I have to say there’s not much left. The tank is completely gone, and there is no way of telling how large the fault was, or what caused it.’

  On the sofa, Avner swept a hand across his face, murmured, ‘Jesus, man. Hell of a fuckin’ welcome.’

  Purkiss said to Medievsky, ‘Can I talk to you in private?’

  There was a shifting in the room, a collective tensing. Purkiss glanced at the others. Avner and Budian looked away. Montrose frowned at his hands. Wyatt raised his eyebrows, while Haglund glowered.

  Keys rubbed his forehead, and Purkiss noted the sweat-slick on the man’s palm.

  Clement’s eyes were flicking over the others in turn.

  ‘Of course,’ said Medievsky.

  They walked in silence to his office. Purkiss was aware of Medievsky brooding beside him. Once inside, Medievsky remained standing.

  ‘My sincerest apologies,’ he said, before Purkiss had a chance to speak.

  Purkiss tilted his head. ‘It could have happened to anyone. It was just bad luck.’

  ‘I am responsible for mistakes made at this station.’

  ‘Oleg, I didn’t ask to speak to you so that I could apportion blame. Field trips in this kind of environment are always going to be potentially hazardous. I accepted the risks, and I still accept them.’

  ‘You do not wish to leave?’

  ‘Far from it,’ said Purkiss. ‘If you’re still happy to have me here, that is.’ He paused. ‘The reason I requested a word in private is that I wanted to make it clear I’m not having a go at Gunnar, or any of your people. Montrose and Wyatt did all they could to ensure my safety out there. I hope you can reassure them of it. They’ll take it better from you than from me.’

  Medievsky looked at him gravely.

  Purkiss went on: ‘The last thing I want to do is create divisions among the staff.’

  ‘Understood. Thank you. I will convey your message.’

  ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to return to my room and clean up a bit.’

 
Purkiss exited on his own, wondering which if either of the lies he’d told Medievsky had been believed.

  The first lie was saying he thought the fuel leak had been down to bad luck. Of course it hadn’t. The tank had been sabotaged.

  The second lie was that he didn’t want to create divisions between the staff. Because one of the chief reasons he’d asked for a private meeting with Medievsky was to sow suspicion and unease amongst them. Their interactions with Purkiss and with each other, the pervasive atmosphere at Yarkovsky Station, indicated that something was wrong. Something was being hidden, or avoided. As yet, Purkiss had no idea what it was. But in such a situation, where some or all of the others were privy to secret knowledge that Purkiss wasn’t, it would give him an advantage to put them on the back foot.

  Medievsky’s own reaction had been interesting. When Purkiss had made his comment about bad luck, there’d been the slightest hesitation before the team leader responded. As if he suspected that luck had played no part in the so-called accident.

  Suspected, or knew.

  As Haglund had said, there was no chance of discovering how the damage to the fuel tank had occurred, not by examining the wreckage left behind. Purkiss assumed the tank had been tampered with while they were at Outpost 56-J. Wyatt would have had ample opportunity to do so, either when Purkiss was in the hut with Clement, or later when he was watching Montrose collect soil and plant samples.

  It was an inefficient means to murder somebody. As it happened, the fuel had caught alight, and Purkiss might well have been killed. But the tank might simply have run dry, rendering the snowmobile useless but hardly stranding Purkiss, because Montrose and Clement had been behind him and would have seen him come to a halt. Which meant that it had been more than a fuel leak. It had been a booby trap of some kind, designed to ensure that the fuel caught fire.

  Not only had Vale’s suspicions about Wyatt been correct, it was clear that whatever secret Wyatt was harbouring, he was prepared to kill to protect it.

  *

  The call came at a little before three in the afternoon, an hour after Lenilko and his team had made the Martin Hughes connection. Already the city beyond the windows had receded into darkness.