Hostage

by Chris Ryan

'Why don't you boys leave us to get on with this,' said Amaruk, seeing the look in Amber's eyes.

  'What about me?' asked Li.

  'I think you should stick around,' said Amaruk. 'You're small but strong. You'd make a good musher.'

  'Yeah!' grinned Amber. 'Stay and keep me company, Li! It's about time someone else fell on their ass for a change.'

  While Li climbed on to the back of the sled to take her turn as musher, Paulo and Hex stumbled off to explore the village, still shuddering with the occasional convulsion of laughter and clinging to one another for support. There wasn't a lot to see. At the centre of the village there was a small school, which doubled as a surgery and village hall. Clustered around the school was a collection of brightly painted wooden houses on stilts, each with its own fuel tank, radio mast and string of dogs outside. In a country with hardly any roads, everyone used snowmobiles, dog teams or small planes to get around.

  Ohoto and Pungar spotted them through the schoolroom windows and dragged Paulo into the building to meet their friends. Hex had arranged to call in on Kikik with his camcorder. She took him to see the young woman and her sick baby. The sad-faced woman gave him permission to film them, once Kikik explained that Hex was building up a record of evidence against Usher Mining Corporation. By the time Hex returned to Amaruk's house, all the laughter had drained out of him.

  He found Amber, Li and Paulo standing by the two loaded sleds, while Amaruk made last-minute checks on the harnesses.

  'Come on, Hex!' yelled Amber. 'We're ready to move out! Amaruk finally gave me the thumbs-up. I can drive the sled! Do you want to ride with me?'

  Hex groaned. 'I'd rather live a bit longer,' he said.

  'Suit yourself.' Amber looked at Li, then Paulo, but they both suddenly became very interested in their feet.

  'Well somebody has to!' exploded Amber.

  'I will,' said a voice behind them.

  They turned to see Alex standing on the house steps. Kikik had dried all his clothes and he was fully dressed. One jacket sleeve hung loose and empty, but that was the only sign of the ordeal Alex had suffered the previous day. Otherwise he looked as fit and healthy as ever.

  'You cannot travel yet,' protested Paulo.

  'Yes I can,' said Alex, not quite managing to hide a wince as he stepped down on to the snow. 'My shoulder's hardly hurting now and I've got my drugs here.'

  'But—'

  'You're not stopping me,' said Alex, clambering into Amber's sled, his grey eyes steely with determination.

  The others knew there would be no arguing with him in this mood. Amaruk opened his mouth to say something, then he closed it again. If Alex felt strong enough to travel, then he was not going to fight with the boy. Kikik would have his hide for taking her patient off for a sled ride, but he would weather that storm when it came.

  'Stubborn as a mule,' muttered Hex, giving Alex a glare before clambering on to the sled behind him.

  Li and Paulo climbed on to Amaruk's sled and Amaruk and Amber took their places as mushers.

  'Ready?' called Amber. 'Let's go!'

  THIRTEEN

  The dogs flattened out, running hard, and the sled runners hissed through the fresh snow. They raced down to the frozen river and turned on to the ice, side by side. The sled runners grated over the pressure ridges, then they were out on to the smooth ice in the middle and heading upriver towards the mine. Amber watched her dogs and noticed that, on their left sides, where the slanting sun touched them, there was no sign of frost, but the thick fur on their shadowed sides glittered with tiny ice crystals, even after an hour of running. It was an exhilarating way to travel, and when Amaruk called a halt for food after two hours, Amber was reluctant to stop.

  While Hex and Li went up on to the bank to collect wood for a fire, Paulo used the hand-operated ice drill to make a hole through the ice. Alex handed over the fishing hooks and lines from his survival tin and watched from the sled as Paulo caught six good-sized walleye and pike in quick succession.

  'They are jumping out of the water!' he cried, grinning at Alex.

  'I know how they feel,' muttered Alex, shuddering at the memory of the freezing water under the ice.

  He threw his knife to Paulo, who used it to gut the fish before threading them on to sticks ready for grilling. The fish guts were added to the bucketful of dry dog food, seal meat and fat cakes that Amber and Amaruk were feeding to the dogs.

  Hex and Li returned with a good pile of fuel, and within five minutes the fire was lit and the fish were grilling.

  'Not bad. Not bad at all,' said Amaruk, looking around approvingly as he put a bucket of snow next to the fire to melt for the dogs' drinking water. 'You work well together.'

  As soon as the dogs had been watered and Alex had taken his next dose of painkillers and anti-inflammatories, Alpha Force cleared the temporary camp and clambered back on to the sleds. They were anxious to get to the mine while there was still some daylight. Amber urged her dogs on, calling out the musher commands with increasing confidence. She was mystified and more than a little disappointed when her team suddenly skidded to an unauthorized halt.

  'Let's go!' called Amber, but the dogs would not move. They danced in place on the ice, whining softly and sending nervous glances towards the stand of spruce trees on the near bank to their right.

  'There must be something up there,' said Alex, peering into the darkness between the trees.

  'Amaruk's team went past without a problem,' said Amber.

  'But they were much further over to the left,' said Alex.

  Papaluk's tranquillizer rifle was tucked into the sled by his leg. He reached under his blankets and eased the weapon half out of its holster. He was not even sure whether he could fire the rifle one-handed, but the behaviour of the dogs was making him nervous and the rifle stock felt reassuringly solid under his hand.

  Up ahead, Amaruk stopped and jammed the snow-hook brake into the ice to hold his team. He clambered from the sled and walked back towards Amber.

  'I'll see if I can lead them past,' decided Amber, climbing from the sled and walking forward.

  'Wait!' called Amaruk. 'Let me check the ice. They may have sensed a weakness.'

  Amaruk and Amber moved slowly towards one another with their heads down, staring at the ice. But Amaruk was wrong. The ice was not where the danger lay. If they had looked up at the trees, they would have seen death hurtling down the bank towards them.

  The moose is the largest member of the deer family. Solitary and fiercely territorial, a single animal can eat up to twenty kilos of vegetation a day and needs a large area of land to support it. A big bull moose can stand two and a half metres high and weigh up to eight hundred kilos.

  This one was a monster. It careered down the bank towards Amber and Amaruk, bellowing with rage and lowering its heavy, flattened antlers. Its territory had been invaded and it was going in for the attack.

  Amber stared at the huge moose charging down on her. She was frozen with fear. She had always thought of a moose as a slightly comical animal, with its long face and bulbous nose, but this was the first time she had come face to face with a charging bull. The lethal antlers had a spread of over two metres and the pointed hooves cut deep gouges in the ice as the moose reached the river and powered towards her.

  Hex leaped from his place behind Alex and began running towards Amber. Li and Paulo had left the front sled and were running back, but Hex could see that none of them were going to reach Amber in time.

  'Amber!' he yelled, and the desperation in his voice brought her out of her frightened trance. She started to run, but she was too late. There was not enough time left to get out of the way. Then Amaruk crashed into her side and rammed her out of the path of the huge beast. Amber went rolling away across the ice as Amaruk stumbled and fell on to his knees in front of Boomer. The moose changed direction slightly, heading for Amaruk.

  In the sled, Alex had reacted quickly. As soon as he saw the charging moose, he had wrestled the tranquillizer r
ifle from its holster with his good arm and lifted the weapon to his shoulder. The rifle was primed with a tranquillizer dart, but Alex found it impossible to hold the long-barrelled weapon steady with one hand. Cursing, he dropped the rifle, tore open his jacket and yanked his other arm out of its sling. Wincing with pain, he lifted the rifle, two-handed this time, and took aim.

  An instant later, the sled jerked forward and Alex was sent sprawling. As the bellowing moose prepared to ram the kneeling Amaruk, Boomer had leaped in front of his master with his teeth bared in a snarl. The beast's antlers hooked Boomer off the ice and sent him tumbling through the air. He screamed as he smacked down on to the hard surface again and skidded across the ice, jerking the other dogs and the sled after him.

  The enraged moose charged after Boomer, catching Amaruk a glancing blow on the side of the head with its hoof as it passed him. Boomer tried to get out of the way but he was hopelessly entangled in the gangline. The moose reared over him and began to smash its sharp hooves down again and again. Boomer twisted back and forth to avoid being trampled, but each movement tangled him ever more tightly in the gangline.

  Hex and Paulo pulled a dazed Amaruk out of the way and Li helped Amber to her feet as Alex once again lifted the rifle to his shoulder. The moose was just a few metres away from him, but it was rearing up, then smashing its hooves down on to the ice and sending shock waves shuddering through the sled. Added to that, the other dogs were scrabbling backwards to get away from the moose and jerking the sled along with them. Alex took a deep breath and concentrated on finding his mark.

  As Alex took aim, Boomer's luck finally ran out. The moose came down on his hind leg. The sharp hooves split the leg open and the huge weight of the beast snapped the bone like a twig. Boomer screamed as blood began to pour from the wound.

  'Hurry! Hurry!' sobbed Amber, as Boomer's scream echoed across the frozen river.

  Alex's eyes narrowed. He squeezed the trigger and the tranquillizer dart hit the moose squarely in the side of the neck. The maddened beast did not feel the impact, but as the drug flooded its system, it stopped, staggered sideways and stood snorting with its head lowered. It took a few steps towards the bank, then its legs folded and it collapsed on to the ice.

  Amaruk scrambled up and ran towards his lead dog. Boomer was panting with pain and fear, but he made a happy whine in his throat when he saw his master. He tried to struggle to his feet, but his injured leg would not work and he collapsed on to the ice again.

  'All right, boy. All right,' whispered Amaruk, falling to his knees and easing the dog's head on to his lap. Boomer made the happy whine in his throat again and lifted his head. As Amaruk bent over him, he licked his master's face, then laid his head down and gave a tired sigh. His eyes fluttered closed and his body relaxed.

  'He is going into shock,' said Paulo, crouching beside the wounded dog. 'And he is losing a lot of blood. We must stop the bleeding and keep him warm.'

  While Paulo searched Amber's sled for the medical kit, Amaruk unharnessed Boomer and carried him over to his own sled. There, he laid the unconscious dog on a pure white polar bear skin and inspected the injury. Boomer's hind leg was twisted out of shape and his haunch muscle was sliced open in a long, curving line. Blood was soaking into the bearskin, but Amaruk was relieved to see that it was leaking steadily from the whole length of the wound rather than coming from one place in pulsing spurts.

  'No major blood vessels torn,' he said, as Paulo hurried over with the medical kit.

  'That is good,' said Paulo, sorting through the kit. He pushed aside Amber's spare insulin pens and pulled out a length of bandage. 'Now, we need two straight sticks.'

  'I'll get those,' said Amber promptly. She had a good idea of what was going to happen next and she did not want to be around to see it.

  'Alex, can you give Li one of your painkillers to crush?' asked Paulo as Amber and Hex hurried away to find the sticks.

  Alex eased the little bottle of pills from his inside pocket, then handed Li his survival knife. 'Use the flat of the blade to crush the tablet,' he said.

  Li nodded and set to work as Paulo looked over to Amaruk. 'Ready?' he asked.

  Amaruk nodded, then took hold of Boomer around the hips, holding him steady. Paulo gripped the leg and eased the two ends of broken bone back into place. He did it as gently as he could but still the pain was severe enough to cause the unconscious dog to jerk and yowl deep in his throat. Paulo bit his lip but kept going until the leg was straight again. Quickly, he began to bandage the leg, and when Amber and Hex hurried back with two straight sticks, he incorporated them into the bandage to act as splints.

  When Paulo had finished, Amaruk took the knife with the powdered painkiller from Li. Gently, he eased open Boomer's jaws and shook the powdered drug on to the back of his tongue. Then he wrapped the dog up in the thick fur of the polar bear skin and made sure he was settled comfortably on the sled.

  'Good dog,' he said. 'Good dog. You sleep well now.'

  Scrubbing his nose with his mittened hand, Amaruk turned abruptly, walked back to Amber's sled and began to sort out the tangled lines. Amber hurried to help him.

  'You'll have to choose a new lead dog,' he said, once the lines were straight again. 'Which one is it gonna be?'

  Without hesitation, Amber walked to the back of the team and unhitched Ice from the gangline. He seemed to understand exactly what was happening and followed Amber to his new place at the front of the team, walking as proudly as a king. Pie whined as Ice was clipped to the gangline in front of her, but Ice turned on her with a snarl and she subsided obediently.

  'Hmm,' said Amaruk. 'Looks promising. See how it goes, Amber. We should turn back,' he continued, as the rest of Alpha Force gathered round.

  'No way,' said Amber. 'Daniel Usher killed my parents! We're not giving up now. We're going to that mine and collecting the evidence we need to convict him, even if we have to walk the rest of the way.'

  Amber looked at the others and they all nodded their agreement.

  'For Papaluk, too,' said Li. 'We have to do it for her.'

  Amaruk looked around at their determined faces, then he sighed. He had not known Alpha Force for long, but already he knew that when they put on a united front like this, there was no arguing with them. 'OK. I'll take you to the mine, but then I must get Boomer back to the village. He saved my life just now. I have to do the same for him. Kikik will stitch him up and set the leg properly.' He looked around at Alpha Force. 'You sure you'll be OK at the mine?'

  'No problem,' said Li. 'We'll sneak in the back way, collect our evidence and get out again. They won't even know we've been there.'

  'No heroics?' said Amaruk.

  'No heroics,' promised Hex.

  Amaruk looked at them again, weighing up the options. He would never dream of leaving a bunch of ordinary kids alone in the wilds of northern Canada, but these were no ordinary kids. They were as capable of looking after themselves as any Inuit. 'OK,' he said finally. 'Let's get out of here before that moose wakes up again.'

  The new sled team worked like a dream. Ice took to his new position as though he had been waiting all his life to be a lead dog. The other dogs were hesitant at first, but were soon following him without question. Amber had been running them slowly to start with, but once she saw that the formation was working, she called, 'Hike!' and the team surged forward. Amaruk matched her speed and the two sleds sped on upriver towards the mine.

  FOURTEEN

  'Not a pretty sight,' whispered Hex, panning the camcorder across the scene spread out below them. Alpha Force were lying in the snow at the top of a densely wooded ridge. Ahead of them, Daniel Usher's gold mine had gouged a huge, square scar out of the landscape. Behind them, the slope they had just climbed fell away steeply to the river.

  Amaruk's mushing commands drifted up to them from the river, growing fainter by the second. He had taken his sled and set off to take Boomer home, promising to return that night to lead them back to the village. Amber
's sled and team were still at the bottom of the ridge, hidden under the trees. As soon as Amber had embedded the snow-hook brake into the ground, the dogs had promptly dug holes in the snow, curled up and gone to sleep. Except for Ice. He sat like a dog made of stone, never taking his eyes from the place where Amber had disappeared and waiting for her return.

  'I thought it would all be hidden underground,' gasped Amber, gazing over the top of the ridge at the raw devastation below.

  'The old mine was,' explained Hex. 'But when all the richer seams of gold were worked out, Usher Mining started using the open cast method on the poorer grade ore.'

  He pointed his camcorder at a deep pit on one side of the huge complex. 'That's where they quarry out the rock with explosives, then they use those big trucks to transport it to the leach pads down there.'

  'Leach pads?' asked Li.

  'Yeah. See all those square, murky-looking pools just below the ridge with the steam rising off them? They're full of crushed rock from the quarry.'

  'I think they must be heated to stop them freezing over,' said Li, noting the generator at the edge of the pools.

  'The dirty-looking liquid in them is sodium cyanide solution,' said Hex.

  'Cyanide,' spat Li.

  'It draws all the gold out of the rock, even particles too small for the naked eye to see. The trouble is, it also draws out any poisonous, heavy metals such as lead or mercury. Then the gold cyanide solution is piped into those sheds there, where they run it over carbon, which separates out all the gold.'

  'And what do they do with the cyanide waste?' asked Paulo.

  'According to what I read on the Net, it's supposed to be stored in specially lined vats, or recycled. But I don't think that's been happening here.' Hex shifted on to his other side and began filming the sheds. 'See how close the processing sheds are to the side of the ridge? The old mine workings go into the rock underneath us. My guess is that Usher Mining is dumping all the cyanide waste into the old mine workings. From there, it's trickling down through caves and tunnels in the rock and coming out at the bottom of the ridge on the other side, straight into the river.'