In Cold Pursuit vw-1

by Sarah Andrews

  Ted said, “But why put the WAIS project out on the divide? It has the worst weather in Antarctica. It’s a logistical nightmare to get the drill and all the housing and everything in there.”

  Valena said, “The worse the weather, the more snow accumulates, and the more snow, the better we can read the annual bands in the ice, and better we can refine the gas and isotope analyses.”

  Cupcake said, “You’re stalling again, Ted. So it was WAIS that the reporter was supposed to see, not the high-elevation camp. But they were still setting up the drill last year at WAIS and building the covering structure. What was he going to do out there?”

  Valena said, “It’s a huge project that involves about twenty different PIs. Before you go to the expense of flying in that huge rig and setting up the building that will house all that brainpower, you do some test drilling to make sure the condition of the ice is what you expect. So there would have been drilling last year, just not the big rig yet.”

  “But let’s get back to the high camp,” said Cupcake, popping the top on another beer.

  Valena, said. “So the guy showed up there instead of WAIS Divide, and he got sick. And you were there working with explosives, Ted?”

  “No, Emmett had a drill going getting shallow test cores from that location, but he also wanted to get some bigger block samples, and that’s where the other muscle and I came in. But then suddenly here’s this guy from New York at high altitude, and he hadn’t come up in stages like you’re supposed to. Emmett told him to sit tight and rest, not exert himself until he was acclimated, but he was one of those macho types who just couldn’t stand himself unless he was breaking a sweat. Said he was really fit, shouldn’t be a problem. He’d been in the military, said he could handle it fine. He was a real piece of work, all cocksure and not listening to reason.” He shook his head. “Things got off to a bad start, lots of arguments.”

  “About what?”

  “Guy stuck his bare hand on one of Emmett’s ice samples, for a start.”

  “He didn’t!”

  Cupcake asked, “Why’s that a big deal?”

  Valena said, “The whole point is to get uncontaminated data. The ice is like a big deep freeze that keeps past climate records intact. The instant you introduce modern contaminants—well, then it’s worthless. We only handle the ice samples with special gloves. When someone puts bare hands on them, it’s as if someone spat in your beer.”

  Cupcake curled her upper lip in disgust.

  Ted said, “Yeah, so it went downhill from there. Things get pretty intense when you’re camped out there on the high ice together, even at the best of times. It’s cold, and the cold intensifies the effect of the thin air, and you’re doing dangerous work handling machinery, and then here’s this chucklehead breathing down the good doctor’s neck, and bugging the help with what he liked to call ‘interviews.’ Hell, I call it cornering people and bugging them until they blow their tops. Schwartz popped off at him pretty good, Sheila looked like she was going to hit him with a fry pan before the first meal was done, and even cool Cal was cutting a wide margin to avoid him. It just wasn’t right. You have to be able to depend on each other in a place like that, and this guy’s shown up looking for a fight.”

  Valena said, “Was he trying to argue that the climate isn’t warming?”

  Ted said, “Yeah, there was a lot of arguing about a story for the Financial News.”

  Valena said, “Emmett probably wanted to take the guy to the source and show him how the work was done and maybe correct some of his confusion, open a healthy dialog. It was a reasonable idea.”

  Ted said, “Yeah, it would have been reasonable if the guy had been inclined to listen, but it sounded to me like he was going to write an exposé on what a waste of the taxpayer’s money Emmett’s efforts were. But he got sick.”

  Cupcake said, “It was altitude sickness, right?”

  Ted nodded. “That’s what they tell me.”

  “You’d left by then,” Valena prompted.

  “I’d pulled out to come back here just a couple hours before he started showing symptoms. Caught a ride in one of the Twin Otters they had moving through the area; they’re your smaller ski plane. It had stopped to pick up some fuel from the cache. That was the other reason some of us were there. We were digging up fuel barrels that had gotten buried in the snow. Damned windy place.” He shook his head. “The storm came in really fast, just barreled down off the plateau, a particularly nasty herbie.”

  “That’s a hurricane-force storm,” Cupcake explained to Valena. “They usually come from the south. Air pours off the big ice sheet that covers East Antarctica. You can get sustained winds up to a hundred miles per hour, and the gusts…”

  Ted nodded. “Laurence Gould, who came here with Admiral Byrd in 1929, wrote about a wind so strong that when he reached up and grabbed the strut of his airplane, it blew him out like a pennant. And he was not a small man.” He shook his head. “Anyway, Emmett radioed in that evening to say that Sweeny was in real distress. They got the doctor from the hospital here on the horn at Mac Ops, and they decided that it had to be altitude sickness. They couldn’t evacuate him, as there was no way they could land any kind of aircraft. Visibility was down to zero, a total white-out blizzard. So the flyboys got creative and sent in a Herc to drop supplies.”

  “LC-130 Hercules,” Cupcake explained. “The Hercs are the big workhorses down here. They carry the heavy loads in and out of field locations, haul everything that goes to Pole, and they make all the flights from here up to New Zealand during the times when the ice runways are too soft to land wheeled aircraft. The Herc’s got skis they can lift up, so’s they can land on wheels up in Cheech.

  “And they’ve got some damned fine pilots,” Cupcake went on. “They’re career officers from the Air National Guard. Great guys.”

  Ted said, “Anyway, they figured they’d fly over Emmett’s camp, drop a parachute with a Gamow bag and other medical supplies. A Gamow is like a pressure tent. You put the guy in there, pump it up, and it’s like bringing him down to sea level. Fluids in the lungs clear. He lives.”

  “But he didn’t live,” Valena said. “Because they couldn’t find the camp in the storm.”

  “Oh, the plane found the camp,” said Ted. “Problem was, the camp couldn’t find the chute. When you’re in condition 1—zero visibility—the dictum is, don’t go anywhere. Stay in your tent, or your vehicle, or your building, wherever you are. You’ve noticed the monitors by the main exit doors?”

  Valena nodded. She had seen the lighted overhead signs that scrolled the information. “They’ve said ‘condition 3’ each time I look at them.”

  Cupcake said, “That means clear and no restrictions. Condition 2 is watch out and pay attention, get to where you’re going and don’t mess around. Condition 1 is stay put. Don’t go out. Remember that.”

  “Yes, ma’am. So they had a total howler.”

  Ted continued, “Yeah, and Emmett ordered everyone in camp to stay put, not that anyone was foolish enough to go out. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Of course, the newspaper holds this against him, because they’ve never been in such conditions. The toughest thing they’ve ever had to do is cross Fifth Avenue to buy a cruller.” He shook his head vehemently. “That asshole had no business coming down here.” He finished his beer. “You got another of these, Do-roddy?”

  Cupcake pointed at the little fridge. “You know where to find it.”

  Ted popped another open and drizzled several ounces into the maw between his whiskers. Belched. “‘Scuse me. Yeah. So they wait for the first break in the weather—things are only up to condition 2, and ragged at that—and out they go.” He shook his head. “Didn’t find it. Storm closed in again. Back to the tents.” Ted fell silent. “They had to wait until the storm abated. Took another two days. First chance, a Herc came out and loaded them up. Sweeny was frozen solid by then. I saw it land. They brought the body out in its sleeping bag. Hell of a l
ong sleep that boy was in for.”

  Everyone was silent for a while.

  Ted sighed. “They held him overnight in the ice core storage unit over by Crary Lab and then shipped him out in the cargo hold of a C-17. It didn’t matter that he was an asshole. If you lose anyone down here for any reason, everyone feels like they’ve had a hole torn in them, and in a very real sense, everyone is accountable.”

  “But the storm,” said Valena.

  “Yeah, the storm,” said Ted.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” said Cupcake. “What could you have done differently?”

  Ted had finished his second beer. His big hand crumpled the can like it was made of paper. “I should have hauled his ass out of there with me on the Otter. Or William was almost done with his work. I could have sent him out, and then I would have been the one to stay. Maybe I could have found the damned chute.”

  Cupcake had an arm around him. “No one found it,” she said.

  The big man hung his head. “Yeah, right. Not until five days ago they didn’t.”

  6

  BRENDA UTZON POURED HERSELF A CUP OF TEA AND headed down the ramp that led to the lower levels of Crary Lab, leaving phase 1 for phase 2 and continuing all the way down to the aquarium. She had seen Michael heading down this way, and she had a job for him.

  She was always fascinated by the maze of tanks with their burbling waters being circulated by humming motors. It was usually her pleasure to stop and stare into the nearest aquarium, a small Plexiglas arrangement labeled CRARY TOUCH TANK. The biologists kept examples of Antarctic marine creatures in there so that visitors could see who lived underneath the sea ice and to keep them from sticking their hands into the other aquaria, which housed the creatures they were actually studying. But today Brenda was on a mission. Instead of stopping to look, she hung a right and knocked on the door to the electrical tech’s shop. “Michael?” she called. “Are you in there?”

  “Just a moment,” she heard, through the heavy steel door. Presently, Michael opened the door and let her into his sanctum. It was lined with shelves packed with widgets and gizmos that kept all the equipment in Crary Lab ticking. He was new this year, but in the short time he had been on board, she had come to know him as a gentle, caring man, and she had a job for someone with just those characteristics.

  “What can I do for you, kind lady?” Michael inquired. He was perched on his swiveling stool, his back against the side counter. On the counter in front of him lay the disassembled parts of some bit of equipment that Brenda did not even try to comprehend, but from the scent of the air, she could tell that she had interrupted a job of soldering. Why was he working on a Sunday?

  Michael reached to one side and dragged another stool out from under a counter. “Have a seat. I don’t get much company.”

  “Thanks, Michael. This is nice down here. So, you’re going to Happy Camp tomorrow, am I right?”

  “At last. I’ve been bumped twice, but now’s my big chance. I’m looking forward to being able to hike past Ob Hill.”

  “Oh, I know, it’s kind of constraining to be in this great, huge place and not be allowed to go anywhere.”

  Michael nodded.

  Brenda said, “Well, I was wondering if you could help look out for someone who’s going to be there. She’s just a kid, and she’s having a rough time.”

  “Oh?” Michael’s soft brown eyes softened further. “What’s the problem?”

  “You’ve heard about the scientist who was taken off the ice under guard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the young lady I’m concerned about was his graduate student. Scheduling missed the chance to turn her around in New Zealand, so she’s here. She came in on yesterday’s flight. I saw her this morning and she looked pretty scared, like she didn’t have a friend in the world. Because she’s here and there won’t be another flight north until Wednesday, George Bellamy said she could go ahead and attend Happy Camp.” She shrugged her shoulders in what she hoped was a fetching approximation of innocence. “So anyway, I was hoping you could keep an eye out for her.”

  “Sure,” said Michael. “Sounds rough.”

  “Yeah. Imagine working hard enough to get in on a grant to work in Antarctica and then having it snatched out from under you.”

  Michael began fiddling absentmindedly with a loose bolt on his countertop. “How old is she?”

  “Well, she has to be mid-twenties, but she looks like she’s about eighteen. Nice-looking girl, sort of unusual-looking.”

  “I think I’ve met her. Valena?”

  “Yes, that’s her. Valena Walker.”

  “Wow, and she was Vanderzee’s student? Rotten luck. So what’s the scoop on that, anyway? I heard the basics—that someone died in his camp last year, and that now they think he killed the guy—but what happened? I mean, he walked out of here last year a free man, and this year something’s different?”

  “Well, that’s what we’d all like to know.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “There was of course a big flap about it last year. It’s very bad when someone dies on the ice. Not only does it scare everybody—morale plummets—but also it’s a black mark on NSF and Raytheon. When I left the ice at the end of the season last February and returned to Denver, I was amazed at how much trouble it had created at headquarters. The newspaper the deceased man worked for kept badgering everybody for details, as if we had been keeping things from them, which we hadn’t. Heavens, how was I supposed to know anything, for instance? I never leave McMurdo. I certainly wasn’t at Dr. Vanderzee’s camp when it happened. But sure enough, I got a call as soon as I returned to Denver. I’ll bet they’d have phoned me here if they could have figured out how. They even got hold of e-mail addresses for the winter-over personnel and asked questions of them.”

  “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 nex
t 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.”