Polar Quest

by Alex Archer

  Annja helped herself to a tall glass and poured the orange juice into it. The cook slid her omelet onto a plate and handed it over. “There you go. Enjoy it.”

  Annja smiled. “Thanks. I will.”

  He pointed. “Got some pastries over there on the table. Not bad for doing it myself, but they could use more work.” He shrugged. “I have to make do with what I’ve got.”

  “I’ll give them a try,” Annja said. She headed over to the long table and sat down. When she bit into the omelet, it tasted exactly as if it had been made with fresh eggs. The cheese melted slowly in her mouth and with the ham produced a great swirl of flavors. Annja’s mouth watered and she suddenly realized how hungry she was.

  At least until Garin showed up.

  Rather than walk over to the cook, he headed right for Annja’s table. He sat down across from her and grinned. “Early breakfast for you today, huh?”

  “In case you didn’t hear, I had a rough day yesterday.”

  Garin nodded. “I did hear that, yeah. How’s your head feeling today?”

  Annja chewed another forkful of the omelet. “Pretty good, actually. Not a hundred percent, but then again you never should expect that the day after. Feels sort of like a mild hangover,” she said.

  Garin nodded. “Good.”

  Annja frowned. “You’re up early.”

  “I don’t sleep all that much unless I’ve had one of my flesh benders and the exertion lulls me into a dreamy world of post-lust headiness.”

  “Sometimes you’re almost poetic with that stuff, you know that?” Annja said.

  Garin leaned closer to Annja. “You’re in trouble, sweetheart.”

  Annja leaned back. “First of all, don’t call me sweetheart. I hate that. Secondly, why am I in trouble?”

  Garin sighed. “It’s not really the wisest thing you’ve ever done. I mean, did you honestly think they wouldn’t find out?”

  She knew he had to be talking about the hacker work Knightmare had done. Somehow they knew. Somehow they had traced it back to Annja. But how? Her mind raced at how they could know it was her.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Garin. And you’re interrupting a perfectly good breakfast, I might add.”

  He laughed. “Thomson wants you hauled in for questioning. He seems mighty upset that someone actually hacked his computer, of all the ones here, and managed to get access to a specific file.”

  Annja looked him right in the eyes. “How in the world could I possibly manage to pull off something like that? I’m sitting here just like you. I don’t have access to the Internet. I don’t have e-mail. So how could I manage to do that?”

  Garin shook his head. “I don’t know. But you did. And it doesn’t help your case that you were poking around in the admin shelter yesterday. That kid reported you to the colonel.”

  “It was an innocent occurrence. I went looking to use one of the terminals. Besides, he wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

  Garin laughed louder. “Who do you think that kid’s more scared of, you or the colonel? Of course he sold you out. God, Annja, don’t be so naive.”

  Annja frowned. Her omelet was getting cold, so she plucked another forkful into her mouth. If the day was going to be as challenging as Garin seemed to be implying, she would at least need a solid meal in her stomach if she hoped to weather all the questions Thomson would lob at her.

  “So why are you telling me all of this?” Annja smirked. “I would have thought you’d be enjoying seeing me possibly get myself into hot water.”

  Garin shook his head. “Contrary to what you might believe about me, Annja, I’m not the enemy here. I’m simply trying to understand what’s going on down here, just like you are.”

  “And what have you found out?”

  “Nothing.”

  Annja sneered. “Come on. With all your high and mighty power you can’t determine what’s up? I find that a little hard to believe.”

  “Maybe I just don’t trust you,” Garin said.

  Annja nodded. “Fair enough. I don’t trust you much, either.”

  Garin leaned closer to her again. “So, then, why don’t you come clean? Tell me about the hacker you hired to do your dirty work. Maybe we can use him again to crack the system. I’ve got a few questions I’d like answered myself.”

  Annja drank some of the orange juice. Was Garin really suggesting they team up and work together? She tried to remember the last time she’d done that and not ended up screwed in the process.

  She couldn’t remember any.

  “There’s nothing to tell, Garin. It wasn’t me that hacked that computer. Maybe some lonely fourteen-year-old in Des Moines got lucky and tripped his way onto the network. You know there are kids out there that groove on that stuff.”

  “Adults, too.”

  “Yeah, but not this one,” Annja said.

  Garin smiled. “I’ve never known you to turn down an opportunity to learn something new even if means using a questionable method.”

  “I have standards. There are some things I won’t do. Like torture people. I find that distasteful.”

  “No doubt,” Garin said. “You’ve always had far more faith in humanity than I have.”

  “True,” Annja said.

  Annja finished her omelet and slid the plate away. “Are you going to get any of the food?”

  “Was your omelet good?”

  “Delicious, even with present company included.”

  Garin smirked. “Fair enough. I’ll try it.” He got up and wandered over to the cook. Annja watched him go and shook her head. Sure, she could always team up with him, but how smart was that? For all she knew, Garin had a wire on transmitting everything they spoke about. Hell, he’d sell her out faster than the kid in the admin shelter.

  Annja got up and got herself a pastry. The icing was still warm and the sweetness of it made her mouth water even more. She was feeling, on the whole, pretty good physically.

  Except for the ever-present ache in her gut.

  Something bad was going to happen today. She knew this. Expected it. And it was all she could do to simply down a decent breakfast and get on with it.

  Garin returned with his omelet and sat down. After two forkfuls, he nodded. “For the limits of this place, the cook does a very respectable job.”

  Annja smiled. “A compliment from you? I’m amazed.”

  “Well, it’s not Maison Robert, certainly, but one must adapt one’s standards given one’s environment.”

  “Indeed.”

  Annja ate the pastry in silence, occasionally sipping her juice. Garin seemed preoccupied with his breakfast.

  Annja felt very unsettled.

  Garin glanced at her. “You feeling all right?”

  Annja frowned. “My stomach hurts.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Garin continued eating. Annja glanced around the mess hall. Everything seemed still. Quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Annja stopped eating her roll and put it down on her plate. Then she wiped her hands calmly on her napkin.

  Garin watched her. “You’re all finished?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  Annja leaned back in her seat and got her feet under her. She looked over at Garin, who had slowed down on his chewing. He was watching her closely.

  Slowly, a smile spread across his face. “Your instincts really have become much more intense since you found the sword,” he said quietly.

  “The sword found me,” Annja said. “And what are you playing at right now?”

  “Me?”

  Annja looked at the door. “Yeah, you.”

  Garin shook his head. “Can’t be helped, Annja. It’s too late to get out of this. Best to just go along with what happens and see where it takes you.”

  Annja glared at him. “You bastard. You sold me out.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “You kept me here. You kept me from leaving—”

&nbs
p; The door flew open and five armed men rushed in with their weapons drawn. Annja faced them. The automatic rifles would tear her apart if she tried to do anything at all.

  Garin rose and wiped his mouth on a napkin while Annja stood still. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I had to do it.”

  Then he turned and addressed the men. “Take Miss Creed into custody. She’s under military arrest for espionage.”

  29

  “This is absolutely ridiculous.”

  Annja sat inside Thomson’s personal shelter surrounded by two armed guards and facing the colonel himself. He’d said nothing for the past five minutes, ever since he had arrived shortly after Annja had been detained. Annja wondered where he was during that time, since it certainly seemed as if breakfast had been temporarily put on hold until Annja could be taken into custody.

  The metal handcuffs she wore brought back painful memories of other times and places. None of which cheered her up. Trying to extricate herself from handcuffs was always a challenge.

  Thomson stared at her hard. She could see no pupil dilation in his eyes and there wasn’t a nervous facial tick to be seen anywhere. He was definitely used to exerting control over a situation and she suspected he didn’t usually get very many people who defied him.

  Finally, after another three minutes of no one saying anything, Annja cleared her throat. “I know this tactic, Colonel. You’re trying to make me uncomfortable. You’re hoping that I will start babbling about something as a way of filling the silence.”

  He continued to stare at her.

  She frowned. “The truth is, I’m already uncomfortable. Your soldiers applied these handcuffs a little too zealously. They’re cutting off circulation to my hands, and if I don’t get some relief soon, you’ll have to cut them off because I’ll have gotten gangrene.”

  She saw the colonel barely nod and then one of the soldiers moved behind her and removed the handcuffs. Annja rubbed her wrists. “Thank you. That’s a huge improvement.”

  Thomson removed a pipe from his desk drawer, packed it with tobacco and then lit it. He puffed away for several seconds and then leaned back, chomping on the stem.

  Annja coughed slightly. “I thought the military frowned on smoking.”

  “I’m grandfathered,” the colonel said. “Something about you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” He blew out a smoke ring and then fixed his eyes on Annja again. “We’ve got quite a situation here.”

  “I don’t see it. I’m not guilty of the charges Major Braden accused me of. Espionage? You’ve got to be kidding me,” Annja said.

  “Nevertheless, we had an incident yesterday and the trail leads back to you, Miss Creed.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “I believe Major Braden already informed you about it. The hacker intrusion into our secure network system. Someone gained access illegally. They poked about in our computers and even gained access to a certain highly classified file.”

  The file that Annja hadn’t been able to read yet. She cursed herself inwardly for tripping and knocking herself out. If she hadn’t been so clumsy, she could have spent last evening reading it over and convincing Dave and Zach that there was really something odd going on here.

  Instead, the colonel had her in a bind. But did he know she hadn’t read it yet? Probably not. Annja knew she had to bide her time and hope that he would reveal how much he knew.

  “What was in the file?” she asked.

  The colonel smiled. “Why, Miss Creed, don’t you know? It was the selfsame file that you’ve been obsessing over.”

  “Oh, the lab analysis?”

  “Indeed.”

  Annja frowned. “I don’t think obsessing is the right word in this case. Sure, I’ve been curious, but obsessing? That’s not entirely accurate.”

  Colonel Thomson leaned forward. “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you believe in coincidences?”

  Annja shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. I mean, there have been times in the past when things just sort of hooked up in time and space. No real rhyme or reason to it. Other times, it definitely seemed like it was a deliberate kind of thing, you know?”

  “No. I don’t know. What I do believe, however, is that there are no such things as coincidences. None at all.”

  “Don’t you think that perspective is a bit…limiting?” Annja asked.

  The colonel ignored her and continued. “So when a scientist like yourself comes around asking to see a classified file and is told that she won’t be given access to it and then a little later on, a hacker infiltrates our supposedly secure system and goes right after that very file, I have to ask myself a question—are they connected?”

  Annja tried to grin, but it felt forced. “The answer is no.”

  “Actually, the answer is yes. Most definitely, in fact.”

  Annja shook her head. “You’ve got no way of connecting me to any hacker operating on his or her own in the outside world.”

  Thomson smoked his pipe. “You know, as a matter of fact, we do have a way of connecting you.”

  “And how might that be?” Annja asked.

  “A phone call went out from this very camp yesterday, shortly before the hacker infiltrated our system.”

  “So what? You’ve got plenty of people with cell phones here, don’t you?”

  Thomson laughed. “Miss Creed, you don’t expect me to believe that you’re really stupid enough to suggest that a cell phone would work out in this remote wilderness, do you? I mean, come on now…”

  Annja almost grinned again. “So how did they make the call?”

  “A satellite phone.”

  “Ah, well, I don’t have one of those,” she said.

  “Of course you don’t. Your gear was searched. However, someone in this camp does have one.”

  “Don’t a few people? I mean, in case of an emergency, I’d certainly want a way to reach out to some help.”

  “Satellite phones are banned in this camp,” Thomson said. “They’re compromising to our security.”

  “Really? I’m afraid I don’t see how that would happen.”

  “A call made at the right time of day might give the enemy the chance to pinpoint our position. They could discover what it is we’re up to down here and then threaten our security here.”

  Annja shrugged. “Well, what exactly are we up to down here and who is the enemy?” Annja asked.

  “There’s no we anymore, Miss Creed. You are no longer a member of the scientific research team assigned to this unit.”

  “Great. Send me on home, then,” Annja said.

  “We’ve already gone over that.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought I’d try again.” Annja sighed. “So where’s the big bad evidence you have that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was responsible for yesterday’s intrusion?”

  Colonel Thomson looked beyond her to the soldiers standing behind Annja. “Bring it in.”

  One of the soldiers walked outside. Annja waited, her heart beating a little bit faster. Surely they wouldn’t have found Dave’s phone. Wasn’t he one of them anyway?

  Thomson continued staring at her through the smoky haze. He kept puffing on his pipe, generating more smoke and making Annja extremely uncomfortable. Her eyes hurt from the smoke.

  The door reopened and Thomson looked up. “Did you get it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The soldier walked over and handed Thomson a satellite phone. It was the exact model that she’d used yesterday to connect to the Internet. She couldn’t tell if it was really Dave’s, but it sure looked like it.

  “This is the satellite phone you used to make a call to an Internet service provider yesterday morning.”

  “I’ve never seen that before in my life.”

  Thomson nodded. “We thought for sure you would say that, so we took the liberty of having it dusted for fingerprints.”

  “And?”

  “We also took th
e liberty of taking your fingerprints last night while you slept that nasty concussion off.”

  Annja frowned. She thought her hands had smelled odd this morning. But she’d chalked it up as part of the medical evaluation she’d undergone as a result of her misfortune in the cave.

  “Did you get a match?”

  Thomson smiled. “A partial, actually.”

  Annja wanted to laugh at him. Of course they’d only gotten a partial. Annja had wrapped the sat phone back up the way Dave had hidden it. The friction would have destroyed much of her prints.

  “Partials aren’t enough to convict, Colonel. You’re grasping at straws here and you know it,” Annja said, hoping her bluff would work.

  But the colonel seemed unfazed. And Annja’s stomach continued to ache.

  What does he have? she wondered. What does he have that he can use to pin this on me? Her laptop? Had they cracked her personal security codes?

  She frowned. They had Dave’s phone. And they might know about her laptop. Was Dave working with them, after all? Or was he something else entirely?

  “Are you all right, Miss Creed?”

  She glanced up. Thomson was looking at her with a renewed sense of interest.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t seem fine. In fact, I’d even go so far as to suggest you’re feeling a bit nervous right now.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Could it be that you’re wondering what else we have to connect you with yesterday’s crime?”

  “I’m wondering how soon I can get out of here and go back to work.”

  “Ah, but I’ve already told you there will be no more work for you. You’re off the team. Permanently.”

  Annja sighed. Zach was going to kill her.

  “The time to come clean is now, Miss Creed. If you want to tell me everything about your conspiracy, I might be inclined to be more lenient on you than if you continue to cling to the notion that you are an innocent in all of this.”

  Annja eyed him. “More lenient?”

  “It’s going to be a very long winter. Temperatures, as you know, dip well into the negative fifties at night. All this darkness, this isolation, anything can happen. And if we have no way of getting you back to the authorities at McMurdo, we’ll just have to dispense our own justice out here.”