by A P Bateman
“Where will they go?” Ramsay asked incredulously.
“Mister Huss, the owner of The Eagle’s Nest, is making the hotel available to anyone in need of shelter and sanctuary from the storm. He has put out the claim in regular broadcasts on shortwave radio and over social media.” She smiled. “Even people who live in huts and igloos have a cell phone! Probably get likes for posting a picture of them skinning a reindeer!” she paused, going quiet when she saw that Ramsay wasn’t sharing her humour. “Anyway, anyone in danger can come and use rooms he has put aside. The hotel is quiet, mainly because of the storm forecast, so there are many vacant rooms.”
“Interesting…” Ramsay mused. Security was going to be a nightmare. But the defector could walk right in without anybody realising. He nodded a thank you to the waitress and watched her leave, stopping to talk to the waiter who was hovering in the doorway to the lounge. He sipped his drink and decided he’d eaten enough. He would take a wander around the hotel, get a feel for the place. He had an hour or so free and decided to put it to use.
30
Russia
The wooden table was pitted and scuffed. The edges were uneven, and several hundred people had either carved or written their initials or names into it over the years. The dates ran back to the mid-eighties, when the first phase of the hydroelectric station was opened. And although the facility had been expanded and upgraded, the last of which was the geothermal hot rock project, the room in which the table centred had not been decorated since. A perfunctory room where people, exhausted from their shifts in the power plant, sat in silence and ate a meagre meal, then returned to their shift. A half-hour break in a shift lasting fourteen hours. Seven days a week in the winter, six days a week in the summer. There was no union, no workers’ representative, but wages were substantially higher than the national average, so people stayed. There were no transport links in the winter, so no way out other than the ice road. Fifty-miles to the nearest town. No vehicles were allowed at the plant, so the walk would be suicide. In the summer, a few people left and made the walk to town. They never returned. Some thought it strange that they hadn’t shown up on social media, but others had their suspicions why.
There were secrets here. And secrets were a dangerous knowledge to hold.
Natalia Grekov ate her meagre meal of vegetable soup and bread, whilst reading a four-day old newspaper. The papers came in every week and with them, the occasional magazine. She liked the western fashion magazines the most. So glamorous, so out of reach. Russia had changed much in her lifetime, and at thirty-two, she could remember stricter times and a life with less opportunities than today. But this far north, this close to the edge of Russia’s shores and the Arctic Ocean, she had travelled to a time warp. She had been glad of the employment, and the money was better than she would have got elsewhere, but the lack of amenities, communication and feeling of isolation was taking its toll. She was worn-out and the hours they were expected to work made her work feel like a prison sentence. A true Russian gulag, but with heating and occasional use of a television and the internet. She was no fool, though. She knew her time online was monitored by the facility’s security. Like the old days of the KGB, they waited for people to slip up. People often did and were dealt with swiftly. Their employment terminated. But she was no fool. She knew these people, knew they wouldn’t slip from society. She had searched for them online, but not too thoroughly. She had always planned to leave after a year. That would give her enough funds to travel to Europe, seek employment and visas and a new life. She was a specialist in her field, and there were hydroelectric and thermoelectric concerns that would pay a fortune for her expertise. But the years had passed, and she was now five-years in and knew that she was a lost cause. She had seen too much. She didn’t even bother requesting leave anymore. Not since she had stumbled into the lower sector. A favour for a man she knew she would never see again. And she would never forget the sinking feeling that day. The knowledge she had sealed her own fate. They would never let her go now.
And now the lifeline.
The message had come to her by a roundabout way. A mutual friend had been quoted, things written that only he could have known. The Northern supply route was now solid ice and the icebreakers were having trouble carving a route through. Her last message had come just after Christmas. There had been little in the way of supplies since then. Such was the location and poor infrastructure surrounding the plant, that resupply was taken from the port of Koll and transported on the ice road. Far easier than bringing it in by road from the south. Norway’s infrastructure to the west put this region of Russia to shame. Although, there was precious little that far north to truly test the conditions.
So, a series of notes, transported by one of the crew of a freighter who had passed the note onto someone unknown. The notes had outlined what was expected of her, and what she would receive in return. Safe passage and a bounty of fifty-thousand pounds, with a well-paid job, a new identity, along with a house and car. The specifics were unclear on the latter, but she reasoned that any house and car would be better than what she already owned, and the chance of a fresh start in Britain appealed more than the material things. She assumed Britain, because of the currency, but anywhere would be better than the freezer she was living in now. And the hours and workload were breaking her down more than she could bare. She felt an old woman, yearned to live again.
It was the passing on of the messages that she feared the most. That was what had taken her so long to decide whether she should take the bait. Because once she did, then there was no going back. Could it have been a trap? Almost certainly. Was it? She would not know until the game played out. She had spent more than a year in her quandary. She left her reply, unsigned and carefully written in her left hand to avoid a comparison with writing samples that would undoubtedly be held on file. The last message had taken three months to reach her after her reply. It had given the date and co-ordinates. Along with a four-hour window. No further messages would be collected from her dead-drop, and no more received.
She looked at her watch. She had less than twenty-four hours to go, and she had heard that a storm was coming. She had seen many storms living out here. There were only a few miles of frozen land and then nothing but sea ice until the North Pole. Storms were common during the winter months, she doubted this one would be any different. She turned the newspaper over and glanced again at the front page, the headline grabbed her attention:
MORE BRITISH LIES!
RUSSIA IS NO THREAT TO WORLD PEACE!
She thought back to the day that changed her life, the day that she had learned the unthinkable. She looked back at the newspaper headline and tossed the paper across the table. Tears welled in her eyes, and she wiped them with the back of her sleeve. She had lost her appetite for tinned vegetable soup. Tomorrow, she would dine in style.
31
“Come on, I’ll show you the ice hotel,” Caroline said breezily. “I had a nose around after I checked in.” She nestled her head into King’s shoulder and said, “It’s breath-taking, you’ll see.”
King looked at the double glass doors. They looked thick, the sort of perspective you got from walking through an aquarium tunnel, where the sharks suddenly halve in size as they swim by. Man-eaters to dogfish in the blink of an eye. He looked at the rows of snow suits hanging on pegs. All black with panels of red or blue. They appeared to be generic, utilitarian. He unhooked an extra large for himself. Caroline chose a medium in blue. It wasn’t personal preference, the blues looked to have a female cut and were generally smaller than the reds.
“It’s like stepping into a freezer,” she said. “But there’s no wind chill, so it isn’t anything like as cold as outside.” She kicked off her shoes and stepped into the suit. It went on easily, and she was glad she had worn trousers instead of the cocktail dress she had been planning. Somehow, even in the warmth of the hotel with all its fires and cosy alcoves, a dress did not seem substantial enough given the extreme
temperature outside. She pulled on a pair of loose-fitting and well-worn soft snow boots and looked up at King, who was dressed and waiting. “I’ll never know how you get dressed so quickly.”
King didn’t enlighten her with tales of the older bullies in children’s homes or of those early days in prison showers, the pecking order not yet established. He smiled and pressed the door release button. The doors opened with a satisfying whoosh like on the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek. The boy in him wanted to press it some more, but Caroline had already hooked her arm inside his and was leading him inside. A moment of intimacy for some, but all King could do was feel the unease at having his right arm clamped so tightly. He really did know little peace. He pulled her near, kissed her for a moment, then swung her round and took her right hand in his left. She squeezed tightly, blissfully unaware of his motives. He relaxed a little, the pistol in his right pocket, his right hand comfortingly close and unobstructed. He remembered a story as a child, how a man’s sword hand dictated which side his female companion should walk. That the tradition carried on, all the way to which side the woman stood at the altar.
The difference in temperature was remarkable, but as Caroline had said, the lack of windchill made it more bearable on the exposed areas of skin. The excavation and carving of the ice was truly impressive. King had no idea how it was made, but he didn’t imagine it had been tunnelled out. There was no reason why there should have been enough ice to do so. As a manmade concept, the hotel had been built on top of a purpose-built hill. There was no subsequent glacier to bore through with machinery. He imagined a frame being constructed, water pumped through, or even large slabs of ice cut elsewhere and bonded in place with water which would freeze within minutes. Then they would chisel at it to create texture and the illusion that it had been bored out. Regardless of how they had done it, they had constructed it with great skill and attention to detail. The walls and ceiling had a softened effect which looked like a jagged finish that had melted slightly. The ice had a blueish hue, glacier-like. King wondered whether they had added some dye to it. He smoothed his hand over, for the first time remembering he had not picked up gloves. The ice was dry to the touch.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Caroline marvelled. “Look at the lights in the floor, they’re changing colour.”
King looked at the electric tealights under the ice. They were blending from a cold blue to a warm red, with a thousand shades in between. Arguably tasteless in most homes, but the lighting created a beautiful effect as it was accentuated by the ice. As they rounded the first gentle bend in the carved ice tunnels, King laughed out loud when he noticed a fire extinguisher set into the ice wall. Its own alcove with instructions on how to use it in various languages.
“Proof, if ever it were needed, that health and safety has gone mad.”
She smiled. “You’re such a cynic.”
“And how, exactly, does ice catch fire?”
Caroline squeezed his hand and pulled him onwards. The tunnel curved to the right and a series of openings were spaced along both sides. Outside each opening there was a different animal’s head carved in the wall. Caroline stopped outside one with an ornate eagle, wings in a vee and its talons splayed as if baring down on an unsuspecting prey. The carving was truly exquisite.
“Here,” she whispered. “They don’t have doors, so I’m not sure how you tell if a room is occupied.”
“I guess if you’re meant to be here, you’ll already know which room yours is.”
“Smartarse,” she said. She craned her neck to look around the curve of the ice, then simply walked right in. “It’s okay… there’s nobody home,” she called behind her.
King shrugged and followed her inside. It was impressive, though hardly lavish. A raised plinth of ice acted as the bed, with what appeared to be a rubber mattress and a pile of animal skins, with rolled-up sleeping bags and pillows, with scatter cushions around the base of the plinth. The electric tealights made the cavern seem warmer, but it was still -20°C according to the thermometer which hung from a climbing piton that had been hammered into the wall.
“Nothing much in here,” King commented flatly. “But I guess the people come for that…” He pointed to the viewing bay, which was glazed in the same quadruple glass as the entrance to the tunnel. Two sliding doors and portion of roof that had been melted and bonded into the ice. An ice sofa had been carved and draped in the same skins and cushions. Beyond the glass, the sky was green and boiling. The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights danced and weaved across the sky in mesmerising beauty.
“Oh, my goodness…” Caroline trailed off. “It’s beautiful!”
King stepped closer to her, wrapped his left arm around her shoulders. “It is,” he agreed.
They watched for a good ten minutes, neither breaking the moment with talk that would only go to cheapen the experience. Nothing other than admiration for the spectacle. Eventually, King moved away. “We’d better get going,” he said. “We’ll see it again while we’re here, I’m sure.”
Caroline nodded, then gasped. “There’s somebody out there!” she exclaimed. “Watching us!” She took a pace towards the window. “Crouched down over there!” she pointed.
King turned and looked, only aware of a sudden movement. The thick glass had obscured their view, light reflecting from the ice room back to them. The lightshow in the sky had taken their attention and only the movement had made the person visible. He tried to focus through the thick glass and caught sight of a figure dashing out of view behind the next ice pod viewing bay. He looked at the doors, but they were operated by a card, the same as his own room’s door.
“Come on!” he snapped as he turned and charged out through the chamber and into the ice tunnel, the lights turning to an eerie blue-green as he ran towards the outside exit.
Caroline fell in behind him, but in truth she was a faster sprinter than he was and was soon level to his shoulder and by the time they reached the end of the ice tunnel, she had streaked out a considerable lead. King slid to a stop behind her, but she already had the button pressed and the doors were sliding open with their Star Trek whoosh.
The frigid air engulfed them and the windchill was severe. King’s first thoughts were that he should merely leave the person to the elements. But whoever had been watching them would have had to be committed in the first place. Why would they endure such conditions to watch them inside the room? Even a perverted voyeur would have to concede the likelihood of a couple getting naked at that temperature was non-existent. The ice rooms were designed for an entirely different experience. Fully dressed, wrapped and swaddled in blankets and sleeping bags, and encapsulated in the moment – of being in an ice chamber, watching the Polar Lights. It was an experience. Nothing else would matter – the ice rooms did not even have bathrooms, the guests having to use their own rooms within the hotel, or the public lavatories off the lobby. So, what else would a watcher hope to achieve?
King had the Walther in his hand, only now noticing how cold his hands were. He kept the weapon down by the side of his leg, unnoticeable, yet ready to bring to arm. He glanced at Caroline, who was blowing on her cupped hands. He looked at the ground. There were hundreds of footprints. The tunnel was an entrance and exit for the hotel, a main thoroughfare and part of the attraction. Even if they were not staying there, people all went and had a look. He couldn’t hope to track somebody here. He walked around the first viewing pod. There were less prints, but still too many to single out the watcher. The next pod had a couple seated inside, wrapped and watching the light show much as he and Caroline had. He noted how cosy they looked. Obvious that was as good as it was going to get for a voyeur.
There were less footprints by far, and as King reached the pod they had been in, the pod denoted by the exquisite carving of the eagle, he could see just a few scuffed footprints on the ground.
He turned to Caroline and asked, “How close do you think they were?”
Caroline stepped forwards. She crouch
ed low to the ice wall. “Back a bit,” she said, standing up and walking backwards a few paces. She looked at the marks and scuffs on the compacted snow. “Here, I guess.” She crouched down again, squatted close to the ground. She looked to her right. “This would be about right,” she said confidently. “He jumped up and legged it that way.”
“He?”
“I’m just supposing.”
“What makes you think it was a man?”
She shrugged. “The build, movement…” Then she exclaimed decisively, “The suit! It was red and black. Not blue and black, which are the ladies suits.”
King glanced down at his own, then looked at Caroline’s. He led the way back to the tunnel entrance and pocketed the tiny pistol. His hands were raw and stiff. They would burn when they thawed inside. They said nothing as they walked back through the ice tunnel. The blast of warm air was both welcome and uncomfortable as they walked through the doors and they whooshed seamlessly shut behind them. Caroline stepped aside to allow a couple through. They beamed a smile, a knowing nod. They were looking forward to their night in the ice hotel and had paid a substantial figure for the upgrade. King barged between them.
“Come on,” he said sharply. “We’ll check the main entrance.”
“Hey!” the man shouted after him, but it fell upon deaf ears.
Caroline pulled a face of apology then followed. They marched through the foyer, past the main dining room and the brasserie restaurant, and past the reception desk. The duty manager looked up then turned back to his computer screen. Just another domestic, the woman chasing after the man after a few cross words. He’d seen it all.
King stopped at the front entrance, bumping into Neil Ramsay, who was brandishing an expensive looking camera in one hand and dusting snow off his suit with the other. Red and black, issued by the sympathetic manager.
