Blood And Ice Part 42

The snowmobile in front was a yellow-and-black Arctic Cat, and he jumped into the saddle, checked the fuel gauge, and revved the engine. The vehicle burst out of the shed, skidding wildly on the slick snow, and Michael was nearly thrown free. He had to slow it down, at least until he'd made it out of the base, but as he came around the corner of the administration module, he nearly ran over Franklin, who jumped out of the way in the nick of time.

"Go to the meat locker!" Michael shouted at him over the roar of the engine. "Check on Lawson!"

Michael hated to think what might have happened there. But if Sinclair was free, it couldn't be good.

Once past the main quad, Michael took a firm grip on the handlebars and gunned the engine. With one hand he had to tighten the hood around his head to keep it from blowing back. Far ahead, he could see the red of Sinclair's uniform and the blazing orange of the sled, as the dogs raced across the snow and ice. Please, he prayed, let Eleanor's skin be covered.

Michael could see that Sinclair had harnessed the dogs in pairs instead of fanning them out on wider leads, and he knew that doing so was particularly dangerous under the current conditions. With the dogs bunched together, the weight of the whole sled could cross onto a fragile snow bridge all at once, and if the bridge gave way, the dogs first, then the sled itself, could be dragged straight down into the bottomless creva.s.se below.

For that matter, Michael could plummet into one, too. That was why he tried to stay on the same path the sled had already taken. But it wasn't easy. The silvery glare off the terrain was harsh and penetrating, and the scrum of snow and ice thrown up by the front runners of the Arctic Cat kept flying back, sticking to the windshield and coating his goggles.

Even as the distance between them closed, Michael began to wonder what he could do when he did catch up. He racked his brain, wondering what was likely to be in the snowmobile's emergency compartment. A first-aid kit? Some nylon ropes? A GPS? A flashlight?

And then he remembered the last essential item sure to be there-a flare gun!

Sinclair would never know the difference between that and a real gun.

The sled was turning slightly, toward the coastline, and Michael could see Sinclair's head turning, aware now that he was being pursued. Though the sun glinted off his goggles and golden epaulettes, and the scarlet flaps of his jacket whipped out behind him like a fox's tail, the black ski mask made him look less like a soldier than a burglar on the run.

The sled was rounding a coal-black nunatak, and the danger there was even greater, especially as Sinclair wouldn't be aware of it. Creva.s.ses often formed around the base of such rocky outcrop-pings, and increased in number and depth as the glacier field approached the sea. Sinclair was continuing to bear toward the water, no doubt because it made navigating easier. In Antarctica, it was as hard to judge distances as it was direction-there was seldom any landmark to rely on, everything looked the same for hundreds of miles sometimes, and the sun, which on that date was very nearly straight overhead, offered no help either. Your shadow clung as close to your heels as an obedient dog.

Michael was torn between quickly overtaking the sled-and forcing a confrontation on the unstable ice-or waiting until he had reached the solid soil of Stromviken. But that was Sinclair's stomping ground, and who knew what other advantages he might be able to call upon once he got there?

The sled was slowing down a bit, because it had to. Michael could see the chunky blocks of a serac field rising up from the ground, like the tines of a giant fork sticking up from the earth. The dogs were snaking their way through the obstacle course, and Sinclair was bent far forward over the handlebars, urging them on.

Michael wiped the snow and ice from his goggles and lowered his head below the windshield. Wispy white clouds were draped like muslin across the sky, muting the sunlight and dropping the temperature another few degrees; Michael pegged it at about thirty below zero. The snowmobile was rapidly closing in on the sled. He was near enough that he could see Sinclair's sword slapping at his side and Eleanor's head, tightly bound in a hood, poking up from the sh.e.l.l.

Sinclair, hearing the roar of the Arctic Cat, turned again and shouted something Michael could not hear, though he doubted it was an offer of surrender. If there was one thing he knew about Sinclair, it was that the man's will was indomitable.

But then, with no warning, Michael saw the snow beneath the sled begin to crumble. There was a wild, terrified yelping from the pack and, as Michael watched in horror, the snow bridge collapsed, and the lead dogs disappeared. Each of the pairs behind them, barking madly but yoked to the same harness, were dragged into the widening chasm. The sled, too, rocking like a canoe in the rapids, its blades screeching across the ice, was pulled sideways toward the creva.s.se.

Michael steered to one side of a looming serac and hit the brakes, skidding to a halt. When he leapt off the snowmobile and lifted his goggles, he saw the sled teetering on the edge of the creva.s.se, with Sinclair pounding his feet on the claw brake, and barely holding on. Michael knew that the fissure could run in any direction there-it could be under his own feet even then-but he had no ski pole to gauge the snow with. All he could do was approach at an oblique angle and hope for the best. He yanked open the snowmobile's storage compartment and grabbed the rope and tackle, but before he could go ten yards, the back end of the sled rose into the air like the stern of a sinking ship, with Sinclair still clinging to the handlebars, and after hesitating there for a second or two, slipped from sight.

"Eleanor!" Michael cried, throwing all caution to the winds, and stumbling across the patchy snow and ice, slipping and sliding most of the way. When he neared the edge of the creva.s.se, he went down on all fours and crawled to the rim, terrified at what he might find.

The creva.s.se was a deep blue gash in the ice, but the sled had fallen only ten or twelve feet before becoming wedged between its narrow walls. The dogs dangled below it, like terrible ornaments, the ones that were still alive twisting in their collars and harness, their weight and frantic struggles threatening to dislodge the sled altogether.

"Cut the leads!" Michael shouted. "And the towlines!"

Sinclair looked up uncertainly from his perch on the rear of the sled, then drew his sword and started hacking at the tangled lines that were within his reach.

Eleanor was still huddled in the sh.e.l.l, her face entirely covered by the hood.

First one, then several, of the dogs' bodies dropped away, caroming back and forth against the icy walls and thumping, with hard wet splashes, onto the unseen floor of the creva.s.se. A few agonized howls echoed up from the bottom of the blue canyon, but then they too died away.

Michael hurriedly wrapped the rope under his own arms, then tied a loop and lowered it into the chasm.

"Eleanor," he said, lying on his belly with only his head and shoulders extended over the edge, "I want you to slip this rope over your shoulders and then tie it around you."

The loop hung down like a noose above her head, but she was able to peer out from under her hood, reach up with gloved hands, and grab it.

"Once you've done that," Michael said, "I want you to climb out of the sled, as carefully as you can."

Sinclair hacked at another lead, and another pair of the hanged dogs plummeted into the purple depths. Even so, the prow of the sled, jammed at a slightly lower angle than the back, slipped another foot or two down.

"I've tied it," Eleanor said, her voice m.u.f.fled by the hood.

"Good. Now hold on."

He would have given anything for some kind of anchor-a rock, a snowmobile, something to fasten the rope around-but all he had was his own body. He sat back, dug the heels of his boots into the snowpack, then pulled up, his bad shoulder already complaining.

"Use your feet, if you can, to grip the wall, and push off it."

She broke free from the sh.e.l.l and her body instantly swung against the ice. He heard her groan, then saw the toes of her black boots grip the surface. He coiled the rope around his arm again, and pulled harder. He could feel the tendon straining, and the thought-not now, don't snap now-endlessly repeated in his head.

She had come up a yard or more, but her feet suddenly slipped away from the ice and dangled in midair.

"Michael!" she cried, hanging above the sled and the chasm that yawned below. Michael dug his heels in deeper, but he could not get enough traction; he was slipping toward the fissure himself, his arms shaking almost uncontrollably. Just as he thought he couldn't hold her up for another second, he saw Sinclair stretch forward over the handlebars, put his hands, still encased in thick gloves, on the bottoms of her boots, and push her up. Although the lieutenant's face was obscured by his black ski mask and goggles, Michael could well imagine his fear and anguish. But Eleanor rose, just enough that Michael could grab the rope encircling her and haul her the rest of the way out of the creva.s.se.

She crawled onto the snow, gasping for breath, only her green eyes, wide with terror, visible under the tightly drawn hood.

"Stand up!" Michael said. "The ice!" There was snow on her coat, snow on her mittens, snow on her boots. With the back of his hand, he brushed as much of it away as he could, then quickly steadied her on her feet.

"The rope," Michael said. "I need the rope."

But it was cinched so tightly around her, he could not get it free. Michael dropped his head back over the rim-the sled had slipped farther down, and was tilted at an even-more-precarious angle- and stretched his good arm out as far as he could. "Stand on top of the sled," he said, "and try to grab my hand."

Sinclair could barely move without the sled sliding again, its blades grating on the ice. He swept his goggles and ski mask off, then, after carefully unfastening his sword belt, held it out and let it fall.

"Quickly," Michael said, "before it drops any more!"

Sinclair gingerly stepped off the back runner, and onto the hard orange sh.e.l.l. With his arms extended like an acrobat's, he inched closer, his boots squeaking on the slick surface of the sh.e.l.l. He reached up and put his gloved hand into Michael's. Their eyes met.

"Hang on!" Michael said, but Sinclair's weight on the front of the sled was too much, and with a sickening crunch it started to give way.

"Don't let go!" Michael begged, though he himself was being drawn over the rim. The breath in his throat was as raw as a blowtorch, and the ice and snow under his arm started to crumble.

A fine white powder drifted down into the creva.s.se.

"I've got you!" Michael insisted, but as he stared into Sinclair's face, a few flakes of falling ice wafted down onto the young lieutenant's moustache, then his cheeks, and a look of confusion crept across his features. He started to speak, but a pale frost crackled across his lips, draining them of all color. His tongue became a stick of wood. A gla.s.sy sheen rippled across his jaws, then raced down his neck so fast and so hard that his body went rigid, and his fingers loosed their grasp.

The sled made a grinding noise and dropped another foot or two.

"Sinclair!" Michael said, but the only thing that still looked alive in him were his eyes, and then they, too, were marbled over by a tide of ice. His body managed to stay upright for only another moment before the sled suddenly broke free and plunged, prow first, toward the bottom of the blue creva.s.se. There was a terrible screech and clatter, and finally a shattering crash, as if a crystal chandelier were exploding into a thousand tinkling pieces. Echoes welled up from the jagged walls, but the chasm was too deep for Michael to see any sign of Sinclair, or the wreckage.

When the reverberations died, Michael called his name. Several times. But there was no sound other than the whisper of the wind finding its way into the freezing canyon.

He raised his arm, numb and aching, out of the hole, and rolled over onto his back. His lungs felt as if they would burst. Eleanor was standing where he had left her, her back to the wind and her arms wrapped around herself. Her head was down, the hood of her coat drawn tight around her face-nothing of her skin exposed to the elements.

"Is he gone?" she said, her voice barely audible from under the hood.

"Yes," he said. "He's gone."

The hood nodded solemnly. "And I must not even cry."

Michael clambered to his feet.

"My tears," she said, "might turn to ice."

He went to her, and put an arm around her waist. She was suddenly so weak he felt she might have fallen to the snow herself. Perhaps willingly. As he gently guided her around the edge of the creva.s.se-now and forever an unmarked grave-she paused, and under her breath said something he could not make out. He did not ask what it was-it wasn't for him to know-nor did he see what she had pressed to her lips, before she let it fall into the blue chasm. But when it twirled down, glinting gold and ivory, he knew.

With the polar sun hanging lifelessly above them, they picked their way back through the ragged field of frozen seracs.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE.

December 29, 2:45 a.m.

WHEN THE CABIN LIGHTS FLICKERED on and the pilot announced that they should prepare for landing, Michael downed the last of his Scotch and looked out the window.

Even at that hour, Miami was ablaze with long, sparkling grids of light that only stopped at the black sh.o.r.e of the ocean.

The flight attendant took his plastic cup and empty bottle. The guy who'd been sleeping in the aisle seat roused himself, and stowed away the laptop he hadn't worked on for hours. He'd told Michael he was a "resource specialist," whatever that meant, for some American company building a telecom network in Chile.

Michael hadn't slept a wink-in days. Even now, all he could think of was what lay in the hold of the plane.

The guy on the aisle said, "What are we? Only four hours late?"

Michael nodded. Every extra hour, every delay, had been excruciating.

At least clearing customs in the middle of the night went faster than usual-until Michael mentioned that he had been traveling with human remains and needed to know where to go to claim them.

"I'm sorry for your loss, sir," the customs agent said. "Make a left on your way out and report to the international cargo desk. They'll be able to help you."

At the cargo desk, a kid in a blue uniform, who didn't look like he should be up this late, slowly combed over the NSF forms provided by Murphy and the medical doc.u.ments drawn up by Charlotte, while Michael struggled not to show his impatience. He knew he had to keep cool and do nothing to draw any attention. The kid called over a more senior employee; the laminated tag hanging around the guy's thick neck identified him as Kurt Curtis. After verifying the paperwork himself, and rechecking Michael's pa.s.sport and ID, he said, "Sorry for your loss, sir."

Michael wondered how many more times he would have to hear that.

Curtis picked up the phone, punched a b.u.t.ton, then muttered a few words with his back to Michael. He grunted "yeah" three times, then turned around and said, "If you'll follow me, I'll escort you to the cargo transfer station." Pointing at Michael's duffel bag, he said, "Don't forget to take that."

Outside, the Miami night hit Michael like a hot, wet towel. Get used to it, he told himself. For Eleanor, life in snowy, sleety Tacoma would be an impossibility. Curtis wedged himself into the driver's seat of the cart, while Michael tossed his duffel into the back and sat beside him. It must have rained in the past hour or two-the tarmac was wet, and there were puddles an inch deep here and there. A taxiing jet blew a foul tornado of even hotter air at them, and the roar of its engine was deafening. Curtis took no notice, but steered the cart past a row of terminals and into a vast open hangar where a van marked MIAMI/DADE COUNTY CORONER was parked. A pet.i.te woman in black trousers and a white blouse was leaning against the door, smoking a cigarette. She looked up when Michael grabbed his duffel and got out of the cart. Curtis did a wheelie and left.

"You're Michael Wilde?" she said, dropping the cigarette on the concrete floor. "I'm Maria Ramirez. Erik Danzig's wife."

Michael extended his hand, and very nearly said he was sorry for her loss.

She looked at him closely, with dark eyes, and said, "Long trip, huh?"

He suspected he looked like c.r.a.p, and she had just confirmed it. "Yes. It was." He couldn't keep himself from looking around. Where was the body bag? Had it already been delivered, or was it still in transit somewhere?

"If you're looking for the bag, it's already in the van."

"It is?" His heart nearly leapt out of his chest, and his reaction did not escape Maria's notice.

"So," she said, crushing the still glowing cigarette b.u.t.t under one shoe, "before we have to drag in the police, the FBI, the INS, or whoever, maybe you want to tell me something?"

He had been rehearsing for this moment for days, wondering how he was going to tell her his story, but now that it was on him, all he wanted to do was throw open the doors of the van and rescue Eleanor.

"First of all," she said, "I don't know who's in that bag-I haven't opened it-but I know it's not Erik. He's about a foot taller, and a hundred pounds heavier, than whoever that is."

"You're right," Michael said. "It's not Erik."

Maria looked surprised at his immediate capitulation. "Then where is he?"

Michael lowered his head and said, "You're going to have to bear with me, because what I'm about to tell you is strictly prohibited by the NSF" And then he launched into his story, reminding Maria that she'd said Danzig-Erik-was never happier than he was at the Pole, and how he would have wanted to be buried there. Michael confessed that he had been. "But we would have caught h.e.l.l for doing it, so I couldn't let you know about it until I could tell you here myself, privately, in person." Then he reached under his shirt collar and pulled the walrus-tooth necklace over his head. When Maria saw it, her eyes welled with tears. "I know he would have wanted you to have this," Michael concluded. "He always wore it."

Clutching the necklace in her hand, she turned and walked a few yards away, her head down, shoulders heaving.

Michael waited, feeling his shirt sticking to his skin and his long hair plastered to the back of his neck. It was all he could do not to break into the van, but there were other people not far off- mechanics and a couple of baggage handlers-and he knew he needed to hold on just a little bit longer.

Maria composed herself and retrieved a clipboard from the dashboard of the van. The necklace was hanging around her neck when she returned.

"Okay, so thank you. Erik got what he would have wanted. I owe you one." Handing him the clipboard, she said, "Sign at all the places I've put an X"-there were at least a dozen-and when Michael had finished, she tore off a couple of countersigned copies and handed them to him. "Now it's official. Erik came back."

"Thanks."

"But that still doesn't tell me who's in the bag."

Michael knew that this was going to be the really hard part of the sell. Who would believe it?

"A friend of mine," he said. "Her name's Eleanor."

"You mean, was Eleanor."

"No, she's alive."

Maria stopped and looked at him appraisingly as if trying to decide if she should reconsider everything else he had just been telling her. "Not in that bag, she's not. Not all the way from the South Pole, in cargo holds."

"She is," Michael said, taking Maria by the hand and all but dragging her toward the rear of the van. "Please let me go in and get her."

One of the baggage handlers looked over at them curiously.

"Mother of G.o.d," Maria said, "are you nuts? What the h.e.l.l happens to you people down there?"

But she didn't stop him when he opened the back doors, climbed inside, and pulled them closed again.

The bag was laid on a metal shelf and held in place by two canvas straps. Michael hastily untied them, whispering, "I'm here, I'm here," all the while. But there was no sound from inside the bag.

He grabbed the zipper at the top-the one he'd mangled just enough so it wouldn't completely close-yanked it down and pulled the flaps to either side.