Terminal Freeze

42

“It’s supposed to be this rough?” Barbour asked through gritted teeth. “The ride, I mean?”

“Nope. Normally they cover the winter road portages in a layer of ice. But we’re making our own road. Just grab the ‘oh, shit!’ handle.”

“The what?”

“That stabilizer bar over your door.”

Barbour reached up and took hold of the horizontal metal bar, then glanced at Carradine. The cab of the big truck was so large that the man was actually out of reach. It seemed his hands were constantly moving-over the steering wheel, to the gearshift, to one of the innumerable buttons on the dash. She had never ridden in an articulated lorry before and was astonished at how high off the ground they were-and just how rough it was.

“Have to keep our speed down to thirty,” the trucker said, omnipresent wad of gum bulging one cheek. “Don’t want to damage the trailer coupling. We’ll have to slow down even more when we reach the lake, but at least the ride will be smoother then.” He chuckled.

Barbour didn’t like the sound of that chuckle. “What lake?”

“We’ll have to cross one lake on the way to Arctic Village. Lost Hope Lake. It’s too wide, can’t be avoided. But it’s been nice and cold, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Why do you think they call it ice-road trucking? On the regular winter road, 80 percent of the route is over ice. The portages only count for 20 percent of the trip.”

Barbour didn’t reply. Lost Hope Lake, she thought. Let’s hope it doesn’t live up to its name.

“We’re lucky we’ve got this wind,” Carradine went on. “It keeps the snow cover down, helps me find the most level route across the permafrost. We have to be very careful-can’t risk getting a blowout, all those people back there without heat.”

Barbour glanced into the rearview mirror. In the reflected running lights she could just make out the silver bulk of the trailer. Thirty-five people inside. She imagined them sitting in there, probably speaking very little, with only a flashlight or two for illumination. The heat would be waning by now.

Carradine had shown her how to use the CB radio to communicate with Fortnum. She plucked the handset from its cradle, made sure the proper frequency was selected, pressed the Talk switch. “Fortnum, you there?”

There was a brief crackle. “Here.”

“How is it going back there?”

“Okay so far.”

“Is it getting cold?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll give you updates as we get farther south. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do.”

Barbour didn’t know the proper etiquette for ending the conversation so she simply replaced the handset onto the transmitter. The last part of the exchange had been only for morale-there was of course nothing she could do to help them. She glanced over at Carradine. “How much farther?”

“To Arctic Village? It’s two hundred and ten miles from the base to the northern outpost. That’s where we’re headed.”

Two hundred and ten miles. They’d already been on the road nearly an hour. Barbour did a little mental calculation. They still had almost six hours to go.

Outside the broad windshield, the storm was a confusion of white flakes against a screen of black. The wind whipped huge skeins of snow up from the ground, exposing the featureless gray moonscape of permafrost beneath. Carradine had turned on every fog light and headlamp on the truck, and despite his light tone and joking manner she noticed just how carefully he watched the landscape ahead, gently turning the truck well before encountering a potential obstacle.

The cab bounced and shook until it seemed her teeth would loosen. She wondered how Sully and Faraday were getting on back at the base, whether or not Marshall had returned. Maybe she shouldn’t have let Sully talk her into leaving. It was just as much her expedition as anybody else’s; she wasn’t only the computer specialist, she had important research that shouldn’t be abandoned just because…

Something had changed. She glanced over at Carradine. “Are we slowing?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“We’re approaching Lost Hope Lake. Fifteen miles per hour, maximum, on the ice.”

“But there’s no heat back in the trailer. We can’t delay.”

“Lady, let me explain. Driving over a frozen lake creates a wave beneath the ice. That wave follows us as we cross. Drive too fast, the wave gets too large and breaks through the ice. If that happens, we sink to the bottom. The ice refreezes overhead in minutes and, presto, you’ve got a premade grave that-”

“Right. I get the picture.”

Now, out of the darkness ahead, something glinted dully in the headlights. Barbour sat up, peering intently-and nervously. Ice, stretching into the distance until it became lost in the storm.

Carradine slowed the truck still further, working his way down through the gears, then let it roll to a stop with a chuff of air brakes. He reached back into the sleeper cabin, pulled out a long tool shaped like a svelte jackhammer. “Be right back,” he said, opening his door.

“But-” she began to protest.

The trucker stepped out and shut the door behind him, dropping down out of sight, and she fell silent. A moment later she saw him again, trotting out ahead of the truck, an incongruous sight in his tropical shirt, tool balanced on one shoulder. The wind had eased, and skeins of snow curled around him almost caressingly. As she watched, he stepped onto the ice, walking perhaps fifty yards out. He unshouldered the tool, fired it up, and applied it to the ice. It was, she realized, a power auger. Within thirty seconds he had broken through and was trotting back toward the cab. He climbed up, opened the door, and swung in. He was smiling widely. A thin coating of ice covered his hair and shoulders.

“You’re just bloody daft, you know that?” she said. “Going out into a storm, dressed like that.”

“Cold is a state of mind.” Carradine threw the auger into the back, then rubbed his hands together-out of chill or anticipation, Barbour couldn’t guess. “The ice is twenty-two inches thick.”

“Is that bad?”

“That’s good. Eighteen inches is the minimum. We’re ahead of the season. This here is good for twenty-five, maybe thirty tons.” He jerked a finger toward the auger, chuckling. “I know this trip’s kind of low-tech. No continuous profiling, no ice radar, like they have on the real winter road. But hey, we don’t have any load restrictions or pain-in-the-ass dispatchers, either.”

He looked at her a minute. “Okay. I’ll tell you something now, just so you’ll be prepared. Driving on ice isn’t like driving on a normal road. It bends with the truck. And it makes a lot of noise.”

“What?”

“It’s better if you hear it for yourself.” He released the brake, put the truck in gear. “Now I’m going to ease us onto the lake. You don’t want to hit it too fast and stretch the ice.”

“Stretch it? No, no, you certainly don’t want to do that.” Barbour looked out at the seeming limitless span of ice that lay ahead. Were they really going to drive an eighteen-wheel truck onto that?

“All right.” Carradine let the truck creep forward toward the shore, then glanced at her again and winked. “Here’s where you cross your fingers, ma’am.”

They crept forward onto the ice at little more than ten miles per hour. Barbour tensed as she felt the shaking and pounding of the permafrost give way to the far more unsettling sensation of ice flexing beneath them. Carradine frowned with concentration, one hand on the wheel, the other grasping the gearshift. The engine whined as they moved forward. “Gotta keep the RPMs high,” he muttered. “Helps prevent spinning out.”

As they ventured farther onto the ice, Barbour could hear a new sound-a faint crackling that seemed to come from all around her, like the sound of cellophane being torn from a Christmas toy. She swallowed painfully. She knew what that sound was: the ice, protesting under the massive weight of the big-rig truck.

“How far across?” she asked a little hoarsely.

“Four miles,” Carradine replied, not taking his eyes from the ice.

They kept on at what seemed a snail’s pace, the crackling growing louder. Snow skittered along the ice, forming eddies and cyclones and odd phantasmal shapes in the headlights. Now and then Barbour heard sharp pops and booms from beneath. She bit her lip, mentally counting the minutes. Suddenly, the truck yawed sideways, sliding to the right. She looked quickly at the trucker.

“Gust of wind,” he said, turning the wheel very gently to compensate. “No traction out here.”

The CB radio chirped. Barbour reached for the handset. “Fortnum?”

“Yes. What’s all that noise outside? People back here are getting a little worried.”

She thought a moment before replying. “We’re going over an icy patch. Should just be a couple of minutes more.”

“Understood. I’ll pass the word.”

She replaced the handset, exchanged glances with Carradine.

Five minutes crawled by, then ten. Barbour realized her right hand had gone numb from gripping the stabilizer bar. The faint give of the ice, the constant crackling and snapping sounds, made her so tense she feared she’d go mad. The wind moaned and cried. Now and then a stronger gust would shove the truck sideways, forcing Carradine to compensate with the greatest of care.

She peered ahead through the murk. Was that the far shore in the distance? But no-it was just a dark wall of icy pellets that hung in the air, shifting and throbbing in the wind like a rippling curtain.

“Ice fog,” Carradine explained. “The air can’t hold any more moisture.”

The strange mist began to envelope the truck like a cloud of black cotton. The visibility, poor to begin with, abruptly dropped to near zero.

“Can’t see a bloody thing,” Barbour said. “Slow down.”

“Can’t,” the trucker replied. “Can’t lose momentum.”

This new blindness, combined with the awful flexing and crackling of the ice beneath them, was simply too much for Barbour. She felt herself hyperventilating, drowning in anxiety. Hold on, luv, she told herself. Just hold on. Only a minute or two more.

And then they were through the cloud of ice-and now she could see the rocks of the far shore, at the very limit of the headlight beams. Relief flooded through her. Thank God.

Carradine took his eyes from the ice long enough to glance at her. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Suddenly the truck gave a sharp lurch downward. At the same time there was a loud crack, like the report of a gun, just behind them. “Soft spot,” said Carradine, stepping heavily on the accelerator. “Weak ice.”

They pushed forward faster now, the big diesel whining. Another crack, louder, this one from directly below. Barbour saw that a split had formed in the ice and was now shooting out ahead of them with increasing speed, the two sections pulling apart. Carradine immediately compensated, maneuvering the truck so the crack stayed between the front wheels. But ahead the crack forked, once, twice, spreading across the ice at crazy angles like summer lightning. Carradine turned the wheel sharply, moving laterally over the webbing of cracks. The popping and snapping spiked abruptly in volume. Just then a brutal gust of wind caught the side of the truck. Barbour cried out as she felt the rear of the truck twist, then tilt alarmingly, threatening to jackknife and overturn on the collapsing ice.

“Spinout!” Carradine shouted. “Hold on!”

Barbour clung desperately to the stabilizer bar as the trucker fought to keep the big vehicle from rolling. Slowly, forward momentum brought them level to the ice. The far shore was just ahead now, less than fifty yards away. But the truck was still in a barely controlled spin. It collided with one of the shoreline rocks in a shuddering crash, lurched away, then stabilized. Carradine goosed the throttle again and the truck roared off the ice and back onto the washboard surface of the permafrost.

Barbour exhaled a long, shivering breath. Then she reached for the CB handset. “Fortnum, it’s Penny Barbour. Everyone all right back there?”

After a moment, Fortnum’s crackly voice replied. “A little shaken up but otherwise okay. What happened?”

“A gust of air caught us. But we’re off the ice now, and it should be clear sailing the rest of the way.”

As she replaced the handset, she happened to glance at Carradine. He was peering into his rearview mirror. Seeing the expression on his face, her anxiety returned.

“What is it?” she asked.

“That rock we hit,” he replied. “Looks like it holed our left tank.”

“Petrol tank? But don’t you have two?”

“The left tank was full. The right one isn’t. It’s only a third full.”

The feeling of anxiety spiked sharply. “But we’ve got enough to get to Arctic Village -don’t we?”

Carradine didn’t look at her. “No, ma’am. I don’t believe we do.”