Thorpe's Candle

COLD BAY

Along a barren stretch of Greenland's eastern coast, twenty kilometers from the nearest settlement stood what remained of Cold Bay Fishery. It was a collection of rundown, weathered buildings long abandoned and forgotten. The once thriving factory lay exposed to the harsh Arctic weather like an aged boxer on the mat for the last time. A nearby town, home to the cannery workers decades earlier, was deserted. A few remnants of canvas flapping in the wind and bits of timber sticking up from the wild summer grass were all that remained. The main cannery building sat on a rocky ledge overlooking a long wooden dock jutting into the ocean like a feeble finger. Other than an Arctic hare or a small rodent, Cold Bay was lifeless.

The two Caterpillar tractors pulling the trailers heavy with containers of korium rumbled up to the old main building. Knebel jumped from the cab of the lead tractor and shouted to his crew, “We must move fast. Get the cargo off the trailers and into the building as quickly as possible. We have to be ready to make the transfer.”

The Inuit workers unhitched the tie-down straps from the flatbeds of the trailers and rolled the containers down metal ramps. Placing each on a dolly, they pushed the precious cargo into the cavernous shell of the factory. Within an hour, all the containers were piled near the rear doors where the fresh North Atlantic cod had once been brought in for processing. The tractors were then stored out of sight in a warehouse a few hundred meters from the factory. As the soft glow of the sun neared the horizon throwing the Arctic into summer night twilight, Knebel and his workers waited.

Skyler could see the deep blue of the North Atlantic stretching across the horizon as they approached the coast. The snow-covered ice cap fell away, replaced by a fragile strip of brown and gray vegetation that managed somehow to survive a few months of the year in the harsh environment.

“Let's climb to five thousand and head south,” Skyler said.

“Why south?” the boy asked as he brought the nose up banking to the right.

“Too many villages to the north,” Gates said, sitting behind the pilot. “Our friends would attract attention.” He searched the sparse landscape with his binoculars. A single dirt road wound along the coast beneath them.

“I'm gonna have to refuel soon,” the boy said.

“How much time left?” Skyler asked.

“Twenty minutes tops.” He gave Skyler a shrug as he tapped the fuel gauge.

“Hold everything, I got them.” Gates pointed to a spot along the dirt road four or five kilometers ahead as a flash of light reflected off one of the tractors. “Looks like they're headed for some buildings right on the coast.”

“What is that place?” Skyler asked the boy.

“Cold Bay. Used to be a fishery. Nothing but a ghost town now.”

“And a perfect place to load their cargo on a ship,” Gates said.

“Take us back over the cap before they spot us,” Skyler said.

The boy banked to the right heading inland.

“See those hills?” Skyler pointed.

Rising out of his seat, the boy looked and nodded.

“Let's find a place to put her down on the other side. Looks like no more than a couple of kilometers — an easy hike back to Cold Bay.” He glanced over his shoulder at Gates.

“Walk in the park,” Gates said and nodded.

Ten minutes later, the Beaver touched down on a flat snowfield, blowing up clouds of white as the engine revved and the plane stopped. Skyler pulled two one-hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to the boy. “Go refuel and be back here as soon as you can.”

“No problem.” He grinned and shoved the money in his jacket pocket.

Shielding their eyes from the snow-filled backwash, Skyler and Gates waited as the Beaver swung around and lifted back up into the late afternoon sky. It banked north and disappeared beyond the distant hills.

“Shall we?” Mickey Gates said with a sweep of his arm.

“After you,” Skyler said as they set out at a steady pace across the ice.

Moisture from the south settled in over the coast in the form of a thick fog bank as Skyler and Gates entered the ghost town. The fog gave the landscape a deep gray blanket, masking the dim twilight of the Arctic summer into almost total darkness. Moving cautiously between the empty shells of the small wooden-frame houses, they crept across the sparse grass and spongy mosses until they lay flat on the ground beside a storage building fifty meters from the cannery.

After waiting thirty minutes with no sign of movement, Gates said, “You want to take a closer look?”

“I always prefer front row seats.” With only starlight to guide them, they slipped across the field and stood with their backs against the outside of the factory. “I’m going to work my way around front and see if I can get inside. You check out the back.”

With a nod, Gates disappeared into the thick fog as Skyler moved along the outside wall looking for an opening. He didn’t have to search long. A window, its panes gone, the wooden frame rotten and brittle, opened like a dark wound. Skyler boosted himself over the sill and quietly dropped down onto a hard floor. The blackness seemed empty and eternal, but he knew somewhere inside was Knebel, the Inuits, and the korium.

Gates felt his way along the side of the building, careful not to trip over the scattered debris under the thick weeds. He was about to step over a pile of timber when instinct made him hesitate.

Crouched beside what may have once been a loading dock, he turned and stared in the direction of the old fishery wharf. Like a weak signal from a distant TV station, the faint outline of a long dark shape appeared through the fog. Suddenly, a blinding spotlight split the grayness, its beam sweeping up the dock and across the rear of the cannery building. Gates dropped flat on the ground, his eyes seeing but his mind not wanting to acknowledge what appeared before him.

For an instant, the fog thinned. At the end of the dock where cod-laden fishing boats once unloaded their catch sat the menacing form of a Yankee-class Soviet nuclear submarine. A black pirate flag snapped in the wind.

“I don’t believe it,” he whispered. “They’ve got two boomers.”

Then he heard the gunfire.