Polar Quest

19

‘I think we got all we’re going to get, Major,’ Kilkenny said into Twin Otter’s radio. ‘Any other remains are either scattered outside our search grid or were buried by snow during that last squall.’

‘All right, Kilkenny,’ Saunders replied. ‘Pack it in and head back.’

‘Roger that. Out.’

Bright orange flags dotted the ice in front of Kilkenny, markers that described an imaginary grid laid over Skier-98′s debris field. Square by square, Kilkenny and the crewmen assigned to him searched for the remains of the crew. It was a gruesome task made only a bit more tolerable by the sub-zero temperatures. It was simply too cold for decomposition to begin. What they found instead were the broken pieces of six men, scorched and frozen.

Two body bags in the hold of the small plane contained all they could find in the twelve days since they located the wreck, five of which had been lost to weather.

The crash site at the end of the runway looked like a tent city with fabric windbreaks scattered over sections of the wreck as protection against the bone-chilling gusts. Behind the windbreaks, men armed with hammers, chisels, and heat guns worked at the ice. Pumps with insulated hoses drew off the fresh melt and quickly ejected it away from the site before it froze again. Saunders and his crew were fighting an uphill battle against a rock-hard mass of crystal-clear ice.

‘The crew remains are on their way back to McMurdo,’ Kilkenny announced after locating Saunders in a hole behind one of the windbreaks. ‘How’s it going here?’

‘Sucks,’ Saunders replied bitterly. ‘This fuckin’ wreckage is fused in the ice. With this cold it might as well be concrete.’

‘Do we know anything more about this plane?’

Saunders spat on ice. ‘Based on some of what we pulled out so far, I think it’s a genuine LC-130. Unfortunately, we haven’t located the plate.’

‘The plate?’

‘Yeah. Most planes are fitted with a unique identification plate by the manufacturer — it’s like the VIN plate on a car. You can change the tail number on a plane same as a license plate, but the ID number on the manufacturer’s plate is forever. If we find it, we’ll know exactly where this bird came from.’

‘Major!’ a man called out from one of the tents. ‘We got something you should see.’

Kilkenny followed Saunders behind another wind-break.Like archaeologists at a dig, the soldiers had marked off the site with orange string to form a grid. They were systematically excavating each square in their effort to recover the remains of the shattered aircraft. Each object they found in the ice was photographed in place, then removed and tagged for further analysis.

‘Watch your step,’ the soldier advised. ‘It’s a bit slick where we’ve been using the heat guns.’

A corner of a large mass of blackened and deformed metal protruded from a melted hole. Kilkenny saw a cast metal wheel and a section of caterpillar track.

‘This sure isn’t part of the plane, sir,’ the soldier offered. ‘What do you make of it?’

‘The station wasn’t equipped with any vehicles, Major, not even a snowmobile,’ Kilkenny said.

‘Based on what we know happened here, I’d say it’s the SAM launcher.’ Saunders looked closely at the tracks. ‘Definitely not U.S. hardware, probably Russian or Chinese.’

‘Major, how much of the aircraft’s hold would the launcher have taken up?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘Most of it,’ Saunders replied.

‘Then that answers one of the big questions — the raiders got away with what they came for.’ Kilkenny stared down at the ice surrounding the exposed corner of the launcher, then picked a hammer and struck it. The blow reverberated inside the launcher. ‘Doesn’t sound like much water got inside and I think I see a hatch under the ice. I want to take a look inside — maybe this thing has an ID plate, too.’

‘You heard the man,’ Saunders said. ‘Let’s move some ice.’

Kilkenny worked alongside the crewmen, tearing away at the ice. It took almost an hour to carve out a passage large enough for a man to reach the metal hatch. Kilkenny rapped on it with the hammer and still got a hollow return. He heated the edges of the hatch to melt the thin ice hidden in the crack, then sprayed the joints, hinges, and crank with a penetrating lubricant. The metal protested as he turned the crank and, slowly, the dogs holding the hatch closed released.

Kilkenny wriggled through the narrow opening and deliberately lowered himself inside the launcher. The floor of the vehicle tilted at an extreme angle and, in the lowest corner, he saw ice.

‘Hand me a light and the camera,’ Kilkenny called out.

The crewman reached through the opening with the equipment. Kilkenny switched the flashlight on and twisted the end for a wide beam. The launcher was like all the armored vehicles he’d ever been in — cramped and utilitarian. Slowly sweeping the interior with the light, Kilkenny carefully worked his way down toward the engine compartment in the rear. There, he located a thin steel ID plate fastened to the framing. The plate contained several numbers and the labels were in Cyrillic. Kilkenny snapped a few pictures, then climbed out.

‘I want the pictures of that plate on a disk as soon as possible so I can get ‘em to Langley. Maybe they can tell us where this thing came from.’

Kilkenny checked the message board in the operations module and found an urgent message from his father. He quickly calculated the seventeen-hour time difference and decided to take the chance on waking his father. The phone rang twice before Sean Kilkenny answered.

‘Hey, Dad, it’s Nolan. I got your message.’

‘Oswald Eames was arrested this morning.’ Sean’s voice sounded numb and flat. ‘He may have murdered his ex-wife and Lloyd Sutton.’

‘Why do the police think Eames did it?’

‘I don’t know the specifics. He’s being arraigned on Monday, but the media’s playing this like an O.L. sequel. There’s already been a protest because both victims were white and Eames is black. When are you getting back?’

‘We’re not scheduled to pull out until next week,’ Nolan replied. ‘Damn it! I could’ve caught a ride to McMurdo this morning, if I’d known. The flight schedules here are already screwed up because of the crash, but if I can swing something I’ll try to leave sooner.’

‘Do what you can, because as long as Eames is in jail, you’re the acting CEO of UGene.’