Polar Vortex

Chapter 6

Mac didn’t know what had saved him. All he knew was that he’d been let off, and he felt like an empty shell. But he didn’t have time to enjoy it. He was still a long way from safe.

He drove until he couldn’t keep going, along the coast, then up into a pass between the mountains. The silence when he cut the engine was so intense it took his breath away.

He jumped down, swinging his arms and doing jumping jacks to get the blood flowing. His face felt as if it was on fire. He opened the box on the back of the snowmobile and took out a thermos swaddled in a wooden sock. The water was still warm. He poured it into the cup, spilling half of it with his shaking hands, and forced it down.

Louisa was standing close to him, tilting her head forward and peering into his face. For a stupid moment, he thought she was about to kiss him.

‘Your nose is white.’

Louisa reached for his face; he flinched. Gingerly, he took off his mitten and pulled away the face mask. It felt like peeling open his skin.

‘Jesus,’ said Louisa, when he’d finished screaming.

She took a small tube of Vaseline from her pocket and smeared it over his nose and cheek. He had to bite his lip not to scream again when she touched him.

‘I feel like Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.’

‘OK,’ she said, in a voice that said she didn’t know or care what he was talking about. Not a Polanski fan, evidently.

‘Your nose is badly frostbitten,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Keep it covered with your hand while we’re stopped. Cheek’s not so bad, but it’s going to feel like a nasty sunburn for a week or so.

That was far from his biggest problem.

‘Now that’s done, are you going to tell me what this is really about?’

She pinched her temples again, a gesture that was becoming familiar. As if she had a permanent headache. She started to say something, then had second thoughts.

‘It’s better if you don’t know.’

‘Don’t give me that. I’ve risked my job, my career, to help you —’

‘I told you not to.’

‘The least you can do is tell me what I’ve got myself into.’

‘I can’t,’ she insisted.

‘What’s on the memory stick?’

‘Whatever you’ve risked, you’ll risk ten times more if I tell you. I can’t do that to you.’

‘They shot at me. How much worse can it get?’

‘Worse than you can imagine,’ she said darkly. ‘If they come back.’

He looked back down the valley, right the way to the coast. No sign of pursuit.

‘I think we lost them.’

He was still angry she wouldn’t tell him what was on the memory stick. But more than that, he was cold and shaken and his face felt as if it was on fire. Suddenly, he just wanted her to go away.He checked the GPS. Nadezhda wasn’t far, about thirty kilometres up the coast. But–

He tapped the fuel gauge. ‘We’re low on petrol.’

‘How low?’

‘Maybe enough to get there. But definitely not enough to get me home again.’

‘Can you radio your friends to come and pick you up?’

‘It’s VHF. Line-of-sight only — and we’re the wrong side of the mountains.’

‘You could call them from my phone.’

He looked embarrassed. ‘I don’t know the number. They’re all programmed in,’ he added defensively. ‘My partner had the phone.’

He pushed the button on the GPS to zoom in. Even that made his thumb twinge with pain.

‘Here.’ He pointed to a red square superimposed on the map. A fuel cache, about ten kilometres off. ‘We can fill up there.’

‘That makes sense. Then swing back down the Adventhal to Nadezhda.’

He shot her a funny look. ‘Good geography. The Adventhal isn’t marked on the GPS.’

‘They made me study a map before I came. I pretty much memorised it.’

She went to the back of the snowmobile, put her hands under the frame and lifted the treads off the ground, where they’d frozen to the snow. She pulled the starter cord and slid herself over the seat.

‘I’ll drive. Otherwise, your mother won’t recognise you when you go home.’

He was happy to let her drive. He huddled down behind her, head tucked against her back to shield him from the wind. Like a child, but he didn’t care. She couldn’t be too much older than him, maybe five or ten years, but she had a quiet competence that made him feel six years old again.

Has she really only been here ten days? He thought of the activists he’d heard about on the news, who’d scaled the drilling rig in the icy Barents Sea while the Russians blasted them with a water cannon, and men with guns waited at the top to throw them in prison. He was starting to realise he wasn’t as tough as he’d thought. All he wanted was warmth and safety, to get back to the protection of real life. Really, what he wanted was home and weak sunshine and green grass, and to step out of the house without wondering if the weather would kill him. But even the tent at Gemini would do. He’d had enough.

The snowmobile stopped. Mac sat up and peered over Louisa’s shoulder. The fuel dump showed square and centre on the GPS. In front of them, a red oil drum rose out of the snow that had drifted around its base.

‘That’s strange,’ said Mac. ‘Usually, you have to dig them out from under three feet of ice.’

A hand pump and hose were strapped to the back of the drum. Frozen solid, of course. He ran the snowmobile engine and held the pump in front of the exhaust vent to thaw it out. Warmed his hands, too. Then he connected them to the oil drum and listened for the flow of fuel.

Nothing happened.

He kicked the barrel. It tipped unsteadily, wobbling before settling down again. Nothing inside to weigh it down.

‘Someone’s been here and used it up.’

He sat down on the snowmobile. He wanted to be angry, but the cold defeated him.

‘So what are we going to do?’

But Louisa had turned her back. Not ignoring him: listening. And the moment he understood that, he heard it too. A low engine sound, throbbing up the valley.

The corrugated track they’d left trailed across the snow. Their snowmobile sat there, a few inadequate kilometres of petrol left in its tank. The red oil barrel stood out against the snow like a lighthouse.

Why had he come here? He should have driven back to Gemini while he had enough fuel and told Annabel everything. The oil people wouldn’t have dared try anything there.

But it was too late for that.

Earl’s feet were cold as hell by the time he’d trudged back to the camp. He found Malick in the tiny cubicle they called the office.

‘I heard a shot. Everything OK?’

Earl took him out and showed him the graffiti on the tanks. ‘Caught them at it. Would have nailed them, if the snowmobile hadn’t blown her seal.’

Malick studied it. ‘We can paint it over. Maybe do it black next time.’

‘You think this is connected to what went down at Prirazlomnaya?’

‘Probably some kids from Zodiac Station getting ideas. They got more than their share of eco freaks down there.’ He dabbed at the dye with the tip of his glove. ‘Hypocrites. If we didn’t have global warming, they’d be out of their jobs.’

‘I wanna go after them.’

Malick shook his head. ‘We got enough to do here.’

Earl didn’t move. ‘I don’t like it. Eco nuts swarming all over the camp. I saw one of them coming out of the tech hut.’

‘They couldn’t have got anything without passwords. And this thing’ — he pointed to the pink writing — ‘they’re just trying to get a reaction. If we go chasing after them like the Texas rangers, they’ll video that and put it straight on YouTube. We over-react, people will start taking a close look at us, and that’s something we definitely don’t want.’

He left Earl simmering in a cold fury. Patience, he reminded himself. It was a calm day. No wind to drift over the tracks, and no sun to soften the snow. The trail would still be there in an hour or two, when Malick wasn’t looking.

They had no time to move the snowmobile. They ran and ducked behind some rocks.

A snowmobile came crawling up the valley, barely a hundred yards from the fuel cache. Not the powerful machine that had chased them out of Echo Bay: it looked like the twin of the one they’d ridden. It was towing a sledge, with a large silver cube balanced on it.

Mac stared. Louisa went one better: she produced a pair of binoculars. She examined the snowmobile, then handed the glasses to Mac.

‘He’s wearing the same coat as you.’

It was a Zodiac coat. Mac tried to pick out individual details, but the helmet and goggles hid the face; standard Zodiac-issue cold weather gear covered the rest. Size was no guide. Kate Moss would have looked fat in those clothes.

The snowmobile turned slightly, avoiding some invisible obstacle. The wind caught a scarf knotted around the driver’s neck, and stretched out the tail. Blue and white letters, too small to read even with the binoculars. But he recognised the colours. Chelsea colours.

‘I think that’s Danny.’

He jumped to his feet and ran out from behind the rocks, shouting and waving his arms like a marooned sailor. Didn’t think about the ramifications, or the explanations, or what would happen if he was wrong. Just wanted help.

No way the driver could have heard him — but he must have seen Mac against the snowscape. He slowed to a stop, letting the snowmobile idle at the foot of the slope.

‘Mac, mate?’

He took off his goggles. It was Danny — last seen dishing up porridge in the mess tent at Gemini. The last time Mac had eaten a meal, he suddenly remembered.

‘What the fucking hell are you doing here?’

‘I … ’

‘And who’s she?’

Louisa had come out from behind the rocks. Mac wished she’d waited until he’d had time to think of an excuse.

‘We need to get to Nadezhda,’ she said. ‘We’ve got enough petrol to get there, but not enough to get back. Can you help?’

Anyone else at Zodiac would have asked a million hard questions. Danny was different. He had his own world view, variously described by those who heard it as ‘unique’, ‘idiosyncratic’, or ‘bonkers’. And by the logic that governed his world, mysterious women appearing from nowhere to perform secret missions made perfect sense.

And perhaps he had his own secrets. Mac pointed to the silver cube, about a meter square, sitting on the sledge. From a distance, it had looked like gleaming metal. For a few moments, he’d seriously entertained the thought that Danny had found a relic of an alien civilisation fallen to earth. But looking closer, he could see the shiny case was actually translucent: it looked more like clingfilm than steel.

‘What the hell is that?’

Danny looked embarrassed. ‘That bump in the night … I thought it might have been … Well, something from space. I went for a recce.’

‘On your own?’

‘You think Dr Kobayashi would have signed off someone to come with me?’

Mac had to smile. It made his chapped lips bleed.

‘So what is it?’

Danny poked a hole in the plastic wrapping and pulled it apart so Mac could see. He blinked.

‘Do aliens like Heinz?’

The shapes behind the plastic were tins of food: hundreds of them, stacked and held together in the cellophane cocoon.

‘How—?’

‘Must have fallen out of a supply plane. Maybe one going to Summit Camp in Greenland. They use a Hercules for that, rear cargo loading ramp. Could have popped open accidentally in flight.’ Danny spoke quickly; he’d obviously given it plenty of thought. ‘There’ll be some hungry scientists at Summit tonight.’

‘Amazing it didn’t smash to pieces.’ Apart from the opening Danny had made, there were no holes in the wrapping. None of the cans even looked dented.

‘I found it in a snowdrift. Lucky, I suppose.’

He looked at the sky. Dusk was setting on the short polar day. Peach-soft sunlight still touched the tops of the mountains, but down in the valley the light had gone.

‘Best get back before the ghosts come out. They’ll wonder where I’ve got to, back at Gemini.’

With a guilty start, Mac wondered if anyone was worried about him. Come to that, how about Spoons? In the manual, the missing person protocols didn’t kick in until you’d been out of contact for twenty-four hours. But did that apply if you’d gone missing in a whiteout?

‘Has anyone been asking about me?’

‘Dunno. I’ve been out of radio range.’ Danny gave Louisa a strange look. ‘Are you sure you won’t come back to Gemini?’

‘It’s best for everyone. I need to disappear,’ she added, with a well-judged touch of melodrama.

‘Tell them I’ll be back before dawn,’ said Mac.

‘And how are you going to do that without any petrol?’

Mac looked from one snowmobile to the other. ‘How much have you got?’

‘Half tank.’

‘We’ve got enough in ours to get you to Gemini.’

Danny shook his head. ‘Whatever you’re doing, I’m not involved. If you’ve been gone all day, out on your own, you’ve got a royal bollocking from the Ice Queen coming your way. Don’t bring me into it.’

‘Please,’ said Louisa. She touched his arm and stared into his face. ‘You’ve no idea how important this is. If I don’t get out … ’

‘If you don’t get out what?’

Mac wondered again about the little silver memory stick in her pocket. Then he forgot all about it. A gust of evening breeze blew down the valley, and it brought a rumbling sound. Probably ice breaking off a glacier, or a cornice crumbling, but it reminded him of what was out there. He scanned the dusk for the tell-tale glow of a chasing headlamp. Saw nothing.

‘There are men after us. If they catch us, they’ll kill us.’ Louisa said it so matter-of-factly you couldn’t doubt it. Danny’s jaw dropped.

‘No kidding?’

‘Yeah,’ said Mac heavily. Wishing it wasn’t true.

Danny bent down and unhitched the sledge. Mac helped him attach it to the other snowmobile.

‘I don’t know what trouble you’re in,’ he said. ‘But I hope to hell you get out of it.’