The Burning Man

1

The world was white. Sky and landscape merged into one horizonless snowy backdrop so that all there was felt enclosed in a glass ball and beyond existed only mystery. They exited down the ramp at the back of the plane where soldiers in parkas struggled to unload crates and military equipment.

The squaddies averted their eyes when Hunter walked by. Laura thought how lonely he looked, though he hid it well behind the cocky, rakish facade that irritated as many people as it charmed. She didn’t like that; they were too much alike.

Stamping her boots in the snow, she half-considered folding a chunk of ice into snow to throw at Tom, but the cold was eating its way into her bones despite the Arctic gear Hunter had procured for them from the quartermaster.

‘You know my flawless complexion is going to look as if someone’s been at it with a wire brush in about five minutes,’ she said. ‘That’s not a good look.’

‘Better get used to it.’ Hunter scanned the desolate airfield; no other planes were visible. ‘With the wind-chill factor, temperatures drop to minus thirty. Touch any metal and you’ll leave flesh behind.’

‘I bet you like it. Prove what a big man you are by taking the pain.’

‘Nothing to prove there.’

‘Run along now. Catch us a caribou or whatever it is you do. I’m very hungry.’

‘Can we get a move on?’ Tom said irritably. ‘While you two carry out your little dance of sexual attraction, the rest of us are slowly going numb.’

‘We’d never be able to tell the difference with you, old man.’ Laura looked past the small, run-down terminal buildings to the wall of white. ‘You could have brought us somewhere where there was, you know, actual life.’

‘We’re in Oppland, north of Bergen and Oslo, south of Trondheim, about an hour outside Dombas.’ Hunter struck out for the terminal, head bowed against the howling wind. ‘Back during the Cold War, this was considered a major NATO line of defence against a possible Russian invasion. And, yeah, you’re right, Tom — let’s get somewhere warm to make plans.’