Whiteout!

Chapter 19

I hadn't been aware of it, but while I'd been out on the icecap, the Cold Regions Research fliers from Thule had been taking a chance in the same brief wind break to parachute two Air Force doctors in. They jumped for the lights of the Swing and were lucky, and a bulldozer went ahead with them to Hundred. But for that, it seems, I'd have died in that bleak early morning. I remember nothing of it, of course, but somehow I must have stayed conscious just long enough to set the TK4 to the ramp. After that, the loss of blood was too great, and I must have lain unconscious as the hovercraft glided down the slope by force of gravity, and then careered like a great, slow, dodgem car, halfway along Main Street, until it burst through a snow wall into one of the trenches and hanging ice stripped the propellers. Even after it was clear I wouldn't die, that the transfusion had been quick enough and the shock from loss of blood just a fraction short of lethal, they thought I'd lose my arm. But then, after all the foul weather, the disasters, the lousy breaks, Herschel arrived on the Swing and some good luck piggy-backed in on his shoulder.

For fourteen hours there was flying weather. Generators and pipes arrived, and sick and injured and dead were flown out. There must have been frantic activity all round me, but I have no recollection of any of it. I woke in a bed at Thule's big, modern hospital with a nasty post-operative hangover, my arm repaired and an army surgeon telling me with a smile that I was lucky. Not too long after that, I was flown first to McGuire Air Force Base hospital in New Jersey, then home to England. I'd been home a few days and had reached the point where I'd almost mastered the art of dressing one-handed, when the telephone rang one morning.

'Mr Bowes?' An American voice.

'Yes.'

'One moment, sir. I have a call for you.'

I waited. Then an unmistakable voice said, 'You are ze man viz ze flying fan ?'

'Yes, Barney,' I said.

'I'm coming right over to see you. Give me two to three hours. You gonna be in ?'

'Yes, Barney.*

The grey suit, creased from travel, somehow diminished him. Polar bears are for Polar regions. As he sat in my flat he was a grizzled, middle-aged man, weak after illness, the legend fallen away. There was also the fact that his whole personality, his quality of attack, was suited neither to a suburban flat nor to what he had to say. I gestured to the bottles on the sideboard and told him to help himself, and he assembled the constituents of a Martini into what was clearly going to be a slice of humble pie. He took a swallow and said, 'The enquiry's over. You'll get the official report. And I've been asked to tell you how helpful your own account was. We appreciated it.'

'Did they,' I asked, 'find out why?'

'Vernon?'

I nodded.

Barney looked at his glass. 'Maybe. The shrinks tried awful hard to put a picture together. They came up with some kind of amalgam of high ability and disappointment, tossed in middle-age, paranoia and opportunity. But Christ, who knows? I'd known Vernon ten years and more. He was a real solid, reliable guy.'

'Until something changed him.'

'Until he came across the kid with all the dough. I suppose it's got to be that simple. Maybe it all happened a long time before and he was just looking for his chance. Still, I'll tell you what's known and what's supposition. Fact: young Foster stood to inherit a hell of a lot of money when he finished his service. If his sheet was clean.'

'I know the story.'

'Okay. Supposition : Vernon knew that. How he found out... ?' Barney shrugged. 'Kid must have told him some time, over a few beers maybe. Another fact : Vernon was in charge of the Hundred office at Fort Belvoir when the personnel selections were made that time. He put Foster's name on the list for Hundred.'

I asked, 'Is that kind of thing left to sergeants?'

'You know how it is. Lists get made, then approved higher up. Finally by me. There was no reason Foster should not have gone to Hundred. Another fact: we found two cheques, for fifty thousand dollars each. One in Vernon's wallet, the other in his locker. Both signed by Foster, both made out to cash, both undated.'

'Were the signatures genuine?'

'Sure they were.'

I said, 'But that's crazy! The moment Foster died his account would be frozen. By killing Foster, he made the cheques worthless!'

'That's right.' Barney's hands gestured his own incomprehension. 'Still, here's some more. Supposition: and this one's not all that good. But remember they were stuck in the hut, just the two of them. So maybe Sergeant Vernon was getting round to chiselling even more dough out of Foster. Foster only inherited if he got his discharge with the word exemplary plastered all over it. One charge - indiscipline, insubordination, even failure to maintain personal cleanliness, goddammit - and that conduct sheet would have been wrecked. Vernon really had Foster by the shorts. So you could put together some kind of a scenario in which Foster attacked Vernon first, right? Vernon defends himself, knocks the kid unconscious, panics, and just leaves him out there to freeze. Well, it's possible! Then, when he's back inside Hundred . . , well, that's when he has to work out a story real quick, and he says Foster blundered away from the rope and got lost in the white-out.'

I nodded. 'Then later he realized that Foster's body must still have the line attached. And when it was found .., but would it have been found?'

'Sure it would,' Barney said. 'Come the spring and a little daylight, the whole surface area's gone over. Markers and lines are lifted and repositioned, general tidying-up.'

'And the body tied to the line was positive evidence Vernon had lied.'

'Right. He had to get out and cut that line. But the weather stayed closed. Heavy snow, too, remember that. Soon the whole thing would have been buried deep and there'd be almost no chance for one man alone to find Foster. When he realized that, the shrinks reckon, that's when he started the attack on Hundred itself. It's kind of a classic pattern: the structure's a threat, so he sets out to attack the structure. With Hundred abandoned, Foster's body never would have been found. He'd have lost the money, okay, but he'd have been in the clear.'

We sat and looked at each other. I said, 'There's another thing I've never understood. Why on earth did he muck about with the bodies? Why take Harrer's body out of the trench and put it where the bulldozer would crush it? I mean, dammit, if he hadn't done that, we'd never have rumbled him.'

Barney shrugged. 'Who knows ? He was crazy anyway, but a supposition was slung together. You told us in your evidence that Vernon probably saw Doc Kirton with the food wrappings after that business with the bear. Likely he heard you talking. He knew Kirton wasn't going to find any saliva to analyse, because it was Vernon himself who'd scratched open the oil tanks and the emergency rations. No saliva, no bacteria, so no bear. Therefore proof of sabotage. So Kirton had to go.'

'It's a hell of a supposition!'

'Less than you'd think. Vernon kept a paper he stole from Kirton's office.'

'What paper?'

'Kirton's report. He'd done the microscopic analysis, and written up the results. The report said no bacteria, no evidence of animal saliva or animal hair or animal mucus. Vernon took it, which may have made sense to him. But he didn't destroy it, which just shows how crazy he was.'

I said, 'It still doesn't explain - '

'I know it. Listen: he killed Kirton. Probably did it right there in the hospital. So he had a body to get rid of, right? He puts Kirton on a sled-stretcher and hides him under something, a few boxes, anything, then he hauls off to the well trench, which is off limits, anyway, and not far away, and he knows he won't be disturbed in there as he drops Kirton down the well.'

'I realize all that. But why bring out Harrer's body?'

'Because having dumped Kirton, he realizes Kirton's going to be missed. There'll be a big-scale search. Maybe he's left some clues somewhere, something that leads to him. He hasn't but he can't be sure. Then he remembers there are other bodies, and one of them is Harrer's. Now Harrer doesn't look like Kirton, except they're both big men, and dark. Nobody's going to mistake one for the other, not unless - '

'Now I understand.'

'Yeah. The body's unrecognizable, there's a man missing, two and two make four. Nobody wants to look too close.'

'And the nuclear engineer, Captain Carson?'

' Carson 's body was outside the escape hatch of the trench where he lived. Head beaten in. Vernon must have carried him up the ladder and dumped him outside. He'd fixed Kelleher with drugs and killed Carson . The reactor was going to be out of action a long, long time.'

I said, 'He only missed by a whisker, didn't he? He almost did force Hundred to shut down.'

'He came closer than you think,' Barney said.

'What do you mean?'

'Hundred's closing in the spring.' As I looked athim he seemed infinitely sad.

'Why?'

'That's the Army for you. Research project completed. Shy away from a can of worms.' He shrugged, then gave an apologetic little grin. 'So you see, we won't be needing too many hovercraft.'

'Many! You mean any.1"

'That's right, Harry. There'll be compensation, naturally, but-'

'But no sale,' I said.