Zodiac Station

Thirty-two

I was in that office so fast, the balls on the Newton cradle were still swinging. Tick, tack. For once, my luck was in: he’d forgotten to log out of his computer. His email sat wide open on the monitor.

I sat on the edge of his chair and scrolled through his in-box, the messages that had come through before the Internet went down. For such an anal guy, he didn’t file as much as he should. It was all in there together, and with everything that had been happening, there was a lot of traffic. Stuff from the honchos at Norwich HQ, from his ex-wife, from the flight contractors. I read through it as fast as I could.

If he had to deal with that bullshit all day every day, no wonder he was so tense. And reading between the lines, it looked like money was a problem — maybe his job was even on the line.

I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes down — and there was no telling when Quam might come back. Reading through everything was like picking up pebbles looking for diamonds.

I had to try smarter. I found the search box and tried a couple of terms. Vitangelsk. Mine 8. Radar. Not really that smart: a six-year-old would have known to use code words. And another five minutes gone.

I listened out. All personnel were still confined to base, so the Platform was loud with noise: talking, laughing, footsteps. No chance of picking out Quam when he came.

The last message I’d read was still open on screen.

Nothing relevant — but it got me thinking. First, I thought how much it would suck to have Quam as your dad. Then I wondered if he was short of cash — and what he might do for money.

I put a new term into the search. A single character: £. It brought up a bunch of results, but not as many as you’d think. There’s no money on Utgard.

I scanned through them. Mostly budget stuff, a few questions about maintenance. And then this:

I thanked God and Bill Malick that I’d been paying attention. They came here a couple years back, just when we set up Echo Bay … looking for a place to build a gene bank. They’d looked around Mine 8. And here they were paying an awful lot of money to Quam.

‘What the hell?’

Time was up. Quam stood in the doorway, like he’d just walked in on me fucking his daughter. He looked terrible. I’m not judging — I mean, most of us at Zodiac looked like Deadheads — but Quam was usually so pristine. He combed, he shaved. Now, he had red-rimmed eyes, crazy hair and stubble like an axe-murderer.

And a face so red I expected to see a fuse sticking out his head. He slammed the door, crossed the room, and would probably have hauled me out of his chair by my collar if I hadn’t have jumped up.

‘What do you think you’re doing here?’

No point trying to bluff. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing here?’ I said. Adrenalin had me pumped; I was feeding off of his anger.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Luxor Life Sciences mean anything to you. Huh?’ I emphasised it with a jab of my finger that almost took his eye out. ‘They’ve damn sure been paying you enough.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Bullshit you don’t. What about Mine Eight? And Hagger — you want to tell me what you did to him?’

‘Are you trying to imply—’

‘Shall I get Jensen in here? He had a hell of a story to tell me, how you called him in to fly you to the Helbreen last Saturday. He said you came back alive. He wasn’t so sure about Hagger.’

All the colour drained out of his face. ‘What Hagger did threatened everything we’d achieved at Zodiac. I had to stop him before he ruined everything.’

‘So you killed him.’

His whole body shook. ‘No.’

‘And then you took his notebooks up to the cabin and burned them to cover the tracks.’

He didn’t try to deny that one. ‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’m smarter than you, Quam. I’ve been up to Mine Eight; I’ve seen the antenna at Vitangelsk. Did you think you could keep all that secret for ever?’

He didn’t have anything to say to that. Couldn’t even look me in the eye. He stared past me, at the Newton’s cradle on the table. His fingers twitched, like he couldn’t stand that it had stopped, he had to set it going again.

I picked it up and slammed it on the floor. The frame cracked; the balls came loose and scattered across the room like a pinball machine. Quam flew at me, but I was quicker. I grabbed his wrists and twisted so hard his eyes watered. Damn, it felt good.

‘How long have you been working for the Russians?’

‘Russians?’

‘Did Hagger find out? Or maybe he was part of it and got cold feet?’

‘Hagger had nothing to do with it.’

We were both shouting — and the walls at Zodiac are made of spit and toilet paper. I tried to bring my voice down before someone came in.

‘How about Anderson and Greta? Were they helping?’

It didn’t quiet him down any. ‘You’re mad,’ he shouted. ‘Russians, radars, murders … you’ve read too many spy novels.’

‘What was in those notebooks you burned?’

He scratched the stubble on his cheek. The skin underneath was chafed raw, like he’d been doing it a lot.

‘Hagger was a fraud. His results, his samples, everything. I did him a favour.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘I had to protect Zodiac. Do you know how badly Norwich want to shut us down? This would have been the perfect excuse. Scandal, questions in the press, demands to do something.’

‘Very convenient.’ I pointed to the email on the screen. ‘How about Luxor Life Sciences?’

‘They gave us a grant.’

‘I bet they did. Did they also tell you to take out anyone who poked into what was happening up at Vitangelsk?’

‘I don’t …’ He was struggling to speak. He sat down hard in his chair. ‘I don’t know who they are. They’re planning to do something with Mine Eight but they haven’t got all the funding. They asked me to keep an eye on things.’

‘Is that why you snoop on other people’s emails?’

He had the audacity to look hurt. ‘That’s for morale. If anyone’s not happy here, I have to be the first to know about it.’ He tapped the papers on his desk. ‘It’s all in the contract.’

‘And when you found out Hagger had been looking around there …’

Again, that blank look. ‘Hagger never went near Vitangelsk.’

‘It’s around the corner from the Helbreen glacier.’

‘With a bloody great mountain in between.’

He started to get out of his chair, saw me square up and thought again.

‘The only time Luxor Sciences said anything about Hagger was after he died. They suggested removing his notebooks.’

‘I bet they did.’

‘To protect our funding,’ he protested. ‘They didn’t want the scandal to ruin Zodiac.’

‘And how did they know all about that so fast? Did you tell them?’

‘No.’ He scratched his beard again. ‘No.’

Quite suddenly, he dropped his head on the desk and started crying.

‘Jesus,’ I said in disgust.

‘Get out,’ he screamed. ‘Get out, get out, get out!’

There was no way I could shut him up — not unless I clocked him. And if he kept on, someone would walk in in a minute, and then it would take one hell of an explanation. His word against mine — and mine was full of murders, Russians, secret radars and spies. They’d have locked me up in two minutes.

So I left him, weeping on to his desk like it was the end of the world.