Zodiac Station

Thirty-six

The ice fled away below the helicopter — and however much they covered, there was always more. Hard to believe in global warming when you saw a sight like that, though Franklin had served on enough Arctic deployments that he wasn’t fooled. Every year, a little less ice. A lot less, some years. If it kept up, the Terra Nova would be the last Coast Guard ship of her kind.

Out the window, a speck of colour broke the infinite whiteness. A drop in the ocean — but his eye picked it out. As the helicopter flew nearer, it separated in two, like an amoeba. A bright red Scott tent, pitched in the shadow of a huge ice ridge, and in front of it a black snowmobile.

‘Hell of a place to go camping,’ said Santiago.

The ice hardly stirred as the helicopter touched down. Concrete solid. Franklin remembered a class at the academy, some guy in World War Two who’d calculated how thick ice needed to be to hold a given weight. At two inches, it would hold a man; ten inches, a truck. What he was standing on now was probably a good couple of feet. Still.

The tent door opened and an ensign came out, waddling over the ice in his bulky mustang suit. They must all look like a group of old-school comic-book astronauts, Franklin thought. All they needed were the fishbowl helmets.

‘Nothing’s changed, sir.’

As they passed the snowmobiles, Franklin noticed someone had rubbed a hole in the frost that covered the gauges.

‘Out of gas,’ the ensign explained.

‘Of all the luck,’ said Santiago. ‘There’s a Mobil two miles up the road.’

They reached the tent and hesitated, unsure who should go first.

‘Take a look,’ the ensign said.

The first thing that hit Franklin when he crawled in was the colour. Soft, opium red after the whiteness outside. A survival bag lay on a mat on the floor, surrounded by candy-bar wrappers. Two heads stuck out, a man and a woman spooning side by side fully clothed, straining the close-fitting bag almost to breaking. A strand of blonde hair escaped from under the woman’s hat; the man wore a beard that couldn’t be much more than a week old.

‘Are they …?’

The ensign had stuck his head through the door behind him. ‘Hanging in there. Passed out. I thought it was better to let them rest.’ A sheepish look. ‘In case, you know, they weren’t happy to see us.’

Franklin fished out the battered sheet of paper and studied it. The photographs had never been great. Now, emailed, printed, handled and frozen, they looked more like masterpieces of impressionism. Even so.

‘That’s got to be Greta Nystrom.’

He looked at the man next to her. ‘But there’s no way that’s Fridtjof Torell.’

He unzipped the sleeping bag. The man still wore his coat underneath, the white Zodiac Station insignia half covered by his arm. Above it, a name stitched into the Gore-Tex, dim in the tent’s red gloom. Anderson.

A little dizzy, Franklin pulled apart the Velcro fastenings that held the coat together. No zip — it had broken. He opened the coat and reached inside to feel a pulse. Weak, but not gone yet.

As he pulled out his arm, he felt something hard on the inside of the coat. A notebook bulging out of the inside pocket. Two notebooks, in fact, a green one and a brown one, and an envelope sandwiched between them that dropped on to the tent floor when he pulled them out. Still sealed, addressed in the loopy writing kids use when they’re trying hard.

He ducked out of the tent and showed it to Santiago. ‘You believe this?’

Santiago read the address. ‘Is that what this is about? Santa Claus?’

Franklin ripped a hole in the envelope, then paused, embarrassed. Santiago smirked at him.

‘Worried the real Santa’s gonna know you did a bad thing?’

Franklin slit it open with his finger and unfolded the letter inside. He read it quickly.

‘Kid wants an Xbox game and a new bike. Must be British — he says “thank you” at the end.’

‘Show it to Eastman?’ Santiago suggested. ‘Could be a Russian code.’

‘You’re a cynical bastard, Ops. No presents for you.’

‘So my mom always told me.’

Putting the letter aside, Franklin gave Santiago the green notebook and took the brown one for himself. They flicked through.

‘Get anything, Ops?’

‘If I remember the eighth grade right, sir, I’d say this looks like science. Maybe we can have the geeks check that out.’ Santiago looked at his captain. ‘You OK, boss?’

Franklin was staring at the brown notebook as if he’d been hit with a two-by-four.

‘A ham sandwich,’ he murmured to himself.

‘Come again, sir?’

He pulled his hood back, as if he needed more space around him. ‘This one’s some kind of journal.’

Phrases swam off the page.

‘Did he write his name and phone number in the front?’

Franklin went back to the very beginning and read the first line.