Deep Ice (9 page)
The general, noticing the glance Grimes had given Henry, said, “Comments from the SEAL?”
“Give a fuck, sir,” said Grimes.
“What’s that?” asked the general.
“Sorry, sir,” said Grimes. “They got us penned up in here. I want to know what’s going on out there. This shit is driving me nuts!”
“I hear you, Kai,” said Hayes. “Trouble is, the Commander-in-Chief is ‘thinking about the situation’.
That means
nothing
is going on. So you may as well enjoy the break. Sit down and stir your coffee. For all you know, it could be the last one you’ll ever get.”
#
Henry had a bone to pick with someone about how the admiral was treating him. Was he butting heads with politics or did these military lifers have a hard-on for anyone outside their
semper fi
fraternity? Of course, he knew that, when it came down to basics, it was all politics.
That’s why he loved the ice. Cool, deep and eternal.
People came and went. . . shit, whole
species
came and went. But the ice, the deep ice, was a forever thing. And it didn’t give a goddam. Henry thought about the wind. He knew it like a person. He even had names for its personalities. He respected the wind. It carried material from all over the world, and ultimately, after sifting out all the big stuff, it gave what it had left over to the Antarctic snows, there to be entombed until the debris eventually found its way back to the sea. . . millions of years later. The wind was the courier of the world. It brought and it took. Like an animal or a plant.
Henry never talked about all this except to his dog Sadie. He never discussed his private relationship with the polar wind. It would sound too crazy, especial y coming from a meteorologist. Now he wanted to tell Sarah. But how would he explain himself if her response was to suggest he talk to a shrink about it? Blame it on the continent. It had something to do with the strange days at the South Pole that saw the sun walk the horizon until finally, once a year, it just didn’t set at all. Like the day was struggling to have a mind of its own. The ice, the wind, all the elements of this lonely continent – they were like living things. Antarctica was a place where the elemental forces that drive the earth could be seen and, perhaps, understood. On the ice, Henry was able to pul back and see the nature of the big things that drive our days. The sun, the weather, the wind. It was easy to see why our ancestors worshipped the elder gods.
At midnight everyone was still awake and in the mess, acting as though the phone would ring at any moment. Finally it did. It affected the people in the room like a small earthquake. Everybody jumped.
General Hayes picked up the phone, listened for only a moment, then hung up.
“Briefing,” he said. “Now.”
#
The admiral hadn’t been sleeping either. The com reeked of tobacco smoke.
“I thought this was a No Smoking area, sir,” said Sarah, coughing and waving her hand to clear the air.
Schumacher ignored the remark, just pointed to the screen. A sailor punched a button on the console below. Suddenly Henry found himself answering questions about his work on the ice. Then the admiral asked him to recount his entire story. When he had finished, Schumacher handed the sailor a floppy disk. In moments, the images Sarah French had made of the three men were displayed on three individual smaller screens behind the main plotter. The faces had no definition or distinguishing features.
“This is the best you can give us on the guys who tried to kill you?” said the admiral.
“Yes, sir. I’m not holding back,” said Henry. “That’s not them, but I can’t exactly remember their faces. But I’d know them if I ever saw them again. I was with them for only a minute, then I was shot and left for dead. I can remember them but I can’t describe them.”
“Mr Gibbs,” said a voice from the ether. Henry looked around the room, but no one seemed to have spoken. For a moment he thought God himself was talking to him.
“This is the President of the United States, Mr Gibbs,” announced the voice. “I want to thank you for relating your story to all of us here.”
Henry looked at the general, who nodded to him, urging him to say something.
“I. . .” was all he could manage before the President’s voice continued.
“I’m not sure you know this, Mr Gibbs, but I’m listening to your story with. . . with some gentlemen from the United Nations.”
The voice, now that Henry knew, was definitely recognizable as the President’s. He looked around the room. Everyone was grinning at him.
“I’ll do what I can to help, sir. But the fact is, I did see them for just that couple of minutes. I’m sorry I can’t describe. . .”
“Mr Gibbs,” interrupted the President, “we know that. But it was important that the representatives of the countries of the world present here today heard your story for themselves. Do you understand?”
Henry stood dumbfounded. “Yes, sir.” A moment ago he had seen himself alone out on the ice; now he was under the scrutiny of the world. He couldn’t begin to find words to say.
“We will leave you to your work now, gentlemen,” said the voice. “And Mr Gibbs, I know I speak for all of us here when I thank you for helping us stop world terrorism.”
There was a loud click and the room fell silent.
Admiral Schumacher took Henry’s hand. “Gibbs, we’re all proud of what you’ve done. I want you to know that.” He looked around the room. “Where’s that dog of yours? We don’t want to lose track of him. He’s a valuable witness too, you know.”
The admiral continued to search the room for Shep. “Well, where
is
the dog?”
Henry was still shaking the admiral’s hand. “In the room where we left him, sir. He’ll be wanting to take a dump by now, I think, sir.”
#
“Hero,” said Grimes to Henry when they got back to their quarters, “talk to ya?”
Henry already felt that if Kai Grimes wanted a word, it was a good idea to give it to him. It wasn’t that Grimes was dangerous, although he undoubtedly was, but rather that the SEAL’s job was to deal with the terrorists and neutralize the situation. At least, that was the way Hayes had explained it.
Grimes took Henry into his “crib”, as he called it. Henry was surprised to find the SEAL commander had his own communications gear – indeed, the room was crammed with electronics.
“What’s all this stuff, Kai?”
“I just received some faxes from a. . . friend. . . in Europe. Actually she used to be KGB. Anyway, I want you to look at them.”
“Why so secret?”
“Propriety,” said Grimes, handing him a folder. “Just see if anyone in there looks like one of your bad guys.”
Henry opened the folder. The first photo showed a very distinguished-looking businessman, apparently caught unawares while leaving an office building. The image was slightly blurred. He flipped past it to see the other faces. None of them looked familiar. But Henry couldn’t close the folder. He kept looking at the businessman in the expensive suit.
“This guy comes pretty close to the leader of the pack. But he didn’t look quite this way. Heavier, maybe.
I don’t know. It probably isn’t him.”
Grimes nodded and took back the folder. “Thanks. Let me know if you want another look.”
Henry asked why Grimes wasn’t including the general in this.
“This is unofficial. Some of these people are, well, VIPs, not suspects.”
“We don’t
have
any suspects,” observed Henry.
“I’ve had some people work on the polar connection. Some of these guys belong to oil-development groups. Some are free-lancers for them.”
“Fill me in, Kai,” said Henry. “What’s been done about tracking the terrorists from the point where they met me? They had all that equipment with them. It has to be somewhere.”
“Yeah, you’d think so,” The SEAL grinned at him.
“But the bomb erased everything. It took us over twenty-four hours to position a satellite so we could see the area. And we know from what you and the general told us that the group made some effort to cover their tracks when they left the site. So all we can do is guess which way they went. Our sub the
Falconer
– Trident- type – is scanning the bottom of the ice shelf, looking for any metallic machinery that might have been ditched. Our people think the bad guys must have left that last site and gone straight for the edge of the ice. They’d done their dirty work, so they didn’t need the equipment. It would just slow them down. We figure twenty men might have fit into three helicopters, and all the equipment went into the drink.”
“They had dogs. Buried somewhere?”
“Probably not dumped into the sea. Floaters. Either took ’em along or buried ’em in the snow. I think they’re in the snow.”
The SEAL noticed a blinking light on a phone stacked on top a pile of gear. “Turn around, hero,” said Grimes.
“I need to punch a code.”
Henry turned and waited while the SEAL punched some buttons and muttered briefly into the phone.
Finally he heard Grimes hang up the handset.
“So what do you think the terrorists did after that?” asked Henry, continuing their conversation.
Grimes shook his head. “After leaving the ice? There had to be a ship to pick ’em up. But we’ve turned up nothin’.”
“Could they have refuelled choppers in midair?”
“No way. Where do you get this stuff?”
“Makes sense to me. They’d know you’d soon be looking for ships in the area. How far could a ship get? Hell, they planted that nuke just a day or so before they detonated it.”
“We don’t think they did detonate it,” said Grimes.
“We think the general’s call -back transmission from the site triggered the explosion. A radio broadcast from within a mile of the antenna wire would indicate the thing had been found. It had an auto-destruct.”
“Does the general know that?”
“Sure he does,” said Grimes with a shrug. “But I think the thing was set to detonate before too long anyway. Not his fault, really. Sooner or later, it would have gone off. What’s the diff? Maybe his mistake cost us a few hours of sniffing after their tracks. But maybe he saved lives too. What if a whole crew had been digging for the bomb?”
“That’s true,” Henry said. “Well, I think you oughta check out that refuelling idea. By the way” – he looked at the phone Grimes had just used – “what was the news?”
“Nada, dude,” said Grimes. “Thanks for the look-see. I gotta get to work, now, hero. And you gotta go.”
“Okay, see you later,” said Henry.
He went back to his room. He still hadn’t been told where to walk his dog.
Shep hadn’t waited.
Four
Henry unhappily cleaned up his dog’s mess.
The promises of the admiral were, it seemed, slow to take effect. But, after Henry had finished disposing of the turds and stood up for his rights – made a stink about the stink, so to speak – the situation changed. General Hayes came to Henry’s room personally to tell him that Aft Deck C, the area behind the conning tower, would be reserved for Shep’s walks. He handed over a map of the ship and sniffed the air in the room.
“Well, Henry, I know you’ll excuse me now.”
He stepped out of the room without waiting for a reply.
Although the damage had been done, Shep still needed some exercise, so Henry decided to explore the area Hayes had told him about. He began to wonder if, after all, bringing the dog along had been such a good idea, but, as his mind drifted back to McMurdo and he considered the possibility that the base might become a slag heap if the volcano had its way, he was glad Shep was with him. Shep was, after all, the only family he had.
The dog seemed to know where he was going.
“What did you do, peek at the map?” cried Henry as the dog dragged him towards the main deck.
When he forced open the upper hatchway door marked AFT DECK C, sea spray and wind hit him so hard he nearly fell back through it. Shep pulled hard at the leash. The sheer power of the dog helped Henry hold his own against the wind. He looked around and found nothing but bare deck exposed to the elements. There wasn’t even a handrail at the edge. Henry worried that, if he let the dog run, the malamute might just run off the edge into the sea.
He clutched Shep’s leash tightly in both hands. The sea was churning, with ten- to twenty-foot waves.
Overhead, grey clouds hung low, full of rain. In spite of the high seas, Henry couldn’t feel the motion. It didn’t feel much to him like he was on a ship at sea; more as if he were on top of a skyscraper sticking out of the ocean. Still there was
something
, a slight roll perhaps, that made him feel uncertain of his footing, almost like a touch of vertigo.
Shep wanted to romp. The wind in his face and the tang of ice in the air reminded him of home. He was loving it. It might have been just instinct, as if he were trying to get the sled over a rut in the ice, or it might have been sheer exuberance, but suddenly he jumped forward and the leash left Henry’s hands.
“Stop, Shep!”
Henry’s yel was too late. At top speed, the dog bounded straight for the edge of the deck. Henry held his breath. Just when he was sure Shep would fly off the deck and fall forty feet into the roiling waters, the dog stopped on a dime and stood staring at the ocean, wagging his tail.
Henry walked as calmly as he could to pick up Shep’s leash, but, as he did so, more and more of the turbulent sea came into view. His knees felt weak. Shep just stood at the precipice, looking down at the waves, then at Henry, then back to the waves. His nostrils flared and he wagged his tail ever more vigorously as he smelled the wind. The same wind that to Henry’s mind had here become a feared adversary, one that might turn on him and try to sweep his dog into the ocean.
At the edge, Henry could hear the sea pounding against the hull.
“Come on, Shep.” He tried to keep his voice under control. “I know it’s nice and cool out here, but you’re spookin’ the shit outta me.” He picked up the leash and wrapped it twice around his hand.
Now, of course, he’d guaranteed that, if the malamute went over the edge, so would he. But that didn’t seem to be on his mind. Keeping Shep alive – safe – was all that mattered.
The dog offered no resistance, coming easily at his master’s tug on the leash. Henry took another brief look over the edge. The water was moving past the ship in great foaming swells.
He considered the movement and estimated they were doing twenty knots or more, with a fifteen-knot headwind. The sea seemed to be reaching up for him. He shivered, not from the cold but from the vast, impersonal emptiness of it. He turned away from the rim and pulled Shep with him.
A moment later Shep took a leak, seemingly just so his grateful master could get back inside.
“Good dog.”
Henry and dog ducked back into the ship.
#
Sarah had invited Henry to her room without saying what her summons was about. She had him sit at the desk where her laptop computer was open and running. The face of the terrorist leader they’d been trying to construct was on the screen. Seeing the constructed face again convinced him they hadn’t come close to capturing the image he remembered.
Henry started singing, “It’s the riiiight time, and the riiiight place. Though this faaace is charming, it’s the wrooong faaaace. . .”
Sarah looked at him with a patronizing grin. “Very nice, Henry. When you’ve finished with your serenade, I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
“I know what’s going on. We’re wasting time and money cruising the South Atlantic in the world’s biggest yacht, for no reason that I can see.”
“That may be. But we might as well try to keep ourselves busy, right?”
“I’m not a federal employee,” Henry said.
“Oh yes you are! At least, you are for the moment, until we find the bastards who shot you. Or don’t you care any more about skinning them alive, or whatever it was you said you. . .”
“So what’s this about?” he interrupted, pointing to the laptop.
“The FBI wired me a new program for us to try. It adds texture and more variations. They also want me to – to try to help you remember.”
She told him to rol up his sleeve, then took out a small hypo. “You’re not planning on doing any driving for a few hours, are you, Henry?”
“Fuck!”
“Not tonight, dear.” She smiled. “But I haven’t scratched it off my list.”
Her reply caught him off-guard. “What?”
“Never mind. This will help you relax and remember.”
When she saw the trepidation in his eyes, she adopted a more sympathetic air. “Look, I’m a trained nurse – that’s what I did before I took this job. Anyway, this is just to help you remember. It’s a mild relaxant.”
Henry demanded proof she’d been a registered nurse. She had it in her case, with her passport and all the rest of her documentation. She flipped the blue-and- white card from a wall et in her bag.
Then she once more picked up the needle and the cotton swab she’d soaked in alcohol. “Arm?”
He held up his wounded arm. “This one’s already got a hole in it,” he said. “Can’t you just pour the stuff in?”
“Not likely.”
Sarah jammed the hypo into his arm.
He winced histrionically, but in fact he didn’t feel a thing. His skin was still numb after being on deck without a polar jacket. Besides, he had to admit that spending time with Sarah was about all he wanted to do anyway.
He’d caught himself earlier, every time he’d passed her door, wondering if she was in there. Shep had sniffed at her door once, making him think the dog could read his mind.
The chemical Sarah gave Henry was very low-power stuff, but it was enough. He began to feel as though his head were filling with helium. Then everything around him took on a golden glow.
“Look at the face on the screen, then close your eyes and think of the guy who shot you,” she said in a studiously casual voice. “Try to wipe all the rest of your thoughts and feelings from your mind.”
A few seconds passed.
“Can you see him yet?” she asked.
“Sort of,” replied Henry, eyes closed, trying to cooperate.
“Can you see him or not?” she persisted. “I need to know.”
“Well. . .” He was doing his best to put himself back on the ice. “I’m working on it.”
Just before he’d shut his eyes, Sarah had leaned over to adjust the laptop screen so he could see it better. As she’d bent near him, her white silk blouse had fall en open in a way few men could have ignored. Now all he could see behind his closed eyes were white lace and smooth skin. He noticed the scent of jasmine in the air.
“Are you concentrating?”
“Oh, yes,” he said with a smile. “But I guess I’m not getting any. . . anything.”
“Fuck!” said Sarah under her breath.
Henry continued to smile. He nodded involuntarily.
She took a deep breath. “Okay. You’re going to be like this for a while, so just sit back and let the drug help you remember.”
He opened his eyes again and forced himself to look at the image on the screen. “Okay. Okay. . . I got it, I think.”
And suddenly he
could
see the man who’d shot him. As if a flash bulb had snapped in his mind, he saw the distinguished features of a man in his forties. The man had piercing brown eyes and thin black eyebrows, and he wore a moustache and beard tinged with grey, but short and well trimmed. The hood surrounding his face was that of a Norwegian parka lined with long beige fur. Henry forced himself to try to notice other details – distinguishing marks, moles, scars – but the man had none he could see. His skin was smooth. To Henry he looked Greek or Italian, definitely Mediterranean.
“What else?” he said to himself.
“What was that, Henry?” asked Sarah.
He shook his head slowly as his mind’s eye tried to make out other distinguishing characteristics. Everything was normal – just stereotypical gear. Blue ski pants, padded boots.
And, yes, there
was
something. Not much, but Henry remembered.
He looked up at Sarah. “Something,” he slurred.
She smiled. “What?”
“He. . . the man who shot me. . .”
Henry noticed she had blue eyes. They shone when she smiled. Her reddish hair made them look all the bluer.
“What?” she said.
“What?” he echoed.
“What about the man who shot you?” A spot of impatience now.
“Oh,” said Henry. “He was a lefty. Left-handed.”
“What do you recall that tell s you that?”
He talked as though in a daze, but his mind was sharp. “The reason I didn’t duck when he pulled the gun was. . . was he took it off his right shoulder. Didn’t look like he was going to shoot – just moving it, like. Then he shot me left-handed. I didn’t expect it.”
He shook his head slowly. “Didn’t see it comin’.”
“Anything more about his face?” said Sarah, looking hopelessly at the screen of her laptop. “Can’t you tell me more about his face?”
“He was a slick prick.”
There was a knock at Sarah’s door. Kai Grimes. He looked at her, then at Henry.
“We have a little more info on the shooter,” said Sarah.
Grimes’s eyes narrowed. “Finally,” he said. “Tell me.”
She looked back at Henry. “I gave him a relaxant to help him remember. And he remembered the man who shot him was left-handed.”
“That’s the news?” said Grimes with a look of disgust.
Henry giggled. “Better than a sharp stick in the eye, eh?”
“French,” said Grimes, “what have you
done
to our witness?”
“Just give the information to the general or whoever,” Sarah said firmly, closing the door in his face. She rested her back against the closed door and sighed. She could hear Grimes laughing outside in the hall.
“If you ever stopped screwing around, Henry Scott Gibbs,” she said, “I might even like you.”
“If we ever screw around, Sarah Jordan French, I think I might love you.”
The words seemed to hang in the air between them. With horror Henry realized they had come from him. He put his hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
Too late. A moment later he found himself in the hall, barely able to stand.
#
In the mess hall, four hours later, he apologized again to Sarah for his impropriety, but she didn’t answer. And, when he asked to sit down next to her, she informed him coldly she was just about to leave. So he found himself eating pork chops and beans with the general and Grimes. About ten minutes later he watched her leave the room. He thought he saw her look back at him and smile as she passed through the door, but he wasn’t sure. He decided to let his libido cool off for a while.
Sarah was the first woman he’d really looked at since Tess had died. Janet, back at McMurdo, had been just, well, a diversion. He knew it was foolish to try to form any attachments in circumstances such as these. His conscious mind told him to forget any feelings he might have towards Sarah, because she’d be gone as soon as her work was done. But it wasn’t his conscious mind that was pushing him at her. And not just his libido, either. Both of those he could have dealt with. This was worse. He felt like he
belonged
with her. Yet he knew he had to distance himself before things went too far. He told himself he had only one companion now, his dog. That was the way it had to stay.
Shep was sitting next to him, watching every bite of food he took. Henry cut off a slice of fat from a pork chop and flipped it to the dog. It vanished with a snap of Shep’s jaws.
Grimes laughed. “Hope that hound doesn’t decide he likes long pig.”
“Long pig?” said Hayes. “Isn’t that what cannibals call human flesh?”
“Yup,” said Grimes. “By the way, hero, the guy I showed you a picture of. . .?”
“Yes?”
“I checked,” said Grimes. “He’s a lefty, too.”
Henry’s eyebrows raised. “Oh?” was all he said. But when he thought about it a bit, he added, “Not too many left-handed businessmen in the Mediterranean? Come on, Kai.”
“Just sayin’,” answered Grimes, looking at the general.
Hayes listened, his expression unchanging, but he seemed to know what Grimes was talking about.
“Who is that guy?” asked Henry.
“Rudolfo Suarez,” said the SEAL. “He’s a businessman with international links. Sometimes deals with arms dealers, sometimes just banks and financiers. Half the year he works out of Munich and half the year he’s in South Africa.”
“You think he’s connected to this?” said Henry.
“Why?”
General Hayes put down his fork and pushed his plate away. He took out a cigar. “Kai sent those photos he got to Naval intelligence as well. It’s up to them to decide what’s going on and who’s involved. But, to judge by what scraps of information they’ve passed our way, it’s an even bet that there’s a connection between this guy and the nuke.” He nipped the end of his Cuban Especial.