Zodiac Station (17 page)

‘Bob?’ I called.

No answer.

I walked on, mostly to get away from that place. A little distance gave me some perspective. DAR-X had been up here – they’d probably bunked there for the night and left some things behind. Nothing sinister. Who knew oilmen read Milton?

The more I thought it over, the more I convinced myself I’d come on a fool’s errand. Hagger, Ashcliffe, the whole lot: my mind playing tricks. If what Quam had said that morning was true, Hagger had every reason to kill himself. He’d been depressed enough, God knows. As for Anderson, he had no one to blame for his bump but himself. And the plane was probably just bad luck.

Lost in thought, I’d reached the edge of town. Ahead of me, the old pylons marched across the side of the valley, clinging to the precipice like spiders. Bleached telegraph poles knocked together into A-frames, with platforms at the top like ancient siege towers. They still had the cables running between them, and a few rusting coal buckets dangling below. I wouldn’t like to be standing underneath one of those when it gave out.

I’d just started back towards the square when a movement caught my eye. A flash of yellow darting between two buildings. Too bright to be a bear.

‘Bob?’ I called, but it couldn’t be him. He’d been wearing a red coat, same as me.

A cold wind blew down the alley. I unshouldered the rifle, though I kept the safety on – and my mittens. I didn’t want any accidents. Holding the Ruger like a cowboy, I edged around the corner. In the virgin snow between the buildings, I saw footprints coming out the end of one barracks and disappearing into the next.

I pulled off my mittens and aimed the rifle at the door.

‘Who’s there?’

No answer. One-handed, I pulled down the zip of my coat and reached for the VHF radio strapped across my chest. I toggled the button.

‘Bob?’

Static. The buildings must have blocked the signal. I climbed the shaky steps and pushed on the door with the gun barrel. It swung in slowly, opening up on a long dark corridor that ran the length of the building. Dim doorways lined the sides. At the far end, a square of blue light showed an open door.

I didn’t go in. So many rooms just right for hiding, or he could nip out the other door and circle round behind me. I toggled the radio again. Still only static.

I backed off, keeping the rifle towards the barracks, until I was far enough away that I could see the front and the side of the building. I swept the rifle from side to side, though my hands were so cold I doubt I could have pulled the trigger.

I lifted my hat off my ears so I could hear better, twitching my head this way and that. Terrified I’d miss something, terrified what I might find. I heard footsteps in the snow; someone was running. He must have gone through the barracks and out the far door. I listened a moment longer. The footsteps retreated. He was getting away.

I ran along the front of the building, floundering through the snow. The thing about Utgard is that there’s so little snowfall, the actual cover can be very thin – or three feet deep where the wind’s blown it into drifts. It makes for treacherous footing. Whether it was a rock, or a piece of Soviet mining equipment they’d left behind, or a piece of shingle fallen off a building, I have no idea. All I know is that my boot caught something in the snow and pitched me forward.

I fell, winded. The gun flew out of my numb hands, skidded away across the snow and disappeared in the crawl space under the barracks.

No way was I going to go in to look for it. I picked myself up and ran on. I came around the corner of the barracks, giving it a wide berth in case he was waiting to jump out at me. He didn’t jump; he wasn’t there. He’d vanished.

I ran another few metres, out on to the mountainside. The footsteps led towards an outcropping of rock, near the base of a cableway tower. I paused. Did he have a gun? Did he know I didn’t?

I had to get hold of Eastman. I lifted my hand to the radio – but I never pressed the button.

Off to my right – down the slope, away from the rocks – the snow started to move, rising up like a cloud.

Then it opened its mouth and roared.

Kennedy

Perhaps you’ve seen polar bears on TV. Kings of the Arctic, majestic lives lived to a David Attenborough commentary. Reality isn’t quite like that. For starters, unless you’ve a paparazzi-length lens, you never get so close as you do on TV. The bears I’ve seen on Utgard were all miles off, mostly dots on the horizon. Generally, it’s best to keep it that way.

This one, I could see the breath coming in clouds out of his nostrils; the pricked-back ears; the way his shaggy coat wobbled when he moved, like a blanket thrown over his bones. He must have been sleeping. He leaned down on his front paws and arced his back like a cat, then shook himself vigorously. A cloud of snow flew off his fur.

I had no gun. Somewhere in one of my coat pockets, I had a flare pen, but that’s a fiddly piece of kit. You have to screw in the flare like a fountain-pen cartridge, then flick a tiny plastic catch. I doubted the bear would wait for all that.

He looked at me. I glanced back at the town, but it was a good way off. Even if I made it into the barracks, I’ve heard of bears breaking in locked doors. And the doors at Vitangelsk wouldn’t keep out a kitten.

‘Bob!’ I shouted, hoping Eastman would hear me.

The bear craned forward, sniffing the air.

There was only one place to go. Up the hill, one of the old towers that had supported the cableway loomed over me. It looked as if one good kick would send it crashing down the mountain, but I didn’t have a choice. I ran for it.

It was like running in a bad dream, the sort of running where your feet feel tied together and your legs are made of treacle. The snow didn’t help. I didn’t dare look back. I reached the bottom of the tower and flung myself up the ladder. Not a proper ladder, just thin crosspieces nailed on to one of the legs. Too small for a bear to climb – I hoped. My feet slipped; I struggled to get a grip. One rung snapped off in my hand, and I nearly wrenched my arm out of its socket grabbing on to the pylon. I held on, kept climbing.

I reached the platform at the top. Icy, but at least the wood was solid. I knelt, gripping the wooden struts, and peered down.

The bear prowled around the base of the tower, sniffing and growling. Suddenly, it reared up on its hind legs and threw itself against the pylon. The whole structure shook.

I unzipped my coat. My fingers were fat and clumsy with cold. I tapped the VHF radio strapped to my chest.

‘Bob? Are you there?’

A gunshot shattered the frozen air. The bear dropped back on to its feet and looked around.

A man in a yellow parka advanced from the cluster of buildings. With his hood up and a ski mask covering his face, I couldn’t tell who it was. A big man – carrying what looked like my rifle. He aimed it in the air and fired again.

‘Careful,’ I called. The bullet had come dangerously close to me.

The bear growled and stepped back, head down, swaying on his haunches. Fight or flight – it was impossible to know what he’d choose. Perhaps he didn’t know himself.

Another shot made up his mind. As if he’d never been interested in the first place, he turned and loped off.

I would have cheered – but something had stung my face. A splinter, gouged out by the bullet that had just hit the woodwork. Flowing blood warmed the frozen skin on my cheek.

I leaned over the platform edge. ‘Look out,’ I warned. ‘You nearly hit me.’

He put the rifle to his shoulder and sighted it – straight at my head. I rolled away, just as the bullet passed through where I’d been a second earlier and buried itself in the top of the A-frame. It almost did for me anyway: dodging it on the icy platform, I nearly went over the edge. I grabbed for the posts and just managed to hang on, my legs dangling into space. If he’d been quicker with the next round, he’d have had me.

He wants to kill me.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you had to face that? It’s a hell of a thing to realise. All the good things you’ve tried to do in your life, everything you thought was right and important and moral, none of it matters a damn. You’re on your own, and the only question is, can you do what it takes to save yourself? To tell the truth, it’s surprisingly liberating. If you survive it.

The odds didn’t look good. He had a gun; I was stuck on an icy platform ten metres up. But you see the world differently when you don’t have a choice – like a cornered animal.

A little way from the platform, one of the old coal cars dangled from the cableway, like a mine car without wheels. Probably two metres away – two metres of space with nothing underneath except a long drop on to ice, and a man waiting there to kill me. In normal circumstances, I’d never have dreamed of trying to make it. I didn’t even know if the cable would hold, or the rusting arm that the car hung on. But these were pretty far from normal circumstances.

I got to my feet, crouching so he wouldn’t get a clear shot. The gap yawned in front of me, hypnotising me. I remembered something I’d read about basketball, that the mistake most people make is to focus on where they might miss, rather than on the hoop itself. I stared at the coal car, concentrating like mad. It still looked a long way off.

Our minds are fickle things. Even on the highest diving board, there’s a moment your attention wanders and you forget the big drop you’re so frightened of. That’s the moment to go.

I jumped.

In a perfect world, I’d have worn something more flexible than a heavy coat and thick trousers; I wouldn’t have had such stiff legs, or numb hands. But then, in a perfect world I’d not have been there. All I could count on was the adrenalin charging me up, and the focus that comes when there’s no alternative.

I slammed into the side of the car and just managed to hook my arms over the edge. It was like trying to clamber into a boat without capsizing it. The more I pulled, the more it tried to tip me out. My legs kicked air; the rusted metal scraped holes in my jacket. Too late, I realised the whole contraption was designed to swing ninety degrees to tip out the coal.

But twenty-five years out in the cold had gummed it shut. I pressed my arms against the rim, heaved – and was stuck. The radio on my chest had caught on the lip. I heaved some more. Velcro tore; the radio came loose and fell. I popped up like a cork, wriggled forward and somersaulted over the edge with a thud. The car swayed; I waited for something to snap.

It held.

The whole manoeuvre had taken a matter of seconds. Too quick for my enemy to get off a shot, but not by much. I heard the shot and the impact almost simultaneously. The coal car rang like a bell, trembling all around me, but the metal – good, Soviet steel – turned the bullet away.

The sound died. Cowering in the bottom of the coal car, all I could see was the sky, and three cables dissecting it. The bullet’s echo rang in my ears, mingling with the moan of the wind in the wires.

Had he run out of bullets? I counted back in my head. There might have been five shots – I couldn’t think straight enough to be sure – or there could have been four.

Five would be good news. Four was a problem.

Do ya feel lucky?
Clint Eastwood enquired.

The metal under me shivered again. Not the hard clang of an impact, but a steady vibration. Tremors were coming through the wire, down into the bucket. Feet climbing the ladder up the pylon.

What could I do to stop him? If he tried to jump, we’d probably both tip out. My hands were so numb now I couldn’t have held a football. Second-degree frostbite, the doctor in my head diagnosed, though at that moment it was a long way down my list of concerns.

The tremors stopped. I had to look. I raised my head over the edge of the bucket – and there he was. The wind puffed out his parka so he seemed more massive than ever, a yellow monster with black eyes, crouching to spring at me.

We stared at each other. If we’d both reached out, we’d almost have touched, but even that close I couldn’t see anything of his face. The hood, goggles and ski mask hid it completely.

‘Who are you?’ I shouted. I don’t know if he heard. The wind whipped my voice away from me.

He spread his arms against the posts of the pylon and leaned back, ready to throw himself at me. Then paused. I saw him look around, checking something.

I’m not a brave man. That face – the mirrored goggles, the slit mouth and what he wanted to do to me – I couldn’t look at it. I must have closed my eyes. From down on the snow, I heard the radio squawking. Eastman at last – but too late, and nobody to answer it.

The vibrations started again. Not the hard impact I’d expected; the gentle knock of feet on a ladder. I opened my eyes.

He’d gone. The vibrations faded, until I couldn’t feel them at all. Only the coal car rocking gently in the wind.

I lifted my head as high as I dared and strained to listen. I thought I heard footsteps, crunching quickly through the snow. Then silence.

I still didn’t dare look. I imagined him waiting behind a rock, my own gun trained on the coal car, ready to shoot the minute I put my head above the parapet.
Four shots or five?
The first thing Greta teaches you at Zodiac is to count your shots, but it’s harder when it’s your own gun being shot
at you
. And what if he had his own weapon?

More footsteps, punching through the dry snow at a run. I huddled lower in the coal car.

‘Doc?’

Eastman’s voice. I was shivering so badly I could hardly haul myself over the edge of the coal bucket. I pulled myself up, resting my chin on my sleeve so that the steel didn’t freeze to my skin.

Down below, through the wooden girders, I saw Eastman in his red coat. He had his back to me, walking towards the town.

‘
Here
,’ I called. My teeth were chattering so hard I could barely speak. I cursed myself for dropping the radio. I tried again – louder, but still not enough to carry.

Eastman turned. Hope soared; I waved like an idiot. But he was looking at the ground, and it’s hard to see ten metres up when you’ve a fur hood around your eyes. He turned away again.