Ice Hunt Read online

  “What’s this all about?”

  He glanced back to the door. “I…I found something…something amazing. You should—” As he turned away, she could no longer read his lips.

  “Dr. Ogden?”

  He turned back, his eyebrows raised quizzically.

  She touched her lips with her fingers.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” He now spoke in an unnaturally slow manner, as if speaking to someone with a mental defect. Amanda bit back her anger.

  “You need to see this for yourself,” he continued. “That’s why I had you come.” He stared a moment at the Navy guards down the hall. “I couldn’t count on them keeping the rock hounds away for very long. The specimens…” His voice trailed off, distracted. He shook his head. “Let’s get you a parka, and I’ll take you.”

  “I’ll stay warm enough in this,” she said impatiently, running a hand over her thermal suit. “Show me what you found.”

  The biologist’s eyes were still on the guards, his brows crinkled. Amanda wagered he was speculating like all the others. His gaze eventually swung back to her. “What I found…I think it’s the reason the station was built here.”

  It took a moment for his words to register. “What? What do you mean?”

  “Come see.” He turned and headed back through the double doors.

  Amanda followed, but she peered back to the guarded doorway. It’s the reason the station was built here.

  She prayed the biologist was wrong.

  3:40 P.M.

  OVER BROOKS RANGE

  Staring out the windshield of the Twin Otter, Matt tried to focus on the beauty of one of the great natural wonders of the world. This section of the Gates of the Arctic National Park was the goal of thousands of hikers, climbers, and adventurers each year.

  Ahead rose the Arrigetch Peaks. The name—Arrigetch—came from the Nunamiut, meaning “upstretched fingers of the hand.” An apt description. The entire region was jammed with pinnacles and sheer spires of granite. It was a land of thousand-foot vertical walls, precarious overhangs, and glacial amphitheaters. Such terrain was a natural playground for climbers, while hikers enjoyed its verdant alpine meadows and ice-blue tarns.

  But flying through Arrigetch was plain madness. And it wasn’t just the rocks. The winds were a hazard, too. The air currents flowed from the glacial heights like a swollen river through cataracts, carving the winds into a raging mix of sudden gusts, shears, and crosswinds.

  “Get ready!” Jenny warned.

  The plane climbed toward the jumbled landscape. To either side, mountains towered, their slopes bright with snow and ice floes. Between them rose Arrigetch. There appeared no way to pass through the area.

  Matt craned around. Their pursuers had almost caught up with them again. The Cessna buzzed about a quarter mile back. Would they dare follow into this maze?

  Below, a stream drained from the broken heights above. A sparse taiga-spruce forest finally succumbed to the altitude and faded away. They were now above the continent’s tree line.

  Matt turned to Jenny, ready to try one last time to dissuade her from what she was about to attempt. But he saw the determined glint in her eye, the way her brows pinched together. There would be no talking her out of it.

  Her father spoke from behind them. John had finished cinching Bane’s dog collar to one of the seat harnesses. “Ready back here.”

  Beside the elder Inuit, Craig sat straight-backed in his seat. The reporter’s eyes were locked ahead. He had paled since coming in sight of Arrigetch. On the ground, the view was humbling, but from the air, it was sheer terror.

  The Otter raced over the last of the rocky slopes, impossibly high and impassable.

  “Here we go,” Jenny said.

  “And here they come,” Matt echoed.

  The chatter of gunfire cut through the whine of their motors. Loose shale on the slope danced with the impact of the slugs. But the line of fire was well to the side. The other plane was still too far off for an accurate shot. It was a desperate act before they lost their quarry to Arrigetch.

  As Matt watched the Cessna, a puff of fire rolled from one of the side windows. Though he heard nothing, he imagined the whistle of the incoming grenade. A trail of smoke marked its rocketed path, arcing to within two yards of their wingtip, then vanishing ahead. The explosion erupted against one of the pinnacles, casting out a rain of stone. A section of cliff face broke free and slid earthward.

  Jenny banked from the assaulted pillar and turned up on one wing. Matt had a momentary view of the ground below as the Otter shot between the two spires.

  “Ohmygod, ohmygod,” Craig intoned behind him.

  Once past the spires, Jenny leveled out. Surrounded on all sides by columns and towers, peaks and pinnacles, cliffs and walls. The heights were such that the tops could not be seen out the windows.

  Winds buffeted the small plane, jostling it.

  Matt clenched his armrests.

  Jenny banked hard, tilting up on the other wing. Matt’s eyes stretched wide. He wanted to close them, but for some reason, he couldn’t. Instead, he cursed this firsthand view of Jenny’s flying. Economy seating suddenly did have its appeal.

  The Otter shot between a cliff face and a tilted column. To his side, Jenny began to hum under her breath. Matt knew she did this whenever she was fully concentrating on something, but usually it was just the New York Times crossword puzzle.

  The plane skirted the pinnacle and leveled again—but only for a breath.

  “Hang on,” Jenny muttered.

  Matt simply glared. His forearms were already cramped from clutching his seat. What more did she want?

  She rolled the Otter over on a wing and spun tight around a spire. For the next five minutes, she zigzagged and barnstormed through the rock maze. Back and forth, up on one wing, then the other.

  His stomach lurching, Matt sought any sign of the Cessna in the skies, but it was like searching through a stone forest. He had lost sight of the plane as soon as they entered Arrigetch—which had been Jenny’s plan all along. There were a thousand exits from this region: passes, chutes, moraines, valleys, glacial flows. And with the lowering cloud cover, if the Cessna wanted to know where they were headed, it would have to follow, if it dared.

  The plane entered a wide glacial cirque, a natural amphitheater carved from the side of one of the mountains. Jenny swung the Otter in a gentle glide along the edge of the steep-sided bowl. The lip of a glacier hung over the mountain’s edge in an icy cornice. Below, the floor was covered with boulders and glacial till, powdery rock and gravel that had been left behind as the ice retreated.

  But in the center lay a perfectly still mountain lake. The blue surface of the tarn was a mirror, reflecting the Otter as it circled around the bowl. The walls of the cirque were too steep for a direct flight out. Jenny began a slow spiral, heading up, trying to clear the mountain cliffs.

  Matt let out a slow sigh of relief. They had survived Arrigetch.

  Then movement in the tarn’s reflection caught his eye.

  Another plane.

  The Cessna shot into the cirque, entering from an entirely different direction. From the way the plane bobbled for a moment, Matt guessed their pursuers were just as surprised to see them here.

  “Jen?” Matt said.

  “I don’t have enough altitude yet to clear the cliffs.” Her words for the first time sounded scared.

  The two planes now circled the stone amphitheater, climbing higher, the tense pageant mirrored in the blue lake below. The door to the other plane shoved open. From seventy yards away, Matt spotted the now familiar parka-clad figure brace himself in place, shouldering the grenade launcher.

  He turned back to Jenny. He knew he’d eventually regret his next words, but he also knew they would never clear the top of the cliffs before they were fired upon. “Get us back into Arrigetch!”

  “There’s not enough time!”

  “Just do it.” Matt unbuckled and climbed from the copilot s
eat. He scrambled over to the side window that faced the other plane.

  Jenny banked toward the maze of rock, circling back toward Arrigetch.

  Matt unhitched the window and slid it back. Winds blasted into the cabin. Bane barked excitedly from the backseat, tail wagging furiously. The wolf loved flying.

  “What are you doing?” Jenny called to him.

  “You fly,” he yelled, and cracked open the emergency box by the door. He needed a weapon, and he didn’t have time to free and load the shotgun. He grabbed the flare gun inside the emergency kit and jammed it out the window. He pointed it at the other plane. With the winds, prop wash, and shifting positions of the planes, it was a Hail Mary shot.

  He aimed as best he could and pulled the trigger.

  The fizzling trail of the flare arced across the cirque, reflected in the tarn below. He had been aiming for the parka-clad figure, but the winds carried the flare to the side. It exploded into brilliance as it sailed past the nose of the plane.

  The other pilot, clearly tense from his transit through the jagged clutches of Arrigetch, veered off, pitching the plane suddenly to the side. The parka-clad figure at the plane’s door lost his footing and tumbled out, arms cartwheeling. But a couple yards down, he snagged, tethered in place to the frame of the door. He swung back and forth under the belly of the Cessna.

  It had to be distraction enough.

  “Go!” Matt yelled, and slammed the window shut. He crawled back to the front seat.

  Jenny’s father patted him on the shoulder as he passed. “Good shot.”

  Matt nodded to Craig. “It was his idea.” He remembered the reporter pulling the flare gun on him when he came to his rescue a couple days ago. It had reminded him of a lesson taught to him by his old sergeant: Use whatever you have on hand…never give up the fight.

  Feeling better, Matt buckled into place.

  Jenny was already diving back into the maze. “They’re coming after us,” she said.

  Matt jerked around, surprised. He turned in time to see the flailing man cut free. His form tumbled through the air and splashed into the blue tarn.

  Stunned, Matt sat back around. They had sacrificed their own man to continue the pursuit.

  Jenny swung the plane over on one wing and sped away among the cliffs. But this time, they couldn’t shake the other plane.

  And Jenny was tiring. Matt saw how her hands had begun to tremble. Her eyes had lost their steady determination and shone with desperation. A single mistake and they were dead.

  As he thought it, it happened.

  Jenny banked hard around a craggy column.

  Ahead a solid wall of stone filled the world.

  A dead end.

  They could not turn away in time. Matt braced himself, expecting Jenny to try, but instead she throttled up.

  Matt’s throat closed tight. He suddenly realized where they were and what she was about to attempt. “No, no, no…”

  “Oh yes,” she answered him. The nose of the plane dropped sickeningly. She spiraled out a bit and back around.

  At the base of the cliff, a river flowed out. Eons ago, an earthquake had rattled Arrigetch, toppling one peak against another. This created a Devil’s Pass, a breach left under the two tumbled peaks.

  It was one of the exits from Arrigetch.

  Jenny dove toward the river, aiming for the opening in the rock. Her angle was too steep. But at the last moment, she pulled hard on the wheel and throttled down, almost stalling the props. The Otter leveled out a foot above the stream, then shot into the Devil’s Pass.

  Instantly the world went dark, and the dull roar of their engines trebled—but daylight lay directly ahead. It was a straight passage, no longer than forty yards. But it was also tight, leaving only a yard to either side.

  Jenny was humming again.

  “They’re still behind us!” Craig called out.

  Matt turned as the Cessna ducked into the tunnel. The other pilot was determined not to lose his target.

  Matt clenched a fist. Their last desperate maneuver had been for nothing. The other pilot matched Jenny trick for trick. It was hopeless. Beyond the tunnel lay the open mountains. There would be nowhere to hide.

  “Hold tight, folks,” Jenny warned as they neared the far end of the tunnel.

  “What are you—?”

  Jenny shoved the wheel. The plane dipped. The floats struck the stream hard and skidded over its surface, casting a flume of water behind them. As the plane bounced back up, they were out of the tunnel and sailing high into the air.

  Matt searched behind them as Jenny banked away.

  From the tunnel mouth, the Cessna appeared, tumbling out, rolling end over end, wings broken. One of the propellers bounced free and spun up the snowy slope.

  Matt turned back to his ex-wife with awe. The sudden backwash from her bounce against the stream had struck the other plane’s props and wings, causing the Cessna to bobble and brush against one of the tunnel walls.

  A fatal mistake.

  Jenny’s voice trembled. “I hate tailgaters.”

  4:55 P.M.

  ICE STATION GRENDEL

  It was like stepping into a different world. The Crawl Space outside the Russian ice station was a natural warren of ice caverns and chutes. As Amanda passed over the threshold, she left not only the warmth of the station behind, but also all man-made structures.

  Just outside the double doors to the base lay rusty piles of plate steel, bags of old concrete, stacks of conduit, and spools of wire. When it was first discovered, it was assumed the natural space in the ice was used as a storage annex, hence its nickname.

  A structural engineer with the NASA group hypothesized that the station may have been constructed within a natural cavern inside the ice island, requiring less excavation. He suggested the Crawl Space might be the tiny remnant of the larger cavern system.

  But outside such idle speculation, the Crawl Space held little fascination for most of Omega’s scientists. To them, it was just the janitor’s closet of the base. Only the geologists and glaciologists seemed truly fascinated by these back rooms and ice chutes.

  “This way,” Dr. Ogden said, zipping his jacket up to his chin and pulling the fur-lined hood over his bald head. The biologist grabbed a flashlight from a stack near the door, flicked it on, and aimed past the cluttered entrance hall to the dark passages beyond. When he stood a moment longer, Amanda thought he might be speaking to her, but with his back turned, she couldn’t tell for sure. Before she could ask, he set off down toward the warren of tunnels.

  Amanda followed. At least the geologists had spread sand on the ice floor for better footing. As she continued, leaving the lighted entrance behind, the air grew much colder. For some reason the motionless air seemed icier than on the surface. She lifted her warming mask from the belt of her thermal suit and flicked on the switch.

  Henry Ogden continued, winding his way, passing side caverns, some empty, some stacked with gear. One alcove even contained butcher-wrapped packages and crates marked in Russian. Perishables, Amanda imagined. No need for freezers here.

  As they continued deeper, she noted evidence of the scientists’ handiwork here: walls pocked with bore holes, some survey stakes with little flags, some pieces of modern equipment, even an empty Hostess Ding Dong box. She kicked this last aside as she passed. The new inhabitants of Ice Station Grendel were certainly leaving their unique footprints here.

  Distracted by her surroundings, Amanda quickly became lost. Passages crisscrossed in all different directions. Dr. Ogden stopped at one of the intersections and searched the walls with his flashlight.

  Amanda noted small spray-painted marks on the ice. They seemed freshly painted and varied in colors and shapes: red arrows, blue squiggles, and orange triangles. They were clearly signposts left behind by the scientists.

  Henry touched a green dot, nodded to himself, and continued in that direction.

  By now, the tunnels had narrowed and lowered overhead. Amanda h
ad to hunch as she followed after the determined biologist. In the strangely still air, sparkles of ice crystals shone in the flashlight’s glow. Here the walls were so glassy that she spotted air bubbles trapped in the ice, glinting like pearls.

  She ran gloved fingers along the wall. Silky smooth. Such tunnels and caves were formed as the surface ice melted in the summer’s heat, and the warm water leaked through cracks and fissures, flowing downward and melting out these shafts and pockets. Eventually the surface froze again, sealing and preserving the cavern system below.

  Amanda gazed at the blue glass walls. There was a beauty here that warmed the cold. As she craned around, her heel slipped. Only a frantic grab for a spar halted her tumble.

  Dr. Ogden glanced back to her. “Careful. It’s pretty slippery from here on.”

  Now you tell me, she thought, and pulled herself back to her feet. She realized the spar she had grabbed was not ice. It was a chunk of rock protruding from the ice. She stared at it a moment as Dr. Ogden continued. It was one of the many inclusions, she realized, described by the geologists. She touched it with a bit of reverence. Here was a rock from whatever landmass this glacial chunk had broken away from eons ago.

  Gloom settled around her as the biologist rounded a bend with his flashlight. Amanda hurried after him, regretting that she hadn’t collected one of the flashlights herself. She watched her footing now. Here the passages were not sanded. The geologists must not have ventured into this section of the Crawl Space yet.

  Henry glanced back to her. “It’s just ahead.”

  Amanda stared around her as the tunnel began to widen again. Within the glassy walls, boulders hung, an avalanche frozen in place. Deeper in the ice, other shadows darkened the upper reaches. They must be entering a cluster of inclusions.

  Rounding a bend, the tunnel emptied into a large cave. Amanda lost her footing again and skated out of the tunnel. With her arms out for balance, she managed to stop herself.

  She stood for a moment, stunned. The floor of the cavern was as large as an Olympic ice rink. But she quickly forgot the floor as she gaped at the chamber’s breadth and width. Arched over and around her was a huge natural cathedral: half ice and half stone.