Frozen Solid A Novel

5




“THANKS FOR YOUR CONCERN. TRUTHFULLY, I DON’T FEEL SO good,” Hallie told Graeter. “Which isn’t surprising because it took four days and nights to get here, and I can’t recall when I really slept last. But don’t worry on my account. I’ve been to twenty-four thousand feet on mountains and almost two miles deep in caves.”

He snorted.

“You find that funny?”

“We get lots of climbers down here, all full of themselves. ‘I got this high on Mount Rumdoodle’ or whatever.” Shook his head. “You stay on one of your mountains, what, a week or two? Hit maybe forty below? Deal with fifty-, sixty-knot winds? People stay at Pole for a year. It averages one hundred and five degrees below zero in winter. Hurricanes with hundred-knot winds can last a week. Crevasses big enough to swallow locomotives. So yes, I do chuckle at the ignorance of fungees.”

She waited, understanding that he was enjoying himself, impressing a newcomer.

“You’ll feel worse, believe me,” he went on. “There’s something called T3 syndrome. Your thyroid shrivels up. Memory goes. Wild mood swings. Some people start seeing things, hearing them.”

“There’s a thing in deep caves called the Rapture. It—”

“That movie, The Shining? Where Nicholson starts chasing his family with an ax?”

“Yes?”

“T3 syndrome. You probably won’t be around long enough to get a bad case. But a lot of people here have been. So you know.”

She needed to tell him something else. Or maybe ask. What? Altitude addlement leading to brain cramp. Buy some time. She nodded at three framed photographs of young men in Navy whites on his desk.

“Your sons?”

“No.”

She waited again.

So did he, again. The hell with small talk, then.

“You probably know this already,” she said, “but, for the record, I’m here on temporary assignment from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, BARDA, part of CDC, in Washington. On loan to the National Science Foundation to help Dr.… um …” What the hell was his name? Lots of syllables.

“Fido Muktapadhay,” Graeter said. Mook-ta-POD-hay. “Who everybody calls Fido, for obvious reasons.”

“Right. To help complete his research project. CDC rushed me down here. I was told that he and Emily Durant were working on deep ice-core samples and found something unusual. Finishing before winterover was urgent.”

“Was there a question in there somewhere?”

“Do you know any more about their research?”

“No. More importantly, you haven’t been briefed about this place.”

“I did talk with—”

“Not by me. My point.”

“Could this wait until I get some sleep?”

“Here’s the quick and dirty. I’m in command here. Just like the captain of a ship. I can marry you and bury you. The only law at Pole is SORs, and I enforce them.”

“SORs?”

“Didn’t you read your prep material?”

“Nobody gave me prep material.”

“Jesus Christ. SORs are the Station Operating Regulations. They must be obeyed to the letter. Failure to do so gets people hurt. Or dead. Clear?”

She gave a curt nod. Poked in the chest like this, Hallie was more inclined than most to poke back harder. She had inherited that tendency not just from her soldier father but also from her horse-trainer mother. Growing up with two older brothers had sharpened it nicely. Now, standing half-asleep and fully irritated in the stinky closet of an office, she was finding it harder not to poke, terra incognita be damned.

Then he woke her up a little. He opened a desk drawer, removed a black leather ID folder and what she recognized as a SIG Sauer semiautomatic pistol. He flipped the folder to show a brass, star-shaped badge, then set it and the pistol on his desk, the gun’s muzzle pointing to one side, watching her all the while.

Maybe we’re going to play spin the pistol, she thought, immediately recognizing the weirdness of that idea. Be serious. He wants to see how I do with guns.

“Something else you need to know,” he said. “The station manager is a deputy U.S. marshal. Sworn and trained. So I am the law here. Literally.”

At its deepest, exhaustion was like being drunk; it dissolved restraint, invited mischief. Her next action had a life of its own.

“May I?” Before he could speak, she picked up the SIG, released the magazine, caught it in her left hand, worked the slide to eject the chambered round, caught that spinning in the air in her palm beside the magazine. It pleased her no end to see how much effort it took for him to look unimpressed. “You like the forty-cal better than the three fifty-seven?” she asked.

“So you know guns,” he said. “Fine. Now put my pistol down.”

“Grew up on a farm in Virginia. I like the magnum’s muzzle velocity, myself.” She popped the magazine back into place, thumbed the slide release and then the trigger release, set the pistol back on the desk, and stood the fat ejected round beside it. “I don’t like one chambered. No safety on a SIG,” she said.

“The forty-cal is what they issue. Safeties are great for target punchers. Slow in a fight, though.” He put the badge folder and gun away. “To finish up, just so we’re clear. Merritt keeps the research going. I keep people alive. You, just long enough to ship out in a few days.” It was the first time anything resembling pleasure had crept into his voice. That did it.

“Mr. Graeter, what could I possibly have done to piss you off so much in the very brief time we’ve been acquainted?”

His expression did not change. Did the man have any muscles in that face? “Bringing you down here pissed me off.”

“Why would it do that? I’m here to help. And we’ve never met.”

“Nothing personal. This is the easiest place on earth for the inexperienced and unwitting to die.” He fixed her with a hard stare, but not before his eyes flicked to the photographs on his desk.

“I’m experienced. And, most of the time, relatively witting.”

If he appreciated the irony, it didn’t show. “Nice to know. Keep this in mind at all times: we are like an outpost on Mars, except colder and darker.”

“I get it. I really do.” She just wanted some sleep.

“One last thing: do not go near the Underground or Old Pole.”

“What are they?”

“Read your station manual.”

“I didn’t get a station manual.”

“Jesus keelhauling Christ.” He closed his eyes, shook his head. “Did the CDC at least take care of you?”

“Centers for Disease Control? In Washington, you mean?”

“Clothing Distribution Center. At McMurdo. For your extreme-cold-weather gear.”

“Yes.”

“Wait one.” He unlocked the gray cabinet on the wall behind his desk. Scores of door keys hung from small numbered hooks. He removed one. The keys on all the other hooks were duplicates. There was no key left behind on the hook from which Graeter had taken this one.

“Where’s the backup?” She pointed to the empty hook.

For the first time, he looked more uncomfortable than angry. “Missing.” He locked the cabinet and pushed the key across his desk. “Dorm wing A, second level, number two-three-seven.” He told her how to find it. “Believe in ghosts, Ms. Leland?”

“Yes.” It pleased her immensely to see that he wasn’t expecting that.

“Good. You may have company. It was Emily Durant’s room. That bother you?”

“Not one bit. We were good friends. I hope she visits.” Ha, she thought. Got him again.

“You knew Durant?”

“She worked at BARDA before NSF. We did a lot of things together. She saved my life one time, after we got avalanched climbing Denali. It’s been a few years, though. Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Graeter?”

His eyes flicked again to the black-framed photographs. “No,” he said, and even though she had just met the man, she knew he was lying. Maybe she would find out why. At this point, she was too tired to care. But she was curious about one thing.

“Why that room?”

“With winterover so close, the field units are closed and all personnel, Beakers and Draggers alike, have moved into the station. Every room is occupied. Durant’s opened up when she passed. Come see me tomorrow at noon. We’re finished here now.”

“Actually, we’re not. No one in D.C. knew much about Em’s death. How did it happen?”

His face changed, and it was like watching water suddenly freeze. “See Merritt. I told you. Durant worked for her. She found the body.”

“Maybe, but you’re the station manager. I’d appreciate hearing—”

“I just said to see Merritt. In the Navy, once was enough, Ms. Leland.”

“Doctor Leland. And this isn’t the Navy.”

She waited for him to snap or shout. The more someone did that, the calmer she became—you couldn’t see to fight if you were blind with rage. But his voice was flat.

“No. But this is my office, and I have work to do. Go see Merritt.” A beat. “If you please.”

He turned around and began typing on his computer keyboard. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob, looking at the photograph on the wall. The woman had shoulder-length brown hair. Her red blouse’s two top buttons were undone to show swelling breasts. Good skin, upturned nose. Cheerleader-cute rather than model-beautiful. But eye shadow too thick, lips too red, and dark-circled eyes too old for the face spoiled the cheerleader image.

Hallie knew the type. Every branch had them. Picture-pretty, nail-hard, girls who had fun when the men were gone. She didn’t know what the Navy called them. In the Army, they were known as layaways.

“Ex-wife, am I right?” It just slipped out. Like the thing with the gun.

Graeter’s head snapped up.

“Wonder what she’s doing with your picture.”

He turned away, the creased back of his neck reddening. He started typing again, and it sounded like little machine guns firing.