“Perhaps we weren’t clear,” Warren said gently. “And I can own that, I can take the fall for that.” He hesitated. “One might even argue that I’ve already taken the fall for that.”
“There was no misunderstanding,” Dwight replied. “This is intentional.”
“Tell Karl Martin it’s draconian,” Floyd piped in.
Warren sighed. “Guys, I have no idea what you’re talking about. All we’re seeking is a peaceful resolution to the situation.”
“What? We’re not armed, dude,” Floyd replied.
“Well, the FBI wants in on this.”
Floyd cackled. “Yeah? Tell ’em to come on down. They can fly Southwest.”
There was a long silence on Warren’s end of the line. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Just tell me how we can resolve this, guys.”
Sal stepped past Floyd and leaned over the speakerphone. “The Wisconsin DA is tearing up Sri Niswathin’s lab in Madison. Frank Pavano is doing more interviews than a starlet on a press junket. Bayless and Calhoun are preening in front of cameras and pretending to be the defenders of science—”
“Sal—”
“You’re asking us how this will be resolved, and I’m telling you that this is resolved when Bayless and Calhoun let the budget bill go through committee. This is resolved when the sequester ends. It’s not complicated.”
“What the hell do you think we’ve been doing, Sal!” Warren shouted. “We’ve been working every angle here. I don’t think you people understand—you are illegally occupying a federal facility. There’s jail time associated with this kind of thing. Not to mention the fact that you’ve put your lives at—”
The call cut out without warning, reverting to static, and everyone turned to Dwight. “Satellite moved off-grid.” He shrugged and looked at Sal. “Time to start contacting the media?”
“Permission granted,” Sal replied grimly. Dwight shooed everyone out and got to work.
*
The next morning Cooper headed back over to Comms, where she was scheduled to relieve Dwight for a few hours. She found him sprawled on his ugly brown sofa, already asleep, so she spent her first ten minutes sorting the papers that had accumulated on the floor beneath the fax machine: there were separate piles for NSF communications, VIDS-related missives and threats, and the media requests, which had been pouring in since Dwight had started contacting reporters.
She’d brought along a mini-canvas and was priming it with gesso (Bozer had requested a small portrait of Denise) when the satellite phone began to ring. Its strange, insect-like buzzing woke Dwight immediately. Cooper brought the phone over to him.
The person on the other end of the line began speaking before Dwight could answer. His face contorted with effort as he tried to understand what he was hearing. Finally, he was able to break in: “Wait—wait, hold on. Hold on! No habla Russian.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Cooper. “Radio Dark Sector and get Alek in here.”
Soon the office was crowded with the Polies. Alek had the enormous phone pressed against his right ear, his other hand covering his left. Sal, who had come over from the Dark Sector with him, threw himself on the couch and instantly fell asleep. The plosives of Russian spoken at high volume were making Cooper feel delirious, and she sat down on the couch next to Sal, lifting his legs with effort and sliding beneath them.
It seemed like ages before Alek got off the phone—enough time for Pearl to go back to the galley, make a batch of instant hot chocolate, and return to Comms with a tray of still-steaming mugs. After hanging up, Alek took a long sip of cocoa and carefully wiped his mouth with his fingers. “They want to come get me,” he said darkly.
“Who wants to come get you?” Marcy asked.
“Rossiya,” Alek replied. Marcy stared at him blankly. “Mother Russia. They want to come and get their citizen.”
“And take you where, exactly?” Doc Carla growled from the other side of the room.
“Vostok.”
“That’s halfway across Antarctica,” Cooper said.
“Twelve hundred kilometers, exact,” Alek snapped.
“I thought it was too dangerous to fly into Pole at this time of year,” Doc Carla said, growing irritated. “I thought that was the goddamn point of this whole game.”
“In 1982, Vostok run out of fuel in the middle of winter. They make candle warmers out of asbestos fibers and diesel,” he replied. “Russia doesn’t give shit.”
“Have they talked to the State Department?” Sal asked, awake again but groggy.
“No, they say not necessary.”
“Actually, they’re right; they don’t need to,” Dwight said, flipping through the papers on his desk. “But Russia is a signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, so they’ll have to go through the secretariat.”
Alek shook his head. “No, I don’t want to go. I gave them better idea: airdrop.”
Sal sat up suddenly. “You’re a fucking genius, Alek.”
“Not an evil monk?”
“No, you’ve achieved sainthood.”
*
The airdrop, which Bozer had christened Operation Deep Freeze, had everyone giddy with anticipation. Airdrops were not unheard of at Pole—most winters, if the weather cooperated, a C-17 out of New Zealand would make a pass and drop supplies from its cargo hold. That was out of the question this winter: the sequester was still in effect, the station illegally occupied, and the resident population was accused of federal crimes. But Russia, sensing an opportunity to improve its standing in the international community at the expense of the Americans, was ready to help a comrade whose sense of duty to science had left him in dire straits.
Floyd began building the wooden wicks for the smudge pots, fires burning in fifty-five-gallon drums that would demarcate the drop zone now that the polar night—twenty-four-hour darkness—had fully descended. Bozer and Marcy spent nearly six hours grooming the zone, while Floyd split up the remaining Polies into teams. Marcy tuned up the forklift she’d use to locate the dropped crates and dig them out. Cooper was designated “project manager” since Doc Carla still didn’t think she was ready to do any heavy lifting. Everyone who was working the drop zone pulled on the insulated refrigerator suits that had been hauled out of storage and awaited the transmission from the Russian pilots.