Beneath the Ice (33 page)

Stang nodded, knuckles tightening on the rifle grip.

Pearl signalled to Coroni to start the engines and both men watched as she flicked the switches in her pre-flight check. Seconds later the rotors began to turn. Pearl then turned to Stang one last time.

‘Like a son,’ he repeated with a glowing smile.

Stang didn’t reply. He felt his chest swell slightly with pride at the thought of being close to a man like Richard Pearl. He simply watched as Pearl turned and climbed on board the helicopter. As the rotors spun faster, kicking up the ground snow and whipping it across the whole drill site, Stang made no effort to shield his eyes or turn away. He stared, trying to savour every last detail of Pearl’s presence.

Inside the cabin Coroni pulled on the collective, sending them pitching forward fast and low. The ground streamed past, soon blurring into a continuous flow of white as they accelerated towards the flanks of the mountains. Shadowing the line of a ridge, Coroni expertly twisted the aircraft right then left, flying only a few feet clear of the ground. Normally, Pearl would have objected to such aggressive manoeuvres, but he knew that she was still smarting from the incident with Stang. He had presumed that she would remain silent for the whole flight back and so was surprised to hear her voice crackle to life across the headset.

‘Are you really going to have the boat wait for him in two days’ time?’ she asked, curiosity outweighing her indignation.

Pearl swivelled in his seat. He was smiling, eyes sparkling with undisguised glee. After so many years, he was finally about to get his revenge on Vidar’s father, Fedor Stang. It had been Fedor, as ranking officer on board the stricken submarine, who had ordered Pearl to seal the doors closed on the rest of the crew. With two broken legs, Fedor had been unable to do it himself and had spent hours persuading, cajoling, and eventually threatening him. Pearl had been only a young man at the time, too lacking in confidence to challenge such a senior officer’s command.

So he had done it. He had screwed shut the doors and sealed the other twenty-five men inside, leaving them to their fate. For hours they had heard their muffled screams, their pleas, and then their silence. All the while Pearl had implored Fedor to let him open the doors and release them. He had sobbed and begged, tried to reason with him and change his mind, but the Norwegian had been steadfast. In the end, Fedor had been right about how long the rescue teams would take to reach them, but it did nothing to change the fact that Pearl had been the one to murder all those men.

For years afterwards, he had wished he had been able to die in there with them and so be released from his guilt. Each night as he went to bed he could feel his chest constrict. He would gasp for air. It was as if he was right there with them, with the weight of water that surrounded the submarine pressing against his body, squeezing the life from him.

For three long years he had languished in the most pitiful depression. Then something inside him had snapped. It was like a release, finally allowing him to float to the surface, and he had immediately set about becoming the man he wanted to be. Finally, he was free to fulfil his own destiny.

‘I gave Stang false coordinates for the ship,’ he said. ‘And he doesn’t have enough fuel to last the winter.’

He paused for a moment, letting his gaze roam across the endless ice and deciding that it was a fitting tomb for the man they had just left behind. For the first time in years, Pearl’s chest felt light and unencumbered.

Fedor Stang had died too soon. Only now, through his son, could he finally gain his revenge.

THE TWO MAMBA
APC vehicles stood in the far corner of the army barracks’ hangar. Both were crippled by the scars of battle, a mess of dents and shattered glass. The soldiers had long-since departed, leaving pools of blood and empty shell casings spilling out across the concrete floor.

Bear Makuru sat in the shadow of the vehicles, slumped against an old ammunition box with a coarse grey blanket wrapped across her lap. Kneeling at her side was a young army doctor with a fresh face and light blond hair, who was busy administering a local anaesthetic. He had already cleaned the wire cuts at her wrists and bandaged them up, and was now trying to figure out how best to deal with the puncture wound running across her ribs.

‘Looks like shrapnel as you thought,’ he said, squinting closer. ‘I can suture it now, but you’ll still need to get it checked out properly. Could be fragments of clothing in there that’ll cause an infection.’

‘Thanks,’ Bear said, as her eyes switched across to Kieran Bates. He was standing only a few feet away, hovering impatiently. They stared at each other for a moment, but neither of them spoke. The deadlock was only broken when Bear felt the needle jab into her side and the pressure of the anaesthetic being forced in.

The doctor stood up then paused, his attention drawn to the line of dried blood trailing down from her ear.

‘You got any loss of hearing?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. My right ear is pounding.’

‘And your balance?’

‘All over the place,’ Bear replied.

The doctor shrugged. ‘I’d need to do some tests, but you’ve probably ruptured the eardrum. We get that from time to time around here when the guys work with heavy ordnance.’ He frowned, tilting his head a little closer. ‘Looks like a bad one, though. I’ll need to book you in for a scan.’

Bates stepped forward. ‘Just stitch the damn wound,’ he snapped. ‘The rest can wait.’

Bear glowered at him, but remained silent as the doctor nodded hesitantly then hurried through his work. Using a pair of metal callipers, he clamped together the flesh to either side of the wound, causing blood to ooze out and dribble down Bear’s ribs and back. She groaned in pain, but forced herself to remain still as he ran the thread through in neat surgical stitches.

Finally, the doctor straightened up to admire his handiwork but Bates had had enough.

‘You’re done,’ he said, motioning for the doctor to gather his instruments. They both watched as he scurried off, footsteps fading away over the vast expanse of the hangar.

Bear expected Bates to say something then. Instead, he shifted from foot to foot with a strange, almost pained expression on his face.

‘Did they hurt you?’ he managed to say finally. Bear glanced down at her wrists, suggesting the answer was only too obvious.

‘I mean,
hurt
you,’ he repeated, but this time his eyes dropped the length of her body.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Not like that.’

Raising the blanket over her shoulders, she retreated into the rough fabric. Her memory of the ordeal was still so rushed and confused. She could remember the hard pressure of a knife at her throat, tilting her head back, and then the hands, shoving, pushing and beating her, as they forced her on to the chair and tied her down.

She didn’t remember screaming, but must have done so because her throat felt raw. At some point they had stuffed a filthy rag down her throat, almost choking her completely. It had been covered in some kind of cleaning agent, making her eyes water and mouth burn from the chemicals.

Bear had been expecting the worst, but once the gang had tied her down they had just left. Seconds had passed, each filled with the horrific certainty that they would be back at any moment and then it would begin. But nothing had happened. Instead, all she could do was listen to the sound of their voices through the gaps in the floorboards.

There was shouting, but it was in their native Xhosa and she couldn’t understand much of what was being said. It seemed as if one of the older gang members was warning the others, ordering them to wait, why she couldn’t tell. Then there was the sound of a chair being pushed over, before finally the low hum of a TV. As the SABC news presenter droned the latest headlines of the day, it felt bitterly unfair and incongruous that outside the horror she was being subjected to, life was somehow continuing as normal.

Minutes turned to hours, and still no one came. Alone in the tiny room she had tried to escape, but with each movement of her wrists, the wire only bit deeper into her skin, until she had been unable to take the pain any longer. It was then that hopelessness overcame her. The inevitability of her fate seemed so clear she stared wide-eyed into the darkness, too despondent even to cry.

She was going to be raped. Not by one man, but by them all.

Time had passed in a kind of twilight, where she tried to detach herself from the reality of her situation. She fought hard to picture her son, to her the very essence of purity and love, but each time the image only stayed for a few seconds before the shadows in the room seemed to overwhelm it. Then she had tried to picture Luca, hoping that this time the image would last. She imagined him striding towards her through the crystal-clear snow of Antarctica, hand outstretched, that knowing smile of his playing across his lips. Then there was another shout from the room below and the dream seemed to slip from her grasp once more.

The truth was she couldn’t detach herself, nor project her mind to any other time or place. There was only now. And the realisation had made a cold sweat prickle across her neck. She was going to have to experience every moment of what was to come; to feel it in its most vile intimacy.

But then she had heard the sound of a truck’s engine, and a few seconds later the roof had collapsed in a volley of loose bricks and timber. The next thing she remembered was seeing Bates.

Bear looked up into those same eyes.

‘I got a report that a man name Loheso D’hala was killed in the fighting today,’ he said.

‘And?’

‘The gang that took you . . . he’s their main man. Apparently he got caught up in the fighting when he was coming back from a drinking shebeen. Looks like they were waiting for him to arrive before deciding what to do with you.’

Bear nodded slowly. ‘Guess I was lucky,’ she said, without any show of feeling. She decided to change the subject. ‘Tell me, Kieran. Why did you come and get me?’

‘I had a call from Luca out in Antarctica. He said you were in trouble and I was able to help. That’s all.’

‘So you just happened to fly ten thousand miles from London and then be able to mobilise half of SANDF? I don’t suppose the South African military hand out vehicles and soldiers just like that. You must be some kind of guardian angel to pull that off.’

‘Look, Luca is an old friend and . . .’

‘
Assez
!’ Bear shouted, raising her hands in protest. ‘I never even told Luca I was in Nyanga. You’ve been feeding me bullshit ever since we first spoke. Now, I know you are up to your neck in it with Pearl and the seed, but right now that doesn’t concern me.’ She paused, levelling her gaze on him. ‘I want to know what you’ve got Luca into. And no more lies, Kieran. If your friendship with him ever meant anything to you, you’ll tell me what the hell is going on.’

Bates didn’t answer for a moment. Instead, he let his gaze fix on the shard of light shining through the gap in the hangar doors. The truth was that they had lost all communication with Luca and the British team since they had first gone for the drill site. With all the predictions of bad weather, Bates had simply assumed that the attempt would be abandoned and all Luca would have to do was sit around in GARI for a few more days. But evidently that had not happened.

‘We lost comms after the storm hit,’ he said eventually. ‘Honestly, that’s the last we’ve heard from him. But Luca’s a born survivor, Bear. If anyone will make it through this shit, it will be him.’

She remained silent, remembering the last conversation she had had with him on the satellite phone. He had suddenly stopped talking and then she had heard someone else on the line, just listening, before it went dead.

‘You know,’ Bates continued, ‘Luca’s not the one you should be worrying about right now.’

‘Is that a threat?’

He shook his head. ‘Threat? Six men are dead and most of the others are queuing up outside the infirmary. All because I ordered them to come and get you. So why don’t you take stock of the situation? Haven’t I already proved that I’m on your side?’

‘My side? You’re only on one side – Pearl’s.’

‘Look . . .’

‘Stop the games!’ Bear exploded, throwing off the blanket and standing up to face him. ‘Pearl was scared that I’d blow the whistle on the whole project and he got you to do his dirty work. You came into Nyanga to try and silence me. Period.’

She stared at him, eyes burning with resolve. ‘Understand this – I am going to expose Pearl for all his sordid bullshit. So, if I were you, Kieran, I’d stay the hell out of my way.’

Bates’ voice took on an edge that Bear had never heard before.

‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he hissed. ‘You steamroll into a situation you can’t possibly understand and then start issuing warnings. If it weren’t so damn pathetic, Bear, it’d be laughable. This is so much bigger than Richard Pearl. But right now you have to understand something – I am the only person left on your side.’ He paused then, seemingly to check his anger, before finally continuing. ‘But I can only protect you from them for so long.’

‘Them?’

Bates nodded as he glanced down at his watch. When he looked up again, Bear could see real concern in his eyes.

‘Tell me what you know and I give you my word that I’ll do everything I can to get you transferred to the British. That way I can protect you. But please, Bear, speak to me. We don’t have much time left.’

The sincerity in his eyes scared her, but not enough to make her give it all up.

‘What do you want from me?’ she sighed, feigning dejection. ‘I tried to stop Pearl and failed. That’s it.’

‘And the flashcard that Bukovsky gave you?’

Bear didn’t avert her gaze. Bates could only have found out about that if they had already brought in Lotta and questioned her. They must have been on to her, right from the start.

‘I don’t have it . . .’ she began, but he stepped forward and gripped her forearm.

‘You can’t beat these people,’ he whispered. ‘And you can’t just leak this kind of information and expect to get away with it. They will come after you, your son, Luca – anyone who so much as touches that flashcard will be crushed. We’re not talking about one man here. We’re talking about the entire American government and trust me, they will
not
give up.’