Beneath the Ice (8 page)

Twenty minutes later, Dedov woke. His eyelids flickered. Slowly he pulled himself up using the steering wheel for balance. He could feel the whole right side of his face was damp and his arms shook with the effort of simply raising himself vertical. He felt exhausted, so absolutely drained of energy that he barely had the strength to move.

Finally, his vision cleared and he stared towards the door of the hangar. It was still closed. Laying back his head on the seat rest, he let out a ragged breath. No one had seen what had happened. His secret was still safe.

But already he knew, it could only last so long.

DESPITE BEING OFFICIALLY
classified as ‘operational’, the interior of GARI was only just that. As Luca walked in, he could see wooden crates lying in the far corner of the room stacked in some long-forgotten order, while instructions for gas piping were scrawled in permanent marker across the sidewalls. He took a few paces further inside to where a makeshift couch had been positioned in front of the main heating vent. Everything about the scene looked unfinished, as if the builders had somehow got distracted halfway through the construction process.

A figure lay on an inflatable mattress next to the couch, with a sleeping bag pulled high across its chest. The hood concealed most of its face, while a single hand protruded from the covers, clutching a novel whose spine had been broken back so the pages could be turned using only one hand. The book was held only inches away from the figure’s nose, leaving the eyes protruding above. The eyes blinked several times before switching focus and settling on Luca.

‘So who are you?’ asked the reader, his voice laced with boredom.

‘Luca Matthews. I’m the new guide.’

It seemed to take several seconds for the information to be processed. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, the man tossed the book aside as if it had suddenly become contagious and tried to wriggle his body up through the innards of the sleeping bag. His elbows and knees strained against the heavy down fabric before he managed to jerk the zip lower and free himself. ‘Shit,’ he breathed. ‘You’re finally here!’

Now that he was vertical, Luca could see that the man was exceptionally tall, with long, bony limbs that seemed to unfold rather than bend. He had straggly hair, darkened by grease, which was pulled back from his face by an old Manchester United sweatband. It bunched up at his temples, making him look like a throwback to a 1970s tennis player, while the face itself was hawkish. He stared at Luca with bright eyes, set over a long, aquiline nose.

‘I’m Joel. Joel Cable-Forbes,’ he said, flashing a smile. For that brief moment his whole face seemed to light up, and he shook Luca’s hand as if they were old friends. Luca guessed him to be in his late-twenties. He had the ingenuous manner of someone who had spent his entire adult life encased in academia.

Squinting a little, Joel reached for a pair of round glasses tucked into his top pocket. One end was secured to the frame by electrical tape.

‘Better put these on or I could walk past you tomorrow and not even recognise you.’

He then raised his hands to indicate the building they were standing in.

‘Guess I should say welcome to GARI. Well, the bits of it that are finished at any rate.’

‘It’s quite a place.’

Joel nodded. ‘It’s a beast. Truth is, we could have done the same job in half the space, but I guess that’s not how things work as soon as people like Pearl are involved.’

‘Pearl?’

‘Yeah, Richard Pearl. He’s the guy who funded most of this place. I actually met him once. Real smiley guy . . . seemed to know everything about me.’ Joel paused, recalling the encounter. ‘Yeah, he’s one of those people who’s everyone’s best friend. Joking and smiling all the time. Well, that’s Americans for you,’ he concluded, as if it were all the explanation required.

Luca glanced down to the book Joel had been reading. The cover was so faded it was difficult to read the title, but looking closer he managed to piece together
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
.

‘Inspiration for this place?’ he asked.

Joel shrugged. ‘Guess so. In the book, they find a prehistoric lake deep underground, so it kind of felt similar. Fewer dinosaurs here though. Unless, of course, you take the Russian base commander into account.’

Joel smiled at his own joke then the humour quickly drained from his eyes.

‘If I were you, I’d watch what you say around Dedov. He’s all smiles and jokes, but there’s another side to him. And he has one
vicious
temper.’

As an old memory resurfaced, Joel exhaled deeply. A moment passed before he seemed to collect himself once again.

‘I won’t lie to you, Luca, I am glad you’re here. Things have gone from bad to worse in the last two weeks. Since Akira and Sommers fell into . . . well, I’m sure you know all about that. Cabin fever’s been getting to us all.’

‘Is everyone holding it together?’

Joel arched his long back, stretching the stiffness out.

‘Let me put it this way. When Admiral Byrd came to Antarctica a century ago, he brought twelve strait-jackets and only one coffin. And things haven’t changed much since. The fact is – some people just can’t handle this place. Mentally, I mean.’

‘What about you?’ Luca asked, his eyes passing over Joel’s wiry frame and wondering how competent he’d be in the field. ‘You ready to go for the drill site?’

‘Well, I have the distinct advantage of being a bit of a dreamer. Means the days pass quicker for me. But it isn’t the same for the rest of them. It’s been so frustrating, having everything set up to extract the first samples, only to have to sit around waiting like this. Especially for the others.’

‘You mean Andy and Jonathan?’ Luca asked, remembering the files he’d been handed on the helicopter concerning the two other members of the British team.

‘Everyone calls Jonathan by his surname – Katz. Don’t ask me why, but that’s the way he likes it. And just so you know, they haven’t spoken to each other in nearly a week. Fell out over the washing-up rota.’ Joel raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s the little things, huh?’

‘So I hear.’

‘Actually they’ll be OK, but that’s no thanks to the Russians. They’re real dicks when they’re drunk, and since breaking through to the lake they’ve been doing a lot of celebrating. They don’t really speak to outsiders much anyway.’ Joel paused, gently setting the book down on a nearby crate. ‘But we only need them to drive us to the mountain range. After that, it’ll be over to you.’

Luca nodded thoughtfully, then pulled a notebook from his top pocket along with the folded map. ‘You said everything was already set up to extract the samples, right?’

‘Yeah. We had everything in place then the mother of all storms hit. You should have seen it. It was this massive front that came in from the coast.’

As he spoke, Joel’s eyes blurred slightly, remembering the sheer ferocity of the wind.

‘Joel,’ Luca prompted, bringing him back to the present, ‘I need to figure out some timings here.’ He offered the other man the map showing the new route that Dedov had plotted. ‘The base commander said it’s about four hours by tractor to the edge of the mountains, then we have to find a way over. After that, I calculate it’s a six-kilometre trek across the lake floor just to get to the drill site.’

‘I’m not all that good with maps, but that sounds about right.’

‘So how long are you going to need to extract the samples?’

Joel rubbed the end of his nose, turning his eyes skywards in thought. ‘We need to re-open the borehole then feed down the piping. If everything goes well, then I’d say no more than three hours. Like I said, all the hard work’s been done already.’

Luca scratched down some timings on his notepad, when Joel’s hand shot out, stopping him mid-calculation.

‘I forgot to mention that we left two Ski-Doos at the drill site. They’d be perfect to drive us back across the lake, which should cut a few hours off the return journey.’

‘They in good condition?’

Joel shrugged, suggesting that there was no guaranteeing anything left outside in Antarctica.

‘So what do you think?’ he asked, trying to decipher Luca’s notes.

‘Crossing the mountain range is the big unknown, but assuming we find a route, then we’re looking at nearly a whole day’s worth of travel.’ Luca looked up into Joel’s eyes, which were magnified by the lens of his glasses. ‘You think the others are capable of that kind of journey? It’ll be tough.’

‘Andy and Katz may bicker like children, but deep down they’re both committed to this project. They’ve been working on it since its inception. That’s three years’ worth of work, so as much as they’ll moan about their sore legs, they know how important this is.’

‘And you?’

Joel cast his eyes down to the book lying beside them. ‘Put it this way – if I have to read that bloody book one more time, I’ll be joining Hiroko up in Module Four.’

Luca simply waited for an explanation, having realised that Joel hadn’t met anyone new for a long time and seemed to refer to every facet of the base as if it were common knowledge.

‘Oh, yeah, you don’t know about her, do you? She’s the other scientist from the Japanese programme, but since the accident she’s really flipped. Now she’s refusing even to step outside the base. I mean, we’re talking full-blown agoraphobia and it’s got so bad that she can’t look outside the main windows without her legs starting to shake.’ Joel paused, raising an eyebrow. ‘Frankly, I don’t know how things could have got so messed up so quickly.’

Breaking away from Luca’s gaze, his eyes passed across the interior of the room as if the answer were to be found somewhere amongst the discarded crates.

‘She’s made this weird little nest for herself up near the top hatch on Module Four and only comes out to eat when the rest of us are asleep. She should have been rotated out on the last flight, but apparently orders from Japan were that she had to stay until we all leave next week. Idiots have no idea how bad it is. Mind you, I’d probably have gone the same way if it had been my partner who died down there.’

‘She and Akira were a couple?’

‘Yeah, a husband and wife team from Tokyo. And now his body is frozen stiff in the maintenance garage twenty feet below us.’

‘The garage? Why not just store the corpse outside? You’ve got enough snow.’

‘That’s just it. We’re getting a lot of storms at the moment, and that means massive snow accumulation. We’d either lose the bodies under a drift or spend days shovelling them out. Things are different now. The snow’s not cold and dry like it used to be. It’s too warm at the moment.’

‘And humidity makes snow heavy, right?’ Luca added, thinking ahead to their own journey. ‘With enough wind, that kind of snow will destroy our mountain tents. If a front hits us out there, we’ll be totally exposed.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. Winter’s here. And I mean
now
. I mentioned that storm before – well, by the time we had made it back to base, the wind was gusting past hurricane strength. It peaked at over a hundred and ninety-five kilometres an hour, taking down the radio mast and rolling two shipping containers. They weighed over four tons each and were anchored with steel cabling.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

Joel’s eyes fixed on Luca. ‘That guy? You’re forgetting, we’re men of science. He doesn’t tend to like us much.’

Joel led Luca across a metal gangplank to the next module. As the door swung back, Luca could immediately hear the sound of drunk people talking loudly. They entered a room filled with stagnant cigarette smoke and the smell of human sweat. A group of Russians were conversing around a makeshift table, but as Joel clanked shut the door, they all fell silent.

Luca’s eyes ranged around the room. There were seven men in total, all similarly dressed with the tops of their padded overalls pulled down at the waist to reveal faded white T-shirts stained yellow under the armpits and stretched tight across their paunchy waists. Although they varied in height and size, each man had pale, muscular arms and callused hands engrained with dirt. Their cheeks were a deep, windblown brown set below eyes rimmed red by drink and the hanging smoke.

Empty bottles of vodka had been placed beneath their chairs, while on the table several plastic tubs of gherkins and other snacks were being passed from one man to the next. They had stopped, some mid-chew, to stare at the newcomers in expectant silence.

Joel took a step closer.

‘This is Luca Matthews,’ he offered, forcing a smile. ‘The new guide.’

The news was greeted with indifference. Then the silence was broken by a booming voice from the doorway. ‘He is more than a guide. He is a great snow leopard!’

Luca and Joel turned to see Dedov on the gangplank directly behind them, beaming widely. As soon as his voice echoed out there was a bustle of movement from the Russians as they scrambled over themselves to make room for their base commander. The detritus on the table was quickly cleared and a chair vacated, causing the other men to bunch up so close that their shoulders touched.

‘A
great
snow leopard!’ Dedov repeated, with such theatrical aplomb that Luca thought the base commander might be mocking him. But then he remembered the Russian penchant for histrionics and allowed himself to be shepherded to a seat next to Dedov. Shots of vodka and slices of cheese were summarily set before them both, while amongst the rest of the men smiles and conversation broke out once more. Dedov’s patronage of Luca seemed to be universally accepted and the matter was immediately dismissed from the other men’s minds.

As an obvious afterthought, Joel was offered a seat at the other end of the table, with the vodka and cheese taking longer to reach him. He sat with shoulders hunched, towering above the stocky Russians either side of him and smiling awkwardly as they talked across him. It was the first time he had been invited to sit with them and the solemnity of his expression made it clear that he was trying hard to make a good impression.

Luca watched the constant flow of food and alcohol as the Russians went back to their conversations in their native tongue. Secure in their own company, the cold exterior melted away. Instead they behaved more like excited Italians, slapping each other’s knees at the punchline of a joke, or clutching each other’s shoulders in commiseration as they reminisced about home.