Sarah Andrews - In Cold Pursuit

“But the storm,” said Valena.

“Yeah, the storm,” said Ted.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Cupcake. “What could you have done differently?”

Ted had finished his second beer. His big hand crumpled the can like it was made of paper. “I should have hauled his ass out of there with me on the Otter. Or William was almost done with his work. I could have sent him out, and then I would have been the one to stay. Maybe I could have found the damned chute.”

Cupcake had an arm around him. “No one found it,” she said.

The big man hung his head. “Yeah, right. Not until five days ago they didn’t.”

BRENDA UTZON POURED HERSELF A CUP OF TEA AND headed down the ramp that led to the lower levels of Crary Lab, leaving phase 1 for phase 2 and continuing all the way down to the aquarium. She had seen Michael heading down this way, and she had a job for him.

She was always fascinated by the maze of tanks with their burbling waters being circulated by humming motors. It was usually her pleasure to stop and stare into the nearest aquarium, a small Plexiglas arrangement labeled CRARY TOUCH TANK. The biologists kept examples of Antarctic marine creatures in there so that visitors could see who lived underneath the sea ice and to keep them from sticking their hands into the other aquaria, which housed the creatures they were actually studying. But today Brenda was on a mission. Instead of stopping to look, she hung a right and knocked on the door to the electrical tech’s shop. “Michael?” she called. “Are you in there?”

“Just a moment,” she heard, through the heavy steel door. Presently, Michael opened the door and let her into his sanctum. It was lined with shelves packed with widgets and gizmos that kept all the equipment in Crary Lab ticking. He was new this year, but in the short time he had been on board, she had come to know him as a gentle, caring man, and she had a job for someone with just those characteristics.

“What can I do for you, kind lady?” Michael inquired. He was perched on his swiveling stool, his back against the side counter. On the counter in front of him lay the disassembled parts of some bit of equipment that Brenda did not even try to comprehend, but from the scent of the air, she could tell that she had interrupted a job of soldering. Why was he working on a Sunday?

Michael reached to one side and dragged another stool out from under a counter. “Have a seat. I don’t get much company.”

“Thanks, Michael. This is nice down here. So, you’re going to Happy Camp tomorrow, am I right?”

“At last. I’ve been bumped twice, but now’s my big chance. I’m looking forward to being able to hike past Ob Hill.”

“Oh, I know, it’s kind of constraining to be in this great, huge place and not be allowed to go anywhere.”

Michael nodded.

Brenda said, “Well, I was wondering if you could help look out for someone who’s going to be there. She’s just a kid, and she’s having a rough time.”

“Oh?” Michael’s soft brown eyes softened further. “What’s the problem?”

“You’ve heard about the scientist who was taken off the ice under guard?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the young lady I’m concerned about was his graduate student. Scheduling missed the chance to turn her around in New Zealand, so she’s here. She came in on yesterday’s flight. I saw her this morning and she looked pretty scared, like she didn’t have a friend in the world. Because she’s here and there won’t be another flight north until Wednesday, George Bellamy said she could go ahead and attend Happy Camp.” She shrugged her shoulders in what she hoped was a fetching approximation of innocence. “So anyway, I was hoping you could keep an eye out for her.”

“Sure,” said Michael. “Sounds rough.”

“Yeah. Imagine working hard enough to get in on a grant to work in Antarctica and then having it snatched out from under you.”

Michael began fiddling absentmindedly with a loose bolt on his countertop. “How old is she?”

“Well, she has to be mid-twenties, but she looks like she’s about eighteen. Nice-looking girl, sort of unusual-looking.”

“I think I’ve met her. Valena?”

“Yes, that’s her. Valena Walker.”

“Wow, and she was Vanderzee’s student? Rotten luck. So what’s the scoop on that, anyway? I heard the basics—that someone died in his camp last year, and that now they think he killed the guy—but what happened? I mean, he walked out of here last year a free man, and this year something’s different?”

“Well, that’s what we’d all like to know.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “There was of course a big flap about it last year. It’s very bad when someone dies on the ice. Not only does it scare everybody—morale plummets—but also it’s a black mark on NSF and Raytheon. When I left the ice at the end of the season last February and returned to Denver, I was amazed at how much trouble it had created at headquarters. The newspaper the deceased man worked for kept badgering everybody for details, as if we had been keeping things from them, which we hadn’t. Heavens, how was I supposed to know anything, for instance? I never leave McMurdo. I certainly wasn’t at Dr. Vanderzee’s camp when it happened. But sure enough, I got a call as soon as I returned to Denver. I’ll bet they’d have phoned me here if they could have figured out how. They even got hold of e-mail addresses for the winter-over personnel and asked questions of them.”

“What did they ask you?”

“Oh, you can just imagine: If someone’s never been down here, they don’t know how things are. They demanded that someone go out to Dr. Vanderzee’s camp and investigate. They didn’t understand that after February, nobody flies anywhere. The planes and helicopters leave the ice, and there’s no way someone is going to try to make a run up to the mountains in the dark. That would be suicidal.”

Michael’s gaze drifted toward the window. She saw his jaw sag as he considered what it would be like to be out there in that cold, and in that darkness. The window was tiny, triple-paned, and set in a very thick wall. Staying warm in Antarctica was not a joke. “But something changed,” he said.

“I came in at WinFly—early September, before Main Body comes in October. Nothing had changed by then. Then two weeks ago the investigators arrived with Emmett. I don’t think I’m supposed to be talking about that, though.”

Michael ran his thumb and forefinger across his lips, sealing them with an imaginary zipper.

She looked anxiously over her shoulder. She hadn’t liked the investigators. They had set up shop in the lab manager’s office, which was next door to hers, and they had treated her as if she were their private secretary. “They asked a lot of questions.”

“I remember them hanging around up there on phase 1, but I didn’t realize who they were until they were gone,” said Michael. “One of them came down here to get a repair on a piece of equipment, but they didn’t tell me what it was for, just as you say.”

“Right. Real closemouthed.”

“But they found something that suggested that it wasn’t just death by mischance.”

“Apparently. I don’t know what they found, but they had the Airlift Wing fly them out there, and when they came back, they came to me and had me phone Chad Hill and tell him to come over. Tell him to come. Imagine. Chad’s one of the two top reps for NSF on site and a federal marshal to boot, and they were ordering him around.”

Michael’s face glowed with concern. “And then what happened?”

“Well, Chad said he’d take care of it, as it was his jurisdiction, but they said they were on their way out next flight and wanted Emmett with them.” She had let her voice rise to normal speaking tones, but again dropped it to a whisper. “I was right there in the office with them, because they had me making arrangements for their departure, calling the people at the Chalet. I overheard the whole thing.”