Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

“We'll figure that out as we go, and as we get the info back from Darryl and Charlotte.”

“And what about her companion,” Michael pressed, “the man she calls Sinclair? If the forecast's right, can we go back to Stromviken to find him?”

“Tomorrow, if the weather does improve. Maybe then we can do a search party.” He sounded as if he'd just as soon not; Michael suspected he was hoping that this Sinclair-just another huge problem, from Murphy's point of view-would simply disappear.

“I mean, one thing at a time,” Murphy resumed. “Assuming that she is who she says she is, and what she says she is-”

“I'd be hard-pressed,” Michael interjected, “to come up with another explanation for all this. And believe me, I've tried.”

“Yeah, well, keep trying,” the chief replied. “But granting, simply for argument's sake, that you're right, what if she was to catch something from somebody here, something that she has no immunity against?”

Michael hadn't thought of that and let out a “huh.”

“See?” Murphy said, throwing up his hands. “That's the kind of stuff I've got to consider. I mean, I'm no doctor. Hell, if I were, I might know what to do about Ackerley”

Michael had been wondering about that, too. No announcement of his death had been made, and it was only a matter of time before somebody noticed that even the notoriously elusive Spook hadn't been seen in a while.

“What did you do with his body?” Michael asked.

“Cold storage,” Murphy replied. “I've notified his mother-he lives with her, back in Wilmington-but frankly, she didn't seem all there. I haven't put in the official report yet, because the second I do-coming so close on the heels of what happened to Danzig-I'll be lucky not to have a goddamned FBI delegation sent down here to investigate.” A sudden gust of wind shook the whole module on its cinder blocks. “And I asked Lawson to go in and clean up the botany lab, maybe try to preserve whatever he was working on.”

That seemed like a good, and laudable, decision, but Michael wondered if anyone would know how to keep all the plants alive, especially the orchids on their long and delicate stems. Everything in the Antarctic seemed to conspire against survival, against life, and as he got up to go, he thought of the one thing, the one person, that the eternal cold had actually protected and taken to its bosom.

“And don't forget what I said about the Ames woman,” Murphy called out. “Treat her with kid gloves, all the way.”

On the chance that she might be awake and alert, Michael stopped off at the infirmary. He didn't want to look like the importunate suitor, but at the same time he was desperately eager to begin getting her story. In his backpack, he was carrying his reporter's pads, his pens, and a palm-sized tape recorder; he'd debated bringing his camera, but there was something too intrusive about it. He was afraid of discomfiting her. The pictures, he decided, could wait.

But he sensed his timing wasn't great. He knocked on the closed door-the infirmary was generally left wide open-and he could hear Charlotte bustling about inside. “Yes?” she said. “Who's there?”

He identified himself, and the door opened enough for him to slip in. Charlotte, in her green hospital scrubs, looked harried, and Eleanor was out of sight, inside the sick bay.

“She awake?”

Charlotte sighed but nodded.

“Everything all right?”

Charlotte cocked her head to one side and said in a low voice, “We're having what you might call some technical difficulties.”

“Meaning?”

“Psychological. Emotional. Adjustment problems.”

He heard a sob from the sick bay.

“I mean, it's not exactly a shock,” Charlotte said, “given the circumstances. I've just given her another mild sedative. It should help.”

“You think it's okay for me to go in and talk to her before it takes effect?” Michael whispered.

Charlotte shrugged. “Who knows-maybe the distraction will help.” But as he started for the sick bay, she warned, “As long as you don't say anything to upset her.”

How, Michael wondered, could you talk to Eleanor Ames without saying something that might upset her?

When he entered the sick bay, he found Eleanor standing in a fluffy white robe and staring out through the narrow panel window; much of its glass was covered with blowing snow and only admitted the palest simulacrum of sunlight. Her head turned quickly when he came in-scared, skittish, and plainly a bit ashamed at being seen in such bedroom attire. She hastily pulled the lapels of the robe closed, then went back to gazing out the window.

“Not much to see today,” Michael said.

“He's out there.”

Michael did not have to ask whom she was talking about.

“He's out there, and he's all alone.”

A largely untouched meal sat on a tray on the bedside table.

“And he doesn't even know that I left him unwillingly.” Eleanor paced back and forth in a pair of white slippers, her tearful eyes still riveted on the window. The transformation was strange; when Michael had first seen her, in the ice and later on in the church, she had looked so alien, so out of time and so out of place. It was never in doubt that he was talking to someone from whom he was unquestionably separated by an immeasurable gap of time and experience.

But now, with the collar of the white robe gathered up about her face, her freshly washed hair hanging down, and the slip-ons scuffing along the linoleum floor, she looked like any other beautiful young woman newly emerged from the treatment room at a posh spa.

“He's survived so much,” Michael said, choosing his words carefully. “I'm sure he can survive this storm, too.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I abandoned him.” She had a clump of tissues wadded in her hand, and she used them to dry her tears.

“You had no choice,” Michael said. “How long could you have gone on like that? Eating dog food and burning prayer books to keep warm?”

Had he spoken too precipitously? He was trying to comfort her, but her green eyes flashed in warning.

“We have been through worse than that together. Worse things than you could ever know. Worse than you could ever imagine.” She turned away, her frail shoulders heaving beneath the terry-cloth robe.

Michael put his backpack on the floor and sat down on the plastic chair in the corner. Part of him said that the sensible thing was simply to leave and come back later when she was calmer, but something else-was it wishful thinking? — told him that, despite her grief and confusion, she did not really want him to go… that she could still derive some solace from his being there. In the artificial environment in which she had been placed, he might actually provide a note of familiarity.

“The doctor tells me I'm not to leave here,” Eleanor said, in a more tranquil tone.

“Certainly not to go out into that storm,” Michael joshed.

“This room.”

Michael knew that that was what she'd meant. “Only for the time being,” he assured her. “We don't want to expose you to anything-germs, bacteria-that you might not have any natural defenses against.”

Eleanor gave a bitter laugh. “I have nursed soldiers through malaria, dysentery, cholera, and the Crimean fever, which I myself contracted.” She breathed deeply. “As you can see, I have survived them all.” Then she turned toward him, and said, more brightly, “But Miss Nightingale, of course, has been making great strides in that realm. We have begun to air the hospital wards, even at night, in order to dissipate the miasma that forms. With improvements in hygiene and nutrition, I believe that countless lives can be saved. It is just a matter of persuading the proper authorities.”