Jack Du Brul - Pandora's curse

At the dorm, she first made sure the building was empty. A minute later they were naked in her room, with no others around to hear the slaps or the cries of pain and climax. Rath’s practiced hands did not leave marks where they were visible, but it would be a while before Greta could sit comfortably.

While she cleaned up in satisfied euphoria, Gunther Rath searched for Werner Koenig and found him in the mess hall with Dieter, the rally driver. “What’s the status of the search?”

Werner looked up, feeling the old pang of jealousy. He could tell by Rath’s expression that he’d just taken Greta. Since the day she’d left him, Werner had held out hope that some vestiges of his former lover remained. He knew now that wasn’t the case. Rath had reduced her to nothing more than a vessel for his warped dysfunctions. The once-sweet Greta had become a whore, yet he continued to mourn the loss of the woman who might have been his wife. Making it worse, Rath had insisted she come along on this expedition to be his eyes and ears. Werner suspected that Rath enjoyed this humiliation more than anything else — it was the kind of primitive behavior that would appeal to his Neanderthal mentality.

“Three teams have been out for a few days now, but as you suspected we are too far south to find anything.”

“With the others gone,” Gunther said, “we can end this charade and move a portion of the base northward. I passed on the fake weather report to the pilot of the DC-3 so they’ll swing far to the north before turning to Iceland. They’ll never see the rotor-stat flying in to ferry us.”

“How is that possible? The airship is under tight flight guidelines until it receives its certification.”

“Because it’s owned by one of Kohl’s subsidiaries. We can do anything with it we want. It should be here in another couple of hours. There actually is a fog prediction for this area that’ll last for at least a day, so moving a building and the ’Cats is going to be tricky. It should be a good demonstration of the airship’s capabilities. With the Surveyor’s Society out of the way, we have two and a half weeks until their replacements arrive and we have to return everything back here.”

“Damn Danish government,” Dieter said. He was actually a longtime Kohl employee. “If they hadn’t amended our permit, none of this would be necessary. We should have fought them harder when they told us to move our operation to Camp Decade to accommodate the Americans.”

“If we’d argued they might have barred us from Greenland completely.” By his tone it was clear Rath didn’t want to debate the point again. “Pressure against Kohl in Europe is mounting. We have to find the cavern.”

Werner didn’t want to hear how the recent buyers of Geo-Research had perverted his company for their own ends. He had agreed to sell at the overvalued price because Rath and a battery of Kohl lawyers had assured him that Geo-Research would continue to operate as it had in the past. He was told they would do nothing to damage the hard-won reputation he’d built for clear scientific research.

That promise had lasted until this mission, just one year later. Trapped now by a moment of greed, he and Geo-Research were being corrupted by Gunther Rath and his boss, Klaus Raeder, for a mission Werner didn’t fully understand. He had no idea why they were searching for a cavern or what was inside. Nor did he care. He just wanted the operation to be over so they would give him his company back and leave him alone.

“Werner, you don’t look well,” Rath mocked.

“I was just thinking how glad I’ll be when you are gone.”

“It won’t take us long. Once we finish clearing out the cave, our interest in Geo-Research is over. Your company will continue under the Kohl umbrella but in a much less hands-on role.”

“What happens if you don’t find the cavern before the next team of researchers arrives from Japan?”

“For their sake, let’s pray we do.” Rath looked out the window in the direction the DC-3 had vanished. “Go make preparations to move a dorm building and Sno-Cats.”

Bern Hoffmann was stationed in the communications alcove, a pair of sleek headphones covering his ears. He’d just finished rewiring a couple circuit boards and was replacing an access panel at the back of the set. Rath walked over and touched his shoulder to draw his attention. “Have you fixed our solar-max problem?”

“Just about, Gunther.” While he used Rath’s Christian name, there was subordination in Hoffmann’s voice. Like most of the people at the base, he was actually part of Rath’s security force. “There are legitimate atmospheric problems, but nothing like what we led the Surveyor’s Society to believe. We can communicate with the Njoerd just fine.”

“And you’re sure the plane’s radios are dead?” While the pilots were outside the aircraft, Rath had watched as the young technician sabotaged the radios.

“I doubt the pilots will realize they’ve been wrecked until they’re halfway to Iceland.”

“Which is as far as they’ll get.”

Anika’s statement extinguished any anger Mercer had been harboring. Even when they were facing the fire in Camp Decade, he hadn’t seen such naked fear. She was like a raw nerve, exposed and pained. By admitting that she had searched his room, he no longer had a reason to doubt her. She hadn’t gotten the name Otto Schroeder from him, which meant she had additional information from another source, information that he needed. He said nothing, studying her with his depthless gray eyes, a patient, nonjudgmental scrutiny that invited her to continue. Emotion continued to play across her face as she struggled to regain her composure. He knew she was deciding how to overcome her natural suspicion and take him in her confidence.

Only the forward half of the DC-3’s open cabin had seats. The rear portion was given over to cargo, which lay under mesh netting secured to eyebolts in the floor. Mercer and Anika were in the rearmost seats. Forward sat Marty and Ingrid, who were talking with their heads almost touching. Ira was a couple rows behind them, looking around nostalgically, obviously transported to another time and place by the utilitarian aircraft. The remainder of the passengers either stared out the square windows or had already settled in to a book.

“Anika, please,” Mercer said as gently as the rattling aircraft would allow. “I think between the two of us we know what’s going on, but alone we know nothing. We have to share if we’re going to figure out who killed Igor and why.” He had already assumed a connection between Bulgarin’s murder and Otto Schroeder’s.

Anika looked into his face, searching for the strength she hoped he possessed because hers was gone. Everything had come full circle too quickly. Hearing Schroeder’s killer outside just now had abolished any desire she had for justice. She wanted to run from all of this, to go to Vienna to be with her Opa . He would know what to do.

“I hadn’t heard of Otto Schroeder until I opened the package from Germany,” Mercer continued, his gaze never leaving Anika’s eyes although the plane pitched and vibrated. “I was warned by an e-mail before I left the States that something was being sent. I had no idea what it was. I still don’t. This journal Schroeder sent me is written in German.”

“You haven’t read it?” Anika asked. It was a neutral question, one that gave nothing away.

“I can barely read English,” Mercer joked, but Anika didn’t respond. “All the German words I know are either food related or naughty.”

“What did that man say when you got on the plane?” There was a sudden urgency in her voice. She had a premonition that this wasn’t the time to compare notes. Not yet anyway. There was a more pressing issue. There were now two murderers at the base camp, and she was beginning to see conspiracies behind everything.