James Cobb - The Arctic Event

Randi refocused on Kropodkin’s laptop. Again, that unaccounted-for block of hard drive space she was looking for wasn’t present.

She bit her lip. All right, somebody was being smart again. If it wasn’t locked up in one of the computers, it must be somewhere else. Where might that be?

She closed her eyes, resting her hands on her thighs. Let’s say he’s being very, very smart and very careful. Where would he hide it?

In his personal effects? No, there would be a risk in that. The same with carrying it on his person. It would be elsewhere.

Maybe where it would be employed.

Randi slipped off her stool. Crossing to her cold-weather gear on the wall hooks, she took her thin leather inner gloves out of her parka pocket. Donning them, she brushed past Trowbridge, recrossing the lab and entering the radio shack.

It was little more than a large closet containing only the radio console, a single swivel chair, a small filing cabinet for hard copy, and a second small cabinet containing tools and electronic spares.

It wouldn’t be inside the radio chassis or in the cabinets, simply because other people might have reason to poke around in there.

The floor, ceiling, exterior walls, and interior partition were solid slabs of insulated fiber ply; the window, a sealed double thermopane. No hiding places. But where the wall and ceiling panels joined, there was a narrow ledge above man height and maybe an inch in depth. Carefully Randi started to feel her way around it.

When her fingertips finally came to rest on it, she said, “Got you!” aloud.

“What is it?” Trowbridge had been watching her actions from a wary distance.

Randi carefully held up a chewing gum-sized stick of gray plastic. “A remote computer hard drive. Somebody hid it in here where it would be nice and convenient.”

Randi returned to the lab table. Popping the end cap off the mini hard drive, she plugged it into the USB port of the nearest computer and called up the removable-disk access prompt.

“Got you!” she repeated with greater exaltation. Randi lanced around to find Doctor Trowbridge trying to ease a look at the screen. “Be my guest, Doctor,” she said, stepping aside.

“What is it?” he repeated, staring at the title screen.

“It’s an Internet security program,” Randi replied, “used to encrypt e-mails and Internet files that you don’t want the world at large to be able to read. This one is a very sophisticated and expensive piece of work, totally state-of-the-art. It’s available on the open market, but usually you’d see something like this only in the hands of a very security-conscious business firm or government agency.”

Randi’s gloved fingers danced over the keyboard for a moment. “There’s a secured document file in here as well. But even with the program, I can’t open it without the personalized encryption key. That will be somebody else’s job.”

For the first time she looked around at Trowbridge. “Why would anyone at this station need something like this?”

“I don’t know,” Trowbridge said, all trace of his former belligerence erased. “There would be no reason. This was all open research. Nothing secretive was being done here.”

“That you know of.” Randi delicately removed the minidrive from the computer and dropped it into a plastic evidence envelope.

“Do you think…” He hesitated. “Do you think this has something to do with the disappearance of the expedition staff?”

“I think this is the way the word about the bioweapons aboard the Misha 124 got out,” Randi replied. “But this leaves us an even more interesting question.”

“What’s that, Ms. Russell?” For the moment, in the face of this discovery, they were at a truce.

“This island has been a totally sealed environment for over six months. Somebody brought this thing here long before that bomber was ever found, for some totally different reason. Its use in this situation is a coincidence, not a cause.”

Trowbridge started to protest. “But if it’s not for the bomber, why would anyone have a reason…”

“As I said, Doctor, that’s a very interesting question.”

Rosen Trowbridge had no answer. Instead he turned to the little coal stove with the little pot of water steaming atop it. “Would…would you care for a cup of coffee, Ms. Russell?”

Saddleback Glacier

Smith studied the row of glowing green numbers in the LED strip of the handheld “Slugger” Global Positioning unit. “Don’t quote me on it, but I think we’re close,” he said, lifting his voice over the wind rumble.

Whatever weather Wednesday Island received, the glacier between the two peaks got the worst of it, the mountains channeling the polar katabatics between them. On this afternoon, the sea smoke and cloud cover had blended, streaming through the gap between the mountains in a writhing river of mist intercut with stinging bursts of airborne ice crystals too hard and piercing to be called snow.

As Smith had hoped, the rappel down the mountainside to the glacier’s surface had not proved excessively difficult, but the crossing of the glacier itself had turned into a slow, painful crawl. Visibility had varied from poor to nonexistent, and the threat of crevasses had mandated a wary roped advance, probing constantly with their ice axes. Away from the shield of the mountains, the incessant winds tugged and burned, penetrating even their top-flight arctic shell clothing. Frostbite and hypothermia would soon become a factor.

They weren’t in trouble yet, but Smith knew his people were tiring. He was feeling it himself. Night was coming on rapidly as well. Soon they would have to break off the hunt for the plane and start the hunt for shelter, if such existed up here.

That thought decided him. If he was thinking “soon,” it should be “now,” while they still had some reserves remaining. He must conserve his team’s strength and endurance. Time was critical, but squandering it by stumbling around in this freezing murk would accomplish nothing.

“That’s it,” he said. “Let’s pack it in. We’ll dig in for the night and hope for better visibility tomorrow.”

“But, Jon, you said we’re close.” Valentina’s muffled protest leaked through her snow mask. “We must almost be on top of it!”

“It’s been here for fifty years, Val. It’ll be here tomorrow. We just have to make sure we’re here to find it. Major, we’ll try and make it across to East Peak. That’ll be our best bet to find some cover out of this wind. You’ve got the point. Let’s move.”

“Yes, Colonel.” Obediently Smyslov turned and started his hunched trudge, probing ahead with the spike end of his climbing axe and slamming his crampons into the wind-abraded ice with each step.

How’s that for command, Sarge? Smith grinned to himself, telepathing the thought to his distant mountain warfare instructor.

In the saddleback, the prevailing wind was as good as any compass. They only had to keep it on their left shoulder to eventually reach the far side of the glacier. Last on the safety line, Smith’s attention was centered on the other two members of his team, ready to brace and hold should either suddenly fall through into a hidden crevasse in the ice. Accordingly it took him a moment to comprehend why Gregori Smyslov came to such an abrupt halt.

“Look!” The Russian’s excited yell was torn by a wind gust. “Look there!”

Almost directly ahead of them, a towering finlike shape had materialized, ghostlike in the streaming mist: the vertical stabilizer of an aircraft, a big aircraft, the outline of a storm-scoured red star still faintly visible.

“Yes!” Valentina Metrace lifted her fists in triumph.