Alex Archer - Polar Quest

Annja opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Someone tackled me.”

“You said.”

“They wanted me dead. They got me on my back and then they were going to run me over with the Sno-Cat.”

Trevor frowned. “Who the hell would do that?”

Annja had a few thoughts. The two thugs in the bar earlier hadn’t seemed very warm. But who were they? Annja didn’t even know their names. “I don’t know. There were some threatening guys at the bar.”

“Which bar?”

“Gallagher’s.”

Trevor shook his head. “Most of the bad characters hang out in the smokers’ bar. Gallagher’s is usually okay. We don’t normally have any trouble. Especially this time of year.”

Annja looked at him. “You have police down here?”

Trevor frowned. “Didn’t you get the in-briefing?”

“The what?”

“You were supposed to be met by the special deputy U.S. marshal. He greets everyone who comes in here, especially Americans. He gives the in-briefing about the fact that if you commit a serious crime down here, you can be extradited back to the U.S. for prosecution. It’s boring and stuff, but we all have to go through it. Some kind of legal thing.”

“Never saw him,” Annja said.

“Huh.” Trevor got off her bed and walked toward the door. “I’ll go see where the medics are. And then, maybe you’d better have that talk with the marshal. His name’s Dunning.”

Annja closed her eyes. “Okay.”

Trevor closed the door behind him and Annja sighed. How many times was she going to fly into some place new and within hours get someone pissed off at her? She really had to work on how she interacted with the percentage of permanent losers that seemed to inhabit the planet.

She laughed. “Yeah, right.”

Her voice seemed quiet in the thickly insulated bedroom. She couldn’t even hear the wind howling outside. She pulled the blanket up under her chin and felt the first waves of drowsiness starting to wash over her.

At least she’d made it back alive.

Someone knocked on her door. “Come in.”

Trevor entered first, followed by a man and woman wearing red parkas that they quickly stripped off. They both carried big bags of gear.

The woman took the lead. “Annja? I’m Martha, the head medic on duty right now. You want to tell me what happened?”

“Tackled and driven to the ground. I felt an elbow go into my ribs, heard a crack. I think it might be broken.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” Martha asked.

Annja smiled. “It’s not the first time it’s happened to me.”

“Do you get into a lot of fights?” the medic asked.

“Trouble seems to have fun hanging out with me. But it’s not something I go in search of, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Martha grinned. “Ah.” She felt for Annja’s pulse and checked her pupils. “Well, you seem in okay shape. You mind if I take a look?”

“It’s going to hurt like hell, isn’t it?” Annja asked.

“Probably.”

Annja grinned. “At least you’re honest.” She tried to maneuver on the bed and Martha helped her. Annja lifted her shirt and Martha ran her hand over Annja’s rib cage.

Annja felt her gently prod the area and then her fingers went a little farther and Annja grunted loudly. “Yow.”

Martha nodded. “Yeah, well, that’s the area. There’s some nice bruising, but it’s not as bad as you think. I don’t think the break went all the way through. Someone heavier, yeah, then maybe. But whoever did this was lighter than necessary to get the break clean.”

Annja nodded. “So now what?”

“You know the drill. Taped up and some painkillers. A few weeks from now, you should be good to go. Sleeping will be a pain in the ass for some time, though.”

“Great,” Annja muttered.

Martha and her teammate wrapped the thick, stiff tape around Annja’s midsection until it felt as if she were wearing a girdle. Annja took some breaths and everything seemed as well as could be expected.

Martha handed her a small bottle. “These are powerful. Don’t overdo it with them, okay? Just one when you need it, no more.”

“Got it.”

She stood and packed her gear. “I’d say welcome to McMurdo, but it seems someone has already done so. So I’ll just wish you a better stay than what you’ve had thus far.”

“Thanks.”

The medics left and Trevor stood there smiling at Annja. “You okay?”

Annja dry-swallowed one of the pills. “As soon as this bad boy hits, I should be fine.”

Trevor nodded. “Yeah, well, try to stay awake a little while longer.”

“Why?”

“I called the marshal. Dunning. He’s here now. And he wants to see you.”

When Dunning walked into the room, Annja could tell right away he was a cop. He had the hard-edged look to him, and his eyes betrayed the cumulative experience that all cops acquire after years on the job. The crap he’d seen, the faces and the pictures of tragedies, they clung to him and he carried them everywhere. Combined with the bristling short hair that was gray at the temples and the strong jawline just starting to soften, Annja knew he was a career law-enforcement type.

He held out his hand and Annja shook it. It was hard as stone. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

“You missed my engrossing briefing.”

Annja tried to shrug but was rewarded with a stab of pain. “No one told me there was any such thing.”

“I had slides and everything planned. Got my new laser pointer just for the occasion.”

Annja smiled. “Sorry about that. Someone grabbed me at the plane before I could figure out my bearings.”

Dunning frowned under the bushy mustache he wore. “Yeah, I’m working on making it mandatory, but this area presents its own unique problems in that regard.”

“Like what?”

“Well, there are over a dozen nations down here doing this and that, and not one of them wants to have anything to do with a little law and order. Antarctica, they say, represents the last real frontier in terms of land on Earth. And, of course, they don’t much like the idea of Americans telling them what to do.”

“That’s understandable,” Annja said.

Dunning smiled. “I agree. But even on a frontier like this, where everyone is ostensibly your next-best friend, people get into spats. And if that happens, there’s got to be someone around who can protect the population.”

“And that would be you.”

“At least for this year, yeah. We rotate down for a year-long stint. I’ve got a partner with me, so we can back each other up. Plus, if things get really hairy we can always call the New Zealanders in from Christchurch. Their department is top-notch, and we have a good working relationship with them.”

“You ever have to call them in?”

“Not for anything too horrible. Most of the people down here are reasonably stable folks. The snow gets to you, but if anyone starts showing signs of becoming a problem, they get rotated out pretty darned quick.”

Annja winced as another stab of pain sliced through her breathing. The pain medication wasn’t yet working. “I think there are two guys down here who might be good candidates for being shipped home.”

“Yeah? Tell me about it?” Dunning said.

Annja filled him in on what had happened at Gallagher’s. Dunning listened and stroked his mustache thoughtfully as she supplied the details. “And you didn’t get their names, huh?”

Annja shook her head. “I doubt they would have obliged me, anyway. They seemed fixated on my friend Zach.”

“Why so? What do you think made him so interesting to them?”

“I don’t know,” Annja said. Zach had asked her to keep the necklace confidential and she wanted to respect that.