Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire

Less than a minute later, Millie had the biker right back on track, jawing about his precious motorcycle as if Rue’s interjection had never happened.

“Gabriel,” Velda called, turning every head in the bar as she walked across the room. Even in her simple tweed skirt and high-necked blouse, it was impossible not to stare. “There you are. I apologize for being late.”

“It’s all right,” Gabriel replied. “I just got here a minute ago myself.” As she reached his side, Velda put her arms around him and kissed his cheek. It had been a long trip over, and they’d ended it more intimate than they’d begun.

Gabriel cast a sidelong glance over Velda’s shoulder at Rue, thinking perhaps he’d see some hint of jealousy. Rue gave him a bemused smirk as if she knew exactly what he was fishing for and was having none of it.

“Rue, this is Velda Silver. Velda—”

“Rue Aparecido,” Rue said, extending a hand. “Mechanic, pi lot, and if I’m not too far off the mark, your predecessor in the Hunt Foundation’s mile-high club.”

Velda stared at Rue’s hand and only reached out to grasp it after an uncomfortable second or two. She said, icily, “You and Gabriel…?”

“Oh, yeah,” Rue said, either oblivious to the other woman’s tone or deliberately ignoring it. “Like rabbits. For a couple of months. But this was a while ago. Good times, right?” She threw a light jab at Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Excuse me,” Gabriel said. He stepped away to pull Millie out of his conversation with his new biker buddy. One rib-cracking bear hug later, Gabriel led the big man back to meet Velda. As they came up behind her, Gabriel heard Velda asking Rue, in a voice that hadn’t thawed at all, “So, tell me, has he slept with everyone on the team?”

“Not Millie,” Rue said, grinning naughtily.

“Oh? And how did she manage to resist his charms?” Velda said.

Rue shrugged, her expression all innocence.

“Velda,” Gabriel said, and she turned to face him, only the faintest of blushes darkening her cheeks at having been overheard. “I’d like to introduce you to Millie Ventrose.” And as Velda stared, puzzled, at the giant and not at all feminine torso before her: “It’s short for Maximillian.”

“My father’s brother’s called Max,” Millie said, “for Maxwell. So Millie’s what they called me. It kinda stuck.”

“I see,” Velda said. She glanced back over her shoulder at Rue, who grinned away the daggers being sent in her direction. “It is a pleasure to meet you…Millie.”

“Maybe we should get down to business,” Gabriel said.

“Yes,” Velda said. “Let’s.”

Gabriel found them an empty table and scavenged an extra chair from the next table over. He’d already briefed Rue and Millie by phone on the general details of the expedition, but Velda took the next fifteen minutes to fill in all the blanks. When she spoke about the possibilities of what her father might have discovered, her frigid tone finally vanished and her eyes filled with a bright childlike hope and excitement.

“I have made the arrangements for us to fly out to McMurdo in three hours,” Velda said. “All the severeweather clothing and equipment we will need for the expedition will be coming with us on the plane. For now, I suggest that we return to our respective hotels to change and make any other final arrangements, and then meet at the airfield at seven thirty. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Gabriel said. “On one condition.” He looked from Velda to Rue and back again. “The two of you aren’t going to have a problem getting along, are you? I’m serious. When we’re out there on the ice, there can’t be any distractions, any fights, any squabbling, any anything. Understood?”

“You know you can count on me,” Rue said.

“I do know that,” Gabriel said. “Velda…?”

“Let’s not forget,” she said, “it’s my father’s life we’re talking about. I don’t think any of you could possibly be more serious than I am.”

“All right then,” Gabriel said, slapping Millie’s broad shoulder. “Let’s do it.”

Chapter 7

Gabriel looked out the military plane’s tiny round window as the twinkling lights of Christchurch receded beneath scattered cloud cover. Millie slept with his massive arms crossed and his Saints cap pulled down over his eyes. Velda looked calm and gorgeous, dressed as if ready to shoot a Ralph Lauren ad in Aspen. Only her hands betrayed the anxiety she felt, clenching and unclenching and periodically smoothing her pristine and wrinkle-free trousers. Rue sat directly across from Gabriel, chewing a piece of gum and cleaning the engine oil from under her fingernails with a plastic swizzle stick bearing the logo of the airport bar.

“Ever been to Mactown before?” Rue asked.

“Where?” Gabriel looked away from the window, which now afforded a dull flat view of dark water stretching out forever in every direction.

“McMurdo Station,” Rue said. “You know, the place we’re going.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I’ve been to the North Pole, but never to Antarctica.”

“Well, imagine that,” Rue teased, her dark eyes bright. “This poor little paulista has been somewhere that the brave adventurer Gabriel Hunt has yet to conquer.” She kicked Gabriel’s boot with her toe.

“I’m sure it’s an amazing place,” Gabriel said, looking back out into the darkness. “So much grim, bloody history. The stark, pristine beauty of untouched glaciers. The struggle to triumph over the brutal elements in the last real uncharted wilderness left on earth.”

“Right,” Rue said with an arched eyebrow. “Better get some sleep. You’re going to have more stark, pristine beauty than you know what to do with—twenty-four hours a day of it. Remember, the sun never sets during the Antarctic summer, so…”

“So this will be our last dark night,” Gabriel said.

“Pretty much,” Rue said.

He flicked off the overhead light, closed his eyes and slept.

“So,” Rue said. “What do you say? Is this pristine beauty or what?”

The four of them sat on orange plastic chairs that would not have looked out of place at New York City’s DMV waiting room in 1972. At the far end of the room was a scarred metal desk with nothing on it. The walls were cheap wood paneling and the only decoration was a pair of faded posters, one featuring cute penguins and the other cute seals. Besides a couple of seagulls, this was the only wildlife they’d seen in the eighteen hours since they’d landed at McMurdo airport.

“Christ,” Millie said, shifting his long legs awkwardly in front of his tiny seat. “I feel like I’m in trouble with the sisters back in grade school.”

Outside the charmless metal building, the temperature hovered at 22 degrees below zero, but inside it was uncomfortably stuffy and overheated. The accumulated snow in their boot treads had rapidly melted into dirty puddles around their feet. In spite of the gurgling, spitting humidifier in one corner of the room, the air was so dry Gabriel could almost feel his lips chapping as they waited. Several attempts to contact Michael on the expensive satellite phone he’d insisted Gabriel bring had resulted in frustrating fifteen-second bursts of asking each other “Can you hear me?” followed by the inevitable loss of signal.

Before Gabriel could come up with a good answer to Rue’s question, a new bureaucrat entered the room. This one was female, but otherwise virtually identical to the two that had spoken to them before. Her sour, constipated expression did not bode well for the expedition.

“I’m Celia Lanke. Executive DP here at McMurdo. Mr…” She looked down at a plastic clipboard and then back up at Gabriel, her gaze baleful. “Hunt. You claim that you’ve already filed your 679-A, but I’m afraid Denver has not been able to confirm that any such filing actually occurred. Because of the urgency of your stated mission, I have requested and received the go-ahead to allow you to refile, but there will be a refiling fee of thirty-five dollars.”