He blinked away scraps of a horrendous dream brought on by fatigue: Gordian dead on a concrete floor, the killer who’d butchered four of Tom Ricci’s men in the Ontario raid standing over him.
In his dream, the killer had again done his bloody work like a precision machine, but the savage pride in his eyes was all too human.
Nimec tried to imagine how Ricci had been affected by Ontario, imagine what private anguish it had left him to wrestle down in the depths of night.
He took a breath to relax and settled into the canvas webbing of his seat. Master Sergeant Barry, a loadmaster with the Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing — and more specifically, its flying component, the 139th Tactical Squadron — stood before him in the cabin of the Hercules ski bird. He was mouthing words Nimec couldn’t hear.
Nimec held up a finger to indicate he needed a second, then popped out the foam earplugs he was given at the Clothing Distribution Center in Christchurch.
The ceaseless noise and vibration of the engines throbbed into his auditory canals.
Barry leaned forward, cranking his voice above the racket. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Nimec. Captain Evers is a huge booster of UpLink International, and he’d like to show you the view from the flight deck. This close to touchdown it’s really impressive.”
Nimec was relieved. He’d been ready to learn they’d boomeranged again. Air travel from New Zealand to Antarctica took eight hours by turboprop, slightly under that if you caught a nice tailwind. The previous day a heavy fog over the continent had forced his flight to double back just short of the point of safe return — about sixty degrees south, two thirds of the way there — resulting in seven wasted hours in the sky. The day before that one wasn’t quite as bad; his plane had returned to Cheech only an hour out.
Nimec looked up at the young loadie. The Herc’s cargo hold was a crude, bare space designed for maximum tonnage rather than comfort, windowless except for a few small portholes at the front and rear. He felt as if he’d gotten stuffed into the barrel of a rumbling cement mixer.
“Tell me the deck’s got soundproofing,” he said. “Please.”
“New acoustical panels, sir—”
“Lead the way.”
Nimec rose stiffly in his cold-weather gear. The red wind parka, jump suit, goggles, mittens, bunny boots, and thermal undergarments were his own, as were the extras in his packs. At the terminal prior to departure, loaners had been issued to passengers whose clothing and equipment hadn’t met the emergency survival specs mandated by the CDC under the United States Antarctic Program’s rule book.
The same guidelines had required Nimec to be physically qualified before leaving San Jose. This meant a complete medical checkup, which included bending over an examining table for a latex-gloved finger probe, that truest and most humbling of equalizers. He’d also needed to visit the dentist, who’d replaced a loose filling and informed him he was charmed to have already gotten his wisdom teeth yanked, since no one could be PQ’d with any still rooted in his mouth. Because medical facilities on the continent were thinly spread — and pharmaceutical stores limited — a minor health problem like an impacted molar or gum infection could easily become the sort of crisis that required an evac in perilous weather. It was a dreaded scenario that USAP took great pains to avoid.
As Barry led him to the forward bulkhead, Nimec saw that several of the twenty-five men and women who shared the hold with him were stretched out against the supply pallets jamming the aisle, their duffels and bedrolls tossed loosely atop the wooden planks. The majority were American researchers and support workers traveling to MacTown. There were also some drillers headed for Scott-Edmondson at the Pole, an Italian biological team on their way to Terra Nova Station, and a group of boisterous Russians hitching a partial ride to Vostok, located deep in the continent’s interior at the coldest spot on earth… which seemed curiously appropriate given their national origin. The rest were extreme skiers from Australia who’d somehow arranged for slots aboard the flight and had occupied five consecutive seats to his right at takeoff.
Out to make the first traverse of some polar mountain range, the Aussies annoyed Nimec despite their attempts to hobnob. He had trouble with people who took frivolous risks with life, as if its loss could be recouped like money gambled away at a casino. He understood the competitive impulses that drove them, but had seen too many men and women put themselves in jeopardy — and sometimes die unlauded — for better reasons than seeking thrills and trophies.
Barry ushered him into the cockpit and then ducked out the bulkhead door. Occupied by a pilot, copilot, flight engineer, and navigator, the compartment was lined with analog display consoles that showed the true age of the plane, although they’d been gussied with some racked digital avionics. As promised, its sound insulation dampened the roar of the Allisons, and the field of view offered by the front and side windows was magnificent.
The pilot turned from his instrument panel to glance at Nimec.
“Greetings,” he said. “I’m Captain Rich Evers. Enjoy the scenery, we’ve got ideal approach conditions.”
“Thanks,” Nimec said. “I appreciate the invite.”
The pilot nodded, turned back to his panel.
“Wouldn’t want you to think I’m trying to sway anybody about my niece’s job ap with your company… it’d be at that new satellite radio station UpLink just launched,” he said innocently. “Her name’s Patricia Miller, super kid, graduated college with honors. A communications major. Her friends call her Trish.”
Nimec looked at the back of his head.
“Trish.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m sure she’ll get a square evaluation.”
Evers nodded again.
Nimec moved to a window as they descended through wisps of scattered, patchy clouds. Soon the ocean came into sight beneath the Herc’s nose, its calm ice-speckled surface resembling a glass tabletop covered with flaked and broken sugar cubes.
“Looks like a dense ice pack down there,” Nimec said. “That how it is the whole way to the coast?”
“Depends,” Evers said. “In summer months the floes tend to cluster around the mainland in a circular belt, then give way to open water. What you’re seeing’s actually a moderate distribution. The big, flat blocks are tabular bergs that have broken away from the ice shelf. They’re very buoyant, lots of air trapped inside them, which is why they reflect so white. An iceberg with darker blotches and an irregular form is usually a hunk of a glacier that’s migrated from inland and rafting mineral sediment.”
Nimec kept studying the ice-clogged water. “How big is ‘big’?”
“An average tab is from fifty to a hundred fifty feet tall, and between two and four hundred feet long. Take a look out to starboard, though, and you can see one I’d estimate goes up over three hundred feet.”
Nimec spotted the iceberg out the window, surprised by its illusory appearance.
“Wow,” he said. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“Bear in mind the visible mass of a berg is maybe a third of what’s below the water. That’s by conservative measure. Sometimes the base is nine times as deep as the upper portion is high.”
“Tip of the iceberg.”
“Exactly,” Evers said. “I’ll tell you something… it’s been a little over three years since my Air Guard unit took over Antarctic support ops from the Navy’s Squadron Six. The Ice Pirates. They’d been hauling supplies and personnel to the continent for a half century, got disestablished because of spending cutbacks. About a year later I’m transferred to Cheech from our home base in Schenectady, New York. The twenty-first day of March, 2000. That very day NOAA polar sats pick up the largest iceberg in recorded history calving off the Ross Ice Shelf. A hundred and eighty-three miles long, twenty-three wide. Twice the size of Delaware. And of the previous record holder.”