He felt for a pulse. The man was alive, but Ash didn’t like the way he was breathing. He checked the pilot for any obvious wounds, and found a nasty gash on the man’s leg and at least two broken ribs. Ash couldn’t be certain, but he was willing to bet one of them had punctured a lung.
He tried to wake up Gagnon, but the most he got was a groan.
Cold air suddenly rushed into the cabin as someone opened the door. Ash could hear the person hop out onto the metal underside of the wing.
“Looks pretty thick here,” Chloe called out.
Ash twisted around. “Can you see the island? How far are we?”
“Hold on. Let me check.” Several seconds passed, then, “Can’t make a damn thing out in the dark. Red, can you find me the night vision binoculars?”
“Sure.”
Red rummaged around one of the packs that had fallen onto the roof, and handed the glasses out the door.
“Thanks,” Chloe said.
“Red,” Ash said. “Come up here. I could use your help.”
Together they eased Gagnon out of his seat and laid him down on an open area of the ceiling.
“First-aid kit,” Ash said.
Red quickly retrieved it.
Ash cleaned up Red’s face first and slapped a butterfly bandage across the cut. Then they turned their attention to Gagnon. As they were patching up the pilot, Chloe returned to the doorway.
“Found it,” she said. “The plane’s facing away from it.”
“How far?” Ash asked.
“At least half a mile.”
A half-mile on its own didn’t sound like much, but across the ice of the Arctic Ocean, in the wind and cold and dark? It sounded like forever.
“Okay, you and Red get the gear out. We’ll also need to make a stretcher.”
He finished up with Gagnon while the other two unloaded the plane. For the stretcher, they worked off a loose piece of sheeting from the wing, and attached ropes to it so they could pull it along the ground. To keep Gagnon from freezing against the metal, they lined it with the carpet from the cabin, and one of the spare jackets.
They headed out.
It took them over an hour to reach the cove that had been their initial destination. Ash knew he should feel relieved to have the solid ground of the inlet’s beach underfoot instead of the ocean ice, but they still had to get up the incline that surrounded the small bay, so their work was far from done.
“I think our best bet is right over there,” he said, pointing at a rise along the eastern end of the beach. The slope was slightly less vertical than elsewhere.
Getting Gagnon up the natural ramp was the hardest part. They ended up having to carry him and bring the sled separately.
Once they were finally on top, Ash pulled out the satellite phone and first tried to reach Pax, then the Ranch. As with the few times he’d tried during their journey across the ice, he couldn’t get through.
“Hey, did you see this?” Red called out.
He was back near the slope they’d just taken.
Ash put the phone back in his pack. “What is it?”
“Looks like boot prints. Couldn’t have been made too long ago. They aren’t filled with snow yet.”
Though they’d hit some storms further south in Canada, the weather reports Gagnon had pulled together indicated that Yanok Island, a thousand miles to the north, had not experienced the same. The forecast did predict that was soon to change.
“Which way were they headed?”
“Can’t tell.” Red stopped and leaned down. “What’s this?”
Ash and Chloe moved next to him for a closer look.
There was a five-inch-wide band of puncture marks in the ice that came out from under a pile of snow next to the boot prints and headed north.
“That pile doesn’t look natural to me,” Chloe said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Ash agreed.
Using the entrenching tool that had been strapped to his pack, Ash broke off some of the looser pieces of the pile and shoved them to the side. The other two joined in. After a few minutes, they stopped.
“What the hell is this doing here?” Chloe asked.
Under the pile of snow was a highly modified motorcycle with metal-studded tires.
“Yellow team’s,” Ash said as way of explanation.
Before leaving the Ranch, he had been fully briefed on all aspects of the missing team’s mission, including what gear they’d brought.
He knelt down and took a closer look at the ground around where the bike had been buried. It was possible that yellow team ditched its cycle and covered it up, but he was sure that wasn’t the case. Yellow team had consisted of only two men. By his count, there were at least five distinct sets of boot prints surrounding the pile.
No, yellow team hadn’t done this. Someone else had. Someone who didn’t want the motorcycle to be seen again.
They followed the tire tracks to a rocky overhang that had been walled off with tarps and snow. What they discovered inside left Ash with zero doubt that Bluebird was located on Yanok Island.
It was the yellow team’s camp, and it had been deserted in a hurry.
They put Gagnon into a sleeping bag on one of the cots first, then did a thorough search. Food and weapons and sleeping bags and spare clothes were all still there.
“No radio,” Red said.
Ash scanned the room again. Red was right.
“If I was trying to get out of here fast,” Chloe said, “that’s the only thing I would grab.”
“The question is, why leave in a hurry?” Ash said.
No response was necessary. They were all thinking the same thing.
“See if there’s any kind of journal or notes anywhere,” Ash said.
He stepped back outside and took another look around. Unlike near the buried motorcycle, there weren’t a lot of boot prints. More likely than not, Bluebird hadn’t even looked for the camp. And why would they? They had everything they wanted-the boat, radio, and codes they’d obviously learned from the yellow team that had allowed them to send the false messages to the Ranch.
Back inside, he found Red and Chloe looking at a map of the island spread across one of the open sleeping bags. Though identical to the one they’d brought with them, it had seen considerably more use.
Ash knelt down beside them.
“This mark right here,” Red said, pointing at a blue circle on the map. “That’s where we are. Which puts us about three miles from them.” He moved his finger to the north end of the island, and tapped on the words BRULE INSTITUTE OUTPOST.
A gust of wind whipped past the opening, blowing in some snow. Chloe walked quickly over and pulled down on the tarp rigged to fully enclose the shelter. Using two rocks on the ground, she anchored the bottom so the covering wouldn’t flap around.
“Not exactly a pleasure walk,” Ash said to Red.
“Hence the motorcycle.”
“We don’t have that option.” Ash stood up. He could see the weariness in the others’ faces, and knew his looked the same. His initial plan had been to get as close to the outpost as possible after Gagnon dropped them off. The crash and subsequent hike threw a wrench in that. “A few hours’ sleep. No more. Then Chloe, you and I pay our Project Eden friends a visit.”
31
I.D. MINUS 12 HOURS 14 MINUTES
LOCAL TIME 10:46 PM
The mood at the Ranch was somber. Billy might have been a disagreeable sort at times, but his heart had always been in the right place, and he’d been part of the team trying to stop the Project since early on. In his role as doctor, he had treated nearly everyone there, so in one way or another, he had touched all of their lives.
That, of course, was not to diminish the loss of Karen Pruitt. She had also been a valuable team member, and there were those at the Ranch who had been very close to her.
But for Matt, losing Billy was like losing a brother. It was simply…inconceivable.