‘Copy that,’ came the American voice, subdued.
‘The aircraft is in extreme danger. It is iced up from freezing rain.’ He repeated it in Russian so the pilot would hear directly. He added, ‘You need to land immediately. Nose up, stay at an angle, and power into the crosswind as you come to the helipad.’
Carrie turned her head as if scanning the darkened hillside for him. The pilot glanced across, then back to the fog in front of him. He powered the engine, following Rake’s instruction. A layer of ice cracked and fell from the tail, and the helicopter skewed to the right. The light on Carrie snapped off. Rake closed the radio. He had to get away.
The helicopter’s noise faded to a whisper, sucked away by the wind. Directly beneath him the hill fell in a near-vertical drop onto a shoreline of rocks. Rake knew of one narrow passage there to get a sled onto the sea. Even then, there might be ice blocking it or it could be covered with a fast-flowing current of water.
He was out of time to think and judge. From the sled, he took one bag with two Kalashnikovs and one rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, a second bag with grenades and magazines of ammunition, and a third with food. The other bags stayed on the sled. He loosened the rope securing it to the rock until it slipped out of the noose. It lurched downward in a rapid succession of jerks before running lightly on smooth fresh snow, gathering speed until it hit a rut and tipped head on, falling onto its side and spilling the bags it was carrying. Sled and bags tumbled down. One smashed against a sharp granite edge, which ripped it open. Others bounced off rocks and skidded down ice. There was a chance that something would survive, cushioned by snow or caught in an eddy of water; an equal chance that none would.
His breath lingered in the frozen air as he studied the ghostly whiteness that spread between him and the Russian base. Some areas were well-packed and hard. Some were covered with fresh snow making it difficult to tell what thin and bad ice was underneath. He strapped the harness that should have lowered the sled around his shoulders and waist, balanced his packs, and loosened the metal brakes on the ropes that would regulate his descent.
The main thing he remembered from his first-ever visit to New York was that Little Diomede stood at about the same height as the Empire State Building. As a kid on a summer’s night, he could run up to the top in less than fifteen minutes. Ever since then, whether going up or down, Rake thought of that iconic American building.
Treading delicately, he lowered himself to his first footfall and stopped, checking his balance and direction. Abruptly, a splutter from the radio that, for a moment, Rake thought was the wind. But it was a familiar voice. ‘Hello, yellow Yankee coward. I thought I told you to go home.’
Rake scanned the landscape and imagined Tuuq out there somewhere, waiting. Tuuq spoke again. ‘You’re a coward who can’t protect his woman.’
Rake had to work out where Tuuq might be. But in that forbidding moonlit expanse, he also needed to keep himself invisible. From around the headland to the south, he heard the slowing throb of a helicopter coming in to land. It meant Carrie was back on Little Diomede and safe, at least from being killed in an air crash in freezing fog.
Just before the radio crackle faded into a static-laden calm, he heard Tuuq’s taunting voice again. ‘I will find you, yellow Yankee coward. And I will kill you.’
Inches above the helipad, a gust tilted the helicopter to the right, tipping the rotor blades towards the ground. The aircraft jerked back upright, and a slab of ice fell off the side, shattering like glass. The skids settled. Two soldiers hacked away the ice that jammed the door shut. Vitruk removed his headset. ‘Do exactly as I say,’ he shouted to Carrie above the engine noise. She held her medical bag on her lap, looked straight at him, and didn’t reply.
Yumatov opened the door and saluted. Spray from the downdraught peppered his face. Vitruk stepped down. Yumatov held Carrie’s elbow to help her out. A television crew was on the helipad filming them. Soldiers worked around the aircraft, clearing it of ice. A six-man Spetsnaz unit stood to one side, ready to climb in. ‘Their orders are to find your lover and kill him,’ said Vitruk.
‘You won’t get him,’ Carrie shouted back.
‘He’s not as smart as you think.’ Vitruk pointed to ice patterns on the helicopter where soldiers on stepladders were chipping it off the rotor blades. ‘He was wrong about the danger. Ice doesn’t make a helicopter drop out of the sky. The tail rotor clears because of heat from the engine exhaust. We could keep flying with even more ice than we have here.’
As he talked, Carrie looked around for villagers and could see none, only soldiers. There were no lights on in the houses. The television crew was setting up lights and two cameras on the school veranda, which must be for a set-piece interview.
‘So, you still have everyone in the gymnasium?’ she said.
‘Yes, because your government is being difficult.’
‘If you left, they would have nothing to be difficult about.’
Vitruk didn’t answer. Soldiers stared at her as Vitruk and Yumatov led her through the village. She detected anger in their gaze. Nine of them were dead and they must by now know of her connection to Rake. On a single order, they would unleash on her their violent frustration for revenge. A soldier opened the door as they approached the school. Inside they were enveloped in warm stale air and cigarette smoke. Men in the small hallway and dining room jumped to attention.
‘At ease,’ said Vitruk, the voice of a soldier’s soldier. He had been where they were. He had lost friends in battle. Men lining the corridor snapped their heels, and their eyes bored expectantly into Vitruk. If anyone could avenge their comrades it was him.
Inside the gymnasium, there was a smell of sweat and disinfectant, part locker room, part hospital. A baby cried, then another. A mother scolded. From a corner, a boy aired Vitruk a high five. Vitruk told Carrie to explain to him the medical problems she had found. She took him straight to Tommy Tulamuk, the skeletal addict she had saved earlier. A television camera followed. He was sleeping, legs up in the same fetal recovery position as when she had left him. She washed her hands with antiseptic gel. She pulled gently at his right ear and placed a thermometer inside. His temperature had stabilized at 37.2.
‘This patient has a narcotic overdose,’ she told Vitruk in English, aware of the camera filming her. ‘With alcohol, organ destruction is slow. With narcotics, vital organs can reach fragility without warning and suddenly fail. This man is now recovering, and he will live.’
‘Thank you, Dr Walker,’ said Vitruk smoothly. ‘Your work is invaluable to us.’
He walked through clusters of people sitting or lying on the floor, greeting the excited children with a pat on the head or a high five. Most adults, skilled at surviving in harsh environments, didn’t meet his gaze and watched with barely any expression. Vitruk reached the wooden exercise bars which stretched right along the back wall. As he prepared to speak, Yumatov beckoned Carrie away out of camera shot.
‘Villagers of Little Diomede,’ Vitruk began in English. ‘Thank you for your patience. I am Admiral Alexander Vitruk and I command this military district. Those are my soldiers who’ve been watching you from Big Diomede all these years—’
The way he spoke reminded Carrie of her father, using six words when one would do, trying to be loved while clinging on to absolute control. She worked out long ago that it wasn’t her father’s fault that he had been embedded into the Soviet mindset from birth. Vitruk recounted the emergency rescue and that now mother and child were doing well. He didn’t mention the hydrocephalus, nor did he mention Rake. He pointed out how surprised he was at the lack of health care on the island and praised ‘world-renowned trauma surgeon’ Dr Carrie Walker for helping to save lives. ‘Dr Walker’s team will make sure you have the correct supply of vitamin and diet supplements.’