“Do you mind not making those pounding noises over there?” Harry grumbled as he came awake.
“That’s not me. It’s your head.”
Sitting up, Harry looked around the room, his mouth scrunched up as he tasted the aftereffects of a pack of cigarettes, a couple of cigars, and more whiskey than was strictly necessary. He coughed viciously. “Yeah, you might be right.”
Before getting off the couch, Harry rolled up his pants leg and strapped on the flesh-colored prosthetic limb. He slid his thin arms into the sleeves of an over-laundered blue oxford, buttoning it over the undershirt he’d slept in.
“I’ve always wondered,” Mercer said, pouring a cup of coffee for his friend and adding several spoons of sugar, “if you slept in your clothes at home.”
“Only on those nights I pass out.”
“Every night, huh?”
“Let’s just say most nights and leave it at that.” Harry went off to use the guest bathroom and Mercer scanned the newspaper.
A scandal involving Washington’s school board couldn’t hold his interest for more than the headline. Because so much of his work took place overseas, Mercer was more interested in international news. He read about the upcoming Universal Convocation. The article had a photograph of the Sea Empress, the ship the pope was using for his meeting. Although the vessel was the largest cruise liner ever built, she was as sleek as a race yacht, with raked decks and funnels on each of her two hulls. Somewhere he’d read that a lap around the enormous catamaran was half a mile. Harry returned as Mercer was finishing another piece about a German company that had agreed to pay $1.2 billion in reparations to slave laborers they had used in their factories during the war.
“Hey, last night you never said when you were leaving for Greenland.” Harry sat at the bar near Mercer. He’d taken the time to shave the silver stubble from his lantern jaw.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” Mercer replied, sliding the crossword puzzle over to him.
Seated or standing, the two men were the same height, but this news made Harry slump in disappointment. He preferred Mercer’s company more than the use of his house. He took a gulp of coffee and lit a cigarette.
“I know, the timing kind of sucks,” Mercer added. “This is an opportunity I just couldn’t pass up.”
“I guess I can’t blame you. Joining the Surveyor’s Society must be a hell of a thing for you.”
“How many childhood dreams really do come true?” The question was asked seriously.
“Besides losing your virginity? Not many.” Harry’s wrinkled face broke into a smile. “I’m glad for you, but I don’t envy you. What’s that place like this time of year?”
“Believe it or not, spring is just starting. July is when the ice packs that surround Greenland break up. We’ll probably be one of the first ships over this year. The weather should be in the low twenties though I think storms can blow up at any time and the temperature can drop below zero in about five minutes.”
“You’re nuts.”
Mercer laughed but didn’t argue.
While Harry worked at the crossword, Mercer grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen from his office and began a list of things he wanted to bring. For a job, he usually knew exactly what items were needed. This was the first time in a while, however, that he would work in such harsh conditions and he wanted to be prepared.
“Ten down,” Harry White interrupted. “A five-letter word for friend? Middle one’s ‘o.’ ”
Mercer looked at him pointedly. “Mooch.”
“Bastard.”
“Try crony.”
An hour later, as Harry thumbed through the rest of the Washington Post, Mercer was getting together some of the equipment on his list. Later, he would need to go to a specialized outfitter’s store for the things he’d need, but many of the small items he had lying around the house. Some were elusive though.
“Harry, have you seen my glacier glasses?”
Twisting on his bar stool, the octogenarian shot him a withering look and his voice dripped sarcasm. “Don’t you remember? I borrowed them the last time I climbed Mount Everest.”
“Just for that, I’m going to lock up my liquor when I’m gone and ban you from smoking in here.” Such clean living would probably kill him in a week.
“Hey, I was kidding.” Harry backpedaled quickly. “There’s no need to get nasty. When you’re done today, you going over to Tiny’s? It’s two-for-one night, which means double-fisted drinking.”
“No. I want to do some research on the Internet. I’d like to find out more about Project Iceworm and this Camp Decade we’re going to reopen.”
During his lunch at the Society, Charles Bryce had also told Mercer about an Air Force plane that had crashed a few months before the base closed. The search for the wreckage had been extensive and it should have been easy to spot the plane on the ice, but no trace was ever found. He hoped to find something about that as well, just for curiosity’s sake.
“Suit yourself,” Harry said, grabbing his new cane for the walk home. “You leaving from Dulles or National?”
“Dulles. You mind giving me a ride?”
“That’s why I asked.”
“Thanks. Come by around noon.”
Harry left, and a few minutes later Mercer went on his shopping trip. Considering the list of items and the work he had to do tonight, he realized that he shouldn’t have stayed in New York for an extra day. However, anything he forgot here could most likely be purchased in Iceland before they boarded the Njoerd for the run to Ammassalik, Greenland. He also trusted Charlie Bryce about Geo-Research being a first-class outfit. Surely they’d take care of him.
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND
Since Mercer was a geologist, this small island in the middle of the Atlantic fascinated him. Formed a mere eighteen million years ago by subsea volcanoes that were still active today, Iceland was living proof of the turbulent nature of our planet. Earthquakes were a daily occurrence, and one of the many volcanoes dotting the country erupted every couple of years. The landscape was littered with incredible geologic features — geothermal vents, ancient craters, and a mountain valley that was the only place where the mid-Atlantic ridge crossed dry land. By contrast, Greenland, its huge neighbor to the west, was once part of Pangea, the supercontinent that formed as the earth cooled. The rock there was upward of 3.5 billion years old and geologically dead.
That didn’t mean that Mercer was too keen on the place as a tourist. Iceland was rather desolate. Half of the population of a quarter million lived in and around the capital, Reykjavik. If not for the geothermal plants that provided hot water for heat and electricity, the sustainable population would have been only a fraction of that number. Also, its isolation ensured that everything was sickeningly expensive.
Reykjavik’s international airport sat on an open plain blistered by the radar domes of an adjacent American military base. As Mercer stepped through the revolving exit door of the futuristic terminal, he was hit by a blast of cold wind shrieking off the north Atlantic. The Gulf Stream, the river of warm water that flowed from Florida to Europe, passed along Iceland’s south coast and warmed the island enough to make it habitable, but by no stretch was it comfortable, even in summer. The sky was leaden, with low tumbling clouds that seemed to hang just a few hundred feet off the ground. A distant beam of sunlight made a far-off mountain glow neon green.