Backhanded, I flicked the bottle out, across towards the open door, and in that instant I was flung across the cab as the heavy bullet smashed my right arm. For what seemed an eternity, I lay collapsed, bruised and in pain and dazed with the shock of impact, and with one thought drumming in my brain: he'd won. And I had lost! I was helpless now, and weaponless, and he could finish me off as he chose. I turned my head, only half-seeing, and only half-comprehending what I did see. And even then I was hoping that I was wrong, that by some miracle the killer could still be someone else, someone I hadn't liked and trusted. But then I saw his face. It was lit a ghastly yellow-red by the burning petrol that had splashed his parka, and his mouth gaped as the flames blew up at his exposed skin. And, as I knew it must be, it was the face of Sergeant Vernon, and Vernon's eyes that glanced murderously across at me. He'd only to jump down and roll over in the snow for the flames to be doused. I saw him take a step forward to jump, knowing that soon he'd come up to finish me off. And when he was gone from my sight, I tried to haul myself into a sitting position, but it was beyond me. The bulldozer was moving very slowly. He'd be able to jump back, when the flames were out, and use the blade to flatten both me and the TK4.
I sagged back, and then began to struggle again, and this time I did manage to force myself up a little and lean wearily across. The pain from my shattered arm made me want to scream, and I could feel the blood pumping from it. I forced myself to look out, and now the hovercraft had moved just ahead of the bulldozer. Sick and dizzy, I got my left hand to the throttle and began to turn the TK4 around. Had he left it too late? Was it possible I could still escape? But even if I could, he'd be out there, uninjured, unclipping the line he'd forgotten to unfasten when he'd murdered the Foster boy, that day weeks before, as they'd returned from the weather hut. If the line were unfastened now, and he moved young Foster's body even a few yards, the charge of murder would be difficult to establish. Slowly the headlights turned as I pivoted the TK.4, and I waited for the beams to catch him. But maybe they wouldn't; maybe he was beside me now, climbing aboard to kill me, as he so easily could with his hands alone. No sign. And the use even of my left hand seemed to be going. My fingers moved like great weights towards the throttle control and, when they reached it, seemed to be moving in slow motion. Dimly I heard the engine revs increasing. And then, as the hovercraft began to move, I glimpsed him. Vernon lay flat in the snow, the dark of his parka level with the snow surface. And dimly I understood, for the track of the huge bulldozer patterned the snow on both sides of him. He must have stepped on to the moving track and been carried forward - and under! As the TK4 slid past, I looked down at him stupidly, still waiting for some trick, half-expecting him to rise and come for me. But he still lay there, as, with my vision unexpectedly dimming, I turned the hovercraft painfully to my left and headed for where I hoped the ramp led down into Hundred.
Chapter 19
I hadn't been aware of it, but while I'd been out on the icecap, the Cold Regions Research fliers from Thule had been taking a chance in the same brief wind break to parachute two Air Force doctors in. They jumped for the lights of the Swing and were lucky, and a bulldozer went ahead with them to Hundred. But for that, it seems, I'd have died in that bleak early morning. I remember nothing of it, of course, but somehow I must have stayed conscious just long enough to set the TK4 to the ramp. After that, the loss of blood was too great, and I must have lain unconscious as the hovercraft glided down the slope by force of gravity, and then careered like a great, slow, dodgem car, halfway along Main Street, until it burst through a snow wall into one of the trenches and hanging ice stripped the propellers. Even after it was clear I wouldn't die, that the transfusion had been quick enough and the shock from loss of blood just a fraction short of lethal, they thought I'd lose my arm. But then, after all the foul weather, the disasters, the lousy breaks, Herschel arrived on the Swing and some good luck piggy-backed in on his shoulder.
For fourteen hours there was flying weather. Generators and pipes arrived, and sick and injured and dead were flown out. There must have been frantic activity all round me, but I have no recollection of any of it. I woke in a bed at Thule's big, modern hospital with a nasty post-operative hangover, my arm repaired and an army surgeon telling me with a smile that I was lucky. Not too long after that, I was flown first to McGuire Air Force Base hospital in New Jersey, then home to England. I'd been home a few days and had reached the point where I'd almost mastered the art of dressing one-handed, when the telephone rang one morning.
'Mr Bowes?' An American voice.
'Yes.'
'One moment, sir. I have a call for you.'
I waited. Then an unmistakable voice said, 'You are ze man viz ze flying fan ?'
'Yes, Barney,' I said.
'I'm coming right over to see you. Give me two to three hours. You gonna be in ?'
'Yes, Barney.*
The grey suit, creased from travel, somehow diminished him. Polar bears are for Polar regions. As he sat in my flat he was a grizzled, middle-aged man, weak after illness, the legend fallen away. There was also the fact that his whole personality, his quality of attack, was suited neither to a suburban flat nor to what he had to say. I gestured to the bottles on the sideboard and told him to help himself, and he assembled the constituents of a Martini into what was clearly going to be a slice of humble pie. He took a swallow and said, 'The enquiry's over. You'll get the official report. And I've been asked to tell you how helpful your own account was. We appreciated it.'
'Did they,' I asked, 'find out why?'
'Vernon?'
I nodded.
Barney looked at his glass. 'Maybe. The shrinks tried awful hard to put a picture together. They came up with some kind of amalgam of high ability and disappointment, tossed in middle-age, paranoia and opportunity. But Christ, who knows? I'd known Vernon ten years and more. He was a real solid, reliable guy.'
'Until something changed him.'
'Until he came across the kid with all the dough. I suppose it's got to be that simple. Maybe it all happened a long time before and he was just looking for his chance. Still, I'll tell you what's known and what's supposition. Fact: young Foster stood to inherit a hell of a lot of money when he finished his service. If his sheet was clean.'
'I know the story.'
'Okay. Supposition : Vernon knew that. How he found out... ?' Barney shrugged. 'Kid must have told him some time, over a few beers maybe. Another fact : Vernon was in charge of the Hundred office at Fort Belvoir when the personnel selections were made that time. He put Foster's name on the list for Hundred.'
I asked, 'Is that kind of thing left to sergeants?'
'You know how it is. Lists get made, then approved higher up. Finally by me. There was no reason Foster should not have gone to Hundred. Another fact: we found two cheques, for fifty thousand dollars each. One in Vernon's wallet, the other in his locker. Both signed by Foster, both made out to cash, both undated.'
'Were the signatures genuine?'