“Do you know the area?” she answered, drawing his attention to her.
He shook his head.
“If we mean to lose our tail, then we’re going to need some cover. We’re too open here. Too exposed.”
Matt overheard her. He glanced to her, then at her heading. Understanding suddenly dawned in his face. “You can’t be serious?”
Her father spoke one word, knowing her goal, too. “Arrigetch.”
“Dear God,” Matt exhaled, cinching his seat belt tighter. “You do have parachutes somewhere in here, right?”
3:17 P.M.
POLAR ICE CAP
Amanda Reynolds flew across the ice. There was no other term for this mode of transportation. Though it was properly called ice sailing, such a description was a far cry from the experience itself.
Winds filled the twelve-foot sail, spreading in a bright blue billow before her. With her body crouched, but comfortable, in the fiberglass molded seat, her feet worked the two floor pedals. She kept one hand on the jib line’s crank. Under her, the boat raced across the ice at breathtaking speeds, slicing through the frozen waves of snow.
Despite her speed, she glanced around her. There was no place more starkly empty and barren. It was a frozen desert, one even more formidable and inhospitable than the Sahara. Yet at the same time, there was a distinct spiritual beauty to the place: the continual winds, the dance of blowing snow, the subtle shades of ice. Even the jagged peaks of pressure ridges were sculptures of force given form.
She worked the pedals to arc around one of these ridges with a skill honed from a decade of practice. From a long line of sailors and shipbuilders, she was in her element here. Far though she was from the family-owned shop in Port Richardson, south of San Francisco.
With her brother’s help, she had built the iceboat she rode now. Its sixteen-foot hull had been constructed from handpicked Sitka spruce. Its runners were a titanium alloy. She had clocked the boat at sixty miles per hour on Lake Ottachi in Canada, but she had been limited by a run of only a thousand feet.
She stared out at the endless expanse around her and smiled.
One of these days…
But for now, she settled into her seat and appreciated this time alone, away from the cramped and humid station. Overhead, the sun was sharp and the day still subzero. Though the flow of winds continually chafed against her, she was oblivious to the cold. She wore a form-hugging thermal dry suit and hood, used by divers in the Arctic waters. Her entire face was covered by a custom-molded polypropylene mask, the eyeholes fitted with polarized lenses. Only as she inhaled was she reminded of the Arctic freeze, but even that could be warmed by breathing through a battery-generated air heater that hung from the suit. But she preferred to taste the air.
And to savor the experience.
Out here, she had no disability. She did not need to hear the wind or the knife-sharp hiss of her runners over the ice. She sensed the vibrations through the wood, felt the wind’s press, saw the dance of snow over the ice’s surface. The world sang to her out here.
She could almost forget the car accident. A drunk driver…a basal skull fracture…and the world went silent and more empty. Since then, she had struggled against pity, both from others and her own heart. But it was hard. A full decade had passed since the accident, and she was beginning to lose her ability to speak clearly. She read the confusion in others’ eyes that required her to repeat herself or to sign. Frustrated, she had channeled her energies into her studies and research. A part of her knew she was isolating herself. But where was the distinction between isolation and independence?
After the loss of her mother, her father had hovered over her, kept her close, seldom out of his sight. And she suspected it wasn’t all because of her deafness. He feared simply losing her. Concern turned into smothering. Her struggle for freedom wasn’t so much to prove that she could live as a deaf woman in the larger world, but that she could simply live independent. Period.
Then Greg…Captain Perry…came into her life. His smiles, the clear lack of pity, his bumbling attempts at flirtation, all had worn her down. Now they were at the threshold of a deeper relationship, and she was not sure how she felt about it. Her mother had been a captain’s wife. It was not a world of isolation or independence. She knew this. It was parties, formal naval dinners, weekly social events with other wives. But did she want that life?
She shook her head, pushing such thoughts aside for now. There was no need to make any decisions right now. Who knew where any of this would lead?
Frowning, she manipulated her pedals to glide the boat in a gentle swing toward her destination two miles ahead: the buried Russian ice station. Earlier in the morning, the head of the biology team, Dr. Henry Ogden, had radioed her, claiming some discovery at the station that had led to a clash with the geology team. He insisted she come out and settle matters.
As head of Omega, Amanda was often called in to arbitrate interdisciplinary disputes. At times, it was like wrangling with a bunch of spoiled children. Though she could have easily sidestepped such a demand on her time, it was a perfect excuse for her to escape the drift station for a day.
So she had agreed, setting out just after lunch.
Ahead, red flags were staked atop the giant peaks of a huge pressure ridge system that extended for miles in all directions. The flags fluttered in the wind, marking the opening down into the ice base. Not that the signal flags were necessary any longer. Parked in the shelter of the ridgeline were four Ski-Doos and two larger Sno-Cats, all painted red. And beyond the vehicles, a scar split the smooth terrain where the Navy had blown a hole through the ice for the Polar Sentinel to surface.
As she stared at the opening that led down into the Russian base, a sense of foreboding grew in her. From the mouth of the excavated ice tunnel, billows of steam misted as if from the throat of a sleeping dragon. As of last week, the new occupants of the station had succeeded in overhauling the old generators. Fifty-two of them, all preserved. Surprisingly the lights were found to be working—as were the space heaters. The well-insulated station was said to be quite balmy.
But Amanda remembered her first steps into the icy tomb below. Using metal detectors and portable sonar devices, they were able to find the main entrance and use melt charges and explosives to tunnel down to the sealed doors of the base. The entrance was locked both by ice and a thick steel bar. They had been forced to use an acetylene torch to cut their way into the dead base.
Amanda now wondered if all their effort was worth it. She slipped her sail and gently began to brake as she neared the mountainous line of pressure ridges. In a sheltered valley between two of the ice peaks, a temporary morgue had been set up. The orange storm tents hid the frozen bodies. According to her father, a Russian delegation was already en route from Moscow to retrieve their lost comrades. They would be arriving next week.