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Then she collapsed half on top of him.

That was his chance.

He backed against her until his bound hands met the edge of the knife. It was jammed solidly between her ribs, a section of the keen edge still protruding. He cursed the size of her breasts which made it harder to get the rope against the blade, thrust at the edge knowing he’d either cut his wrists or the rope.

He felt a cord give. Then it was simple.

The racket of screams, roars and phenomena told him Mullins was too occupied to notice.

He rolled, arms free, wrenched the knife from the woman’s chest, turned.

Mullins, one eye bloodshot, was grabbing for the naked girl who had got loose again, was half up, her back to him, clinging to the table. He hauled at her bare legs, jerked her off her feet. She fell, slim bottom, goose bumps, her girl’s form tiny beside his.

As Cain hacked the rope from his ankles a packet of dried onions hovered in front of him, blocking his view.

‘Bitch,’ Mullins roared.

Nina’s scream. The onion bag fell to the floor.

Cain had the knife.

Too late. The girl lay still. Mullins had snapped her neck. With her death, the shaking had stopped and fallen objects had made the van a bombsite.

Cain, body cold-stiff, gasping thin air, dropped a knee onto Mullins’s spine, yanked up his head — pig-slit him with all his force, howled, ‘You scum.’

Mullins gurgled, rolled off the broken body, blood spurting, ruined face agape.

While the man’s heart pumped his life out, Cain confirmed that Eve had gone. Then he climbed on the rack and got the gun, feeling the warmth that had eluded him on the floor. He shoved the magazine back in, pulled and released the cocking handle, depressed the decocking lever so that the hammer could move forward. That done, he placed the gun on the object-strewn table, retrieved his outer clothing from the rack, got his boots back on.

He was appalled to discover he felt disassociated, calm. Because of the extremity of the continent, the fight for breath, warmth, life?

He wiped the knife on the degenerate’s long johns, located the knife sheath on the table attached to a discarded belt, sheathed the knife and slid the sheath onto his own belt.

Panting now with the effort, he retrieved his outer clothing and put it on. His joints ached with every movement. The time on the floor had almost wrecked him.

He found his mukluks, a balaclava. His goggles were gone but he retrieved another pair. He adjusted his mitten harness, snapped the big inner-lined gloves behind his back. He’d need them out of the way to use the gun.

He picked up the weapon like a carpenter selecting a tool. The action would be warmed after its time near the roof of the van. He got the strap over his shoulder. Forgive them for they know not what they do.

Bright sun slanted under the shutter through the high double window, imprinting the opposite wall with glare.

Execution time.

C
ain stepped off the sledge onto finnified snow like loose gravel. Searing cold and blinding light. On the ground, ice crystals shone like gems and diamond dust danced in the air. Above, stratus fanned from the horizon into a canopy of splendour.

The traverse slid ponderously past him like a shunting train, the one spot of colour in an infinity of white. Rusting yellow and red container vans sprouting H-shaped vents and masts, fuel drums, miscellaneous hardware — all perched on massive sledges. The train was elaborate, as the diminutive cold porch proved. Each van door opened onto a small railed landing formed by the flat ends of each sledge. A railed, expanded-metal catwalk extended down one side of the vans, joining the landings and steps at both ends. He let the steps of the next sledge pass him, waiting to check the following van. As it drew level, he swung on board like a pre-war bus conductor and clumped up to the next landing.

The insulated door of the big container creaked. He lunged inside, set to drop and fire.

Empty. An elaborately fitted workshop. There were spare shoes for the Caterpillar tracks with special openings that stopped the snow compacting, spares for the hardware on the sledges, a lathe, drill stand, welding kit, pipe bending machine . . . Then he saw the rope on the floor and masking tape on the bench.

He got out of there and off, waited for the last sledge to reach him, the one that would house the generators, grabbed the rail and swung back on.

He checked inside the van. Primary and secondary generators with ancillary equipment, three dead crewmen and the solidified Zia. He backed out and edged along the catwalk to the porch at the rear of the sledge.

Bell crouched at the back rail levering something with a length of pipe, his M–4 dangling on his belly, his snorkel hood obscuring his side view. From a winch bolted to the platform a length of light steel cable angled out. He was trying to force the cable more to the centre with a pipe he’d jammed against a stanchion of the railing.

Now Cain saw the weight dragging on the end of the cable — Hunt, tied by the wrists and gagged with masking tape. The cable, shackled to her bonds, was slithering her over the snow in a smooth track left by the runners. Bell was trying to move the cable across so that she’d rip apart on the hard uneven snow between the tracks.

She couldn’t have been there long but her outer layers were shredding. She was twisting to protect herself but was too cold, had no strength.

Cain levelled the M–4 at Bell. ‘Your turn.’

As the man swung around in shock, Cain dispensed one burst of three.

The impact slammed Raul’s disciple against the opposite railing before his trigger finger reached the guard. He hung over the top rail, guts jellified, howling.

Cain closed, stripped the magazine from Bell’s M–4. Rule sixteen: never discard ammunition. Then he lifted the dying man’s legs and toppled him off the sledge.

By the time he’d winched Hunt off the snow, Bell was a lifeless yellow mound far behind.

Cain half-climbed over the rail and reached down to grab her legs. She was conscious but not connecting enough to help and it took all his strength to get her onto the platform. Panting in the thin air, he freed the cable, peeling off the tape.

She moaned but couldn’t stand. Her hair, eyebrows, lashes were frost. He dragged off his polar cap and balaclava, got them on her head, pulled up the remains of her ripped hood. He was nearly hallucinating with hypoxia and rapidly losing heat. He replaced his double-lined hood, his starved muscles protesting. The air was so cold he expected to feel a crackle in his lungs.

He got her over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. It left his hands free for the gun. The weight of her made his legs tremble.

Now he had to run faster than the train!

He stumbled ahead along the length of the sledge to the front steps. There were no rear steps on the caboose. So if he couldn’t trot faster than the dozer he couldn’t get back aboard.

Could he jog on the hard snow, carrying a woman, and not fall?

He stood for almost a minute working up to it, sucked in all the freezing air he dared.

Bell and Mullins had been nothing. This was the test. The test of an ageing man who should have been out to pasture years ago — a shot-up man who couldn’t trust his body to hold out.

He stepped off.

Stumbling, panting, he half-jogged along on the snow. The weight of the woman and two sets of Antarctic clothes made the task immense. He struggled, gasped, thin air freezing his lungs, the effort torture.

His bad leg was holding up but he was gaining too slowly on the sledge. He’d lose against the dozer as he tired. He powered forward desperately, knowing he mustn’t slip. He made it past the steering linkage, drew level with the rear steps of the next sledge, grabbed the rail and hauled himself aboard.

He slumped on the lower steps, heart pounding, desperate for breath, one boot still dragging on hard snow. This was only the workshop van. One to go.

It was minutes before he was strong enough to stand and stagger along the catwalk to the front. There he waited, at the bottom of the steps, mustering his strength. Raul, in the next van, would have heard the bursts. Would he be outside, armed and waiting?

Exhausted, he braced himself, stepped off again, stumbled forward as fast as he could, eyes fixed on the front of the van. No one in sight, thank God.

At the limit of his strength he reached the next set of steps, collapsed onto the sledge, covering the catwalk with his M–4. When he had breath in him again, he left the ragged shape on the walkway. He had to get her inside. But first he had to deal with Raul.

He hauled on the rail, dragged himself upright and limped on rubber legs along the side of the rear living van. He lunged around the edge, barrel first. No one. The thick outer door was still shut. He lifted the big cold-store-type handle, pulled the door. The closet-sized cold porch was clear.

He pulled off his goggles and hood, crouched painfully, weapon at the ready, slid the inner door wide. Bliss. Warm air, defrosting his lungs.

It was the dormitory van — fold-down bunks, toilet, basin, shower. Raul, back to the door, was watching John eat his meal. On his canvas chair-back was screen-printed: BABY, Pole to Pole.

Raul didn’t even turn, certain it was Bell or Mullins. He still must have been agreeably sauced and convinced he was invincible.

Cain tried to stand, almost didn’t make it. ‘You’re next, Raul.’

As John looked up, relief on his face, Raul craned around, eyes saucers, then quickly composed his face to a smile. ‘We’ve been discussing the devil, an invention that, fortunately, never got as far as the sub-continent.’

‘What have they done?’ John said.

‘Killed three of the crew, Nina and her mother. What did he say when he heard firing?’

‘That his men were high-spirited today.’

‘And kept sitting here, calm as a swan? The parasitic turd.’

The pope said, ‘I thought they’d shot you.’

‘So did shithead here.’

Raul was determined to tough it out. ‘Cain, you look all in. Grab a pew.’

‘Fucking social terrorist. Your chat over lunch killed two women — almost three.’

‘I haven’t touched anyone. So stop posturing. You know you won’t shoot. You’re far too civilised for that.’

‘Be careful,’ the pope told Raul. ‘He has authority to kill anyone he likes.’

‘That’s absurd.’

Cain played back the man’s words. ‘Admit all possibilities.’

‘I’m unarmed and no threat to you, Cain.’ He made an expansive gesture. ‘I’m also intolerant of intolerance.’

‘Too late for word games, Raul.’

‘Come on, man. This is silly. I’m an unarmed civilian.’

‘So were the crew of this traverse.’

Raul tried his winning smile then winced as his lips split further. ‘Don’t be tedious. Bell did that. Regrettably. Where is he?’

‘Miles back. Gut shot out.’

Raul’s damaged face sobered. ‘Mullins?’

‘Head’s half off.’

A stammer breached his superior role. ‘I’ll g-give you money. Four million in US notes. Paid to a Swiss bank account. No tax trail.’

‘I’m a rich man, Raul. Save it for your funeral fund.’

‘This is madness.’ His voice cracked. One hand went up, pleading. ‘Please . . .’ It was an act — to mask a slight movement he’d made behind the canvas back of the chair.

But Cain had read the pope’s startled look. Raul had an automatic pointing behind him beneath his arm.

The chair-back shredded as Cain riddled him. Raul fell across the floor, the pistol flopping wide in his hand.

Cain staggered out again for Hunt. When he dragged her into the warmth the pope was kneeling beside the dead man.

As Cain got Hunt onto a bunk, started removing her shredded windproofs, the pope looked up. ‘Would you have killed him anyway?’

‘Why not?’ he puffed. ‘Why excuse the generals that order the dirty work? He’s already taken out five and had Bell torturing this one to death. Need warm water, med kit.’

‘Even false prophets have uses.’

‘You’d let the maggot live?’

‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’

You couldn’t please everybody. Cain found it prudent to shut up.

While the pope went looking for what he needed, he got the shredded layers off the woman, checking her face for pain, concerned about fractures. Why had Bell left all her gear on? To prolong her death?

It had saved her.

As he worked on her abraded body, he found no permanent damage. She was young, fit and had an excellent circulation because the frostbite was still superficial. Combat survival had helped her as well. She’d been trained in the four environments — arctic, sea/coast, arid, jungle — had been taught to endure intense weariness, hunger, thirst, heat, cold.

‘Hurts,’ she gasped.

‘You’re an OAE. You’ll survive.’

‘Mullins?’

‘Dead. Area secured.’

Tears helped thaw her frosted lids.