In Cold Pursuit (12 page)

Valena considered kissing the computer. She quickly turned it on and dug into the communications software to find Taha’s home phone number, then pulled out the prepaid telephone card she had brought from the US and picked up the telephone.

She thought it somewhat miraculous that she could even hope to place a telephone call that would cross the ten thousand miles that separated them, but possibility and likelihood proved two different things. She opened up the guidebook that had been issued her at the in-brief and began to dial. The first number asked for an outside line. Next, she punched in her prepaid calling card number, her PIN number, and finally the number she wished to call, for a total of over twenty-five digits.

A rapid beeping indicated that the small handful of outside
lines were all currently busy. Following further instructions, she hung up and sat down to wait, as the phone would ring when a line became available.

She waited.

And waited.

It was excruciating. This was not how her first days in Antarctica were supposed to go. She was supposed to be helping her professor with the final preparations for going into the field, far away from things like offices—as far as she could get.

Her gaze wandered back to Emmett’s laptop. It appeared that he had left the computer for her to find; shouldn’t she therefore look through it?

She put the computer on her lap and turned it on. Its filing system was easy to navigate. E-mail here, spreadsheets there, visual images another place, and extensive files for all his correspondence and the papers he had written and talks he had given. Everything was arranged chronologically. She paused a moment, wondering what to do if she found something personal and embarrassing, or worse yet, something incriminating.

“I understand you want to talk to me,” said a baritone voice behind her.

A jolt of adrenaline slammed into Valena’s muscles. She had to fight the urge to slap the laptop closed, instead simply swinging around in the chair so that whoever was at the door could not see the screen.

A man not much older than Valena was leaning into the doorway from one side, just a head and one hand peering around the door jamb.

You sly devil
, she wanted to say.
Sneaking up on me like that!
He looked familiar, like someone whose face she had seen in photographs, but whom she had not met. “Hi there,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure who—”

“Bob Schwartz,” he said. “I used to … ah, work with Emmett.”

Now Valena did close the laptop, and, as casually as she could, set it on the floor, slipping it behind her day pack.
“Well, hey, this is lucky. I didn’t know you were in McMurdo.”

“I’m just leaving. Catching a Herc out to WAIS Divide in about two hours. Working on one of the projects that are coming out of that core.”

“I guess you’ve heard what happened. To Emmett, I mean.”

Schwartz scowled and shrugged his shoulders. “He left, is all I heard.”

“Left? He was hauled off the ice by some federal agents. Arrested.”

He shrugged again. The scowl became more petulant.

So little reaction? You did know this. You’re lying. “
Yeah, well, I’m trying to get some information about what happened last year. I was hoping you could fill me in.”

“What’s there to tell? This asshole journalist bullied his way into the high camp and then croaked. It sucked. So, what’s up with Emmett? They saying he lost the Gamow bag on purpose?”

Valena watched her fellow climate student closely, trying to catch every little twitch of muscle or inflection to his speech. “I don’t know. Do you think there’s anything to that idea?”

Once again he shrugged, just one shoulder this time. “Ask Cal when he comes in from WAIS.”

What are you hiding?
Valena wondered. “So Cal Hart’s coming to McMurdo? When do you think he might arrive?”

“Don’t know. Maybe he’ll return on the plane that takes me out there. If we get to go today. Weather out there always sucks. Well, I’m outta here,” he said, and started to turn away.

“Wait. Help me with this: you’re up there at high elevation in a tremendous storm. The Airlift Wing drops a chute with the Gamow bag. Where were you?”

“In my tent!” He glowered at her, his eyes like needles. Then, in a more sulking tone, he added, “With Dan Lindemann. We stayed the hell out of the way. We were not there. And I’ve told this to the feds half a dozen times already!”

“You
worm
, thought Valena.
You nematode.
So you were just finishing your doctorate with Emmett, am I right?”

“Oh, now don’t get going on that crap! I did what I had to do. I had a career to look after!”

“I—”

The phone rang.

Valena leaned over and grabbed the handset off its cradle. “Just a moment. I’ve got to get this call through, and then we can—”

But she was speaking to an empty doorway.

Valena wanted to chase after him and get more information—a half dozen questions now spun in her brain—but she didn’t want to lose the line out. An electronic voice was asking her to punch in her calling card number again. She did.

A few seconds ticked by, during which time she listened to the sound of ten thousand miles of electronic space. At last the sound changed, but alas, it changed to a busy signal.

Valena slammed the phone back into its cradle. Spitting mad, she began the whole process again, once again heard the “hang up and wait” signal, and did so. She folded her arms fiercely across her chest and stared at the phone.

Moments ticked past.

She kicked the office door shut, swung her swivel chair back toward the desk and pulled Vanderzee’s computer out from behind her pack. Clicking quickly through his filing system, she came up with a category that commanded her interest: FINANCIAL NEWS, it said.

When she opened that subdirectory, she found three more, listed alphabetically:
LETTER TO EDITOR, OTHER CORRESPONDENCE
, and
SWEENY ARTICLE.

She glanced at the clock at the lower right-hand corner of the laptop’s screen to see what time it was. Breakfast was under way now, and she had about an hour and a quarter before she was due at Happy Camp. In that time, she needed to eat, come back here to change into her ECWs, and get to the Science Support Center, where the class would gather. She decided to take a quick glance at whatever
LETTER TO EDITOR
had to offer, because, she reasoned, letters were lots shorter
than articles, and
OTHER
most likely had something to do with follow-up communications based on whatever
ARTICLE
and
LETTER
were about.

As she opened the first file, she heard a knock at the door. She slapped the laptop shut again and looked up, imagining that it might be Bob Schwartz thinking better of his escape. But when she stood up and opened the door, she discovered that it was Michael, the man who had helped her with the computer in the library the day before.

“Good morning,” he said. “All ready for Happy Camp?”

“Oh, uh, sure. Just trying to get a few things done first.”

He nodded. “Great. I’m on my way over to breakfast. Care to join me?”

Valena glanced at the telephone. “I’m sort of waiting for a call.”

He shook his head. “You wait and wait for a line, and then they aren’t home.”

“It was busy the first time,” she said.

“Well, I’m off.”

“See you over there.”

Michael disappeared down the hallway whistling.

The phone rang. She picked it up and dialed. This time the connection went through, rang three times, and was answered. “Hello?” said a woman’s voice.

Valena recognized Sahar, Taha’s wife. The image of her dark eyes and prim scarf came to mind. “Hello,” said Valena, marveling at how clear and immediate the connection was. “Um, is Taha there, please?”

“Taha? Oh, no, he left hours ago. Who may I say called?”

“This is Valena.”

“Oh! Valena, where are you calling from?”

“Antarctica.”

“Oh, my, well, that is a long way away. Is it very cold there?”

“Well, not where I’m sitting. It’s maybe—” She stopped herself, unwilling to use her precious long-distance minutes with pleasantries. “I’m sorry, Sahar, but I don’t have much time to talk. Is—um, well I wanted to ask Taha a few questions
about what the NSF said to him about the situation down here.”

“Situation? Taha told me very little, except that his travels were delayed. Taha does not like to worry me,” said Sahar, letting her voice drop to a deeper register.

“Does he seem
…
upset at all?”

“Well…”

Valena could almost hear the gears turn in Sahar’s mind. She was a very traditional wife from a culture very different from the one Valena understood. It was clear that she did not like to be outspoken on personal matters. She and Taha had come to America from Palestine so that he could pursue studies in desert systems, but he had gotten the bug to study the coldest desert on earth, Antarctica. Taha was very bright and hard-working, a prize student for any professor.

Finally, Sahar said, “I think he is quite concerned. Can he call you back? I am certain that he would like to talk to you.”

“No, he can’t call here, and I have to leave, anyway. Can you relay a message for me? Please ask him to answer my e-mail as best he can. It’s important.”

“Oh, certainly, Valena.” She paused. “Is something wrong there? I am wondering why he is delayed.”

“I’m certain that everything will work out,” she heard herself say. She offered a cheery closing salutation, hung up the phone, and then sat for a moment, contemplating her next move.
Get a message to Lindemann
, she told herself.

Quickly, she dug into her kit and produced her notebook paper and a pen. After a short greeting explaining who she was, she wrote:

Thinking better of this approach, she scribbled that out and tried again. And again. After the fourth try, she realized that she had no idea whose side Lindemann was on, much less
whether it was at all smart to contact any of the eight people who had been in the camp, at least in this manner. Several things could go wrong. Her message could be intercepted or lost, or one of them could turn her in to George Bellamy. Or worse yet, if anyone had anything to hide, this would put him or her on the alert.

Her mind burned with negative possibilities. If she was unlucky, she’d get sent north as soon as Wednesday, a disaster not only for her master’s thesis research but also for any hope of helping her professor. At least today she would attend Happy Camp, which would get her out of McMurdo and onto the ice she had dreamed about for so many years, but while there she could do very little to find out what had happened or hope to move toward a reversal of fortunes.

It was time to get moving, to get breakfast so that she could be on time for her class. She got up and was about to leave when it occurred to her that the laptop might be gone when she returned the next day. She pulled her own laptop out of her bag and put it on the desk, folded up his computer, slipped it and its power cord into her bag, and prepared to carry it off to her dorm room.

She turned toward the doorway and almost collided with yet another man. All the long muscles of her body jerked, and she almost dropped the bag.

“Hello,” he said. “You’d be Valena, right?”

“Yes.”

He was tall and blond and no more than five or six years older than she was. He was smiling at her. He was good-looking and very fit. “I’m Cal Hart. Emmett’s assistant.”

So you’re in town. Not at WAIS Divide.
Her mind raced. How long had he been standing there? Had he seen her switch the computers? She forgot completely all the questions she wanted to ask him. “I was just going to breakfast,” she said.

“Let’s eat together,” he said.

“Sure, ah
…
that would be good. I was hoping you could fill me in a little on what happened. You know, to Emmett.”

His smile crumpled, revealing a tender boyishness. “I wanted to ask you the same.” He put his hands in his pockets
and hung his head, shaking it in bewilderment. “I got back and he was gone.”

“You were in the high camp last year when it happened,” Valena said. “I was hoping
…
”

Cal lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes round with surprise and innocence. “It was awful,” he said. “I… I’d never seen a man dead before.”

A third man appeared just outside the office door. This one was middle-aged, slim and bearded. “Cal!” he said. “Can I have a word with you?”

Cal turned. “Sure, Jim.”

“In my office?”

“Sure.” He glanced over his shoulder at Valena. “See you at breakfast,” he said, then he turned his attention to the man named Jim.

The two men walked away, leaving Valena with the weight of the computer in her backpack.
Did he see me make the switch?
she asked herself again.
Should I leave it here?
She thought only a moment before hurrying off to her dorm, backpack and computer in hand.

M
AJOR
H
UGH
W. M
ULLER
, “T
RACTOR
H
UGH” TO SELECT
cohorts, sat at his desk in Building 165. He stared into the computer screen in front of him, trying to decide whether to involve himself any further in the mess he and Waylon Bentley had found up in Emmett Vanderzee’s high camp or to let it ride. It was impolitic to say a word. It was unprofessional to even blink. But it was quite possibly immoral to do nothing at all.

Master Sergeant John Lansing appeared at the door. “Got a moment?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“A young woman came looking for Waylon yesterday. She’s a student of that beaker Waylon hauled off the ice on Saturday.”

“I met her, too. Nice kid.”

“I’d sure hate to come all the way down here and have to turn around and go home.”

“What are you suggesting?”