In Cold Pursuit (16 page)

Dave offered no rejoinder. The Boss was firm, but he was a nice guy. Getting cranky like this meant that he was worried. Dave said, “What’s the sitch, Boss?”

“I sent him out there last night with 283 before it got bad, because I wanted someone there in case things improved enough to get a flight in and the runway needed plowing. I knew he’d be pinned down for a while, but he doesn’t seem to mind the food out at the runway galley.”

Now the man was not only being polite, he was apologizing and explaining. This was bad.

The others had followed him into the Boss’s office and now stood clustered around the man’s desk. Cupcake said, “Yeah, Steve’ll eat anything. You think maybe he’s just gone in for lunch?”

“No, they just phoned me to ask where he is. They’re counting heads, like. They said he was there for breakfast, but they haven’t seen him in a while.”

“They think he went out to take a nap in the Challenger, maybe?”

“They checked. It’s not there.”

“Maybe he turned his radio off, or maybe—”

The Boss keyed his mike one more time. “Challenger 283, this is Fleet Ops. Kindly respond, Bucko.”

They all tensed as the radio crackled, but when the static resolved itself into a voice, it was a woman’s. “Fleet Ops, this is Mac Ops, do you have a problem you wish to report? Over.”

The Boss stared into space. Admitting to Mac Ops that he had a problem was admitting to himself that one of his people was at serious risk. He keyed the mike. “Mac Ops, we have a man not responding to radio coms. We are trying to ascertain his position. Over.”

“How do you wish to proceed? Over.”

“I guess we’d better give him another couple minutes and then go find him.” After two or three heartbeats, he added, “Over.”

“Mac Ops copies. Call back in five.”

“Fleet Ops clear.” The Boss picked up the phone and dialed
the sea ice runway galley. “Can you see his tractor?” His face tightened as he listened to the answer to his question. “Damn. Keep me posted anything changes. I’ll do the same.” He hung up. Leaned back in his chair. Puffed up his cheeks and blew out a long, wheezing breath. Stared at the ceiling.

Dave and the others shifted like a group of cormorants fighting for positions on a rock. The minutes ticked by. Nobody said anything.

“Fleet Ops, this is Mac Ops,” the radio sputtered.

“Go ahead, Mac Ops,” the Boss replied.

“I’ve got Search and Rescue on coms. Conditions have improved, so they’re going to take their Haaglund out along the flag route toward the runway. Over.”

“Thank you for that. We’re going to send another Challenger. Say conditions extended area. Over.”

“Mac Ops copies Challenger aiding search. Conditions east and south still alternating 1 and 2. Cape Crozier currently condition 1 and Black Island condition 2. Conditions east: Penguin Ranch reports condition 2 and clearing, no one is at Cape Royds to report, Dry Valleys report high clouds and one hundred miles visibility. Mac Ops clear.”

“Fleet Ops clear.”

Cupcake turned to Dave. “We’ll use your rig,” she said and headed toward the door. Dave slapped the toggle on the coffee urn to refill his insulated mug, grabbed a pack of juice boxes, and followed.

“We’re coming too,” said Wilbur, as he and Joe hurried after them.

“You won’t all fit in the cab,” Cupcake snarled. She stood in the open doorway, one hand on the knob to block their passage. Snow sifted in, covering her shoulders. “Besides, you idiots care too much. You’ll get in trouble, too. Stay here and help the Boss. Come on, Dave.” She grabbed him by the cuff and pulled.

Dave and Cupcake hurried along the line of parked tractors. They could hear the Boss hollering at Joe and Wilbur, ordering them to stay put. “You got emergency rations in your Challenger?” asked Cupcake.

“Sure enough.” They were running now.

Cupcake waved Dave up the flight of six steps that led up over the front of the treads toward the cab of the towering tractor. “It’s your rig, you know it better,” she hollered.

Dave roared the big engine into life, then spun the steering wheel with one hand, reaching for the gear lever with the other, thankful for the machine’s exquisite power steering. He slapped it into second out of the ten forward gears. The huge tractor lumbered authoritatively down past the line of parked vehicles and, at another touch of the wheel, turned out onto the road that led down past the gas pumps toward the main road and the transition from land to ice.

The view ahead was daunting. Conditions had indeed improved from total whiteout, but ragged gray storm clouds still packed the sky, their maelstrom of wind and frozen moisture obscuring all but a few glimpses of the mountains. The wind scoured the great plane of ice that opened out before them, kicking up a blur of moving snow. The horizon was lost in shades of blue and gray.

When they reached the juncture between the land and the frozen sea, Dave stopped and unclipped his microphone. “Mac Ops, Mac Ops, this is Dave Fitzgerald with Challenger 416 at the transition. Two souls on board. We are proceeding via flag route to ice runway and beyond to assist with search and rescue, over.”

“Challenger 416, this is Mac Ops. Call in every quarter hour to report your position. Sooner if you find him. Over, out, and Godspeed.”

B
RENDA
U
TZON HEARD ABOUT THE MISSING TRACTOR
driver as she joined friends for lunch. News of Steve’s disappearance was rolling through the galley like ball lighting. As she settled into a chair, the woman who managed McMurdo’s library leaned forward and passed the word. “SAR is out looking for a missing tractor driver. Guy named Steve, from Fleet Ops. How I hate this.”

Brenda glanced around the galley. Friends were stopping friends in the aisles between the tables. Facing the demon as
a group, as a community, as one soul with a thousand faces. One man lost in an Antarctic storm made all hearts beat in one anxious rhythm.

The PA system popped into life and George Bellamy’s voice filled the air. “May I have your attention please for an important announcement. This is to confirm that a search is under way for a missing person. If anyone knows the whereabouts of Steve Myer, please contact the Firehouse with that information. In the meantime, please stay calm and do not attempt to assist in the search without direct instructions from the Search and Rescue team under the direction of Manuel Roig. Repeat, do not attempt to assist without instructions from proper authority. Conditions are still variable between 1 and 2 and … and we don’t want anyone else going missing.” The PA channel remained open for several moments. Everyone in the galley stayed frozen with ears cocked toward the speakers, waiting. Finally, Bellamy added, “Uh, that is all for now,” and closed the channel.

Brenda shook her head. She was not personally acquainted with Steve Myer, but that didn’t matter. The US Antarctic Program was a community built on interdependence, and that meant that a part of herself was missing.

She looked down at her tray full of food. Suddenly it did not look appetizing. She really liked the thick, creamy soups that the kitchen staff turned out, but just now this one smelled awful. She pushed it away. “I think I’ll just go back to my office and get back to work,” she said.

M
AJOR
M
ARILYN
W
OOD FOUND
M
AJOR
H
UGH
M
ULLER
at his desk in the Airlift Wing offices. “You heard?”

“About the missing Cat driver. Yes. Any news?”

“Not yet. Anything back from Bentley?”

“I was just typing him another e-mail. This is what I got from him this morning.”

Bentley’s message glowed from his screen:

Marilyn said, “By that I take it that he means that you and I are improper authorities.”

Hugh snorted. “Right.” He wrote:

Hugh hit send and leaned back in his chair. “Loadmaster got everything dialed in for emergency takeoff with medical crew?”

Marilyn snorted softly, as if to say,
Need you ask?

Hugh said, “I sure don’t like sitting when something like this is going on.”

Marilyn’s face had set like stone, but her words came out light and easy. “What say we get ourselves out to the runway and drink that galley’s coffee for a while? This pot’s almost out.”

A
FTER HELPING THE OTHER
H
APPY
C
AMP PARTICIPANTS
unload the Delta into the cargo bay at the Science Support Center, Valena went looking for Manuel Roig

“Didn’t you hear?” Dustin asked. “He’s gone off with the search and rescue team.”

Valena wrinkled her brow. “But we’re already rescued.”

“Not you, someone else.
You
were never in danger.
You
had food and water and fuel and tents and each other. This guy’s out there alone in the storm in a tractor. Scratch that,
without
a tractor. They just found the one he’d been driving and he’s not in it.”

“How strange,” Valena said. “Why would he leave his tractor in this weather? I mean, shouldn’t he have stayed inside it and waited for the storm to let up?”

Dustin gave her a look of appraisal. “Go to the head of the class,” he said.

“Then something’s wrong. I mean, really wrong.”

Dustin said nothing.

“What’s his name?”

“Steve Myer. Now, if you’ll excuse me. Class is dismissed. I have to go help with the search myself.”

Valena nodded. As she watched Dustin disappear out into the storm, she ran down her mental list of people who had been with Vanderzee during his previous season on the ice. Steve Myer was not a match.

Em Hansen’s words of caution flashed in Valena’s mind. Waiting for those hours on the ice, unable to see farther than she could have thrown a cinder block, it had begun to come
home to her that this was not a safe place. Caution was necessary for even the simplest, most basic things, like staying alive.

Uncertain what to do next, she left the building and walked back along the rutted road that led to Building 155 and her dorm room. Suddenly the banks of melting snow and ice that bordered the path seemed painfully fragile. Life was finite in Antarctica, almost insignificant when opposed to the overwhelming expanse of ice that surrounded her. She had cruised through Happy Camp with arrogance, pleased with herself for having withstood its hardships with such ease, confident that theirs had been a practice situation made uncomfortable for the sake of training. But now a real Antarctican doing a real Antarctic job was missing and presumed in real trouble. A tractor driver. Valena pictured her grandfather on his farm tractor, pulling the potato harvester, caught in a sudden storm.

Grandpa. Being a practical man, he had let her drive the tractor when needed because she drove it well. Through hard work, she had built a place in his life.

Rounding the corner past the McMurdo General Hospital, she humped her duffel up the steps to the entrance into Building 155. She pushed open the door and walked inside.

Life seemed oddly normal within the building. People were walking here and there up and down the hallways, one stepping into the coatroom alcove to fetch a parka, another moving into the computer bay halfway down the main hallway, a third rushing up the steps that led to the galley.

Valena stood at the nexus of the hallways, glazed with fatigue. Blinking to adjust her eyes to the interior light, she glanced around, taking in details of her surroundings. A TV monitor mounted on the wall presented various data, the screen changing every few seconds. It presented local time: 13:32.
Military time
, she told herself.
Subtract twelve; so it’s half past one in the afternoon. Damn, lunch is over.
While waiting to be brought in from Happy Camp, she had eaten a couple of helpings of reconstituted freeze-dried crud, but her stomach longed for something more recognizably foodlike,
and the idea of sitting on a chair at a table in a heated room while she ate it seemed downright heavenly.

The monitor rolled to a different screen, this one listing the flight schedules for the day, all canceled. Valena closed her eyes and opened them again, correlating this information with her immediate concerns.
Flights north have all been bumped forward a day, which means that I won’t be sent home tomorrow!

Smiling with new hope, she headed down the hallway that led to her room with the lovely concept of a hot shower blooming in her imagination. Halfway to the door to the dorm rooms, she noticed a pair of bulletin boards housed behind locking glass doors and stopped to take a look. They appeared to be passenger manifests: southbound flights coming from New Zealand and those going onward to Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to the left; northbound to New Zealand to the right. Today’s lists were in place, but marked
CANX
, which, she reasoned, must be military-abbreviation-ese for canceled.

She spotted her name on the northbound list for the next day’s flight, confirmed that the flight was marked
CANX
, and let out a sigh of relief. Also on the list she found Calvin Hart’s name. It seemed that everyone working for Emmett Vanderzee was being sent home.

Not surprisingly, the southbound manifest did not list Emmett Vanderzee’s name among the arriving flood of scientists, all of whom must be pacing the streets of Christchurch waiting for the weather to clear. And she realized that Major Bentley would be stuck in New Zealand as well. She would not be questioning him at the Tractor Club meeting tonight. It seemed that every good thing that happened in Antarctica had a bad side as well.