Target 5 (19 page)

'From Sondeborg in particular?' Beaumont was examin
ing the contents of a wallet carefully, laying out items on the
table.

'From Sondeborg especially - he's cracking up fast. And it's going to affect Rickard soon - panic is the most infectious of all human ailments. Is it necessary to go through his personal things?' Conway inquired with an edge hi his voice.

'Yes! This card says he's Michael Gorov,' Beaumont
replied sceptically. 'The trouble is we've got no picture of
him. Did he say the security people were after him?'

'No, he clammed up just before I put him to bed. I think he was suspicious I didn't know anything about him. There
was another reason I put him in this hut - kept him here, that is.' Beaumont stared at him without speaking as he
picked up the Russian's damp parka. Close to the space
heater which Conway had lit, snow had melted on the fur.
'The others don't know he's here,' Conway went on. 'He
said enough for me to grasp he was a fugitive and I guessed
Russian security might be on his tail - I don't want more
panic than I've got on my hands already.' Conway paused.
'And if I had to hide him I didn't trust Sondeborg to keep
his mouth shut.'

Beaumont looked at the American with fresh respect.
'That was clever of you, Matt, very clever. And it may be
helpful - if the Russians do come. We may have to hide
Gorov down that nasty hole of yours yet. ..'

'I didn't mean a live body,' Conway protested. 'I told you
- it was a joke. My God, if you put him down there he'd
freeze to death.'

'Not if we wrap him up well- cocoon him - and put a
small heater down there with him. It would only be for a
short time - while the Russians searched the base.'

'Searched the base!' Conway was outraged. 'They can't
run a search here - this place has the American flag flying
over it . . .'

Beaumont fetched up a long tube out of one of the parka's
deep pockets, a tube measuring about a foot in length and
heavy to hold. 'Matt, you haven't quite grasped it - and
this is something else not to tell the other two. We're
marooned on this base, cut off. No plane can fly in because
of the fog, the radio transmitter has been eliminated. If
every man on the island at this moment vanished into thin
air no one could ever prove what had happened.'

Conway sank down on a hard, wooden chair slowly and
stared up at Beaumont. 'Who's panicking now?' he asked
with a forced smile. 'You can't really believe that - they
wouldn't dare . ..'

'Get this very clear,' Beaumont said coldly. 'It wouldn't involve much daring, only a touch of ruthlessness. Supposing one of your Sno-Cats was found abandoned on the pack only a few miles away from here - out of fuel. When the fog lifts and someone flies in from Curtis they'd find the base empty, the radio hut burned down, the Sno-Cat out on the ice. What conclusion would they draw? That you'd all panicked when the fog closed the place in, when you lost your only means of communicating with the mainland, that you'd tried to get out on your own. You run out of fuel and start back towards the island - on the way something happens to you. A lead opens up, a moving pressure ridge buries all of you ...'

'This is horrible,' Conway protested. 'You're talking
about a blueprint for mass murder . . .'

'I want you to know the score, Matt,' Beaumont said
quietly. 'I'm talking about the Russian Special Security
Service.'

'When are we moving out?'

Langer asked the question as he settled the dogs inside the
hut opposite the headquarters building. The preparations
for evacuating the base were well advanced and half the huts on the ice island were now unoccupied. The walls of
the hut chosen for the dogs were lined with packing crates
filled with equipment and waiting for the plane due in ten days' time.

'As soon as Gorov is fit to travel - sooner if there's an
emergency, which there may well be,' Beaumont replied.

Langer adjusted the space heater he had carried to the
hut and looked up wryly. 'We're expecting company? The
wrong sort of company?'

'They've been here once - when they fired that radio hut.
I think they're still very close. Horst, when you've sorted
things out here I want you to unpack the transmitter and
send a message in clear to Curtis Field. This is the message -
Target-5 radio hut out of action. Sabotaged. Go on repeat
ing the word sabotaged a few times, then sign off and pack the set up again.
5

Langer patted the sleeping Bismarck who opened one
bleary eye and closed it again. 'You mean I don't wait for
confirmation on message received?'

'The message isn't for Curtis Field - it's for the Russian
monitoring set at North Pole 17.'

'You wouldn't care to explain the mystery, would you?' Langer asked humorously. 'Just so I know what I'm doing, what's going on?'

'Later. And when you've done that I want you to take turns with Sam guarding that hut where Gorov is. If you
run into trouble and there's no time left, fire one shot from
your rifle into the air. When you're not guarding the hut,
try and get some sleep.'

'You could do with some yourself,' Langer observed. 'We had the lion's share when we were drifting on that floe. And I'll forget about sleep if it means moving out of here faster. This place gives me the creeps - you know those three characters waiting for evacuation are on the edge of cracking up?'

'So we tread gently,' Beaumont warned.

He went out of the hut into the icy night and his ex
pression tightened as he shut the door. He could just about
see the headquarters hut which was only six feet across the
beaten snow-track running between the two rows of build
ings. The fog had thickened again, seemed to be intensifying
as he stood for a moment and listened. Nearby he heard it,
the quiet chugging of the generator which provided
Target-5's lighting; and a long way off he heard something else - the muffled creaking and groaning of the polar pack
surrounding the island.

When Target-5 cracked under that terrible weight the catastrophe would be very sudden. Fissures would appear
out of nowhere, would widen into crevasses, which in turn
would open up bottomless chasms as the whole island finally
gave up after thirty years' resistance to the ceaseless squeeze
of the polar pack.

But it wasn't the island Beaumont was worried about at
this moment - it was what might be moving on it out of sight
inside the dense rolling fog drifting all around him. He
looked towards the hill he couldn't see, that strange forty-
foot high eminence with its embedded boulders, floating in the sea a hundred miles from the nearest coast. His eyes
prickled with the cold; Horst was right, he was damned
tired. He crossed the track, opened the door in the head
quarters hut and called out to Grayson to join him. Then he waited outside while the American put on his parka.

Typically, the American asked not a single question while
Beaumont explained about Gorov. He only made one com
ment as he hoisted his rifle over his shoulder before going up
the track. 'Trouble in there. I'd like to drop that Sondeborg
into the nearest open lead.'

Beaumont stiffened as he went inside and shut the door.
He had heard raised voices from the outside but now
Sondeborg was shouting as he argued with Conway. 'We
can't get through to the mainland with the transmitter
busted,' Sondeborg raved. 'Supposing the island starts
breaking up before that plane gets here? We're trapped. . .'

The lean-faced gravity specialist stopped shouting as Beaumont closed the door. Along the facing wall stood a couple of two-tier bunks and Jeff Rickard, the wireless operator, sat on one of the lower
bunks, chewing a match-
stick as he watched Sondeborg. Conway was leaning against
a table in the middle of the room with his arms folded and the flush on his pale face had nothing to do with the heat of the room.

'Get some sleep, Harv, for God's sake,' Rickard snapped. 'We've got company, so stop spilling your guts out.' The wireless operator, a cheerful thirty-two-year-old with curly
black hair, reached out a hand to grasp the other man's arm.

Sondeborg snatched it out of reach and glared at Beaumont.
'Why have you come here?' he demanded.

'I told you before,
5
Beaumont explained patiently. 'Our
helicopter crashed on the ice and we were lucky to make
it . . .'

'I don't believe a damn word!'

'Sorry to hear that.' There was an edge in Beaumont's
voice as he propped his rifle in a corner. He took off his
parka and laid it on the table. 'You've been drinking,
haven't you?' It wasn't a brilliant deduction: he could smell
the liquor on the gravity specialist's breath six feet away from him.

'He's got a bottle stashed away somewhere,' Conway in
formed Beaumont. 'I haven't been able to locate it yet.
And this is his last Arctic trip.'

'Brother, are you telling me!' Sondeborg sneered. 'When
I get on that plane the only ice I'll want to see is in a bar.'

'Which is where you'll take up your living quarters, no
doubt,' Beaumont observed nastily.

Something snapped inside Sondeborg. He bent down, grasped an ice pick from under the table, a small-handled pick, stood up again slowly, staring at Beaumont with a
blank expression.

'Put that down!' Conway said sharply.

'This big Limey takes up too much room,' Sondeborg said
slowly and his right foot moved forward.

'Stay where you are, Rickard,' Beaumont warned. 'It
doesn't look as though I'm too popular round here,' he
went on as he picked up his parka from the table. 'I don't
want to cause trouble, Conway,' he added. 'I'll move to one of the other huts . . .' He held the parka as though about to
put it on while Sondeborg watched him uncertainly, then
with a swift throwing movement like a matador wielding a cape he brought the coat down over Sondeborg's right arm. Sondeborg flailed with his arm to get the ice pick free and
then Beaumont hit him. He hit him very hard with a power
ful, short-armed jab which knocked Sondeborg back against
the bunks. The gravity specialist sagged, fell half inside a
bunk, then collapsed unconscious on the floor.

'Check him,' Beaumont snapped. 'How long before he
comes round?'

Conway bent over the man and examined him quickly,
then spoke over his shoulder. 'He's out cold. With the drink
inside him he could be this way for several hours .. .'

'Can we get him out of here - into another hut?'

'The one next door has two bunks . . .'

'I'd like him shifted there,
5
Beaumont said crisply. 'I'd
like him tied up, too.'

'Tied up?' Conway sounded surprised and uneasy.