Zodiac Station Read online

  Jensen looked miserable. ‘I didn’t think it mattered.’

  ‘Hagger died that afternoon,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Jesus, you think I don’t know? But we all heard it was an accident. I didn’t think it could’ve been anything else, until today.’

  I backtracked. ‘How did Ash seem when you picked him up.’

  ‘That’s the thing. He looked pretty shaken up, said he’d had a close encounter with a bear.’

  ‘A bear?’

  ‘But that’s not all.’ Jensen glanced at the door and leaned over the pool table. ‘He had blood on his coat.’

  Eighteen

  Kennedy

  Does Ash know where it’s going? Suddenly the words in the notebook took on a whole new meaning. I’d thought so hard about Fridge and Annabel, I’d never really considered him.

  ‘He had blood on him?’

  ‘Big smear, right along the sleeve.’

  ‘You didn’t wonder—’

  ‘He said he’d had a nosebleed.’ Jensen caught my eye; despite the situation, we both laughed. ‘Well, the air’s pretty dry up here.’

  I thought about Hagger’s body in the deep freeze. I hadn’t seen any wounds on him. Even so …

  ‘Where’s Ash now?’

  The field logbook said Ash had checked out an hour ago, headed out on the sea ice in the fjord. Going to confront him didn’t exactly fit with Quam’s instructions to let this go, but that didn’t bother me. I wanted the truth.

  ‘You’ll have to come too,’ I told Jensen. ‘I need you to back up what you told me.’

  He edged away a fraction. I wondered if he was having second thoughts.

  ‘Eastman’s booked to fly in half an hour. Up to Vitangelsk. I’ll be gone most of the day.’

  I made a quick decision. I hadn’t completely forgotten Quam: if I was going to accuse Ash of anything, I needed all the evidence I could get. He’d been at Vitangelsk that day; so had DAR-X. What if they’d left something behind?

  ‘I’ll come too.’

  Jensen glanced nervously towards the medical room. ‘Shouldn’t you be taking care of your patients?’

  ‘Some painkillers will see them right.’

  I filled some Thermoses with hot water from the kitchen. On the mess door, the Daily Horrorscope had been updated: Your plane is going down and your parachute is on fire. Sometimes it could be quite witty, but I thought that was in poor taste. You know, I still have no idea who wrote them. Never saw anyone put them up.

  One day at school, in biology, they showed us a human skull. I’ve never forgotten the shock of it, the hollow cavity that had once been stuffed with life. Vitangelsk was a bit like that. The Russians had built it overlooking a snowy valley, tiers of barrack dormitories staring out from the face of the mountain. As we flew closer, you could see the sunken roofs and all the broken windows. Steel gantries teetered over the scene, waiting to fall. To the west, a line of wooden pylons stalked across the long ridge that led to the mine. They’d been part of the cableway that carried buckets of coal from the mine to the processing facility at Vitangelsk.

  Eastman leaned over and tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Can you believe anyone ever came here to mine coal?’ I shook my head. ‘I mean, they can’t make that pay in West Virginia. How the fuck did they ever expect to turn a cent here?’

  ‘I don’t suppose it was about the coal,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll tell you a story I heard. During the Cold War, the CIA was one hundred per cent positive there had to be more to this place than coal. Uranium mining, or rare earths, or else the mine shafts were really launch silos for nukes. They spent millions trying to infiltrate this place: spy satellites, Blackbirds, never got anywhere. Soon as the Ruskies pulled out, a big-shot team from Langley arrived to pull it apart. You know what they found?’

  I let him have his punchline.

  ‘A coal mine.’

  I laughed with him. ‘I suppose it was nationalism. Staking their claim.’

  ‘Right. Governments see a place like this, pure and virginal. What do they want to do? Fuck it in the ass. You know, the only reason they let us do science here is because they haven’t figured out how to make money off of it. We’re just the hold music. Soon as they think of something better, we’re outta here.’

  The depressing thing is, he was probably right. ‘Doesn’t that worry you – as a scientist?’

  He laughed. ‘I’m not like Fridge. I never made the mistake of thinking what I’m doing is worth a damn.’

  We made a quick drop at the edge of town, scrambling out the door, wincing as the rotors pummelled us with icy air, racing away to get behind a cluster of rocks. Jensen gave us a thumbs up from the cockpit and took off in a swirl of snow.

  We trudged up a gully that had once been a road, between the dead buildings. After the helicopter racket, the silence took on an almost physical dimension, oppressive with its weight. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone might be watching. The old barracks loomed over us, the paint almost stripped away. In the faded murals that survived, the ghosts of happy workers traipsed through flowery meadows, enjoying picnics and cuddling children.

  I thought of the men – they must have been men – who’d walked past those murals every day on their way to hack open the mines. Did the pictures remind them of home? Or just harden their hearts?

  ‘What are you looking for here?’ I asked Eastman.

  ‘I still haven’t figured out the interference I’m getting. I thought maybe there could be some old electrical equipment, generators or something, giving off some kind of a signal.’

  I pointed up. Over our heads, a skein of cables and wires drooped between the buildings like some enormous spiderweb.

  ‘There must have been something.’

  ‘Once upon a time.’

  We climbed a snow bank that had been a flight of steps and came out in the old central square. A brick building with a rusty hammer and sickle above the door stood on the uphill side – the most permanent place in town. In front of it, in the centre of the square, a tall man stood striding forward on top of a granite plinth. I’m sure the sculptor meant it to look purposeful; to me he seemed to be stepping off a cliff. I couldn’t read the inscription, but I recognised the face from the history books: the bald head and iconic beard; the bulging forehead; the twisted lip and sneer of cold command. Lenin.

  ‘“Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair,”’ I murmured. I wanted to touch him, though the sculptor had made sure I could only reach his foot. So much for the brotherhood of man. Even through my mitten, I felt the deep cold seared into the metal. I almost felt sorry for him. Not even a hundred years ago, his name had shaken the world. Now his empire was broken windows and snow gathering in empty doorways.

  ‘You think in a hundred years people will look at our statues and pity us?’

  ‘They’ll probably have smashed all the statues because they’re so pissed at the way we trashed the planet.’

  It sounded like the sort of thing Fridge would have said. ‘I thought you were an optimist.’

  Eastman grinned. With his shaved head and trim beard, there was a touch of Lenin about him I hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘I’m a fatalist. Same difference.’

  He pointed up the mountain. ‘I think they kept most of the technical stuff up top. I should check it out.’

  I hadn’t told him about Ashcliffe. I was keen to do some exploring on my own. ‘I’ll stay down here.’ I tapped the bulge under my jacket. ‘I’ve got the VHF.’

  ‘Don’t go too far.’ He stretched his arms and made a whoo-whooing noise. ‘Never know who’ll turn up in a ghost town.’

  Once Eastman had disappeared, I got out my GPS and tried to read the map on the tiny screen. The Soviets had sunk mines all along the valley, with Vitangelsk more or less in the middle. To the west, the valley wound down to the coast; east, it continued another few miles until it ran into another mountain, the last bulwark against the eastern ice dome. Go around
that mountain, and you’d eventually come out on the Helbreen.

  I put the GPS away and looked around. For a ghost town, Vitangelsk had seen a lot of traffic of late. There were footprints and ski tracks everywhere. Flying in, I’d seen a corrugated Sno-Cat track approaching from the south, and what looked like a couple of snowmobile trails heading east.

  One set of prints looked fresher than the rest. Big and heavy, putting me in mind of a Yeti. Easy to follow, so I did: along the street, round a corner, and up to the front door of one of the barracks. I say front door, though the door was long gone. All that survived was splinters in the frame. But someone had trampled the snow flat all around.

  I looked at the footprints again. Fresh-ish – but not so much you expected to see the owner come whistling round the corner. Still, I hesitated.

  Will you be running away from ghosts, Dr Kennedy? I asked myself.

  Angry with myself for being so foolish, I went inside.

  In a queer way, it reminded me of the Zodiac Platform. A long corridor, lined with doors and the remnants of doors. So dark, I couldn’t see the far end. Snow had blown in, gathering in little piles by the door frames.

  Now, I don’t believe in ghosts – but I don’t read ghost stories either, if you get my drift. Still, I’d come that far: I made myself go on. Just so I could satisfy myself I’d done it. I looked in a couple of the rooms and found what you’d expect: broken bunks, mattresses with the stuffing knocked out, some Soviet pornography pinned to the walls. Surprisingly tasteful.

  You’d think that would have calmed me down, finding nothing. But the longer I stayed there, the more desperate I was to go. Each step, I had to swallow a little more panic.

  One more room, I told myself. Just to prove I was bigger than my fears.

  I was in such a hurry to go, my head was almost out the door before I’d looked in. But something made me look again.

  This room wasn’t like the others. The snow had been swept out, and the broken furniture cleared. It had been replaced by a mattress, a sleeping bag, an oil lamp, a pile of books and a few tins of baked beans.

  I checked the dates on the beans. They didn’t expire for a couple of years – and I didn’t think the Soviet Union had imported Heinz. The books were well read, but relatively new to judge from the covers, all in English. Milton’s Paradise Lost; Watson’s The Double Helix; one of Stieg Larsson’s. Eclectic tastes.

  Paradise Lost still had a bookmark in it. Feeling like a thief, I opened to the page. Two lines had been underlined in pencil.

  Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

  To mould me man, did I solicit thee …

  A crack ripped open the silence. Probably just an icicle falling off the roof, or a piece of wood the frost had got to. But it was too much for me. The next thing I knew, I was outside in the snow, blinking at the daylight.

  ‘Bob?’ I called.

  No answer.

  I walked on, mostly to get away from that place. A little distance gave me some perspective. DAR-X had been up here – they’d probably bunked there for the night and left some things behind. Nothing sinister. Who knew oilmen read Milton?

  The more I thought it over, the more I convinced myself I’d come on a fool’s errand. Hagger, Ashcliffe, the whole lot: my mind playing tricks. If what Quam had said that morning was true, Hagger had every reason to kill himself. He’d been depressed enough, God knows. As for Anderson, he had no one to blame for his bump but himself. And the plane was probably just bad luck.

  Lost in thought, I’d reached the edge of town. Ahead of me, the old pylons marched across the side of the valley, clinging to the precipice like spiders. Bleached telegraph poles knocked together into A-frames, with platforms at the top like ancient siege towers. They still had the cables running between them, and a few rusting coal buckets dangling below. I wouldn’t like to be standing underneath one of those when it gave out.

  I’d just started back towards the square when a movement caught my eye. A flash of yellow darting between two buildings. Too bright to be a bear.

  ‘Bob?’ I called, but it couldn’t be him. He’d been wearing a red coat, same as me.

  A cold wind blew down the alley. I unshouldered the rifle, though I kept the safety on – and my mittens. I didn’t want any accidents. Holding the Ruger like a cowboy, I edged around the corner. In the virgin snow between the buildings, I saw footprints coming out the end of one barracks and disappearing into the next.

  I pulled off my mittens and aimed the rifle at the door.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  No answer. One-handed, I pulled down the zip of my coat and reached for the VHF radio strapped across my chest. I toggled the button.

  ‘Bob?’

  Static. The buildings must have blocked the signal. I climbed the shaky steps and pushed on the door with the gun barrel. It swung in slowly, opening up on a long dark corridor that ran the length of the building. Dim doorways lined the sides. At the far end, a square of blue light showed an open door.

  I didn’t go in. So many rooms just right for hiding, or he could nip out the other door and circle round behind me. I toggled the radio again. Still only static.

  I backed off, keeping the rifle towards the barracks, until I was far enough away that I could see the front and the side of the building. I swept the rifle from side to side, though my hands were so cold I doubt I could have pulled the trigger.

  I lifted my hat off my ears so I could hear better, twitching my head this way and that. Terrified I’d miss something, terrified what I might find. I heard footsteps in the snow; someone was running. He must have gone through the barracks and out the far door. I listened a moment longer. The footsteps retreated. He was getting away.

  I ran along the front of the building, floundering through the snow. The thing about Utgard is that there’s so little snowfall, the actual cover can be very thin – or three feet deep where the wind’s blown it into drifts. It makes for treacherous footing. Whether it was a rock, or a piece of Soviet mining equipment they’d left behind, or a piece of shingle fallen off a building, I have no idea. All I know is that my boot caught something in the snow and pitched me forward.

  I fell, winded. The gun flew out of my numb hands, skidded away across the snow and disappeared in the crawl space under the barracks.

  No way was I going to go in to look for it. I picked myself up and ran on. I came around the corner of the barracks, giving it a wide berth in case he was waiting to jump out at me. He didn’t jump; he wasn’t there. He’d vanished.

  I ran another few metres, out on to the mountainside. The footsteps led towards an outcropping of rock, near the base of a cableway tower. I paused. Did he have a gun? Did he know I didn’t?

  I had to get hold of Eastman. I lifted my hand to the radio – but I never pressed the button.

  Off to my right – down the slope, away from the rocks – the snow started to move, rising up like a cloud.

  Then it opened its mouth and roared.

  Nineteen

  Kennedy

  Perhaps you’ve seen polar bears on TV. Kings of the Arctic, majestic lives lived to a David Attenborough commentary. Reality isn’t quite like that. For starters, unless you’ve a paparazzi-length lens, you never get so close as you do on TV. The bears I’ve seen on Utgard were all miles off, mostly dots on the horizon. Generally, it’s best to keep it that way.

  This one, I could see the breath coming in clouds out of his nostrils; the pricked-back ears; the way his shaggy coat wobbled when he moved, like a blanket thrown over his bones. He must have been sleeping. He leaned down on his front paws and arced his back like a cat, then shook himself vigorously. A cloud of snow flew off his fur.

  I had no gun. Somewhere in one of my coat pockets, I had a flare pen, but that’s a fiddly piece of kit. You have to screw in the flare like a fountain-pen cartridge, then flick a tiny plastic catch. I doubted the bear would wait for all that.

  He looked at me. I glanced back at the town, but
it was a good way off. Even if I made it into the barracks, I’ve heard of bears breaking in locked doors. And the doors at Vitangelsk wouldn’t keep out a kitten.

  ‘Bob!’ I shouted, hoping Eastman would hear me.

  The bear craned forward, sniffing the air.

  There was only one place to go. Up the hill, one of the old towers that had supported the cableway loomed over me. It looked as if one good kick would send it crashing down the mountain, but I didn’t have a choice. I ran for it.

  It was like running in a bad dream, the sort of running where your feet feel tied together and your legs are made of treacle. The snow didn’t help. I didn’t dare look back. I reached the bottom of the tower and flung myself up the ladder. Not a proper ladder, just thin crosspieces nailed on to one of the legs. Too small for a bear to climb – I hoped. My feet slipped; I struggled to get a grip. One rung snapped off in my hand, and I nearly wrenched my arm out of its socket grabbing on to the pylon. I held on, kept climbing.

  I reached the platform at the top. Icy, but at least the wood was solid. I knelt, gripping the wooden struts, and peered down.

  The bear prowled around the base of the tower, sniffing and growling. Suddenly, it reared up on its hind legs and threw itself against the pylon. The whole structure shook.

  I unzipped my coat. My fingers were fat and clumsy with cold. I tapped the VHF radio strapped to my chest.

  ‘Bob? Are you there?’

  A gunshot shattered the frozen air. The bear dropped back on to its feet and looked around.

  A man in a yellow parka advanced from the cluster of buildings. With his hood up and a ski mask covering his face, I couldn’t tell who it was. A big man – carrying what looked like my rifle. He aimed it in the air and fired again.

  ‘Careful,’ I called. The bullet had come dangerously close to me.

  The bear growled and stepped back, head down, swaying on his haunches. Fight or flight – it was impossible to know what he’d choose. Perhaps he didn’t know himself.