Текст книги "Ice Hunt"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

“A specimen of what, Henry?” Her eyes were hard on the biologist.

“Of Ambulocetus natans. What is commonly called ‘the walking whale.’ It is the evolutionary link between land-dwelling mammals and the modern whale.”

She simply gaped at him as he continued.

“It is estimated to have existed some forty-nine million years ago, then died out some thirty-six million years ago. But the splayed out legs, the pelvis fused into the backbone, the nasal drift…all clearly mark this as distinctly Ambulocetus.”

Amanda shook her head. “You can’t be claiming that these specimens are so old. Forty million years?”

“No.” His eyes widened. “That’s just it! MacFerran says the ice at this level is only fifty thousand years old, dating back to the last ice age. And these specimens bear some unique features. My initial supposition is that some pod of Ambulocetuswhales must have migrated to the Arctic regions, like modern whales do today. Once here, they developed Arctic adaptations. The white skin, the gigantism, the thicker layer of fat. Similar to the polar bear or beluga whales.”

Amanda remembered her own earlier comparison to the beluga. “And these creatures somehow survived up here until the last ice age? Without any evidence ever being discovered?”

“Is it really so surprising? Anything that lived and died on the polar ice cap would have simply sunk to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, a region barely glimpsed at all. And on land, permafrost makes it nearly impossible to carry out digs above the Arctic Circle. So it is entirely possible for something to have existed for eons, then died out without leaving a trace. Even today we have barely any paleological record of this region.”

Amanda shook her head, but she could not dismiss what she had seen. And she couldn’t discount his argument. Only in the past decade, with the advent of modern technology and tools, was the Arctic region truly being explored. Her own team back at Omega was defining a new species every week. So far, the discoveries were just new, unclassified phytoplankton or algae, nothing on the level of these creatures.

Henry continued, “The Russians must have discovered these creatures when they dug out their base. Or maybe they built the base here because of them. Who knows?”

Amanda remembered Henry’s early claim: It’s the reason the station was built here. “What makes you think that?” She flashed back again to the discovery on Level Four. This new discovery, amazing as it was, seemed in no way connected to the other.

Henry eyed her. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Amanda scrunched her brow.

“ Ambulocetusfossils were only discovered in the past few years.” He pointed back to the cleft. “Back in World War Two, they knew nothing about them. So, of course, the Russians would come up with their own name for such a monster.”

Her eyes grew wide.

“They named their base after the creature,” Dr. Ogden explained needlessly. “A mascot of sorts, I imagine.”

Amanda stared down at the frozen lake, at the beast lunging up at her. She now knew what she was truly seeing. The monster of Nordic legend.

Grendel.

Act Two
Fire and Ice

5. Slippery Slope

APRIL 8, 9:55 P.M.

AIRBORNE OVER NORTH SLOPE, ALASKA

Matt slumped in his seat. Snoring echoed throughout the cabin of the Twin Otter. It came not from the sleeping reporter nor from Jenny’s dozing father, but from the wolf sprawled on his back across the third row of seats. A particularly loud snort raised a ghost of a smile on Matt’s face.

Jenny spoke from beside him. “I thought you were going to get his deviated septum fixed.”

The ghost became a true smile. Bane had snored since he was a pup curled on the foot of their bed. It had been a source of amusement to both of them. Matt sat straighter. “The plastic surgeon out of Nome said it would require too extensive a nasal job. Too much trimming. He would end up looking like a bulldog.”

Jenny didn’t respond, so Matt risked a glance her way. She stared straight out, but he noted the small crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Sad amusement.

Crossing his arms, Matt wondered if that was the best he could manage with her. For the moment, it was enough.

He gazed out the window. The moon was near to full, casting a silvery brilliance across the snowy plains. This far north, winter still gripped the land, but some signs of the spring thaw were visible: a trickle of misty stream, a sprinkling of meltwater lakes. A few caribou herds speckled the tundra, moving slowly through the night, following the snowmelt waterways, feeding on reindeer moss, sprigs of lingonberry, and munching through muskeg, the ubiquitous tussocks of balled-up grass, each the size of a ripe pumpkin, rooted in the thawing muck.

“We were lucky to have radioed Deadhorse when we did,” Jenny mumbled beside him, drawing his eye.

“What do you mean?”

After clearing Arrigetch, they had managed to raise the airstrip at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope. They had alerted civil and military authorities to their chase through the Brooks Range. Helicopters would be dispatched in the morning to search for the debris of the Cessna. They should have answers on their pursuers shortly after that. Matt had also been able to reach Carol Jeffries, the bear researcher over in Bettles. She knew Jenny’s cabin and would send some folks to take care of the animals left behind. Craig had also relayed word to his own contact at Prudhoe. Once questioned and debriefed, the reporter would have one hell of a tale to tell. After making contact, and with the story of their ordeal now passed to the outside world, they had all relaxed.

But now what was wrong? Matt pulled himself up in his seat.

Jenny pointed out the Otter’s windshield – not to the tundra below, but to the clear skies.

Matt leaned forward. At first, he saw nothing unusual. The constellation Orion hung brightly. Polaris, the North Star, lay directly ahead. Then he spotted the shimmering bands and streamers rising from the horizon, flickers of greens, reds, and blues. The borealis was rising.

“According to the forecast,” Jenny said, “we’re due for a brilliant display.”

Matt leaned back, watching the spectacle spread in colored fans and dancing flames across the night sky. Such a natural show went by many names: the aurora borealis, the northern lights. Among the native Athapascan Indians, it was called koyukonor yoyakkyh,while the Inuit simply named them spirit lights.

As he watched, the wave of colors flowed over the arch of the sky, shimmering in a luminous corona and rolling in clouds of azures and deep crimsons.

“We won’t be able to reach anyone for a while,” Jenny said.

Matt nodded. Such a dazzling display, created as solar winds struck the upper atmosphere of the earth, would frazzle most communications. But they didn’t have very far to go. Another half hour at most. Already the northern horizon had begun to brighten with the lights of the oil fields and distant Prudhoe Bay.

They flew in silence for several minutes more, simply enjoying the light show in the sky, accompanied by Bane’s snoring in the back. For these few moments, it felt like home. Maybe it was simply the aftereffects of their harrowing day, an endorphin-induced sense of ease and comfort. But Matt feared wounding it with speech.

It was Jenny who finally broke the silence. “Matt…” The timbre of her voice was soft.

“Don’t,” he said. It had taken them three years and today’s life-and-death struggle to bring them into one space together. He did not want to threaten this small start.

Jenny sighed. He did not fail to note her tone of exasperation.

Her fingers tightened on the wheel, moving with a squeak of leather on vinyl. “Never mind,” she whispered.

The moment’s peace was gone – and it had not even taken words. Tension filled the cabin, raising a wall between them. The remainder of the journey was made in total silence, strained now, bitter.

The first few oil derricks came into view, decorated in lights like a Christmas tree. Off to the left, a jagged silver line marred the perfect tundra, rising and falling over the landscape like a giant metal snake. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline. It ran from Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s north coast to Valdez on Prince William Sound, a river of black gold.

They were closing in on their destination. The pipeline led the way. Jenny followed it now, paralleling its run. She tried the radio, attempting to reach the airport tower at Deadhorse. Her frown was answer enough. The skies still danced and flashed.

She banked in a slow arc. Ahead, the township of Prudhoe Bay – if you could call it a town – glowed in the night like some oilman’s Oz. It was mostly a company town, built for the sole purpose of oil production, transportation, and supporting services. Its average population was under a hundred, but the number of transient oil workers caused this number to vary, depending on the workload. There was also a small military presence here, protecting the heart of the entire North Slope oil production.

Beyond the town’s border stretched the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean, but it was hard to tell where land ended and ocean began. Spreading from the shore were vast rafts of fast ice extending for miles into the ocean, fusing eventually with the pack ice of the polar cap. As summer warmed the region, the cap would shrink by half, retreating from shorelines, but for now, the world was solid ice.

Jenny headed out toward the sea, circling Prudhoe Bay and positioning herself for landing at the single airstrip. “Something’s going on down there,” she said, tipping up on one wing.

Matt spotted it, too: a flurry of activity at the edge of town. A score of vehicles were racing across the snowy fields from the military installation, hurrying out of town in their general direction. He glanced to the other side of their plane.

Below lay the end of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The giant buildings of Gathering Station 1 and Pump Station 1 were lit up behind Cyclone fencing. Here the North Slope oil was cooled, water removed, gas bled off, and the oil began its six-day, eight-hundred-mile journey to the tankers on Prince William Sound.

As they crossed near Pump Station 1, Matt noted a section of the Cyclone fencing had been knocked down. He glanced back to the racing military vehicles. Foreboding lanced through him.

“Get us out of here!” Matt snapped.

“What—?”

The explosion ripped away any further words. The building that housed Gathering Station 1 burst apart in a fiery blast. A ball of flame rolled skyward. The sudden hot thermals and blast wave threw their plane up on end. Jenny fought the controls, struggling to keep them from flipping completely over.

Yells arose from the backseats, accompanied by Bane’s barking.

Swearing under her breath, Jenny rolled the Otter away from the conflagration. Flaming debris rained down around them, crashing into the snowy fields, into buildings. New fires erupted. Pump Station 1 blew its roof off next, adding a second ball of rolling flame. The four-foot-diameter pipe that led into the building tore itself apart, blasting up along its length. Burning oil jetted in all directions. It didn’t stop until it reached the first of the sixty-two gate valves, halting the destruction from escalating up the pipeline.

In a matter of seconds, the wintry calm of the slumbering township became a fiery hell. Rivers of flame flowed toward the sea, steaming and writhing. Buildings burned. Smaller, secondary explosions burst from gas mains and holding tanks. People and vehicles raced in all directions.

“Jesus Christ!” Craig exclaimed behind them, his face pressed to the glass.

A new voice crackled from the radio, full of static, coming from the general channel. “Clear all airspace immediately! Any attempt to land will be met with deadly force.”

“They’re locking the place down!” Jenny exclaimed, and banked away from the fires. She headed out over the frozen sea.

Her father stared back to the coast. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Matt mumbled, watching the coastline burn. “Accident, sabotage…whatever it was it seemed timed to our arrival.”

“Surely it can’t have anything to do with us,” Craig said.

Matt pictured the downed section of Cyclone fencing, the racing vehicles from the military installation. Someone had broken in, setting off alarms. And after the last two days, he could not dismiss the possibility that it was somehow connected to them. Disaster seemed to be dogging them ever since the reporter’s plane crashed. Someone sure as hell did not want the political reporter for the Seattle Timesto reach that SCICEX station out on the ice.

“Where can we go now?” Craig asked.

“I’m running low on fuel,” Jenny cautioned, tapping an instrument gauge as if this would miraculously move the pointer.

“Kaktovik,” John said gruffly.

Jenny nodded at her father’s suggestion.

“Kaktovik?” Craig asked.

Matt answered, “It’s a fishing village on Barter Island, near the Canadian border. About a hundred and twenty miles from here.” He turned to Jenny as she banked the Otter westward. “Do you have enough fuel?”

She lifted one eyebrow. “You may have to get out and push us the last few miles.”

Great,he thought.

Craig’s face had grown more pale and drawn. He had already experienced one plane crash. The reporter was surely getting sick of Alaskan air travel.

“Don’t worry,” Matt assured him. “If we run out of fuel, the Otter can land on its ski skids on any flat snow.”

“Then what?” Craig asked sourly, crossing his arms.

“Then we do what the lady here says…we push!”

“Quit it, Matt,” Jenny warned. She glanced back to the reporter. “We’ll get to Kaktovik. And if not, I’ve an emergency reserve tank stored below. We can manually refill the main tank if needed.”

Craig nodded, relaxing slightly.

Matt stared out at the burning coastline as it retreated behind them. He noted Jenny’s father doing the same. They briefly made eye contact. He read the suspicion in the other’s eyes. The sudden explosions were too coincidental to be mere chance.

“What do you think?” John muttered.

“Sabotage.”

“But why? To what end? Just because of us?”

Matt shook his head. Even if someone wanted to stop or divert them, this response was like killing a fly with a crate of TNT.

Craig overheard them. His voice trembled. “It’s a calculated act of distraction and misdirection.”

“What do you mean?” Matt studied the reporter’s face. It remained tight, unreadable. He began to worry about their passenger. He had witnessed post-traumatic stress disorder before.

But Craig swallowed hard, then spoke slowly. Clearly he sought to center himself by working through this problem. “We passed on word about our attackers to Prudhoe Bay. Someone was going to investigate tomorrow. I wager now that will be delayed. The limited investigative resources up here – military and civilian – will have their hands full for weeks. More than enough time for our attackers to cover their tracks.”

“So it was all done so someone could clean up the mess in the mountains?”

Craig waved this away. “No. Such a large-scale affront would need more of a reason to justify it. Otherwise, it’s overkill.”

Matt heard his own thoughts from a moment ago echoed.

Craig ticked off items aloud. “The explosions will delay any investigation in the mountains. It will also divert us and offer up a new, more exciting story for us to follow. The burning of Prudhoe Bay will be headlines for days. What reporter would want to miss such a story? To be here firsthand. To have witnessed it.” The tired man shook his head. “First the bastards try to kill me, now they try to bribe me with a more tantalizing and promising story. They throw it right in my damn lap.”

“Distraction and misdirection,” Matt mumbled.

Craig nodded. “And not just directed at us. We’re small potatoes. I would bet my own left nut that this attack had been preplanned all along. That we’re only a secondary distraction. It’s the larger world the saboteurs really want to distract. After this attack, everyone will be looking at Prudhoe Bay, discussing it, investigating it. CNN will have reporters here by tomorrow.”

“But why?”

Craig met his gaze. Matt was surprised to see the tempered steel in Craig’s eyes. He recalled him pulling the flare gun on him. Even under stress, the reporter thought quickly. Despite his scared demeanor, there were hidden depths to this man. Matt’s respect for the reporter continued to grow.

“Why?” Craig parroted. “It’s like I said. Distraction and misdirection. Let the whole world look over here at the fireworks”—he waggled his fingers in the air—“while the real damage is done out of sight.” The reporter pointed to the north. “They don’t want us to look over there.”

“The drift station,” Matt said.

Craig’s voice dropped to a mumble. “Something’s going to happen out there. Something no one wants the world to know about. Something that justifies setting fire to Prudhoe Bay.”

Matt now knew why Craig had been sent north by his editor. The reporter had tried to blame the assignment on a tryst with the editor’s niece, a punishment for a transgression. But Matt didn’t buy it. The man knew his business. He had a calculating mind and a keen sense of political maneuvering.

“So what do we do now?” Matt asked.

Craig’s eyes flicked to him. “We fly to Kaktovik. What else can we do?”

Matt crinkled his brow.

“If you think I’m going out to that friggin’ drift station,” Craig said with a snort, “you’re nuts. I’m staying the hell away.”

“But if you’re right—?”

“I’ve pretty much grown a liking for my skin. The bastards’ fiery show may not have fooled me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take a hint.”

“Then we tell someone.”

“Be my guest. No one will hear you above the sound bites for days. By the time you can get someone to listen, to go check, it’ll all be over.”

“So we have no choice. Someone has to go out there.”

Craig shook his head. “Or someone could just hide in that little fishing village and wait for all this to blow over.”

Matt considered the persistence of their pursuers, the explosion of Prudhoe Bay. “Do you really think they’d leave us alone out there? If they’re buying time to clean up their mess, that might include getting rid of us. They know our plane.”

Craig’s determined expression sickened.

“And we’d be sitting ducks in Kaktovik.”

Craig closed his eyes. “I hate Alaska…I really do.”

Matt sank back into his own seat. He looked at Jenny. She had heard it all. “Well?” he asked.

Jenny glanced over her gauges. “I’ll still need to refuel if we’re going to travel so far.”

“Bennie’s place at Kaktovik.”

“We can be there in an hour. And away in another.”

He nodded and stared north. Craig’s words echoed in his head: Something’s going to happen out there. Something no one wants the world to know about.

But what the hell could it be?

11:02 P.M.

USS POLAR SENTINEL

“We’ve been ordered to readiness, but not to deploy.” Perry stood atop the periscope stand. His officers had gathered in the control room. Groans met his words. They were Navy men, career submariners. They had all heard of the attack on Prudhoe Bay four hundred miles away. They were anxious to act.

Word had reached them half an hour ago through the snail-paced ELF transmission, sound waves passing with mile-long amplitudes through the ocean waters, emitting one slow letter at a time. The real-time communication net of NAVSAT’s satellites or UHF were currently under electrical bombardment by a solar storm.

His men had hoped to deploy to the Alaskan coast, to join in the investigation and help in the cleanup. Baby-sitting a bunch of scientists at such a time was intolerable. With a crisis on hand, practically in their own backyard, all had hoped for a call to action.

The latest orders from COMSUBPAC had arrived five minutes ago. Perry shared his officers’ disappointment.

“Any word on the cause of the explosions?” Commander Bratt asked. His words were clipped with frustration.

Perry shook his head. “Too early. Right now they’re still trying to put out the fires.”

But among his own crew, varying theories were already being debated: ecoterrorists bent on saving the Alaskan wilderness from further exploration and drilling, Arabs with an interest in cutting off Alaska’s oil production, Texans for the same reason. And the Chinese and Russians got their fair share of the blame, too. More sober minds considered the possibility of a simple industrial accident – but that was not as entertaining.

“So we simply sit on our frozen asses out here,” Bratt said gruffly.

Perry stood straighter. He would not let morale sour any further.

“Commander, until we hear otherwise, we’ll perform our duties as ordered.” He hardened his voice. “We’ll keep this boat at full readiness. But we won’t neglect our current assignments. The Russian delegation is due to arrive in three days to retrieve the bodies of their countrymen. Would you rather we leave the scientists here alone to deal with the Russian admiral and his men?”

“No, sir.” Bratt stared down at his shoes. He was one of the few men aboard the Polar Sentinelwho knew what lay hidden on Level Four of Ice Station Grendel.

Their conversation was interrupted as the radioman of the watch pushed into the conn. He held a clipboard in his hand. “Captain Perry, I have an urgent message from COMSUBPAC. Flash traffic. Marked for your eyes only.”

He waved the lieutenant forward and retrieved the clipboard and top-secret log. “Flash traffic? Are we hooked back into NAVSAT?”

The lieutenant nodded. “We were lucky to retrieve the broadcast intact. They must have been continuously broadcasting to slip through one of the breaks in the solar storm. The message is being repeated more slowly over VLF.”

Broadcasting on all channels. What could be so important?

The radioman stepped back. “I was able to send out confirmation that the message was received.”

“Very good, Lieutenant.” Perry turned his back on the curious faces of his officers and opened the clipboard. It was from Admiral Reynolds. As Perry read the message, an icy finger of dread traced his spine.

FLASH***FLASH***FLASH***FLASH***FLASH***FLASH

384749zAPR

FM

COMSUBPAC PEARL HARBOR HI//N475//

To

POLAR SENTINELSSN-777

//BT//

REF

COMSUBPAC OPORD 37-6722A DATED 08 APR

SUBJ

GUESTS ARRIVING EARLY

SCI/TOP SECRET – OMEGA

PERSONAL FOR C.O.

RMKS/

(1) POLAR SATELLITE CONFIRMS RUSSIAN AKULA II CLASS SUBMARINE SURFACED WITH ANTENNA UP AT 14:25 AT COORDINATES ALPHA FIVE TWO DECIMAL EIGHT TACK THREE SEVEN DECIMAL ONE.

(2) UNIT DESIGNATED AS DRAKON,RUSSIAN FLAG SUBMARINE. ADMIRAL VICTOR PETKOV ABOARD.

(3) RUSSIAN GUESTS MAY BE ARRIVING EARLY. INTELLIGENCE REMAINS SCANT ON REASON FOR THE ACCELERATED TIMETABLE. WITH RECENT EVENTS AT PRUDHOE, SUSPICIONS REMAIN HIGH ACROSS ALL BOARDS. SABOTAGE CONFIRMED. SUSPECTS STILL UNKNOWN.

(4) POLAR SENTINELTO REMAIN AT ALERT STATUS AND TO PATROL WITH MAXIMUM EARS UP.

(5) GUESTS TO BE TREATED AS FRIENDLY UNTIL OTHERWISE DISCERNED.

(6) PROTECTION OF UNITED STATES INTERESTS BOTH AT OMEGA DRIFT STATION AND ICE STATION GRENDEL REMAINS PRIORITY MISSION FOR POLAR SENTINEL.

(7) TO SUPPORT SUCH INTERESTS, DELTA FORCE TEAMS HAVE BEEN ORGANIZED AND ROUTED TO THE ARCTIC. OPERATIONAL CONTROLLER, SENT BY LR, HAS BEEN SPEARHEADED IN ADVANCE TO AREA. INFORMATION TO FOLLOW.

(8) GOOD LUCK AND KEEP YOUR TAP SHOES POLISHED, GREG.

(9) ADM K. REYNOLDS SENDS.

BT

NNNN

Perry shut the clipboard, closed his eyes, and ran the notes through his head.

The admiral had coded his own message into the encryption. LRwas short for “Langley Reconnaissance,” which meant the Central Intelligence Agency was involved. So the Delta Teams were being deployed under CIA leadership? Not a good thing. Such an organizational platform led to one hand being unaware of what the other was doing. It also stank of black ops maneuvering. Information to followmeant that even Pacific Submarine Command was cut out of the loop. A bad sign.

And at the end: Keep your tap shoes polished, Greg. Again the informality in the use of his first name was as good as a long line of exclamation marks. During one of the Navy’s formal dinner parties, Admiral Reynolds had used that same phrase when the faction representing COMSUBLANT, the Atlantic Submarine Command staff, had arrived at the hall. The Pacific and Atlantic submarine teams were fiercely competitive with each other, leading to challenges, war games, and rivalries that stretched across careers. Keep your tap shoes polishedwas shorthand for “get ready because the shit’s about to hit the fan.”

Perry turned to his XO. “Commander, clear the boat of civilians. Get them back to Omega and rally the men still on shore leave.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Once the Sentinelis secured, ready her to dive on my command.”

The chief of the watch spoke up from his station. “So we’re heading to Prudhoe Bay?”

Perry searched the hopeful faces of his bridge crew. He knew there was no need to head to Prudhoe Bay to get into the action; his men would realize soon enough.

He rapped the metal clipboard on his thigh. “Just keep your tap shoes polished, men. We’ve got some fancy footwork ahead of us.”

11:32 P.M.

KAKTOVIK, ALASKA

Jenny stalked around the parked Twin Otter, inspecting it with a flashlight. A scatter of bullet holes peppered one wing, but there was no structural damage. Nothing else needed immediate attention, and she could patch the holes with duct tape. She sipped from a coffee cup as she completed her circuit of the aircraft.

They had landed at the darkened snow strip of the tiny Kaktovik airport half an hour ago. Matt and the others had gone inside the nearby hangar, where a makeshift diner had been built in one corner. She could see them through a grease-rimmed window, bent over mugs of coffee and talking to the young Inuit waitress.

Only Bane remained at her side as she tended the refueling and checked her plane. The large wolf had made his own circuit of their parking space, lifting a leg here and there to yellow the snow. He now followed at her heels, tongue lolling, tail wagging.

Ducking around the rear of the plane, she returned to Bennie Haydon’s side. The squat fellow leaned against the fuselage, a cigar clamped between his teeth, one hand resting on the fuel hose. Huskily built, he wore a Purolator cap tucked low over his sleepy eyes.

“Should you be smoking out here?” Jenny asked.

He shrugged and spoke around his stogie. “My wife won’t let me smoke inside.” Wearing half a grin, he nodded to the waitress.

Bennie had been with the sheriff’s department, servicing the patrol fleet, until he saved enough to move out here with his wife and start his own repair shop. He also ran a sight-seeing company out of the same hangar and flew folks in ultralights over the nearby Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve. The small nimble aircraft – really no more than a hang glider with lawn-mower engine and propeller – were perfect for traversing the raw country by air, buzzing the caribou herds or flying low over the tundra. At first it had been only the occasional tourist, but after the growing interest in ANWR for oil exploration, he now transported geologists, reporters, government officials, even senators. His single ultralight had quickly grown into a fleet of a dozen.

Bennie glanced to a gauge on the fuel hose. “Topped off,” he said, and began to crank the hose and detach it. “Both tanks.”

“Thanks, Bennie.”

“No problems, Jen.” He tugged the hose free and began to drag it away. “So you going to tell me about them bullet holes.”

Jenny followed the mechanic back toward the hangar. “It’s a long story without any real answers yet.”

Bennie made a thoughtful noise at the back of this throat. “Sort of like you and Matt.” He nodded toward the window. In the midnight gloom, the bright interior shone like a beacon.

Jenny sighed and patted Bane as the wolf followed beside her.

Bennie glanced over to her, spooling the hose line. “You know he quit drinking.”

“Bennie, I don’t want to talk about it.”

He shrugged again and puffed out a large cloud of cigar smoke. “I’m just saying.”

“I know.”

The small door to the hangar banged open. Belinda, Bennie’s wife, stood in the doorway. “You two coming in out of the cold? I have eggs and caribou strip steaks frying.”

“In a second, hon.”

Bane didn’t have such patience. With his nose in the air at the scent of frying meat, the dog sauntered toward the door, tail wagging furiously.

Belinda let him pass with a pat on the head, then pointed at the glowing tip of Bennie’s cigar. “The dog’s welcome, that isn’t.”

“Yes, dear.” He gave Jenny a look that said, See what I have to put up with. But Jenny also saw the love shining between both of them.

Belinda closed the door with a sorry shake of her head. She was a decade younger than her husband, but her sharp intelligence and world-weary maturity spanned the gap. She was native to Kaktovik, her family going back generations, but she and her parents had moved to Fairbanks when she was a teenager. It had been at the beginning of the black gold rush – a flood of oil, money, jobs, and corruption. Indians and native Inuit, all anxious for their share of the wealth, flocked to the cities, abandoning their homelands and customs. But what they found in Fairbanks was a polluted, blue-collar town of construction workers, dog mushers, Teamsters, and pimps. Unskilled natives were ground under the heels of progress. To support her family, Belinda became a prostitute at the age of sixteen. It was after her arrest that she and Bennie had met. He took her under his wing – literally. He showed her the skies above Fairbanks and another life. They eventually married and moved here with her parents.

Bennie straightened, drew one last drag on his cigar, then dropped and stubbed it into the snow. “Jen, I know what you think of Matt.”

“Bennie…” Warning entered her tone.

“Hear me out. I know how much you lost…both of you.” He took off his oil-stained cap and swiped his thinning hair. “But you gotta remember. You’re both young. Another child could—”

“Don’t.”The single word was a bark, a knee-jerk reaction. As soon as she said it, she remembered Matt cutting her off just as abruptly. But she could not hold back her anger. How dare Bennie presume to know how it felt to lose a child? To think another child could replace a lost one!