“What?” he yelled, before spitting out a series of Russian curses, each more profane than the last.
Shenzhou 15 was there. It was closer, much closer, than he’d expected. It had noticed the activation of the Soyuz and turned to hunt down its prey like a bear hunts salmon. That was fine—this fish had a poisoned bite—but what he hadn’t expected was to see the other Soyuz heading toward the Chinese ship.
“What are you doing, Mikhail?”
“Find my family, my friend,” came the response. “I have programmed Zvezda’s engines for a burn, but they may come after you. One of us must escape.”
And then he heard John Brady’s voice. “It’s been a pleasure sailing with you, Yuri. And if anyone else is listening to this, I have one thing to say. ‘Hasta la vista, baby.’”
Yuri watched as, in crystal clear ultra-slow motion, the Soyuz fired its main engines even as the Shenzhou began turning. He stabbed down on the attitude control thrusters, edging his vessel backward, trying to put some distance between himself and the inevitable debris storm, and the two ships had just gone below the artificial horizon as a ball of exploding gas exploded up and out. Moments later, a pitter-patter of fragments ricocheted onto the orbital module and he kept his eyes on the status displays, waiting for an alarm to go off. But nothing happened. The noise settled down, and he fired the orbit insertion burn to separate him from the station. The last thing he saw as the crippled ISS spun back into view was the glowing wreckage of the two vessels and a single figure in a spacesuit, flailing away into the vacuum.
He switched on the radio and scanned the frequency band until he heard a voice. “Bāng wǒ!”
“Help you? Are you kidding? You people killed my friends,” Yuri spat. He knew that the poor devil spinning in a spacesuit had only been following orders, but he was all out of sympathy.
He fired the attitude thruster to increase the distance between him and the stricken space station, then swung it around, watching as his bright white home of the past months floated out of the view of the display. He deployed the periscope and glanced into the viewfinder from time to time as he went through the steps to orbital insertion. He hardly noticed the tears gathering in his eyes until he could barely see, then he shook his head and allowed the drops to float away.
The ISS had disappeared from the periscope by the time he was ready for the next stage. Focus, he told himself as he fought to keep the darkness that haunted the margins of his mind from clouding his thoughts. He was going to have to singlehandedly pilot the vessel safely back to Earth, otherwise the sacrifice of his friends would be in vain. He spat out a curse at them. How did it make sense for two of them to die when he was willing and able?
He knew the answer to that. They were flying the vessel by hand and using little more than the monitor and periscope to ensure they hit their target. Two sets of eyes and hands increased the chances of success. And the cost.
So now he would go on his own and tell the story. But who would believe him when the evidence had blown up on the other ship? He would make them believe.
Mikhail had inserted a sheet with instructions into the navigation section of the manual. He’d either been preparing for every contingency or he’d been planning his suicide mission for some time. The first was marginally more likely in Yuri’s view. Contingency had been the watchword in their training since the first day they’d turned up at Star City. This was his backup plan.
Yuri checked the coordinates on the sheet against those displayed on the avionics monitor. He’d nudged the Soyuz into the right altitude and, after some missteps, and using up more of the service module’s fuel than he’d have liked, he got close enough to the right inclination. Now it was a case of watching his position relative to the ground. He reckoned another two hours before he was ready. So, he sat back in his chair and thought of his friends.
“Commencing de-orbit burn,” he said to himself. Moments later, he felt himself being pushed forward as the rockets fired against the Earth’s rotation, slowing his ship down and beginning the plummet toward the ground.
He felt little, but watched out of the window—past the seat Mikhail should have been sitting in—as the sky turned from pure black into an inky purple before slowly lightening.
He went blindly onward, trusting Mikhail’s calculations as he had previously trusted ground control. Glancing up at the avionics, he counted down the seconds.
“Separation,” he whispered, listening as explosive bolts separated the orbital module and service module from the descent capsule. It was as if a blacksmith were banging on the outside with his hammer but, after a few seconds it was over and, a few minutes later, plasma flared from the windows before they went dark as the protective coating burned away.
He sat there mesmerized by the vibration and the rattling, hissing noise as the atmosphere thickened. Hands pressed down on his chest as the air around him slowed the ship down and gravity crushed him like a never-ending recoil.
He grabbed the manual control stick. No autopilot on this descent. Mikhail had listed the numbers to look for so he stood a chance of hitting the continental United States, so he fought to keep the numbers lining up. It was like trying to thread a needle, but still he battled.
Then, thump, as the parachute deployed, yanking him to one side, then back again, the roar of the wind like being tossed in the worst tempest imaginable. But it was working. He was coming down.
He relaxed and tried to make anything out through the heat-stained windows. It was bright, but he must have been passing through clouds because he couldn’t see any distance or even if he was over land or sea.
He watched the altimeter, and for the first time since he’d left the station, he thought of those he’d left on Earth when he’d blasted off from Kazakhstan all those months ago. His wife, Irina, and their son, Alexei. They’d been dead for months; he knew it intellectually and he thought he’d grieved for them. But now that he was close to landing, he realized he hadn’t even scratched the surface and the tears came again.
Then, 5.8 kilometers up, he started in his seat as bolts fired to jettison the heat shield.
Something was wrong. He scanned the panel. Failure of the mechanism. He hit the manual release. Nothing. Part, at least, of the heat shield was still attached. That meant that one or more of his soft-landing rockets, which were under the shield, wouldn’t work. At best that meant a bumpy landing. Then light flooded in as the window shields blew away.
He fought against the sudden instability of the capsule as it swung back and forth. The parachute yawed off to one side and he fired the hydrogen peroxide thrusters to compensate.
Five kilometers up and the parachute half detached, pulling on suspension cables intended to straighten the capsule’s orientation, but still it listed to one side.
He imagined the Earth rushing up to meet the capsule, almost wishing he was at sea, as the message Posadka flashed on the screen. Landing. You don’t say!
His seat snapped forward in time with the empty places to either side, as the capsule prepared for impact.
Then, feet from the ground, the rockets fired and the capsule lurched as he crossed his arms over his chest, bracing for a hot landing.
The impact, when it came, felt as though it turned his brain to jelly. He yelled as his arms flew forward, one hand smashing against the instrument panel, before pulling his limbs in again as the capsule rolled to one side.
Silence.
He lay there. His hand was sprained, he was certain of that, maybe even broken. If someone didn’t open the capsule from the outside then he could be trapped here and burn up on the ground rather than in the atmosphere. That really would be an ignominious end.
As he waited in the half-light, he glanced at the manual and Mikhail’s last instructions.
“Welcome home, my friend. Look in the baggage pouch. Merry Christmas.”
Chapter 5
Search
Ellie pulled the coat around her shoulders and scuttled through
the freezing air toward the Denver city records office. Right behind her, she heard the clickety-slap of her shadow’s boots on the snowy sidewalk.
Ellie pulled the glass door open and stood back to allow Lexa Delmont inside. The special agent and Ted Pope’s deputy shook the melted water from her shoulders and nodded her thanks. She looked like an ice queen—blonde, blue eyes and legs to die for—but she didn’t enjoy the cold, it turned out. Ellie suspected that following her around on her bureaucratic mission wasn’t the sort of assignment Delmont had imagined when she was growing up in Niflheim, dreaming of being a Norse god or, failing that, a special agent.
It had been three months since the rocket exploded and she, Patrick and Max had been seized, along with Buzz. They’d spent the first month confined to the top floor of a hotel, but it seemed the president had finally seen that a celebrity tour guide, B-list actor and a boy weren’t likely to be responsible for the disaster and had allowed them a little more freedom. Patrick, indeed, was now helping the authorities to improve their communication.
Exactly who these authorities were wasn’t entirely clear. President Buchanan had remained in Denver for the most part, shuttling back and forth between it and the seat of the federal government in Hazleton, PA, once a week.
Ellie took the well-trodden path through the reception area and up the metal stairs to the second floor. The woman behind the desk rolled her eyes when she saw who it was. “I’ll go check,” she said, before Ellie had even opened her mouth to speak.
As she took a seat opposite the desk and began the long wait. The woman always took her time. Ellie got the distinct impression she didn’t think much of people who might have relatives in refugee camps. Either that or she thought the whole exercise a colossal waste of time. But Ellie’s connection to the president, via the ice maiden, had enough weight to counter the flat-out denial she knew the archivist wanted to issue.
How long the president’s authority would be recognized in Denver was questionable, however. On the one hand Buchanan was indisputably the president of the United States. On the other, the eastern United States was largely underwater.
Denver also happened to be the seat of government of the newly created Union of the Mountain States, made up of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. All of these had remained high and dry after the flood and, with their political units intact, had formed a loose federation with Colorado Governor Chester Schultz at its head. Quite how he’d swung that, Ellie neither knew nor cared. What mattered was that, for now at least, Schultz respected Buchanan’s overall authority.
The word going around was that he believed Buchanan had access to emergency supplies that the mountain states would sorely need once their stocks ran out over the winter.
And then the weather had changed. Snow was a common enough sight in Denver, but not over the summer and the temperature had been hovering around freezing point for the past two months. In an uncertain world, Schultz, it seemed, was wise enough not to burn his bridges.
“Well, it seems you’re in luck,” the archivist said, throwing a thick manila folder down on a desk with a thunk. “These came in from Santa Clarita. Pretty old, but…”
Ellie leaped to her feet and ran across to the table, Delmont struggling to keep up. Santa Clarita! At last, she had the inmate records of the closest camp to Ventura. If Maria had made it anywhere, it would have been there. She felt her heart thump inside her chest, fighting back the panic as she opened the cover of the file. She’d thought that she was looking for closure, whatever that meant, but she now found that the prospect of finding out that her daughter had never made it to the camp—had almost certainly not survived—was worse than clinging onto hope.
“Are you okay?” Lexa asked, sitting down beside her and staring into her face.
“Yeah. It’s just…I’m scared…”
“Of not finding her there? I’m not surprised. She is your daughter.”
Ellie ran her fingers over the top sheet as if petting it. “A daughter I haven’t seen for over a year. A daughter with a home on the other side of the country from me.”
Lexa took her hand. “Husband got custody?”
“Yeah. I didn’t contest it.”
“You didn’t?”
Shaking her head, Ellie said, “Look, I wouldn’t have made the best mother. A child needs security and I couldn’t offer that. My life was chaotic. Then, when I’d finally sorted myself out, I got too busy. My boat took the place of my daughter. Jeez, what a callous b—”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. At least you didn’t start a tug of war. That way everyone gets hurt.”
Ellie glanced at Lexa, sensing that there was a painful story behind her words, but not daring to press her. One Pandora’s box was enough for now.
The top sheet declared that this was the register for the period from April to June—so from the beginning. If Bobby had taken Maria there, it would have been during that period.
She turned over the top sheet, her fingers shaking. Then she cursed. “They’re not in alphabetical order!”
Lexa looked over her shoulder. “They’re in date order. Come on, I’ll give you a hand. What name are we looking for?”
“Rodriguez. Roberto—or Bobby—and Maria,” Ellie said. “Thank you.”
She took the top inch or so of paper and slid it across to Lexa. “You’re welcome. It would be nice for someone to have some good news.”
“Oh, Lexa, I’m sorry. You have kids?”
She nodded. “New York. I gave up hope a long time ago. Come on, let’s get started.”
Ellie was bitterly regretting not getting a new glasses prescription when she’d been due one the previous year. Ever since she’d turned forty, she’d found herself struggling to read small text close up, so after an hour of screwing her eyes up, she was feeling exhausted.
“Rodriguez! Found it!” Lexa said.
Ellie started so violently, she sent her sheaf of papers flying. “Where? Where?”
Lexa slid the paper over and pointed. “Roberto Rodriguez.”
Ellie squinted and found the name. Was it him? She looked at the lines on either side. No Maria. The next name on the list was Evelyn Weiss and the one before Bobby’s name was a Linwood Witt. No Maria.”
“I guess Roberto Rodriguez is a pretty common name,” Lexa said. “Let’s keep looking.”
Ellie nodded dumbly. Sure, it wasn’t unusual, but she knew it was him, somehow. And he was traveling with a woman. Unless she was just next in line when he signed in. No, she knew this Evelyn woman was with him. But his daughter wasn’t. She felt anger rise, but it came to nothing. Because, in truth, and however hard she wanted to deny it, she was glad he was alive. Or, at least, had been alive.
She ran her finger along the entry with his name and found a handwritten note. Absconded during quarantine.
The same three words appeared next to the names of Linwood Witt and Evelyn Weiss.
So, that confirmed it—they were together. And he was up to his tricks again. If this Weiss woman had shacked up with him then she ought to watch out. Bobby never stuck at anything or with anyone. Except for Maria.
She looked down at his name, printed on the paper. She’d fallen for him a decade ago. They were both younger, prettier and stupider, but Ellie knew a commitment dodger when she saw one. And when he suggested they have a child together, well, that was a red flag.
Only made worse by his betrayal. She’d made it quite plain that she didn’t want a child with him and he’d deliberately sabotaged their contraception. And their relationship.
Sometimes she wondered whether she’d carried Maria to term to spite him or because she still loved him and it was what he wanted. In truth, however, she wasn’t that much of a monster. She’d loved Maria and had intended to try out family life with Bobby, but the betrayal had destroyed any chance of them rebuilding their relationship as a couple.
With the advantage of time for self-reflection, she knew it was
n’t as simple as a torn condom. Her own father had disappeared after being convicted of fraud, taking her comfortable childhood with it. Problem was, she was like him and she was terrified of inflicting that level of trauma and insecurity on a child of hers.
So, two parents with commitment issues of one kind or another. A disaster waiting to happen.
Then it did. The world flooded. Now she wanted her daughter and her daughter was nowhere to be found.
Perhaps it was time to turn the page. So, she folded the sheet containing Bobby’s name in half and slipped it inside her coat.
She got up, tidied the remaining papers, fastened the cover of the file, and handed it back to the archivist. “Thank you,” she said, and led her guardian out of the building and back to their hotel.
Patrick was there when she arrived, sitting on the double bed. He put his book down and read her face, seeming to divine what had happened in those few moments. He put out his arms and to her relief, she found she wanted to give herself up to emotion, so she folded herself into his embrace and sobbed.
Chapter 6
Mission
Patrick Reid ran a hand over his hair then looked down the front of his business suit before opening the door and going inside.
President Marian Buchanan sat in the central seat of a long, polished table. Next to her was a wide, middle-aged man wearing a bolo tie. His left hand fidgeted as if he were used to holding something between his chubby fingers. A cigar, perhaps? Good grief, what would Patrick give for a cigarette? Giving up a year ago didn’t seem such a good idea anymore.
As soon as Patrick had entered the room, he’d noticed the man’s small eyes focused intently on him.
“Mr. Reid, thank you for coming,” Buchanan said, indicating a swivel chair placed opposite the long table. It looked like a job interview panel, except for the smaller table positioned between them. “Do you know Governor Schultz? I’m sorry, President Schultz.”
Ice: Deluge Book 4: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story) Page 4