by Mark Aitken
Approaching the helo, almost unable to stand, Gallen raised his G36 and gestured Ford and Winter to close on it from opposite flanks. The ice creaked as the men approached the downed aircraft and Gallen could see the patches of clear lake water below, reflecting the moonlight.
Pushing into the cockpit, Winter poked and prodded the pilot and gave the thumbs-up to Gallen. The ground creaked again: were they on a glacier, or was it the deep snow contracting with the cold, having warmed in the day?
‘Let’s get on that radio,’ said Gallen, his voice sounding far away with fatigue.
Putting his boots on the Little Bird’s step, Winter froze. ‘What the fuck—’ he started, and then he was turning, the helo moving as the ice emitted a ripping sound.
‘Shit,’ said Ford, moving to Winter as the helo slid deeper into the snow.
Gallen looked down at the source of the ripping sound and saw a crack opening a few feet in front of him.
‘It’s going,’ he said, the creaking and ripping joined by a crashing as tons of ice hit the lake’s waters below.
Grabbing Winter by the arm, Ford pulled the big man off the helo’s step and ran with him through the snow as the gap opened in front of Gallen. The two men ran, Gallen screaming encouragement as the helo disappeared from view and the noise of the ice hitting the lake reached a crescendo.
Shoving his rifle’s muzzle into the snow as hard as he could, Gallen sat straddling it and called for the men to leap as the gap opened to six feet in front of him. The whole scene unfolded in slow motion, the ice opening at a steady but slow pace and the two men struggling through deep snow which reduced their progress to the most excruciating pace.
Winter leapt first, pushing off the receding precipice of the crevasse and landing with his hands on Gallen’s fatigues belt. Ford leapt a second later and disappeared into the darkness of the opening maw.
Screaming at one another above the cacophony of the sheering ice cliff, Gallen leaned back, driving his ass into the snow, hoping for enough purchase with the rifle and his heels to hold up the Canadian.
‘Climb!’ screamed Winter, and Gallen felt the rifle start to slip through the snow, pushing the heels of his boots over the edge so they were dangling under Winter’s armpits.
Why was Winter telling Gallen to climb?
Then he said it again. ‘Mike, fucking climb!’ and Gallen saw Ford’s hands gripping into Winter’s shoulders, tearing at the arctic parka’s heavy fabric.
Reaching down as they all teetered on the edge of the yawning crevasse, Gallen gripped Winter by the shoulder of his parka. With his other hand, Gallen gripped Ford’s glove and took the weight, the rifle sliding a few inches more through the snow towards the gap. Once it reached the edge they’d all be going into the lake and certain death.
Gallen’s balls ached as they bore the weight of two men. ‘Make it fast,’ he said with a grimace as Ford clambered over Winter’s shoulder and hit the ground behind Gallen.
The movement made the rifle slide through the ice precipice and Gallen felt his momentum taking him over as Ford grabbed him by the back of his belt. The rifle gave way and clattered into the darkness as his legs and hips extended over the edge, Winter holding onto his legs and front pocket, the lake gleaming below. Gallen could now see the waves made by the falling ice and submerged helo. He didn’t want to die—not down there, anyway.
Yelling at the top of his lungs, Gallen pulled up on Winter as Ford pulled back on his belt. Twisting around, he came face to face with the icy edge as Winter clambered over him and helped Ford drag him to safety.
Panting in the moonlight, lungs aching with the cold, they caught their breath as the lake slowly returned to its millpond stillness, with not a sign that the helo had ever existed.
‘Well, that was a fuck-up,’ said Ford as their pulses returned to normal, triggering a laughing fit among them. Gallen laughed until his eyes ran; for the first time in three years, he felt a sense of joy.
‘Drove a corporate jet into a cliff, dropped a helicopter into a lake,’ Winter chuckled. ‘And we’re just getting warmed up.’
Sitting up, Gallen pulled the last of the Marlboros from his parka, fished out three that were unbroken and offered them to the other men. As Winter proffered flame from his Zippo, they sucked on their smokes like men attending their own funerals.
‘Well,’ said Gallen, as they smoked, ‘we have to go back, hope the fire hasn’t gone out.’
It was the death option and none of them expected to make it. At least one of them would fail and the still fit wouldn’t have the strength to drag an exhausted man through chest-high snow at fifty below. They’d arrive back at the shelter, physically spent and with no fire and no food. They were already struggling to breathe and talk, and their uncoordinated movements were consistent with the early stages of hypothermia.
‘Or,’ said Winter, sucking on his smoke from way back in his parka hood, ‘we can check that out.’
Following his gaze, Ford and Gallen looked across the lake, getting a clear view now the helo wasn’t in the way. On the other side of the lake, between two large snow dunes, was a shape that didn’t look natural, a white sphere hovering over the snow.
‘What is that?’ said Gallen.
The moon had risen further and although it wasn’t full it was casting a strong light in the still air. Winter raised the field-glasses and took his time investigating the sphere.
‘I make it a compound,’ he said. ‘Got a large dome, sitting on a building of some kind. Demountable, maybe? Whole thing inside a fence.’
Gallen had a look, saw the white sphere balanced on a rectangular single-storey building.
‘That’s four miles, maybe five. You guys up for it?’
‘Weren’t doing nothing anyhow,’ said Winter. ‘Diary’s free.’
Gallen looked at the Aussie. ‘Mike?’
‘Pope shit in the woods?’ said Ford. ‘How about you, boss? Got the gas?’
‘Nope.’ Gallen stood and brushed himself off in the moonlight. ‘But that never stopped me before.’
~ * ~
CHAPTER 24
Winter cut the last of the muffins into even portions with his Ka-bar knife and handed them out. They were hard, like stale ship’s biscuit, but the men chewed at them and swallowed them down, knowing that the next several hours would sap their last reserves. They’d talked it through and Gallen had insisted on a vote: either trudge for an hour back to the fuselage to the certainty of no food or radio, but a guarantee of heat; or spend maybe three hours in the snow at fifty below to get to a small chance of food, heat and radio. No guarantees.
They voted unanimously: risk all for the strange building in the snow.
Spooked by the collapsing lake frontage that had claimed the helicopter and the radio with it, they took a wide track around the north end of the long lake, staying fifty yards away from where they expected the lake started. What had scared Gallen most about the helo’s submersion was the fact that the lake had eroded so far under the land ice. There was no telling how far back the lake extended under the ice and he didn’t want to test it with the boots of three men.
Urging each other on, they took turns in the lead through the snow, the lead man acting as a sort of ice-breaker to ease the passage of the men following. The temperature was brutal and they tried to keep rests to a minimum, the sweat on their backs and legs freezing as soon as they stood still for more than thirty seconds.
Stopping briefly at the top of a large snow drift, Ford pulled his ratted G-Shock from the front pocket of his parka and read the time: 11.54 pm. They’d been travelling just over three hours and the sphere had disappeared from view.
Gallen’s left lung ached under his injured rib. In the past half-hour, the pain had deepened so it was no longer purely external. His breathing was faint and he was losing strength. He reckoned he had another thirty minutes of exertion.
‘Hey, look at this,’ said Ford as they prepared to set out again. ‘Dude’s wat
ch has a temperature gauge. It’s fifty-two degrees below zero, Celsius.’
By the time they’d negotiated two major snow bowls, Gallen was no longer asked to lead. He was falling behind and Winter had pushed him into the middle of the pack. He was running on instinct, his legs numb with fatigue and cold and his breath ridiculously shallow, as if he was sucking breaths through a straw.
At the bottom of a bowl, where the snow was head-height and had to be fought through like a jungle path, Gallen looked to the top of the drift that loomed over him and his legs stopped.
As he lost his balance, he felt Winter grab him under the armpits; there was shouting and then Ford was in front of him.
‘Ten more minutes, boss,’ said the Aussie.
Winter whispered in his ear, ‘We’re gonna do this. We’re not stopping now.’
Planting one foot in front of the other, his balance kept largely by leaning on the snow wall as he followed Ford’s trail, Gallen managed to get himself to the top of the drift. They all panted as the zenith moon illuminated the ground in front of them. It was dominated by a large white dome sitting on a square scaffold which in turn sat over a long, white demountable.
‘Holy shit,’ said Winter, out of breath.
It took them five minutes to get to the fencing around the structure, their enthusiasm and panic combining for a renewed sprint through the snow. Winter smashed the padlock on the gate but they couldn’t swing it open through the deep snow, so the Canadian threw his pack over the cyclone fencing, climbed to the top and put his hands down for Gallen, who allowed himself to be man-handled over the fence by the two men, falling into deep snow on the other side.
Walking around the seemingly abandoned structure, they could find only one door that wasn’t completely snowed over. It had been a long time since someone had shovelled snow around this building.
Kneeling, Winter scraped at the snow until a sign on the door appeared: Property of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Trespassing at this facility is prohibited and punishable under national security laws.
‘Ooh,’ said Ford facetiously. ‘I’m gonna tell on you, Kenny.’
The snow was hard-packed and the three of them cussed as they dug it out, down to the door handle and then down to the step, Winter getting into the subsequent hole and kicking a pathway so the snow didn’t fall in when he broke down the door.
Reaching up, he took a rifle from Ford and cocked the slide, aiming at the lock and putting a protective flat hand across his eyes.
‘Fire in the hole,’ he said, and put a three-shot burst into the heavy locking mechanism. Dropping his shoulder into the door, he bounced off it.
‘Again,’ said Ford. ‘Can’t hold out forever.’
After another three-shot burst, the shots echoing for several seconds in the still night, Winter forced the door and it swung inwards. Sliding down the side of the hole, Ford and Gallen followed him into the darkness.
Pressing the backlight buttons on their G-Shocks, they walked through anterooms and storage areas that contained the detritus of an abandoned military outpost. Pushing on, they found themselves in the room that obviously sat beneath the spherical dome on the roof, a core of wires and cables descending from the sphere into the centre of the room. Computer screens, radars and comms equipment were arrayed around the core.
‘Listening station?’ suggested Gallen.
Winter had a closer look, and raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘I think this is a distant early warning facility, what they called the DEW Line.’
‘The what?’ said Ford.
‘Cold War stuff,’ said Gallen, remembering the story. ‘Detect the Ruskies before they flew their bombers over the Arctic. Right, Kenny? ‘
The Aussie snarl came from the darkness. ‘Bingo, boys. Check this out.’
Following Ford’s voice, they walked through a door and into a room that made Gallen’s heart sing: a series of dry stores, then a kitchen with a stove with a stack of wood beside it.
‘There’s a washroom in there,’ said Ford. ‘Shower too. With any luck the stove heats the water.’
‘Mike, get the fire going.’ Gallen moved back to the main door, which he shut against the brutal cold. As he turned, the rooms lit up with an amber glow as the other men found a kerosene lamp and Ford kneeled in front of the stove’s open door.
‘We’re gonna make it, boss,’ said Winter, his hood and balaclava down and showing a rare smile.
‘It’s a start.’ Gallen tried to smile, but felt suddenly very weak.
‘Boss,’ said Winter, dropping the lamp and running to him.
Gallen felt his weight collapsing on Winter’s chest, heard the Canadian calling for Ford and then his head was lolling, his feet dragging.
He knew what it was, but he was beyond speaking. He hadn’t taken a proper breath for five minutes. His lungs had failed.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 25
Gallen opened his eyes, the overhead lights making him wince. His mouth was dry, his lips fat and cracked. He turned his head, realising he was dressed in a body bag made of what looked like aluminium foil. He was naked beneath the bag and his fatigues were hanging up to dry along with Winter’s and Ford’s. The throb of a generator sounded and the electric lights were working.
Leaning over the stove, Ford was also in a foil body bag which he’d taped at the ankles. The BBC World Service played on the radio and Gallen realised what felt strange: for the first time in several days, he was warm.
‘There you are.’ Ford smiled as he turned. ‘Cuppa?’
‘Coffee, black,’ said Gallen, his voice croaking as he tried to sit up, triggering a fireworks display behind his eyeballs.
‘Don’t get up,’ said Ford, coming over. As the Aussie sat down on the bunk, Gallen realised there was a large medical kit open on the floor beside his bed.
He knew he’d passed out and he could remember it was because of the pain in his ribs and inability to get air.
‘What’s up?’
‘Been feeding you paracetamol in your sleep,’ said Ford, fitting a stethoscope to his ears. ‘Trying to get the swelling and fluid down.’
‘Fluid?’
‘Yeah.’ Ford stood and poured coffee into an enamel mug. ‘Been stething you every half-hour. There’s a huge haematoma on your left ribs, but under it is a growing reservoir of fluid. In the pleural cavity of your lungs.’
‘Speak English, you damn Aussie,’ said Gallen, pushing himself onto his elbow and taking the coffee.
‘Pleurisy, mate,’ said Ford, his bedside manner belying the fact he was a trained saboteur and killer. ‘You take an injury to your chest in this kind of cold, and pleurisy is highly likely.’
‘Pleurisy? Like pneumonia?’
Ford looked up as Winter entered the room. ‘The two often go together, but pleurisy is water between the outside and inside lining of the lungs. If we let it go too long, your lung will collapse. It won’t take air.’
‘That’s why I passed out?’
Ford smiled. ‘Amazed you made it that far, frankly. I was sucking up some big ones getting through those drifts.’
‘So?’
‘So I was feeding you paracetamol, to reduce the swelling, but we have to drain that lung.’
‘Drain?’ Gallen sipped at the coffee and felt his ribs pound with the exertion of talking.
‘Take the fluid off and then pump you with antibiotics, which we have right here,’ Ford said, holding a jar of capsules that looked like they’d passed their use-by back when a genuine actor was in the White House.
Gallen looked at Winter as he approached. ‘Hear that, Kenny? Take fluid off?’
‘Thought we’d lost you, boss,’ said Winter. ‘I’ve seen this done before, in the Ghan. It’s no biggie.’
‘How small is no b . . .?’ said Gallen, the question cut off as he ran out of breath.
‘I put a tube into the cavity,’ said Ford, ‘then draw out as much fluid as I can with a large syringe.’
Gallen looked from one set of eyes to another. ‘You’re serious. You think you’re gonna put a tube into my chest? ‘
‘I did this once in a cave in Helmand,’ said Ford. ‘He was American, too.’
Gallen shook his head. ‘He live to talk about it?’
‘Sure,’ said Ford, deadpan. ‘He lived to tell me that if I ever set foot in the state of Mississippi, he’d hunt me down like a fox.’
~ * ~
The BBC World Service had the disappearance of Harry Durville’s plane at the top of its ‘Americas’ section. The announcer started reading the story of the eccentric, tough oil billionaire as Ford finished his painkiller injections around the side of Gallen’s chest. Hiding the catheter in his fist, Ford lifted it to the rib cage and pushed in hard, the sensation numbed until the spike slipped between two ribs and into Gallen’s lung tissue.