Freezing Point

by Karen Dionne

  It stopped, and for a long, hopeful moment she thought it was going to recover. Then the craft tipped sideways and flipped. She screamed as the helicopter plummeted toward the earth and slammed into the ice. The rotors shattered. Chunks of metal flew out in every direction.

  Ross threw her to the ground and threw himself on top. She raised her head, watching in horror as the helicopter bounced across the ice, the stumps of its rotors still turning. Then it came to the edge of the cliff and disappeared.

  Chapter 31

  Cold.

  Quiet.

  Ben opened his eyes.

  White.

  And dizzy. His shoulders burned, his head throbbed, and his arms were dangling over his head.

  He turned his head to the side. Pinpricks of light filled his vision. He closed his eyes until the spots retreated, then tried again.

  Cam was sitting in the seat beside him, but strangely, his arms, too, hung over his head. His eyes were closed, and his face was covered with blood. A wave of nausea welled in Ben’s gut as he remembered everything: Cam cursing and yelling as he fought to control the stick; screaming for Ben to take the crash position when they flipped; shoving his head between his legs as he braced for impact. Contrary to popular expectation, his life hadn’t flashed before his eyes; all he had seen were the bungee cords and white foam cups and dirty Kleenexes beneath his seat.

  He remembered the impact; the screaming, the bouncing, the not-knowing, and then inexplicably, the screaming and falling again until at last, the helicopter crashed to a stop.

  The helicopter had crashed.

  Dear God.

  The helicopter had crashed, but he had survived.

  His face was wet. He reached up and touched his forehead. His hand didn’t come away red. Snow. The helicopter was packed with it, like the engine compartment of a car that had plowed into a ditch. The snow had saved him.

  Or maybe it was jet fuel. He touched his fingers to his face again and sniffed. The air smelled of fuel and something else—a sharp, pungent odor he’d experienced once when he was a teenager and he’d spun out his Camaro on an icy road. Fear.

  Beside him, Cam groaned. He opened his eyes, then closed them again.

  Ben blinked. They were both alive.

  The fuel smell made him nervous. They had to get out. Cam’s helmet was gone, but Ben still had his. He’d have to unbuckle and drop. He twisted around in his harness, trying to see what was beneath him. He wasn’t about to fall on something sharp and end up skewered.

  “Are you all right?” a man’s voice asked.

  Ben looked to the side. Two faces were looking in, a man’s and a woman’s.

  The man reached through the shattered window and touched Ben’s shoulder. “Hey, there. Talk to me. Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” Ben said. It came out, “Eh sin sa.”

  “He’s in shock,” the man said to the woman. “We’ve got to get them out of there. Smell that jet fuel? This thing could blow any second. I’ll hold him up while you unfasten his seat belt. Tuck your head in, pal,” he said to Ben. “This might hurt.”

  Hands lifted him, held him, fumbled with the latch.

  Then his head smacked the ceiling and everything went black.

  He woke up on the ground. He lay still and looked up at the darkening sky while he did an assessment: He wasn’t knocked out; he knew who he was; he knew where it hurt. He raised himself onto his elbows, then sat up.

  Cam was stretched out beside him. The man and the woman were bent over his leg.

  “It’s broke.” It was Cam’s voice, matter-of-fact, almost cheerful. Was he in shock? Ben’s medical knowledge was next to nonexistent. He and his had been disgustingly healthy, accident-free, until now.

  Behind them, the helicopter lay against a massive ice boulder at the base of a cliff. It looked like a crumpled ball of tinfoil. Had they really rolled all the way down? Ben could see the scarring on the slope where the helicopter had cut a path. It was the boulder that had saved them from rolling straight on into the sea. He shuddered to think what would have happened if it hadn’t been there. He and Cam were both wearing life vests—standard operating procedure when flying over water, Cam had explained when he gave Ben his—but the water was barely above the freezing point; he doubted the vests would have saved them.

  “We’ll have to carry him into the station,” the man said to the woman. He was talking about Cam.

  “I’ll get a blanket,” the woman replied. “What about him?” She pointed at Ben.

  “He’ll be all right. Probably just a concussion and some bruising. If he can’t walk, we’ll carry him, too.”

  “I’m okay,” Ben said.

  “He’s mumbling again,” the woman said.

  “Don’t worry. His head will clear in a bit. This guy’s the one in trouble. We have to stop this bleeding.”

  There was a lot of blood. Something white was poking through Cam’s jeans. Ben looked away as nausea threatened again, and noticed something moving along the base of the cliff. He squinted. The man said Ben wasn’t thinking clearly, but as he watched the thing come closer, he was pretty sure of what he was seeing . . .

  “Behind you,” he said to the woman, just in case. He tapped her arm and pointed. “Over there. I think that’s a rat.”

  The woman followed his finger. She yelled and jumped to her feet.

  “It’s okay,” Ben said, even though he had a feeling it wasn’t.

  She picked up a rock and threw it. The rat ran off. Then another one darted up. Ben flinched as the second rat leaped onto Cam’s leg and bit down hard. Cam screamed. The man and the woman beat at the rat with their fists, and the rat retreated.

  “Look out!” Ben yelled. Rats were streaming out of an opening at the base of the cliff like ants from a nest. He scrambled to his feet.

  “This way! It’s closer!” The woman grabbed his hand and hurried him toward a cement block building.

  He stumbled. She put her arm around his shoulders and fast-walked him to the door, then dumped him inside and ran back out.

  He crawled to the door. The man was dragging Cam by his life vest. Cam screamed as the rats nipped his heels. The woman ran over to them, kicking and yelling, and the rats scattered. She picked up Cam’s feet, and she and the man ran to the shelter. Once they were inside, Ben shut the door.

  Chapter 32

  Gakona, Alaska

  The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program observatory eight miles north of Gakona was open to the public only once a year. Not because the project was classified—it wasn’t, though because it was managed jointly by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research, the uninitiated could be forgiven for thinking that it would be. In actuality, there was nothing secret about the H.A.A.R.P. observatory at all. The research it produced was published regularly in peer-review journals. The faculty sponsored an annual Ionospheric Interactions Workshop to showcase projects and report advances. Photos, construction stats—even laymen’s explanations of the science involved were posted freely to the Web. The reason the university physicists, their students, and the government and commercial scientists who worked there welcomed visitors only once a year was the same reason research institutions everywhere limited access: Visitors were a nuisance.

  These restrictions didn’t apply to Gillette. He had come to the facility on business. He’d left L.A. early to fly 2,687.8 air miles in Soldyne’s private jet, then driven a rented SUV seventeen miles up the Tok Highway to Milepost 11.3 to make what was for all intents and purposes a courtesy call. A good-faith gesture. Dr. Steven Headrick, H.A.A.R.P.’s project overseer and the man Donald had come to see, needed to understand without ifs ands or buts that when Donald promised Soldyne would be using H.A.A.R.P.’s resources next season, it was as good as done. When the board voted in favor of Ben’s microwave method three years earlier, Donald’s credibility had taken a serious hit. Now he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to assure, reassure, and otherw
ise ensure that this time, the outcome would be different.

  The two men admired the HF transmitter array as they stood on a planked deck outside Headrick’s office. The 180 interconnected finned antennas spread out over 33 acres reminded Donald of something he’d once built out of Tinkertoys. The day was sunny and bright; cold, but that was to be expected. This was Alaska in February.

  The outdoor location wasn’t Donald’s idea. But if standing on a porch in subzero weather with a man whose conversation could have put Rip Van Winkle to sleep advanced Soldyne’s interests, he’d do it. And because he was Donald Kershaw Gillette, executive vice president of the largest and most successful solar energy corporation in the world, he did it better: Chuckling at Headrick’s inane jokes, listening attentively to the scientist’s obvious and predictable concerns, offering a thoughtful comment or a leading question at appropriate moments, never letting slip that what he was really thinking of was the half-finished bottle of Scotch on the Gulfstream’s teakwood table.

  Headrick detailed the improvements since Donald’s previous visit. The facility had upgraded from 960 kilowatts of power to their projected 3.6 million watts—on schedule and on budget, he made a point of saying (the implications of which were not lost on Donald), adding that they’d attained the maximum size and power level that could be constructed in accordance with the Environmental Impact Process (as if Donald cared).

  Mercifully, his cell vibrated. He checked the number. “Sorry,” he said to Headrick with his best what-are-ya-gonna-do good-old-boy shrug. “I need to take this.”

  “Not a problem,” Headrick said. “Join me inside when you’re finished. I’ll have the coffee on.”

  Donald flipped open the phone. “This better be important,” he growled after the scientist was out of earshot.

  On the other end of the line, Adam said soberly, “It is.”

  As Adam related how Ben’s team had learned of a medical emergency at Raney Station, and how Ben had gallantly helicoptered over to save them, but the rescue attempt appeared to have gone bad because it had been twenty-four hours with no word and everyone was worried about what might have happened, Donald’s tension evaporated like ice cream on a summer sidewalk. He tsked the appropriate noises, told Adam to keep him posted, and went inside.

  “Problem?” Headrick asked as he held out a steaming white foam cup.

  Donald smiled. “Not at all. Everything is just fine.”

  Chapter 33

  Raney Station, Antarctic Peninsula

  “Zo. Wake up. We have a problem.”

  A hand jostled her shoulder. She forced open one eye. Ross squatted beside her bunk. His shirt was open, and his hair hung loose around his shoulders. She noted his developing beard with disapproval. Granted, after a day in the shelter following two days of medical madness, she probably didn’t look her best, either, but she was pretty sure she didn’t smell.

  She rolled over and faced the wall—not an easy thing to do since the bunks were narrow and her legs were long. They had a problem, all right, but not in the way he thought. She was furious with him; as angry as she had ever been. Every aspect of their present predicament—every single part—went straight back to him. The helicopter had crashed because Ross insisted on marking out the landing pad on top of the glacier. They’d been forced to retreat to the emergency shelter because the crash stirred up the rats when the helicopter dropped into their nest. They were stuck in the shelter because of the rats, and because of the storm, which wasn’t Ross’s fault, but the fact that the crash had taken out the flag line was. The pilot had a broken leg they couldn’t set and a level of pain the Tylenol 3 in the medical kit couldn’t touch—again, because of the crash.

  And as if all of that weren’t enough, snoring away in the next bunk was the man who was responsible for the destruction of the ice shelf. A man who also happened to be Ross’s friend. In one of those small-world coincidences that weren’t as rare as people liked to think, it turned out that Ross and the guy from the iceberg (and not McMurdo Station as Ross had mistakenly presumed—another error) had gone to school together. After they took off their helmets and hoods and realized they knew each other, the two had a great time playing old home week, but who cared how many kids Maki had, or who Ross’s sister had married, or which of their old pals was working where? Maki worked for Soldyne. Soldyne destroyed the ice shelf. End of story. Maki insisted he didn’t know anything about the explosion, and repeated the same tired pro-environment justifications Adam had used to coerce her cooperation, but claiming that melting icebergs into drinking water was good for the environment was a non sequitur after your company took steps to hurry things along.

  But more than anything, she was furious because she was frantic to get back to the station. The others didn’t have days or even hours; their life prospects were measured in minutes. Elliot was as good as dead, if he wasn’t already, and she had no way to reach him, even though they were less than a football field apart—and it was all Ross’s fault.

  He shook her shoulder again. “Come on, Zo. Get up.”

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed. If she made a show of listening, maybe he’d go away.

  “Here.” He handed her a glass of water. “Drink this.”

  She accepted the glass not because she was taking orders from him—she was done with that forever—but because she was thirsty, and downed it in one long pull. She set the empty on the floor next to her boots. Boots stained with blood, thanks to Ross.

  He leaned close and cupped a hand over her ear. “Bad news,” he whispered, and pointed toward Cam’s bed.

  As if the news could have been good.

  Chapter 34

  The whispering woke him. Ben opened his eyes, then immediately closed them again. His head throbbed. Every bone and muscle ached. He felt drained, as though someone had siphoned out his blood while he was sleeping and replaced it with water. As he fumbled for his eyeglasses, his eyes burned and his hands shook.

  He threaded the stems over his ears and blinked to clear his vision. Across the room, Ross and Zo were huddled on her bed, whispering. They looked like they were sharing a kiss, but Ben knew better. Zo hated Ross; ten minutes had made that abundantly clear. He didn’t know their history, and he didn’t care. Whatever her issues, they were her problems, not his.

  Right now, nothing was more important than getting Cam medical help. He looked toward Cam’s bed. Thankfully, Cam was quiet. The meds must have kicked in. Cam had suffered horribly during the first few hours, thrashing and moaning—literally out of his mind with pain. (That is, unless the shelter really was populated with green and purple snakes packaged like ramen noodles.)

  He rubbed his eyes again. There was a brief period while Ross was administering first aid and Zo was checking the window every five minutes to see if the rats had retreated when Ben blamed Cam for their troubles. After all, he was the one who had claimed to be such a hotshot rescue pilot. But in the end, Ben had to admit responsibility. He’d wanted to play the hero, now he had to accept the consequences. They were stuck in an emergency shelter with only the barest of medical supplies while outside, man-eating rats lurked and the mother of all storms raged. All he could do was wait, and pray.

  He reached for the glass someone had left beside his bed and drained it. Moments later, he clutched his stomach.

  He stood up. Inexplicably, the room grew dark. The whispering stopped. He gripped the edge of the bunk rail and waited for his vision to clear. He felt muddle-headed. Disconnected. Light and floaty, like an angel.

  Like an angel.

  Maybe, he thought, as a realization struck him that was so overwhelming in its significance it made his knees buckle, maybe he really was an angel. Maybe he hadn’t survived the crash, and Ross and Zo and the emergency shelter and Cam’s broken leg and the storm and the rats were just a weird, afterlife illusion.