Sub-Zero

by Robert W. Walker

  “Goddamnit, Marlo, I have to get back to command post. Either lower the bird or throw out the ladder,” shouted Wertman, clearly not to be argued with anymore. “1 don’t give a damn if you and the copter are dashed against the building! There’s more at stake than just you or me anymore.”

  Cigliani knew what the kid meant. They’d traversed over four hundred thousand square miles around Chicago and the Great Lakes region. After seeing what was happening all over, Marlo didn’t care if he ever set his bird down on the ground again. It was mid-April, and the entire Midwest was experiencing the worst snow and ice storm since the crippling storm of 1989. Since ‘89 there were more and more crippling, terrible, death-carrying storms of ice and snow. It had become an acceptable phenomenon, barely questioned. Winter meant death. The statistics had skyrocketed so often over the past thirty years that people no longer wondered. It was like listening to the news about the war in South America. The figures were high, but they were acceptable because some unfeeling bastard on television, with polished teeth and styled hair, said the toll was lower than expected or lower than yesterday’s head count.

  Sometimes Cigliani allowed himself to wonder why he worked for FBC (Fieldcrest Broadcasting Company), carting around the weathermen and newspaper men he despised. He’d be in South America in the war if they’d take him.

  “When I was a kid,” he’d said to Mark Wertman, who had treated him like an equal and a friend, “you never had people dying in Chicago, Minneapolis, or Cleveland of cold. Oh, sure, we’d hear about some poor old guy that went out with his shovel and had a heart attack, or someone who’d overexposed himself or something. But this, this is crazy.”

  Wertman had been very professional about answering him, saying, “How old are you, Marlo? Fifty-four maybe? What would that have made you in 1969--no, 1978? Twelve, say thirteen?”

  “That’s about right.”

  “In 1978, in the Midwest, over a three day period, over ninety people died as the result of a blizzard unparalleled in the history of the region. Recorded history, I mean, kept records on the weather. In 1979 it was worse. After ‘80 still worse, until it peaked in 1989, when we lost four hundred and sixteen people in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Several hundred more dead to the west of us- Iowa, the Dakotas. Even more dead in Minnesota and Wisconsin.”

  “I can still remember when deaths were few due to such weather conditions.”

  “The conditions aren’t the same, Marlo. They never will be the same again.”

  Marlo had pushed the release at his right which opened the hatch at the copter’s center simultaneously sending a rope ladder careening down, toward the top of the building. He turned to Wertman and looked into the younger man’s eyes, figuring him to be in his mid to upper thirties, though he looked younger. Wertman, he realized, had never known a mild Midwestern winter.

  “Good luck, Doc.” Cigliani attempted a quick handshake.

  “Keep your hands on the controls, and be careful getting to Meigs—and thank God the new governor saw to renovating the airstrip there. I’m afraid we’ve overstayed our welcome out here!”

  They looked firmly into each other’s eyes, Wertman trying to rekindle some of Cigliani’s usual good nature. He realized the copter was all Cigliani had.

  “Look,” he finally said to Cigliani. “I’m sorry about the crack about wrecking the Copter! I didn’t mean it. I know how much ... “

  “Get moving, Doc, she won’t last long here in this current.” Marlo Cigliani’s usual semi-tough voice had returned. Wertman hurried to the hull and out onto the rope, shinnying down quickly.

  3

  The observation tower was crammed with many more people than Mark Wertman cared to see at that moment. He entered the glassed-in floor from the stairs leading to the roof, while rubbing his burning, red eyes with the palms of his gloved hands. He calculated the last time he’d slept was two days before. He’ was ‘dressed in a snow-drenched, tan, Marlboro sports coat. His face was covered partially by a deep blue scarf. Over his hair was pulled a blue stocking cap.

  Normally, the observation floor was empty. It cost a dollar for restricted people to enter, and they could not go completely around the floor, their path being cut off on the north side where Wertman now stood. Still, there were always a few amateur weathermen, and visitors from out of town who’d heard of the John Hancock; the Sears Tower, and Fieldcrest Buildings. But the Hancock and Sears were the place to go, unless you came on the chance that you might meet some of PB’s celebrities. FBC, Fieldcrest Broadcasting Company, was housed in the building, along with Fieldcrest Enterprises-consisting of two newspapers, two FCC radio stations, and a wholesale distribution and manufacturing company which dealt in communications equipment of all kinds.

  Mark Wertman was a celebrity, by having risen as the city’s top climatologist through his studies at the University, and his role as FBC’s top weatherman. He’d been trying to get out of his contract with James Atgeld Fieldcrest and FBC for several months, since he’d taken the Mayor’s offer to become the City’s Chief Climatologist. Climatology was more than weather, and a climatologist was not a weatherman. He’d outgrown FBC, the camera’s eye, and celebrity. He hated to be called a weatherman, and tried to get FBC bigwigs to change to the more enlightened title of climatologist. They did a study on the street. Nobody knew what a climatologist was. One woman said it must be a mountain climber. They scrapped the idea.

  More important than his being tired of the unimaginary, disciplined FBC thinking, Mark wanted to have the freedom to devote himself one-hundred per cent to his new duties as the city’s Chief Climatologist. It meant special projects, a department and staff of his own choosing, and freedom from time requirements of men like Fieldcrest, whose only interests were inextricably mixed with average gains. Not that Wertman’s new position wouldn’t be lucrative.

  But his contempt for FBC, and his thoughts of a better life with a budget from the Mayor’s office were pushed far back into his mind now. His concern was for the horrible nightmare, which lay in the city. The death toll already stood at ninety-four persons, and the snow and ice continued to mount. When would it end? He and every other weatherman across the Midwest had predicted it would end nine hours before. But it didn’t. The snow just kept coming.

  Wertman started for the six doors of the elevators at the center of the observation deck. He recognized some of

  the people who stood in shocked horror about the windows, intimidated by the ferocity of the storm. They were employees of FBC, from the two newsrooms or with one or more of the radio stations in the building. His eyes fell for a moment on Joanna Sommers-a fair-skinned, tall blonde, who had earned a reputation as a competent and aggressive investigative reporter. Joanna and Mark Wertman weren’t dating as far as anyone knew, but they saw a lot of each other over lunches at The Hilton, The Ritz, The University Club and other posh places within walking distance of a four-star hotel. But Wertman’s and Joanna’s talk at Fieldcrest, when their paths did happen to cross, was usually short, formal, almost cryptic and always self-conscious. That they were seeing each other was no one else’s business. They’d agreed their relationship could be ruined by office talk, gossip, and notoriety.

  Mark acted as if she were just another of the employees milling about the deck, trapped within the building like everyone else had been. Wertman thought he would get an elevator before anyone he knew would say anything to him. People who didn’t know him would take him for one of the maintenance crew.

  Days before, his friendly grin had died away, along with his energy. Underneath the stocking cap, his dark, long hair was matted with grease and perspiration. Like everyone else, he needed a bath. But he could not disguise the boyish good looks, the broad, athletic shoulders or large frame. He’d never looked like a weatherman, more like a sportscaster, or the football player being interviewed by the sportscaster. He didn’t wear a tie, not even on camera, and his six-three frame was well illustrated when he’d take off his ja
cket in the newsroom.

  Suddenly, as he waited there for the infernally slow elevator door to open, a heavy hand lay on his shoulder and someone shouted, “Some goddamn weatherman you are.”

  It was Henry Ketterling. Ketterling, the anchorman for the weekend news show at FBE, was a tall, square-jawed man who slapped everyone on the back and enjoyed cursing whenever it fit well with what he had to say, which seemed always. Ketterling’s semi-friendly gaze brought crow’s feet to his eyes. Mark vengefully said to himself, “Bet you’re getting to be more and more of a problem for makeup.”

  “Hey, keep it down, will you, Ketterling?”

  “Touchy, touchy aren’t we,” said Ketterling, acting like a first class fruit, his fingers and hands moving about Mark’s collar. Then Henry Ketterling said in dead seriousness, “You know I’ve been trapped here for three days? The food in the cafeteria is about gone. The damn heat keeps going off every hour. There’s no place to call for help because the place to call for help needs help!”

  Henry’s face had become red, contrasting sharply with his thinning, silver hair.

  “So what in hell do you want me to do about it?” asked Mark, irritated beyond endurance, glaring into Ketterling’s eyes now.

  The elevator door opened. Several people were on it.

  They were laughing about something. One of them was telling a story. The group looked out the door at the two angry faces in front of them and fell silent. Wertman fought with people getting off the elevator as he got on.

  Before the door closed, Ketterling put his foot in it. The two doors returned to their hiding places between the walls as though they’d touched fire. “You might have warned us about this, this nightmare, Wertman!”

  Wertman took a step toward the older man. He was too tired for this, he knew. He tried to control his voice. “I did predict this. I’ve been predicting it for years. Now it’s here and there isn’t a hell of a lot I can do about it!”

  Just then Joanna pulled away from the group of reporters she was with, hearing Mark’s voice. She yelled to him, “Hold the elevator, please.”

  At the same time the elevator began to close again. But a trim, light-skinned, sallow-faced man of about fifty, standing only five-foot six inches tall, forced his way past Ketterling and got into the elevator with Mark Wertman. A moment before the doors closed, Joanna Sommers boarded.

  Wertman greeted Joanna, ignoring the stranger at his left, too tired to notice that the short man hadn’t pushed a down button. The newsroom was on the 99th floor. The weather room occupied the entire lOOth floor just below the observation deck. Joanna smiled politely at the stranger. His face was like a cold mask. She pushed the 30th floor where the company cafeteria was located.

  “You look like you could use some coffee, Mark,” she said. “I’ll join you.”

  “I have to work,” he said dryly. Then looking into her eyes, he said sincerely, “I’m glad you’re here, Jo, and not stuck somewhere outside, running down some wild story in this blizzard.”

  “N0 one’s going anywhere for a long time,” she responded.

  “You’l1 be there first though, when they open the doors.”

  She chuckled lightly in return. He began to step off the elevator on the weather room floor. “I’ll bring your coffee up!”

  Mark turned to look at her, somewhat shocked. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea, Joanna.”

  It was only then he realized that the little man on the elevator, standing slightly behind Joanna had a gun in his hand and was visibly trembling. The gun was pointed at Wertman.

  Mark saw the hand, blue from frostbite, fingering the trigger. He saw there was no time to react, that he would be shot in less than a second. His eyes fixed for the first time into the man’s face. He had a nearly blue growth of stubble on his face, and looked comical in a crumpled coat and hat, like some refugee from a circus. The little man’s lower lip retreated behind the upper lip in a pout. It looked as if he might cry as soon as the gun was fired. As the elevator doors began to close again, Wertman realized the man’s hand wasn’t working, that it reacted to his will the way a lead paperweight might. It was a blue, frostbitten clump over which he had no control.

  Wertman hadn’t time to think. He just pushed through the closing doors, past Joanna, grabbing the would-be assassin in his massive hands, prying the gun loose from him. But the gun did not pry easily. Wertman found it was so tightly clasped in the man’s blue fist that it was part of him.

  Joanna screamed when Wertman lurched back into the cab of the elevator. She thought he’d gone mad when he attacked the stranger next to her.

  “Mark! Mark!” she kept shouting.

  “Joanna!” responded Wertman, wrestling the smaller man to the floor and finally dislodging the gun. “Press the lower level!”

  By this time the elevator doors lunged open to face a crowd of bewildered office workers in wrinkled, loose clothes, holding sandwiches and plastic cups in their hands.

  “What the hell?” asked one man who had his hands filled with several bags of potato chips and a hot drink.

  A young man with long hair and a beard, whom Joanna knew as Crocker from the newsroom, glared for only a moment before dropping his sandwich and jumping into the elevator. Crocker pulled at Wertman to get him away from the stranger, but Crocker was no match for Mark who pushed him aside. Still, Crocker, like the hero in a soap opera, looked at Joanna and asked, “Are you all right?”

  Wertman had to reach up and push the button marked LL himself. He saw that both Joanna and Crocker were staring at him.

  “Has this guy gone nuts?” asked the bearded Tim Crocker.

  “I don’t know,” said Joanna, still staring. Her smooth blonde hair lay wildly over her shoulders.

  Wertman had lost his stocking cap in the foray. He recalled tearing off his gloves in order to pull the gun away. Even the gun was lost somewhere in the cab of the car.

  “What’s at LL?” asked Joanna, finally. “Where’s the gun?”

  “You mean this?” asked Crocker, getting up from the corner of the cab where he’d been pushed. “This is frozen solid.”

  “This man here,” said Wertman out of breath, “was going to kill me with it.”

  “It can’t fire, Wertman. The barrel is frozen stiff. If it did go off it would’ve taken his hand with it. Why’s he after you?” Crocker began the newsman’s questions in rapid fire. “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Mark Wertman, perspiring under his heavy coat, and staring at the Whimpering little man. Then, taking the gun from Tim, Mark said, “I’m going to take him to Gordy in Security. I hope there’s someplace where he can be locked up.”

  Joanna shivered as she realized what had happened.

  But she forced herself to bend over the tearful man and, seeing his frozen features, his blue hands, she snapped, “He needs a doctor.”

  “Sure, I’ll call Rush or General right away,” said Wertman sarcastically.

  “There must be someone in Fieldcrest’s kingdom who can administer medicine,” said Crocker. “I’ll check with Marie at the switchboard. She knows everyone in the building, what their jobs are, and how long they take for breaks.”

  Crocker was about to take the elevator back up. Mark, Joanna, and the assailant stared down a blank corridor towards Harold Gordon’s office. At the lower level, no money was wasted on frills. The walls were as gray and drab as the inside of an underground cavern. The floor was stone white. Joanna visibly shook with the cold and damp.

  Wertman held the elevator for a moment, wondering if they should let it go. “What if Gordy isn’t in his office,” he thought to himself. He and Joanna would be left alone with a maniac.

  “What’s the trouble?” asked Crocker.

  “I’ve never been down here before. It’s spooky, cold,” said Joanna, as if answering Crocker,

  “No trouble,” said Mark. “Hurry back, though, and Crocker, thanks for the help you gave me on level thirty.”
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br />   Crocker half smiled. Wertman laughed easily.

  4

  Tim Crocker pulled at the curly stubble of his beard, wondering why in hell the man downstairs with Joanna Sommers and Mark Wertman was so bent on killing Wertman. He pushed the button for the concourse and held it there. The elevator didn’t seem to want to lift. He wondered if it would give out soon, and if the electricity would be lost again. He’d already spent a half hour stuck in this very elevator earlier that day. He should have taken the stairs.

  The beard was beginning to irritate him. He needed to wash it, as he needed to wash all over. He’d grown the damn beard not only to be different but because he’d hoped it would make him look older. He was tired of being called “Kid” by everyone he met. He looked years younger without the growth. His size and weight were a deceptively tall 6’3” and a prizefighter’s 160. His weight was distributed well, being mostly taut muscle. He stayed in condition. He only wished he’d given Wertman a good jab to the jaw. The larger man might have been surprised. He would certainly have been stunned.