by Duncan Kyle
Suddenly, carelessly, I'd let my eyes stray from the tracks. Damn! Halting, I reversed a little, and failed to find them! I stopped, then, and slid across the seat to the other side window -and there it was, five or six yards away, mantled in snow: the hut!
But which way to go round it? Did it matter? On no basis of judgment at all, I went to the right, because it was the easier way and required no steering, and beyond it I picked up tracks again, fresher tracks that bit clean and revealing into the snow. Now I could be only a few yards from him, a hundred at the most. I tried to listen, but the sound of my own engine killed the roar of his and, in any case, the wind was behind me now: behind and rising, and snow blew almost horizontally past me.
As the TK4 crept forward, I searched my pockets clumsily for matches and sagged in disappointment when there were none. Without them even my single crude weapon was useless. Matches, matches! Damn it, I hadn't been caught without matches in years ! Then some trick of memory sent my hand to the fascia. When I'd cleaned out the TK4, there'd been a book of matches; where had I put them? If they'd slipped ... I couldn't feel them, but I knew they were there somewhere. I stopped the hovercraft and stared ahead. No sign of the tractor. I'd have to risk the TK4's cabin light. I felt for the solenoid switch and turned it low so that my own lights wouldn't blind me this time, then I pushed and turned.
Got them! A small rectangle of cardboard, compliments of British Airways, with four matches remaining. I clicked the light off quickly and edged forward.
Ten yards, twenty, thirty . . , and suddenly there he was: a dark, slow, shape looming out of the snow, moving slowly forward beside the hand line and the flag-topped anchor posts, and as the distance lessened slowly I could see that the back window of his cab wore a coating of snow. With luck, then, he wouldn't see me until too late. I inched the hovercraft outwards, parallel to him and a little behind, gripped the steering with my knees and bent low to open the match-book. Four matches. The first two broke. I lifted my head to glance forward. The tractor's door was swinging open. 1 bent and scratched the third across the worn striking pad - and snapped the head of the flimsy cardboard matchstick. Oh, Christ! One left. That one bent, too, as I struck it, and fell out of my awkward fingers on to the floor, its tiny flame beginning to die even as it fell. I grabbed the petrol bottle and stabbed the cotton wick towards the flame. Had it been anything but petrol vapour, my clumsiness would have killed it, but the tip of the wick was instantly aglow and smoke broke thickly from it. I knew I'd only seconds now; if the petrol bomb didn't get him, it would get me. Five or six feet more and the TK4's cabin would be level with the tractor's. Damn it, had I left it too late for the lights? I switched on the big main beams; they'd shine past him now, but perhaps the sideways glare would give me a ghost of a chance. I no longer dared risk raising my head. With one bullet left, he'd shoot only when he could see me.
But the whole wick was aflame now, lighting the inside of the cabin. I squeezed myself flat, cowering down beside the open window and watching as the tractor cab slid slowly into view: first the rear pillar, then the first glass pane. Another pillar and then it would be the doorway - and the rifle. So the time was now!
Backhanded, I flicked the bottle out, across towards the open door, and in that instant I was flung across the cab as the heavy bullet smashed my right arm. For what seemed an eternity, I lay collapsed, bruised and in pain and dazed with the shock of impact, and with one thought drumming in my brain: he'd won. And I had lost! I was helpless now, and weaponless, and he could finish me off as he chose. I turned my head, only half-seeing, and only half-comprehending what I did see. And even then I was hoping that I was wrong, that by some miracle the killer could still be someone else, someone I hadn't liked and trusted. But then I saw his face. It was lit a ghastly yellow-red by the burning petrol that had splashed his parka, and his mouth gaped as the flames blew up at his exposed skin. And, as I knew it must be, it was the face of Sergeant Vernon, and Vernon's eyes that glanced murderously across at me. He'd only to jump down and roll over in the snow for the flames to be doused. I saw him take a step forward to jump, knowing that soon he'd come up to finish me off.
And when he was gone from my sight, I tried to haul myself into a sitting position, but it was beyond me. The bulldozer was moving very slowly. He'd be able to jump back, when the flames were out, and use the blade to flatten both me and the TK4.
I sagged back, and then began to struggle again, and this time I did manage to force myself up a little and lean wearily across. The pain from my shattered arm made me want to scream, and I could feel the blood pumping from it. I forced myself to look out, and now the hovercraft had moved just ahead of the bulldozer. Sick and dizzy, I got my left hand to the throttle and began to turn the TK4 around. Had he left it too late? Was it possible I could still escape? But even if I could, he'd be out there, uninjured, unclipping the line he'd forgotten to unfasten when he'd murdered the Foster boy, that day weeks before, as they'd returned from the weather hut. If the line were unfastened now, and he moved young Foster's body even a few yards, the charge of murder would be difficult to establish. Slowly the headlights turned as I pivoted the TK.4, and I waited for the beams to catch him. But maybe they wouldn't; maybe he was beside me now, climbing aboard to kill me, as he so easily could with his hands alone.
No sign. And the use even of my left hand seemed to be going. My fingers moved like great weights towards the throttle control and, when they reached it, seemed to be moving in slow motion. Dimly I heard the engine revs increasing. And then, as the hovercraft began to move, I glimpsed him. Vernon lay flat in the snow, the dark of his parka level with the snow surface. And dimly I understood, for the track of the huge bulldozer patterned the snow on both sides of him. He must have stepped on to the moving track and been carried forward - and under! As the TK4 slid past, I looked down at him stupidly, still waiting for some trick, half-expecting him to rise and come for me. But he still lay there, as, with my vision unexpectedly dimming, I turned the hovercraft painfully to my left and headed for where I hoped the ramp led down into Hundred.
Chapter 19
I hadn't been aware of it, but while I'd been out on the icecap, the Cold Regions Research fliers from Thule had been taking a chance in the same brief wind break to parachute two Air Force doctors in. They jumped for the lights of the Swing and were lucky, and a bulldozer went ahead with them to Hundred. But for that, it seems, I'd have died in that bleak early morning. I remember nothing of it, of course, but somehow I must have stayed conscious just long enough to set the TK4 to the ramp. After that, the loss of blood was too great, and I must have lain unconscious as the hovercraft glided down the slope by force of gravity, and then careered like a great, slow, dodgem car, halfway along Main Street, until it burst through a snow wall into one of the trenches and hanging ice stripped the propellers.
Even after it was clear I wouldn't die, that the transfusion had been quick enough and the shock from loss of blood just a fraction short of lethal, they thought I'd lose my arm. But then, after all the foul weather, the disasters, the lousy breaks, Herschel arrived on the Swing and some good luck piggy-backed in on his shoulder.
For fourteen hours there was flying weather. Generators and pipes arrived, and sick and injured and dead were flown out. There must have been frantic activity all round me, but I have no recollection of any of it. I woke in a bed at Thule's big, modern hospital with a nasty post-operative hangover, my arm repaired and an army surgeon telling me with a smile that I was lucky. Not too long after that, I was flown first to McGuire Air Force Base hospital in New Jersey, then home to England.
I'd been home a few days and had reached the point where I'd almost mastered the art of dressing one-handed, when the telephone rang one morning.
'Mr Bowes?' An American voice.
'Yes.'
'One moment, sir. I have a call for you.'
I waited. Then an unmistakable voice said, 'You are ze man viz ze flying fan ?'
'Yes, Barney,' I said.
'I'm coming right over to see you. Give me two to three hours. You gonna be in ?'
'Yes, Barney.*
The grey suit, creased from travel, somehow diminished him. Polar bears are for Polar regions. As he sat in my flat he was a grizzled, middle-aged man, weak after illness, the legend fallen away. There was also the fact that his whole personality, his quality of attack, was suited neither to a suburban flat nor to what he had to say. I gestured to the bottles on the sideboard and told him to help himself, and he assembled the constituents of a Martini into what was clearly going to be a slice of humble pie. He took a swallow and said, 'The enquiry's over. You'll get the official report. And I've been asked to tell you how helpful your own account was. We appreciated it.'
'Did they,' I asked, 'find out why?'
'Vernon?'
I nodded.
Barney looked at his glass. 'Maybe. The shrinks tried awful hard to put a picture together. They came up with some kind of amalgam of high ability and disappointment, tossed in middle-age, paranoia and opportunity. But Christ, who knows? I'd known Vernon ten years and more. He was a real solid, reliable guy.'
'Until something changed him.'
'Until he came across the kid with all the dough. I suppose it's got to be that simple. Maybe it all happened a long time before and he was just looking for his chance. Still, I'll tell you what's known and what's supposition. Fact: young Foster stood to inherit a hell of a lot of money when he finished his service. If his sheet was clean.'
'I know the story.'
'Okay. Supposition : Vernon knew that. How he found out... ?' Barney shrugged. 'Kid must have told him some time, over a few beers maybe. Another fact : Vernon was in charge of the Hundred office at Fort Belvoir when the personnel selections were made that time. He put Foster's name on the list for Hundred.'
I asked, 'Is that kind of thing left to sergeants?'
'You know how it is. Lists get made, then approved higher up. Finally by me. There was no reason Foster should not have gone to Hundred. Another fact: we found two cheques, for fifty thousand dollars each. One in Vernon's wallet, the other in his locker. Both signed by Foster, both made out to cash, both undated.'
'Were the signatures genuine?'
'Sure they were.'
I said, 'But that's crazy! The moment Foster died his account would be frozen. By killing Foster, he made the cheques worthless!'
'That's right.' Barney's hands gestured his own incomprehension. 'Still, here's some more. Supposition: and this one's not all that good. But remember they were stuck in the hut, just the two of them. So maybe Sergeant Vernon was getting round to chiselling even more dough out of Foster. Foster only inherited if he got his discharge with the word exemplary plastered all over it. One charge - indiscipline, insubordination, even failure to maintain personal cleanliness, goddammit - and that conduct sheet would have been wrecked. Vernon really had Foster by the shorts. So you could put together some kind of a scenario in which Foster attacked Vernon first, right? Vernon defends himself, knocks the kid unconscious, panics, and just leaves him out there to freeze. Well, it's possible! Then, when he's back inside Hundred . . , well, that's when he has to work out a story real quick, and he says Foster blundered away from the rope and got lost in the white-out.'
I nodded. 'Then later he realized that Foster's body must still have the line attached. And when it was found .., but would it have been found?'
'Sure it would,' Barney said. 'Come the spring and a little daylight, the whole surface area's gone over. Markers and lines are lifted and repositioned, general tidying-up.'
'And the body tied to the line was positive evidence Vernon had lied.'
'Right. He had to get out and cut that line. But the weather stayed closed. Heavy snow, too, remember that. Soon the whole thing would have been buried deep and there'd be almost no chance for one man alone to find Foster. When he realized that, the shrinks reckon, that's when he started the attack on Hundred itself. It's kind of a classic pattern: the structure's a threat, so he sets out to attack the structure. With Hundred abandoned, Foster's body never would have been found. He'd have lost the money, okay, but he'd have been in the clear.'
We sat and looked at each other. I said, 'There's another thing I've never understood. Why on earth did he muck about with the bodies? Why take Harrer's body out of the trench and put it where the bulldozer would crush it? I mean, dammit, if he hadn't done that, we'd never have rumbled him.'
Barney shrugged. 'Who knows ? He was crazy anyway, but a supposition was slung together. You told us in your evidence that Vernon probably saw Doc Kirton with the food wrappings after that business with the bear. Likely he heard you talking. He knew Kirton wasn't going to find any saliva to analyse, because it was Vernon himself who'd scratched open the oil tanks and the emergency rations. No saliva, no bacteria, so no bear. Therefore proof of sabotage. So Kirton had to go.'
'It's a hell of a supposition!'
'Less than you'd think. Vernon kept a paper he stole from Kirton's office.'
'What paper?'
'Kirton's report. He'd done the microscopic analysis, and written up the results. The report said no bacteria, no evidence of animal saliva or animal hair or animal mucus. Vernon took it, which may have made sense to him. But he didn't destroy it, which just shows how crazy he was.'
I said, 'It still doesn't explain - '
'I know it. Listen: he killed Kirton. Probably did it right there in the hospital. So he had a body to get rid of, right? He puts Kirton on a sled-stretcher and hides him under something, a few boxes, anything, then he hauls off to the well trench, which is off limits, anyway, and not far away, and he knows he won't be disturbed in there as he drops Kirton down the well.'
'I realize all that. But why bring out Harrer's body?'
'Because having dumped Kirton, he realizes Kirton's going to be missed. There'll be a big-scale search. Maybe he's left some clues somewhere, something that leads to him. He hasn't but he can't be sure. Then he remembers there are other bodies, and one of them is Harrer's. Now Harrer doesn't look like Kirton, except they're both big men, and dark. Nobody's going to mistake one for the other, not unless - '
'Now I understand.'
'Yeah. The body's unrecognizable, there's a man missing, two and two make four. Nobody wants to look too close.'
'And the nuclear engineer, Captain Carson?'
'Carson's body was outside the escape hatch of the trench where he lived. Head beaten in. Vernon must have carried him up the ladder and dumped him outside. He'd fixed Kelleher with drugs and killed Carson. The reactor was going to be out of action a long, long time.'
I said, 'He only missed by a whisker, didn't he? He almost did force Hundred to shut down.'
'He came closer than you think,' Barney said.
'What do you mean?'
'Hundred's closing in the spring.' As I looked at him he seemed infinitely sad.
'Why?'
'That's the Army for you. Research project completed. Shy away from a can of worms.' He shrugged, then gave an apologetic little grin. 'So you see, we won't be needing too many hovercraft.'
'Many! You mean any.1"
'That's right, Harry. There'll be compensation, naturally, but-'
'But no sale,' I said.