Hostage

by Chris Ryan

  Papaluk loved her cabin. The well-insulated walls made it warm and cosy, even when the wind was strong enough to make the steel support hawsers sing. Sometimes the whole structure swayed in the wind like a ship at sea, but she always felt safe and protected inside.

  Until now.

  Papaluk's broad cheekbones were flushed with anxiety as she checked through the e-mail she had just written. Her hand shook as it hovered over the mouse button. She hesitated, then withdrew her hand and turned from the laptop to check through her notes one more time. There it was in black and white. The test results showed that cyanide waste was being dumped illegally into one of the rivers flowing into Hudson Bay.

  She had first begun to suspect something six months earlier, when she had detected an unusually high number of miscarriages and birth deformities amongst the bear and seal populations in the bay. Since then, she had seen an increasing number of fish-eating birds and animals showing signs of cyanide poisoning, but she had been unable to find concrete evidence until Li and her friends had turned up with their cold-water diving gear. Earlier in the week they had collected specimens of water, plants and dead or dying fish from the mouth of the river for her and she had finally been able to carry out the necessary tests.

  Cyanide was used in the gold-mining industry and there was a gold mine on the banks of the river, fifty miles inland. Papaluk knew that the mine had been failing, but an American-based corporation had taken it over the previous year, sacking all the local workers and bringing in their own men. The new company was secretive about its mining methods, but Papaluk had investigated on the Net and discovered that the mine was now making a profit for the first time in years.

  Earlier that morning Papaluk had contacted the mine's management. As she expected, they had denied any illegal dumping of cyanide waste and she had explained that they left her with no alternative but to make her findings public. She had spent the rest of the morning putting her evidence together. Now she was ready. One click of the mouse and her e-mail would be sent to every government and environmental agency in Canada and North America. The reason for her hesitation was that she knew she was about to make a very powerful enemy. Daniel Usher was the head of the company that had bought the mine and he had a reputation for ruthlessness.

  As Papaluk scanned the e-mail once more, she heard the mosquito whine of an approaching snowmobile. Like most Inuit, Papaluk was very sociable. She reckoned that if someone was prepared to travel through sub-zero temperatures to pay her a visit, then the least she could do was to give them a warm welcome. Normally, she would have rushed out on to the platform of her observation cabin to see who had come to call, but she was so involved in what she was doing, she did not even raise her head.

  The mosquito whine stopped as the snowmobile came to a halt on the hard-packed snow below the observation hut. Still, Papaluk did not move. It was the custom for unexpected visitors to call out from the bottom of the tower, so when she heard the clang of booted feet climbing up the ladder without being invited, she presumed that Li and the others had returned. The climber had nearly reached the top of the tower when Papaluk remembered two things. One, Li and her friends were travelling by tundra buggy. Two, they were all wearing mukluks, soft boots with a rubber sole. This visitor had arrived by snowmobile and the boots she could hear clanging against the ladder rungs had hard soles.

  An icy chill of fear ran down her spine. She turned on her stool to see a black silhouette clambering on to the viewing platform outside the cabin. It was a man, a big man, and suddenly Papaluk knew in her gut that he was not friendly. Surging to her feet, she ran for the door. There was an old-fashioned bolt under the handle which she never normally bothered to use. If she could just lock the door, it would buy her a few minutes to call for help on her phone. She fumbled to grasp the bolt and slide it across, but she was trying too hard and her fingers kept slipping. The man was on the platform now. Two strides and he would be at the door. Papaluk whimpered in fear and frustration. She finally managed to get a firm grip on the bolt handle. With a sigh of relief, she yanked hard. The bolt was stiff with disuse and refused to move.

  The man ran at the door and rammed it with his shoulder. It smashed open and knocked her sprawling. She scrambled to her feet, grabbed the heavy microscope from her workbench and raised it above her head, preparing to hit the intruder. The man stopped, spread his arms wide and smiled. It was the smile that made Papaluk hesitate. Had she got it wrong? Was this a friendly visit after all? The man's smile widened. He had an honest, open face and his bright blue eyes gleamed with amusement.

  Papaluk lowered the microscope and tried a tentative smile of her own. Quick as a snake, the man slammed his fist into her stomach. She dropped the microscope and doubled over. The pain made her eyes stream with tears and a high, whooping noise came out of her mouth as she tried to find some air. With a great effort, she raised her head and saw the logo on the man's padded jacket. It said USHER MINING CORPORATION.

  Suddenly Papaluk knew what she had to do. Half-straightening, she turned to her workbench, pretending to clutch the edge of the bench for support. She reached out a shaking hand towards the mouse but, before she could click the button to send the e-mail, the man grabbed her by the hair and yanked her away from the bench. Papaluk screamed in pain and clawed at the man's hand. He let her go and she fell to the floor, clutching her head. Calmly, the man leaned over and deleted the e-mail, then severed the Internet connection. He picked up her notes, folded them and stuffed them inside his jacket, then he checked the workbench for any other evidence. Satisfied, he grabbed a glass sample jar and smiled down at Papaluk.

  'Come along,' he said.

  'Wh-where are we going?'

  'Not far.'

  The man was very strong. Within a few minutes, despite all her struggles, he had bundled her into her outdoor clothes and was forcing her down the ladder ahead of him. She reached the ground and started to run, but he was on her within two steps.

  'You have guests?' he asked, turning her to face the line of snowmobiles and loaded trailers that were waiting for Alpha Force to return.

  'They're only kids!' cried Papaluk. 'And they don't know anything!'

  'When will they be back?'

  'Not for a few days,' said Papaluk hastily, but she could not help glancing along the shore to make sure there was no sign of an approaching tundra buggy.

  'That soon?' said the man, catching her glance. 'We'd better get on with it.'

  Holding her upper arm in a vice-like grip, he frogmarched her down to the water. When she realized what he was going to do, Papaluk began to cry and her tears made frozen, white trails on her cheeks.

  'Please . . . Please don't. I won't tell anyone about the cyanide. I promise,' she begged.

  The man shook his head sadly. 'Sorry,' he said. 'You know how it is. Boss's orders.'

  'Then let me talk to him!' cried Papaluk as they reached the water line. 'We can go back to the cabin and call him. I'm sure, if I talk to him—'

  Her words were cut off as the man suddenly took her by the shoulders and threw her down into the icy waters of Hudson Bay. The cold was so intense it made all her muscles go into instant spasm. Her mouth opened wide and water flooded into her throat and lungs. She swallowed convulsively and the water entered her stomach, drastically reducing her core body temperature. Papaluk curled into a ball under the water as her muscles contracted even further. It was as though she had received a massive electric shock. The man was holding her down under the water but there was no need. The pain of the muscle cramps was overwhelming and she could not struggle.

  Just as she thought she was going to drown, the man hauled her back out of the water and up on to the ice-covered shore. Papaluk lay curled where he had dropped her, shuddering with intense muscle cramps and coughing up water. She knew she had to get back to the warmth of the cabin. If she stayed out in this wind in soaking wet clothes the heat would drain out of her at a catastrophic rate and she would be dead within minutes.
She held out a shaking hand to the man but he simply stood and watched her with a mildly interested look on his face. Papaluk turned on to her front and tried to push herself up off the ground but the man planted a foot on the back of her neck and held her down. Papaluk whimpered once, then concentrated on trying to strip off her soaking clothes, but her hands had contracted into claws and she could not get a grip. As her struggles weakened, the man removed his foot from the back of her neck and stood back, watching. Papaluk began to drag herself towards the cabin but her claw hands could not find a purchase on the ice and she did not get far. The rough surface tore her fingers to shreds but she was so numb with cold, she could not feel it. For five long minutes she struggled to save herself until her core body temperature dropped to a critical level. Gradually, her feet stopped kicking and her hands grew still. Her muscles relaxed and she lay quiet on the ice, barely conscious and breathing shallowly. The man watched her for a moment longer, then bent forward and placed the glass specimen jar next to her hand. If anyone found the body before the bears disposed of it, they would think she had fallen in as she tried to collect a water sample.

  'A tragic accident,' he whispered, easing a strand of frozen hair away from her cheek before turning and walking away.

  Papaluk was not cold any more, even though her hair and clothes were now sheathed in ice. The signals from her nerve endings were no longer getting through and all her major organs were slowly shutting down. The surfaces of her lungs had frozen and the cells in her oxygen-starved brain were winking out one by one. A film of clear ice formed over her open eyes, acting like a prism and breaking the light into glowing ribbons of colour. She was face down on the snow, but she thought she was looking at the sky. She thought the northern lights were dancing in her eyes and her mother had come to take her home.

  Papaluk smiled as she died.

  FIVE

  Paulo brought the tundra buggy to a gentle halt beside Papaluk's tower. After a quick check for bears, Amber and Li opened up the back of the buggy and lowered the ladder. Paulo, Hex and Alex formed a passing line between the tundra buggy and the snowmobiles and Amber and Li handed down all the diving equipment. They did this in synchronized silence. They had been working together for so long now that there was no need for talking. During their trip inland, Alpha Force were planning on making some dives under the frozen surface of one of the lakes, which was why they were packing the diving equipment into one of the snowmobile trailers. The other trailers were already packed with equipment and supplies, ready for the trip.

  Paulo smiled as he patted the nose of his snowmobile. It had been fun driving the tundra buggy, but he was looking forward to some extreme riding in the snowy forests of the interior. They would have to be on the look-out for polar bears to start with, but once they were away from the coast the snowmobiles would be safe enough.

  At the last minute, Alex added the tranquillizer rifle to the trailer. Papaluk would not need it. She had another one propped by the door of her cabin. 'Right,' he said, securing the cover over the trailer. 'We're ready to head out.'

  A fizz of excitement coursed through him as he spoke. The week of diving and bear-watching with Papaluk had been fine, but there had been no real challenge to it. He, Paulo and Hex had slept in comfort on padded bunks in the tundra buggy, and Li and Amber had shared the cabin with Papaluk. There had been hot meals waiting for them at the end of each day and the cabin was packed with all the latest communications technology, including satellite television reception. Alex had found it slightly strange, watching cookery and make-over programmes in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. He much preferred to be out there, depending on his own expertise and instincts for survival, which was why he was looking forward to this second leg of the exercise.

  'I'll just let Papaluk know about the return of Cyclops,' said Li.

  'Where is Papaluk, anyhow?' asked Amber, gazing up at the cabin. 'She usually comes out to say hi.'

  For the first time, Alpha Force became aware of the silence. At this time of the day Papaluk usually took a break from her work, brewed up a fresh pot of coffee and played a CD of her favourite band, very loudly. Today there was no smell of coffee and no music blasting out over the tundra, only the howling of the wind.

  'Maybe she's still trying to sort out those cyanide-dumpers,' said Hex, looking up at the cabin.

  They had all been aware of how distracted Papaluk had been at breakfast. She had collected all the evidence she needed, but still she had not been looking forward to taking on the might of Usher Mining Corporation.

  'I'll go and see how she's doing,' said Li, jumping on to the tower ladder. She sprinted up the narrow rungs as though she was running up a flight of stairs, then hopped up on to the viewing platform and disappeared from sight.

  A minute later, she was back, hanging over the viewing platform rail with a puzzled look on her face. 'She's not here,' she said.

  Alpha Force looked at one another uneasily.

  'Then where is she?' demanded Amber, her voice high with anxiety.

  'She cannot have gone far,' said Paulo. 'Not without the tundra buggy.'

  On the viewing platform, Li suddenly straightened up. 'Oh no,' she gasped, pointing out towards the bay. 'Down there by the shoreline.'

  The other four looked but could see nothing from their lower perspective.

  'What is it?' asked Alex, but the chill in his guts told him he already knew.

  'It's Papaluk,' quavered Li. 'And she's not moving.'

  They raced down to the water and gathered round Papaluk's still body. She was lying face down so they eased her over on to her back. As they moved the body, the layer of ice covering her clothes and hair crackled and splintered. Paulo kneeled beside her head and pressed his fingers to the pulse point on the side of her neck. After a few minutes he shook his head. No-one argued with him. It was obvious that Papaluk was dead.

  'She's smiling,' breathed Amber.

  They were all quiet for a moment, staring transfixed at Papaluk's face. She looked like an ice princess. Each lash fringing her dark, slanted eyes was white with frost. Her face sparkled as though it was encrusted with tiny diamonds and her hair was spiked with icicles.

  'What happened?' asked Li, her voice shaking with shock.

  'I think maybe she slipped and fell in while she was taking a water sample,' said Paulo, nudging the sample jar with his toe.

  'Yeah, but she got herself out again,' said Amber.

  'Why couldn't she get back to the cabin?'

  'She wouldn't've had much chance in these temperatures,' said Alex. 'You lose heat twenty-five times faster when your clothes are soaked through.'

  'That's not how it was,' said Hex slowly. They all turned to look at him. Hex was the code-breaker and puzzle-solver of the group. If there was something wrong with a scenario, he always spotted it. Now, his green eyes were sharp as he looked down at Papaluk's body, then lifted his head to scan the bay. 'That's how we're meant to think it was,' he added grimly. 'But that's not how it happened. This is . . . wrong.'

  'Tell us,' said Alex.

  'Papaluk had no need to be down here. We'd collected all her samples for her. And even if she had decided to get just one more, this is still all wrong.'

  'What is wrong?' asked Paulo.

  'The sample jar. It's next to her hand. With the lid screwed on.' Hex sighed with annoyance at their puzzled expressions. 'Are we really supposed to believe that she leaned over to collect a sample, fell in, then managed to haul herself back out again, still holding on to the jar?'

  'You're right,' said Alex. 'She would've let go of it. It should be at the bottom of the bay.'

  'And once she climbed out of the water, did she really spend precious time finding the jar top and making sure it was screwed back on before she died? No. I think someone tried to make this look like an accident,' said Hex, scanning the bay again. He unslung the underwater camcorder from his shoulder and began filming the scene.

  Li frowned. She was not sure
she liked Hex filming her friend's dead body. When she was alive, Papaluk had always put her hand over the lens when Hex pointed the camcorder at her, but she could not do that now. 'What are you doing?' asked Li.

  'Evidence,' said Hex briefly.

  Li was about to object, but stopped with her hand raised and her mouth open as the tones of a mobile phone suddenly rang out across the bay. They were coming from somewhere near the cabin. Alpha Force tensed and slowly turned round. The ring tones stopped, cut off in mid-trill, and a tall, blond man stood up behind a large rock. He held a mobile phone in his hand. He had obviously just fumbled it from his pocket and turned it off. He waved and smiled at them, then disappeared behind the rock. An engine coughed into life and the man emerged again, riding a snowmobile. He drove slowly towards them, still smiling.

  Everyone looked from the man to one another, trying to make sense of this strange appearance. Only Hex did not seem confused. He turned the camcorder on to the man and carried on filming. The man's easy smile wavered for a second, then settled back into place. Hex used the camcorder lens to zoom in on the logo on the man's jacket. It said USHER MINING CORPORATION.

  Hex nodded. It was what he had expected to see. 'Run,' he said flatly.

  'Excuse me?' said Paulo.

  'We have to run. Head for the snowmobiles. Now!'

  Hex's final shout jolted the other four into action. They took off, sprinting across the packed snow, but the man was faster. He revved the snowmobile engine and brought the machine round in a skidding turn across their path, spattering them with sharp needles of ice. They stumbled to a halt, covering their eyes against the flying ice slivers. When they lowered their hands again, the twin barrels of a sawn-off shotgun were trained on Hex's chest.

  The man was not smiling now. He climbed down from his snowmobile, keeping the shotgun trained steadily on Hex. 'Give me the camcorder,' he ordered.