Holy Terror

by Graham Masterton

  ‘OK,’ said Conor, without much optimism. He went into the cabin and collected his backpack. It contained two changes of clothing, some Lindt chocolate bars and a thermal blanket.

  He helped Per Rakke topple the raft off the fore-deck into the sea. Then he swung his leg over the side and started to climb down the netting which Per Rakke had hung out for him. He hesitated for a moment and Per Rakke said, ‘By the way, there’s one thing I forgot to mention. Polar bears.’

  ‘Polar bears? You’re kidding me.’

  ‘Of course not. There are more than two and a half thousand on Svalbard. They’re very dangerous. The chief predator, you understand. You don’t usually see them near the town, but if you do, don’t try to run away. Just fire your pistol in the air to frighten it off.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I shoot it?’

  ‘With that little gun? No, you’ll only make it mad. Something else, too: don’t try to chase a polar bear. When they run they get hot very quick and that makes them mad, too.’

  Conor looked with apprehension toward the shore. ‘Thanks for the warning,’ he said. ‘Just hand me the paddles, will you?’

  It took two or three attempts before Conor could climb into the raft. The current kept swinging it away from the side of the fishing boat and spinning it around in circles. Huge lumps of ice kept nudging against it. At last, however, he managed to get one foot in, and then the other, and throw himself into a sitting position without capsizing it. It swung around even more violently, and the bottom humped up as if Jaws had struck it from underneath. ‘Your paddles!’ shouted Per Rakke, making wild crablike gestures with his arms. ‘Use your paddles!’

  Conor untangled his paddles and thrust them into the water. Up on the foredeck of the fishing boat, it hadn’t seemed as if there was very much of a swell, but down here he felt as if he were going to be swamped at any moment. His face was stung by freezing spray, and every second wave slopped into the raft and gurgled noisily from one side to the other. He managed to control the raft’s frustrating rotation by jamming one of his paddles against the side of the fishing boat, and then he started to row toward the point.

  The only rowing he had ever done was at high school, and on the lake in Central Park – leisurely oar-pulling followed by long moments of rest. Rowing toward the shore of Isfiorden against the fast-flowing current of the Arctic Ocean was something different. He had to paddle relentlessly to keep the raft from spinning out of control, and it seemed as if he were being pitched in six different directions at once. He was only half-way toward the point before he was exhausted, his shoulders aching and his heart thumping and his breath coming in tortured wheezes.

  As he neared the point, a faster current caught him. He was hurtled toward the jagged granite rocks at almost twenty knots, whirling and bucking and spinning around as he did so. He was surrounded by a white calamity of broken ice.

  ‘– out!’ he heard, from Per Rakke, his hands cupped around his mouth.

  ‘What?’ he screamed back.

  ‘Watch out! The rocks!’ and he made a jabbing gesture with both hands.

  Conor was spun around again, and then the raft was caught by a surging wave and lifted toward the rocks. He raised his paddle and imitated Per Rakke, jabbing against the granite to prevent the raft being dragged up against it. The shock through his arms was so violent that the paddle was torn out of his hands. But the raft caught the incoming current and was swirled away from the point and in toward the ‘holiday beach’.

  Conor no longer had any control over the raft. With a loud thump of rubbery complaint, it was swept onto the rocks that littered the shoreline. Conor was thrown sideways and fell against the side, grazing his face on the seams. He felt the surf seething beneath him, regathering its strength, and he realized that if he didn’t get out now, he would have to be hauled back to the fishing boat to try the whole bruising performance all over again. He stood up, dancing to keep his balance. Then he rolled over the side of the raft onto the shore, just as a huge icy-cold wave crashed over him. He staggered to his feet, his eyes stinging and his nose filled up with freezing brine. He leaned against a rock, knee deep in water, barking like a seal.

  The orange raft was whirled off into the gloom, amongst the ice floes. Per Rakke began to haul it in with the electric winch that he used to bring his nets up. Conor managed to suppress his coughing and climb up onto the rocks, with cold water squelching in his boots. He turned and looked back to the fiord, but Per Rakke was running without lights and his fishing boat had already melted into the fog.

  Conor began the slow climb up the ravine, his feet rattling on the rocks, stopping from time to time to cough. The temperature was down to minus 3, and he couldn’t help thinking of Eleanor holding his hand between hers and begging him not to go.

  Chapter 29

  Once he reached the head of the ravine he stopped and rested. He had always assumed that he was fit, but climbing up through 200 feet of loose granite boulders had almost completely exhausted him. It was dark now but there was an old luminosity in the fog and he could make out the shapes of the surrounding crags. He judged that it was a two-and-a-half-mile walk over the hills to the town of Longyearbyen itself, passing close to the cemetery.

  He gave himself ten minutes to recover, and then he started off again. He left the broken boulders behind and started to walk across hard, moss-covered tundra. It was always so cold here that nothing else could grow except lichens and stunted alpine bushes and little purple saxifrage. Even in the middle of summer, the soil thawed to a depth of less than a meter.

  After a while, he felt the wind beginning to rise. It made a fluffing noise in his ears, and the bad news was that it was blowing against the back of his head. A north-east wind, directly from the polar ice cap, with no stopovers. The temperature noticeably dropped, and the fog began to sidle away like a company of ghosts. The luminosity grew steadily, and he could see now that it was the reflected light of the moon, shining off the huge silvery glaciers. It wasn’t long before he could see the hill behind the cemetery, with snow covering its upper slopes.

  At the foot of the hill he saw an array of five or six bright lights twinkling. They were almost exactly in the configuration of the constellation Hydra, like the moles on Magda’s back. He heard a faint drilling sound, too, but the wind kept snatching it away.

  The wind blew harder and harder. He tightened the strings around his hood and kept his right hand raised as he walked to keep the cold out of his eyes. The seawater in his boots felt as if it had turned into crushed ice, and his toes seemed to have gone AWOL.

  The constellation of lights disappeared as he descended into a valley, and it was over twenty minutes later before they reappeared, much closer this time. He was less than quarter of a mile from the cemetery and he could see that Dennis Evelyn Branch was already here in force. Under the glare of the floodlights, six or seven large Arctic tents were pitched. Three diesel generators, thickly jacketed against the cold, were providing the power. Two Mercedes trucks were parked nearby, as well as a Toyota Landcruiser and a Caterpillar excavator with a narrow-gauge shovel, the kind they used to dig drainage trenches and graves.

  Seven white wooden crosses were stacked forlornly against one of the trucks – and, where they had stood, two men with jackhammers were hacking up the tundra in dark, frozen lumps. Several other men were hammering spikes into the ground all around the excavation site, and it looked to Conor as if they were erecting the framework for the virus-proof dome.

  Conor stayed well beyond the perimeter of the cemetery, ducking low behind the hillocks. A few flakes of snow tumbled in the air, and whirled around the floodlights like moths. The men continued drilling and banging, and occasionally one of them would shout something in Norwegian.

  So much for Professor Haraldsen’s friend, thought Conor, and his reassurance that nobody would be allowed near the cemetery except for the official expedition. Where were the Norwegian army guards? Where were the health officials?

 
He watched the excavation work for more than quarter of an hour. In that time, the prefabricated framework for the dome was almost completed. Rolls of heavy-duty nylon sheeting were carried from one of the Mercedes trucks and laid down beside it. The snow was thickening but that didn’t seem to deter Dennis Evelyn Branch’s workforce at all. They worked at frantic speed, drilling and digging and erecting aluminum struts. Conor tried to pick out Birger, but the men were all so muffled up that it was impossible to tell them apart.

  Trying not to lose his footing on the frozen moss, he made his way down the sloping hillside that led to the town. It was clustered by the harbor, a snug collection of wooden buildings that looked like something out of a fairytale, with warm lights twinkling and smoke rising from dozens of chimneys and, across Isfiorden, the immense pale glaciers gleaming.

  As he descended the hill, he could see that there was intense activity around the harbor. Floodlights illuminated a small cargo ship with a bright red funnel, and long boxes were being unloaded onto the dock. A Jeep described impatient circles in the rapidly settling snow. The wind sizzled against the back of Conor’s hood, and his feet began to itch unbearably.

  He was limping by the time he reached the edge of town. He passed two deserted houses and a lumberyard. Then he found himself crossing a wide, snowswept street. Not far away, a dog was barking, and there was a strong smell of coal in the air. The street was criss-crossed with tire tracks, but there didn’t seem to be anybody around. He didn’t really know what to do next. He had to find out what Dennis Evelyn Branch was doing; but equally importantly, he had to find himself someplace to stay for the night. He passed a wooden shed with its padlock hanging undone, but in this weather it would be suicide to sleep in an outbuilding. With a north-east wind like this blowing, the temperature could easily drop to minus 10 degrees Celsius, or even lower.

  Behind him, he heard the sound of an automobile engine. He turned, and the Jeep that had been driving circles on the dockside suddenly appeared at the end of the street and sped toward him. Its lights were blazing and its windshield wipers were furiously flapping against the snow. Conor immediately turned his face away. No point in taking chances. He glanced in at the front passenger window as it sped past, and he was sure that he saw the sharp, intent profile of Dennis Evelyn Branch himself, in a black fur hat. The Jeep left a fine cloud of snow and the smell of gasoline, and then it was gone, up toward the cemetery.

  Around the next corner, Conor unexpectedly found the Puffin Bar, a long wooden building with multicolored lights dangling around its veranda. The wheezing of Norwegian folk music came from inside, mingled with the stamping of feet and shouts of hilarity. Conor knew that it was a risk, going inside. It was more than likely that one or two of Dennis Evelyn Branch’s subcontractors would be drinking in here.

  But he was freezing, and exhausted, and he needed badly to go to the bathroom. He pulled open the door and stepped inside, and pulled open yet another door, and was met by light and warmth and people talking and drinking and laughing. Along the left side of the room ran a polished pine bar, with barstools; and the right side was taken up with tables with bright red tablecloths. At the very end of the room three young men in jeans and yellow shirts were playing a fiddle and a bass and a piano-accordion. This certainly wasn’t a New York bar: the cigarette smoke was so thick that it had practically reached knee level. The clientele was almost entirely under thirty, and male: muscular miners with fuzzy beards and permanently blackened fingernails. At one table in the corner sat a group of serious young men in new plaid shirts and Calvin Klein jeans who were probably climatologists or conservationists or oil engineers. They were drinking Haakon lager out of the bottle and tapping their feet out of time. At the next table sat three raucous middle-aged women with their roots showing, and one young girl of seventeen or eighteen who had that mysterious blond Norwegian beauty that reminded Conor so much of Lacey: pale eyes, pale eyebrows, a small straight nose, and pouting pink lips.

  ‘Ja?’ the barman asked him, with a gappy grin.

  ‘Toilet?’ said Conor.

  ‘Oh sure. Through to the back, past the musicians, off to the left.’

  ‘Thanks. And I’ll have a whiskey, if you don’t mind. Any brand. Double.’

  He went to the cramped, cold bathroom and had the longest pee in the history of pees, his eyes closed, his shoulders slumped. While he did so, without disrespect, he said a prayer of thanks that he had arrived here safely, and that God had protected him. When he had finished he took off his parka and brushed off the melted snow. Underneath he was wearing a thick black rollneck sweater and a black wool-mixture shirt. Sitting on the toilet seat, he took off his boots and his soaking socks. He dried the inside of his boots with paper towels, changed his socks, and returned to the bar feeling slightly more human.

  Somebody was waiting for him at the bar, a ruddy-faced man with a black peaked leather cap and a thick black beard, brambled with gray.

  ‘This one’s on me,’ he said, passing Conor his double Scotch. ‘Welcome to Longyearbyen.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Conor, and tipped it back in one. He just hoped that it would penetrate down to his feet. He held out his hand and said, ‘Jack Grady. Nice to know you.’

  ‘Pal Rustad. Nice to know you, Mr Grady. And all of your friends. I think you will make this a very good winter for us, for a change.’

  ‘Well, we hope so,’ said Conor, although he didn’t have any idea what the bearded man was talking about. ‘We always aim to please.’

  ‘Personally, I don’t think you’ll find anything,’ said the man, pouring himself a shotglass of akvavit from a bottle on the bar. ‘After eighty years? It’s not possible. You can’t keep anything alive for eighty years.’

  ‘You never know, do you?’ said Conor. ‘It’s worth a try.’

  ‘Well, it will be worth it for us, when all of the TV and the newspapers come here. Everybody here will make some money.’

  ‘The TV? The newspapers? When are you expecting them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe next week sometime. This is just the advance party, yes?’

  ‘The advance party?’ Conor suddenly realized how Dennis Evelyn Branch had explained his arrival here, several weeks before Kirsty Duncan’s expedition. He must have simply shipped in all of his equipment and pretended that he and his people were here to clear the ground. He had enough money, after all, to forge any documentation that was needed, and to bribe any Norwegian shippers who needed bribing.

  ‘You’re taking a break?’ asked Pal Rustad. ‘All of the rest of your people are up at the cemetery. They said you were going to be working day and night.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sure. But my specialty is microorganisms. They won’t need me till they’ve finished digging.’

  ‘I still don’t think you’ll find anything,’ Pal Rustad commented. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie, that’s what I say.’

  The party in the bar went on till way past three in the morning. The fiddlers were replaced by the Norwegian version of a barber-shop quartet, singing what sounded like very ribald songs. ‘They say, I want to sail my longboat up your fiord, my darling one,’ the bearded man translated. Conor nodded and said, ‘Very subtle.’

  He ate an elk steak garnished with boiled potatoes and sauerkraut. The meat was tough but it had a good strong gamey flavor and he was very hungry. His bearded friend introduced him to a big, handsome dark-haired woman in a bunad, a traditional Norwegian costume with an embroidered vest and a long black skirt. Her dress was very feminine but she looked as if she were quite capable of throwing him across the room.

  ‘Everybody is happy that you come here,’ she grinned. ‘It was such a good surprise.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ said Conor. He looked at his watch. ‘Is there anyplace that I can sleep for a couple of hours? I don’t have to go up to the cemetery till later and I’m bushed. Tired, that is.’

  ‘You’re not staying at the Polar Hotel, like the rest of them?’

  ‘Well, I have to sh
are with three other guys, and you know … it’s not very restful.’

  The woman turned to the barman and spoke to him rapidly in Norwegian. ‘He says you can sleep in the back. There’s a couch.’

  The barman looked at him expectantly. Conor said, ‘What?’ He hoped the woman didn’t think that he wanted to sleep with her. But then he suddenly realized what the barman was waiting for. He took out his wallet and gave him 1,000 krone.

  ‘Sleep good,’ said the barman, making his hands into an imaginary pillow.

  He was woken by a scratching noise. He sat up, straining his ears. The party in the bar must have finished a long time ago, because the room was pitch dark and totally silent. He listened and listened, and there it was again. Scratch – scrrattch – scratch.

  Cautiously he felt for his rucksack, slid open the zipper and took out his waterproof flashlight. He waited until he heard the scratching again, then he switched it on. A huge elk head was staring at him, with massive antlers and black glassy eyes. ‘Ah!’ he shouted, and jumped away – even as he realized that it was nothing more than a head, hanging from the wall on a wooden shield.

  ‘Asshole,’ he told himself. Quickly he flicked the flashlight beam from one side of the room to the other. At last he saw a scruffy gray dog fast asleep in the far corner, almost indistinguishable from the shaggy reindeer pelt that he was lying on. The dog must have been dreaming of chasing something, because his front paws kept scratching against the wooden wall in a fitful running movement.

  Conor checked his watch. It was 5:35 – time he was leaving, anyhow. He felt bruised all over, but at least he was warm and fed and reasonably refreshed. In the freezing-cold men’s room he washed his face and stared at himself in the misted-up mirror over the washbasin. He wondered if James Bond had ever felt lonely.