by K. T. Tomb
The plane landing brought him thankfully back to the real world, although waking was fearful as his mind slowly remembered that he had been flying and not submerged – the different realities of his waking world and the sub-aquatic dream clashed nauseously. From his window, he could see the dawn light breaking over an almost entirely white world. Magadan appeared to be inches thick in snow, and Travis felt a rush of gratitude for the skill of the pilots in not killing them all with the landing.
Fiona stirred and awoke, apparently unaware that her sleep had not simply occurred naturally but still appeared slightly sedated. She looked incredibly thirsty and Travis was relieved that the spiked Coke had been removed by the stewardess almost immediately after takeoff. As the plane taxied close to the airport building, Thyri had to assist Fiona in unbuckling herself, and subsequently had to support her to the exit of the plane and down the portable stairs to the permafrost-covered tarmac.
“I always hate flying,” Fiona said. “In fact, Thyri, every time I fly with you, I end up passing out. You are my guardian sleep angel!”
The environmentalist clearly found this to be the very height of good humor, as she was gripped with a fit of giggles so violently that the three adventurers had to step out of the patiently queuing passengers until she could walk again. Fortunately, she managed to keep it together long enough to get through the immigration check without drawing attention to herself. It appeared that the officials were as sleepy as most of the passengers on this dawn arrival flight, and in a very short time, the three Americans were out on the streets of Magadan, all of them having taken the opportunity to put on their winter clothes to protect against the arctic climate. Magadan was beautiful and silent in the dawn. Somewhere in this forbidding blanket of snow, secrets lay buried. Secrets of gold.
Chapter Four
Magadan was a small city, barely even large enough for the name. Ringed by high snowy peaks and perpetually covered in permafrost, Travis was amazed that any life was possible at all in such a desperate climate. On the short journey on foot that they had taken to a hotel in the central hub of the town, Travis discovered his beard had frozen, and despite the winter clothing, the bite of the arctic winds chilled him to the bone. Once booked into the hotel, they slept for a few hours and then took a taxi to the offices of Multimetal Incorporated Mining, located by the docks where the lost ship had departed a fortnight earlier. Travis, Thyri and Fiona all wore badges with a photo of themselves and the word “press” typed on it. It seemed a cheap ploy to Travis, but one that might work so long as he wasn’t asked too many questions on his identity, and Fiona wasn’t asked any questions at all. Thyri had been quite firm that she was to not speak unless absolutely necessary. This didn’t impress Fiona much, but as the only speaker of Russian was Thyri, it didn’t seem to be an instruction that she would have much difficulty following.
Multimetal’s offices were a buzz of activity. News crews from all over Russia and Europe were setting up for the new day. The crews who had been here the longest were easy to spot; weather-bitten and, if they were from warmer climates, completely miserable looking. Travis saw some Americans next to a van with CNN stenciled on the side. He recognized the female reporter from television. Her usually impeccably styled hair was buried under a warm fur hat, but her face was unmistakable.
“That’s interesting,” Fiona said. “If CNN is gearing up for a televised report, there must be something worth reporting, right? I guess we’ve gotten here in time to see a press conference or something.”
Her suspicions were confirmed soon after as they slipped in amongst the gathering reporters and cameramen as a man addressed them over a megaphone underneath the skeletons of ship-loading cranes. He had climbed part way up one of their access ladders so that he could be seen over the raised cameras and sound recording equipment. He spoke first in Russian, and then in English, which was heavily accented but with exemplary grammar. He was dressed in an expensive greatcoat and a woolly hat that seemed out of place with the coat as it looked handmade. Travis guessed him to be in his mid-twenties, so he was likely to be some low-level press liaison officer.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the press. We at Multimetal appreciate your diligence in reporting the news. Our CEO, Mr. Anatoly Zeitsev,” he spelled the name out for the furiously scribbling journalists who were writing down his every word in shorthand, “would like to invite you all to a briefing, two o’clock in the main lecture hall at Magadan University. Your local fixers will be able to guide you if you don’t know where that is. Thank you.”
He stepped down from the ladder, slipping slightly on the ice-covered metal. There was an eruption of questions in English and Russian, which gave Thyri the opportunity to lead Travis and Fiona away from the crush.
“We’ve got a few hours before the press conference; let’s see if we can find out anything that’s not coming directly from Multimetal. Fiona, hang around and talk to the American press here, no journalists, just technical staff. Travis and I will go and speak to the local authorities.”
Travis was only half paying attention. His eye, which was never one to turn down a pretty face, had been caught by a beautiful blonde woman who was looking over at them and doing a fairly bad job of making it appear that she wasn’t looking at them at all. Even from the distance of forty feet or so, it was obvious to him that their appearance here had not gone entirely unnoticed.
Fiona for once did not voice any objection to her instructions, but instead made a show of pretending to synchronize her watch and made some elaborate hand gestures as special forces soldiers would when communicating silently. Travis bit his tongue. As much as he wanted Fiona to at least try and take things seriously, he couldn’t reprimand her here, in public, without drawing even more attention to themselves, and he was sure Fiona knew it from the rebellious wink she gave him as she left to try and get information from the press crews. Thyri exhaled sharply between gritted teeth, sending twin plumes of breath to condense in the frozen air.
Their first stop was only a hundred yards or so away from where the journalists had parked their vans, but closer to the waterside. The Sea of Okhotsk lay still and gray, small patches of sea ice here and there which had not yet been melted by the engines of the few ships arriving and departing. Travis felt like he was in a bleak, contemporary retelling of a Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky saga. Dock-hands were in full flow, seeming to pass over the frozen ground with as little problem as a professional ice skater would have. Thyri and Travis were perpetually looking at the ground, looking for the path of least resistance – or rather, the path of most friction and most resistance to prevent them from sliding around on their backsides.
Perhaps some boots with cleats are in order, Travis thought to himself.
Their destination, the port’s small coast guard office, was little more than an outhouse constructed of solid concrete, prefabricated walls that clearly dated the building to the communist era.
Several coast guardsmen in seal gray greatcoats and hats were working on a dilapidated launch that appeared to have been built at some point during the Khrushchev administration. Thyri spoke briefly to them in what sounded like quite passable Russian to Travis’ ears, and they pointed up a flight of metal stairs bolted onto the side of the office. It led to a room on the second floor, which was clearly an addition to the original building as it was formed from steel and thick glass. Travis wondered if that was such a great idea given the climate, but on closer inspection, decided it was passable as he made his way unsteadily up the stairs in Thyri’s wake.
“What did you ask them?” he said, over the sound of the coast guardsmen firing up the engine of the launch.
It sputtered and died.
“I asked to see their commander, of course.”
Thyri rapped on the steel door twice, which created a strange, muted thunk through the crusting of ice as she struck it. The door opened, and as Travis surmounted the stairs, he saw over Thyri’s shoulder the face of a captain or some other
such high-ranked member of the guard.
“Chego ty khochesh'?” he grumbled.
His face was stern, weather-beaten like most of the older men they had encountered who lived in this place, with a thick mustache that served to completely hide his mouth and, like his uniform, the sea and his hard eyes, was a forbidding gray.
“Vy govorite po-angliyski?” Thyri said.
The officer nodded.
“Yes, I speak some little English. What do you want?”
“We’re journalists from the Wall Street Journal, business pages. Could we ask you a few questions about the missing gold freighter?”
Thyri made a show of withdrawing a Dictaphone from her coat pocket.
“No. I have nothing to say. All press is being taken care of by the company. Speak to them only. Do not come here. We have real work to do.”
The officer shut the door in their faces, hard enough that Thyri had to skip back a pace, treading on Travis’ foot, to avoid a sheet of ice that broke free and fell, showering them both.
“That went well. What’s the plan now, fearless leader?” Travis grinned.
He wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery as much as Thyri or Fiona did… well, maybe not Fiona but still, he did want to know. That being said, he couldn’t help himself taking a small amount of pleasure at Thyri getting shut down so brutally by the coast guard chief. Her wealth and influence in the economic world meant nothing to him.
Thyri took his barb with magnificent poise; only a slightly furrowed brow betrayed her annoyance as she pushed past Travis and descended the stairs again.
“The press conference,” she said over her shoulder. “Something very weird is going on here. Why was that officer such a jerk? There was no need for that. After all it was a reasonable question, so either he really dislikes foreigners, which is possible I suppose, but unlikely seeing as he works at a port where he’ll encounter lots of foreigners. Or he’s hiding something.”
“Maybe he dislikes foreigners because he sees so many of us?”
Travis had meant it as a joke, but Thyri either missed it, or chose not to respond in a fit of pique. On their return to the parking lot within which the press had mostly finished packing up their gear, Fiona bounded up in a flurry of excitement.
“Guys, guess what? I’ve met this guy from Greenpeace, he’s been moonlighting as a helicopter pilot for some of the press and we’re going to go see polar bears!”
She beamed.
Travis wouldn’t have been surprised if the temperature dropped fast enough to freeze the sea at that point. Thyri already had her hackles up from the encounter with the coast guard a few minutes earlier; he expected her to shout at Fiona. But to Thyri’s credit, she dropped her voice instead to a menacing hiss.
“I didn’t pull you out of jail so that you could go and see fucking polar bears. You’re here for one reason, and that’s to do what I tell you, got it?”
Fury etched itself on her face, and for a moment, he thought it would come to blows, but Fiona became immediately contrite, apologizing and quickly explaining that she had found some information from the journalist crews, after all.
Fiona explained over coffee in the student mess of the university after a short and silent taxi ride. Although Multimetal had not released any details apart from the time and date of the ship’s disappearance, a cameraman from Russia Today told Fiona that the ship had been sighted out to sea a day later by a local fishing boat. Of course, there was no way to verify the sighting, Multimetal had denied it, and for some reason the fishing boat captain was now saying he was mistaken and it must have been a container ship bound for China. All three of them agreed that this was suspicious, but there wasn’t anything that clearly linked the company to the actual disappearance.
On arrival at the university, they lost themselves, separately, amongst the milling journalists as they arrived. There were to be two briefings, one in Russian and one in English, so the press was split into two groups. Thyri went with the Russian press, while Fiona and Travis filed into a separate lecture theatre behind the CNN crew from the dockside.
As they took seats in the middle of the thirty or so journalists, Travis saw again the beautiful blonde woman he had seen a few hours earlier. He could almost be sure she had been looking in his direction, although that might have been wishful thinking. Now that she was somewhat unwrapped from her heavy winter gear he could see high Slavic cheekbones, a slim figure and bright blue eyes. She sat down at the long table which had been set up by the lectern at the front of the small hall, and was obscured from his sight by a fat man with a jacket bearing the BBC logo on the back; no matter which way Travis tried to surreptitiously lean around him to look again, he couldn’t see the woman. Disappointment was only present for a moment as the same spokesman from the docks stepped up to the lectern and spoke briefly about the progress, or lack thereof, that the coast guard had made in the search. Moscow had authorized extra units of the Russian Navy to assist and a battle cruiser should be in the Sea of Okhotsk in the next few days. There was some grumbled dissent in the ranks of the press.
“This isn’t a briefing!” said the fat man from England. “No one is talking to us, and neither are you. How can we report to the world if no one is giving us any information to report? What have you done to find the ship, as a company?”
“Of course, Mr. Wood, Multimetal cannot give you details of military operations even when they are part of a search and rescue operation. It is regrettable.”
The official smiled in what was surely an attempt at a consolatory expression. The man from the BBC muttered a few expletives and scratched in his notepad. Several similar questions were fielded in a similar manner, and the atmosphere amongst the journalists was that of frustration. It appeared they had been through this for some days.
Travis stood up. Fiona’s eyes widened. They weren’t supposed to draw attention to themselves, Travis knew, but this was futile unless he did something to find information. He couldn’t wait for other people to do his work for him, after all.
“Hi. I’m newly arrived here, from, er, Washington. Yeah, Wall Street Journal,” Travis said.
Fiona winced. The WSJ was obviously in New York. Travis had given himself away as either a political correspondent or a fraud.
“Our readers will be wondering,” Travis continued, “why your investors are not being kept in the loop as to the status of your investigation. It comes across when you speak in this manner, that Multimetal must have something to hide, which of course we all know that you are being as transparent as possible about, under the circumstances. Do you have anything that you can tell us about the future of gold mining for Multimetal? Something to set their minds at ease, or so they can sell their stock in confidence. I have just come from the States, and I have to say, people are going to be shifting their investments if they don’t hear from you soon.”
Travis sat down, to a few admiring looks from his temporary colleagues. The official looked flustered. The idea that share prices were about to drop dramatically, further than they had already, clearly had the desired effect.
“Our investors can rest assured that we're opening a new mine close by, strip-mining for even more gold! Admittedly, the gold mining industry in this region has not been as productive as we once thought, but we are confident that our new mine will provide copious amounts of ore and subsequently good profits for our investors. Thank you all, there will be another briefing tomorrow; you can come back here at midday.”
With that, the businessman exited through the rear of the room to an avalanche of shouted questions. Travis and Fiona slipped out the front door they had come in through, and met Thyri outside a few minutes later where they compared the information they had found, such as it was. Deciding to regroup after some much needed rest, they returned immediately to the hotel. All three were exhausted from the cold, the traveling and the frustration at the lack of progress.
In his hotel room, Travis showered. The warm water hurt him a
t first as his body tried to balance his internal temperature, but soon he was lathered and singing some half-remembered Curtis Mayfield song. He was interrupted by a knock at the door, which he assumed would be Thyri or Fiona, no doubt reporting that one of them had murdered the other. Soap still in his hair and beard, he wrapped himself in a towel, cursing, and opened the door.
The blonde woman, beautiful and with a fierce, scared look in her eye, was at his door.
Chapter Five
Travis was suddenly very conscious that he was wearing only a towel and was well soaped with shampoo and shower gel. It was far from how he would have liked his first meeting with this woman to have occurred. He was about to speak as he realized he had stood in the doorway saying nothing for at least five seconds, which felt like a hundred years, when the woman spoke in a voice that sounded to Travis like that of a femme fatale from a James Bond movie.
“I would like to come in.”
It wasn’t a question, and yet not a demand, either. In any case, Travis felt unable to refuse her, partly through his desire to know more, and partly for other desires that could not be spoken, or even acted on until he was not covered in soap. He stood aside to let her into the hotel room.