Black Ice (25 page)

‘Winter'll be over in less than five weeks,' Lauren told him. ‘We'll fly you out of here, and you can write whatever stories you like. But for now the satellite link, when and if it's fixed, remains for my use only … and that's my last word.'

‘Maybe Fitzgerald was right about you, Lauren,' Richard told her darkly. ‘Maybe you are a control freak.'

‘Stop it!' Frank stepped in. ‘It doesn't help if we start to attack each other.'

‘Sean. Process that film,' Lauren ordered him. ‘Let's at least see what was bugging Fitzgerald so much he had to steal it.'

*   *   *

For an hour they waited while Sean went to the darkroom. He returned with the freshly dried prints and handed them to Lauren. The others crowded round as Lauren flipped through them until she found the shots inside the crashed plane.

‘There's the food box,' she said. ‘Sean was right about that, you can clearly see all the wrapping and the empty cans…'

Richard swore beneath his breath as he was handed the prints.

‘And here's the drugs,' he said, ‘the drugs which would have saved Carl and me from six days of living hell. Presumably he would have let us die out there and kept them for his own use.'

‘This will ruin him when the story gets out,' Murdo said, not without relish.

‘Yes,' Richard added, ‘and the pleasure will be all mine.'

50

Fitzgerald lay spreadeagled on the bed which was his prison and forced his mind to search for a way out.

Early experiments had revealed that his legs were too tightly tied. No amount of movement, of wriggling inside the cords, could loosen the bonds that held his limbs together.

For his left hand, also, there was no hope of freedom; the plastic cable ties were thick enough to resist even the most strenuous pull, the hand held so tightly against the wooden strut of the headboard that any type of movement sent sharp pains into his wrist.

The right hand was different, the cable ties a little looser, enabling the explorer to move his arm a few inches up and down the strut. He considered trying to splinter the wood with his nails, to create a sharp cutting edge with which to saw into the plastic restraints.

Then he made a discovery: just beneath the position in which his hand was locked, a metal plate was screwed into the back of the strut. He figured it was the device holding the headboard to the main frame of the bed.

One of the screws was slightly protruding, the head sharp and burred where a screwdriver had slewed it.

By forcing his arm down, Fitzgerald found he could rub the outside of the plastic ties against the serrated lip of the screw head. Do that for long enough, he told himself, and he could cut through the ties. He worked through the long day, only halting when Murdo came to stuff a sandwich in his mouth.

Many hours' more concentrated work, biting his lip against the pain from his increasingly tender flesh, gave Fitzgerald a breakthrough: the first of the cable ties sprang open.

Two more to go. Sleep was out of the question even though he guessed it must now be four a.m. or later.

If he could bear the pain, he could get the hand free. Fitzgerald began again.

51

Richard took a surreptitious glance along the corridor to check that no one was watching, then entered the room where Fitzgerald was tied up. He closed the door behind him, slightly guilty already that he had broken his promise to Lauren that he would not try to speak to the explorer.

The things he had learned about Fitzgerald in the last hours made it impossible for him to stay away. There were too many questions burning up inside him.

Richard looked closely at Fitzgerald, feeling his skin creep a little at the sight of the trussed-up figure, his face still bloody from the fight of the previous night. Even tied up as he was, there was something undeniably frightening about Fitzgerald's presence, a latent capacity for violence which reached beyond the physical limits of his body.

The extraordinary power of his frame was all too evident, even at rest. Richard was no fighting man, and the thought of all that destructive strength let loose was enough to make him shudder.

‘Are you sleeping?' Richard asked him. ‘Or is that a sham like everything else?'

‘What the fuck are you talking about?' Fitzgerald did not bother to open his eyes.

‘They developed the film,' Richard told him. ‘They found it hidden in your room. I've got one of the prints here.'

Fitzgerald's eyes flicked open and locked Richard in a hostile gaze. Now he had the explorer's full attention.

‘And what does the pretty picture show?' Fitzgerald sneered.

‘I think you know.'

‘I have nothing to hide.'

‘That's a lie for a start. This photograph definitely shows an empty emergency ration pack down in the fuselage of the plane. Kilos and kilos of the stuff … and you ate it all while Carl and I were going day after day without food.'

‘I deny it,' Fitzgerald told him emphatically. ‘The pack might have been empty when it left Ushuaia. I never saw any food down there.'

‘And the drugs?' Richard continued. ‘The bandages, antibiotics and morphine? How do you explain that, unless you were saving them for your own possible use? You
must
have known they were there, Julian, and you
must
have known how desperately I needed them. How could you have watched me go through all that pain when you could have helped me?'

Fitzgerald let his eyes flicker for an instant to Richard's belt.
The Swiss army knife was there in its holder.

‘Without me pulling you out of that crevasse, you'd still be rotting there now with those two pilots.'

‘I know that, I recognise you saved my life,' Richard said wearily. ‘But that doesn't stop me from hating you for what you did next.'

‘All you have is Sean's fantasy version of what he saw down there. How do you know it wasn't
him
who found those rations and ate them?'

Richard shook his head. ‘I don't believe that for a moment. I trust Sean … he's not the type of person who could do that.'

‘Have you thought about
why
they are filling your head with all this?' Fitzgerald asked him. ‘Why they go out of their way to spread all these lies about me? Can't you see it's all a smokescreen to cover up for the fact that this base is a failure?'

‘What on earth are you talking about?'

Fitzgerald dropped his voice. ‘You're a journalist. You have influence. They're terrified you're going to discover the truth about Capricorn.'

Richard had to resist a laugh. ‘The truth? What truth?'

‘The whole project is a scandalous waste of time and money. There's no lake down there, Richard; they're drilling down into solid fucking ice. They're spending millions on a false premise, and Lauren Burgess knows it. If you weren't here, they could cover the whole thing up, make it seem like a test exercise perhaps, but what if you decided to write about it? To make that failure public? How do you think her sponsors would feel? It could destroy her precious reputation overnight … she'd be a laughing stock, and she'd never raise the money for another base.'

‘Nice try,' Richard told him, shaking his head, ‘but it doesn't wash. Capricorn isn't a failure at all; it's a fantastic success.'

Fitzgerald seemed to sag, his chest sinking slightly as he exhaled long and hard.

‘The problem is this,' Richard continued. ‘You've made me feel pretty foolish. In fact, I've never felt more stupid in my life. Back at the beginning of this winter, I wrote a three-thousand-word feature about what a great hero you were, how you saved my life. It was my first front-page byline; do you know how proud that made me? And now I find out that I actually missed the real story … that the real story was how a desperate, paranoid individual was saving himself at the expense of his fellow men.'

‘How do you know you wouldn't have done the same?' Fitzgerald asked him. ‘Put yourself first? Don't you think when it comes to survival there's something inside all of us which is capable of that?'

Richard was white with rage. ‘No, I do not. I would never let someone starve like you did! I was out of my depth out there, Julian; I desperately needed help, and to think of all those days you didn't do a damn thing…'

‘I wish I
had
left you in the crevasse,' Fitzgerald told him quietly. ‘Saved myself all this bother.'

Richard shifted again on the end of the bed, his anger seeping away.

Just a few inches closer
 … Fitzgerald had to restrain himself from making the move.

‘I can't ignore this, Julian. I have to tell this story,' Richard told him finally. ‘It's my duty as a journalist. As soon as they get the satellite link back up, I'm going to file a piece which will tell the public the truth.'

‘You mustn't do that,' Fitzgerald pleaded. ‘You'll ruin everything. Let me see that photo properly; bring it closer.'

So close now.
Fitzgerald felt the muscles in his right arm tense.

Richard leaned just a few more inches towards the explorer to give him a better look at the print.

Just a fraction more.

‘You were prepared to let us starve to death,' Richard said. ‘Now I'm going to tell that story, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.'

Now.

Fitzgerald's right hand snaked forward so fast that Richard didn't stand a chance. The blow was expert, straight to the temple, an instant later Richard was unconscious in the explorer's arms.

A moment later Fitzgerald was reaching for the knife.

52

Murdo and Sean had stayed up late, taking a couple of beers at the bar as they talked through the events of the day, when Murdo happened to glimpse a flash of light out on the glacier. It was an evil night, the wind blowing twenty to thirty knots, and no sooner had his eyes registered the beam of light than it was gone, swallowed up in the driving spindrift.

‘That's weird.' He took his beer and stood by the window, peering out into the storm. ‘I thought I saw a light out near the vehicle shed.'

Sean joined him. ‘Can't be,' he said. ‘Everyone's gone to bed.'

‘No. I'm sure of it. There! That's it again.'

This time Sean had seen it too, a momentary flickering against a window. ‘Looks like it's coming from inside the shed,' he said. ‘Let's go and check it out; it might be a spark from a wiring fault.'

They dressed as quickly as they could and were crossing to the vehicle shed when they heard the sound of an engine from within. ‘Sounds like a snowcat,' Sean said, cupping his hand against Murdo's ear to be heard above the wind. ‘But who in the name of God would be playing around out here at this time of night?'

Sean stood on tiptoe to see through the window, but the glass was too frozen to register more than the fact that there was a light of some sort inside. Murdo and Sean pushed open the door and stopped in complete amazement at what they found. In the corner of the shed, Julian Fitzgerald was siphoning petrol from the main storage tank into a series of jerrycans. Nearby, one of the snowcats was ticking over, the engine stuttering a little as it warmed. Hitched to it was a sledge, piled with food, equipment and an axe.

Fitzgerald froze, watching the two men warily as they entered.

‘Well, well, well,' Murdo said, ‘if it isn't Harry fucking Houdini. Complete with half a ton of stolen supplies by the look of it. Help yourself, mate, won't you?'

‘Don't get any closer,' Fitzgerald warned them. ‘I'm leaving, and there's nothing you can do to stop me.'

Murdo picked up a ten-pound torque wrench from the toolbox.

‘I wouldn't be so cocksure about that theory.'

‘You're not going anywhere,' Sean added, ‘least of all on one of my snowcats. Now put that can of fuel down.'

Sean and Murdo each took a pace towards the cornered man, the explorer's eyes widening with fear as they approached.

‘Stay back…' Fitzgerald stammered. ‘I won't be stopped!'

Suddenly, the explorer kicked out violently, knocking over one of the open jerrycans which were lined up in front of him. Sean and Murdo watched in horror as five gallons of fuel glugged out of the open can, running in oily blue rivers across the wooden floor of the hut and collecting in a pool at the base of the main fuel tank.

Fitzgerald pulled a cigarette lighter from his top pocket and held it with his thumb against the flint.

‘Want to put me to the test?' he asked, quietly.

‘Now I know you're crazy,' Sean told him. ‘Have you any idea what fire can do to us here?'

‘Step back.' Fitzgerald made a movement with his hand, as if to throw the lighter on the fuel.

Murdo and Sean retreated a few paces, back towards the door, as Fitzgerald picked up the filled jerrycans with his free hand and placed them on the back of the sledge. He secured them in place with a length of elastic bungee cord and climbed onto the snowcat.

‘Open the main door,' he ordered Sean.

Sean swung the door open, exposing the interior of the shed to whirling flakes of snow.

‘Stand aside.'

The two men did as he said as Fitzgerald kicked the snowcat into gear. Seconds later he would have been gone, but the rubber of the snowcat belt had frozen slightly to the floor, enough that when he applied the throttle, the machine gave a little lurch forward and stalled.

‘Now!' Murdo sprung on the explorer and smashed the torque wrench against his hand, the cigarette lighter clattering harmlessly away towards the open door as Sean grabbed Fitzgerald's parka hood and pulled him backwards off the machine. The explorer hit the floor with a thud, rolling to avoid Murdo's lunging kick as Sean landed a punch to the side of his face. Fitzgerald roared with fury as he pulled Sean down, the two men collapsing into a stackpile of snow shovels which were standing in the corner. Murdo got a kick in, Sean pummelled with his fists and Fitzgerald continued to yell, biting and punching back at his assailants as he tried to break free.