�Wait,� she said, moving to the refrigerator and flinging it open. A bag identical to the one that Charlotte had used to fill the syringe� perhaps the very same one�sat on a wire shelf; a label on it read AFGP-5. She prayed it was the right one.
�Come on,� Sinclair urged. �Whatever this is, we haven't time for it.�
But Eleanor ignored him. If she could save him, she would, and
she had seen the procedure with the needle done enough times that she was confident she could do it herself.
�Take off your coat�quickly!�
�What are you saying? Have you lost your mind?�
�Just do as I say. I'm not moving an inch until you do.�
He yanked the coat off in exasperation.
She took out the bag and found a fresh needle in the cabinet.
�Roll up your sleeve!� she said, filling the syringe.
�Eleanor, please, there is no hope, or help, for us. We are what we are.�
�Be quiet,� Eleanor whispered. �The doctor might hear you.�
She swabbed his skin with the alcohol, patted his arm to bring up a vein, then pressed the syringe, as she had seen Charlotte do, to remove any air. �Stay very still,� she said, inserting the needle and slowly depressing the plunger. She could guess what he must be feeling�the blossoming chill in his bloodstream, the slight disorien-tation. When she removed the needle, he seemed at first to be unaffected, and she was seized with fear. Had she used the wrong medicine, or administered it incorrectly?
�I don't know what witchcraft you think you've just performed, but can we go now?� he said, rolling down his sleeve again, and pulling on the coat over his uniform jacket. Loose strings of gold braid dangled like tassels. �Where's your coat?�
He barged into the next room and found her coat and gloves there, then came back and began to bundle her into them.
�I have a plan,� he said, �to launch a boat, from the whaling station. We'll be picked up at sea ��
Then he shivered, from the top of his head to the soles of the boots�different boots, she noted�on his feet. And stumbled backwards onto the edge of the bed.
It
was
the right medicine. Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief. Now he would be incapacitated�at least long enough for her to explain everything to him. She knelt by the side of the bed, the tails of her long coat hanging down to the floor, holding his cold hands in hers. �Sinclair, you have to listen to me. You have to understand.�
He looked at her with rolling eyes.
�The medicine will take time for its full effect to be felt. But once it has, you will no longer feel the need you feel now.� Even at their worst, sleeping in cellars or spurring their horses through
mountain passes in the driving rain, they had always referred to their affliction in only the most oblique terms. �But the doctor tells me��
He harrumphed at that. �The doctor �� But then he could not go on.
�The doctor, and the others too, tell me we must not touch ice. Do you understand that? We must not touch ice! If we do, we will die.�
He stared down at her as if she were the one who had truly lost her wits. He chuckled, bitterly. �A fairy tale and you believe it.�
�Oh, Sinclair, I do. I do believe it.�
�And this in a land of nothing but ice. Is there any better way to make you their willing prisoner?�
Eleanor bowed her head in despair. �We are not their prisoners. They are not our captors. This is not the war.�
But when she looked up, she saw that for Sinclair, it was, and would always be, the war. Even if the physical need were relieved, the affliction had struck its roots so deep into his soul that there would be no extracting them, ever. Even then, with sweat beading his brow and his skin clammy to the touch, he staggered up, as obediently as if a bugle had sounded, and pulled on his coat and gloves. She waited, praying for the medicine to further sap his strength, but he seemed to be using all of his willpower to fight its effects.
�Sinclair! Have you heard a word I've been saying? We can't go out there unprotected.�
�Then in God's name, button up!� he said, grabbing her by the sleeve of her own coat. She just had time to snatch the brooch from the bedside table before he dragged her from the sick bay. �It's a lovely day outside.�
He lumbered down the hall and threw open the door to the outside ramp. Sunlight glinted off the snow and ice, and Eleanor instinctively pulled the goggles from her coat pocket and put them on.
�The dogs are already in harness,� he said, with satisfaction. �I made sure of that first.�
He had? How long had he been haunting the camp?
He was clambering down the ramp with Eleanor in tow, when he suddenly stopped short and said, �Of all the damn bloody nuisances ��
Eleanor had pulled the hood of her coat tightly over her face, but when she peeked out from under it she saw Michael�slack-jawed�standing a few yards away a black metal contraption with three legs tucked under one arm. He seemed to be trying to make some sense of what he was seeing.
�If I were you,� Sinclair said, �I'd turn tail now and run.�
Michael's eyes went straight to Eleanor's, searching for some answer.
Sinclair pushed the flap of his overcoat away, revealing the saber that hung at his side, but when he tried to move off, Michael hastily blocked their path.
�Good God, I'm in a hurry!� Sinclair exploded, as if he were scolding a slow-witted stableboy Letting go of Eleanor's arm, he pulled the sword from its scabbard. �Now get out of the way,� he said, brandishing the sword in the gleam of the polar sun, �or I'll drop you where you stand.�
�Michael,� Eleanor interceded, �do as he says!�
�Eleanor, you can't be out here! You have to get back inside!�
Sinclair's eyes flashed at the exchange, and moved from one of them to the other. But when they returned to Michael, they burned with a cold fury.
�Perhaps I've been blind,� he said, advancing on Michael with the tip of the sword extended.
To Eleanor's horror, Michael did not retreat, but raised the metal contraption�it had three legs, like an artist's easel�and held it out like a weapon.
This was madness, she thought, utter madness.
�You can go,� Michael said, standing his ground. �I won't try to stop you. But Eleanor stays.�
�So that
is
what this is about.� Sinclair sneered. �You're a bigger fool than I thought.�
�Maybe you're right,� Michael said, taking a step closer, �but that's the deal.�
Sinclair paused, as if mulling it over, then suddenly lunged at Michael, the sword whistling through the air. The blade struck the legs of the tripod, and blue sparks flew into the air. Michael fell back, struggling to hold on to it.
Sinclair advanced, baiting Michael with the end of the sword,
twirling it in small circles. Eleanor saw now that the back of her lieutenant's head had a gash in it, and the blond hair had been cut short, as if someone had tended to the wound.
Michael feinted with the tripod, pushing it back at Sinclair, but Sinclair knocked it to one side and continued to advance on him.
�I'm pressed for time,� Sinclair said, �so this will have to be quick.�
He slashed once, twice, and on the third blow the tripod was wrenched from Michael's hands and clattered to the hard ground. Michael scrambled after it�he had no other weapon�and as Sinclair swung the gleaming saber back over his left shoulder, ready to deliver the fatal blow, there was a bloodcurdling scream and Charlotte�in a green silk bathrobe, with her braids flying about her head�hurtled down the ramp and shoved Sinclair off-balance. He stumbled forward, barely hanging on to the sword, before whirling around and swinging at his new assailant. The blade caught the doctor's leg, and she fell, blood spraying onto the snow.
It was Eleanor's turn to scream, but before she could go to Charlotte's aid, Sinclair snatched her by the sleeve of her coat again.
�Can you bear to be parted?� he said, seething, and dragged her toward the kennels.
She went willingly, if only to give Michael and Charlotte time to escape.
���
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
December 26, 3 p.m.
KNEELING IN THE SNOW
beside Charlotte, Michael tried to ascertain the damage.
�It's not bad,� Charlotte said, sitting up and wincing. �It's a flesh wound.�
�I'll help you back to the infirmary.�
�I can get there myself,� Charlotte said. �Go get Eleanor!�
But when she tried to stand, her knees buckled, and Michael had to sling an arm around her waist to get her back up the ramp and into the infirmary. As he lowered her into a chair, and followed her instructions to bring the antiseptic, antibiotics, and bandages, he heard the jingling of the harness on the dogsled passing by outside. Glancing out the window, he saw Sinclair in his red-and-gold jacket, standing on the runners. He'd pulled a ski mask over his head and goggles covered his eyes; apparently, he'd learned quickly about how to weather the Antarctic. Eleanor was huddled low in the bright orange cargo shell, her head down and her hood drawn tight, as the sled whooshed past.
�Tell me that was Santa Claus heading home,� Charlotte said, saturating a cotton pad in antiseptic.
�He'll head for the old whaling station,� Michael said. �There's nowhere else he can go, especially with a storm coming on.�
�Get rolling,� Charlotte urged him again. �But get a gun first from Murphy.� She cringed as she applied the pad to her leg. �And take reinforcements.�
Michael gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder, and said, �Anybody ever tell you not to take on a man with a sword?�
�You never worked the night shift in an ER.�
Michael ran back down the hall, but instead of alerting anyone else, he made straight for the garage shed. Gathering a posse could only take time, and a gun could always wind up injuring the wrong party. Besides, he knew he could catch up to them on a snowmobile�the only question was if he could catch up to them before Eleanor was fatally exposed to the ice.
The snowmobile in front was a yellow-and-black Arctic Cat, and he jumped into the saddle, checked the fuel gauge, and revved the engine. The vehicle burst out of the shed, skidding wildly on the slick snow, and Michael was nearly thrown free. He had to slow it down, at least until he'd made it out of the base, but as he came around the corner of the administration module, he nearly ran over Franklin, who jumped out of the way in the nick of time.
�Go to the meat locker!� Michael shouted at him over the roar of the engine. �Check on Lawson!�
Michael hated to think what might have happened there. But if Sinclair was free, it couldn't be good.
Once past the main quad, Michael took a firm grip on the handlebars and gunned the engine. With one hand he had to tighten the hood around his head to keep it from blowing back. Far ahead, he could see the red of Sinclair's uniform and the blazing orange of the sled, as the dogs raced across the snow and ice.
Please,
he prayed,
let Eleanor's skin be covered.
Michael could see that Sinclair had harnessed the dogs in pairs instead of fanning them out on wider leads, and he knew that doing so was particularly dangerous under the current conditions. With the dogs bunched together, the weight of the whole sled could cross onto a fragile snow bridge all at once, and if the bridge gave way,
the dogs first, then the sled itself, could be dragged straight down into the bottomless crevasse below.
For that matter, Michael could plummet into one, too. That was why he tried to stay on the same path the sled had already taken. But it wasn't easy. The silvery glare off the terrain was harsh and penetrating, and the scrum of snow and ice thrown up by the front runners of the Arctic Cat kept flying back, sticking to the windshield and coating his goggles.
Even as the distance between them closed, Michael began to wonder what he could do when he did catch up. He racked his brain, wondering what was likely to be in the snowmobile's emergency compartment. A first-aid kit? Some nylon ropes? A GPS? A flashlight?
And then he remembered the last essential item sure to be there�a flare gun!
Sinclair would never know the difference between that and a real gun.
The sled was turning slightly, toward the coastline, and Michael could see Sinclair's head turning, aware now that he was being pursued. Though the sun glinted off his goggles and golden epaulettes, and the scarlet flaps of his jacket whipped out behind him like a fox's tail, the black ski mask made him look less like a soldier than a burglar on the run.
The sled was rounding a coal-black nunatak, and the danger there was even greater, especially as Sinclair wouldn't be aware of it. Crevasses often formed around the base of such rocky outcrop-pings, and increased in number and depth as the glacier field approached the sea. Sinclair was continuing to bear toward the water, no doubt because it made navigating easier. In Antarctica, it was as hard to judge distances as it was direction�there was seldom any landmark to rely on, everything looked the same for hundreds of miles sometimes, and the sun, which on that date was very nearly straight overhead, offered no help either. Your shadow clung as close to your heels as an obedient dog.