In the Barren Ground (4 page)

CHAPTER 4

Out of the blackness a smattering of lights emerged at the tip of a lake that gleamed like a sheet of dark glass. Below that inky water lay the kimberlite cores of diamonds, and on the south shore perched the WestMin exploration camp.

O’Halloran brought his Beaver in low, aiming for a strip of lights demarcating the runway. The wings wobbled wildly in a sudden downdraft that blasted from the cliffs to the east. Tana’s heart surged into her throat. Her grip tensed on her thighs as the ground yawed toward them, snowflakes hurtling like asteroids into the windshield, the prop sending a staccato beat across their line of vision. But O’Halloran steadied his plane just in time. Wheels touched frozen whiteness with a
snick
and they bounced, and bumped and slid down the runway.

At the end of the strip, near two Quonset hangars, a man and a woman huddled in jackets beside an ATV, their faces ghostly under the harsh, white lights of a generator-powered, portable floodlight tower that stood nearby.

O’Halloran taxied off to the side and brought his chunky Beaver to a stop. It was snowing lightly, wind currents from their plane making flakes shimmy in laughing circles as if in celebration of their landing alive.

Tana removed her headset, opened the passenger side door, jumped down. O’Halloran went into the back, opened the cargo door, and started to hand her gear to her. As she took her heavy pack, rifle, and shotgun from him, a small, wiry man approached with a spiderlike stride that made him appear canted to one side.

“Harry Blundt,” he called in a high-pitched voice, thrusting his hand forward as he neared. Tana set her pack down, shook his hand. His grip was cold, dry, vise tight. He vibrated with an electrical intensity. The woman he’d been waiting with remained near the quad. She’d turned to watch a big, burly guy who was carrying gear out of the hangar.

“I’m the camp boss,” Blundt said, moving from foot to foot as if cold, or simply unable to keep still. He stood a head shorter than Tana, far shorter than she’d expected for a man preceded by such larger-than-life tales. But she recognized him immediately from the media. Blundt had been variously described in reports as awkward, hyperactive, uber-intense, ADD, but a brilliant geologist–treasure hunter from the interior of BC. He was the man who’d discovered the diamonds beneath Ice Lake while De Beers and other major mining outfits had deemed this area barren of the precious gems. If Blundt’s WestMin mine panned out, if he managed to secure all the requisite government approvals and investment backing, he was on his way to becoming a very, very rich little man. His intense, dark eyes bored up at her from inside their deep-set caves below a thatch of gray brow. He reminded her of a beetle.

“Constable Tana Larsson,” she said, pulling on her gloves. Her breath clouded in front of her face. She reached up and took her pack with the electric fencing from O’Halloran, set it down on the hard-packed snow with the rest of her gear.

“Markus is prepping to take you in,” Blundt said. “A terrible thing to have happened. Terrible. Markus has one quad all juiced up and safety checked already, busy on the other. He’s my security man, top guy, good, very good, ex-African mines, here, can I carry something for you?” Words shot out of Blundt’s mouth and tripped over each other at a machine-gun clip. Tana had read about his idiosyncratic, staccato-like speech, how he jumped from one topic to another as if his mouth couldn’t keep up with the speed of the ideas firing in his brain. It could drive a person nuts, she’d been told.

She’d heard also about how ruthlessly Blundt drove his crews. He never tired himself, and he expected no less of others. He’d even worked his fourteen-year-old son to the breaking point. The resulting clash had been legendary. Harry Blundt was quite simply a Northwest Territories and Yukon diamond legend, not much different from the idiosyncratic characters of old.

Tana hefted her pack onto her shoulders, and glanced up at O’Halloran. He still had another bag of hers to hand down.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll bring over the last of this stuff.”

She hesitated, then said, “Thanks.”

“The attack site is about three hours north of here on quad,” Blundt said as he led Tana in his crablike scuttle toward the waiting ATV and hangars. The woman stood smoking, watching them approach.

“Northeast side of the lake is the only really navigable route up Headless Man Valley. Bit rocky, some swampy muskeg halfway in, where a river feeds into the lake. That part can be tricky, but it should be mostly frozen by now. Then it gets steep. Big boulders up to the esker ridge. Slick with snow and ice right now. Will have to trek the last section up to the cliff base where Heather found them. Terrible, terrible thing. My guys shot four of the wolves. Probably more scavengers there now.” Blundt’s gaze darted up to Tana, then went to her shotgun and rifle. “You came alone?”

“I’m all there is.”

“Terrible thing,” he said, again, and Tana wasn’t sure whether he meant the attack, or the fact she was solo.

Hard snow squeaked under their boots. The air was sharp, a brisk breeze coming off the water, trailing wisps of mist in behind it.

“Did you know the victims?” Tana said. “Anything you can tell me about them?”

“Selena Apodaca and Raj Sanjit. Both early twenties. Working on the grizzly bear DNA study for EnviroTech, part of the environmental assessment study required of us before the territorial government will sanction construction of a full-scale mining operation here. Regs have gotten tighter since the big Ekati and Diavik finds. We’ll have to drain most of Ice Lake for the open pit, see? Best way to get at those kimberlite pipes. They’re wide pipes, open pit is the way to go with those. Could affect habitat, wildlife movement through the Headless Man corridor. Selena and Raj were flown out Friday morning by Heather—that’s her waiting just up there by the four-wheeler—with a K9 team doing a wolverine study. Elusive things those wolverine. Legendary creatures of the boreal forests. Like ghosts—you know they’re out there. You see evidence. Hardly ever see them, though. A vicious predator and scavenger belonging to the weasel family. Known for physical power and quick temper. This is the last place in North America you find them, up here. The Barrens. Extinguished everywhere else farther south. Incapable of adapting to habitat loss, see?”

“You mean, these environmental teams could be finding evidence of rare wolverines, grizzly habitat, which would impact your application?”

“Something like that. Everyone either wants their chunk of a new and potentially massive diamond op, or they want to stop it, so no one else can have anything. Bastard business this. Funny people, humans. Now it’s the natives, the aboriginals; they’re saying there’s old burial sites out there somewhere, bones of cultural significance, but you know what? They won’t say
where
the goddamn sites are. Claim they are family secrets to be held close to family chests. How are we to protect
secret
sites, eh? Just take their word for it that they’re there? Back in the dark ages, when an Indian on the trail of a caribou herd got sick, they just left the poor bugger to die. He could try to catch up, of course, otherwise he kicked the bucket, and the wolverines ate him. Nature’s recyclers—eaters of the dead is what they’re called in the indigenous languages of this area. Bones. Christ almighty. Probably bones all over the goddamn Barrens.”

Tana winced inwardly. PC was something Harry Blundt had apparently never been accused of.

“This is Heather MacAllistair,” Blundt said as they reached the woman and ATV. The burly guy was now inside the hangar using a jerry can to gas up a second quad. He glanced up, met Tana’s eyes, but gave no nod of greeting.

“You must be the new cop,” MacAllistair said, dropping her cigarette butt to the snow. She ground it out with her boot and reached forward to shake Tana’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Sorry about the circumstances.”

Heather was tall and striking. Thick blonde hair. Wide-set blue eyes, wide mouth, chiseled cheekbones. The kind of features cameras made love to. But she was also visibly shaken, her complexion sheet white. Her hand was dry, cold. Strong grip.

“You’re the one who found them?” Tana said.

She nodded and tucked her bare hands one under each armpit of her down jacket, shivering slightly. “The teams were forced to overnight both Friday and Saturday. I couldn’t get in for the scheduled pickup Friday afternoon. Heavy fog. Zero visibility. It’s a tricky area with the cliffs if you can’t see where you’re going.” She cleared her throat, her blue eyes watering in the sharp air. Tana noticed they were bloodshot. Her breath smelled of booze. “Selena and Raj were good to hunker down and wait out the weather—had gear. It’s EnviroTech protocol, and the teams had done it several times before.” She cleared her throat again. “The first weather gap, a tiny one, came around noon today, and I took it. I managed to get in and collect the K9 team first—Veronique and Dean and their two dogs. We then flew to the lake site, but Selena and Raj weren’t there. I tried to raise them via two-way radio. No answer. No response from their satellite two-way text system, either. So we went in low, looking—” Her voice caught. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Tana noticed they were work hands. Calloused and chapped from the cold. Something about those hands made her like this woman. “That’s when we found them.”

“What time was that?” Tana asked.

“Before 1:00 p.m.”

“And what did you see?” Tana said, guiding her forward.

“They . . . blood all over the snow. Entrails, body parts, ripped clothing. A pack of four wolves was feeding on them. I tried to buzz the animals off. They retreated, but returned right away.”

“And you didn’t land?”

“No,” she said. “There was nothing we could do for them at that point, anyway. And the weather window was closing rapidly, fog coming in dense again.” She looked down at her boots, taking a moment, then her gaze met Tana’s and held. “I feel terrible. If I’d landed, yes, we might have been able to kill the animals, but we’d also have been stuck out there, until who knows when. And without contact. Our radios are two-way—range is minimal. So, I thought it best to fly straight here with the K9 crew. Get them warmed up. And I knew Harry had satcom equipment that could reach you guys so we could report it. We couldn’t get a signal right away because of the weather, so Markus and Teevak went out there themselves. Markus managed to get a call through after they returned—the very dense, low cover had lifted a bit by then.” She rubbed her hand hard over her mouth. “They were two of the nicest kids.”

“And there was absolutely no chance there was a survivor when you first reached the attack site?”

“Shit, no. No fucking way. Those kids were ripped apart, gutted, disemboweled. The head was off the . . . Selena’s head had been ripped right off. I . . .” Her eyes gleamed. “Sorry.” She swiped hard at her eyes with the base of her wrist. “I’ve seen action, horrible death in Iraq, Afghanistan. Libya. Men and women blown apart after stepping on an IED. I’ve transported them out of the heat of battle. But this . . . something about wild animals tearing you apart like that. Just meat. Eaten while still alive. Bears will do that—start eating you before you’re dead. Wolves, too, while you’re still conscious of the fact.”

A chill snaked down Tana’s spine at the thought. “You’re ex military?”

“US Army. Medic. Got my pilot’s license there. Flew several tours. Afghanistan, Iraq. Libya. Quit and came north about seven years ago.”

PTSD, Tana wondered. She was constantly looking for signs of it, since Jim.

“Has their employer, EnviroTech, been notified?” she said.

“Yeah,” Blundt interjected. “I managed to get hold of their project manager about an hour ago.”

“And the K9 team—where are they now?”

“They flew back to Twin Rivers already. I had a supply plane leaving, so we put them on it. It was their last week on the job.”

“Have you got a way to contact them for me while I head out?” Tana said to Blundt. “Ask them to remain in town until I can get a statement from them?”

Blundt and MacAllistair exchanged a glance. “Sure. No worries,” he said.

“And which WestMin employee went with Markus Van Bleek to check out the site—who shot the wolves?”

“Teevak Kino,” Blundt said.

“And where is Kino now?”

“Flew out with the rest of my crew about thirty minutes ago,” Blundt said. “Whole bloody lot has gone, apart from our camp cook, and Markus, and me. One of my guys is getting married, see? So I let them all have a few days to go blow off some steam in Yellowknife. We’d already downscaled the camp for winter mode, and we’re all basically in a holding pattern until the new ice road punches through in January. Then we kick into full gear and can start hauling in major equipment, vehicles, supplies we’ll need come spring.”

The quad inside the Quonset hangar grumbled to life. Markus revved the engine, and drove it over. “Constable,” he said, dismounting. His eyes were dark, unreadable. He possessed a watchful, animal stillness, a guardedness that Tana found slightly unnerving.

“You’re the one I spoke to on the phone?” she said.

“Ja. Markus Van Bleek.” He did not offer his hand. “I’ll be taking you in.” He reached for her pack. She hesitated, then handed it to him. He dumped it onto the carry rack of the quad he’d brought over, then reached for the bag of electric fencing that Blundt was holding. He began to secure it all to the rack with straps.

“I’m afraid I haven’t got anyone else to go with you right now,” Blundt said, watching Van Bleek. “You sure you don’t want to wait for daylight?”

“The bodies of two kids are being scavenged as we speak,” Tana said crisply. “I need to preserve what remains of them until the coroner can get in.”

The trio exchanged glances, and Tana felt distinctly unwelcome.

“I’ll come with you,” MacAllistair offered suddenly. But Tana took her arm and drew her quietly aside.

“You been drinking, Heather?” She spoke low.

“Jesus, just a few whiskies. Who
wouldn’t
after seeing that shit? Like I said, military is one thing, but those kids—”