‘Okay, so we put out a mayday on the emergency frequency. Who hears us?’ he asked.
‘Just about every aircraft is preset to one twenty-one point five on their secondary channel,’ said Ford. ‘The people looking for that helo are also looking for us, and they’ll be listening to that channel.’
‘So there could be another helo waiting in the vicinity that was working with the one we put down?’
‘I’d say so,’ said Ford.
‘We need to give our location in coded form,’ said Winter. ‘Something the locals would understand, but not a bunch of mercs flown in to kill us.’
‘Ideas?’ said Gallen.
‘The name of this base,’ said Winter. ‘Found a label on a box of oil in the garage. It matches with some others I found.’
‘And?’
‘This base was called CAM fifteen. If we put a call out with that location, some of the local search-and-rescue people might know what it is…’
‘But not the unfriendlies?’ said Gallen.
‘Worth a try?’
Gallen thought about it. ‘How are we for weapons, ammo?’
‘Two handguns, about forty rounds,’ said Ford. ‘Three rifles, half-loaded — let’s say forty, forty-five rounds.’
‘Okay, Mike.’ Gallen rubbed his stubble with his fingertips. ‘Get a mayday on the net. Call it CAM fifteen, and no more. Not even the word base or facility. Okay?’
‘Got it, boss.’
‘And as soon as we send that mayday, Mike, I want us all over those presets.’
‘Pick up the chatter?’
‘Damn right,’ said Gallen, aching for a cigarette. ‘If they’re coming in again, I want to know in advance.’
Ford dialled in one twenty-one point five on the MHZ band and started relaying the message.
‘Mayday, mayday. Aircraft down. Survivors at CAM fifteen. Repeat…’
Before he could finish the message the display switched from one twenty-one point five to Home. After it happened several times, Gallen asked him to simply say ‘CAM fifteen’ and then switch to ‘Mayday’ on the next burst.
They sent the mayday for twenty minutes and then reverted to the presets on the mercenaries’ radio. They stayed silent, waiting for a giveaway voice or comment, but whoever was sitting at ‘Home’ had discipline and was not answering.
Gallen led Winter out of the room, into the main buildings. ‘I don’t want to have the discussion where Florita can hear it. But let’s find our shooting points in case we have another wave of mercenaries.’
‘That roof gantry?’ said Winter.
‘What I was thinking. This time, they won’t be able to stand off and mop us up with the minigun. They’ll have to come in, so we get to counter-attack.’
‘If it’s a Little Bird again, they’ll only have three shooters and the pilot,’ said Winter. ‘You’d like to take ‘em out on the ground?’
‘Without losing the helo,’ said Gallen.
They secured the ladder that led to the trapdoor in the ceiling and Winter climbed it first, knocking his big shoulder against it until the door gave way. Pushing through drift snow, they clambered onto a gantry that ran in a square around the white dome.
‘This goes around the whole facility,’ said Winter, zipping his parka further to his chin as the wind squalled. ‘There’s also a door into the dome.’
‘What’s in there?’ said Gallen, scoping the area around the building and deciding that a roof vantage point was about the best they’d get if attacked.
‘It’s radar scoops, back to back,’ said Winter. ‘The thing is, it’s enclosed. If we decide to use a sentry, there’s at least shelter from the wind.’
Lifting his binoculars, Gallen swept the terrain on a three-sixty-degree scan. ‘What’s that, from the north?’
Winter squinted. ‘Storm, big one by the height of it.’
About fifty miles away, a wall of white and purple-black rose out of the tundra, thousands of feet into the air. Another squall struck them, this one forcing Gallen to move his feet.
‘Let’s get inside,’ he said, moving back to the trapdoor. ‘We’ll take two-hour revolving shifts up here. I don’t want anyone freezing to death.’
As Gallen got to the door, he turned and saw Winter squatting slightly, the rifle sliding off his shoulder.
The Canadian lifted a finger to his lips and then trained the weapon. Looking out into the glare, Gallen couldn’t see what he was aiming at but unholstered his SIG as a precaution.
The rifle jumped and a puff of cordite wafted away on the breeze.
‘What’s going on?’ said Gallen.
Winter smiled. ‘Dinner.’
CHAPTER 31
The fox stew tasted better than anything they could have served Gallen at the Ritz. Certainly it beat the Denver Hilton’s lobster mac and cheese, the single most expensive item he’d ever ordered at a restaurant.
But it didn’t stop Florita holding forth on the rights and wrongs of killing and eating an arctic fox.
‘It’s endangered, isn’t it?’ she demanded of Gallen, even though he hadn’t shot the beast.
‘Is now,’ said Winter, chewing.
‘That’s not even funny, Kenny,’ she said.
‘Try some,’ said the Canadian. ‘It’s pretty good.’
‘I’d rather starve.’
‘Nice you got the choice,’ said Winter.
‘Actually,’ she glowered, ‘the choice was taken when you shot that poor animal, Kenny.’
‘Like we say in the military…’ Winter paused to wipe juice off his chin.
‘What?’
‘Sometimes a simple thank you would suffice.’
Florita stood in a huff and sat on her cot, flipping through a Time magazine but not reading it.
Gallen checked his G-Shock: twelve minutes before he relieved Mike Ford on the gantry and the winds sounded as though they had risen to beyond fifty mph — the speed at which things broke and people got swept away.
Getting up, he eyed Durville’s satchel and had an idea. ‘Florita, can you get us into Harry’s BlackBerry? It’s password protected.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Don’t you want to know who bombed us? Who shot at you in the snow?’
‘Of course I do, Gerry,’ she said, looking both annoyed and scared. ‘But that could be a job for the police.’
‘That could be a job for the head of Harry’s personal security,’ said Winter, shovelling stew. ‘They killed Harry too.’
Turning for her magazine, Florita sighed. ‘I don’t know the code.’
The remains of the stew sat on the back burner of the wood stove, waiting for Ford to devour it when he came down from his shift. Gallen and Winter were hungry and both eyed the mound of fox stew that sat on Florita’s plate.
‘So, you really don’t want the stew?’ said Winter.
‘Kenny!’ Gallen growled. ‘No one touches Florita’s meal.’
The gantry was buffeted by high winds and visibility had reduced to about ten feet as the blizzard developed into a white-out. Climbing into the dome, Gallen stamped his feet and took a look at the six holes Ford had dug in the tin with his Ka-bar knife. The dim half-light of the northern night permeated the landscape as the snow was thrown across it by the ton.
The last surviving radio headset sat on Gallen’s ears, with the agreement not to use it unless there was danger. The batteries were close to expiring and they didn’t have rechargers. Below, Gallen knew that the maydays would continue to be broadcast every five minutes and, in between times, they’d be monitoring the Home frequency for traffic.
Stamping to keep the blood flowing into his toes, Gallen kept moving from hole to hole, preventing himself from thinking about the obviously dire circumstances by doing what they used to do while on combat tours: dream about what you’d do when you were back on civvie street.