Gallen made it across in one step and felt the heat burning into his feet. Finding the internal ladder, he climbed down into a tiny space that was heated like an oven. It was a space big enough for one man to stand, and there was a small seat that folded down from the wall.
Buttons were arrayed across a dashboard that was set into the dark-grey steel structure of the reactor. The light was dim, coming from a single engineer’s bulb, and Gallen was quietly amazed that such a small plant could power a drilling rig.
Making himself shut out the sensation of intense heat and cold, he focused. The code, he thought. He had to start with the manual override code.
There was a panel of numbers arranged like a phone pad and above it was a line of buttons, one of which read Manual override.
Taking it slowly, even as he felt his feet cooking, Gallen input Florita’s birth date: 08211970.
Double checking on the numbers, Gallen danced slightly to ease the pain in his feet, and pressed Manual override.
He waited. And nothing happened. Pushing at the buttons, he tried it again, his face screwing up with pain as the heat etched itself into the soles of his feet.
Still nothing.
Turning, he clambered onto the ladder, but the rungs were hot too. His face ran sweaty inside the helmet and his breathing was ragged. Lifting his G-Shock to his face, he checked the mission clock: eight minutes more of air, and then the BIBS system would be empty.
Think! He had to think.
If it wasn’t her date of birth, then what? Did she use a fake DOB? Was Florita even her real name?
He breathed slowly and tried to stay calm. The discomfort in his body was overwhelming him, the cold seeping around his throat and the heat burning into his feet. It was too much.
He racked his brain for clues about Florita; what would she use for a code? What did he know about her? She favoured tailored blouses and she wore perfume that he couldn’t identify. Her car was a modest BMW but none of the model numbers would run to eight digits.
As the heat rose again and the reactor made a roaring sound, Gallen had an idea. Florita’s house was on a street in Westmount, Calgary. He tried to remember it; he’d spent fifteen years in special forces having to remember every registration, passport number and endless RV times. He’d trained himself to absorb the details that others ignored or could store in a phone or diary. Gallen, like other recon soldiers, had to memorise everything from a train timetable to a helicopter registration decal and he couldn’t write it down on a beer coaster. He knew that if he concentrated, Florita’s address was in there somewhere.
Mouthing numbers to himself, he felt like a lobster in a pot. He was cooking! And then it came: her house was on a wide block and the street numbers were 1702–1706.
Sliding down the ladder, onto the red-hot steel again, Gallen turned for the keypad. Punching in the eight digits, he hit the manual override button and the full panel lit up, just as Aaron had promised.
Scanning the buttons, his feet on fire, Gallen saw the Safety reset button illuminated, and hit it. It started flashing. Gallen couldn’t remember what to do when the button flashed. Looking at the other buttons, he couldn’t see an alternative. The heat pressed in on him and then it happened.
The air failed.
Hitting the Safety reset button again, he pushed out of the hatch and into the cool of the Arctic Ocean. He saw the fading lights of the Sea Otter, knew that Hansen and Aaron must be either gone or close to it. A few last tendrils of air wafted through the demand valve into his mouth, but it was over. Gasping, he let himself drift off the reactor, towards the muddy bottom, where his feet hit the softness and he let himself fall into it like he was landing on a goose-down mattress.
He was cold again and as he felt himself drifting off he thought about his mother and his father and wondered if his marriage might have been different if he’d had kids. His head sang and he was drowning — he shut his eyes and thought about Mindanao, about Basilan Island and how he’d do it differently.
He drifted into sleep and lights came down on him, bright lights… from heaven?
A monster who looked like the Michelin Man leaned in on him, pulled him by the shoulders, his light flashing in Gallen’s eyes. The monster had a human face… Mike? Mike Ford?
He was too far gone: was it a dream? And then he was being lifted, carried up, and there was nothing.
CHAPTER 67
Gallen vomited into the face mask as he was lifted and then he was squinting into the lights and hands were dragging him down, putting another mask on him. The oxygen flowed and Gallen heaved with vomit again, sea water pouring out of him as he was pushed onto his side on the steel grating.
He felt like shit, but he was alive. Panting and looking up, he saw crew from the Ariadne tearing his dry suit off and a silver blanket hovering over him. As he tried to sit up, an arm grabbed under his armpits as he dry-retched. He sucked at air and a hand put the oxygen face mask on him again.
Across the divers lock of the Ariadne, a yellow atmospheric diving suit was being winched out of the water, a man’s face visible in the glass dome.
Another diver appeared in the big watery bay, and the personnel ran to take off the body that he held out.
Aaron!
The body was limp. Gallen felt nausea erupt and then he passed out.
His jeans and shirt had been cleaned and folded. Pulling on clean thermals first, Gallen wrapped up in flannel shirts and a pair of Wranglers as he watched the blizzard outside the window, pounding through the streets of Barrow, Alaska. It felt good to be back in real clothes.
‘No need to get dressed up,’ came a voice, and Gallen turned to find Mike Ford and Kenny Winter in his room.
Liam Tucker wandered in, sheepish. ‘Hey, boss.’
They shook and Gallen sat on the bed as he rolled on his socks. ‘Nice timing, guys. I’m assuming that was you two down there?’
‘Mike found the damsel lying in the mud,’ said Winter, playing with a cigarette but not lighting it. ‘I got to Aaron in the tin can.’
‘Hansen?’ said Gallen, pulling on his boots.
Winter shook his head. ‘Didn’t make it.’
‘What about that reactor?’
Ford helped himself to gum and offered it around. ‘You shut it down pretty good, boss,’ said the Aussie. ‘The US Navy guys retrieved it about half an hour after we found you but they said it was stable and contained.’
Standing, Gallen took it easy. His balance hadn’t been good over the past twenty-four hours. Ford packed the rest of Gallen’s stuff and carried his overnight bag as they walked out of the hospital.
Gallen wanted answers as they drove to the airport. ‘So you took the Ariadne down to us?’
‘There was no submersible,’ said Winter. ‘So this Aussie lunatic starts up about how the Ariadne is a submersible, and we’re going to the bottom and he’s not leaving his team down there.’
Gallen smiled, the first time in a long time. ‘How’d the Dutchies go with that?’
‘Mike only offered to fight the lot of them, and none of them were up for it.’
‘Hah!’ said Gallen, feeling better. ‘Guess that leaves us with one outstanding.’
Winter sneered. ‘Two, if you count payback.’
‘Let’s find Florita first, okay?’ said Gallen as they arrived at the northernmost airport in Alaska. ‘Then we decide what we do with our filmmakers.’