Kathryn and Tadri sat motionless listening to Andrew’s footsteps moving away from them. After a long moment, Tadri scooted next to her and snaked her arm inside Kathryn’s. They huddled together. Their immediate worry was for Pierre, but Kathryn’s thoughts quickly began to spread to the rest of the team. There were a lot of people out here because of her and any one of them may have been caught in that quake. Jesus, all of them could have been. Her chest suddenly began to feel heavy, and her fear grew into a paralyzing mix of guilt and terror.
Tadri felt Kathryn’s body begin to shake through their linked arms and turned to her. “Kathryn? Are you okay?”
Kathryn looked at Tadri with a helpless stare. She slowly shook her head. “The others.” She trailed off looking back at the fog trying desperately to peer beyond.
Tadri grabbed her gloved hand and squeezed it. “I’m sure everybody’s fine Kathryn! I’m sure everyone got away just like we did.” Kathryn looked back at her. “Including Pierre.”
Kathryn was not so sure. She thought about how quickly and easily those edges fell away. She had to find out. She turned and looked for her large pack which had the long range radio on it, but the thick white mist had already moved past them and enveloped the entire area. Kathryn started to turn when Tadri gripped her tightly.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to get to my pack and call the other teams.”
Tadri turned around. “Do you see your pack?”
Kathryn smirked and pointed. “It’s right over there about forty feet away.
“Are you sure?” Tadri asked.
Kathryn nodded impatiently. “Yes!” Tadri remained silent staring at her. Kathryn took the hint and looked around. They were completely enveloped now and could not see anything. “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s right over there.”
Tadri kept a firm grip on her arm. “Do you even know which direction you’re facing? I don’t!”
Kathryn looked again, thinking about the question. “No.” She sighed, slouching back down to the ground.
Tadri looked up. Even the sky was white. “I say we wait until Andrew gets back or until we can actually see something.”
They both sat waiting for what seemed like hours. Finally, they heard the distant crunching of footsteps and stood up excitedly. It took almost a full minute for Andrew to appear out of the wall of mist. They smiled at him but realized he was not smiling back. He stopped in front of them and swung something large around his shoulders dropping it at their feet. It was Pierre’s bag.
Kathryn’s eyes opened wide, fearful of what was coming.
“I can’t find him.”
She immediately felt like she got hit in the chest with a hammer.
“I reckon he fell in. He was pretty close when it started.” Andrew knelt down and unzipped the bag. He dug through it taking a quick inventory.
“Wha-what do we do?” she asked.
“We get our bags and go back to look for him. I didn’t hear anything when I called out for him, but I’m not ready to give up. Get your bags,” he looked at his compass. “They’re just a few meters that way.” As he pointed, Kathryn noted that it was not the direction she was about to head earlier. “We need our equipment and as much rope as we can find. We have some on the other snowmobile. Hopefully, we have enough between the two.”
Both ladies took a tentative step in the direction that Andrew had indicated, but turned back with an uncertain look. He nodded his head, still squatting down looking in the bag. “Just follow the sound back to me, you’ll be fine.”
Andrew led the way back on foot with Kathryn and Tadri riding their snowmobile slowly behind him. The visibility was improving, and they were able to make out the outline of the other snowmobile at almost thirty feet when they arrived. Part of the front skids hung over the edge of the steep drop but amazingly had not fallen in. Andrew quickly tied a rope back to back on the snowmobiles, and Kathryn slowly eased the throttle pulling the second vehicle to safety.
Andrew stood carefully on the edge and peered into the giant white chasm. He could make out the tips of large ice chunks below but could not see anything else further down. “Pieeerre!” he called aloud and listened. “Pieeeeeeerre!” They heard only silence around them.
Andrew changed the lines on the snowmobiles, so each now had their own individual length of rope attached to its rear rack. He pulled hard on each to make sure the machines did not budge.
“What are you doing?” Kathryn asked.
“I’m going down.”
“What? You don’t even know how far down it is!”
He shot her an impatient look. “Look…Kathryn, he’s probably buried which means we don’t have long. It’s probably already too late. But it’s now or never.” He pointed to the snowmobiles. “I need you two to sit on those to make sure they don’t go anywhere.”
Both ladies nodded and planted themselves on the seat facing backwards. Kathryn grabbed her pack and pulled out her radio.
“Don’t!”
She looked at Andrew. “What? We have to find out if everyone is okay. They may need help too!”
“If they do, then my teammates are doing exactly as I am. Besides, we don’t want to make any noise if Pierre is trying to call for help under a meter of snow.” He ran the ropes through his belt and got ready to descend. He planted his feet against the edge and looked back at them. “I’ll be right back.”
29
Clay woke to the sound of his phone. He opened one eye and peered at the bright screen. After taking a moment to push the fog from his head, he accepted the call. “Borger. How goes it?”
“Hey Clay, I wake you up?”
“No,” he said before thinking about the question. “Actually yes, but go ahead.”
“Clay, we’re gonna need to get everybody on a call.”
Clay rubbed his hand across his face and sat up on the bed. “Talk to me.”
Borger paused on the other end. “It’s not what we thought Clay.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s worse,” Borger sighed. “I don’t think we should say too much on your cell. We’re gonna need a secure line. Maybe start with Langford.”
Clay nodded. “Okay, hold tight. I’ll find him and Caesare.” He hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute. He raised his eyes and looked around the darkened room. When he had first woke it took him a few seconds to remember where he was. He and Caesare, along with a couple of Emerson’s men, had been airlifted back to NAS JAX last night where they quickly unloaded the Triton. After getting it into a lab, they removed the hard drive and attached it to a computer so they could transfer the data to Borger. It took a couple hours, but once Borger had the data he suggested they all get some rest and give him some time to go over it. That was all the prompting they needed. They procured some quarters reserved for civilian visitors and hit the sack. That was a little over four hours ago. Now it was four thirty a.m., and he needed to find Langford for a conference call. Finding Caesare was easy; he could hear him snoring through the wall next door.
Fifteen minutes later, Langford was the last of the four men to dial into the call. He wasted no time. “What do you have, Will?”
“Well sir, I just got off the phone with Dr. Harding at MIT. We’ve spent the last two hours going over the hard drive data that Clay and Caesare sent over. The Triton captured twelve hours and fifty two minutes of video after losing contact with the ship and slowly spiraled downward in large concentric circles until hitting the bottom. Most of the video is not useful as it captured things above the submersible such as views of the surface or the ship above.”