Since he was missing a repeat of the Country Music Awards on cable, Holt soothed himself by selecting another disc on the ten-disc CD changer in the cab. His only consolation, thin as it was, was that traffic on a night like this was nearly nonexistent. He rolled the big diesel as fast as he dared in the vain hope that he could catch the show’s big finale just before midnight.
ON the downhill side of Thompson Pass, in a forlorn gravel turnoff overlooking the Worthington Glacier thirty miles from Valdez, a yellow Range Rover sat as quiet as the storm, its lights off and its engine idling just enough for the heaters to work. The only indication that the luxury vehicle was occupied was the frosting of the passengers’ breath that smoked the windscreen and side windows. The custom-painted Rover had been there so long that its tire tracks had been obliterated by the continuous snowfall.
Two of the three men in the vehicle had fidgeted away the past two hours, shifting constantly in the plush leather seats, sighing occasionally and staring at the cellular phone mounted under the dash in the hope that it would ring. The third man, the driver, sat calmly watching the storm, following individual drifting flakes as if they needed his permission to land. The intensity of his blue eyes was almost enough to melt snowflakes before they touched the ground.
His hands, powerful and deeply tanned, rested on the steering wheel, the occasional tap of his index finger betraying the anxiety he felt. His handsome face was as still as the glacier to their left. While the other two men sported layers of wool, nylon, and Gore-Tex, he wore only a Norwegian roll-neck fisherman’s sweater and a pair of jeans. His companions shivered in the cab of the Rover and muttered complaints, but he didn’t even feel the cold. He saw the low temperature as something to be embraced rather than warded off.
Nature, he thought, was not meant to be a struggle; it was to be enjoyed. To fight it only served to antagonize it and force it to oppose that much more. He’d often said that every time we attempt to show dominion over nature, she counters, even stronger than before. To him, it made more sense to accept its elemental life force and revel in its magnificence.
He’d tried to teach that to his people, but few really understood. True, some would join him when he swam in subarctic water or trekked through searing deserts, but they did it more out of sheer will than in communion. To them, it was a means of proving that they could endure the worst that nature possessed. They faced the elements not as its vassal but as an equal. He saw his actions as the highest form of worship. To stand before a natural force was to stand before God Himself.
The only other person who truly understood was Aggie. She saw nature as he did. The crashing waves of a winter storm on a forlorn coast or an intense rain that made it impossible to breathe were forces that she could appreciate. She saw these things as the highest expression of perfection. Let others stand in awe before a Picasso or the Sistine Chapel. These were man-made and thus inherently flawed. They paled before the perfect beauty of a tropical sunset or a coral reef. Aggie believed him when he said that humanity had changed so much from our original intentions that we had become a danger to the planet. She didn’t balk when he said that if the end of our existence was the price to pay to save the earth, then so be it.
The ring of the phone was just a quiet chirp, but the men in the Rover started at the sound. They’d been waiting two long hours for it. There was no need to answer the call. Their look-out had already hung up and was on his way back to Valdez from his position atop Thompson Pass.
They didn’t speak as they exited the vehicle, stretching for a moment to work out the kinks from so many hours of immobility. The driver opened the back door of the truck, revealing the five-gallon red plastic jerry cans that they’d loaded in Valdez. Each can weighed thirty-five pounds, and as each man heaved two from the cargo deck, only the driver didn’t stagger or struggle with his burden.
The storm whipped at them without mercy, snow and wind battering all three as they crossed the parking area, heading for the shoulder of Richardson Highway. They had chosen this location for two reasons. It was the steepest part of the descent from the top of the pass, and the road curved sharply along the precipitous bank of the Tiekel River, twenty-five feet below.
Their actions were well planned and carried out with a minimum of confusion. The lookout’s call confirmed that the Petromax tanker truck had just reached the pinnacle of Thompson Pass and that no other traffic was headed their way. Each man emptied his cans of water onto the road in a precise area, so that a maximum amount of the highway was soon covered with a thin sheet of invisible black ice. This alone would not guarantee that the truck would skid out of control, so they had to be back in the Rover before the tractor trailer appeared.
“Hurry up,” the driver urged, though he knew by earlier timed tests that they had another few minutes.
The last can was emptied, and the water rushed down the inclined road for a moment before slowing to the pace of molasses as it froze. The three men hurried to the Rover, the driver shifting the idling vehicle into gear as he settled in the seat. His two companions muttered about the weather and brushed themselves off, but a childlike, expectant tension shone on their youthful faces. They’d just pulled off a bit of mischief and gotten away with it. To them, it all seemed a game.
The driver, older by fifteen years and wiser by a couple of centuries, knew what was at stake. He understood fully what they had just done and silently wished that they could do it more often.
Brock Holt eased the truck over the top of the pass and worked the transmission up through a few gears. He’d driven this road so many times in the past six years that he knew he wouldn’t need to downshift for another mile and a half, until the road really started to descend into the gorge. The storm had intensified since he’d left Valdez, but it still wasn’t strong enough to concern him. He kept one hand on the wheel as he slid a stick of chewing gum from the pack he’d left on the center console. His heavily bearded jaws jumped rhythmically as he chomped on the gum and mumbled the words to the song belting from the stereo. The digital clock on the dash told him that he just might make it to Anchorage in time to see the finish of his show on the small black-and-white TV in Hank Kelso’s office.
The road started to drop away, and Brock downshifted, the big diesel bellowing at the extra strain of slowing the rig. The steering wheel was a living creature under his hands, twisting and writhing as he guided the eighteen-wheeler off of Thompson Pass. As the road dipped farther, he dropped one more gear, slowing even more, cautiously easing the truck along the road. When the front wheels hit the black ice, he was traveling slowly enough to correct for the short slide, but the patch was much larger than anything he’d ever experienced before.
The cab began losing its grip on the road. Holt could feel the wheels spinning uselessly against the slick surface, yet he had no choice but to turn the wheel to take the corner coming at him dangerously fast. He feathered the brakes and shifted down into low range, using the engine to gain just enough traction to keep the rig on the road. As the truck began to respond, he became aware that his heart had moved from his chest and was now pounding in his throat. For the barest fraction of a second, he’d almost lost the rig, but he’d gathered the truck like a wild horse bucking at the reins.
That’s when he saw the yellow Range Rover pulling out of an overlook and diving straight into his path.
He mashed his foot against the brake, slamming the pedal against its stop in a purely reflexive act. Even as he cursed the idiot in the other vehicle, he could feel his rig losing control once again. The massive trailer and its forward movement was a force that the cab could not overcome. The rig began to jack-knife, the trailer pushing the truck out to the side of the road in an obtuse angle. Just as quickly as the Range Rover had jumped into his path, it dove out of the way of the runaway tractor trailer. But it was too late for Brock Holt.