He took a breath. Henry patted him on the shoulder.
“You’re trying too hard, Kai. Anyway, it won’t work. We can stand here and freeze to death or we can walk together; you, me, Sarah and the… other witness.”
Grimes growled and turned to walk back to the HQ.
“If you can convince the gen…” But the wind blasted the words from his lips. “Fuck it!” He began running towards the HQ building.
Henry put an arm around Sarah’s shoulders and they followed Grimes. Then he paused, bent over and unhooked the malamute’s leash, setting the dog free. Shep bounded in a happy circle around them, oblivious to the cold that seemed to deepen with every passing second. Henry whistled softly and slapped his left side. Obeying his master’s command, Shep immediately leapt to Henry’s side.
“No more kennels for you, boy,” said Henry.
Once more a light snow began to fall; propelled by the wind, it stung any exposed flesh. Even Henry pulled his hood tight around his head as they trudged back towards the cluster of buildings grouped around the main complex.
That night a major storm blew in from the sea. By nightfall four Cobra attack helicopters, awash with weaponry, sat on the main helipad. There was nothing to do except tie down the choppers and wait for the storm to pass. Everyone ended up in a meeting room adjacent to the mess.
There were a lot of unfamiliar faces in the room.
General Hayes told Henry the strangers were a special team from the Enterprise. “They’re here to sniff out the nukes.”
Grimes watched the general carefully, waiting for him to question the presence of Henry’s dog in the room, but the question never came. Finally Grimes took Hayes aside and mentioned that Henry was “kind of firm on the subject of his dog coming along”. To his astonishment, Hayes just looked at him and then at the dog, and casually said, “Fine.”
The storm lashed McMurdo all night. Gradually everyone broke up into small groups, playing cards, watching tapes, reading or simply drinking coffee and talking.
Finally an exhausted Grimes headed for bed. “You gotta Z when you can,” he said with a yawn.
Sarah and Henry spent another three hours looking at her laptop computer and “trying out heads”, as he described it. Still to no avail.
Finally everyone but Henry was asleep. Lying on his cot, listening to the ice hit the tin roof of the building, he let his thoughts roam. Even if they found out where the second bomb was located, what good would it do? They couldn’t remove it without setting it off. So what was the point of looking for it or, even, the terrorists? All he wanted to do was go back to his life before this happened. Back to the ice and the aurora. How long had it been? He’d lost track of the time. Easy to do in Antarctica.
He glanced across at Shep, asleep on the floor next to his cot.
Henry Scott Gibbs of the Antarctic smiled, closed his eyes, and slept.
Three
Next morning at 5:42am the ice shifted.
Henry’s eyes opened wide as he felt it. Then came the sounds: the creaking of buildings, falling dishes, stores and supplies crashing to the floor; clothes, clocks, bacon, bandages. Everything that wasn’t nailed down was thrown around the rooms. Then began the screams, shouts, curses and, from the kennels, barking.
Henry scrambled to his feet and tried to steady himself as he peered out the frosted window to see what was happening. Mount Erebus shot ash and fire into the morning sky, fulfilling the promise it had been making to the geologists for days: full eruption.
Shep stood splay-legged at the base of Henry’s bunk, staring at him as though he was the one who’d caused the quake. Suddenly the bunk’s wooden frame fell apart. Books and papers fell from collapsing shelves and covered the floor.
General Hayes had fallen asleep at his desk in his office waiting for an uplink from Washington that never came. When the quake hit, he wet himself. Kai Grimes came into the room holding his pants in one hand and a .45 automatic in the other. He took a quick look around the room and realized what was happening.
“Welcome to California, sir,” he said.
Hayes looked at his wet lap and swore softly.
A distant rumble broke the eerie minute of silence that followed the earthquake. Suddenly the radio that the general had been unconsciously holding sprang to life.
“Glomar Explorer to McMurdo, over. We see you, over.”
Hayes dropped the thing as if it were a bug, staring at it.
Grimes hopped on one leg as he pulled on his trousers. He stared out the window at the bay. The sea ice had split up overnight. In the distance, barely moving as it forced its way through the ice towards the land, the orange hul of the massive icebreaker Glomar Explorer could easily be seen.
“Evacuations ASAP, sir,” said Grimes.
Before the aircraft carrier Enterprise had come within a hundred miles of McMurdo it had gotten what it came for; it turned back north.
Newly aboard: four weatherbeaten Cobra helicopters; General Anthony Hayes and his aide, Embry Hazelton; Lieutenant-Commander Kai Grimes Jake Smithson, one of the general’s other two aides Sarah French of the FBI; and Henry Scott Gibbs of the Antarctic with his wonder dog, Shep.
They walked as a group across the carrier deck towards the conning tower as scores of deckhands wheeled the choppers quickly off the deck and onto massive elevators that lowered them into the bowels of the ship.
Henry had never been on a ship this size before. Its enormity amazed him. As soon as they got below- decks, however, the carrier seemed smaller. Indeed, he thought the passageways seemed much too small for such a large ship; they made him feel claustrophobic. Before they’d come aboard the general had told him Shep wouldn’t be a problem on the carrier. Admiral Milborne Schumacher, acting on the orders of President Kerry, had given his personal decree that a section of the flight deck would be allocated for the purpose of walking Henry’s dog. The admiral had said they’d even put down astroturf if necessary.
Grimes chuckled from behind Henry and Shep as they made their way to the main mess. “I don’t think any dog has ever had the run of this ship yet,” said the SEAL. “Told you, if he craps in the admiral’s shoes, they’ll know who to blame.” He laughed. “What is it with you, Henry? Col ectin’ ways to get yourself killed?”
The ensign who’d shown them to their bunkrooms saluted and left. Sarah looked around her cramped room and groaned. A minute later she was in the corridor again, knocking on Henry’s door.
“What’s up, Sarah?” said Henry, opening it. “You lonely already?”
She stood in the doorway for a second, then said, “Oh never mind,” and turned towards her room in disgust.
“I’m sorry,” said Henry. “Why not come in? What’s the problem?”
She obeyed. Since she wasn’t holding her computer he suspected she wanted to talk.
Sarah sat down on his bunk and looked at him. He searched around for a place to sit, and chose a straight- backed chair, turning it to face her. “Spill.”
“I don’t know what it is that’s wrong. I’m not sure I understand what’s going on.”
“I’m not sure I do either, Sarah,” he said.
“I mean… are we safe here?”
“Got me. But it’s my guess we’re as safe here as anywhere. If there’s a tidal wave, the best place to ride it out is a big ship. They don’t get much bigger than a carrier.”