“Now that the patient is finally awake, nurse, we would appreciate your finishing up so we can ask some questions,” said the elder officer. “I’m General Anthony Hayes,” he continued to Henry. “This is Lieutenant Commander Kai Grimes of the Navy SEALs, and this gentleman on my right is my assistant, Lieutenant Embry Hazelton.”
The nurse looked at the general and he nodded. She left the room immediately.
“Can you tell me what happened, Gibbs?” asked Hayes.
Henry nodded. “Nice to meet you, General. It’s not customary for the military to investigate crimes, is it? I mean, aren’t you folks supposed to keep a low profile around here?”
Hayes smiled. “Usually.”
Henry lifted his bandaged arm and glanced at his chest. “I guess some folks are touchy about the weather,” he said with a smile. “Seems a bit extreme to shoot a person over it.” He laughed nervously, but the pain in his chest forced him to stop. “It only hurts when I…”
“Laugh?” said the general, but he didn’t smile. He seemed gravely concerned. “Tell me what happened, please.”
Henry put his head back, closed his eyes and thought for a moment.
“Gibbs?” repeated the general.
“I’d been a week out on the shelf, with my nine dogs. I’m studying the aurora — a meteorologist, you know. Anyway, my radio went out and I couldn’t get it working, so I saw this group of… faux-Norwegians, and I asked them for a weather report.”
“ ‘ Faux-Norwegians’?” said Hayes. “What do you mean?”
“A group of about twenty men. They were flying a Norwegian flag, but none of them — at least, not the three I spoke to — spoke the language. They were military. I mean, they had uniforms. And they were drilling.”
“They shot you?” asked the general.
Henry nodded. Then he related his encounter in detail, offering his suspicion that they’d shot him because he’d realized they weren’t Norwegians. As he spoke, the general’s assistant, Hazelton, took notes on a clipboard.
“Excuse me, General,” said Hazelton. “May I ask a question?” When Hayes nodded, the lieutenant continued, “What exactly did you say to these… Norwegians?”
Henry related his conversation, telling them about his grandparents’ little joke. As he spoke, Hazelton carried on scribbling on the clipboard.
“Then they just shot you?” asked the SEAL, Grimes, when Henry had concluded his story.
“Maybe they thought I’d steal their radio?” Henry said with a pained smile. “I can’t figure it out.”
He told them how the bullet had been stopped by the radio in his pocket, but the man didn’t seem impressed.
“We are looking at the radio,” said Hayes. “Good thing you held on to it. Evidence.”
After a few more questions, they had Henry show them on a map the approximate position of the attack; then they thanked him and left.
Soon the nurse returned, carrying a tray. Henry noticed she wasn’t smiling any longer.
“Why so gloomy?”
She seemed surprised by the question. She brushed a lock of brown hair away from her eye and looked at Henry.
“Shit… am I going to die?” asked Henry in a panicked voice.
She put down the tray and picked up a syringe.
“Time for a little antibiotic, Mr Gibbs. And, no, you’re not going to die.”
“Then what are you talking about? What haven’t I heard? Tell me.”
“I was talking about the terrorists,” she said.
“The ones who shot me? Are you saying I was shot by terrorists?”
The nurse shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m talking about the broadcast… you know, the one from the UN.”
Henry struggled to make sense of their conversation. Gradually he realized something big was happening. World News Tonight stuff.
He looked at her gravely. “I just got here off the ice. I was shot by strangers. I don’t have a single clue what’s going on.”
She did a double-take for a moment, then blinked.
“Oh, heck, I’m sorry.” A coy smile. “I thought everybody knew about the terrorists who planted the bombs in the ice. It’s been on the news since yesterday.”
He stared at her blankly. “Bombs in the ice?” His mind searched through the details of his encounter with the false Norwegians. “Planted the bombs in what ice?”
“If it’s the Ross Shelf, we may have to pack out of here soon,” she said. “That’s why the Navy’s here.” She looked around the room. “Gee,” she added, “I hope it was okay to tell you that.”
He was shaken by the news, but not enough to forget his humour. “If the whole world knows it,” he said, laughing, “then one more person won’t matter much. Besides, the brass learn about their universe on a need- to-know basis.”
The nurse gave him a wan smile and left the room.
Alone, he examined his surroundings. The place was a wing of the main hospital, and typical of all McMurdo’s buildings: well insulated simple A-frame structures. The hospital’s decor, as at many other polar bases, was strewn with pictures of the rest of the world and incongruous motifs, with palm trees and flaminggoes a dominant favourite. This room had gotten the palm trees: light green trees over a darker green background. He noticed there was a phone on the table at his bedside and, more importantly, a TV facing him. A remote lay next to his pitcher of iced water.
Grabbing the remote, he switched on the television. Vanna was turning Ms on the big board.
Henry began changing channels. An old Dick Van Dyke show, a nature special about kelp, a movie — he recognized it as Breakfast at Tiffany’s — Alan Burke talking about watches, McMurdo Events for Wednesday… but no news reports on any channel.
“Shit!”
Watching the events schedule scroll up the blue screen, he finally decided the thing was running on automatic. He wished there’d been a window — anything that would have given him some clues to what was going on. Finally he pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, and stared at the tube leading to his arm. He wanted to rip it out and take a walk. He was sweating. By anyone else’s standards the room would have been comfortable, but to him it was intolerably hot.
The door to his room swung open again and the general and the SEAL came in.
Hayes was startled to see Henry sitting up. “Feeling better already?”
He grabbed a chair and moved it next to the bed.
Commander Grimes, the SEAL, did likewise.
“Can’t you guys get the heat turned off in here? I’m roasting alive,” said Henry.
“Feels okay to me,” said Hayes, looking at Grimes to see if he agreed.
The SEAL nodded.
“If you can’t turn down the heat, could you at least tell me what’s going on?”
The general asked Grimes to check into the “heat situation” and, as Grimes departed, sat down.
“We have a serious situation here, Mr Gibbs,” he began. “You have to understand that I’m in the business of getting, not giving, information. It’s better for the moment that you simply tell us everything you know. We’ll fill you in later.”
Henry groaned and lay back on the bed.
Hayes took the remote and turned off the television.
“Tell me your story again.”
This time Henry made sure not to miss a single detail. When he mentioned seeing the drilling rig on the back of a tractor, he noticed Hayes paid close attention.
When the Navy SEAL reentered the room, the general had Henry repeat the part about the drilling rig for Grimes’s benefit.
The two men questioned him about his story for almost an hour, asking him to go over certain parts several times.