As Cain hacked the rope from his ankles a packet of dried onions hovered in front of him, blocking his view.
‘Bitch,’ Mullins roared.
Nina’s scream. The onion bag fell to the floor.
Cain had the knife.
Too late. The girl lay still. Mullins had snapped her neck. With her death, the shaking had stopped and fallen objects had made the van a bombsite.
Cain, body cold-stiff, gasping thin air, dropped a knee onto Mullins’s spine, yanked up his head — pig-slit him with all his force, howled, ‘You scum.’
Mullins gurgled, rolled off the broken body, blood spurting, ruined face agape.
While the man’s heart pumped his life out, Cain confirmed that Eve had gone. Then he climbed on the rack and got the gun, feeling the warmth that had eluded him on the floor. He shoved the magazine back in, pulled and released the cocking handle, depressed the decocking lever so that the hammer could move forward. That done, he placed the gun on the object-strewn table, retrieved his outer clothing from the rack, got his boots back on.
He was appalled to discover he felt disassociated, calm. Because of the extremity of the continent, the fight for breath, warmth, life?
He wiped the knife on the degenerate’s long johns, located the knife sheath on the table attached to a discarded belt, sheathed the knife and slid the sheath onto his own belt.
Panting now with the effort, he retrieved his outer clothing and put it on. His joints ached with every movement. The time on the floor had almost wrecked him.
He found his mukluks, a balaclava. His goggles were gone but he retrieved another pair. He adjusted his mitten harness, snapped the big inner-lined gloves behind his back. He’d need them out of the way to use the gun.
He picked up the weapon like a carpenter selecting a tool. The action would be warmed after its time near the roof of the van. He got the strap over his shoulder. Forgive them for they know not what they do.
Bright sun slanted under the shutter through the high double window, imprinting the opposite wall with glare.
Execution time.
48
MOP-UP
Cain stepped off the sledge onto finnified snow like loose gravel. Searing cold and blinding light. On the ground, ice crystals shone like gems and diamond dust danced in the air. Above, stratus fanned from the horizon into a canopy of splendour.
The traverse slid ponderously past him like a shunting train, the one spot of colour in an infinity of white. Rusting yellow and red container vans sprouting H-shaped vents and masts, fuel drums, miscellaneous hardware — all perched on massive sledges. The train was elaborate, as the diminutive cold porch proved. Each van door opened onto a small railed landing formed by the flat ends of each sledge. A railed, expanded-metal catwalk extended down one side of the vans, joining the landings and steps at both ends. He let the steps of the next sledge pass him, waiting to check the following van. As it drew level, he swung on board like a pre-war bus conductor and clumped up to the next landing.
The insulated door of the big container creaked. He lunged inside, set to drop and fire.
Empty. An elaborately fitted workshop. There were spare shoes for the Caterpillar tracks with special openings that stopped the snow compacting, spares for the hardware on the sledges, a lathe, drill stand, welding kit, pipe bending machine… Then he saw the rope on the floor and masking tape on the bench.
He got out of there and off, waited for the last sledge to reach him, the one that would house the generators, grabbed the rail and swung back on.
He checked inside the van. Primary and secondary generators with ancillary equipment, three dead crewmen and the solidified Zia. He backed out and edged along the catwalk to the porch at the rear of the sledge.
Bell crouched at the back rail levering something with a length of pipe, his M–4 dangling on his belly, his snorkel hood obscuring his side view. From a winch bolted to the platform a length of light steel cable angled out. He was trying to force the cable more to the centre with a pipe he’d jammed against a stanchion of the railing.
Now Cain saw the weight dragging on the end of the cable — Hunt, tied by the wrists and gagged with masking tape. The cable, shackled to her bonds, was slithering her over the snow in a smooth track left by the runners. Bell was trying to move the cable across so that she’d rip apart on the hard uneven snow between the tracks.
She couldn’t have been there long but her outer layers were shredding. She was twisting to protect herself but was too cold, had no strength.
Cain levelled the M–4 at Bell. ‘Your turn.’
As the man swung around in shock, Cain dispensed one burst of three.
The impact slammed Raul’s disciple against the opposite railing before his trigger finger reached the guard. He hung over the top rail, guts jellified, howling.
Cain closed, stripped the magazine from Bell’s M–4. Rule sixteen: never discard ammunition. Then he lifted the dying man’s legs and toppled him off the sledge.
By the time he’d winched Hunt off the snow, Bell was a lifeless yellow mound far behind.
Cain half-climbed over the rail and reached down to grab her legs. She was conscious but not connecting enough to help and it took all his strength to get her onto the platform. Panting in the thin air, he freed the cable, peeling off the tape.
She moaned but couldn’t stand. Her hair, eyebrows, lashes were frost. He dragged off his polar cap and balaclava, got them on her head, pulled up the remains of her ripped hood. He was nearly hallucinating with hypoxia and rapidly losing heat. He replaced his double-lined hood, his starved muscles protesting. The air was so cold he expected to feel a crackle in his lungs.
He got her over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. It left his hands free for the gun. The weight of her made his legs tremble.
Now he had to run faster than the train!
He stumbled ahead along the length of the sledge to the front steps. There were no rear steps on the caboose. So if he couldn’t trot faster than the dozer he couldn’t get back aboard.
Could he jog on the hard snow, carrying a woman, and not fall?
He stood for almost a minute working up to it, sucked in all the freezing air he dared.
Bell and Mullins had been nothing. This was the test. The test of an ageing man who should have been out to pasture years ago — a shot-up man who couldn’t trust his body to hold out.
He stepped off.
Stumbling, panting, he half-jogged along on the snow. The weight of the woman and two sets of Antarctic clothes made the task immense. He struggled, gasped, thin air freezing his lungs, the effort torture.
His bad leg was holding up but he was gaining too slowly on the sledge. He’d lose against the dozer as he tired. He powered forward desperately, knowing he mustn’t slip. He made it past the steering linkage, drew level with the rear steps of the next sledge, grabbed the rail and hauled himself aboard.
He slumped on the lower steps, heart pounding, desperate for breath, one boot still dragging on hard snow. This was only the workshop van. One to go.
It was minutes before he was strong enough to stand and stagger along the catwalk to the front. There he waited, at the bottom of the steps, mustering his strength. Raul, in the next van, would have heard the bursts. Would he be outside, armed and waiting?
Exhausted, he braced himself, stepped off again, stumbled forward as fast as he could, eyes fixed on the front of the van. No one in sight, thank God.
At the limit of his strength he reached the next set of steps, collapsed onto the sledge, covering the catwalk with his M–4. When he had breath in him again, he left the ragged shape on the walkway. He had to get her inside. But first he had to deal with Raul.
He hauled on the rail, dragged himself upright and limped on rubber legs along the side of the rear living van. He lunged around the edge, barrel first. No one. The thick outer door was still shut. He lifted the big cold-store-type handle, pulled the door. The closet-sized cold porch was clear.