She looked at him and smiled before letting her eyes drift back to the icebergs. “Actually, I was talking about the setting.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“I do appreciate your coming back.”
He laughed. “If you’re afraid I’m going to take offense at the ‘jerk pilot’ thing, don’t. That was a jerky thing to do, leaving you this morning.”
“Well, you came back.”
“Yeah,” he said.
She turned to him, catching his eyes. “You came back to help me, right? Not just to take me to dinner?”
“You’re very direct, aren’t you, April?”
“When I’m floating around at midnight in the middle of nowhere in the effective physical control of a male I barely know, darn tootin’ I’m direct.”
“The answer is, yes, I have no bad intentions. I came back to help you, not chase you.”
“Good. Because nothing’s going to happen tonight. Understood?”
“Of course.”
“Just, you know, so there are no expectations.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, this beautiful setting and all could lead some guys to…”
“April,” he said suddenly, smiling at her.
“Yes?”
“It’s okay. Calm down.”
“All right.”
They sat in silence for several minutes before she heard him stretch. “Tell you what. Why don’t we sleep in shifts? That way you can pull one of the sleeping bags inside the other back there while I make sure we don’t drift between two of these bergs.”
“What if we do? You can’t physically push something that big away, can you?”
He was nodding. “Actually, I can push us out of harm’s way. This little bird only weighs four thousand pounds.”
“Will you wake me up in, what, three hours?”
He smiled as he pulled himself out of the left seat to retrieve the lantern and put it in the nose section. “Okay. Three hours.”
There was light in her eyes when April returned to consciousness. She sat up suddenly, recognizing the filtered daylight through an overcast above the lake.
“Scott?”
“Good morning.”
“You didn’t wake me?”
He shrugged. “No need. I was doing fine up here.”
She unzipped the bag, feeling the sting of the cold air in the frigid cabin and seeing the extra parka he’d wrapped around himself.
“That wasn’t the deal, Mr. Macho.”
“So sue me,” he said, his smile somewhat strained. The remark puzzled her.
She stowed the sleeping bags as he moved forward to the nose section to fire up a small camp stove, and they sat for awhile when he was done, nursing steaming mugs of coffee and munching on cereal bars. She watched him survey the floating ice around them.
“So how are we going to do this?”
“Just watch,” he said evenly. He finished his makeshift breakfast and they began stowing the lantern, stove, and heater to secure the cabin. When everything was back in place, he eased himself into the left seat and handed her the checklist. April began reading the items, checking his fluid responses as he positioned the switches and reached at last for the starter.
“Cranking number one.”
The whine of the electric starter struggling with limited power against the engine’s cylinders warbled for a few seconds, then began to fade. He switched off the starter and worked the primer, squeezing raw fuel into the carburetor before trying it again, his face hardening with worry.
“Starting one,” he said, the words clipped as the propeller began rotating in jerky fashion, its motion slowing until one cylinder fired, then another, followed by silence.
“Oh, Lord, don’t tell me we’re out of battery power?” April said. She could see him biting his lip. “Scott?”
“Goddammit!” He peered carefully at the DC voltage meter.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” she asked.
He got out of the seat without answering, and she turned to watch him rummage around in the back of the cabin and pull out what looked like a tool kit. He lifted out two yellow rectangular devices and came forward, plugging them into the empty cigarette lighter in the lower forward panel.
“May I ask what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
More silence as he checked the meter.
“So… what are you doing?”
“Starting number one,” he said as he worked the primer before turning the starter switch.
Once more the left propeller began jerking into motion, but this time the cylinders fired with authority and the engine roared to life with a comforting rumble.
Scott sat back in the seat and exhaled, his eyes on the oil-pressure gauges as they came up smartly to operating pressure. He turned to her finally and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, April. We almost…”
“Those things are portable battery boosters?”
“Yeah. Automotive. I’ve never needed them before. I wasn’t sure they’d work.”
“We used too much battery last night?”
He looked chagrined. “I left the master switch on too long while you were sleeping. I was checking weather on the radio.”
He turned back to the task of starting the right engine. Bolstered by the current from the left generator, the right engine started immediately, and they ran through the checklist before Scott brought the props out of the feathered position.
The Widgeon began moving through the water immediately, and he guided it toward one of the largest icebergs, turning at the last second to let the nose bump into the ice at the angle he wanted. When the prow of the Widgeon had nudged itself firmly onto the iceberg, Scott brought the engine power up, watching the shoreline carefully until he was satisfied the huge iceberg was in motion.
“So that’s it! You’re going to shove them out of the way.”
He nodded.
“And create a runway, right?”
“It’s worked before,” Scott said. “But it’ll take an hour or so to push enough of them to each side to form a runway, and I’m going to need you up in the nose hatch with that oar to push us away from each one when I’m finished with it.”
“How much open water do we need?”
“About twenty-eight hundred feet.”
“How long is this lake?”
Scott chuckled. “About twenty-five hundred feet.”
“What?”
“But it’s all downhill.”
THIRTY FOUR
SATURDAY, DAY 6 ANCHORAGE, ALASKA 6:50 A.M.
Schroedinger had been trying fruitlessly to awaken Ben for at least fifteen minutes when the telephone rang.
“Dr. Cole?”
“Yes?”
“Sorry if I called too early, sir. This is Jim Lucavitch in security at Uniwave.”
Ben pulled himself upright on the bed, forcing his mind to accelerate to full consciousness.
“Yes, Jim.”
“You were by here last night trying to locate Mr. Jerrod, I understand, and I’ve been following up on that.”
“Good. Is he in this morning?”
“No, sir. Mr. Jerrod is out of the country. That’s all I’m at liberty to tell you.”
“Do you… have any idea when he’ll be back?”
“No, Dr. Cole, I don’t.”
“Well, it’s really urgent that I at least speak with him. Can we arrange that this morning? I can come in for security purposes.”
“No, sir, that won’t be possible.”
Ben felt himself pass the fully awake point, a slight warning buzzer going off in his head announcing the need for immediate caution. Something was very wrong with this response.
“Okay, Jim. Let me put this to you as clearly as I can without breaching any security rules or regulations. It is imperative that I speak personally on a secure line with Mr. Jerrod today, and it involves a matter of national security of the highest interest to Uniwave. Understood?”