Ice Hunt

Then an explosion had cut off communication. It was a close hit, sounding at their heels. The ice shook under the Cat’s treads. All eyes searched behind. Gunfire sounded in the distance.

But the threatening storm had rolled in early, squalling up snow in a ground blizzard. All attempts to raise the other Sno-Cat failed. Fear for Jenny and her father had driven Matt to attempt to commandeer their vehicle, but he was outmanned and outgunned.

There was still no sign of the trailing vehicle.

“Try them again then!” Matt snapped, blinking back tears from the pain of his bruised nose. He could taste blood in the back of his mouth.

The driver shook his head and unhooked the radio. “Cat Two, this is Cat One. Respond. Over.” He held the receiver up.

No answer.

“It could just be a local blind spot,” the driver said. “We see that up here. Sometimes you can communicate with someone halfway across the globe, but not in your own backyard.” He shrugged, bouncing slightly as the Cat rode over a series of ice ridges.

Matt didn’t believe a word of it. Jenny was in trouble. He knew it down to the soles of his feet. But by now, they were a couple miles ahead of her Sno-Cat. Even if he broke out of here, he wasn’t sure he could make it to her in time to help.

“I’m sure she’s okay,” Craig said, trying to meet his eyes.

Matt held back his retort.

The Sno-Cat trundled straight through the blizzard, heading farther and farther from the woman he once loved. Maybe still loved.

10:48 A.M.

Jenny must have blacked out. One moment the Sno-Cat was toppling around her; the next ice water burned through her jeans, startling her to full alert. She shoved up and quickly took in her surroundings.

The Cat was upside down. Water filled the lower foot of the cabin. The motor still grumbled, vibrating the upended vehicle. The roof light glowed in the waters below her, grimly illuminating the tableau.

Her father was rising from the floor, cradling his wrist.

“Papa?” She shuffled across the roof toward him.

“Mmm, okay,” he mumbled. “Jammed my hand.”

His eyes glanced to the driver. The man lay facedown in the water. His head bent unnaturally backward. “Neck’s broken,” her father said.

The other two guards were fighting the door.

Fernandez slammed his shoulder against the handle. It didn’t budge. The pressure outside the half-submerged Cat held the doors shut. “Fuck!” He limped back on one foot, blood from the gunshot wound trailing through the waters around him.

“Try to find something to smash a window,” Fernandez barked. The whites of his eyes glowed in the watery light.

Jenny stepped toward them. “How about this?” She reached behind the other guard’s back and slipped out his sidearm. Turning, she thumbed the safety and fired into the Cat’s windshield, crackling the Arctic safety glass and tearing it partly away.

“Yeah,” Fernandez said, nodding. “That’ll do.”

The guard retrieved his gun and holstered it, scowling at her.

“Don’t take offense at Kowalski here,” Fernandez said, and waved them forward. “Joe doesn’t like folks touching his things.”

They ducked under the seats.

Kowalski kicked out the remaining glass.

The open water churned and frothed inside the pit. Ice blocks and cakes bobbed in the mix.

“Out of the frying pan…” Fernandez mumbled.

“Make for that crack in the wall,” Jenny said, pointing to a crumbled section that looked climbable.

“Ladies first,” Kowalski offered.

They were now thigh-deep in the water. Jenny pushed out on numb legs. The searing cold cut through her as she fell into the sea. She fought her body’s natural reflex to curl against the frigid water. Seawater froze at 28.6 degrees F. This felt a million degrees colder, so cold it burned. She kicked and pawed chunks of ice out of the way. Slowly she swam across the few yards to the ice slope and pulled herself into the crack, numb fingers scrabbling for purchase.

Once out of the water, she glanced back. The others followed. Kowalski tried to help Fernandez, but he was shoved away.

Behind them, the idling Sno-Cat tipped nose first, then sank into the blue depths. Its lights trailed down into the darkness. For a moment, Jenny saw the pale face of the driver pressed against the glass. Then the Sno-Cat and its lone passenger disappeared.

Jenny helped her father climb from the water into the cracked section of the wall. The slot was jagged with blocks and dagger-sharp protrusions, but the obstacles offered a natural ladder to climb out of the pit.

As a group, they worked their way up. It was a cold, sodden climb. Wet clothes turned to ice. Hair froze to skin. Limbs shook with petit mal seizures in a futile attempt to keep warm.

They all pushed free, one after the other, beaching themselves up onto the ice. It was not exhaustion that immobilized them, but the cold. It held them all as surely as any vise. It was inescapable.

The wind had kicked up. Snow and ice spun dizzily around her.

Her father somehow crawled to her, wrapping her in his arms, cradling her. It had been ages since he had held her like this. She had been only sixteen when she had lost her mother. For the next two years, an aunt and uncle had fostered Jenny while her father was in jail, then probational recovery. Afterward, she had barely spoken to him. But Inuit life was built around social gatherings: birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, and funerals. She had been forced to make an uneasy peace with her father, but it was far from close.

Especially not this close.

Tears flowed and froze on her cheeks. Something finally broke inside her. “Papa…I’m sorry.”

Arms tightened around her. “Hush, conserve your energy.”

“For what?” she mumbled, but she wasn’t sure she had even spoken aloud.

8

Hunter/Killer

APRIL 9, 11:12 A.M.

USS POLAR SENTINEL

“Skylight ahead!” the chief of the watch yelled. “Forty degrees to port!”

“Thank God,” Perry whispered to the periscope’s optical piece. He walked off the degrees, turning the scope. They had spent five minutes searching for the man-made polynya near the ice island. The storm surge through the area had shifted the surface ice by several degrees. Nothing was constant up here, he thought. Nothing but the danger.

Through the scope, the ceiling of the world was black ice, but off to port, where the chief had indicated, he spotted an unnaturally square opening in the roof. It shone a brilliant aquamarine, lighting the waters under it to the pale blue of a Bahamian sea. He eyed his goal with a tight smile. “It’s the polynya! Port ahead one-third, starboard back one-third, right full rudder. Get us under that skylight!”