Outpost

‘How’s he doing?’

‘Several shades of fucked. Pretty much comatose. A dead weight. He won’t be going anywhere under his own steam. And his buddies are pretty far gone. I can’t get much information out of them. They’re cold, disoriented and ready to give up. Jane, when you spoke to them before, did they mention where they planned to cross to the island?’

‘Darwin something. Darwin Sound? Darwin Point?’

‘Stay on the radio. See if you can raise them again. Get a fix on their location. Landmarks. Anything.’ Rawlins turned to Rye. ‘Punch has been out on the ice, right?’

‘Yeah. He’s used the bikes. We drove down the coast last summer.’

‘Okay. You, him, Ghost. You’re the rescue team. Get your gear. You leave in one hour.’

Jane and Rawlins stood on the helipad. It was dark. Rawlins fumbled at his radio with gloved fingers.

‘Hit the lights.’

Floodlights slung beneath the rig flared bright. They lit struts and girders. They lit pack ice collecting between the legs of the refinery.

Punch, Ghost and Rye stood on the east leg docking platform. They pushed floating ice aside with a boat hook. They winched the inflatable zodiac down into black waters. Ghost climbed into the boat. They threw him backpacks.

Jane wanted to tag along, but knew she would be a liability.

Punch and Rye climbed into the boat. They wore so much padding they moved slow and clumsy like astronauts. Ghost pull- started the outboard. The zodiac pulled away from the rig, weaved between plates of drifting ice, and was lost in darkness.

Rescue

‘I need to talk.’

Gus Raglan. A short, stocky man with a barbed tattoo round his neck. He caught up with Jane in the corridor outside her room. He looked furtive.

‘I need to talk things through.’

Jane looked for a room to use as a confessional. She picked the utensil cupboard at the back of the kitchen. A steel room full of pots and pans. It had thick walls and a strong door. People could speak and not be overheard.

Jane put a couple of chairs at the back of the cupboard. She sat with Gus. Frying pans hung overhead.

‘So what’s on your mind?’

‘My brother. His wife. She and I…’

‘How long?’

‘Three, four years. I asked her to leave him. Asked her a million times. It’s difficult.’

‘Does your brother suspect?’

‘I think he chooses not to know.’

‘How would he react if he found out?’

‘He’s a placid guy. But I’d lose him. I’d lose him as a friend.’

‘Have you thought about the future?’

‘It’s great when we’re together. But each night she’s with him, and I’m alone. Shit, they might both be dead for all I know. I’d like the chance to put things right.’

‘What do you think, deep down, you should do?’

‘I took this job to get away. I keep thinking: This isn’t me. I’m better than this, you know?’

Ghost steered the outboard motor. They cut through chop. Punch sat in the prow of the zodiac. He swept the shoreline with a spotlight. He lit a lunar landscape. Jagged rocks coated in ice.

‘There.’ He pointed. A concrete jetty. Snow-dusted steps.

Ghost detached the outboard motor and laid it on the jetty. They hauled the boat out of the water.

‘I’ll come back for the motor,’ he said.

They carried the rubber boat up the steps and set it down in front of massive steel doors set into a rock face. Ghost released a padlock and chain.

‘Go inside,’ he told them. ‘I’ll fetch the outboard.’

Punch and Rye dragged the zodiac through the doorway into a cavernous silo. Wind noise dropped to silence. Punch took off his goggles and mask. He shone the spotlight on the walls. They were in a wide tunnel that receded downward into bedrock. The walls glistened with moisture. There were rails in the floor. The wall signs were Russian.

‘What is this place?’ asked Punch. ‘I thought the island was uninhabited.’

‘You’ve been ashore, haven’t you?’

‘Just ashore. Never here.’

‘The Soviet Navy used to dump old reactors on the seabed. Each time they decommissioned a nuclear sub they simply cut off the tail section and dropped it in the Barents Sea. There are about twenty of them down there, all rusted and barnacled. This was going to be their new home. Salvage teams were going to bring them up and bury them in salt for a quarter of a million years.’

‘That explains the skull on the door.’

‘It’s the same the deeper you go. Skulls on every wall, every door, etched in cadmium steel. Future generations will get the message. Bad shit. Keep out.’

Rye pulled a dust sheet from a couple of red Yamaha Viking Pro snowmobiles. She checked them over.

‘Keep the light on me.’

She opened a long wooden box on the floor and took out two Ithaca pump-action shotguns. She racked the slides a couple of times to check the action. There were wooden shelves propped against the wall. She opened a carton of twelve-gauge ammunition and slotted shells into the breech. She slid the guns into leather sleeves strapped to the bikes.

‘For bears,’ she explained. ‘We keep them here. Rawlins doesn’t like weapons on the rig.’

Ghost staggered through the bunker doorway carrying the outboard balanced on his shoulder. Rye helped him lower it to the floor.