Cold War - Jerome Preisler [97]
“How’d you know I’d be here?”
“I didn’t exactly. Just had a hunch you might be where everyone else wasn’t, and wandered around until I hit the spot.”
“It would’ve been faster and easier to have me paged.”
“But absent the intimate touch for which we strive at this lodge.”
Nimec looked at her another moment, then moved his somber eyes back to the window.
“I know what you’re thinking and feeling, Pete,” she said.
“Never occurred to me you didn’t.”
“One thing to keep in mind is that the storm won’t reach the Valleys. None of them do. The mountains form a barrier. And any snow that does get over them is dried by the katabatic effect before it hits the ground.”
He kept staring out the window.
“Our people have been missing eleven days,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Maybe no one’s been able to get to Bull Pass on foot since they were lost. Or obviously down in a chopper. But the boss told me MacTown sent out pilots in Twin Ospreys. And we’ve used Hawkeye III. State-of-the-art satellite recon that can practically image a mole on somebody’s chin.”
“Pete, you know air and orbital sat searches are hampered by the terrain no matter how sophisticated the tech. There are recesses, cliff overhangs . . . too many blind spots.”
Nimec turned to her again.
“Eleven days,” he said. “And counting. We have to be honest. Let’s believe they found food and water caches. Give them that. How long before they’d all succumb to the cold? When do we stop talking rescue, and admit anything we do is about recovering bodies?”
Another silence.
“I won’t offer false encouragement,” Megan said. “Not to you or myself. But neither will I stop hoping. You’d have to know Scar. He’d try to find places where they could shelter, and the same ground features that make hunting for his group difficult might very well provide it.”
Nimec didn’t reply. He was conscious of the wind barreling outside.
Megan studied his face.
“There’s more on your mind,” she said.
He waited a moment, then nodded.
“Working with Tom Ricci these past couple of years . . . I suppose the way he thinks outside the box has started to rub off on me. Something about the rover disappearing, and then those people who went looking for it, makes me suspicious. Or maybe that’s going too far, using too strong a word. It makes me wonder. I’m not sure about what. I figure the reason I’m not sure is there’s probably nothing to it. But I’ve been on my job so long, I can’t stop wondering. It’s instinct. Doesn’t matter where I am. Doesn’t matter that it’s pretty hard to imagine who’d want to make trouble for us here, interfere with what we’re doing. Or how they could. I’m looking for answers when I can’t even decide if there are any logical questions.” He paused, moved his shoulders. “I wish I could put it to you straighter.”
“You’ve been straight enough,” Megan said. “I never disregard your instincts, Pete. We need to talk more about this.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But it’s late, and I want to sit on my thoughts a little longer, give them a chance to work themselves out.” He paused. “That’s why I waited to bring them up.”
Megan looked at him. The blowing wind and snow slammed aggressively against the window.
“I’m supposed to meet Annie for drinks,” she said. “You can join us if you like. It might make the waiting easier. For you and me.”
Nimec was quiet.
“Better not,” he said then. “Don’t think I’d be very good company.”
She stood looking at him a few seconds, nodded.
“We’ll be at the bar if you change your mind. You know where it is?”
“I can find it.”
She nodded again, and started away down the silent corridor.
“Meg?”
She paused, half turned toward Nimec.
“I almost forgot to mention you run one hell of a lodge,” he said.
Megan smiled warmly at him.
“Appreciated,” she said.
Burkhart heard a cannonade in the southern distance: long rolling rumbles, a bellowy roar, then a rending crash. Someone less familiar with Antarctica might have mistaken the din for thunder, but that was an infrequent occurrence on the continent. Instead he knew it to be a berg