Blood and Ice Page 8

  Sinclair had had a sister once. She'd died about that age, of consumption.

  “That's quite enough of that,” one of the other men called out to Le Maitre. “Give us something with a bit of a song to it. If I wanted to attend the Lyceum, I'd be off with my wife.”

  A round of laughter and applause followed, and Frenchie, bowing to public opinion, launched into a sloppy rendition of “My Heart's in the Highlands.” He had finished with it, and played another number just then sweeping the Strand, when Sinclair heard a cry from upstairs.

  Everyone else scrupulously ignored it-though Frenchie did pause for a second, and Marybeth took sudden pains to adjust the buttons and collar of Sinclair's shirt. An elderly gent with a matronly brunette on his arm continued his slow ascent of the stairs. When the song ended, Sinclair listened more closely, and even though the Suite des Dieux was a full floor above, he could hear a muffled cry, and the sound of something falling to the floor.

  “The table d'hote has just been replenished,” Mme. Eugenie said, clapping her hands together. “Please, gentlemen, enjoy le canard aux cerises and oysters on the half shell.”

  Several of the guests roused themselves-Rutherford among them-and made their way toward the buffet in the next room. But Sinclair neatly disengaged himself and went toward the stairs. As luck would have it, John-O was just then welcoming a trio of inebriated men about town, taking their cloaks and hats, and Sinclair was able to mount the stairs unobserved.

  The suite was on the second floor, just above the porte-cochere; Sinclair had occupied it himself once or twice. And he knew that its door-like all the doors in the Salon d'Aphrodite-was not locked while occupied. Mme. Eugenie had long since discovered that exigencies of the trade required her, or John-O, to have immediate- if judiciously employed-access to any chamber.

  He kept his feet to the carpet runner as he went to the door, and quietly put his ear against the wood. There were two small rooms, he knew-an antechamber with a few sticks of maple furniture, and a bedroom with a massive, canopied four-poster. He could hear the rumble of Fitzroy's voice, in the bedroom, and then a low sob from the girl.

  “You will,” Fitzroy said, his voice raised.

  The girl cried again, repeatedly calling him sir, and it sounded as if she were moving slowly, warily, about the room. A vase, or bottle, smashed on the floor.

  “I'll not pay for that!” Fitzroy said, and Sinclair heard the whistle of a whip cutting the air, and a scream.

  He threw open the door and ran through the antechamber to the bedroom. A bare-chested Fitzroy was standing, his white trousers still on, with one suspender hanging down; the other suspender he held in his hand.

  “Sinclair, I'll be damned!”

  The girl was naked, holding a bloodied sheet around her. All of her powder and rouge had run down her face in a flood of tears.

  “You've got a bloody nerve to break in here!” Fitzroy said, moving toward his clothing thrown on the settee. “Where's John-O?”

  “Put your things on and get out.”

  Fitzroy, his belly hanging down like a market sack, said, “It's you who'll be leaving.”

  He fumbled in his jacket, and pulled out a silver-plated derringer, the kind a cardsharp might carry. Sinclair should not have been surprised. The girl, seeing her chance, ran past them both and out of the room.

  The sight of the gun did not diminish Sinclair's determination. Rather, it inflamed it. “You bloody fat coward. If you aim that thing at me, you'd better plan to use it.” Sinclair took a menacing step forward, and Fitzroy fell back toward the windows.

  “I will,” he cried. “I will use it!”

  “Give it to me,” Sinclair growled, throwing out one hand.

  Sinclair took another step, and Fitzroy, closing his eyes, shot the gun. Sinclair heard a loud pop, the sleeve of his uniform ripped away, and an instant later he felt a wetness-his blood-running down his arm.

  He lunged at Fitzroy, glass crunching beneath his boots. Fitzroy flailed at him with the gun, but Sinclair was able to grab it and yank it from his grip. Fitzroy twisted, looking for somewhere to run, but where could he go?

  Sinclair heard the heavy tread of John-O running up the main staircase, and Fitzroy must have heard it, too.

  “John-O!” he shouted. “In here!”

  He leered in victory at Sinclair, and Sinclair, in a blind rage, whirled him around, snatched him by the seat of his trousers, ran him three paces toward the closed windows, and hurled him straight through the glass. Fitzroy, screaming in terror, tumbled out and landed with a huge thump and a rain of shattered glass a few feet below, atop the bricks of the porte-cochere. The horses of a carriage parked beneath it whinnied in alarm.

  John-O stood stunned in the bedroom door, as Sinclair turned around, a bloody patch of his sleeve flapping loosely from his left arm.

  “Please advise Madame,” he said, brushing past the Jamaican, “to send me the bill from her glazier.”

  Rutherford and Le Maitre, along with several others, anxiously awaited him at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Good God, you've been shot?” Rutherford exclaimed, as Sinclair descended the stairs.

  “Who was it?” Frenchie insisted. “Was it that blackguard Fitzroy?”

  “Take me to that hospital we passed,” Sinclair said. “The one on Harley Street.”

  Rutherford and Frenchie looked puzzled. “But that's for indigent women,” Rutherford said.

  “Any port in a storm,” Sinclair replied.

  It might yet be possible, he thought, to salvage something from this night.

  CHAPTER NINE

  December 1, 11:45 a.m.

  The storm raged for hours, and only let up by late morning the next day. The damaged aloft con had been abandoned and sealed off for the duration of the voyage.

  Dr. Barnes had helped the ship's own medic to remove the ice and glass shards from Lieutenant Kathleen Healey's face, but her eyes were still severely compromised and Charlotte thought she should be taken back to civilization-and a first-rate ophthalmologist-as fast as possible.

  “She could permanently lose the sight in one or even both of her eyes,” she told the captain in his private cabin. Purcell didn't say anything, but looked down at his shoes, thinking hard, and when he looked up again a few seconds later, he said, “Start packing.”

  “Come again?”

  “I'd planned to get you closer to Port Adelie before launching the chopper, but I think we can make it from here.”

  Charlotte really didn't like the sound of that “I think.”

  “We'll just have to jettison some of the provisions and supplies, in order to lower the cargo weight. Then we can board you and Mr. Hirsch and Mr. Wilde, with your gear, and take off from here. The chopper should be able to carry just enough fuel to drop you there, and then get back to us while we're already heading back north. Lieutenant Ramsey!” he called out as the officer passed through the corridor outside.

  “Sir?”

  “Prepare the helicopter. Who are our pilots on this trip?”

  “That would be Ensigns Diaz and Jarvis.”

  “Order them to fuel it up and be ready to deliver our three passengers to Point Adelie ASAP.”

  “From here, sir? Won't-”

  But the captain cut him short, completed his instructions, then dismissed him. Returning his attention to Charlotte, he asked if she'd tell Wilde and Hirsch to get a move on, too.

  “How long should I tell them they've got?”

  The captain glanced at his watch, then said, “Let's shoot for 1300 hours.”

  Charlotte still had to do the quick math-that meant 1 p.m. And that meant she had about fifty-five minutes.

  Darryl she knew where to find-he was still lying in his cot, less green than he'd been the night before, but still a color no human being should ever be. When she told him the news, he closed his eyes, clearly willing himself to get up, and did.

  “You gonna be all right?” she asked, watching him move, like
a sleepwalker, toward his bags.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Go on, get Michael.”

  “You know where?”

  “Where else? On deck.”

  Charlotte did not have time for a concerted search-she had her own stuff to get together-but she quickly went up on the main deck, looked toward the bow, and saw nothing, then looked aft, where several crewmen were wrestling the dark green tarp off the helicopter fixed to its raised pad. The wind was still strong, and the tarp whipped around like a monstrous cape. Getting a photo of the undertaking was Michael.

  “Did you know we're supposed to be on that helicopter,” she said, “in less than an hour?”

  “Yep,” he said, still kneeling to get the shot he wanted. “The crew told me. Most of my stuff never came out of my duffel. I'm ready to go in three minutes.”

  “Aren't you Mr. Smarty Pants,” she said. “Well, I got things to do. When you go below for your stuff, make sure you bring Darryl with you. That boy still doesn't look all that steady on his feet.”

  As Charlotte headed below, Michael finished taking a couple of shots, then hastily stowed his gear. He had finally gotten his sea legs, and could pretty well anticipate-and correct for-the rolling and rocking of the boat. But he wouldn't be sorry to leave it. Ever since his stroll on the deck the night before, not to mention his disastrous visit to the aloft con, he'd felt himself to be persona non grata and had studiously avoided bumping into any of the senior officers. Even Petty Officer Kazinski had looked at him like a bad-luck charm. When the accident had happened, he'd done everything he could think of for Lieutenant Healey helping her down the ladder like a fireman-which meant staying on the outside and one step below her-then going back up top to try to remove the dead albatross and somehow seal the conning tower window. But there wasn't much he could do-the bird's body was so tightly wedged into the broken window, with the edge of the Kent screen slicing into its breast like a scalpel, that he decided it was best to leave it where it was. At least that way there was something to keep the battering waves from flooding the con again.

  No, he wouldn't be sorry to leave the boat and get to Point Adelie. That's where he could begin his work in earnest.

  After the tarp was removed, Michael, who'd been on a pretty fair number of helicopters in his time, could see that it was one of the Dolphin class, a sturdy, twin-engined, single-rotor chopper that was routinely used for missions like drug interdiction, ice patrol, and search and rescue. Like the ship they were on, the helicopter was painted red, a common safety measure in icy climes where a spot of color could make all the difference between discovery- and survival-and being lost forever. As he looked on, several seamen began to run fuel lines and prepare the craft for departure; a couple of others began to off-load some crates. They reminded him of a pit crew at a NASCAR race, each one of them going about his business with practiced hands and almost no words exchanged. He collected his camera gear and went back down to his cabin.

  Darryl was slumped on the edge of his bunk, gnawing on a protein bar.

  “Why don't you go to the mess?” Michael said, stuffing his shaving kit into his duffel, “and get something warm? They've got sloppy joes going.”

  “Can't,” Darryl replied.

  “You can't make it?” Michael said. “I could go get you one.”

  “Can't, because I don't eat meat.”

  Michael stopped packing.

  “You haven't noticed?” Darryl said.

  And now that Michael thought about it, it struck him that no, he hadn't ever seen Darryl eat any meat. Lots of fruits and veggies, tons of bread, cheese, crackers, corn chowder, cherry pie, spinach souffle. But no burgers or pork chops or fried chicken.

  “For how long?”

  “Ever since college, when I majored in biology.”

  “What's that got to do with it?” Michael asked.

  “Everything,” Darryl said, rolling the foil down another inch on the protein bar. “Once I started to study life in earnest-in all its countless permutations and manifestations-and I saw that all of it, no matter how large or how small, had one thing in common, I couldn't find it in my heart to interfere anymore.”

  Michael thought he got it. “You mean the urge to live?”

  Darryl nodded. “Every species, from the blue whale to the fruit fly, will struggle, with every fiber of its being, to preserve its own existence. And the more I studied them, even the single-celled diatoms, the more beautiful they all appeared to me. Life is a miracle-an absolute fucking miracle-in every form it takes, and I just never felt right again about taking any of it unnecessarily.”

  While Michael was not about to give up his baby back ribs or his porterhouse steaks, he did understand Darryl's point of view. But there was one thing he didn't get.

  “So why haven't you mentioned it before? In the Officers’ Mess, or the wardroom? They could have made you vegetarian plates or something.”

  Darryl gave him a long look. “Do you know what sailors, and military types in general, think of vegetarians?”

  Michael had never considered the question, and Darryl could see that.

  “I'd be better off telling them that I was a child molester.”

  Michael had to laugh. “What are you going to do at Point Adelie? Try to keep it a secret again?”

  Darryl shrugged, finished the protein bar and crumpled the foil into a tiny ball. “I'll cross that bratwurst when I come to it.” He got up from the bunk and started pulling a sweater over his head. “As for the other scientists there, they won't notice a thing or care either way.” His head popped up again out of the hole. “Give a glaciolo-gist a fresh ice core to inspect, and he's the happiest man on the planet. As long as you don't mess around with their experiments, scientists couldn't care less what you do.”

  With that, Michael had to agree. He'd covered a few of those guys-a primatologist in Brazil, a herpetologist in the Southwest- and they lived, totally absorbed, in their own weird little worlds. At Point Adelie, there'd be a prize collection of them.

  When Darryl had finished his packing, they dragged their bags up to the aft deck, where Michael could see that the pilots had already boarded the chopper and were going through some routine instrument checks. Petty Officer Kazinski showed up, carrying Dr. Barnes's bags; she was right behind him, in her long green down coat, pulling her braided hair into one big knot.

  Captain Purcell approached them before boarding, but he seemed to be addressing everyone but Michael. “On behalf of the United States Coast Guard, I'd like to wish you well on the remainder of your journey to Point Adelie. We're glad to have been of service, and look forward to helping out again whenever we're needed.”

  Charlotte and Darryl thanked him profusely, they shook hands, and finally the captain looked directly at Michael. “Try not to get into any trouble between now and then, Mr. Wilde.”

  “I hope Lieutenant Healey is okay. Could you keep me posted on her progress?”

  “I'll do that,” the captain said, in a tone that made it clear he would not.

  A couple of seamen came up, gathered their bags, and started to load them into the cargo hold.

  The captain glanced off to the west, then added, “Better get going. We've got more weather on the way.” Then, he gave a short wave toward the helicopter pilots, turned, and headed back to the bridge.

  Michael followed Charlotte and Darryl into the side door of the chopper, ducking his head and flopping into a seat on the far side, next to a big, square window. The choppers were designed to afford maximum visibility, and it would give him a great view the whole way. Darryl, perhaps purposely, sat on the inside, next to Charlotte. The cabin was warm, and after Michael had quickly shed his coat and gloves, he strapped himself into the over-the-shoulder seat harness. Then, just as the pilots switched on the rotor, and the whole craft began to vibrate and hum, he put on the noise-deadening headphones, with intercom mike attached. A seaman slapped and latched the side door shut. There was a short aisle between the passenger compart
ment and the cockpit, and through it Michael could see the pilots-Diaz and Jarvis, as he'd learned from the sailors who'd removed the tarp-flicking overhead switches, checking dials and computer screens. It looked like a compressed version of the bridge on the ship.

  The helicopter teetered on the platform, like a teenager in high heels, before suddenly gaining confidence-and power-and lifting straight up into the air, pointing toward the stern. Then, as the ship moved away beneath it, it banked to the southwest and swerved away. The last thing Michael saw, peering out, was the demolished window of the aloft con. The dead albatross had been removed, and a makeshift cover of wood, crisscrossed with aluminum bands and duct tape, had been used to seal the hole.

  Below him was the Weddell Sea-named after the Scottish sealer, James Weddell, who was among the first to explore it in the 1820s-and the water was thick with floating ice and immense, seemingly stationary glaciers. From above, Michael could see straight down into the glaciers’ jagged crevasses; when the light was right, and a ray of sun just happened to hit at the proper angle, the inner ice glowed a bright neon blue. And when the light had passed, it was as if the electricity had just been turned off, and the crevasse became again a frightening scar, a black suture on a dead white face.

  There was a crackling sound in the headphones, then Ensign Diaz came on to introduce himself and advise everyone that their flying time would be roughly one hour. “We hope it's a smooth ride,” he said, “but by now you know the score down here.”

  Michael couldn't help glancing at Darryl, who'd already had enough turbulence to last him a lifetime, but his headphones were off, and he was blissfully asleep, his mouth open, his head listing toward Charlotte's ample shoulder. Charlotte had on her big round shades, and was looking down at the sea with a pensive expression.

  Michael could guess at some of what she was thinking. When you were flying over the vast, barren waste of the Antarctic wilderness, it was hard not to dwell on some things-the insignificance of your own tiny life, the possibility, at any time, of one minor mishap leading to a series of events resulting in death or disaster. Despite the explorers and whalers and sealers who had plied these dangerous waters for centuries, the Antarctic continent was still the most untouched by humankind. Its very inhospitability was all that had saved it. When the economic cost of killing the remaining whales for oil and baleen had become too great, the industry had finally ground to a halt. When the fur seals had been so decimated by ruthless predation-hundreds and hundreds of thousands wantonly slaughtered on the ice, the mothers dead, the pups left to starve- that grim business, too, had gradually ceased to flourish. Wherever humans had set foot, the carnage had been so brutal, so extraordinary, and so quick that the very thing making the killers rich was nearly eradicated in a hundred years’ time.