Whiteout! Read online

'Not yet,' I said.

  'Why the hell not?'

  'Because he'll choose not to believe it.'

  'Barney? Sure he'll believe it. He'll believe me, I know that.'

  I said, 'Look, Barney saw you. After you tried to climb into the reactor, while you were fighting everybody off, Barney was there. If your nose feels sore, it's because Barney thumped it.'

  'Oh, c'mon. I've known Barney years.'

  I shook my head. 'He told me yesterday about the reactor contract. He's already made up his mind not to let you near the thing again. Barney is not going to listen.'

  'Talk all you want,' Kelleher said. 'I still want to see him, right?'

  I conceded. 'I'll telephone the command office.'

  Master Sergeant Allen told me Barney wasn't there; he was out checking and rechecking every hut, supervising the search for Carson. I asked Allen to pass on to Barney a message that Mr Kelleher was awake and anxious to talk to him.

  We waited, talking desultorily. Out of plain self-defence I didn't mention my theory to Kelleher. If he could convince Barney of what must have been done to him, that was fine; but if Kelleher quoted me to Barney, his own story would be damned from that moment. Kelleher seemed content to think that the LSD had been fed to him, if indeed it had, out of personal spite or malice. Maybe he'd been driving people too hard.

  He dozed off again after a while, and I tiptoed out to the office to avoid wakening him. If sleep could knit his ravelled mind, I was all for sleep.

  The medic came back eventually, having spent a lot of time on a very poor radio line to some Air Force psychiatrist at Thule base. It hadn't, I gathered, been a very profitable consultation. The psychiatrist had approved what had been done, had prescribed specified sedation as necessary, and wanted Kelleher flown out to the base hospital as soon as possible.

  I said, 'Well, there's no need for sedation at the moment. He's asleep.'

  He nodded. He, too, was out of his depth. I glanced at my watch and said, 'Why don't you get something to eat?'

  He brightened a little and went to lunch. There was no way I could have guessed it was already too late - for him and many more.

  Chapter 13

  Some time after the medic had left, a complaining stomach reminded me first that I'd had no food that day, secondly that Kelleher had eaten nothing for at least thirty hours, and thirdly that no arrangements had been made for meals to be sent to us in the hospital. Something would have to be done. I picked up the phone, dialled the cookhouse number, and waited while it rang and rang. Then I hung up and dialled again. Still no response. Next I tried the command office, on the grounds that Allen would fix it. No response there, either, and that was strange: the command office was manned day and night.

  Then, just a few minutes later, the door opened and Allen himself stood in the doorway. He was swaying, half-doubled over, his black skin gone greasy grey, his arms folded tight and low across his stomach. He started to say something, but gagged deep in his throat, half-turned and vomited uncontrollably out of the door. It took me a couple of seconds to reach him and when I did I could only stand holding him as he continued retching. Then he seemed to have finished and tried to straighten, but another spasm gripped him and he retched again, groaning and shaking and clearly in considerable pain. When he spoke it was in a strangled croak, so punctuated by contractions of throat and stomach that it seemed the words would never come. At last he managed to get them out. 'Food poisoning.'

  'Come in,' I said. 'Lie down and - '

  'Not just me,' Allen gasped. 'The cookhouse . . , half the camp .., for God's sake look .., look.., in the Doc's books!' Then he was retching again, sinking to his knees in the doorway.

  The next few hours were horrific. Almost eighty men were affected and it seemed at times that the entire population of the camp was collapsing in the snow with acute stomach pains, vomiting and diarrhoea, and there was no help to be had from the medical staff at Thule because radio communication had again disintegrated into mush and static. We all did what we could, pouring saline solution into the sufferers, hustling them off to bed, wrapping blankets round them. The book said victims must be kept warm, and the hospital's stock of hot water bottles numbered four. Anything that would hold hot water was filled and distributed. We didn't know what we were dealing with, and since the medic, who might conceivably have known, was one of the worst victims, we didn't even know if the treatment was correct.

  By late evening, three men were dead and many others in a state of almost total collapse, being nursed by their friends. But by then we had radio contact again and were able to raid the dispensary for botulinus antitoxin. It almost certainly saved several lives. Kirton, if he'd been alive, might well have saved more.

  I don't know when I heard about Barney. It must have been some time during the long afternoon that someone said Major Smales, too, was a victim, but I was too busy to take much notice, and in any case, with so many affected, it was hardly surprising. Later, it was rumoured for a while that he'd died, and Westlake too, but I learned later still that, though both were badly affected, they seemed to be holding their own.

  By that night, Camp Hundred was in a mess. Two Air Force doctors from Thule had volunteered to be parachuted in, but the offer had to be turned down. Weather conditions up above were very bad, with winds gusting near a hundred miles an hour and the temperature thirty below. Two brave men would have been jumping to their deaths.

  At one point in the afternoon, I'd slipped Kelleher a couple of sleeping tablets, in the belief that, since I couldn't release him to help and he would only chafe angrily if he were to lie helpless through it all, he'd be better asleep. They worked, but not for long. By that time he'd slept so much that it would have needed a hammer to keep his eyes closed for long. So, though he'd slept for a couple of hours, he'd also Iain awake, thinking. I was sitting beside his bed, which I'd dragged into the office to leave more space free in the ward, drinking coffee and eating a bar of chocolate, when he said, 'You reckon this whole thing could be deliberate?'

  I turned and stared at him. I'd been so busy the thought hadn't even occurred to me. 'How could it be? It's on too big a scale.'

  Kelleher said slowly, 'You got a freezer at home, Harry ?'

  I shook my head.

  'We have,' he said. 'The instructions, the books, the deep freeze centres, they all warn you the same way. It's dangerous to thaw and freeze again.'

  'So?'

  'So up here it's all frozen. Well, most of the stuff is. Meat is, that's for damn sure. You got any idea what those guys ate?'

  I said, 'As far as we can tell, it was the ham they had at breakfast. Some of them were feeling queasy before lunch. Nobody seems to think it was the lunch food. How do you feel, anyway?'

  'Hungry as hell, but I can sure resist it now.'

  'Otherwise?'

  'Fine. No problems. Head's clear. Whatever it was, LSD or what, it's all worn off.' He gave me a lopsided grin. 'But either you let me out of this goddam thing or you make like a nurse with bottles and bedpans.'

  I was too tired to argue. I bent over the bed and began to undo strappings. A few minutes later he was on his feet, stretching cramped muscles and I turned my back on him. If he was going to attack, I thought wearily, it might as well be now. I counted to ten slowly, then turned to face him. He was holding on to the bedrail slowly doing leg-bending exercises.

  'Tell you how it could be done,' Kelleher said. 'You've seen the food trenches?'

  I nodded.

  'Food, meat in particular, comes up on the Swing, stays frozen clear across the cap. When it gets here it's hung in a trench, still frozen. Keeps forever, almost, courtesy of Mother Nature. Now, we got a bad outbreak of food poisoning, right? Okay, so somebody maybe got himself a coupla sides of ham.'

  'Go on.'

  'Anyway, they're frozen. He takes them, hangs 'em some place warm for a while, puts 'em back; maybe he even does it again. Then he puts 'em right at the front of the rack of ham, okay? Then along c
omes the guy from the cookhouse. Ham for break-

  fast again, there's ham for breakfast every day. He takes the first couple of sides, slices it into strips and there you got it!'

  I didn't answer; I was thinking about the dreadful suffering of eighty men. And even though I'd no doubts in my own mind that somebody was sabotaging Camp Hundred, it was hard to believe anyone would set out deliberately to poison so many.

  'It fits,' Kelleher said.

  'Yes,' I said slowly. 'It fits. Do you believe it ?'

  'I'll believe anything of the man who'd slip acid to a guy working on a reactor!'

  I went and washed my hands and face in cold water. I felt sluggish and sleepy and dared not give in to it. If Kelleher was right, and if the homicidal idiot at Camp Hundred was now prepared to go to any lengths to wreck the whole establishment, nobody could afford the luxury of rest.

  The cold water made me feel a little fresher, but not much. I wasn't at even the fifty-per-cent efficiency promised for life at Hundred; five per cent was more like it.

  Kelleher, however, was like an Airedale terrier with a newly-discovered bone. 'I thought about all this. I can see maybe how it's all happened. What I don't see is why?'

  I shrugged. 'Somebody wants Camp Hundred out of action.'

  'Okay. Why?'

  'Difficult to see. Hates the army perhaps.'

  'Everybody hates the army. A little or a lot, but everybody.'

  I said, 'We're talking about a madman. Death and destruction in bloody great bucketsful.'

  'He's a smart madman!'

  'That's not uncommon. Look, perhaps he hates the army and this is a way of striking back. Or, perhaps he hates Camp Hundred, and ditto. Or, he hates Barney, or you, or me even. What it is doesn't matter. He's hitting as hard as he can at everything and everybody in the place.'

  Kelleher considered it. 'I don't go for that blind hate.'

  'Give me an alternative.'

  'Guy's got something to hide.'

  'Like what ? If anybody wants to hide anything, this is probably the best place in the world. Seventeen feet of snow every winter.

  It'll cover anything.'

  'No. Not an object. Some offence or other. Something that's got to be kept quiet.'

  'All right. In that case we have another theory, but it's no more than that. If Camp Hundred were a normal army camp, somebody might be organizing a fiddle, flogging rations or petrol or something. But not here.'

  Kelleher looked up at me. 'So we got to find out.'

  'Yes.'

  'Question is how.'

  'Yes.' I wasn't being unhelpful. I'd been over this ground so many times in my mind that I knew every bump and hollow. My own brain wasn't going to dig out bright new thoughts. Kelieher's might.

  He said, 'Okay, we start somewhere.'

  'Like?'

  'I'll tell you - ' but he didn't. Not then, anyway, because we were interrupted. The door opened and a less-than-young lieutenant entered and announced that until his seniors were recovered, he was in temporary command. His name was Coveney and I'd met him, exchanged a word or two in the officers' club. He'd struck me as dull and a bit taciturn.

  Kelleher said, 'How's Barney?' His tone was flat. I got the impression he didn't like Coveney.

  'Major Smales is very sick,' Coveney said. 'Conscious only in patches. However, I managed to speak to him briefly and he agrees to my assumption of temporary command.' He looked from Kelleher to me and back again. 'I understood you, Mr Kelleher, were under restraint.'

  'That's right.'

  'Under whose orders were you released ?'

  I said. 'I released him. There's nothing wrong with him now.'

  'You're a qualified psychiatrist, Mr er - ?'

  'Bowes,' I said, 'and even a hovercraft pilot can see he's okay now.'

  He looked at me along his narrow nose. 'The restraint was ordered by the commander and has not been rescinded. A man who only yesterday was totally unbalanced can hardly be - '

  I said, 'So rescind it.'

  'On the contrary, I insist that Major Smales's orders be carried out.'

  Kelleher said incredulously, 'You want me back in the strait-jacket?'

  'That was the prescribed restraint.'

  I said, 'Don't be bloody stupid!'

  Coveney said, 'If necessary, I will call for assistance. I have no wish to use force, but if it should prove necessary, it will be used.'

  'One problem,' Kelleher said with heavy sarcasm. 'Those jackets aren't made like raincoats; the guy who's wearing it can't fasten it up.'

  'Mr Bowes will fasten it. He will also be responsible for you until further notice. Furthermore, Major Smales's orders concerning Mr Bowes continue in force. He is not to leave this medical block without the permission of the commander.'

  'You?'

  'That's right, Mr Bowes. Until Major Smales is recovered you answer to me. Now please put the jacket on to Mr Kelleher.'

  I was going to refuse, tell him to shove off, be as corrosively rude as I wanted to be. What stopped me was the realization that Coveney had the power. If I didn't truss Kelleher, somebody else would. If I indulged my splenetic instincts, Coveney could simply separate us, and lock me up somewhere. So I went back to the ward, got the straitjacket and buckled the visibly-fuming Kelleher into it. Nor was that the end. Coveney insisted that Kelleher's jacket be secured to the steel bed and he watched while I fastened the straps.

  I'd felt it necessary to restrain my reactions. Kelleher obviously didn't. As I worked on the fastening, he said scathingly, 'They get like this after they've been passed over for promotion a few times.'

  Coveney looked at him. 'In the current crisis situation here I feel it necessary to take every sensible precaution. I regret having to order this, naturally, and I will say so in my report. But in view of Mr Kelleher's recent mental history there is no option. Good night.'

  Kelleher was shouting, 'I'll be making reports, too, and don't you forget it.' The door's closing click punctuated the sentence; no doubt Coveney heard the first relevant words, but it was beneath him either to return or reply.

  I bent over Kelleher, unfastened all the strappings and asked, 'Why does he love you ?'

  He gave a little grin. 'Playing bad bridge keeps him poor. Maybe it keeps him a lieutenant, too.'

  'You've taken a lot of his money?'

  'Let's just say I don't earn all my bread making contracts. I just reckon I could. I was gonna tell you where we start, right ?'

  'Where?'

  'Here. Medical records.'

  I shook my head. 'I thought of it earlier. The filing cabinets are all locked.'

  'Keys must be around some place.'

  We searched for a while and failed to find any keys at all. I said, 'Doc Kirton must have carried them with him. Presumably all his personal effects would have been taken from his body. They'll be wherever things like that are kept.'

  'Barney has a safe,' Kelleher said.

  'Which will also require keys.'

  'Yeah.' The corners of his mouth turned down, then he rose and went over to the steel cabinets. 'Time was,' he said, 'when you could just drill a little hole, right here above the lock, and push a paper clip in and work the lock-spring.' He examined the cabinet closely. 'Nope. Not any more. Uncle Sam only buys the best"!'

  'We could lever it open,' I said. 'Burst the lock.'

  Kelleher jerked his head towards the ward. 'No need. Allen's in there.'

  'Allen,' I said, 'is a very sick man.'

  'Sure. But he'll know where the keys are. Allen knows everything.'

  'Except who's doing all this.'

  We went through into the ward. It stank of sweat and vomit, and two young soldiers who'd volunteered to act as nurses looked almost as ill as the patients. Kelleher said to one of them, 'Take a half-hour break, son. We'll watch out."

  The boy looked grateful, wasted no time in accepting, and took his partner with him. We crossed to Allen's bed. He looked bad; skin still grey and sickly, sweat
shining on his face, and he was dozing. I didn't want to awaken him; Kelleher didn't hesitate; he put his big hand on Allen's shoulder and shook it gently.

  After a moment, Allen's eyes opened. He blinked, then gave a little groan.

  'You strong enough to talk?" Kelleher asked quietly.

  Allen blinked again, swallowed in that awful way of the nauseated, when it's a toss-up whether the forced swallow will overcome the regurgitative reflex. He looked a little relieved, and nodded faintly. 'What is it?' His voice was weak, not quite a whisper.

  Kelleher said, 'When Doc Kirton died, what happened to his possessions ?'

  Allen's eyes widened. 'What do you want?'

  Kelleher glanced round the ward. Not all the men were asleep. He said very softly, 'Mr Bowes and I, we think all this, the food poisoning, Captain Carson's disappearance, the whole deal, we think it's all been done by one guy.'

  Allen looked at him steadily. 'You - ' he swallowed again -'you got reasons for that?'

  Kelleher said, 'What happened to me was a bad acid trip. Somebody slipped me acid. There are too many accidents now. Too much to explain. It's got to be tracked down. We want to see the medical records but the files are locked.'

  'A bad trip,' Allen repeated. He paused, then turned his head to look at me. 'You saw . . , yesterday.'

  'Saw what?'

  'Major Smales. Right early. He was - ' again that suspenseful swallow - 'real strange. You noticed.'

  1 stared at him, recalling the interview that had so puzzled me, and the oblique conversation with Allen in his office afterwards.

  'Yes,' I said, 'I noticed. Barney told me he had a migraine.'

  'Migraine, huh?' Kelleher said. 'Tell you something. I'm a migraine man myself. One effect is a kind of flashing light, it's like you've just been dazzled.'

  'It seemed to wear off quickly.'

  'Maybe he only got a real small shot.'

  'Maybe. How did he get it?'

  Allen had struggled to sit up. Now, speech made difficult by the continuing stomach contractions, he managed to explain that Barney slept badly and always woke early and kept a flask of coffee at his bedside. He could have woken in the middle of the night, taken coffee, and slept again.