Whiteout! Read online

  'Three. Narrow, regular, wide.'

  'Odds are two to one, then. And eleven's a big size.'

  'Harrer was a big guy, too,' Allen muttered.

  'We'll go look at the boots,' Kelleher said.

  I grimaced, but it was obvious we had to return to the trench. Kelleher picked up his bundle of sheets and I collected a knife and some scissors, knowing we'd need them.

  There wasn't a soul moving in the whole length of Main Street. We hurried to the death trench, slipped inside and got to work. It was macabre and grisly and horrible. The felt boot was frozen to the crushed foot and I had to cut it away as best I could. The size was ten and a half, wide fitting.

  'A difference,' I said, 'But it's not much to go .on.'

  Kelleher thought for a moment. 'Dog tags. They should be round his neck, on a string.'

  But they weren't.

  Kelleher said, 'Rule is, they wear them the whole time. Maybe our friend took them off, before he . . .'

  'Perhaps. But it's not enough, is it?'

  'Rings? Watches?'

  Together, sickened, we managed to get at a pocket, we prodded and probed, but it was empty. This had been a man; now it was like a tangle of meat from a freezer. We found his left hand, badly mangled, and cut the glove away with difficulty. There was no ring, nor was there a watch on the wrist.

  Then, quite suddenly, 1 was staring at that broken hand, noting broad, practical fingers and nails which, though clean, were thickened and grainy. The third finger, the only one undamaged, had a ragged cuticle. I crouched there, thinking back, remembering Kirton as I'd sat drinking his coffee and listening to his music and how I'd noticed his precise, surgeon's hands. These weren't the fingers whose dexterity I'd envied.

  As I lifted my head, my eyes met Kelleher's. 'That's not Kirton's hand!' I said.

  He nodded. 'Not in a million years.'

  It led to a lot more talk, which I won't go over. We went back to the medical block for the benefit of Allen's advice, but by now he was sleeping deeply and this time even Kelleher hadn't the heart to awaken him. We stood beside his bed, talking softly, tracing and retracing the ground, trying to make sense of a situation that seemed to have no sense in it. It was unlikely and probably impossible that Kirton could still be alive, and we could see no reason why Harrer's body should have been dressed in Kirton's clothes and dumped where the tractor would run over it and thereby render it unidentifiable. There seemed no point in making one of the sleds look as though there was a body in it, when the deception would be discovered, and investigated with real determination, as soon as the bodies reached Thule.

  So?

  So nothing.

  So two men, Kirton and Carson, were now missing for totally unexplained reasons. And, presumably, were dead.

  At last I said, a little wearily, 'Look, it's not your business and it's not mine. We have facts now. It's criminal not to tell Coveney. At least he can take action out in the open.'

  Kelleher said 'No,' with sudden vehemence.

  'Why not?'

  'Because whoever the hell it is who's doing all this, he doesn't know what we got now. The minute we tell Coveney, the whole place finds out.'

  'And maybe he gets caught?'

  'Sure. More likely he doesn't. There's still no solid information.'

  I stared at him in sudden anger. 'So we do nothing?'

  Kelleher stretched. 'No. There's one little thing I'd like to try.'

  'What?'

  He hesitated, then bent to pick up the bundle of sheets. 'Leave it with me, Harry. I'll be in the reactor trench.'

  'You're not going to tell me?'

  He was already moving to the door. 'Sure I'll tell you. But later, okay? Give me a little time. And cover for me if Coveney comes in.'

  I watched the door close behind him, annoyed at what I saw as wholly unnecessary secrecy. Allen slept peacefully in the bed Kelleher had occupied and I thought with irritation that if Coveney did arrive and saw a black face where he'd expected a white one, covering-up would be rather less easy than Kelleher had made it sound. Not that that there was much to be done about it ; there were no spare beds.

  For a while, I sat smoking in Kirton's comfortable chair, recovering my temper. The place was quiet now and I realized I was tired, and pulled out a desk drawer, put my feet up and let my eyes close. I'd no intention of sleeping, and didn't, because my brain, active if ineffectual, insisted on carrying out a review of events. Pointlessly, as ever, and destructive, too, because in my experience physical comfort demands mental comfort as a precondition and my futilely busy brain kept me shifting in the chair, so that the cycle of irritation and frustration completed itself and I couldn't relax at all.

  A couple of times I went over to look at Allen merely for the sake of something to do, and the third time I succeeded in barking my right shin on the open desk drawer and hopped about on one leg for a few seconds, swearing. As I slammed the drawer shut, it occurred to me that a search of Kirton's desk, if it achieved nothing else, would help to pass the time.

  The loose-leaf notebook wasn't exactly hidden, but there were papers and folders on top of it. What struck me was the handwritten title on the front: Studies in Discomfort. When I opened it and began to read, I realized after a while that Kirton had begun it with the intention of producing a paper for some medical journal or other on the way men behaved within the difficult parameters of Camp Hundred. Then the content seemed to change style, becoming mildly humorous rather than gravely academic. Clearly he'd abandoned the serious project and was merely amusing himself. Later came another change. There were half a dozen small character sketches, none more than a single handwritten page in length. No names or ranks were mentioned, nor even specific jobs. All the same, the first one was inevitably and unmistakably Barney Smales, and though a note of Kirton's at the beginning of the notebook said he would avoid psychological jargon, a marginal note on Smales's profile said 'manic?' I continued reading, recognizing nobody else, until I'd finished the notes. But I didn't close the notebook; instead I turned back to profile four: Mr Chameleon Constant.

  'It took me a long time,' Kirton had written, 'to realize that the man I encountered was not the man others saw. Most of us, in early life, make some kind of decision about the front we want to present to the world, and then simply go on developing it. Chameleon Constant goes one better, or perhaps six better. His game, and I'm certain it is a war game for him, lies in presenting marginally different pictures of himself to everybody he meets. He's Jekyll and Hyde and a few more, including traces of Einstein and Svengali, and there are times when I have to restrain myself from going to watch him at work. I believe he knows I know about him because very occasionally he'll give me a glance that's almost conspiratorial. Other people's opinions of him vary ludicrously, from "the worst bastard I ever met in my life", to "as near total decency as any man is likely to get". What's so strange is that he seems to get away with it all. In some extraordinary way he doesn't get talked about. He came to see me the first time about another man who seemed to be worried and depressed. Would I have a look at him? When I saw the man, he was certainly worried and depressed and said the reason was that Mr C.C, was on his back. Specifically how ? Impossible to pin down. C.C, just radiated hatred and threat. I gave him some anti-depressants and when I saw C.C, again, told him what I'd done, but not the reason and that was the first time I saw the conspiratorial glance. I made a note to investigate. After that I mentioned his name to a few individuals, but never to groups, and the puzzling picture began to emerge. Everybody said something different. What it all comes down to, I suppose, is some notion he's got of total superiority. Trouble is, I suspect it's not unfounded. And I sometimes think that, given different circumstances, West Point or Harvard, C.C, might by now be either General of the Army or President of the United States. One of these days I'm going to get him interviewed, one at a time, by some high-grade psychiatrists, because he'll not only baffle the be-Jesus out of them ; he'll have them fighting
in groups when they try to agree on what he is. Meanwhile, I keep quiet about it because I want to go on observing.'

  I read it a third time, fascinated and wondering, and looking now for clues. Could this be a portrait of the killer? Certainly it could, but the damn thing was so worded it didn't even hint at Chameleon Constant's identity, or even his rank or age. And then there was that curious reference to Einstein. I had an impulse to awaken Allen and ask whether there were any mathematical geniuses around the place, but if Kirton had been right, Allen's impression of the man might well be something very different.

  Still, I could try it on Kelleher. I glanced at my watch. It was two o'clock in the morning and, with luck, few people would be about; so I ought to be able to get to the reactor trench unchallenged. There was a possibility - no, more than that, a probability - that Coveney would still be awake, and perhaps prowling, but I'd simply have to take a chance on that; the combination of my general itchiness, Kelleher's secrecy and Kirton's character sketch was too much to keep to myself.

  Since I'd last been in Main Street, the power voltage had obviously been reduced, and some of the lights were out. I walked steadily along, grateful for the lower lighting. Even if I walked smack into Coveney, he'd be hard put to recognize me unless we were both directly beneath one of the roof lights.

  But I didn't walk into Coveney. What I walked into, with astonishing suddenness, was total darkness. Without warning, without even a preliminary flicker, all the lights went out. I stopped in mid-stride, thought about it, and moved to the snow wall, calculating that the fourth trench on the right housed the reactor and that I could feel my way along until I reached it. I'd gone about twenty yards and passed the first trench-opening, my mind full of what might have gone wrong with the diesel generators, when I heard the soft crunch of footsteps. I stood, listening. They were coming towards me, moving fast, and I could hear a man breathing, too, with the effort of running.

  I made a decision quickly - and wrongly - and didn’t move out to tackle him, reasoning that it was somebody from the diesel shed on his way to get help. A few seconds later he was well beyond me and I knew how wrong the decision had been, because all of a sudden there was light again: but this time, it was the flickering glow of firelight, and it came from the diesel trench!

  Briefly I contemplated turning and giving chase, but by then it was hopeless. Instead I ran towards the trench entrance, turned in, and stopped, appalled. The whole side of the hut was ablaze. I grabbed the fire axe and extinguisher from the trench wall and raced for the hut door, my feet splashing, for some strange reason, through water I Chapter 16

  I flung open the wooden door and heat blasted at me. Already the fire had too strong a grip for any hope of saving the diesel shed and the air was full of choking wood smoke that stung water into my eyes and threatened my lungs. My eyes ran swiftly round the flame-lit scene; soon the smoke would be too dense to see anything. The three big permanent diesels, bolted to the steel-plated floor, were obviously immovable. I stepped quickly towards the portable generator I'd brought up in the TK.4 from Camp Belvoir and glanced at the switch panel. Off and the connections broken. But it was on wheels. I grabbed the tow handle and pulled, but the thing weighed two thousand pounds and my strength wasn't enough to move it. The axe handle then; as a lever. The fire was already eating fast at the far wall as I pushed the oak haft beneath the mounting and heaved upwards. I could feel the fire's heat through my parka. But at least the generator moved a few inches. Another heave and it moved again, but the heat was increasing rapidly and I could scarcely see through the tears forced from my eyes. A third heave -1 was gaining no more than six inches at a time - and behind me the heat was becoming intolerable. I snatched a second to grab the extinguisher, knock down the plunger, and stand it where the spurting foam could offer its limited protection to my back, and heaved and heaved again, frantically propelling the killing weight across the floor. Three walls were burning now and the roof had caught, but for the moment the floor remained sound, protected by its steel coating. But there was ten feet and more to go and the sheer effort involved was draining strength from already aching muscles in my arms and shoulders, my back and legs. And the heat was now intense. My chest burned from inhaled smoke. Another frantic lift at the lever, another small, slow forward movement, a few more inches gained. Again. And again. And each desperate heave was more panicky and less strong than the one before. Above me the roof rafters crackled and burned, now showering sparks down on me. The fire was spreading with astonishing speed. But now I'd manoeuvred the generator closer to the door. Only two or three feet remained. A burst of uncontrollable coughing halted me for long seconds, and grew worse as the spasms drew more choking smoke deep into my lungs. I wrenched at the handle, repositioned it and wrenched again, and then, behind me, part of the wooden wall crashed outwards and the roof lurched downwards. Two more heaves and the end of the generator was poised in the doorway. Three more and the wheels slumped down over the threshold .., and jammed the mounting hard against the woodwork ! Another ... Oh God, it refused to move! With sweat pouring over me and my parka hood smouldering, I struggled to shift it the few extra inches that would tip the generator past the centre of balance and let it fall on to the saving snow of the trench floor.

  But the effort was beyond me now. I swore in fury and frustration, knowing that the generator's survival was Camp Hundred's survival; without the one, the other could not exist. As the flames roared nearer I wrestled despairingly to try to make those last inches of movement, but the heavy steel was anchored, its weight crunching down on the wooden threshold.

  I knew I'd have to leave it; that or be burned to death, burned or suffocated. I staggered towards the door, and realized that in jamming the generator in the opening, I had almost blocked my own way out. But no, I could squeeze past. As I began to do so a head appeared dimly in the billowing smoke. I glanced behind me at the fast-encroaching flames, stepped back and beckoned, and the man hesitated, then forced himself past the generator into the hut.

  There was no need to explain. I positioned the axe handle and together we grasped it and heaved upwards. The generator lifted briefly, then settled back.

  I yelled, 'Again!' waited, nodded, and heaved upwards with all my remaining strength. Slowly it lifted, and all down my back and thighs the muscles strained and then trembled as the strength went out of me. Grunting under the strain, I struggled to hold it, to continue the lift . . , forcing every ounce of energy I could muster into one last upward burst. Slowly the monster began to tilt, to lean forward, to begin to balance itself, to move through the point of balance . . , and suddenly with a crash the axe handle rose free and weightless and the generator crashed out into the tunnel on its side.

  As I staggered after it, the far end of the hut began to disintegrate. I knew from the direct heat on my body that my parka was burning and hurled myself full length to the trench floor, rolling over and over so that the snow could douse the fire. It took only seconds, because the trench floor was water-covered. I'd forgotten that in the panic. Now, instantly, it soaked me, the water ice-chilled, and in no time at all I was shivering, my teeth chattering.

  'You okay?' the other man shouted.

  I nodded, coughing.

  'I'm gonna get some help.'

  I nodded again and heard him splashing away. Then my thought processes resumed some kind of function. Help meant, ultimately, the arrival of Coveney, and I'd better make myself scarce. I lurched to my feet and staggered off down the smoke-filled tunnel towards the darkness of Main Street, still coughing hard. I turned gratefully into the cold clean air that blew along that vast trench between the two entrances, and headed for the reactor trench, feeling better as the ache in my lungs began to subside a little, but shivering in the icy grip of my soaking clothes.

  A couple of minutes later I was telling Kelleher what had happened. An emergency lantern burned on his desk. He listened, rummaging round for some clothing for me, and I stripped as I talked. When
I told him about the water, he nodded grimly.

  'Simple. He cut through the water lines. They'd just drain themselves into the tunnel. But, boy oh boy, we're in bad shape now. The water line'll have to be fixed before the power can come into use. And new electrical connections'll have to be improvised. Time margin's gonna be narrow.'

  'Four hours, Barney told me, the first time the lights went.'

  'Maybe a little less. Everything's been low-power. What heat there is will dissipate faster.'

  'And he's free to strike again. And it's dark.' I bent to lace the dry boots.

  'Right. But maybe at last I got something now.'

  My head jerked round. 'What?'

  'A fluke. Christ knows what the odds were in parts per million ! I came back here and got going on the water samples again. Never did figure that contamination.'

  'Go on.'

  'Got nowhere in the beginning. Then there was a real flash on the spectrometer. Couldn't figure it at first. Not one hundred per cent sure even now. But when I got it isolated on a slide and used the microscope I reckoned I knew.'

  'What was it?'

  'Tissue.'

  I blinked at him. 'Human tissue?'

  'Christ, I'm no pathologist.' He watched me, waiting for me to come to the conclusion he'd reached.

  Nor was it difficult. 'Kirton,' I said.

  His mouth tightened. 'Maybe Carson, too.'

  'No,' I said. 'The well was out of use before Carson disappeared.'

  'Sure, but it's a hell of a handy place to dispose of a body.'

  'Doesn't tell us who he is, though,' I said bitterly. 'Nothing ever does that. He burns down the bloody diesel shed and actually goes by me in the dark and still we've no idea.' I reached for my soaking jacket top and felt in the pocket for the sheet I'd taken from Kirton's folder. 'Read this. It doesn't tell us anything either. But I've got a feeling in my water that this is him.'

  Kelleher unfolded the wet paper carefully. The note had been written with a ball-pen and fortunately remained legible. He read it slowly. 'Where'd it come from?'