“I can’t read you.”
Shatters of static.
“Gunvald, are you still there?”
His voice returned: “… if the berg isn’t large… Harry and the others might not be adrift with you.”
Rita closed her eyes. “I hope that’s true.”
“Whether they are or aren’t, the situation is far from hopeless. The weather’s still good enough for me to get a message by satellite relay to the United States Air Force base at Thule. Once I’ve alerted them, they can contact those UNGY trawlers standing south of you.”
“But what then? No sensible captain would bring a trawler north into a bad winter storm. He’d lose his ship and his crew trying to save us.”
“They’ve got the most modern rescue aircraft at Thule, some damn rugged helicopters capable of maneuvering in almost any conditions.”
“There isn’t a plane yet invented that can fly safely in this kind of storm—let alone set down on an iceberg in gale-force winds.”
The radio produced only crackling static and warbling electronic squeals, but she sensed that Gunvald was still there.
Yes, she thought. It leaves me speechless too.
She glanced up at the angled slabs that had jammed together to form the ceiling. Snow and shavings of ice sifted down through a few of the cracks.
Finally the Swede said, “Okay, you’re right about the aircraft. But we can’t give up hope of rescue.”
“Agreed.”
“Because … well … listen, Rita, this storm could last three or four days.”
“Or longer,” she acknowledged.
“You haven’t got enough food for that.”
“Hardly any. But food isn’t so terribly important,” Rita said. “We can last longer than four days without food.”
They both knew that starvation was not the danger. Nothing mattered as much as the bone-freezing, unrelenting cold.
Gunvald said, “Take turns getting warm in the snowmobiles. Do you have a good supply of fuel?”
“Enough to get back to Edgeway—if that were possible. Not a hell of a lot more than that. Enough to run the engines for a few hours, not a few days.”
“Well, then …”
Silence. Static.
He came back after several seconds. “… put through that call to Thule all the same. They have to know about this. They might see an answer that we’ve overlooked, have a less emotional perspective.”
She said, “Edgeway came through unscathed?”
“Fine here.”
“And you?”
“Not a bruise.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I’ll live. And so will you, Rita.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “I’ll sure as hell try.”
1:10
Brian Dougherty siphoned gasoline from the tank of the upright snowmobile and poured it onto a two-foot section of ice at the brink of the cliff.
Roger Breskin twisted open a chemical match and tossed it into the gasoline. Flames erupted, flapped like bright tattered flags in the wind, but burned out within seconds.
Kneeling where the fire had been, Brian examined the edge of the precipice. The ice had been jagged; now it was smooth and slick. A cliber’s robe would slide over it without fraying.
“Good enough?” Roger asked.
Brian nodded.
Roger stooped and snatched up the free end of a thirty-five-foot rope that he had tied to the frame of the snowmobile and had also anchored to a long, threaded piton identical to those used to secure the radio transmitter. He quickly looped it around Brian’s chest and shoulders, fashioning a harness of sorts. He tied three sturdy knots at the center of the young man’s chest and said, “It’ll hold. It’s nylon, thousand-pound test. Just remember to grip the rope above your head with both hands so you’ll keep at least some of the pressure off your shoulders.”
Because he did not trust himself to speak without a nervous stammer, Brian nodded.
Roger returned to the snowmobile, which was facing toward the precipice and which he had disconnected from its cargo trailer. He climbed into the cabin and closed the door. He held the brakes and revved the engine.
Trembling, Brian stretched out on his stomach, flat on the ice. He took a deep breath through his knitted ski mask, hesitated only briefly, and pushed himself feet-first over the edge of the cliff. Although he didn’t drop far, his stomach lurched, and a thrill of terror like an electrical current sizzled through him. The rope pulled tight, checking his descent when the crown of his head was only inches below the top of the iceberg.