“What does it have to do with medieval history?”
“Very little. But being a history professor is quite useful. It opens doors, discourages questions—most of the time, anyway.” He hesitated. “I solve mysteries. Explain the unexplained: the stranger and more bizarre, the better. Sometimes I do it professionally, for a fee. Other times—like now—I’m on my own nickel.”
Marshall sipped his tea. “Wouldn’t teaching history bring in a more regular paycheck?”
“Money’s not really an issue. Anyway, the jobs I do for others tend to pay extremely well—especially those I’m not allowed to write up in the professional journals.” He stood. “Excuse me, I think I’ll try the tea.”
Marshall waited while Logan fixed himself a cup, returned to the table. He moved with easy, graceful motions more appropriate to an athlete than a professor. “How much do you know about Fear Base?” he asked as he sat down again.
“As much as anybody does, I suppose. An early warning station, designed to guard against a preemptive Russian attack. Decommissioned in the late 1950s when the SAGE system went online.”
“Did you know that, while it was still in active use, it briefly housed a team of scientists?”
Marshall frowned. “No.”
Logan sipped his tea. “Last week I gained access to a newly declassified archive of government documents. I was researching something else—medieval history, as it happens—and was looking for some relevant army records from the Second World War. I found them, all right. But I found something else as well.”
He took another sip. “Specifically, I found a report from a Colonel Rose, written to an army board of inquiry. Rose was the commander of Fear Base at the time. It was a short report—a summary, really. He was scheduled to fly to Washington a few weeks later to make a more detailed report in person.”
“Go on.”
“The report had been misfiled. It was stuffed behind the file I’d been looking for, unread and obviously forgotten for half a century. As I said, it was very brief. But it mentioned the fact that the scientific team attached to Fear Base died very abruptly, over a two-day period in April 1958.”
“The entire team?”
Logan made a suppressing motion with his hand. “No, that’s not quite correct. There were eight members of the team. Seven died.”
“And the eighth?” Marshall asked more quietly.
“Rose’s report doesn’t specify what happened to him—or her.”
“What were they doing up here?”
“I don’t know the details. All that Rose said is that they were analyzing an anomaly of some kind.”
“Anomaly?”
“That’s what he called it. And his recommendation was that the research be immediately suspended and no second team sent up to continue it.”
Marshall stared thoughtfully at his empty cup. “Did you learn anything else? The name of the surviving scientist, for example?”
“Nothing. There was no other record, official or unofficial, of any science team at Fear Base. I searched carefully—and believe me, Evan, I’ve had a lot of practice uncovering lost or hidden information. But a couple of things particularly intrigued me.” He leaned in closer. “First, there were two copies of the report stuffed in behind that file I mentioned—I can only assume that one was meant for the archive, and the other had been destined for the Pentagon. Second, the tone of Colonel Rose’s report. Even though it was nothing more than a sober government memo, you could almost smell the hysteria. When he made the urgent recommendation that no more scientists be sent up, he really meant it: urgent.”
“So what about the detailed report he made in Washington later? That must have been documented.”
“He never made any report. He died ten days later, in a plane crash on the way down to Fort Richardson.”
“That second copy of the report…” Marshall began. Then he stopped. “So the whole thing was just forgotten.”
“The secret died with the scientists. And Colonel Rose.”
“But are you sure? That nobody else knew about it, I mean?”
“If they did, they kept their mouths shut and they’re now long dead. Otherwise, do you really suppose the army would have let you and your team use Fear Base?”
Marshall shook his head. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Logan smiled faintly. “Now you see what I mean about the wisdom of keeping mum?”
For a moment, Marshall didn’t reply. Then he glanced over at Logan. “So why, exactly, are you here, Jeremy?”
“To do what I do best. Solve the mystery. Find out what happened to those scientists.” He drained his own cup. “You’re right—this tea’s not bad. Care for another cup?”
But Marshall didn’t answer. He was thinking.
20
The shudder of a slamming door; a shake of the mattress; a rough jostling of his shoulder. Josh Peters stretched, plucked the buds from his ears. As his dream and the pianistic musings of McCoy Tyner both faded into memory, the sounds of reality—and Fear Base—returned: distant clangs, the incessant tapping of the heating pipes, and the impatient voice of his roommate, Blaine.
“Josh. Hey, Josh. Get the hell up.”
Peters snapped off his music player and blinked his eyes open. Blaine’s red, wind-chapped face swam into focus.
“What?” Peters mumbled.
“What ‘what’? It’s your turn, man. I’ve been out in that shit for an hour.”
Peters struggled to a sitting position, then collapsed again back onto the cot.
“You’d better hurry up. It’s past nine and you wouldn’t want Wolff to catch you still racked out.”
That did it. Peters got up from the bed and rubbed his face vigorously with his hands.
“The whole thing’s crazy,” Blaine said in a petulant voice. “We’ve been searching an entire day already. Nobody’s going to find anything in that storm. Just do what I did: walk in circles, look busy, and try to keep your ass from freezing.”
Peters didn’t reply. He tugged on a shirt and stepped into his shoes. Maybe he could remain half asleep through this, then return to his bunk and pick up where he’d left off: a delightful reverie in which Ashleigh Davis had been rubbing hazelnut-infused massage oil—the edible kind—all over…
“When we get back, the union’s going to hear about this. I mean, I’m supposed to be maintaining the digital library and logging takes, not out searching for the abominable snowman. And another thing. Why are they making us look outside? Why can’t we be like Fortnum and Toussaint, searching the lockers?”
“Because we’re PAs. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.” And Peters shuffled out, shoes untied, leaving the door wide open.
He made his way, in a somnambulistic haze, along the corridors and up an echoing stairwell to the entrance plaza. It was deserted except for the army engineer manning the security station. Peters gave a desultory wave as he shuffled into the weather chamber, opened his locker, and put on his parka. Blaine was right: this was bullshit. To begin with, half of the base was off-limits to them. If he had wanted to hide the carcass, he’d make sure to find a way to stow it someplace the others wouldn’t be allowed to search. Or in the quarters of the army guys, maybe—they probably wouldn’t be much inclined to let a bunch of faggoty film types paw over all their gear. But the bottom line was, only an idiot would stow the creature inside the base. Not only were there too many pairs of eyes everywhere, but the place was warm and humid enough to grow orchids. A carcass hidden somewhere—especially a ten-thousand-year-old carcass—would start to stink in a matter of hours. No: anybody with half a brain would have stowed it outside.
Which was precisely where he was headed.
Peters stopped to enter his name and the time into the logbook Wolff had placed in the chamber. Then he walked through the staging area, opened the main doors, and stepped outside. At the first biting blast of wind, the last clinging vestiges of drowsiness were brutally ripped away. A
ny hopes he’d entertained of getting back to sleep after his one-hour shift had been in vain. He’d heard about the bad weather that had come in, pinned them down, kept planes from either landing or taking off. Hearing about it was one thing—experiencing it firsthand was something else. He staggered back against the outer doors, lowered his head, leaned into the blast. Sharp cold needles stung his cheeks and he retreated farther into the fur lining of his hood. Through the tumbling sheets of ice and snow he could make out the faint silhouettes of the outlying structures. He took a tentative step forward, then another. It was so dim it seemed more like night than day. Gaffer’s rigging and scaffolding swayed like giant Tinkertoy constructions, creaking with protest under the fierce gusts.
Searches in shifts: one hour on, eleven hours off. Six searchers inside, six outside—the latter number reduced to three in the stormy weather. Even so, it was hard to believe there were two other poor saps out here with him, searching uselessly in this shit. This was beyond crazy. What were Wolff and Conti smoking, anyway?
Face away from the wind, he plodded forward a dozen steps to a storage shed, its door rattling fretfully in its frame. He paused a moment, then tacked left to the outbuilding that served as temporary prop fabrication. He peered in through the window: empty, of course. Was it really just two days before that he’d lounged in there, chewing on a piece of chipotle-flavored beef jerky and scoffing at the army types and lame-assed scientists who were stuck in this godforsaken place? Now those same soldiers and scientists were inside, warm and dry—and he was out here freezing.
With a curse he moved forward again, counting the steps—ten, twenty, thirty—until he reached the ice-road trucker’s cab. He huddled behind one of the huge tires, partially sheltered from the wind and snow. He’d been outside less than five minutes and he felt numb already.
Once again he wondered about the two others who were supposed to be out here, searching. He upbraided himself for not checking the logbook when he’d signed in. A little company might make the time pass quicker. He opened his mouth to shout for them, then—feeling the wind immediately snatch the breath from his lungs—thought better of it. Why waste energy when nobody could hear him, anyway?
He shuffled forward again until the heavy chain-link of the perimeter fence abruptly materialized out of the gray soup. He stopped, extending one hand to brush the fence. He’d been warned not to stray far from the base in this weather, and with polar bears roaming the tundra he planned to heed that advice, big-time. He walked another few steps to the corrugated metal walls of the deserted security station, then stepped past it. He’d make one circuit of the base, keeping an arm’s length from the fence. That’s as much as anyone could expect. Then he’d go hide in some outbuilding for the remainder of his hour, try to warm up.
Rounding the security station, he stepped out of the perimeter apron and onto the permafrost. The wind seemed to redouble its fury. He trudged ahead more quickly now, one step, another, and then another…He staggered forward like a blind man, one hand trailing along the fence, his eyes all but closed against the ice pellets. The shriek of the wind filled his head, making his ears ring strangely. Already it seemed like he’d been out here forever. Jesus, this was awful. Blaine was right: he’d file a grievance not only with the union but with the channel as well. He’d do it as soon as he could get online; he wouldn’t even wait until they were back in New York. It didn’t matter if he was just a production assistant: his job description didn’t include anything like this, and all Wolff’s talk of “emergency measures” was nothing but a crock of…
He paused. His hand fell away from the fence, and he looked around, temporarily heedless of the brutal cold and stinging wind.
Why had he stopped? He’d seen nothing. And yet suddenly his senses were on full alert, his heart hammering in his chest. Living well east of Tompkins Square Park had honed his instinct for self-preservation—but he wasn’t in New York City, he was in the middle of frigging nowhere.
He shook his head, moved forward—then stopped again. What was that noise that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, that made the inside of his head feel like it was stuffed with bees? And what was that shape, dark and indistinct, in the tumbling hail of snow ahead of him?
“Who’s there?” he called out, the wind snatching away the words as quickly as he uttered them.
He blinked, peered more closely—and then with a piercing shriek of terror tumbled backward, turned, and, half falling, half staggering, fled in the direction of the security station. Screaming and gibbering in sudden mindless fear, Peters made it two more steps before a devastating blow from behind knocked him to his knees, wheezing, eyes bulging—and then a violent, unimaginable pain abruptly blossomed between his shoulder blades. Yawning darkness claimed him for its own.
21
The physics and life-sciences lab was a converted sheet-metal shop on B Level. It wasn’t really much of a lab, Marshall thought as he stood just inside the doorway, surveying the laptops, microscopes, and other equipment strewn across half a dozen worktables: basically, it was just enough for the most essential day-to-day analysis and observation until they could get their data and samples back to Massachusetts.
In the rear of the lab, Faraday and Chen were huddled over something, backs to him, their heads almost touching. Marshall threaded his way between the tables toward them. As he approached he saw what they were studying so intently: a rack containing a dozen or so small test tubes.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” he said.
The two straightened up and turned toward him with the swift, guilty motions of children caught doing something forbidden. Marshall frowned.
“What are you up to?” he asked.
Faraday and Chen exchanged glances.
“Analyzing something,” Faraday said after a moment.
“So I see.” Marshall glanced down at the test tubes. They were filled with different colored liquids: red, blue, pale yellow. “Seems to have captured your full attention.”
Faraday said nothing. Chen shrugged.
“What is it?” Marshall asked bluntly.
In the pause that followed, he looked around the nearby tables, more carefully this time. Faraday’s eight-by-tens of the inside of the vault were scattered across one; they were now covered with circles and arrowed notations in grease pencil. On another table, a plastic bin full of what appeared to be wood chips sat beside a stereo-microscope.
Faraday cleared his throat. “We’re examining the ice.”
Marshall glanced back at him. “What ice?”
“The ice that the cat—the creature—was encased in.”
“How? That ice melted away long ago. And the resulting water would be contaminated, useless as a scientific sample.”
“I know. That’s why I retrieved the samples from the source.”
“The source?” Marshall frowned. “You mean—from the ice cave?”
Faraday pushed his glasses up his nose, nodded.
“You went back to the cave—in this storm? That’s crazy.”
“No, I went last night. After our meeting in the RASP room.”
Marshall folded his arms across his chest. “That’s still crazy. In the middle of the night? That cave’s dangerous enough at the best of times.”
“You sound just like Sully,” Faraday replied.
“There might have been polar bears wandering around.”
“I went along,” Chen said. “With one of the rifles.”
Marshall sighed, leaned back against one of the tables. “Okay. Mind telling me why?”
Faraday blinked at him. “It’s like we discussed at the meeting. Something’s just not right about this.”
“I’ll say. We’ve got a thief in our midst.”
“That’s not what I mean. Things aren’t adding up. The sudden thawing, the creature going missing, the kerf marks…” He pointed at the plastic bin beside the microscope. “I took some samples from around the edges of the vault hole and
examined them at 40x. There’s no question about it: those marks were made from the inside out, not from somebody sawing in from underneath.”
Marshall nodded. “A minute ago you said I sounded like Sully. What did you mean by that?”
“When he heard I went up to the cave, Sully went ballistic. He said it was a waste of time, that I might as well throw the samples away.”
Marshall didn’t reply immediately. He recalled how dismissive Sully had been about this theory—and about the photographs in general. While Faraday might have been foolhardy to collect the samples in the first place, it seemed a scientific given that, once obtained, they should be analyzed. He thought again of what Conti had said about Sully.
Chen glanced at Faraday, then nodded toward the wood samples. “Tell him the other thing.”
Faraday smoothed the front of his lab coat. “When we examined the chips under the microscope, we also found samples of matted hair and a good amount of dried, dark matter caked to the sharper edges.”
“Caked?” Marshall repeated. “Was it blood?”
“I haven’t analyzed it yet,” Faraday said. He opened his mouth, then shut it again, as if thinking better of the idea.
“Go ahead,” Marshall said. “Tell me the rest.”
Faraday swallowed. “Those kerf marks…” he began. “I don’t know. Under the scope they don’t look like they were made by a saw.”
“What, then?”
“They appear to have been more…natural in origin.”
Marshall looked from Faraday to Chen and back again. “Natural? I’m not following.”
This time it was Chen who spoke. “Not sawed through. More like chewed through.”
The silence that followed this was much longer.
“How on earth can you expect me to believe that, Wright?” Marshall asked at last, trying to keep his voice from betraying his deep skepticism.
Faraday cleared his throat again. “Listen,” he said, his voice lower. “When I know something for a fact—if I know something—I’ll tell you. I won’t hold it back. I just don’t want any more flak from Sully.”