[MISSION DAY 2, FEBRUARY 17, 2033]
[1330 hours local time]
[Big Diomede Island, Bering Strait]
Monster led the Angels down through the tunnel and up the trapdoor into Nukilik’s home. Wall, now roped and bound and guarded by Big Billy, remained at the qargi. One look at Big Billy and Price had been happy to leave Wall under his watch.
Monster closed the trapdoor behind them. Whatever he wanted to say, he clearly wanted nobody else to hear.
“What’s up?” Price asked.
“Wilton had more news,” Monster said.
When Monster didn’t continue, the Tsar said, “Well, shoot.”
The wind shrieked above them for a moment, drowning out any possibility of conversation.
“He says he has spoken to Ryan,” Monster said when the noise died down.
“Chisnall?” Price asked. Of course, Chisnall. Who else could he mean? But still she had to ask the question. It gave her breathing space. Thinking space. She needed time to get her head around what Monster had just said.
Monster nodded.
“They got a hotline to heaven now at the Pentagon?” Barnard asked.
“I just tell you what he says,” Monster said.
“So he spoke to someone who claimed he was Chisnall,” the Tsar said. “We all saw the LT go over the dam. Nobody could have survived that, no matter how lucky they were.”
“Wilton believes it,” Monster said.
Monster wanted to believe it too. That was obvious. So did Price. But she couldn’t bring herself to. She couldn’t allow herself to.
“Wilton’s never been the sharpest tool in the shed,” Barnard said.
“What did this ‘Chisnall’ want?” Price asked. “Whoever it was, he must have contacted Wilton for a reason.”
“According to Wilton, Ryan want to talk to Barnard,” Monster said. “He give this phone number.” He repeated the number from memory.
“What do you think, LT?” Barnard asked.
“When we get back to Carson, give him a call,” Price said. “Ask him some tough questions. See if he can prove he is who he says he is. But I’m with the Tsar. I think it’s some kind of trick.”
“It cannot wait till Carson,” Monster said. “That’s what Wilton say. Is urgent.”
“He calls while we’re in the middle of a top-secret mission,” the Tsar said. “That strike anyone else as more than a little suspicious?”
“How would I phone him?” Barnard asked, looking around.
“There is phone at old Russian guard post, about half hour from here,” Monster said. “We could use it to contact ACOG too.”
“No,” Price said. “There’s no point in contacting ACOG until we have some kind of proof. And this ‘Chisnall’ will have to wait.”
Monster shrugged.
“So what now?” the Tsar asked.
“Okay, Wall says he can get us into Little Dio,” Price said. “He can talk his way in.”
“Talk his way in?” Monster asked.
“He speaks some strange Fezerker language,” Price said.
“It’s the high language,” Barnard said. “It’s reserved for Bzadian priests, high-ranking officials, and Azoh himself.”
“And Fezerkers,” Price said.
“As we recently found out.” Barnard nodded.
“Do you understand any of it?” the Tsar asked.
Barnard shook her head. “I don’t think any humans speak it. Few, if any, have ever heard it spoken.”
“But Able will speak that language,” the Tsar said. “Do you trust Wall to talk to him?”
“Not enough,” Price said. “But I think I know a way that we can use him to get inside, regardless of whose side he is really on.”
“What about the recon north?” Barnard asked. “Who’s going to do that? We have to know if the invasion is real this time.”
“Big Billy is,” Price said. “He’s going to follow the sensor line. He’s taking a dog team and a sled, so they’ll be moving quickly. Monster, you go with him. Let us know what you find.”
That made her think of Emile. He had wanted to ride with a dog sled. But he would never have that chance.
“I have no radio,” Monster said.
“Take Wall’s helmet,” Price said. “And his spare battery. He can suffer for a while without them. Let us know what you find as soon as you’re back in comm range.”
Monster nodded and disappeared down the trapdoor.
“Okay, Angels,” Price said. “Little Diomede…”
“I bet they have a phone,” Barnard said.
[OPERATIONS COMMAND CENTER, PENTAGON, VIRGINIA]
Able and Bowden were technicians. Wilton focused his attentions on Able, the one they knew was definitely Fezerker. Able’s TDA (temporary duty assignment) had been requested by ACOG, Bering Strait Defense Force, Technical Support Section. An assignment at a place as vital as Little Diomede had to be signed off all the way up the chain of command, right to the highest level, by General Jake Russell himself.
Surely General Russell was above suspicion? Somewhere in that chain of command was the person responsible, but where? Barnard would probably have made short work of this assignment, Wilton thought. But she wasn’t here. He was.
He made a list of everyone who had signed off on the order, then tried to give each person a score. The more closely involved in the TDA assignments, the higher the score. If a person was involved in the planning for Uluru or Magnum, he reduced their score, and if they were involved in both, he crossed them off altogether. As far as he knew, the aliens had had no warning on either of those missions. There had been an unexpected patrol boat at the start of Operation Magnum, but if the Bzadians had actually known the place and purpose of that mission, there would have been a lot more than that. The boat was probably just a coincidence.
He managed to cross at least a dozen people off his list, and the rest he sorted from highest to lowest score. That still gave him ten people with a high score, and no way that he could see to choose between them.
One thing concerned him. General Russell was among the ten. As head of defense forces, he had not been involved in the planning for either Uluru or Magnum, as both of those were offensive operations.
There was no real reason to suspect Russell, certainly no more than any of the others on the list. But the others were not sitting in this bunker, commanding the defenses that would decide the fate of the free world.
Even the slightest possibility that Russell was involved made this a game of very high stakes, and Wilton did not enjoy being the person responsible for checking him out.
If only Barnard were here.
Price found Big Billy and Monster in a small hollow, rimmed by spindly scrub, behind the village. It was sheltered from the wind, which made it a good place to muster the dogs. When she got there, Big Billy was walking along the harness lines, checking the ropes. The malamutes snapped and snarled at each other, as if anxious to get going, but leaped and licked when Big Billy passed them. He was the top dog in the team.
The sled was a simple affair, just two wooden runners joined by cross slats. At the back were more slats between two raised handles. Monster was sitting on the sled, trying to make himself comfortable in between a few canvas bundles. From the end of one of the bundles protruded the metallic heads of spears. Monster looked up as Price approached.
“Looks like you got it easy,” Price said. “Got the passenger seat.”
Monster grinned. “I offered to drive but he laughed.”
She stood, watching him, while Big Billy checked the ropes.
“Tell me about Emile,” she said. “I need to know.”
“He didn’t make it,” Monster said with a short shrug. “No more to know.”
“Monster, tell me the truth,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.
Monster stared at her hand. He could not meet her eyes. That was not like him.
“You left him on the ice field,” Price said.
“I did everything I could,” Monster said.
“You saved yourself and left him behind,” she said, more bitterly than she intended.
It wasn’t Monster she was really angry at. She knew that. But that was how it came out and the words could not be unsaid.
“Emile was not so strong,” Monster said.
“Which is why you should have helped him,” Price said.
At that moment there was no one in the world she hated more than herself. How could she be so selfish, to be happy that Monster’s life had been spared when Emile’s had been taken? She hated herself for the way she was feeling. She hated the blackness of her own heart.
“I regret his death,” Monster said, head bowed. “He was impetuous. Perhaps if he had waited…”
“Waited?” Price let go of his arm and stepped away from him. “Waited for what? What other opportunity would there have been?”
“I not know,” Monster said. “Maybe when they take us transporter.”
“Speak bloody English,” Price snapped. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “You know that Emile acted on my command. So you’re saying it was my fault that he died?”
“It is a war,” Monster said. “People die.”
“So you do think it was my fault? Chisnall would have done better—is that what you’re trying to tell me?” she asked, aware that her voice was rising to a high pitch.
He was silent. But by not arguing, wasn’t he agreeing with her?
“How dare you?” she said. “You’re the one who should have stayed with him, carried him if you had to.”
“Then we would have both been dead,” Monster said.
A wave of self-loathing swept over Price.
“Get away from me,” she said.
“Price—”
“Get away from me.”
Big Billy was back behind the sled now. He shouted something in Inupiat and the dogs leaped at their harnesses. The sled began to move and Monster grabbed at one side of the sled to keep his balance. He watched her as they pulled quickly away.
She turned and covered her face with her hands, her whole body shaking.
When she looked back, he was lost in the swirling snow.
The sensor buoy lay on the ice in front of them. A black ball with knobby lumps on all sides, it looked for all the world like a sea mine.
Big Billy stood tall at the back of the sled. Despite the cold, he did not have the hood of his parka up, and instead wore just a woolen hat, from under which his long hair streamed behind. He stood on the back runners of the sled, leaning it into corners. He shouted commands occasionally, guiding the dog team, though they seldom seemed to need instructions, steering instinctively around raised, jagged edges.
The dogs ran with little obvious effort, breath steaming from their mouths. They did not run in a row, or in two lines, as Monster had expected, but in a loose pack, spread out like a fan over a wide area of ice. At the head was Asungaq, Nukilik’s dog, clearly the leader of the pack.
Watching Big Billy, Monster knew this was a man truly in his element. He was made for this place as surely as this place was made for him. A wild man, untamed.
Over the flat areas of ice they made good time, sliding along with the wind in their faces and the snow hissing underneath the runners of the sled. But when they came to a ridge, they had to manhandle the sled over it.
On the long stretches of just sitting, Monster’s mind turned again and again to Price. He hadn’t meant to accuse her of causing Emile’s death, but it had come out that way. Somewhere deep inside he felt it was true. They should have waited. Shouldn’t they? But who could know? If Emile had done nothing, they could all be dead by now. Or at least in a PGZ cell. Emile had saved them.
Monster tried to stretch out his legs on the sled. There was little room, and to retain his balance he had to wedge himself against the upright struts at the back, jamming his legs against the cross slats between the runners. Another buoy approached. A dark shape in the middle of a flat patch of white.
Big Billy didn’t slow and Monster watched it slide past with a strange fascination. Were they registering on the scopes at Little Diomede? A dog team and a single sled. That shouldn’t concern them greatly, he hoped. He pondered that as he watched the buoy disappear behind them.
Price was at the rear of the group. Four Angels, with Nukilik leading the way.
The ice between the two islands was a series of undulating crests and irregular blocks, corrugated by the turbulent current between the two islands. It looked like waves frozen in the act of crashing upon a beach.
Wall stumbled along in front of her, his hands still tied behind his back. He fell several times, and without hands to protect himself, each fall was hard. Nor did he have a helmet or visor, just a woolen hat and a scarf to shield his face from the cold. Each time he fell, the Tsar helped him back to his feet. Was Wall with them or against them? His actions said he was on their side, but it would be foolish to trust him, Price thought.
Nukilik led them through a maze of channels between the crests. He knew the location of the sensor buoys between the islands and avoided them. Still, he made them walk in a strange shuffling manner, sliding their feet across the ice to reduce vibration.
They emerged finally at a jumble of huge ice cubes, as though a gigantic ice-maker tray had been emptied and scattered randomly across the ground. Price wondered at the unimaginable forces that must have converged in this spot. There were gaps in and around the odd geometric shapes, offering many places of concealment with a good view of the island, which was less than fifty meters away, over a beach of relatively smooth ice.
The cliffs of Little Diomede were sheer, but softened by clinging sea ice that seemed to reach up out of the ocean, as though trying to drag the island back down into the sea. Across the beach in front of them, a sloping ramp led up to a chunky concrete building.
A security fence skirted around the base of the island, just above the ice line. According to her mission briefing notes, it was covered by cameras and movement detectors, as well as infrared heat sensors, all constantly monitored by computers in the station.
A row of automated heavy machine guns in narrow pillboxes stood like sentries a few meters behind the fence line. They were the last line of defense for the station in the event of an attack, a delay tactic to give the station operators a chance to escape in their hovercraft.
Price crabbed sideways to Nukilik and touched him on the shoulder to get his attention. He nodded and shuffled a heavy canvas sack off his shoulders.
Price took a camo sheet out of a utility pocket. She placed it on the ground and activated it so that it picked up an image of the ice below. She had cut the camo sheet into a kind of rough coat, with holes for her arms. She took off her coil-gun, then put the coat on, tying it in place with thin cord. The last time she had used a camo sheet was in the Australian desert, on the Uluru mission, but she pushed that thought out of her mind. That brought back too many memories.
The camo sheet rendered her virtually invisible. It also blocked much of her heat signature.
From the sack, Nukilik produced the hide of an arctic wolf, complete with head. It belonged to Big Billy. According to Nukilik, he had worn it when he hunted Bzadians in the last Ice War.
Nukilik strapped the hide to her back, fastening it with leather straps. He tied the legs of the hide to her arms and legs. It was far from a perfect disguise, but in these conditions it might just pass.
She crawled across to Barnard.
“All good?” she asked.
Barnard looked at her and nodded without speaking. The Tsar gave her the thumbs-up.
Price dropped to her hands and knees and crept forward, out of the cover of the ice rubble, until she was in view of the station but still partially concealed by the blustering snow and ice. The infrared cameras would have picked her up and she hoped that the camo sheet blocked enough of her heat signature to approximate that of a wolf.
There was no response from the station, but she hadn’t expected there to be. Not yet anyway.
She continued on, trying to mimic the movements of a wolf. It wasn’t easy. A wolf had four legs and she had hands and knees. She didn’t make a beeline for the fence; that would have been too obvious. Instead, she wandered in an aimless pattern, investigating patches of snow, all the time moving closer and closer to where she really wanted to be.
She kept a close eye on the pillboxes that housed the two nearest machine guns. If either of those began to fire, she would have two choices. Drop and play dead or make a run for it. Neither way would help them get inside the station.
Closer now, the fence line barely five meters away. She moved up to it, careful not to touch the wires. The fence was electrified as a deterrent to animals like caribou. Or wolves.
She pawed at the snow outside the fence, as if something was buried there. Shuffling around, she brought her front “paws” up to one of the fence posts. In her right hand was a pair of wire cutters. She waited for a strong gust of wind, a thick flurry of snow, virtual whiteout conditions. Being careful to avoid the electrified strands, she cut one of the wires that led to the sensor on top of the fence post, then loped away as rapidly as she could down the slope.
Able and Bowden would have to do something. At the very least they would have to investigate. Back in the shelter of the huge ice blocks, Nukilik helped her out of the wolf hide and they waited.
They did not have to wait long. A door opened in the squat building above them and a figure emerged. Price crossed her fingers. Which one was it? That would decide how they would play the game that followed. From the height, it was Bowden. Able was much taller. Price sucked in a huge sigh of relief.
Bowden wore a hooded parka and snow goggles. She had an automatic weapon and was scanning the area through its sights as she walked cautiously down the ramp and along the fence line.
“Get ready,” Price whispered.
Bowden reached the fence post and began to examine it.
“Okay, go!” Price said.
She stood with the others and opened the visor of her helmet. Icy wind immediately stung her unprotected skin. Barnard and the Tsar also raised their visors and the Tsar pulled the scarf away from Wall’s face. It was painful, but it was essential that Bowden get a clear view of their faces.
Their hands were clasped behind their backs as if tied there. Wall’s really were tied, but he was the only one.
Nukilik was right behind them, rifle raised. He called out as they emerged from the ice field.
“Hello, soldier!”
Bowden’s reaction was instantaneous. She forgot about the faulty sensor and grabbed for her gun. Price tried to imagine what she was seeing. Three soldiers in Bzadian uniform being herded along by an Inupiat with a hunting rifle. Would she take the bait? Bowden lifted her goggles for a clearer view as they got closer.
“Who are you?” she shouted.
“I am Nukilik,” he called out as they rapidly crossed the open ground toward her. “Of the Inupiat. I have captured these enemy soldiers scouting around your island.”
Bowden kept her gun trained on all of them, clearly nervous and unsure.
As soon as they were close enough, Price said, “Now, Wall.”
Wall spoke loudly and rapidly in the “high” language. What he was saying, Price could not know. But it did not matter. What mattered was how Bowden reacted.
Price watched the woman’s face closely and saw no spark of understanding. “Barnard?” she asked, needing confirmation of what she had just seen.
“She’s clean,” Barnard said in English. “She has no idea what Wall said.”
If Barnard was sure, then Price was sure.
“What the hell is going on?” Bowden asked. “Where did you find these Pukes?”
“Specialist Gabrielle Bowden, please listen carefully,” Price said. “My name is Lieutenant Trianne Price, of Recon Team Angel.”
“Angels!” Bowden said, eyes wide.
“Nikolas Able is an enemy agent,” Price said. “He has done something to disable the sensor equipment in your station, and as we speak, an enemy invasion force is passing the island to the north.”
“That’s not possible,” Bowden said.
Price understood her difficulty. It was a lot to take in. “It is possible and it is true,” she said. “We have to get into your station and apprehend Able, then try to work out what he has done to the sensors.”
“But…,” Bowden spluttered.
“Before it is too late,” Price said.
It was already too late.
The sled slid to a halt. Monster felt it too. What he had thought was a vibration of the runners was clearly something more. The ice was quivering like it had before the ice quake. That seemed so long ago.
“What is it?” Monster asked.
Big Billy shook his head and put a finger to his lips for silence. He removed his woolen hat, listening. Without speaking, he mushed the dogs and they started again with a jerk, toward a long, high ridgeline. At the base of the ridge, he stopped again, stepped off the sled, and began to climb.
Monster rolled out of the sled. His legs were stiff and sore from sitting on the cart too long, and it took him a few minutes of shaking some feeling back into them before he could scale the jagged surface of the ridge. Near the top, Big Billy had flattened himself on the ice. The entire ridge seemed to be juddering.
Monster crawled up beside Big Billy and eased his head up into a V in between two fractured ice pieces. At first, he could see nothing; the blast from the wind on the other side of the ridge plastered his visor with snow. He wiped it clear.
“Cheese and rice,” he said.
Below him, barely visible in the flying ice, was a Bzadian battle tank. It rumbled past right at the base of the ridge, so close that he felt he could touch it. Beyond it was another. And another. As far as he could see through the blizzard, there were tanks—and he could hear them. The sound of engines brought to him on the back of the wind. The roar was constant, the sound of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of engines all melded into one never-ending thunder.
Big Billy tapped him on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow to the west. They crept along just below the top of the ridge. After a hundred or so meters, it stopped abruptly, sheared off at a vast crevasse, two or three meters wide and at least a meter deep. Peering over, Monster saw a metal bridge spanning the crevasse. A momentary lull in the wind revealed a row of bridges stretching into the distance. The bridges were temporary, he realized. Military bridging units with their own armored carriers. As they watched, a battle tank crossed the bridge. Followed by another. Behind that was a line of tanks all waiting to cross.
He unclipped his wrist computer and used the camera function to video the procession. They had to show this to ACOG. The invasion was real. This was no decoy.
“How long do you think before they reach Alaska?” he asked.
“Not long enough,” Big Billy said.
“Okay, let’s go,” Monster said. “We have enough—”
“Get down!” Big Billy shouted, hurling himself back down the slope and dragging Monster with him as the crest of the ridge exploded in red-yellow flames and deadly, jagged shards of flying ice.
The gunshots sounded close by.
Bowden ducked instinctively and spun around, looking for the source of the sound.
Able was half hidden by a large rock to the side of the ramp, his weapon steady on top of it. No one had seen him emerge from the building.
Price checked her team to see if anyone had been hit. They all seemed okay. There was a grunt from behind her and she turned to see Nukilik drop to his knees before pitching forward in the snow, the rifle falling beside him.
A shocked silence spread over them.
“What the hell, Able?” Bowden shouted. “What was that all about? He was human!”
Her own gun was on him now; she seemed to have forgotten the Angels.
“Leading a party of Pukes right up to our front doorstep?” Able asked. “I don’t think so.”
He began to walk in her direction, his weapon held casually.
“Able’s a traitor,” Price said quietly.
Bowden glanced at her, then back at Able, trying to process too much information at once, Price thought.
Able was just behind Bowden.
“What were you thinking?” Bowden yelled.
“Shouldn’t you be covering these Pukes?” he asked.
“I can’t believe you shot that man,” Bowden said, but her gun swung back to cover the Angels.
“Bowden, he’s a traitor,” Price said.
“You can’t trust anyone these days,” Able said, and now he was right beside Bowden. The snout of his gun came up to her head.
Bowden caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned, then froze, shocked into immobility.
“Sorry, Gabby,” Able said, and Price had the feeling that he really meant it as his finger tightened on the trigger.
Monster leaped and fell down the jagged slope of the ridge. As fast as he was, Big Billy was at the bottom before him, yelling to the dogs. They had been lying in a group, huddled for warmth, but at his shouts they jumped to their feet and wrenched at the sled, breaking it free of the grip of the ice.
Monster dived on the front as the sled took off.
From behind them, there was a new noise, the buzz of small engines, and two snowmobiles came flying over the top of the ridge, bouncing and crashing their way down the slope, somehow staying upright as they skipped from block to block. Monster recognized the shape. He had seen these in the last Ice War. Single-man craft with a fixed heavy coil-gun at the front. They were deadly against infantry.
One of the machines let out a burst of machine-gun fire, and Monster heard the bullets sizzling through the air around him.
He rolled over onto his stomach and gripped one of the stays at the rear of the sled. He pulled the magnum from its holster. He took quick aim and fired. A spark flew off the armored front of one of the snowmobiles.
With shouted commands, Big Billy veered the sled left and right, upsetting the aim of their chasers, then whipped the sled around past a small hillock and into an area of rough ice.
“When I say jump, you jump,” Big Billy roared. The dogs seemed connected telepathically to Big Billy’s mind, dodging slabs of ice.
“Jump!” Big Billy yelled, and Monster rolled off the side of the sled, sliding in between two ice boulders and slamming into a small wall.
A few seconds later, the first of the snowmobiles roared past him, but the magnum was ready and steady in Monster’s hands. He fired at point-blank range. The powerful bullet shredded the rubberized tread of the snowmobile as it passed him. It slid first one way, then the other, going into a speed wobble that could not be corrected. The machine flipped and rolled, and the second snowmobile, close behind, had to swerve violently to avoid it, hitting a wedge of ice and flying into the air. A spray of liquid came from its side as Monster’s pistol sounded again, punching through the light armor on the side of the gas tank. At first there was nothing more; then the leaking fuel must have hit the hot exhaust and the flying snowmobile became a ball of flame, a fiery meteor, crashing back to Earth, the rider leaping off it, armor on fire.
The rider landed, rolled, took cover, and without concern for his flaming battle armor began to lay down coil-gun fire toward Monster. Monster ducked behind the low ice wall as bullets found his position. He slid sideways, seeking an angle.
There was no need. The firing stopped abruptly. The Bzadian, focused on Monster, never saw the dark shape that somehow grew out of the ice floe behind him, nor the shiny knife in its hand.
The thunder of gunfire reverberated from the concrete walls of the sensor station and the rocky cliffs around them.
Able lay on his back, Wall on top of him.
Wall had shouted something in the high language; Price had no idea what, but it was enough to make Able pause, and in that half second, when the gun wavered, Wall had hit him, head down, charging at him like a battering ram, knocking him over backward onto the ice. Able’s shots had gone wild.
Able pushed Wall off him, but Bowden’s boot was on Able’s shoulder, pressing him back down, and it was her gun in his face.
“Stay there,” she said, “while I figure this out.”
Barnard kneeled by Nukilik’s side, checking his pulse, feeling for the wound. She looked up at Price and shook her head.
A cold chill moved over Price. This man had tried to help them. His was another death on her conscience. Another face she knew she would see in her dreams until she dreamed no more.
Able shifted around, uncomfortable under Bowden’s boot.
“Nothing is what it seems,” Price said. “We look like Pukes, but we’re not. Your friend looks human, but he’s not.”
“You’re really Angels?” Bowden asked. “Recon Team Angel?”
They all nodded.
“Then what does that make him?” she asked.
“Fezerker,” Price said.
Bowden shoved the muzzle of her gun into the temple of the man on the ground as he began to reach for his weapon, lying next to him. She kicked the gun out of reach. “I thought Fezerkers were Pukes,” she said.
“So did we all,” Barnard said.
“Why would humans betray their own kind?” Bowden asked.
“You should ask him that,” Price said.
Barnard took a step toward the hunting rifle that lay next to Nukilik’s body. Around it, the snow was turning pink.
“Can I pick up the rifle?” Barnard asked.
“No,” Bowden said. “I…just…I need time to sort this out.”
“It’s easy,” Barnard said. “Able was about to kill you; we saved your life. We’re Angels; he’s Fezerker. Now can I pick up the rifle?”
Bowden nodded and her gun shifted a little as she did so.
Able spun out from under her boot, pushing the barrel of her rifle away from him. Catlike, he was on his feet, sprinting out of sight among the rocks of the island even as bullets from Bowden’s gun kicked up puffs of dust around him.
“Let him go,” Price said as Bowden started to run after him.
“Okay, let’s get inside,” Bowden said. “We’ll lock the place down.”
“What about him?” Barnard asked, looking at Nukilik.
“Leave him there,” Price said, feeling cold and heartless as she said it. “The cold will preserve the body. Once we’ve sorted out Able, we’ll come back and make a more permanent arrangement.”
Wall was still lying on the ground at Bowden’s feet. Price reached down and grabbed his arm, hauling him to his feet. “Good work,” she said.
He nodded.
Price took one last look at Nukilik’s body before following Bowden inside. He lay facedown in the snow. The pink snow was spreading out in a random, irregular pattern from either side of his chest. A little like wings.