GPS Coordinates: –43.531637, 172.636645
March 17, 2010
It was after midnight when Claire, Ethan, and the other members of the team touched down at Christchurch International Airport, the black sky scuffed with ragged moon-illumined clouds. The further they dipped into the southern hemisphere, the scarcer daylight would become. Claire likened the gradual onset of perpetual night to standing in the bottom of a hole she, herself, was digging. Down and down and down while high above the opening pinched slowly closed, stranding her in the thickening darkness with nothing to keep her company but all the skeletons she had unburied along the way.
She would’ve enjoyed the opportunity to explore Christchurch but they were only going to be on the ground long enough to transfer their gear to a Hercules C–130 before continuing on to McMurdo Station. With budget oversight committees constantly breathing down their necks, government agencies were more than willing to avail themselves of commercial airlines if it meant saving a buck or two. However, jets like the Boeing 737 they had flown from Los Angeles were ill-equipped for travel to the remote destinations linking earth’s rugged white underbelly to the rest of civilization.
“We have a couple hours on the ground before we’re back in the air.” The deep voice belonged to Sergeant First Class Amir Price. At twenty-seven, he was the only African-American among them. He embodied the rare combination of energetic intelligence and athletic musculature prized by the ancient Greeks. As assistant JPAC team leader he was responsible for handling the logistical end of the operation: travel, equipment, supplies. In his own words, ‘the nuts and bolts.’ A devout Muslim, he’d spent the majority of the flight with his nose buried in the pages of the Koran. “The flight should take about eight hours,” Price continued. “No meal service this time around, so grab a bite and stretch your legs. I’ll make sure our gear ends up where it’s supposed to.”
“Who’s hungry?” Team leader Major Frank DeLuca, an expert in mortuary affairs with more than a decade of field experience, was running the show. Although he exercised his authority with a light hand, it was obvious that his team admired and respected him. Lean and visibly health conscious, it was probably the grim nature of his work that was indirectly to blame for the filigree of broken blood vessels imparting a roseate hue to his nose and cheeks. A drinker, thought Claire.
“You buying, Major?” asked First Lieutenant Dale Bishop. A forensic odontologist, his pre-packaged introduction had included something about being a Salt Lake City Mormon who had traded the Tabernacle Choir and clean air for a career in grave-robbing. He had blue close-set eyes, neatly-trimmed blonde hair that was receding above the temples, and perfect teeth. Bishop wasn’t fat, but was saddled with the relaxed midsection often worn by men in their late thirties.
“On a government salary?” DeLuca scoffed. “You’ve got me confused with McKenzie. He’s the one pulling down the fat paycheck.”
“Why not?” said Dr. Larry McKenzie, a forensic anthropologist, and only civilian member of the JPAC team. “Can’t take it with me.”
As a fifty-five year-old JPAC rookie, McKenzie endured his fair share of good-natured hazing from the others. For more than two decades he had consulted for various law enforcement agencies throughout North America, applying his expertise both at the crime scene and in the courtroom. When JPAC had offered him a position with the Central Identification Lab in Oahu, he’d accepted without hesitation. Leaving behind the clamor and filth of Chicago was a dream come true. His easygoing manner, attentive smile, and evenly tanned skin suggested that he had been making the most of his new home in the tropics. A Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alum, he would also be acting as their medic.
“I take back every nasty thing I ever said about you, Doc.” Second Lieutenant Trevor “Witz” Witzerman hardly fit the GI Joe stereotype. Somehow he had managed to retain the narrow shoulders, sloping posture, and generally awkward physique that basic training eliminated in all but the most obstinately unfit. In spite of a meticulous comb-over camouflaging the widening gyre of bare skin consuming the crown of his skull, Witz was losing a war of attrition with pattern-baldness. A communications technician, he would serve as the team’s eyes and ears.
“What about you, Hatcher?” DeLuca asked.
Hatcher checked his watch. “I’m not that hungry,” he said. “I think I’ll hang back and give Sergeant Price a hand with the gear.”
DeLuca turned to Claire without missing a beat. “Dr. Matthews—what do you say? Join us?”
“Just don’t get your hands too close to my mouth,” Claire warned. “I plan on pigging out if this is going to be my last real meal. I hate to imagine what we’ll be eating once we get there.”
While DeLuca ran some last minute instructions by Price, Hatcher approached Claire.
“Do me a favor,” he said, lowering his voice. “See if you can round up a decent bottle of champagne. You might want to check the duty-free shop. It doesn’t have to be French or anything—as long as it’s got bubbles.” He pressed a $20 into her hand. “This ought to cover it.”
“Would you prefer Cristal or Dom Perignon?”
“I don’t know,” he replied distractedly. He was listening in on Price and DeLuca. “You choose.”
So Hatcher thinks he’s going to get his cork popped. You didn’t really think he’d invited you along for your scientific expertise, did you? The only female experts he takes seriously show up for work in hot pants and stiletto heels. What the hell . . . If humoring his seedy little fantasies helps get me in the door, then so be it. It’s not as if the two of us will be spending much time alone together.
Though neither DeLuca nor any of the JPAC team were the least bit gung-ho, Claire was glad that they had opted for civilian attire or “civvies” for the expedition. It was more comfortable this way, less uptight. She could mingle openly without feeling as though she was part of some misguided “peacekeeping” operation that invariably proved to be another black eye for the United States. She had to give Hatcher credit—a few minutes alone with these guys and it was easy to forget that olive drab was their color of choice.
And what about her? A lone pair of ovaries adrift in a sea of testosterone. She was the team’s resident authority, as close as they had to a definitive source on what may or may not have influenced the disaster at the first station. Claire’s presence hinged largely on a hunch, a theory, the fantastic account of a science-minded Catholic missionary who was ultimately excommunicated for heresy. No one even knew if Alan and his team had found what they had been looking for. Stromatolites at the bottom of a lake in Antarctica were one thing. But S. iroquoisii, what Father Terrero called the Devil’s Hunger, was entirely another. Then again, no one knew exactly where prions originated. Their existence was every bit as mysterious as the organisms themselves.
Despite her predictions of wholesale gluttony, Claire had scarcely managed to choke down a single hotdog and a handful of salt and vinegar potato chips before she was suddenly abandoned by her appetite. At first, DeLuca and the others were like a typical family enjoying a meal together—small talk mostly. World events, the lousy movies they had watched on the flight over, progress reports on the wife and kids. It wasn’t long, however, before they were discussing the job that lay ahead of them and the obstacles they would most certainly encounter. Soon they were trading horror stories about “analogous accounting operations”—Baghdad, Oklahoma City, a handful of US embassies—and the gruesome spoils of their trade. “Accounting” because this is what the military called the macabre business of pinpointing the who, how, when and where of death. “Analogous” because all of the operations in question involved maximum damage and minimum remains. Scraps of flesh, bone fragments, charred teeth, dust bunnies . . . They were expert at piecing together the gruesome handiwork of explosions. Whether deliberate or accidental, the difference promised to be negligible. Claire realized that their clinical objectification of death wasn’t malicious or insensitive; it was simply professionalism at work. For DeLuca and his team, this was shop-talk, the work-related chatter of a 9 to 5 like any other. They didn’t know Alan was her friend. That it would be his flesh and bone they would be picking out of the ruins less than forty-eight hours from now. So rather than going off on a self-righteous tirade about their callousness, Claire politely excused herself from the table.
“Don’t tell me you’re stuffed already?” DeLuca asked. “This will be the last real food we’ll eat for the foreseeable future. No Mickey D’s where we’re going.”
“There’s something I forgot to bring—girl stuff,” Claire stammered. She fought back a wave of nausea.
“We did it again,” Bishop interjected decisively. A disciple of the low-carb movement, he was working on his third hotdog minus the bun. “Look at her—she’s about to barf.”
“No problem,” said McKenzie. “Let’s change the subject. We can talk about—I don’t know—what it’s going to be like without daylight. Being a night owl, myself, I’m actually looking forward to it.”
The last ounce of blood drained from Claire’s face. Her chest was tight. “Seriously,” she said. “I’m fine.”
She escaped to the ladies’ room and popped two Ativan. Girl stuff—if only it was that simple. She was already two weeks late. It didn’t help any that her stress level was through the roof. She looked at herself in the mirror: tired, scary, and jet-lagged but not pregnant. It was probably all the extra exercise she’d been doing lately to help cope with her mother’s death. The dredged up memories of her father and finding out about Alan had delivered the knockout punch. So there it was. Stress coupled with too much exercise was to blame. After all, it wasn’t unusual for athletic women to miss a cycle every now and then. She couldn’t have her life turned upside-down and expect everything to continue like clockwork.
Claire splashed cold water on her face, dried off and sought out the airport convenience store. Luckily, it was open twenty-four hours; otherwise, she may have actually had to address the litany of worries plaguing her mind. Thumbing through the London Times she came across a list of expeditionaries who’d perished in Antarctica since its discovery in the early 1820s. Last in a relatively modest timeline obituary were the names of Alan and the five other team members who now occupied an insignificant slot in polar lore. It was going to be difficult working in the shadow of so much tragedy and loss.
“The Times of London—good paper. I guess I should’ve known I wouldn’t catch a woman like you reading People.” It was McKenzie. He rested his hand on her shoulder.
“And what’s wrong with People?” asked Claire.
“Nothing I guess, other than the fact that it’s dull and superficial and trite.”
Claire folded the newspaper and returned it to the newsstand. “I made a fool of myself, didn’t I?”
“Not at all,” said McKenzie. “It was our fault. In this line of work you can become so damn desensitized that you sometimes forget death isn’t a way of life for everyone.”
“Usually, I’m not so squeamish,” Claire explained. “It’s just that a close friend of mine was there when the station . . . I guess I’m having a hard time with the thought of what we might find.”
McKenzie frowned. “Aren’t we a merry crew of assholes? Doctor Hatcher didn’t tell us.”
“That’s Ethan for you.”
“You two aren’t? . . .”
“Aren’t and never will be,” Claire finished emphatically. “What about you? What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“Bad ticker.” McKenzie rapped on his sternum and smiled. “My cardiologist told me I needed to slow down. Chicago’s a big, noisy city that’s home to some really bad people—the excitement was killing me. Believe it or not, the South Pole will be like taking a vacation.”
Claire awoke to find Hatcher’s hand planted squarely on her thigh. His voice was barely audible above the deafening noise of the C–130’s four massive turboprops. She checked her watch. They had been in the air for nearly eight hours more. McMurdo couldn’t be far.
“Sorry to wake you,” he said, “but you’ll want to see this.”
Claire was considering what to do about Hatcher’s hand—break it or simply pretend it didn’t exist—when the world beneath them caught her eye. Though hanging low on the horizon, the morning sun gave off a fiery incandescence, igniting a conflagration of whiteness that burned from horizon to horizon. The outer edge of the continent comprised a vast mosaic of colossal ice sheets. Pressure ridges erupted where the sheets converged, jigsawing this way and that into diminutive mountain ranges. There were more shades of white than she had ever thought possible, a million random surfaces reflecting the silvery dusk with a chaotic brilliance that dazzled her eyes. Further inland, the mosaic gave rise to a vertical escarpment towering hundreds of feet above the sea. The fractured cross-section exposed a tortured landscape marbled with blue-green bolts of ice as hard as diamond and older than recorded history.