Marion Island, South Africa
November 11, 2:46 P.M., South Africa Standard Time
Van Tonder and Mabuza were nearly above the wreckage. The pilot took them higher to avoid a choking stall from the smoke. Van Tonder reached for the binoculars in the side storage compartment.
“Michael, check any updates from the GSSA,” the commander said. “We’ll look at it when we get back.”
“Will do, sir,” Sisula replied.
The Geological Society of South Africa provided daily satellite reports of all seismic activity in the region. Both islands were of volcanic origin, and Marion was one of the peaks of an underwater shield volcano. That was one reason van Tonder hadn’t given the fisherman’s report much attention. Thermal venting in the region was not uncommon.
But not reaching 35,000 feet, van Tonder thought as Mabuza hovered above the blowing smoke and van Tonder raised the binoculars to study the parts of the wreckage that weren’t obscured by the churning black clouds.
The aircraft’s disjointed, shattered remains were an abstract caricature of something functional. The commander saw at once that nothing moved—except to collapse or pop, like a seat he saw burst and spew melted foam droplets into the air.
There was a brittle, blackened corpse still belted to the chair. It startled both men by jerking when the cushion exploded. Another lay on the ground nearby, curled tightly in a fetal position—either due to rigor mortis or some effort to protect itself, he imagined.
“I don’t know if you can see,” van Tonder said to the pilot. “The remains I’m looking at are burned but otherwise proportional and intact. Does that tell you anything?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Decompression at that height would likely have burst a lung. Also, do you see anything stuck in the bodies? You know—cutlery, personal devices, any flying debris?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“That also would have happened if there were a hole in the aircraft, sudden decompression—either from a bomb or a collision.”
“I have my doubts, but you mentioned that report from the fisherman—”
“I know, but volcanic gas at that height and intensity that the big boy geologists missed?” Mabuza shook his head. “Unless it was a major eruption—and we surely would have heard and seen that—effective contamination would have disbursed well below the jet’s cruising altitude. If it were a heat plume, the air would have cooled it sufficiently to prevent damage.”
“That’s all I can think of,” van Tonder said. “Do you have any theories? Any at all?”
“Not a one,” the pilot admitted.
The men continued to scan the site, looking for some detail they might have missed—even a hole punched by a meteor.
“Do you want to go down?” Mabuza asked.
“No. We’ll wait for the fires to die a little so we can go lower. What I want to do is head over to Prince Edward. Let’s have a look at that vent, see if there’s anything to it. Mike?”
“Still here,” he said.
“Are you getting the video feed?”
“I am.”
“Jump in if you notice anything or if Simon needs another flyover.”
“Yes, sir.”
Steering the helicopter to the northeast, toward the Southern Indian Ocean and into a black wall of night, Mabuza programed the GPS for the thirty-mile trip.
The sailors who first braved these waters in the middle seventeenth century had a name for the wind that blew here. They called it “Hell’s Bellows.” Whether the air was cold or colder it blew like something infernal. Along with the sound of the rotors, the wind pushed a steady howl as well as tangible pressure against the cushioned headset.
Mabuza was a fine helicopter pilot. The Cape Town native had joined the navy instead of the air force because there was less of a waiting line to fly the hot, new helicopters, of which the Rooivalk was one. He had quickly adapted to the unforgiving conditions of the southern polar region. But even he was having trouble keeping the aircraft steady in the eastward-buffeting fifty-mile-an-hour winds of the Subantarctic Front.
Fortunately, the journey to Prince Edward was a short quarter hour. The night was clear, and well before they arrived the men picked out their target: a faint, eerie glow rising from the northern coastline, visible only because it rippled the air behind it. They could not see the point of penetration, only a gossamer ribbon suspended above.
“Never seen anything like that,” Mabuza remarked. “Like a sliver of the aurora stuck in the sky. In daytime.”
It was an apt description. The light was a pale, yellowish strand with a similar translucence.
“You’ve still got the spotlight on,” van Tonder said suddenly. “Kill it.”
The pilot switched it off. The glow vanished.
“Incredible!” Mabuza remarked. “Whatever we saw was not burning on its own.”
“That rules out magma, hot gas, or vapor hot enough to self-illuminate,” the commander said.
“What we saw also doesn’t tell us how high it goes, because it was beyond the light,” Mabuza said.
“Invisible gas—methane? Carbon monoxide? I’m at a loss.”
“Sir, even if it reached all the way to the plane—that doesn’t make sense,” the pilot said. “We’re just twenty-seven miles from where the jet went down. It would have had to drop straight down over the iridescence to hit where it did. That didn’t happen.”
The pilot switched the spotlight back on. The faint column returned, like a ghost. The men approached in silence until Mabuza coughed.
“You all right?” van Tonder asked absently.
“Throat tickles suddenly.”
“Commander!” It was Sisula, urgently on the radio.
“Yes, Mike?”
“Turn back!” he said firmly. “Turn back now!”
Van Tonder had learned to trust these men completely. “Do it, Tito,” the officer said.
The pilot swung the helicopter south as he tried to clear his throat.
“What’s going on, Mike?” the commander asked.
“Simon says the plane passengers apparently came down with some kind of coughing or reflux condition that killed them in minutes,” Sisula said.
“Jesus,” van Tonder said.
As he spoke, the commander reached around to the medical locker. He threw open the lid, drew out a mask, and put it on. There was a portable oxygen container inside the locker. He took that out for the pilot.
“Commander—” Mabuza rasped. “I’m sorry. I … I have to set down.”
“Understood,” van Tonder said. “Mike? Inform Simon we’re landing on Edward. Tell them why.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Also inform them that I’m putting the lieutenant on oxygen to see if that helps.” As he spoke, van Tonder pulled the mask over the pilot’s head and turned on the flow of air.
The helicopter wobbled as Mabuza inhaled deeply then coughed into the plastic mask. There were faint spots of blood.
Rallying, the pilot did not bother searching for a landing spot. The bulging mask created a blind spot. Using the altimeter, he simply descended to whatever ground was some fifty feet below.
The helicopter landed hard but evenly and Mabuza immediately throttled down.
“Don’t shut down,” van Tonder said. The glow of the cockpit illuminated tall grasses around them. The wind was blowing northeast—away from the door.
“How does your throat feel?” van Tonder asked.
“Not … worse…” he gasped.
Van Tonder patted the man on the arm. “Mike? Tell Simon that there’s some kind of—an infection, an abrasive mineral, something that is apparently coming from the pit. It hasn’t hit me. I’m using the—what is it, N99 high-filtration breathing mask. It may be enough to keep out whatever this is. I suggest they put all resources into finding out whether this is a natural event or a drilling. If someone was here, they better find whatever they may have taken with them.”
“At once, Commander,” the ensign replied.
“Oh, Mike? I also suggest they keep aircraft off that route,” van Tonder added. “In case this hasn’t played out.”
Sisula acknowledged and van Tonder turned to the pilot.
“I still tickle but I don’t feel like coughing,” Mabuza said.
“Good man.” He looked at the illuminated digital instruments. “We’ve got—an hour of air there and if we just sit here and idle we’ve got that same hour before we have to go back. You okay with the heat on?”
The pilot nodded. “Feels good. But … no chills. Not flu-like.”
“You got that, Mike?”
“Yeah.”
Van Tonder gave the pilot another reassuring clap on the arm, then looked out at the dark ocean.
Even as a navy seaman, he had never had to face death. Not directly.
Not until now. It scared him to consider how close he and Mabuza had come to dying. Just a few yards in either direction, including up or down—
And they still had no idea what this affliction was just a few dozen yards distant. Not its shape or, if alive, its life span, how far it had already traveled and what vehicle—or city—it might strike next.