the missile was fired from LV Station and, from what I’ve seen of this place, you had nothing to do with it. Second, I’m here because this was the nearest shelter I could find. And third, I once was a soldier, but I’m a civilian now, and I won’t kill anyone – unless I have to.’
‘What you tell us makes no sense,’ Mati said. ‘How do you know that the plane was shot down? McMurdo believes it landed at LV Station. I heard Collins make the report.’
‘When a transport from McMurdo comes here, who reports its arrival?’ Kilkenny asked.
‘The pilot, but the aircraft that landed at LV had radio problems. That’s why Collins radioed in.’
‘I’m betting someone had a gun to his head while he was doing it.’
‘But how do you know the plane was shot down?’ Mati insisted.
‘Because I saw it. I was on the plane up until a few minutes before the missile was launched.’
‘What do you mean you were on the plane? How did you get off?’ Yasha asked.
‘Parachute. I was testing some new equipment, but that’s not important right now. The six other people on my plane were killed and someone has seized control of LV Station.’
‘Bozha moi,’ Yasha said, shocked. ‘These people, do you think they will come here?’
Kilkenny shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I have no idea who they are or what they’re after.’
Mati looked skeptically at Kilkenny. ‘So you flew in from McMurdo and just before your plane is to land at LV, you jumped out of it, yes?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then how did you get here? LV is over sixty kilometers away.’
‘When I jumped I was only twenty-five miles, about forty klicks, from here,’ Kilkenny explained. ‘It was a high-altitude jump – I flew most of the way and covered the rest on foot with GPS. Finding my way across the ice wasn’t a problem.’
‘What you’re saying sounds crazy,’ Yasha said. ‘How do we know you’re telling us the truth?’
‘You don’t,’ Kilkenny fired back angrily. ‘But try to come up with a better explanation for how I got here.’
Kilkenny locked eyes with the station leader. He was tired, hungry, and irritable – a combination that left him dangerously close to punching the doubting man in the face.
‘If what you’ve said is true,’ Yasha said more diplomatically, ‘shouldn’t we contact McMurdo?’
‘No. If Mati overheard a radio message from Collins reporting that the plane landed safely – ‘
‘That is what I heard,’ Mati interjected.
‘Then,’ Kilkenny continued, ‘whoever did this is trying to maintain a fiction that nothing has happened. We have to assume that they’re monitoring communications, so if you contact McMurdo to report the downing of Skier-98, they’ll know their cover’s been blown. And that might piss them off enough to bring them here.’
‘How did they get a missile to LV?’ Mati asked. ‘Could they have smuggled something like that through McMurdo?’
‘McMurdo is not the only way into Antarctica,’ Yasha said.
‘The weapon they used wasn’t one of those small, shoulder-fired units,’ Kilkenny said. ‘My plane was shot down about twenty-five kilometers away from LV. To hit a target at that range requires some very serious hardware.’
‘Mati and I were at LV two days ago for a farewell meal with Philip and Nedra,’ Yasha said. ‘No one else was there and we saw nothing unusual. They must have flown this missile launcher in – a traverse from the coast would take too long. But why would anyone do this? LV has no strategic value, no precious metals or natural resources. It’s a scientific research station.’
‘It does have one thing of value – the Ice Pick probe. It’s jam-packed with exotic technology, and right now it’s all crated up and ready for the trip back to the States. This is the perfect time to steal it.’
‘But why did they shoot down your plane?’ Mati asked. ‘Why not just come in, take the probe, and leave?’
Kilkenny considered the question for a moment. ‘Because they don’t want anyone to know the probe was stolen. That message you overheard was to make McMurdo think my plane arrived safely. McMurdo will probably get another message about the time we’re scheduled to take off, and that’s the last anyone will hear of Skier-98. When the plane doesn’t arrive, they’ll assume it crashed somewhere on the way back.’
‘And the weather is getting too cold to search for survivors,’ Yasha added. ‘We battle all winter long to keep our buildings from being swallowed by the ice. By next October, they won’t be able to find any trace of your plane’s wreckage.’
Kilkenny envisioned the debris field left by Skier-98 on the polar plateau slowly disappearing into the ice. Had Kilkenny been aboard when the missile hit, the search teams wouldn’t know where to start to look.
‘What about Nedra and Philip?’ Mati asked. ‘What will happen to them?’
‘My guess is they’ll be killed as soon as the people who took LV Station are ready to leave.’
‘Those are good people,’ Mati said to Yasha. ‘We must tell McMurdo what has happened.’
‘You can’t,’ Kilkenny said sternly. ‘If you do, you’ll erase any usefulness Philip and Nedra may still have to their captors. And even if you could contact McMurdo quietly, there’s no time to bring in anyone to deal with this. My plane was scheduled to take off from LV in less than six hours.’
‘This is madness!’ Mati said angrily.
‘Yasha, you said that you and Mati were at LV Station two days ago. How did you get there, snowmobiles?’ Kilkenny asked.
‘No, those are too difficult to keep running here. Mati and I sail iceboats. We race them back in Russia. Here, we just practice. Why?’
‘There’s a chance we can get Philip and Nedra out of this alive, but I’ve got to get to LV Station fast.’
Yasha led the way toward one of the support buildings, followed by Kilkenny and Mati. When he grasped the lever handle and pulled, a brittle veneer of ice shattered as he opened the door.
‘Inside, please,’ Yasha said urgently.
The wind slammed the door behind them, knocking Yasha back. He flipped the switches by the door and a dozen fluorescent tubes flickered on. The building housed a large machine shop used to service the station’s equipment.
Yasha studied Kilkenny for a moment. ‘How much do you weigh?
