Where Blood Runs Cold, page 22
‘Nod if you understand,’ Erik said, gesturing with his chin to Sofia to resume her vigilance at the window.
The prisoner nodded.
‘Good,’ Erik said. They didn’t have long. Eventually someone would realize he was missing and come looking for him. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.
The man didn’t answer, so Erik stepped forward and dug the muzzle of the rifle into the thick jacket at his shoulder. ‘You can talk now. Turn over. Keep your hands behind your head.’
The man did as he was told, rolling over on his back and shuffling up against the wall and pressing himself against it, as if he would have retreated further if he could. As though by wishing it with all his mental power he could make every molecule in his body solvent and pass through the timbers in some feat of human osmosis. And there he half sat, half slouched, cowering in the shadows, his fingers laced behind his head.
Erik went back over to him, this time using the barrel of the Remington to drag the man’s neck warmer down off his mouth. Then he stepped back and lifted the rifle, and the man cringed before it, whimpering like a kicked dog. Erik asked again, ‘What are you people doing here?’
He could see the prisoner’s face for the first time. He was young, late twenties, early thirties, and clearly scared out of his mind. But Erik could feel no pity for him. He was beyond empathy now. Only his daughter mattered. ‘We don’t have time for games. You tell me what I want to know and you live. You bullshit me and you die.’ Some part of him was aware of how easily those words came to him now and of how crazy that was.
The young man nodded, shifted, pushed himself more upright. ‘We’re scientists,’ he said, his eyes flicking to Hánas and then coming back to Erik. ‘Well, I’m on my way to being one. I start my fellowship next year.’ He grimaced, glanced down at himself, and Erik smelled it then. He had soiled himself. Erik supposed he couldn’t blame him – who wouldn’t, when some wild-looking, rifle-wielding stranger jumps them out in the dark?
‘What kind of scientists?’ Erik asked.
‘Immunologists. Pathologists. Molecular biologists. Researchers in environmental virology. Two medical archaeologists. There’s a professor of genomics and bioinformatics.’ The qualification meant nothing to Erik, but it didn’t matter.
‘What are you doing here? You’re part of what’s going on up in that lab in the ice, right?’
‘You were there,’ the man said. Not a question. A statement.
‘Not for long,’ Erik said.
‘What happened to Ivvár?’ Hánas asked the man.
Erik gave Hánas a look saying that this wasn’t the most pertinent question at this point, but Hánas ignored him, drawing the bolt on the old Russian rifle to confirm that he wanted his question answered.
‘Well?’ he asked the man.
The man looked from Erik to Hánas. ‘He’s infected,’ he said.
‘Infected with what?’ Hánas asked.
The prisoner screwed up his face as the battle waged between the him who wanted to spill it all and the other him who thought that would be a very, very bad idea.
‘Look, if you let me go, I swear I’ll say nothing. You can stay in here or, if you don’t trust me, you can leave. But either way, I swear I won’t tell anyone that I’ve seen you.’
Erik tipped his chin towards Hánas. ‘See my friend here? Does he look like he’s ready to ski off into this blizzard?’
Hánas turned his face and spat out a wad of blood.
‘Who’s chasing us? A tall man. Mean-looking bastard.’ Erik put a hand to his own lips. ‘Scar here,’ he added.
The man shook his head. ‘Someone you don’t want as an enemy,’ he said. He swallowed. ‘Please!’ he begged. ‘I have a little boy. You don’t have to do this.’
Erik jerked the rifle. ‘If you don’t start telling us what we want to know, I’m going to shove this deep into that nice thick coat and I’m going to pull the trigger. Your friends won’t even hear it over this wind.’
Maybe true. Probably not.
He felt Sofia’s eyes on him but he didn’t look at her.
The prisoner nodded. ‘OK, OK.’ He looked like he was about to throw up. ‘In 2016, in a remote part of Siberia, a twelve-year-old boy died and many others were hospitalised because they were infected with anthrax. The anthrax bacteria came from a reindeer that had died over seventy years previously.’
Hánas nodded. ‘The reindeer had thawed out of the permafrost,’ he said. ‘We all heard about it.’
‘Right,’ the young man said. ‘We already know that glacier ice is cryogenically preserving bacteria and viruses that could be … hundreds of thousands of years old.’ He nodded down at the floorboards. ‘Here, we’re on top of permafrost.’
‘Frozen soil?’ Erik put in.
‘Essentially, yes,’ the man said. ‘Almost a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere is underlain by permafrost and, thanks to global warming, it’s melting to a deeper and deeper layer. It’s only a matter of time before thousands of graves will be uncovered. The victims of smallpox, diphtheria, bubonic plague. And the pathogens that killed them will come back into the light. Diseases we thought we’d seen the back of …? Well, maybe not.’
Hánas jerked the Mosin-Nagant. ‘What does any of this have to do with Ivvár? What happened to him?’
The young man dipped his head submissively. ‘There are burials here,’ he said, tilting his head towards the window where Sofia stood. She looked at him, but Erik jerked his head to the window and she turned back to it. ‘You’ve heard of the 1918 flu?’ their prisoner said.
Erik nodded. ‘The Spanish Flu.’
‘An H1N1 virus originally passed on to humans from birds. Killed more than fifty million worldwide, maybe as many as one hundred million. Nearly a third of the world’s population became infected.’
‘Talk faster,’ Erik said.
The man swallowed. ‘In 1918 some local Sami caught the virus and died. Normally, the Sami would leave their dead in scree graves near sacred sites.’ He looked to Hánas then, perhaps for his blessing to talk about the man’s people, but the reindeer herder just watched him through narrow eyes, as though by half closing them he was keeping his pain from spilling out and drowning him. ‘But the families of these dead Sami men and women were afraid of the disease.’
‘Understandably,’ Hánas said.
The prisoner looked back at Erik. ‘They thought they should bury the bodies deep. But that’s not easy when the ground is frozen hard. So they brought them here, to the mine, and paid some men to do it. Or at least to dig the graves.’ He looked back at Hánas. ‘Ivvár knew about this. Turns out his great-great-grandfather was one of the men who paid for the burial. One of the miners left diaries which recorded details: what the Sami brought as gifts, the payment itself and what they spent it on.’
‘Get to the point,’ Erik said.
‘They needed Ivvár to help locate the graves. To identify the bodies as Sami—’
‘Who needed him?’ Hánas asked.
‘Novotroitsk Nickel,’ Erik answered, before the young man could.
‘I don’t know the details,’ the man said, ‘but the mine is a front. It’s not about copper. I don’t even think they’ll reopen it.’
‘So who’s your employer?’ Erik asked.
The prisoner shrugged. ‘A biotech company,’ he said, as if it should be obvious.
‘Russian?’
‘I don’t know. I think so.’
Erik looked at Hánas, who looked at him. His expression said: what the hell is going on here? Erik turned back to the scientist. ‘And the bastard hunting us?’
‘His name’s Maksim. He’s Spetsnaz,’ the man said. ‘Or was.’
‘Special forces?’ Erik said.
‘More like special purposes,’ the man replied. ‘Airborne Forces. VDV. Their insignia is some crazy-looking lone wolf.’
Erik thought back to that first day in town and the tattoo on the back of the tall man’s hand.
‘I don’t know the man, but I heard he was kicked out of the military,’ the young scientist went on. ‘There was some hostage situation in Beslan. The wrong people died and Maksim took the fall.’ He shook his head vigorously. ‘From what I’ve seen, he’s a professional, but they say his brother’s a maniac.’
Not any more, he’s not, Erik thought.
His hands still meshed behind his head, the prisoner pushed his elbows out wide. ‘That’s all I know. I’m telling you, that’s all I know.’
‘Pappa, something’s happening.’ Sofia huffed on the glass and rubbed it with her mitten. ‘I think the others are looking for him.’
Erik nodded. ‘Keep watching,’ he told her, then he drew the Remington’s bolt for effect. ‘What does your employer want with bodies that were put in the ground over a hundred years ago?’ He saw in his mind those corpses laid out in the lab, their features preserved by the permafrost all these years, so they still looked like people he might have known in this time, in his own life.
‘We’re not the first who’ve tried to recover a sample of living virus from the lung tissue of Spanish Flu victims,’ the young man said. ‘They tried it up in Longyearbyen, but the virus wasn’t viable. In Alaska, they recovered the body of an Inuit woman and enough of the viral RNA to sequence the 1918 strain in its entirety.’
Erik thought about this. ‘So if it’s been done already, what are you doing here?’
The man looked uncomfortable, seemed to squirm inside his Michelin Man coat. ‘If … if we can examine the virus, we can prepare for, possibly even prevent, future pandemics.’
‘But you just said it’s been done. The sequencing.’
The man shook his head. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Humour me.’
‘They couldn’t make the virus live again. Not that it’s alive as you might understand it, but you get my meaning. They could study it but they couldn’t make it grow.’
‘Why would anyone risk bringing back a virus that killed millions?’ Erik asked.
For the first time, the young man unclasped his hands from behind his head and spread his fingers. ‘I’m a nobody,’ he said. ‘I told you, I’m just helping out. They don’t tell me anything. I couldn’t even ask. They made me sign all sorts of shit. NDAs.’
‘You don’t know why you’re digging up the dead?’ Hánas asked him. ‘Why you’re trying to bring to life one of the most lethal viruses the world has ever known?’
‘No, I swear it,’ the captive said. ‘I don’t know.’
But Erik did. Suddenly he understood it all. ‘So Ivvár is infected?’ he asked.
The man nodded.
‘By accident?’ Hánas asked.
‘I … I don’t know,’ the young man said. There were tears in his eyes.
‘Pappa!’ Sofia said, and this time there was a note in her voice which had been absent before. She looked at him and he saw the purest terror in her face, her mouth moving though no sound came. She stood there rigid, straight as a ski pole, her mittened hands balled at her sides. ‘It’s him,’ she said. ‘He’s here.’
16
‘GO,’ HÁNAS TOLD him. They looked into each other’s eyes and Erik said nothing. Hánas nodded. ‘Go, Erik,’ he said. ‘People need to know what’s happening here.’
Erik opened his mouth to speak. Closed it again, tightening his jaw, then turned and went to the pulk and lifted the steel sheet off, placing it to the side as quietly as he could. He grabbed the harness and dragged the pulk over to the door.
‘We can’t leave him here, Pappa,’ Sofia said, looking from him to Hánas.
Their prisoner sat drawn into himself, trying to make himself small, invisible, like he was hoping they might forget he was even there.
‘Get your skis,’ Erik told her.
‘But, Pappa …’
‘Get your skis,’ he said again.
She looked at Hánas.
‘It’s all right, Sofia,’ Hánas said.
‘Now!’ Erik said.
She fetched her skis and poles and carried them to where Hánas stood, his old Russian rifle still trained on the frightened young scientist.
‘Come with us,’ she said. ‘Please.’
Hánas fastened his eyes on hers and shook his head. ‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘You can try,’ she said.
‘No, I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m ready.’ He managed a smile. ‘But you still have far to go.’
She shook her head.
‘Sofia, listen to me.’ There was fresh blood on his lips. ‘Your father needs you. You must help him now. You must go.’
She turned to Erik, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘Pappa, please.’
‘He’s right, Lillemor,’ he said. ‘We need to go now.’
Hánas hauled himself over to the window and looked out. ‘He’s coming, and he’s not alone,’ he said, then turned back to them. ‘Go!’ He nodded at Erik again, giving his final permission, and Erik nodded back, knowing he would never see Hánas again.
Then he opened the door and stepped out. Sofia followed, but stopped on the threshold and turned back and said, ‘I’ll never forget you.’
If Hánas spoke again, Erik didn’t hear it, and then they were out in the freezing night once more, the icy wind biting into his cheeks, making his eyes water, reminding him that they faced another enemy, just as relentless, just as cruel. As fast as he could, he strapped on the pulk and they clipped into their skis and kicked off down the slope into the blizzard. Sofia was light enough that her skis did not sink deep, but stayed on the surface, which the wind was turning into an icy crust even as new snow fell. He watched her bend forward, almost crouching, her poles tucked beneath her arms.
‘Go!’ he called after her, ice crystals like little needles stabbing his face. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’ Then he stopped and twisted, looking back up the hill at the old mine as a gunshot rang out, the report amplified by the mountain behind. Shocking in its loudness. Then another shot, even before the echo of the first one had died.
‘Kill the bastard,’ he said, because he knew those shots had been fired by the Mosin-Nagant. That Hánas was fighting for them. For his sister. For Ivvár.
Erik turned and skied after Sofia.
‘We need to cut across over there,’ he said when he had caught up with her, lifting his arm towards two sharp black peaks surrounded by night. She didn’t reply but made the turn and set their new course. Another rifle shot reverberated amongst the mountains. If nothing else, Hánas was buying them time, so they needed to honour his courage by putting as much ground between themselves and the tall man as humanly possible.
But you haven’t got it in you, the god said. Maybe once. Even just a few years ago. But not now.
They came onto flat ground, skiing south-east, the snow driving across their fronts, numbing the right side of his face.
This is the way of it. Strength fades. Nothing lasts for ever.
‘But she needs me,’ he murmured into the wind.
You cannot fight time.
‘I must.’
Maybe it would have been better had they not taken shelter in the old mine, but had expended their last reserves of strength and will in getting down the mountain, even with Hánas in the pulk. Because the brief respite had taken a terrible toll on him, he realized now with the sharpened awareness of flight. The short reprieve had fooled his body into thinking it was over, that it was time to submit to exhaustion, to rest and to heal. A cruel deceit. Like a palm-fringed oasis appearing to the thirsty wanderer in the desert being no more than a mirage. He needed his body to work again and it was unwilling. His arms and legs no longer felt part of him. They were moving, but driven by muscle memory rather than his own commands. The poles hung from his wrists on their straps and struck the snow without conviction, the rhythm of alternate arm, alternate leg now a parody of its one-time mechanical perfection. He had a sense of himself as if from the outside or from overhead, looking down upon some grotesque creature shambling through the dark in a poor imitation of a man.
Will you not face up to the truth? the god said. There comes a point when you have to acknowledge the way of things. You must fade but she will go on. Look … look at her. Would you hold her back?
He did look. He had fallen behind. Before, he had tasked himself only with keeping pace with Sofia, being aware of her as a presence in front of his skis that he must cling to like a shadow. But now he saw she was twenty metres ahead and skiing well. So maybe the rest and the food had helped her. Maybe her young body, her young mind, had been better able to make use of them.
‘Good,’ he murmured, giving that small word to the cruel wind. Watching her arms and legs do all the things she had learned. Everything he had taught her. My girl. I am so proud of you.
There was a time he would have squared himself to the wind and relished the force of it in his face. When he would have accepted the unspoken challenge and pitted himself against it with all the arrogance of his masculine strength. Now he bent forward under his rucksack, like some broken, hump-backed thing, turning his face away as though the storm was an alpha predator and he sought to acknowledge its dominance and avoid confrontation.
The cloud cover was dense, hazed above them with cold moonlight by which he could make out an infinity of mountain shapes and peaks looming all around them in their timeless indifference. It made him feel a fool for ever having bought into the illusion that his life, that their lives mattered. Were of consequence. The truth was shocking and savage, and he felt like apologizing on behalf of the entire human race for its vanity. Its pretensions. But to what or to whom should he apologize? If the mountains were indifferent, and religion was a construct born of human fears and conceits, who would hear him now?
