Three
"Er, is that it?"
Decker sounded almost disappointed, Hannibal thought. Not surprising. As crashes went it had gone pretty smoothly. Hannibal remembered having worse wipe-outs in his box cart when he was a boy. There had been a hell of jolt on impact, and the lights went out. But the plane stayed intact and slid for a while before coming to a gentle stop. The snow, he thought. A nice thick cushion of fresh snow had given them a soft landing. And now it was waiting outside to kill them all.
"Anyone hurt?" Hannibal called into the darkness. "Sound off."
"Fine." BA growled, apparently no longer comatose. The crash might have been a pretty easy one this time, but BA was still mad about it.
"Face? Murdock?"
"Okay, Hannibal." Face's voice confirmed for the two of them.
"Decker?"
There was a slight pause and then Decker answered. "Fine."
"Nobody start walking around till we get the lights back or they find a flashlight." Hannibal said, not wanting anyone hurting themselves by tripping over, or falling through a hole in the floor that they hadn't seen.
A couple of flashlights came on up front. In a moment a dark figure came through slowly into the cabin, checking the floor ahead as he walked.
"Face?" Hannibal asked.
"Yeah."
Hannibal was about to speak again when Decker's voice sounded
"Report, Lieutenant."
"Um..." Face sounded hesitant.
"Are you ordering my men around, Decker?" Hannibal's voice was as cold as the weather.
"I'm ordering my prisoners around."
"Are you kidding?"
"Do I sound like I'm laughing?"
"Ah," Face said. "Does anyone want me to report? Or should I just read the in-flight magazine for a while?"
"Report, Face." Hannibal said quickly, before Decker could answer.
"Murdock's got a fix on the radio beacon he was following. It's about a half a mile south of us."
"The weather?" Decker asked.
"We're still under the storm. Heavy snow, gale force winds."
"Have we got power?" Hannibal asked. It sounded like they couldn't go any place tonight, so needed to keep from freezing to death.
"We've got enough for a few hours. Murdock's activated the distress beacon."
The lights came back on, making Hannibal squint.
"Take out half those bulbs," Decker ordered, standing up. Hannibal bristled again. He got to his feet too. BA got up, still scowling around at the hated plane.
"Stop ordering my men around, Decker."
"There's no sense in using more power than we absolutely need." Decker said.
"That's not what I have a problem with. If you think you're in charge -"
"I am in charge. You're still under arrest." Decker said. He raised his pistol, not pointing it at anyone. "And I have the gun."
"Well that can change real fast." Hannibal said. "Face, BA."
Face and BA looked at each other, neither of them moved.
"We ain't got time." BA said. "We got work to do. You two want to wait till we ain't about to freeze to death 'fore you start squarin' up? C'mon, Face, let's get organised. And you," he jabbed a finger at Decker. "You start waving that gun around I'll smack you with it. Take the light bulbs out yourself."
Hannibal smirked at Decker's outraged expression. BA was right, this wasn't the time. If Decker wanted to strut around pretending he was king of the castle he was welcome to it.
Hannibal went forward to the cockpit to check on Murdock.
"How's it going, Captain?"
Murdock looked at him. He still seemed shaken up, which surprised Hannibal. Murdock had been through much scarier crashes than this one.
"You okay, Murdock?"
"Yeah, I guess. I'm sorry, Colonel, I'm sorry. I just couldn't hold it. I got lost and then the storm iced up the wings and... I'm sorry." He stared out into the blizzard.
"That's okay, Murdock, you got us down safe. And right by that beacon. There could be a nice little town out there, full of welcoming ladies with roaring fires and hot toddies."
Murdock laughed weakly, turned back to Hannibal. "I guess we'll find out in the morning."
~~~~
When first light came it brought clear blue sky. The storm had finally eased.
The hatch opened and Hannibal looked out across the snow. He had to squint at the glare of the sun off the vast ocean of snow. No, not an ocean, he thought. Oceans teemed with life. This was a desert. Dead and hostile.
To the north were mountains and above them heavy, brooding clouds, promising more snow soon. Hannibal lifted a pair of binoculars and trained them south, over the plane's tail. The DC3 had gouged out a deep furrow in the snow as it came to rest. He looked beyond that and he found what he was looking for. Hard to make out details, and covered with snow anyway, but definitely buildings. Civilisation. Antenna stuck out of the roof of a structure, still transmitting a radio beacon, telling the world it was there.
During the night they had attempted to make contact with the source of the beacon, but no answer came. Well maybe no-one was listening in the middle of the night. Time to go and knock on the door and see who was at home. He glanced behind him. The others were ready. Only size and height let him distinguish which man was which, they were so completely wrapped up. Even their faces were covered, with scarves over their mouths and tinted goggles over their eyes.
"I think we can make it no problem. Best get moving though. More bad weather is not far off."
Decker stepped up to the door, lifted his goggles and took the binoculars from Hannibal to check out the scene. After a moment he nodded.
"Right. Let's go."
"Decker..." Hannibal began, and then stopped. No, it's not the time. He smiled and waved a hand.
"Please, go ahead, oh glorious leader." He heard BA's giggle and a muffled laugh from Face.
Decker glowered at Hannibal and lowered himself out of the door, carefully, nervous about where he put his feet. Finally he let go and at once sank up to his waist in the snow. Hannibal smirked. Yes, Decker could lead the way if it made him happy.
He glanced back at his team.
"Let's go."
They all followed Decker out of the plane.
~~~~
It was the slowest half mile the team had ever travelled. They'd crossed minefields faster. The snow was unpredictable. In some places it only come up to their knees, in others a drift would swallow them up to their chests. And it was hard work pushing through even the soft fresh snowfall. Despite the cold they were all soon sweating under their many layers of clothing. The clouds from the north were creeping up. Hannibal kept looking back over his shoulder at them as if they were an approaching enemy army. Which they might as well have been.
But finally they got close enough to take a good look at their destination. It was a large one storey building, which Hannibal recognised as made of prefabricated components. The windows were small. The roof was steeply raked and even as they approached a small avalanche of snow slid off part of it. The antenna Hannibal had spotted before were clustered on the eastern end of the roof. The side they approached from the north had a couple of wings on the west and east ends of building, forming a slightly sheltered area. A couple of smaller buildings stood near to the main one. There was no sign of life.
Decker strode ahead as they spotted a door. He marched up as best he could through the snow and banged on the door. It was made of heavy wood and his gloved hand didn't produce much noise. He drew his pistol from a pocket and banged on the door with the grip producing a more satisfactory noise but no apparent effect.
"Hello?" Decker called, uncovering his mouth.
The team joined in with that, all pulling the scarves from their mouths and yelling.
"Hello? Hello?"
No response, from inside, but there was a sudden rushing sound that made them all jump back alarmed. A huge chunk of snow came sliding off the roof and hit the ground right where Decker had been standing. Damn, missed, Hannibal thought.
"Face, can you pick the lock?" Hannibal asked.
"Not in these." Face held up his hands encased in heavy gloves. "And not if I take them off either, because my fingers will drop off."
"I'll shoot the lock off." Decker said.
"Geez, he sure loves showing off about having the gun, doesn't he?" Face said.
Decker ignored the remark and stepped up to the door.
"Wait." Murdock darted forward and grabbed the door handle. He fumbled it a bit, with his thick gloves, but it turned. The door opened and Murdock grinned. "Something tells me there isn't a big burglary problem out here."
"Nice, Murdock." Hannibal stood aside again and let Decker take the lead. If he wanted to be leader he could take all the risks.
Turned out there were no risks. The building was very cold, the corridors dim. It was deserted but not abandoned. The rooms they looked into were neat and tidy, with a small amount of dust. As if they were waiting.
"It's some kind of outpost." Hannibal said, as they explored. Most of the rooms were off a long central corridor that ran east-west. "A science station maybe." They shone their flashlights into a kitchen, a dining room, a rec room, an infirmary, bathrooms, apparent laboratories and then the place they'd been looking for.
The radio room.
"Alright!" Hannibal grinned as they piled in. "Now, power..."
"There's a battery pack right here." BA said. Must be powering the beacon."
BA took off his gloves, bent over the pack and started to work on getting the power to the radio on.
"There must be a generator around here," Hannibal said.
"Agreed," Decker said, "We'll find it and get it going. We might have to wait several days for rescue. I hope there's food here."
"We'll take inventory after we make contact with someone. How's it going, BA?"
BA nodded. "Getting it, man, gimme a second here." He twisted dials and the sweet sound of static hissed out of the radio speakers.
"There's some frequencies here," Murdock had found a clipboard on the table by the radio transmitter. He shone his flashlight on it. "This one says RCMP. The Mounties?"
"Must be." Hannibal said, nodding.
"Call them," Decker ordered. BA looked at Hannibal, who nodded. Decker scowled. BA started to fiddle with the dials. He handed the microphone to Hannibal, but Decker grabbed it before Hannibal could take it.
"Decker..." Hannibal began. Okay, okay, was now the time or not? If not now when?
"Be quiet, Smith. This is Colonel Decker, United States Army, calling Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Please come in. Over."
He repeated himself several times, glaring at Hannibal, who glared back. Hannibal was tense. Decker had put the gun back in his pocket. I could put him on his back right now and take it, Hannibal thought. Was this the time?
If not now when?
He sprang forward and shoved Decker back against the wall, pinning him. Decker dropped the microphone. The rest of the team stared at the two colonels.
"Give me the gun, Decker. I don't want to have to hurt you."
"Back off, Smith that's an order." Decker struggled, trying to push Hannibal away.
"Er, do you want a hand, Hannibal?" Face asked.
"No!" Hannibal snapped.
"Hello?"
The sudden strange voice startled them all. After a second they realised it came from the radio speaker. BA, Face and Murdock turned to it and Face picked up the microphone.
Hannibal, still pinning Decker against the wall heard Face talking to what he assumed was a Mountie. Well Face could handle that, while he handled Decker. Time for Decker to understand who was giving the orders around here. Decker tried to knee Hannibal in the groin and Hannibal only just twisted away in time. He had both of Decker's wrists in his hands, so Decker couldn't get the gun, but neither could Hannibal.
"Yeah," Face was saying, "it's some kind of outpost or something."
"Oh, I think... Have you got the co-ordinates?" The voice on the radio asked.
Hannibal let go of one wrist, and tried to rip the pocket of Decker's coat away. But Decker grabbed his wrist.
"I'm stronger than you, Decker."
"We'll see."
"Are these them?" Face read off a set of co-ordinates taped over the radio set. "Do you know where we are?"
"Oh my, you're up at station twelve. It belongs to a couple of the universities, they do climate research and..."
Hannibal managed to rip the pocket and the pistol fell to the floor. They both lunged after it. Decker fell on his stomach, grabbed at the gun. Hannibal landed on top of him and made Decker's arm jerk sending the gun skidding away under the table with the radio on.
"You said you were heading to Yellowknife." The voice over the radio spoke again. "My lord, you really did go off course! You're north of the Great Bear Lake, you're up inside the Arctic Circle there you know?"
Murdock turned from the radio to the two men struggling on the floor.
"Do you two need to be alone?" He asked with a smirk.
"Pick up the damn gun, Murdock," Hannibal snapped.
"Do you mind?" Face scowled at the people interrupting his conversation and turned back to the radio. "Sorry about that. So you know where we are, great. So when can you come and get us out of here?"
"Well, let's see. Where are we now, twenty-seventh November? Mm-hm." He went silent for a moment.
Murdock bent and picked up Decker's handgun.
"Hello?" Face prompted over the radio.
"Ah, yes, sorry." The Mountie's voice came back on. "Just checking something."
"Right, so when can you come and get us?"
"April."
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© Elizabeth Charles 2006