Expedition Beyond Read online

  Out of the fog came the shriek of a wounded animal, followed by “Fuck!”

  Mitch strode rapidly toward them, apparently agitated. His fur coat was wide open; he wore no hat, no faceplate, no gloves—his face was crimson and he was holding his cellphone to his ear. He thrust it towards the others.

  “Look at this fucker. What the fuck is no-fucking-service? How am I going to call my mother if there is no fucking service?”

  “Careful, they’re probably charging you twenty bucks a minute to display ‘no service,’” Stephen said calmly.

  “Really?” Mitch turned off his phone and shoved it into his coat pocket.

  “What did you think you were doing?” Des demanded, ecstatic to see his best friend was still alive.

  “I was taking a leak. Surely our little Eskimo friend won’t mind me leaving that behind.” He pointed at Bearters with a glower.

  When Des saw Bearters tense, he stepped between the two men. Mitch could probably beat Bearters in a fistfight, but there was that .45 in the Inuit’s hand.

  Des told Mitch, “I meant what were you doing by jumping…”

  Still not answering Des’ question, Mitch announced, “It seems I’ve lost the snow Glider’s chute, somewhere over there.” He waved an arm and gloveless hand. “Perhaps we could go and find it. That is part of our job, isn’t it?”

  Des knew that Mitch meant Bearters. Des shrugged at Bearters, who slowly holstered his pistol, then walked into the fog.

  “Wait for me, I help,” Hans called, and disappeared after him.

  Des chided Mitch, “Bearters is part of the team. He’s here to help.”

  Mitch would have none of it. “He’s a fucking Indian. He’s here to watch us, to make sure we follow their rules. I don’t like rules.”

  Mitch zipped and buttoned his fur coat, then pulled his fur hood tight around his face, snapping it shut with a grin. Des was still amazed that he was alive.

  “I rode the son-of-a-bitch down,” Mitch finally explained, triumphantly.

  “You did what?” Stephen inquired.

  “The snow Glider. I rode the fucker down. I climbed over its skin and seat-belted myself in.”

  “That’s impossible,” Des said.

  Mitch ignored him. “At fifty meters over the ground, I fired the sucker up and turned those jets on full. When we touched surface, I was moving forward, so I unsnapped the chute and backed off the throttle ‘til I was sitting pretty. Yup, I rode the fucker down.”

  Bearters and Hans returned twenty minutes later. They had found not only the Glider’s chute, but also Mitch’s front-pack.

  “You’ve got caribou kisses on your nose and cheeks,” Bearters said to Mitch, whose crimson face was marked with white spots; Des knew that Bearters was referring to frostbite. “Put your faceplate on.”

  “Fuck you,” Mitch said, running a gloved hand across his nose.

  “Do it. He’s right,” Des told Mitch.

  Mitch took his faceplate out of his pack. “Hey, Bearters, you have a way with finding left-behinds. Now get right behind me.” Mitch turned his back to the Inuit and farted loudly.

  Bearters’ hand went for his revolver.

  “Both of you—stop acting like children,” Des sighed.

  Chapter 4

  ELLESMERE ISLAND, CANADA

  LATITUDE: 81° 45’ NORTH

  LONGITUDE: 76° 6’ WEST

  Day 1; 1910 UTC, 2:10 PM LTD

  Kathy and Jack stood up as the others returned. Kathy gave Mitch an enthusiastic hug, which Mitch accepted graciously.

  “I think it’s time we eat!” Des told the team. “Mitch, you have the keys to the kitchen.”

  Mitch looked puzzled. “I do? Oh, well yes, I do, don’t I?”

  He turned on his Finder and punched in 2-3-5. The black dot of Sled Five appeared onscreen.

  When they retrieved the food sled, Kathy heated soup over a white gas burner. After they ate, Mitch and Hans left to find the last Glider.

  Des approached Jack, who was working on his computer. Jack closed his laptop so Des couldn’t see the monitor, which Des thought odd.

  “You have a GPS with you, don’t you?” Des asked.

  “Of course.”

  Des put Jack’s GPS alongside his own and turned them on; to his relief, they displayed the same coordinates.

  Des mounted his GPS on his snow Glider, completely unaware that when he had fastened his GPS, a tiny magnetized iron filing from the corporate offices of Boster Denton finished working its way through the cover to fall near the unit’s receiver. The digital numbers on the face began to change, slowly at first, then building in speed until they were digital blurs. The computer shut down, then restarted after a three-second delay, rebuilding its memory and approximating their location with near accuracy.

  “Jack, one more thing…” Why did Jack keep hiding his monitor? “When we make camp, I want you in charge of the radio. It’s old, it’s not SSPS, and the batteries will last only a week or two, so test it to make sure it’s working okay, then hide it. I don’t want Mitch calling his mom or striking up a relationship with some Icelandic beauty and running down the batteries. It’s our only connection to the rest of the world.”

  “Sure, Des. Not a problem.”

  Des consulted his compass and maps to plot a course. Since they were headed toward the magnetic North Pole, all he really had to do was follow the compass needle north. If it began to spin wildly, he would know they had gone too far. He guessed they were about one hundred kilometers away from the target and figured that would take about six hours on the Gliders.

  After Mitch and Hans returned on separate Gliders, Des assigned everyone places for their journey. When Bearters announced he would bring up the rear, Mitch sniped that he just wanted to pick up any candy wrappers the others threw away.

  Des wished his old friend would develop laryngitis.

  The going was tougher than Des had expected; the fog seemed even denser than before and he could see only fifteen meters ahead as he led his team across the ice. He steered around or followed along snow banks and ice barriers for two hours until he got back on course.

  The engines of Des’ vehicle sputtered to a stop, then his Glider fell hard onto the ice. The rest quickly turned off their engines and waited as Des dismounted and stared at his Glider, feeling betrayed. He pushed the starter button twice. Nothing happened.

  Mitch wandered over. “What’s holding up the wagon train?”

  Des shrugged.

  Mitch got on Des’ Glider, tried the starter button, then examined the Glider’s function list.

  He said, “Fuel line,” slid off the Glider, and disappeared back into the fog.

  He returned with an acetylene torch, lit it, and adjusted the gas to a blue flame, which he directed onto the fuel line.

  Des grabbed his arm and pulled the torch away. “The fuel inside will expand and explode!”

  Mitch said, “Look, you’ve got ice in your fucking line, probably the filter. It’s tough to change out—four hours, easy. Fucking tough to get to, and I’d have to find the tools and a new filter. I’ll just warm up the line a bit, that’s all.”

  “But, it could explode before the ice melts! Aren’t you a little worried about that?”

  Mitch grinned. “I’ll never know it. You’d best get back a ways.”

  As Des did, he saw Mitch remove a fur glove to hold the line near where he was directing the torch, using his bare hand to check for heat.

  “The next time we do this,” Mitch’s voice rose in volume so Bearters could hear him, “the next time we do this, we should bring along a mechanic and not a fucking Indian.”

  A closer male voice to Des, Bearters, said, “There will be no next time for you.”

  Mitch whipped the torch wildly at arm’s length without seeing who’d s
poken.

  He told Des, “I ought to stick this up his fat Eskimo ass. Then we’d see how funny he is.”

  Mitch hit the start button and the engines roared to life.

  “Wagons, ho!” he announced happily, turning the Glider back over to Des.

  After the Glider rose so he could see over the sled, Des checked his compass and GPS.

  Three hours more passed in slow travel, putting them two hours behind Des’ schedule. The fog was less dense than it had been, so they traveled a bit faster, but it would still take another four hours to get to base camp—nearly midnight local time, 0600 by his watch. The entire team would be tired, but they would still have to make camp. Des realized belatedly that he should have made allowances for problems or equipment failures—examined contingencies to ensure success. A real general could control thousands of soldiers with fewer problems than he had with only six. He needed to squash the growing rivalry between Bearters and Mitch. He made plans to rally his troops when they reached their target.

  At 0400 hours, Des stopped and called out, “Mitch, please help Kathy break out some dinner. We’ll eat here, then go on to make camp.”

  Kathy and Mitch handed out MREs—Meals Ready to Eat—not gourmet fare by a long shot, but welcome nonetheless.

  Jack stopped pecking away at his computer keyboard only briefly to take bites of his meal. Bearters squatted on the ground near Jack, as far from Mitch as possible.

  Des told the group, “When we get to base camp in about two hours, everyone has an assigned job. If you have any questions, come to me, because this mission and you are my responsibility. I am solely in charge.”

  He heard Bearters whisper to Jack, “Who made him Captain Kangaroo?”

  Des told Bearters, “Let’s get one thing straight: This is your country, but my command. Do you understand?”

  Bearters nodded slowly.

  Des continued, “After we eat, we’ll rest for a few minutes, then move out.”

  After another two hours of travel, Des stopped and consulted his compass and GPS.

  “There.” He made a sweeping gesture, then pointed to the snow in front of him. “Circle the Gliders and position them around that depression. Base camp will be in the center.”

  Jack pulled his Glider to the middle of the field; the rest made a haphazard ring around him.

  Des drove his Glider close to Jack’s and stomped over to him. “Come on, Jack, you can’t park your Glider here!”

  “Why not?” Jack retorted, looking at everything but Des. “I don’t see a ‘no parking’ sign.”

  “Because of the pop tents. When I sound the ‘all clear,’ you’ll be right in the middle of the pop tents. Do you want a stake through your Glider?”

  Jack swung one leg over, but remained seated, rubbing his chin with his hand.

  “Well now, that could be a problem. Let me think…oh yes, I see your point, the pop tents…hmmm.” He jumped off his Glider. “You’re right, Des: I should move my Glider. But first, don’t you think we should unload the tents, since they are on my sled? That way, we don’t have to drag them over here.”

  “Oh, well yes, you’re right. Let’s unload them first.” Des wondered if he was more tired and stressed than the rest.

  One couldn’t see a pop tent “pop” except in slow motion. Powerful compressed gas cylinders neatly unfolded the tent and pushed the roof upwards. Then secondary gas canisters fired and snakes of rope with attached tent stakes would flail out. The stakes would thud mercilessly into the ground or ice…or into a dog…or a child—which is why they were no longer sold to recreational campers. A safety measure had been added—spaced along the ropes, sparklers would ignite to indicate their trajectory before ground contact. The main tent had half-meter stakes; the smaller ones, quarter-meter.

  Stephen, Hans, Jack and Des pulled out the tents and positioned them; the main tent took all four men to move. They placed the six smaller tents in a semi-circle around the main tent. Mitch pulled out Baby Pop and put it near the rim of the depression as Jack drove his Glider to join the others in the outer ring.

  “All clear!” Des shouted. He set the radio transmitter for all three classes of tents and pushed the “Go” button.

  It would take three minutes for the transmitter to send the exact series of waves to activate each of the tents. The entire team waited from their Gliders.

  “I love to watch pop tents unfold,” Mitch said. “Like fireworks in the snow.”

  “Yeah, they are kind of neat,” Des agreed.

  Accompanied by the sound of a fuse fizzling, the main tent folded out in several sections on the snow, then an earsplitting boom popped it into mid-air for what seemed to be a whole second; sparklers glowed brightly and streaked away in arcs. They heard the thudding of half-meter stakes smashing into the ice. The smaller tents began to pop and sparkle. Lastly, there was a pluff and one small tent crackled to the ground.

  Mitch retrieved the biological fermenting toilet from Des’ sled, walked over to the Baby Pop, unzipped the flap and placed it inside. He got a twelve-pack of biodegradable toilet paper and a sign that read “Lady” on one side and “Gentlemen” on the other, returned to the tent, hung the sign with “Gentlemen” showing, disappeared inside and zipped closed the flap.

  Each of the smaller tents had a team member’s first name printed in large, cursive letters, except for the one that read “Doc and the Missus.” The team scattered to stow their personal gear in their tents.

  As they lugged equipment into the main tent, they found Jack already seated at a desk, typing busily; against the wall behind him was a tarp-covered box. Everyone but Jack helped to assemble the stove, brought in the tables, the chairs, a sofa, bottles of propane, food and the rest of the main tent’s supplies; Kathy carefully laid out cooking utensils on a large kitchen table. When they were finished, everyone but Jack left the main tent to set up their own quarters. Jack had never even gotten up from his computer.

  Jack uncovered and removed the radio from behind his desk and placed it next to his computer on the table. He toggled the “on” switch; a red light glowed brightly. He plugged in the microphone and fidgeted with the dials.

  “This is Jack Squires of Alpha One, do you read me? This is Jack Squires calling Base. Do you read me?”

  A voice cackled through the box. “Alpha One, this is Alpha Two. I read you loud and clear.”

  “This is a test. Testing one, two, three.” Jack moved a knob on the radio slightly. “Two, two, three.” He moved it further. “Testing three, two, three, over.”

  “Jack, the second test is the best, over.”

  Jack pushed in the knob, locking it into place, turned off the radio, waited a few seconds, then turned it back on. The red light glowed, the needles moved—all looked in good condition.

  “This is Jack Squires of Alpha One. Test two. Test two, over.”

  A voice cackled back. “Test two loud and clear. Over.”

  “Thank you for your time and consideration. Out,” Jack said.

  He toggled the radio off-and-on a third time—red light, needles centered, all in order. He turned off the toggle switch, then put the radio back behind his desk and pushed the tarp tightly around it.

  He heard a loud crash and the sounds of an all-out brawl. He hurried outside to see what was going on.

  Behind the desk, under the tarp, a red light glowed because Jack had inadvertently flipped the toggle switch while tucking the tarp around the radio. The red light would glow brightly for fourteen days, then dimly for four more. On the nineteenth day, it would flicker and fade out.

  Des was ready to intercede in the melee if needed, but he thought both men needed to get this out of their systems.

  Bearters rode Mitch’s back with one arm around his neck. Mitch crashed sideways into anything he could find in an attempt to knock Bearters off, while yelling a str
ing of expletives. He pitched Bearters against the tent of Doc and the Missus, then fell to the ground and rolled over until Bearters came loose.

  Both men quickly jumped to their feet. Mitch grabbed the Inuit by the front of his coat with both hands and head-butted him hard in the face. Blood spurted in a shower from Bearters’ nose. Dazed for only a moment, Bearters returned the punch with one of his own. Still holding onto Bearters’ jacket with one hand, Mitch slugged him in the face as hard as he could. Bearters responded with an equally bruising blow, then delivered a brutal kick to Mitch’s face, which sent him reeling to the ground.

  “Had enough?” Bearters circled Mitch, lying on the snow-covered ice. His nose bled on Mitch.

  Mitch rolled backwards, pushed off the ice into a handstand and flipped up his legs, catching Bearters around his neck. Using the scissors hold, he pulled Bearters down and, once again, they exchanged blows.

  Eventually their energy was spent, and they sat gasping for air, staring at each other. Both men were covered in blood.

  “Had…enough?” Mitch managed between breaths.

  Bearters swung his right fist and hit Mitch squarely on the chin with all the force he could summon. Then his hands dropped to the ground, leaving his face a perfect open target.

  Mitch started to laugh. It began as a giggle, but quickly rose to a hearty guffaw. Bearters soon joined in; their laughter filled the camp. Both men had been awake for more than thirty hours, and that stupid feeling of everything being funny was setting in. Bearters slapped Mitch on the shoulder and the two men rollicked with laughter as if that were the funniest thing on Earth. Mitch made a face at Bearters, who fell over backwards, laughing with tears.

  Des finally walked over to the two men.

  “Show’s over,” he said. “Everyone, go to bed.”

  Chapter 5

  ELLESMERE ISLAND, CANADA

  LATITUDE 82° 10’ NORTH

  LONGITUDE 73° 42’ WEST

  Day 2; 1215 UTC, 6:15 AM LTD

  Des’ alarm clock rang at 6:15; by 6:30, he was dressed and outside. He carried some audio equipment to the center of the individual tents and affixed a small microphone to the hood of his coat. He removed a CD from a velvet pouch and checked its handwritten label: