Polar Shift Read online

  “The ancient elephants? What’s that got to do with Kovacs?”

  “Stay with me. She maintains that the mammoths were wiped out by a natural catastrophe that was a more devastating version of what we’re trying to do. Here’s the interesting part. In her writing, she said that had this happened today, science would have been able to neutralize the catastrophe.”

  “The antidote?” Barrett snorted. “You’re kidding.”

  Margrave retrieved a portfolio from the table and tossed it into Barrett’s lap. “After you read this, I think you’ll change your mind about the project.”

  “What about the granddaughter?”

  “She’s a paleontologist, working with the University of Alaska. Gant and I decided to send someone up there to talk to her.”

  “Why not hold off on the project until we find out what she knows?”

  “I’ll wait, but I want to get all the pieces in place so that we can hit the ground running.” Margrave turned to Doyle, who had been quietly absorbing the discussion. “What do you think about all this?”

  “Hell, I’m just a dumb air jockey from Southie. I go with the flow.”

  Margrave winked at Barrett. “Spider and I will be busy for a while.”

  “I got you. I’ll grab another beer and go for a walk.”

  After Doyle left, the two other men huddled over a computer. When they were satisfied their plan had gone as far as it could, they agreed to meet again. Doyle was puttering around the dock when the meeting broke up.

  “I appreciate you changing your mind about leaving the project,” Margrave said to Barrett. “We’ve been friends a long time.”

  “This goes beyond friendship,” Barrett said.

  They shook hands, and minutes later the plane was skimming across the bay for takeoff. Margrave watched until it became a speck in the sky, then he went back into the lighthouse. He stared out the second-floor window for a moment with a smile on his strange face. Barrett was a genius, but he was unbelievably naïve when it came to politics.

  Despite his assurances, Margrave had no intention of delaying the project. If ever a time existed when the end justified the means, it was now.

  12

  INCREDIBLE!” Barrett said with a shake of his head.

  He sat in the seaplane’s passenger seat, his nose buried in the portfolio Margrave had given him.

  Doyle looked over. “Good stuff Tris gave you?”

  “Good! This material is fantastic!”

  Barrett raised his head from the papers he had been engrossed in and glanced out the window. He had paid little attention to the world outside the cockpit and expected to see the same rocky coastline they had followed on the flight to the lighthouse island. There was no sign of the Gulf of Maine. Instead, thick pine forest spread out in every direction.

  “Hey, Mickey, did you have one beer too many back there?” Barrett said. “Where’s the water? This isn’t the way we came in. We’re lost.”

  Doyle grinned as if he’d been caught playing a practical joke. “This is the scenic route. I wanted to show you where I go deer hunting. It will only add a few minutes to the trip. Sounds like there’s good stuff in the homework Tris gave you.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty amazing material,” Barrett said. “Tris is right. The subject is arcane, and the author generalizes a lot. And there’s a difference between naturally occurring phenomena and the kind of thing we’re trying to stir up. But she writes with firsthand knowledge about this so-called antidote. She sounds as if she had talked to Kovacs personally.”

  “Good man. Guess that means you’re sticking with the project.”

  “Naw.” Barrett shook his head. “There’s nothing here that will make me change my mind. Even if we talked to this woman, there’s no telling how much she actually knows or how much is simply theoretical. This craziness can’t go forward. The only way to head off a disaster is to go public.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve got a friend on the science desk at the Seattle Times. I’m calling him as soon as we land, and I’m going to lay out the whole story.”

  “Hey, Spider, you can’t tell people the skinny on this deal,” Doyle said with a vigorous shake of his head. “You sure you want to go public? You could get in one hell of a big mess.”

  “I’ll have to take that chance.”

  “This will wreck Tris as well as the project. He’s your partner.”

  “I’ve given it a lot of thought. It will be better for him in the long run.”

  “I dunno about that.”

  “I do. He may end up thanking me for scuttling this crazy scheme.”

  “Why not wait? He said he would hold off until someone talked to Kovacs’s granddaughter.”

  “I’ve worked with Tris a long time. He only said that to calm me down,” Barrett said with a smile. “The world has got to know what we’ve been hatching, and, unfortunately, I’m the one to spill the beans.”

  “Ah hell.”

  “What’s wrong, Mickey? You said I was the one being gloomy.”

  “How long have we known each other, Spider?”

  “Since our MIT days. You were working the cafeteria. How could you forget?”

  “I haven’t. You were the only one of those smart-assed college kids who didn’t treat me like scum. You were my friend.”

  “You paid me back, big-time. You knew the best bars to find girls in Cambridge.”

  “I still do,” Doyle said with a grin.

  “You’ve done okay for yourself, Mickey. Not everyone can be a pilot.”

  “I’m small potatoes compared to the Man.”

  “Tris? I guess he is larger than life. I’ve always been a tinkerer. I’m like the architect who builds one house. He’s like the developer who sells thousands of those houses. His vision was what made us both fortunes.”

  “You believe all this anarchy stuff he talks about?”

  “Some of it. Things are way off balance in the world, and I’d like to shake up the Elites, but I was more interested in the scientific challenge. Now that’s turned to crap, and I have to set things straight.”

  “And I’m telling you, like a friend, that’s not a good idea.”

  “I appreciate that friendship, but I have to say I’m sorry.”

  Doyle paused a moment before answering, then said, “I’m sorry too,” with sadness in his voice.

  With the matter apparently settled, Barrett went back to the portfolio, occasionally glancing out the cockpit window. They were flying over dense forest when Doyle cocked his ear. “Whoops! What’s that?”

  Barrett looked up from his reading. “I don’t hear anything except the engine.”

  “Something’s not right,” Doyle said with a frown on his face. The plane dipped several feet. “Damn, we’re losing power. Hold on. I’m gonna have to set her down.”

  “Set her down?” Barrett said with alarm. He craned his neck, looking at the thick woods below. “Where?”

  “I used to know the countryside pretty well, but it’s been a while since I hunted up in these parts. I think there’s a lake not far from here.”

  The plane lost more altitude.

  “I see something,” Barrett said, pointing at a flash of reflected sunlight.

  Doyle gave Barrett the thumbs-up sign and steered toward the patch of blue water. The aircraft descended rapidly at an oblique angle that looked as if it would end in the tall pines. At the last second, Doyle pulled the plane up, skimming the treetops before making a pancake landing on the lake.

  The plane coasted on its momentum toward shore and scraped up onto a narrow beach. Doyle was laughing. “That was a hell of a ride. You okay?”

  “My ass is up around my ears, but other than that I’m fine.”

  “Getting in was easy,” Doyle said, glancing at the surrounding woods. “Getting out will be the hard part.”

  Barrett pointed at the radio. “Shouldn’t we be calling for help?”

  “In a minute. I want to c
heck for damage.” He climbed out onto the pontoon and stepped onto the beach. He stooped a couple of times to look under the fuselage. “Hey, Spider, take a look at this.”

  Barrett got out of the plane. “What’s up?”

  “Here, under the fuselage. It’s amazing.”

  Barrett started to get down on his knees. He was still carrying the portfolio.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “You will,” Doyle said. “You will.” He slipped a pistol out from under his windbreaker.

  Barrett bent lower, and the leather folder dropped from his hand. The thick wad of papers spilled out onto the ground. Some of the sheets were caught by a lake breeze and scattered across the clearing as if they had a life on their own.

  Barrett bolted after the wayward portfolio, scooping up the papers with the skill of a shortstop. He managed to gather all the papers before they blew into the trees. He tucked them back into the folder and hugged it close to his chest. He had a grin of triumph on his face as he started to walk back to the plane.

  He saw the gun in Doyle’s hand.

  “What’s going on, Mickey?”

  “Good-bye, Spider.”

  He could tell from the tone of Doyle’s voice that his friend wasn’t joking. His grin vanished. “Why?”

  “I can’t let you sink the project.”

  “Look, Mickey. Tris and I can talk this out.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with Tris.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll hoist a beer in your name the next time I get back to Cambridge,” Doyle said.

  The .25-caliber pistol in his hand went pop-pop.

  The first bullet buried itself in the leather folder. Barrett felt the thud against his chest, but he was still in a state of disbelief when the second bullet grazed his head. Survival reflexes took over. He dropped the folder, turned and bolted into the woods. Doyle got off a couple more shots, but the bullets dug harmlessly into a tree trunk. He swore and gave chase.

  Barrett ignored the low-lying tree branches that slashed at his face and the briers that grabbed at his jeans. His surprise and dismay at being shot by a friend had given way to sheer terror. Blood was trickling down the side of his head and neck. As he crashed through the forest, he saw a silver shimmer ahead. Oh hell. He had circled back toward the lake, but there was no going back.

  He burst from the woods onto a sandy beach a hundred yards or so from the plane. He could hear Doyle crashing through the brush just behind him. Without hesitating, he slogged into the water, and then took a deep breath and dove under the surface. He was a strong swimmer, and, even with his boots on, he got several yards from shore by the time Doyle arrived at the water’s edge. He went as deep as he could go.

  Doyle stood on the shore and carefully aimed at the ripples marking the surface where Barrett had disappeared. He peppered the water with bullets, patiently reloaded and shot off another clip.

  The water was crimson where Barrett had disappeared. Doyle decided to wait five minutes until he was sure Barrett wasn’t holding his breath, but he heard someone yelling from the other side of a patch of tall weeds growing in the water off to his left.

  He glanced back at the stain growing on the surface of the lake and tucked the gun in his belt. Walking briskly, he made his way through the woods and back to the clearing. He gathered up the papers that Barrett had dropped and slipped them into the folder, first noticing the bullet hole in the leather binding. He cursed. Served him right for using a popgun. Minutes later, he was in the plane, flying over the treetops.

  As soon as he thought he had telephone service, Doyle punched out a number on his cell phone. “Well?” said a man’s voice at the other end.

  “It’s done,” Doyle said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he was determined to spill the beans.”

  “Too bad. He was brilliant. Any problems?”

  “Nope,” Doyle lied.

  “Good work,” the voice said. “I want to see you tomorrow.”

  Doyle said he would be there. As he clicked off, he experienced a twinge of Irish sentimentality at having to kill his old friend. But Doyle had grown up in a neighborhood where a friendship could end with a nighttime burial over a drug deal gone wrong or an imprudent comment. This was not the first time he had dispatched a friend or acquaintance. Business, unfortunately, was business. He put Barrett out of his mind and began to think of the riches and power that would soon be in his grasp.

  He would have been less at ease if he knew what was going on back at the lake. A canoe had rounded the weed patch. The two fly fishermen in the canoe had heard the pop of Doyle’s handgun. They wanted to warn whoever was hunting that people were in the area. One of the men was a Boston lawyer, but, more important, the other was a doctor.

  As they emerged from the weeds, the lawyer pointed toward the water and said, “What the hell is that?”

  The doctor said, “It looks like a melon with a spider on it.”

  They paddled until they were a few feet from the object. The melon disappeared, and in its place were eyes, a nose and a gaping mouth. The lawyer raised his paddle and prepared to bring it down on the floating head. Spider Barrett looked up at the two astonished faces. His mouth opened.

  “Help me,” he pleaded.

  13

  WITH A HULL DISPLACEMENT of twenty-three thousand tons and seventy-five thousand horsepower produced by its powerful engines, the Yamal-class Russian icebreaker Kotelny was capable of continuously breaking through seven feet of ice. Its sharply angled bow sliced through the slushy spring ice pack like a warm knife through sherbet. As Karla Janos stood in the bow and surveyed the fog-shrouded island that was her destination, she felt as if someone had walked across her grave.

  The involuntary shudder that passed through her willowy body had nothing to do with the rawness of the weather in the East Siberian Sea. Karla was bundled in a down parka, and she had become inured to biting cold after two winters with the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, where temperatures routinely dropped to forty degrees below zero. She was well enough acquainted with the territory around the Arctic Circle to know that there was little chance Ivory Island would live up to the image of warm whiteness evoked by its name, but she was totally unprepared for the total bleakness of the isolated place.

  As a scientist, Karla knew that her reaction was emotional rather than objective, but the island had a forbidding aspect that she couldn’t easily shrug off. The most prominent feature of the island was a dead volcano that still had patches of snow around its truncated summit. The overcast skies drained all traces of color from the sunlight so that the sea and land appeared to be bathed in a depressing gray light. As the ship moved closer to the island, she saw that the low rolling hills and tundra around the volcano were broken by a network of ravines whose twisting cliffs, combined with a trick of the slanting sunlight, created an optical illusion, as if the surface of the island were writhing in pain.

  “Excuse me, Miss Janos. We’ll be dropping anchor in fifteen minutes.”

  She turned and saw the ship’s commander. Captain Ivanov was a sturdily built man in his sixties. His broad face was weathered from the arctic elements, and a white sailor’s beard fringed his chin.

  The captain was a kindly man who had spent much of his life sailing the frigid waters around the archipelago. Karla and the avuncular Ivanov had forged a strong friendship since she had boarded the icebreaker at its home base on Wrangel Island. She had enjoyed their wide-ranging chats over dinner. The captain had impressed her with a scope of knowledge of history, biology and meteorology that went beyond the tools necessary to command a large ship on unfriendly seas. She had made him blush when she called him a Renaissance man.

  Karla reminded the captain of his daughter, a dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet. She was tall, slim and long of leg, and she moved with the easy grace of someone who is confident in her body. Her long blond hair was tied tight at the back of her head in dancer style. She had inherited the
best features of her Magyar and Slavic ancestry: a wide forehead, high cheeks, wide, sensuous mouth, a creamy complexion and smoky gray eyes whose almond shape hinted at an Asian forebear. Although Karla had studied dance briefly, she tended more toward athletic pursuits. She had been a track standout at the University of Michigan, where she earned a degree in paleontology with a minor in vertebrate biology.

  “Thank you, Captain Ivanov,” she said. “My bags are packed. I’ll collect them from the cabin right away.”

  “Take your time.” He gazed at her with kindly blue eyes. “You seem distracted. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I’ve been watching the island, and, well, it’s rather sinister-looking. My imagination, obviously.”

  He followed her gaze. “Not entirely. I’ve sailed these waters for years. Ivory Island has always seemed different. Do you know much about its history?”

  “Only that it was found by a fur trader.”

  “That’s right. He established the settlement on the river. He killed some of the other traders in a fight over furs, so they couldn’t name it after a murderer.”

  “I’ve heard that story. I’m not so sure, even if I were a murderer, that I’d like my name attached to such a lonely and unattractive site. Besides, Ivory Island seems more poetic. And from what I know about the island as a source of ivory, accurate as well.” She paused. “You said the island was different. In what way?”

  The captain shrugged. “Sometimes, when I’ve passed the island in the dark, I have seen lights moving about near the old fur trapper settlement on the river. What they call Ivorytown.”

  “That’s the expedition’s headquarters, where I’ll be staying.”

  “They were probably pockets of gas luminescence.”

  “Gas? You said the lights were moving.”

  “You’re very observant,” the captain said. “I apologize. I haven’t been trying to frighten you.”

  “On the contrary, you’re interesting me.”

  Karla was so much like his daughter. Intelligent. Headstrong. Fearless. “In any event, we’ll be back in two weeks to pick you up,” he said. “Good luck with your research.”