Alistair MacLean Arctic Chillers 4-Book Collection: Night Without End, Ice Station Zebra, Bear Island, Athabasca

‘You haven’t finished your radio call, Dr Mason. Finish it. Your friend Hillcrest must be wondering at the delay.’ The gun in his hand came forward a fraction of an inch, just enough for the movement to be perceptible. ‘For your own sake, do nothing to arouse his suspicions. Don’t be clever. Keep it brief.’

I kept it brief. I excused the interruption of transmission on the grounds that Mahler had taken a sudden turn for the worse – as indeed, I thought bitterly, he had – said that I’d guard the missile mechanism with my life and apologised for cutting the call short, but said it was essential to get Mahler to Uplavnik with all speed.

‘Finish it off,’ Smallwood said softly in my ear. I nodded.

‘That’s the lot then, Captain Hillcrest. Will make the noon schedule. This is Mayday signing off. Mayday, Mayday.’

I switched off, and turned indifferently away. I had taken only one step when Smallwood caught my shoulder and whirled me round. For such an apparently slight man, he was phenomenally strong. I gasped as his pistol barrel dug into my stomach.

‘“Mayday”, Dr Mason?’ he asked silkily. ‘What is “Mayday”?’

‘Our call-sign, of course,’ I said irritably.

‘Your call-sign is GFK.’

‘Our call-up is GFK. Our signing-off is “Mayday”.’

‘You’re lying.’ I wondered how I could ever have thought this face meek and nervous and colourless. The mouth was a thin hard line, the upper eyelids bar-straight and hooded above the unwinking eyes. Flat marbled eyes of a faded light-blue. A killer’s eyes. ‘You’re lying,’ he repeated.

‘I’m not lying,’ I said angrily.

‘Count five and die.’ His eyes never left mine, the pressure of the gun increased. ‘One … two … three—’

‘I’ll tell you what it is!’ The cry came from Margaret Ross. ‘“Mayday” is the international air distress signal, the SOS … I had to tell him, Dr Mason, I had to!’ Her voice was a shaking sob. ‘He was going to kill you.’

‘I was indeed,’ Smallwood agreed. If he felt either anger or apprehension, no trace of either appeared in the calm conversational voice. ‘I should do it now – you’ve lost us four hours’ head start. But courage happens to be one of the few virtues I admire … You are an extremely brave man, Dr Mason. Your courage is a fair match for your – ah – lack of perspicacity, shall we say.’

‘You’ll never get off the ice-cap, Smallwood,’ I said steadily. ‘Scores of ships and planes are searching for you, thousands of men. They’ll get you and they’ll hang you for these five dead men.’

‘We shall see.’ He gave a wintry smile, and now that he had removed his rimless glasses I could see that the man’s smile left his eyes untouched, left them flat and empty and lifeless, like the stained glass in a church and no sun behind it. ‘All right, Corazzini, the box. Dr Mason, bring one of the maps from the driver’s seat.’

‘In a moment. Perhaps you would care to explain—’

‘Explanations are for children.’ The voice was level, curt, devoid of all inflection. ‘I’m in a hurry, Dr Mason. Bring the map.’

I brought it and when I returned Corazzini was sitting on the front of the tractor sled with a case before him. But it wasn’t the leather-covered portable radio: it was Smallwood’s robe case.

Corazzini snapped open the catches, pulled out Bible, robes and divinity hood, tossed them to one side then carefully brought out a metal box which looked exactly like a tape-recorder: indeed, when he shone his torch on it I could clearly see the word ‘Grundig’. But it soon became apparent that it was like no tape-recorder that I had ever seen.

The twin spools he ripped off the top of the machine and sent spinning away into the darkness and the snow, the tape unwinding in a long convoluted streamer. By this time I would have taken long odds that anyone suspicious enough to investigate would have found that tape perfectly genuine: probably, I thought bitterly, Bach’s organ music, in keeping with Smallwood’s late ecclesiastical nature.

Still in silence, we watched Corazzini undo and fling away the false top of the recorder, but not before I had time to notice the padded spring clips on its underside – the perfect hiding place for a couple of automatics: revealed now were controls and calibrated dials that bore no resemblance to those of a tape-recorder. Corazzini straightened and erected a hinged telescopic aerial, clamped a set of headphones to his ears, made two switches and started to turn a dial, at the same time watching a green magic eye similar to those found in tape-recorders and many modern radios. Faintly, but unmistakably, I could hear a steady whine coming from the earphones, a whine which altered in pitch and intensity as Corazzini turned the dial. When it reached its maximum strength, he turned his attention to a built-in alcohol compass about three inches in diameter. A few moments later he doffed the earphones and turned round, apparently satisfied.

‘Very strong, very clear,’ he announced to Smallwood. ‘But there’s too heavy a deviation factor from all the metal in the tractor and sledge. Back in two minutes. Your torch, Dr Mason.’

He walked away for about fifty yards, taking the machine with him: it was with intense chagrin that I realised that it was perfectly in keeping with all that had gone before that Corazzini had probably forgotten more about navigation than I was ever likely to know. He returned soon, consulted a small chart – correcting for variation, no doubt – then grinned at Smallwood.

‘It’s them, all right. Perfect signal. Bearing 268.’

‘Good.’ If Smallwood felt relieved or gratified at the news, no shadow of his feeling touched the thin immobile face. Their quiet certainty, their forethought, their foolproof organisation was dismaying, frightening. Now that I could see what manner of men they were it was unthinkable that they should have set themselves down in a vast featureless country such as this without some means of orientating themselves: what we had just seen in operation could only be a battery operated radio direction finder, and even to me, inexperienced though I was in such matters, it was obvious that Corazzini must have been taking a bearing on some continuous directional line-up signals transmitted by a vessel, or vessels, off-shore: trawlers, probably, or some other inconspicuous type of fishing vessel … I would have been less than human had I not wanted to shake this absolute confidence.

‘You’ve miscalculated the hornet’s nest you’ve stirred up. The Davis Strait, the coast of Greenland is alive with ships and planes. The scout planes of the carrier Triton will pick up every boat that’s larger than a skiff. The trawlers will never get away with it: they won’t get five miles.’

‘They don’t have to.’ Implicit in Corazzini’s words was confirmation of the accuracy of my guess about trawlers. ‘There are such things as submarines. In fact there is one, not far from here.’

‘You still won’t—’

‘Be quiet,’ Smallwood said coldly. He turned to Corazzini. ‘Two hundred and sixty-eight, eh – due west more or less. Distance?’

Corazzini shrugged, said nothing: Smallwood beckoned to me.

‘We’ll soon find it. That map, Dr Mason – indicate our position, accurately.’

‘You can go to hell,’ I said briefly.

‘I expected nothing else. However, I’m not blind and your clumsy attempts at concealment have done little to hide the growing attachment between yourself and the young lady here.’ I glanced quickly at Margaret, saw the faint colour beginning to stain the pale cheek and looked as quickly away. ‘I am prepared to shoot Miss Ross.’

I never doubted him. I knew he’d do it in an instant. I gave him our position, he asked for another map, asked Jackstraw to mark our position on the second, and compared the two.

‘They coincide,’ he nodded. ‘Fortunately for you.’ He studied the map briefly, then looked at Corazzini. ‘The Kangalak fjord, undoubtedly, at the foot of the Kangalak glacier. Approximately—’

‘The Kangalak fjord,’ I interrupted. My voice was bitter. ‘Why the hell didn’t you land there in the first place and save us all this?’

‘The plane captain deserved to die,’ Smallwood said obliquely. His smile was wintry. ‘I had instructed him to put down on the coast just north of the fjord where our – ah – friends had reconnoitred a section of the ice-cap, three miles long and absolutely flat, that is the equal of the finest runway in Europe or America, and it wasn’t until I saw the altimeter reading just before the crash that I realised he had deceived me.’ He made an impatient gesture and turned to Corazzini. ‘We waste time. Approximately sixty miles, you would say?’

Corazzini examined the map. ‘Yes, about that.’

‘So, come then, on our way.’

‘Leaving us here to starve and die of cold, I suppose?’ I said bitterly.

‘What becomes of you no longer concerns me,’ Smallwood said indifferently. Already, in a matter of minutes, it had become almost impossible to think of him, to remember him as the meek retiring minister we had known. ‘It is possible, however, that you might be foolish enough to take advantage of the cover of snow and darkness to run after us, waylay and try to overcome us. You might even succeed, even though unarmed. We must immobilise you, temporarily.’

‘Or permanently,’ Zagero said softly.

‘Only fools kill wantonly and unnecessarily. Fortunately – for you – it is not necessary for my plans that you die. Corazzini, bring some rope from the sled. There’s plenty of cord there. Tie their feet only. With their numbed hands it will take them an hour to undo their bonds: we will be well on our way by then.’ He moved his gun gently from side to side. ‘Sit in the snow. All of you.’

There was nothing for it but to do as we were told. We sat down and watched Corazzini bring a hank of cord from the sled. He looked at Smallwood, and Smallwood nodded at me.

‘Dr Mason first.’

Corazzini gave his gun to Smallwood – they missed nothing, that pair, not even the remote possibility that one of us might try to snatch Corazzini’s gun – and advanced on me. He knelt and had taken a couple of turns round my ankles when the truth struck me with the suddenness, the shocking impact of a physical blow. I sent Corazzini staggering with a violent shove and leapt to my feet.

‘No!’ My voice was hoarse, savage. ‘By God, you’re not going to tie me up, Smallwood!’

‘Sit down, Mason!’ His voice was hard, whip-like, and the light from the tractor cabin was enough for me to see the rock-like pistol barrel centred between my eyes. I ignored it completely.

‘Jackstraw!’ I shouted. ‘Zagero, Levin, Brewster! On your feet if you want to live. He’s only got one gun. If he starts firing at any of us, the rest go for him and get him – he can’t possibly get us all. Margaret, Helene, Mrs Dansby-Gregg – first shot that’s fired, run off into the darkness – and stay there!’