15000 Feet Below by Mads Sorensen

Author:Mads Sorensen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, suspense, adventure, action, international, arctic, oil, techno, brown, larsson, greenland
Publisher: Mads Sorensen

Chapter 32

1 day 3.5 hours to go

‘Hi sweetie, why don’t you beat it?’

Sid turned on her stool to see a woman with short, dark, curly hair and a black cowboy hat walking up to her. She wore a checked lumberjack shirt and a pair of jeans with a thick leather belt and a huge belt-buckle. She was one of about a dozen tough-looking women who had found their way to the Midnight Sun, laughing and drinking with the men.

‘What do you mean, beat it?’ Sid asked, as a loud, insistent rhythm filled the club.

The woman mounted the stool next to hers. ‘They banned hookers three months ago.’

‘I’m not a hooker,’ Sid said, offended. She might be for hire but not for that.

‘You certainly look like one, sweetie, the way you’re sucking up to the Vikings.’

Sid dropped her gaze to her Danish-flag T-shirt, and down over Tina’s khaki mountain pants to her own trusted climbing shoes. In which galaxy did prostitutes dress like that? She had even put her sleek brown gloves in a pocket of her pants.

‘As I told you, I’m not a hooker.’ Although earlier, and without really willing it, Sid had ended up in the front row by the bar, greatly encouraged by the men around her. And none of them had been the least interested in talking about Nunatak East. ‘I’m not a stripper or anything like that either.’

This roughneck, or whoever she was, looked at Sid with apparent pity. ‘So who are you, sweetie, some New Age freak who wants to feel the vibes of the wilderness and get in touch with her inner self?’ The woman raised her arms, closed her eyes and wobbled her hat-covered head as though she were high on something. Then she snapped out of her act and gave Sid a hard look. ‘I certainly hope you’re not some civil servant from a big airy office who’s here to tell us how to go around our business?’ Sliding her elbows on the bar counter, she moved right up to where the brim of her hat touched Sid’s forehead. ‘Because if you are, you’ve picked the wrong fucking lot to mess with.’

Sid saw only one possible way of getting anything out of this hard-boiled woman for whom being branded a ‘civil servant’ undoubtedly was a grave insult.

From a pocket in her pants, she pulled a dog-eared printout with a photo of Roy and a computer-aged image of herself. She handed it to the woman.

In the near darkness, it took the woman a while to realise what was being played out before her eyes. But when she did, the expression of detached, world-weary cool drained from her face. She slipped off her barstool and took a step back.

‘Why the fuck did you show me that?’

‘I just wanted your full attention,’ Sid replied with a casual calm she was far from feeling. Though not without pride over the way she had managed to turn this tough cookie into a somewhat limper biscuit in the space of seconds.

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