White Plague by Abel James

Author:Abel, James [Abel, James]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 0425276325
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2015-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

“Knock, knock?”

Dr. Vleska’s head poked around the ice boulder that I leaned against, lee side of a pressure ridge, giving us cover from the wind. We’d broken out hot chocolate. It would be too involved to get the sick into tents, too laborious to unload and load them again, so we’d broken out the portable propane heaters and fired ’em up and circled sleds around them, or clustered in groups, like bums of the Arctic around trash can fires.

The privilege of command. I had my own private heater.

Her eyes looked big inside the slit of the black balaclava, ice blue and touched with white, a dime-sized patch of frostbite forming above the left brow.

“I have only three boxes of Girl Scout cookies left,” she said. “Well, that’s what I used to tell people at every house, when I was a kid, till all the boxes were sold. Effective sales technique. If I said one box, they just ordered one. But if I said three, they ordered them all. I tried four once, but that was too much. Interesting question. Why does three work and four fail? Harvard will jump at the cookie study, ten-million-dollar grant.”

“Got mint chocolate?”

She nodded approvingly. “Popular item, especially in the Arctic. It’s that cool sensation in your throat.”

“I’ll take three boxes.”

“Can I sit down?”

“You already have.”

“Who’s the spy?”

Once again, the on-again, off-again storm was lessening. The thermometer was up to a balmy four degrees. I’d taken my turn at hauling a sled and now felt sweat drying, bad idea in the Arctic. I sipped hot chocolate and stared at her, my question obvious. How do you know?

“Give me a break,” she answered, sitting, baggy snow pants akimbo, like a girl attending a yoga class. Her back was straight. She probably did go to yoga. She said, “That Chinese captain knew you were a colonel. He knew how many Marines we had. Who told him, do you think?”

When I just smiled, she held out her wrists.

“Oh, it’s me? You going to handcuff me?”

Is she flirting? Or just probing? When in doubt, always answer a question with a question. I said, “Who do you think it is?”

“You.”

I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. It was the relief that I needed. Just a great big circle, being out on the ice, I thought. Let’s just all kill each other. Let’s sit around like an old British drawing-room play and figure out who’s the one.

“Well,” she said, “no one checks on you, do they? You have the best access to communication. You get information first. You had that one-on-one talk with Captain whatever his name was. You magically stop the shooting. And,” she said, leaning close, “you sank my sub.”

“As in, the whole crazy thing was coordinated?”

“Plans can work once in a while.”

“How do you explain the bear showing up?”

“If you were a spy, you’d say that very thing!”

“What can I say? You nailed me.”

This time when we looked into each other’s eyes, I felt something different. We held the gaze for longer than politeness or accusation allowed.

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