When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Commies left Vitangelsk so fast they didn’t even bother to pack. Everything’s kept perfectly in the deep freeze: you can still see papers on the desks and rubber stamps with the hammer and sickle; beer and cookies and bread and pickles, still in mint condition. Hard hats, overalls and pickaxes hanging on pegs at the mine head where the guys finished their last shift. Like Lenin’s tomb, if you’ve ever been to Moscow. It’s hard not to look over your shoulder and wonder if they’re coming back.

The moment I got there, I knew I had to be close. I got out my spectrum analyser and did an RF sweep, checking all available frequencies. When I got to the C band, the satellite wavelength, it went off the scale.

There’s maybe thirty or forty buildings in Vitangelsk — too many to explore each one. But if you’re going to mount a satellite dish, the best place is on the roof. I was at the top of the town. I figured if I could get on top of one of the buildings there, I’d have a good view right the way down.

I got on to the roof of the old machine shop. From above, even that Soviet ruin looked almost quaint. Snow-covered roofs descending the mountain, the frosted power cables running like icicles between them. If someone had lit a fire, you could have imagined you were in a Disney movie.

I got out my binoculars and scanned the town. Nothing. No satellite dish, no masts, not even a TV antenna. No sign of Kennedy, either.

I walked across the roof to check the other side. Should have watched where I was going. My toe snagged something just under the snow and threw me forward. I stumbled a couple of steps, threw out my arms and bellyflopped on to the roof a few inches shy of the edge. I lay there a moment, sick with adrenalin and what had almost happened.

When I picked myself up, I looked back to see what I’d tripped on. A black rubber cable lay in the snow. Where my boot had rubbed off the ice, it looked about a hundred years newer than anything else in town.

I tugged. It didn’t give more than a couple of inches. I followed it through the snow. It ran all the way to the edge of the roof, where a steel clamp held it in place. But that wasn’t the end of it. It carried on, across the street and down on to the roof of the next building.

I found the binoculars where I’d dropped them and brushed off the snow. Focusing on the cable, I followed it over the next building, then the next. I lost it there, until I realised it had hung a right and was headed cross-town, where it disappeared behind a smokestack.

‘Holy shit.’

The wires I’d seen from the street didn’t go inside the buildings, like power cables should have. They ran across the roofs, building to building, making a single vast loop around the town. They weren’t power cables; they made an antenna, as big as the town, and you’d never see it because it was all around you. With that thing, you could probably hear what they were saying on Mars.

Now I knew where to look, I found other cables connected to it, running to the centre of the circle. They all seemed to come together someplace by the main square.

I ran back there. I hadn’t seen it when I was there before. Now I knew what to look for, I got it straight away. More cables, maybe a dozen in total, running in from every side of town and coming together on the old HQ building like the spokes of a wheel.

The door was an old piece of wood that cracked open with one good kick. Inside, it looked like the staff had gone for lunch and forgotten to lock up: chairs fallen over, papers blown in the corners, an old calendar from 1991 hanging crooked on the wall. I think if you’d looked, you’d have found old coffee frozen in the bottom of the mug.

But I figured what I wanted was upstairs. I chased up the first flight — and stopped.

I was in the right place. A heavy-duty steel trapdoor had been laid across so you couldn’t go up. A padlock, shiny with grease, made sure of it.

At that moment, I wanted to be on the other side of that door more than I’d ever wanted anything. I got the rifle out and put the muzzle against the lock. I almost pulled the trigger. But I’ve seen that Master Lock commercial (though this was a Yale); I didn’t want to risk a ricochet. I’d have to come back with the right equipment.

I was still looking at the lock, wondering if bolt cutters would do the job, when I heard the first gunshot. I’ll tell you, my first thought wasn’t Kennedy: I was certain the Russians had arrived. But I hadn’t heard anyone coming, no snowmobiles or helicopters buzzing around.

I heard another shot. The echo scrambled the sound so much I couldn’t tell where it came from; not so close I needed to duck, at least. It sounded like one of our Rugers. I’ve spent enough time on the range at Zodiac to know the sound.

Was it Kennedy shooting? If so, he was more than likely to blow his own head off. But the procedure at Zodiac is that if you hear your buddy shooting, you assume it’s a bear and go help. As Quam liked to say, procedure can save your life. He was wrong about a lot of things, but he got that right. Plus, I’d get a rocket up my ass if anything happened to Doc.

I ran down the stairs and out into the street, just quick enough to hear another shot. Then two more, almost on top of each other, but I couldn’t get a fix on them with all the buildings around. I followed Doc’s prints heading downhill.

The shooting had stopped. Normally, you’d assume that meant the bear had gone away — but this was pretty fucking far from normal. And I’d counted five shots. Kennedy must have been out of ammo. I tweaked the radio again, but no answer. Between the buildings and the massive antenna hanging over my head, I didn’t expect anything.

I searched everywhere. He’d traipsed around like a tourist, which made it harder; sometimes I lost the track when he’d gone inside a building. Finally, I came out on the edge of town, where the cableway heads off toward Mine 8. He’d definitely come this way: I could see his trail. And someone else’s, too, long strides that looked like they’d been chasing after him. Now I was really starting to freak out.

With so many prints pounding up the snow, I almost missed the bear tracks. But there’s nothing else like them on Utgard. Strange to say, the sight made me breathe easier. If a bear had got Kennedy, there’d be blood, and I didn’t see any. And I’d rather find a bear than Russians.

I had a flare pistol in a side holster, like always when I’m in the field. I took it out and loaded a cartridge. We carry the rifles because you can kill the bear if you have to, but a flare pistol’s much better for scaring them off before it gets to that.

The bear tracks headed out of town. I found broken snow where he must have sat down a while, near the base of one of the cableway towers, and more tracks going off across the mountain. Nearby, copper cartridges shone on the ground.

He used up all his ammo. But where did he go then? I still didn’t see any blood. Another set of footprints led away up the hill. Reasonably fresh, but they looked too big to be Kennedy’s. Probably one of the DAR-X guys who’d been here earlier.

I’d just about given up when I heard a low clang, like someone pounding on a bucket. I thought it must be some old machinery knocking in the wind. I started back towards town, figuring I must have missed something. The clanging kept going. If anything, it sounded louder.

Just before I hit town, I looked back. Christ knows, but he was a lucky s.o.b. I saw his arm sticking out of the coal car and realised what it was. I climbed the ladder and saw him huddled in the bottom.

‘What the fuck are you doing in there?’

I got him down. It was a hell of a job, and the story he told about how he got there was crazier still. Chased by a bear, then by a guy with a gun. He wanted to go home — frostbite had nearly crippled him — but I talked him out of it. I was too close. I’d found the antenna; then this gunman — he had to be DAR-X — had almost killed Kennedy. If he came back, I wanted answers.