He filled his lungs with cold air. “Avaiq! Paul Avaiq! It’s Petrovitch.”

The sound of his voice trailed away, to no response.

“Pizdets. Why is nothing ever simple? Which room is he supposed to be in?”

[First floor, two-one-two. Go left.]

He was halfway down the corridor when a figure appeared at the far end. “Dr Petrovitch?”

“Yeah. Paul Avaiq?”

Petrovitch stopped, because he was tired, and behind his tiredness, everything hurt.

Avaiq was dressed for the outside, parka already fastened, hood down to reveal his sallow face and short black hair. He hurried towards Petrovitch. “You took your time.”

“Yobany stos, man, I think I was pretty smart considering how little I had to go on.” They were nose to nose. Avaiq was fractionally smaller.

“Those things out there are saying—”

“I know what they’re saying. I got them to say it. The Yanks are going to bomb the crap out of Deadhorse, then cremate what’s left. Where’s Lucy?”

“She’s not here.”

“Then where the huy is she? And how about the other… others?”

“What? No.” Avaiq was agitated, almost vibrating with tension. “It’s not—”

“Explain on the way.” With both gun and bag, Petrovitch had no free hand to grab hold of Avaiq’s collar and propel him to the door.

“Where are we going?”

Petrovitch growled. “Do you know where Lucy is?”

Avaiq steadied his nerve. “Yes.”

“Then what are we waiting for? In seven minutes’ time, this place will be matchwood.”

[It is now six.]

“Thanks for that.” Petrovitch heard a noise behind him, a door opening. The hinges squeaked, giving him a moment’s warning.

A man leapt out, already firing an automatic pistol. Maybe if he’d taken the trouble to sight it, rather than just pulling at the trigger while falling, he might have hit one or other of his intended targets rather than blowing holes in the plasterboard.

He managed three shots before he collided with the opposite wall, throwing his gun hand high.

Petrovitch aimed for his head and left a neat hole above the left eyebrow. “Yeah, and you can fuck right off.” He swept the corridor front and back for anyone else. Avaiq was crouched on the floor, arms wrapped around his head. “Michael? You didn’t get them all.”

[Inevitable. Can I suggest you leave the locale immediately?]

“Gladly. Avaiq? Up.” He kicked the man for want of anything else he could do. “You are the only person on the planet who can tell me where my daughter is, and you are coming with me.”

“He could have killed us,” Avaiq pointed out.

“Could have, but didn’t. Get up, man!” Petrovitch dropped his bag, dragged the Inuit on to his feet, and grabbed the handles again. “You’ve shown yourself to be an exceptionally brave and resourceful man. You’ve protected Lucy against every threat for the past week. You only have to keep going for a little longer, and then you can stop. Promise.”

It seemed to be the right thing to say. Avaiq only flinched once when he had to step over the legs and the blood welling out of the shooter. There was a spatter mark on the skirting board, and he looked away sharply.

Then they were back out in the driving wind and snow, the sky luminous with both celestial and earthly fire.

“Can we find our way in this?” Avaiq shouted to Petrovitch.

“Yeah. We can. Hopefully they’ll have more trouble.” Petrovitch stood astride the snowmobile. “Got your own?”

“It’s still in the shop.”

“Then get on, you mad bastard. We have less than six minutes.” He nodded to the back of the seat and pressed his bag on the man. “Put this between us: there’s nothing in there that’ll break. Sit down and hang on.”

[Less than five. The planes are lining up for their first run.]

“Really hang on,” said Petrovitch. He backed up for a metre, then started to accelerate forward, heading between the accommodation block and the next building. Beyond that was the river, frozen hard, snow blowing in sheets across its surface.

There was a small windshield, barely enough to deflect the freezing wind around his body, and certainly not tall enough to hide his face behind. He was blind: but for the overlay of wire shapes and coloured lines, he’d have driven into one of the supply lines that ran to the pipeline proper.

The path he had to follow directed him around the end of the pipe. It meant another minute within Deadhorse.

[The first of the bombs has been released. They are parachutedropped, and will take about ninety seconds to descend to detonation height. Due to the adverse weather conditions, the bomb yield and blast radius will be degraded, but still considerable.]

“Will we make it?” He was going so fast, every rut and crack in the underlying ground felt like a chasm.

[One moment.] The yellow line abruptly changed direction, no longer trying to guide him south-east. Due east now.

“Chyort.”

He was on the river ice. The valley was so shallow as to provide him and his passenger with no protection at all. Somewhere on the other side was a service road that would be brilliant if he could hit it, because it felt like what was left of his internal organs were being jolted out of what was left of his body.

He kept going, his teeth clenched, his eyes screwed tight shut, relying solely on what Michael could show him.

[Right. Go right.]

He did, and felt, rather than saw, the light. The ground trembled, and a second later came the sound of God clapping his hands: low, sonorous waves of noise that felt like a punch in the gut and just as churning.

It was all but impossible to control the snowmobile at the speed he was going. He wasn’t dead yet, so he cut the speed and glided it to an almost-halt. They were the other side of the river, lost in the snow.

Flashbulbs were going off over the scattered structures of Deadhorse, and the air was stiffening with every explosion of orange-white.

Petrovitch waited for a lull, then asked, “You okay?”

“I guess so.” Avaiq relaxed his death grip for a moment. “Why? Why are they doing this?”

“Because they’re scared. That’s why.”

There was nothing to see but the changing brightness of a wall of snow. Time to finally get the answers he craved.

35

By the time Petrovitch steered the snowmobile next to Newcomen’s, he was so cold he could barely let go of the handlebars. His fingers had set into claws, and he wondered if he’d lose some to frostbite.

It was only meat, he told himself. Just flesh and bone. Replaceable. Upgradable.

He forced his mouth to work. “Off.”

The snow had eased, temporarily: enough so that he could see the black buildings of the research station against the white of the ground and the grey of the sky.

Behind him, Avaiq backed off the pillion seat and stumbled in an uncompacted drift. He muttered as he tried to regain his balance, failed, and sat down in the powdery snow.

Petrovitch rubbed his mittens against his jawline, turning the hard crust of frost inside his hood into flakes of ice he could inexpertly scoop out.

Avaiq stayed where he was, slumped, defeated.

“I can’t go back, can I?”

“There’s nothing left to go back to. The town’s gone: the pumping stations, the company facilities, the hospital, the airport. There’s nothing left, and by the time the Yanks have shot all the survivors, there’ll be no one to say what happened either. They’ll put it down to a series of massive gas explosions – which, in a way, it was – and rebuild the place a kilometre or two down the coast.”

“I know that,” said Avaiq, looking up at Petrovitch. “What I meant was, I can’t go back.”

“No. You can’t. Sorry. And neither can Newcomen, because I’m probably about to shoot him in the head.” He threw a handful of frost to the ground. “Unless I think it’s too much like hard work. You can claim asylum in Canada. If you don’t think that’s far enough away, you can come and work for the Freezone. We’re always hiring.”