Page 17 of Gunn's Mission

She cracked open the door. “You finish your calls?”

“Just had the one.”

She waggled her eyebrows. “You ready to head out and see what we’re actually doing out here?”

He rose and walked toward her. “More than ready.”

CHAPTER6

Maddie glancedover her shoulder to ensure Gunn was still close behind her. Not that she could lose him on such a tiny island.

Then she remembered losing track of Mateo. Logically, she knew his death wasn’t her fault, that he’d broken the rule about letting the rest of them know where he was going when he’d decided to make a trip outside in the dark, alone.

When she’d discovered he was missing, she’dhopedhe’d fallen and injured himself and had simply been waiting for someone to notice he was gone so that searchers could rescue him. She’dfearedhe’d been eaten by a polar bear.

What had actually happened hadn’t been a scenario she could’ve imagined.

When she looked back again, Gunn gave her a wave. He was probably annoyed that she kept glancing back like she was his mom, making sure he was following closely enough. Not that she could read his expression. In the darker part of the morning, the cold felt heavy, and both of them had covered their lower faces to keep warm. They also wore goggles to protect their vision from the cold and the brightening light. Plus, she carried her rifle for a different kind of protection angled over her back, the strap across her front.

They used their headlights, but the sun was filling the horizon, giving the morning that eerie gray light that lasted only a short span in the lower latitudes before the brilliance of daylight arrived. Twilight lingered here.

She led him first due west, where the neighboring floes were numerous. The pale sunlight painted the sea a luminescent gray around the stark white floes. She stopped her snowmobile and waited for him to pull up beside her.

She pulled down her neck cover to expose her lower face. “What do you think?”

He pulled his down as well and looked out over the ocean. “I’ve never seen anything like this. They’re like stepping stones or the interlocking pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.”

“They’re what the bears and seals use to rest. Sometimes, you can see whales push up between the floes to get air. You’ll see little plumes of water while they clear their blowholes.”

“Can’t wait to see that for myself,” he said.

“I’ll show you where the polar bears tend to gather. It’s like an ice ramp. When it’s clear of critters, Eric and Nate launch their kayaks from there. It’s not far.” She pulled up her covering and restarted her vehicle, and off they went.

She showed him the ramp, which was free of bears or seals. Then, they moved along the perimeter toward the north before heading toward the center of the floe. They stopped at Hanna’s site, where she had a series of holes cut to take ice samples, some drilled deep, and which she circled with yellow tape tied to tall stakes so the others knew where she’d dug.

Then they headed farther east to where Nate and Eric had their tripods poised over their drilled-out holes.

Gunn stood and glanced down into an iced-over hole where Nate’s long cable disappeared. His hole was wider than Eric’s, and Maddie explained that he had to excavate around the top of it every time he came out to keep it clear for when he used the winch to drop and bring up the “bucket” he used to sample the water for plankton at different depths. He glanced at the thick wheel with the cable. “How long is the cable?”

“I think it can go down about a hundred-fifty feet,” Maddie said. “He brings out jars, transfers water samples to them, then drops the capsule again—at different depths.”

“So, he has to clear it every time he comes out to sample the water?”

She nodded. “He covers the top, but the bottom gets plugged. Because he has to clear out the hole every time, he takes samples every three days. It’s a pain in the ass to cart the drill back and forth, but we don’t have a ton of spare equipment. Eric or Perry will help him. Any of us, really, will pitch in, especially when the weather gets rough.”

By the time they worked their way around to Em and Perry’s platform, the sun had emerged. The sky was a brilliant blue, with gray clouds on the far horizon.

“Em and Perry drop a camera with lights attached to attract curious creatures,” Maddie said. “The cable stays put, but they retrieve and replace the data card once a day, then spend hours reviewing footage to catalog the types and numbers of species they observe.”

Then, at last, they arrived at Mateo’s platform. It didn’t look any different from the others. A sturdy tripod perched above a narrow hole with a single cable disappearing into the depths, attached to a black box. When she turned the screw-type knob to open the panel on the box, she discovered two slots. One for Mateo’s scientific readings of ocean currents, the other for the data Commander Navarro needed.

She bit the finger of her right glove and pulled it off with her teeth, then reached into her pocket for the small case that held two fresh cards and pressed the notches beside the cards in the black box to pop them out. When the cards were transferred to the case, the new cards were inserted, and the box closed, she stepped back to examine the exterior. The lights indicating the box was operating as it should were lit up. She checked the depth indicator. It read two hundred feet. As Navarro hadn’t said anything about changing the depth of the equipment hanging on the cable under the ice, she was done.

“That’s it?” Gunn said.

“Yeah, we’re done.”

“I can handle changing out cards and examining the box every day if you need to be somewhere else.”

---