The Long Fall Read online

  “Did you retire in the military?”

  “No. I did…other stuff. Odd jobs.”

  But Michelle knew better than that. The way his eyes shifted and the way he played with the coffee cup. “Nothing to do with the thermal shade, I gather.”

  His reaction was instant guilt, but then that was smoothed over so quickly that you’d have to be a good journalist to see the falter, but it was there. “Why would you say that?”

  She shrugged and decided that was enough for now. But Michelle knew one thing, and that was to follow her nose. It usually led right into a great story.

  Chapter 3

  Antarctica

  The Russian Vostok Station

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember your name?”

  Luckman knew they were testing his cognitive functions as he blinked up into the pen light, unable to see the party behind it just yet. The Russian accent was heavy, but the person’s English was good. “I’m Charles Luckman. A scientist for Cybercorp. We were drilling in Lake Vostok when the lake froze over causing…causing...” He trailed off remembering Sara’s face in her final moments.

  The doctor turned off the light and stepped down the bed near his feet. He looked like a blob that was a bit fuzzy at the edges. “We know what happened, Mr. Luckman. Can you feel this?”

  The doctor had the end of a pen to the tip of his big toe. “No.” The doctor poked the pen into a few more places but Luckman kept shaking his head. He couldn’t feel any of it.

  “That’s not a big deal just yet,” the doctor said patting his leg. “I am Doctor Leskov, and we are just going to be patient and wait for the feeling to return, okay? It’s no big deal, yeah?” He held up two thumbs trying to convey that everything was okay.

  But everything was not okay. His team was gone. Luckman nodded that he understood because the man seemed to be waiting for that. He was in a small examination area for emergencies only, he could tell. And he also knew he must be at Vostok Station. The place had so much more character than the American station, Amundsen-Scott, which was state-of-the-art, two stories, and even had a geodesic dome down in the snow. The Russian facility was rugged and held together by mismatched walls. Luckman could tell by the makeshift bed he sat on that it was a setup similar to the one he and his team had been living with, which meant he was still sitting at the coldest place on earth. And, possibly, everyone here was in danger.

  A woman stepped forward to place a blood pressure cuff around Luckman’s arm as the doctor said, “Let’s keep warming you up, friend.”

  Luckman’s eyesight was beginning to clear. His feet were almost black at the edges, but that bothered him little. His team was gone—all of them. If he lost a limb, could he even complain? He got away with his life. He could barely believe he had, as the last thing he remembered was…was…big snowflakes, the monitor shutting off, and then…nothing.

  “What happened?” Luckman asked. “I mean after. I thought I was going to die out there. I remember being so cold that it felt hot. I took off my jacket and stripped off my clothes. I was mad with the coldness. The last thing I saw was the freeze bending up the tent before I collapsed. I expected to die. My team…”

  The Doctor gave him a sad glance before he said, “The rescue efforts were only able to get to you, friend. There was no way to get to your team before it was too cold to send anyone else. We have lost many drilling before. It is not uncommon. Unfortunately, Mr. Luckman, none survived aside from you. You are a very lucky man.”

  Luckman watched Leskov leave with a helpless expression. People had been calling him lucky for as long as he’d been alive, but not because he had any specific luck, but because that was his nickname, and now, it just felt like a punch to the gut. Lucky? Sara was dead, his team was dead. The ice…it shouldn’t have moved the way it did. It was like it had a purpose, a deadly one. He knew ice, and he understood the cold.

  When the nurse was finished doing what she needed, he asked, “Can I talk to someone at my office? Is there a phone?”

  She shook her head. “The lines are all down,” she said, her accent much thicker as she stumbled over the words. “We haven’t spoken…um…to uh…in. How do you say?” She muttered something that sounded like ‘vemoy’ or ‘themoy.’ “Forty-eight hours. We are evacuate. Plane.”

  “Home?” he asked, and she nodded. “Home,” she parroted. “Yes.”

  They had not spoken to home in forty-eight hours. And they were to evacuate on a plane. Good, then he could report what he’d seen and try to make sense of it with his co-workers. There were other scientists here for the polar programs at the American station, and they’d be evacuated to Amundsen-Scott. Luckman needed answers.

  The nurse started wrapping his feet, his hands and even his face in hot towels. “You nose,” she murmured, glancing at it with concern. It probably had blackened edges of frostbite.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, seeing no name tag. She’d probably been pulled away from her bed in the emergency. “What time is it?” He pointed at his wrist and she smiled.

  She held up three fingers. “Name is Polina.”

  “Relax,” she said, watching his blood pressure numbers increase. “You have pain?”

  “No, thank you, Polina.” Luckman wanted to feel every ounce of pain because his team didn’t make it and miraculously he had. Luckman knew in the back of his mind he was experiencing survivor’s guilt, but he brushed that off. What he really needed, what would help, was to talk it over with his colleagues and determine if what he suspected could even be possible. That the weather’s strangeness was not a coincidence with the satellites controlling global temperatures. If the poles were negatively affected it would change the weather pattern for the entire planet. It would be like dominoes one right after another until…well, he wasn’t sure, but it was cataclysmic.

  The lights flickered and then clicked off, and the machines swapped over to the emergency generator after a few seconds of darkness. A beeping sounded as the cuff began to retake his blood pressure, and while nothing had changed, an unsettled feeling seemed to swarm the room. “Polina,” Luckman said as the sound of rushing booted feet ran past the door to his room. “Please, go check on that plane.”

  Chapter 4

  The Leward Residence

  Base Housing, Fort Riley, Kansas

  When the two men who’d brought the notification left, Brittany immediately called the children’s mother, Reese Leeward, to tell her the terrible news. A pleasant voice answered, “Reese Leeward’s office, this is Carol. How can I help you?”

  “Hi, Carol, this is Brittany. I need to talk to Reese.”

  “Oh. Hi, Brittany. She’s busy at the moment. Perhaps you should call William, instead.”

  Brittany had to bite back a nasty reply. She never called their mother, and that was the reason why. She had gotten the impression from William that her calls wouldn’t be well received. “I know Reese is a busy woman, but this is important. There’s been an accident.”

  A pause. “I see. Hold, please.” More silence and then, “Brittany, I’m sending you to Ms. Leeward’s private line.”

  Brittany felt anger surge at the thought that she’d not even had a private number for the mother of the children she cared for.

  Reese answered with an unpleasant, “Yes.”

  Brittany stuttered over her own introduction. “Ms. Leeward, this is Brittany. Um, I’m calling, well…I’m not sure how to say this…”

  “Then just say it, dear.” The clipped voice snapped Brittany out of her fumbling.

  “Mr. Leeward—William—is dead.”

  Silence.

  Brittany added, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Reese sighed. “So, he finally did it, huh? Made himself a hero. Where?”

  “Poland. It was an accident.”

  “Poland?” The first emotion Brittany heard since the call began.

  “A training exercise.”

 
“How are the children?”

  Brittany bit her nail. “I haven’t told them yet.”

  “What!” Brittany had to pull the phone away from her ear. “Why not?”

  When Brittany had no answer Reese demanded, “Put Benton on the phone.”

  “You don’t mean you’re going to tell them over the phone?”

  Reese sniffed. “That is exactly what needs to be done. They have to know.”

  Brittany gritted her teeth. “Do you know what your kids are doing right now? Getting dressed to go trick or treating. And you want to ruin that by having their nanny tell them their father died? I don’t think so, lady.” Brittany wasn’t sure where she got the guts to speak like that, but she was glad she had.

  “Fine. Then I’ll send someone on the first flight out to retrieve them.”

  “Okay.”

  Reese hung up and Brittany bit back every curse word she knew and put on a brave face. “Who’s ready for candy!” she shouted to the ceiling, smiling when the thunder of feet could be heard all the way down the stairs.

  But when Benton opened the front door, everyone paused. “Snow?”

  There was at least half a foot since she last saw the drifts.

  “Um,” Brittany said. “Grab your snow suits, I guess.” The kids groaned. “Let’s put them under your costumes, alright?” she suggested.

  The wind had picked up, too, and Brittany had to brace herself as she and the kids made their way onto the street. Very few people were braving the weather for Halloween, and it made Brittany’s heart sink. It was their last night of fun, and it was being taken away by an early winter.

  “Hey guys,” she said, squatting down to eye level. The kid’s teeth were chattering, and they blinked up at her with misery. No one would have fun out in the wind. “It’s chilly, huh? Why don’t we just go back home, I’ll make hot cocoa, and we can eat all of the candy we were going to give away? How does that sound?” The kids agreed reluctantly.

  On their way back the wind speed had increased so much that they had to lean to make it home. Lily latched onto Brittany’s hand, and she lost her pumpkin bucket and her princess hat. Spiderman—Benton—looked more like the Michelin man and Brittany thought about how crummy their night was winding up to be—their last with their father still alive in their minds.

  When they got inside, there was a text on her cell: Blizzard in New York. Planes grounded.

  Brittany warmed up her fingers and quickly answered: What do we do?

  I’ll rent you a car to bring them.

  I have school.

  How much?

  I don’t understand. How much school work…?

  No, Brittany. How much money do you want to bring me my children?

  I really can’t, Ms. Leeward. I’m sorry.

  Five thousand? Ten?

  She couldn’t be serious? Brittany thought about it a moment, slumping down onto the couch. She was obviously losing her job now that William had been tragically killed, and she did have student loans. Her recent payoff was thirty thousand four hundred and fifty-something dollars. Ten thousand dollars would be more than enough to put a dent in it so that she could breathe easier when she started job hunting after graduation. She’d hid that amount from her mother because she would never help her anyway. She did encourage her to stop getting a “useless” degree, because of course being an English major was useless to someone like her mother who used books to prop open doors. She wouldn’t even watch movies with subtitles.

  Brittany glanced at her phone to see a much longer text message had come in.

  I know you probably think I’m a terrible mother, Brittany, and I’m not trying to win awards for parenting. But that doesn’t mean I am going to trust someone I don’t know to drive my kids across this godforsaken country. William trusted you, obviously quite a lot. And he may have been many things, but stupid was not one of them, nor was he a bad judge of character. Please, for Benton and Lily, say you will bring me my kids here to New York. Hopefully the weather will have cleared. I will then tell them the terrible news and I promise to make their lives as good as I can in the city. I need your help.

  Brittany knew Reese was not the type of woman to open up, and she had been shown beyond a curtain the tough career woman had placed before her feelings. It was definitely not something she would take lightly.

  All right. I will do it, Ms. Leeward.

  Call me Reese. I’ll send you directions and the confirmation that the car place will be picking you all up in the morning.

  Benton rushed down the stairs. “Look! The snow stopped. The wind, too!”

  Brittany frowned out of the window but noticed he was right. It was now perfect outside, other than the snow that had already fallen.

  “Can we go, Britt? Can we? Huh? Huh?” And Lily joined in the chorus with Benton, “Please, Brittany, pleeeaase.”

  “Okay. Okay. Get your jackets!”

  “Yay!” they both shouted and rushed to grab their things.

  She opened the door to a calm street, as neighbors also opened theirs, and the children began to come outside. It’s so quiet, Brittany thought. She and the kids walked down the front steps in not even the tiniest bit of wind. On top of the giant hill that sat to the rear of the neighborhood, dark clouds swirled, but they moved slowly, and night was descending for the evening over all of Kansas.

  Brittany imagined in the corner of her eye that she saw a flash of light but took the kids by the hand and started toward the street to begin what would hopefully be a much happier time.

  But that’s when the alarms began to sound.

  Chapter 5

  One year earlier

  New York City, New York

  Cybercorp Headquarters

  “You look like you had the overnight shift.”

  Bob smiles at his partner, stifles a yawn, and checks the hallway to make sure no one is near the meeting room doors. He’d had overnights most days for a month straight, but he needed the overtime ever since the third grandbaby had come along.

  Al, his partner, hands him a cup of coffee and takes his own place on the opposite side of the hallway.

  They both drink in silence until the sound of arguing filters through the thick conference room doors.

  “Sounds like a live one, old man,” Al says, pressing his earbud further into his ear to block out the sounds. Al is always quick to point out his age; the young buck was exactly how Bob had been a quarter of a century ago—young, dumb, and full of it.

  “It’s been like this all week,” Bob replies. He’s got his earbud hanging near his collar, and it makes him itch.

  “I will see myself out!!”

  The door is flung open, and a man in a suit rushes in their direction with the director on his heels.

  “Brian, wait,” the director calls to the black man, who Bob recognizes as the scientist who’d recently move here from London to work for Cybercorp.

  Brian holds the briefcase in front of his chest like it will protect him from some harm. “Wait for what? More of your bull?”

  From inside of the conference room, Bob hears Reese say, “This is ridiculous. Get back in here and talk to us like an adult. You’re acting like a child.”

  “A child? A child!” His English accent is broad. He wipes a hand across his sweaty upper lip, eyes rolling to the heavens as if he can’t believe what has become of his life. Brian marches back to the open door so Bob can see him but not Reese inside. “You’ve started the clean energy project without knowing if you’ll start a global disaster. I tell you that something is wrong, and that’s what I’m paid to do, but your job isn’t to listen to me, is it, Reese? It’s to placate me, pat me on the head, and tell me I’m a good little boy. I don’t know what type of scientists work for you, but that’s not how I’m used to being treated. Americans,” he sighs. “Cowboys slinging their guns and swaggering along, but this is beyond your control, and simply being pig headed won’t fix the collapsing environmental project.”

  Bo
b knew that Brian had been visiting late at night, and not just on business, but he’d kept that to himself, as was the case with all things at Cybercorp. He’d found that even though he tried not to eavesdrop, he’d heard quite a bit from the new scientist, and he’d rather appreciated the man’s candor. He didn’t completely like Brian, because he knew he’d brought his family all the way to America and had on occasion stayed overnight with Reese.

  Brian now had the look of a jilted lover on his face because Reese wasn’t the type of woman to let her feelings get in the way of her ironclad rule of Cybercorp. Bob could easily imagine her cold glare, her obvious severing of their engagements written across her face when she says, “I have ten scientists who say your model is…to put it lightly…defective, Brian. I invited you here because Cameron said you were the best, and I trust him, he’s a friend. But I’ve run out of favors where the board is concerned. Your model is just one possible outcome, and now we have it. So, we don’t really need you anymore, do we?”

  Brian laughs a sad, sarcastic sound and pulls off his glasses, finally setting his briefcase down. He carefully cleans them and replaces them, pockets the wipe and picks his case back up again. “Forgive my language, Mrs. Leeward,” he says with the utmost propriety. “But fuck your scientists. And if you don’t take heed of my model, then fuck you as well. Because, Reese, we are indeed all going to be fucked by you.”

  And he turns and walks away. The man has indeed won the match, if Bob has any say about it. Al and Bob share a glance but shrug and figure there is drama in the science world same as any other.

  But Reese comes to the conference room door to close it, shooting a glare into the direction of where Brian had fled moments before, and a glimmer of something like fury lights her bright blue eyes. Her hair is pulled so severely from her face, like a punishment, and there is not a speck of lint on her suit, as per usual. Bob hopes he never has to see Reese Leeward look at him that way. There is murder on that woman’s mind.