Dawn: The Day After
At 0600 Hours Zulu,Major General Lawrence Baylander, a hard-nosed New Zealander, led his UNACOM weapons inspection convoy of Hagglunds around a fissure and crossed into the target zone.
The area had been wind-whipped, and any evidence of American nuclear testing would not be visual. Dosimeter readings, thermal scans, and seismic surveys would be necessary to detect any radiation, buried facilities, and the like. Even then they would have to drill for subglacial core samples, he thought. If only they had more time.
But Baylander had already pushed the search and rescue team too far, he realized, and supplies and thus time were running low. He had already concluded they’d have to abandon the tractors and fly back once air support arrived. Worst of all, international politics and funding being what they were, he knew there would be no returning to this wasteland. About the only thing he would get out of this frozen hell was the grim satisfaction that the U.N. would stick the Americans with the tab.
He could feel his opportunity to nail the Americans slipping away. Exhausted and irritated, he was about to radio back to base to tell them that his team was ready to turn around when the convoy found the way blocked.
A red Hagglunds tractor, half protruding from the ice, had apparently sunk into a fissure, its wafer treads locked. It was still upright, slightly skewed. The forward cab was smashed.
Baylander swore and radioed the convoy to brake to a halt. Pausing just long enough to square up his custom-made polyplastic snowshoes, he decided to keep his engine running. He yanked his cab door open, jumped down, and started across the waist-deep snow in long, slow strides.
He surveyed the wreck grimly and circled it once. Something behind the cracked, fogged-up windshield caught his attention and he leaned over for a closer look. There was a figure inside, curled up in a fetal position. A frozen corpse. If it was an American, he had his proof. Baylander straightened and ran over to the cabin door.
He knew the handle would be useless, but he tried anyway. It was frozen solid. He then took his metal staff and smashed the side window and carefully crawled in.
The man was lying across the leather seats. Baylander turned him over. The pasty white face had once belonged to a relatively young, handsome man. For a long minute Baylander stared down at the ghostly apparition, then bent down to listen for shallow breathing. There was none.
Baylander proceeded to unbutton the corpse’s coat to discover a UNACOM uniform underneath. Bloody hell, he thought. He must be one of ours, from the first team. He could find no identification.
He studied the body to determine a time of death. It must not have been too long, he decided, maybe twenty-four hours, because the corpse was only now turning a dull shade of blue. Remarkable, considering how long it had been there. The cabin must have provided enough of a shield from the elements to enable the inspector to have survived far longer than he expected. Baylander suspected the man’s last hours were an unforgiving mix of semiconsciousness, delirium, and the slow shutdown of vital organs. It must have been an altogether unpleasant way to go.
Baylander removed his thick gloves and put two fingers on the carotid artery. To his astonishment he could detect the faintest rhythm of a pulse.