Cold Flood (Kea Wright Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  After depositing their gear in a pile, she pulled out the one bit of equipment that was not battery operated. Indeed, it was reliable, durable, and downright juicy.

  “All right team, this morning we asked everyone to grab two apples.” Kea held up one in her hand. “Does everyone have one left?”

  The team waved their apples in the air, apart from Fernando who admitted to eating his. Kea gave him a spare she had in her pack. “You now hold in your hands the forefront of fluvial mensuration technology. So, whatever you do, don’t eat it.”

  She broke the group into three teams and held up a handful of little red flags. “I’m going to place these markers up and downstream. Please don’t go beyond them as the terrain gets too dangerous. One person will release the apple while the other will time its path downstream to each marker I’ve paced out.”

  Kea handed stopwatches to Gary and Nadia. “The apples will likely get stuck in the smaller channels. If it’s safe, rescue the apple and start from a clear point. We’re interested in sampling the stream’s velocities, so we just need distances and times.”

  She held up two metal sticks with small-finned torpedoes on one end. “I have two flow meters. I’ll be using one to take readings in the larger channels. I’ll leave the other with you, just please take turns. It’s very simple, just lower the fins into the water and record the readings shown here.” She tapped the readout at the other end of the stick.

  After setting up the flags and making sure the teams could take their own measurements, she worked her way up one of the larger channels, slipping and sliding as she went. She climbed out of a small valley and stabbed the last flag into the ice to demarcate the northern boundary of the safe zone. She surveyed the team working in the canyons below her. She could only see two team members in the twisting valleys - Gary on a rise taking notes and Nadia chasing after an apple, cursing fluently in Russian whenever it got away from her.

  Kea dropped down the channel and tucked her pack onto the safety of a ledge. The water was a meter deep here, but the ice walls were narrow enough that she could comfortably straddle it with her crampons nestled into either side. She lowered the flow meter into the icy stream to take a few test readings.

  She reached for her notebook but realized it was still in her pack. Reprimanding herself for not snagging someone to assist her, she tucked the device under her arm and, after a couple of fumbled attempts, managed to pull out her notebook and jot down the measurements.

  By the time she took a few more readings, she found her rhythm for juggling the device and her notebook. She took about a dozen more before leaning against a channel wall to rest for a few minutes. She checked her watch: nearly four. Time to get back to the rest of the group and head down off the glacier.

  She inhaled the cool air, relishing the rushing sounds of the streams and the solitude of her surroundings. With the utmost reluctance, she pushed herself away from the wall and reached up to the ledge to retrieve her pack. Its base slipped on the ice and slid into her arms faster than she expected. As she fumbled with the pack, the flow meter slipped out of her hand and tumbled into the channel below. The device clattered as it knocked against the ice and bobbed downstream, seeming to wave farewell as it floated away.

  With forced calm, she made her way out of the channel and moved to a rise to look for the flow meter. Thankfully, the device wasn’t going anywhere. It had wedged itself within a constriction in the channel about twenty meters downstream. The slope was gentle, but the meter was well beyond the safety marker.

  Rather than risk going after it, she sat back and pulled out a cucumber and butter sandwich. The break was partially to give herself a moment to calm down, but also an excuse to spend a few more minutes to enjoy the landscape before she rejoined the volunteers.

  Looking up into the blue sky, she knew that this stunning weather wouldn’t last long. The katabatic winds would soon be blowing cold air down from the ice cap now that it was late afternoon. She hoped to have the team off the ice soon. Rubbing out a cramp in her leg, she heard voices from below her.

  It was then that she heard something else, this time from the east. It sounded like the peal of a gull, but louder.

  Skua kill?

  Curious, she moved further along the rise, leaving her pack at the channel’s edge.

  Drawn by the sound of rushing water, she followed the sound upward and found where another channel plummeted down into the center of the glacier through a moulin, one of several scattered across the area. The slopes around the maw of the pit glistened from the spray of the waterfall. The clear blue of the glacier’s heart gleamed tauntingly from within its darkened depths. The spray from the water pouring into the hole generated a mist, obscuring the dark shadows within. She edged closer and felt the cool tickle of moisture on her cheeks. It was difficult to discern against the taint of black tephra along the rim, but there looked to be a dark splash of dark red on the grimy ice in the shadows.

  Sign of a skua kill? There were no feathers in evidence. She looked up into the sky, scanning for the birds, but saw none.

  She sighed. It didn’t sound like any gull she’d ever heard. Better safe than sorry. Carefully extracted the little radio she kept in the water-resistant jacket pocket, she called for Marcus. Only static answered.

  Must be out of range, Kea thought.

  That wasn’t too unusual, as the radios only functioned well via line of sight. Despite adding new radios to last year’s budget, the university never came through with the funding. Also per usual. She pushed the talk button again. “Julie, do you copy? Over.”

  Once more, the radio remained silent.

  She tried again. “Julie, Kea here. Do you copy, over?”

  Suddenly, the radio crackled to life. “Oh, hey.”

  “Zoë?” Kea asked in alarm. “Where’s Julie? Over.”

  “She’s still GPR-ing,” Zoë replied. “She gave me the radio because she’s got her hands full. What’s up?”

  Relieved, Kea remembered why she was calling. “Everyone okay down there, over?”

  “Yup,” Zoë replied brightly. “Why?”

  I’m just being paranoid, Kea thought. Marcus and Tony are well east of here, and my team is below me. The cry echoed again in her memory, and it set the hair on the back of her neck on edge.

  Still, talking to Zoë gave her an idea. She had planned on using the MRS all day, but now that was a bust. Even mapping the drainage channels had only become an activity in a pinch when the MRS died. A detailed survey of the features, however, would be perfect. Plus, if there was anything unusual going on out here, the cameras would see it. “Where are the drones now? Over.”

  “I lost Romulus... had some issues. But Remus is nearly finished with the last grid you asked for. Um... over?” Zoë finished uncertainly.

  “Can you fly it over to me?” Kea asked. “I might have a new area to map. Let me get you the coordinates. Over.”

  Kea pulled out her GPS. The digits on the readout refused to settle.

  “Damn,” she whispered. She pushed the button on the radio again. “We’re roughly a klick west from the glacier margin and about three klicks over from the western cliff. You should be able to see me from up there. Can you map the area for me? Over.”

  Silence.

  Kea sighed. “Please? Over.”

  Zoë’s laughter intertwined with the static. “Of course, sorry. The winds are kicking up. I’m just trying to re-direct Remus to you, but I’m going to have to swap out his batteries first. It may take a bit.”

  Kea signed off and struggled to put the radio back into her pocket, her cold fingers clumsily pulling the zipper beneath the Velcro flap. She stopped in mid-motion, her attention caught by the sight of a tiny object wedged in the mouth of the moulin, about a meter down. It was an oblong, segmented object about ten centimeters long. It looked like some kind of stick insect.

  “Hello there,” she said quietly, reaching out for it. “Who are you?”

  Its surf
ace was oily, causing the sunlight to scatter in an iridescent shimmer, like the wing of a dragonfly. Moving closer, however, she couldn’t discern any wings emerging from its length, nor any legs for that matter. To get any nearer to the object required her to lean too far into the pit, and its slope was dangerously slick from the rising mists. Craning her neck, she considered it for another moment, deciding it was probably just a bit of volcanic rock.

  “I wonder,” she said, carrying on her conversation with the rock, “if I go senile, will I even notice?”

  A terrified scream tore through the air, causing her to freeze.

  That was no bird.

  It had come from her apple team below. She turned and dashed away from the moulin, pausing only to grab her pack, and cast a look of regret at the abandoned flow meter before heading downstream as quickly as she dared. The wildlands were not meant to be navigated at speed. Her boots slithered across the streams and cobbles, and she chafed the palms of her hands steadying herself against the channel walls. As she pulled herself through the channels, nightmare scenarios of what might have happened flashed through her mind, each one worse than the one before.

  The only thing they had to do was stay between the markers, Kea reminded herself. She had done this same exercise with many teams before. Not a problem, it’s never been a problem, it’s fine, she told herself over and over, trying to turn hope into reality.

  Using the screams as a guide, she emerged breathless at the edge of an ice canyon. Before her, Gary was on the ground, convulsing. Max squatted by his side as he tried to steady the man’s head. They were all precariously close to where the glacier ice sloped away into a crevasse that led straight down into one of the lakes.

  What the hell was Gary doing so far outside the safety markers?

  “What’s going on?” Kea knelt by Gary’s head, the sharp crystals of the ice gouging into her knees. “What happened?”

  “He just keeled over,” Nadia said in a hoarse voice, terrified.

  Gary seized again. His face was pale, his forehead freckled with beads of sweat, breath wheezing out of him in gasps.

  “Gary, can you hear me?” Kea pulled off his gloves. No medic alert bracelet. She felt for his pulse. His heart was racing. “Can you tell us what’s happening?”

  He did not, or could not, reply.

  Kea continued searching for clues, her eyes never leaving Gary’s body.

  “Anything else?” she asked the others. “Did anyone notice anything else?” She knew that she was shouting, aware that her hands were shaking with adrenaline. She fought to control herself, aware her rising panic could become infectious.

  Calm down, you’re scaring the others, she reasoned. Keep calm. Heart attack?

  She tried to remember if there was anything on his medical form about a heart condition, but even in her panicked state, she knew none of the volunteers had listed anything like that. She would have flagged it.

  Stroke?

  “Gary, can you hear me?” she asked, hearing the tremor in her own voice.

  Still no response.

  Kea reviewed his symptoms: sweaty, shaking, fainting. She felt his brow, but his temperature felt fine. He wasn’t cold, not clammy, not burning up.

  Not hypothermia, then. What was it?

  Fernando jogged toward them, groping around inside his pack. He knelt on the ice beside Gary and pulled out a juice box. “Gary, can you hear me? Can you drink this?” He slipped the end of a straw between Gary’s lips. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Kea sat back on her heels. For one terrifying moment, Gary didn’t respond. Another moment or two went by, and his lips pursed the straw. Relief flooded through Kea as Gary began sipping some of the juice.

  “Hypoglycemia?” she asked, cursing herself for not recognizing the signs.

  Fernando nodded. “My little sister’s diabetic. Give him a few minutes.” He turned to the group. “Anyone have an apple left?”

  ***

  With every stomp of her boots, Kea tried to quell the rage that boiled inside her. By not monitoring his condition, Gary had put lives at risk, his as well as those of the other volunteers.

  She understood it was tricky to manage diabetes. That she could forgive. The pure rage that burned inside her stemmed from knowing that he had forged his medical form. That she had been lied to.

  How had he done that?

  She made a mental note to dig up the form.

  After Gary finished the juice and a candy bar, they found themselves with nothing to do but wait. Adrenaline still sloshed around in Kea’s system, although it had begun to ebb as Gary began drinking the juice. The realization that he would be okay, that they wouldn’t need an air rescue, was a blessed relief.

  When Gary began speaking again, however, and he sheepishly admitted that he’d lied on his medical forms, Kea’s adrenaline came back full force. This time fueled by anger. She found his lie difficult to digest. It made her want to grab him and scream.

  On the return trip across the ice, she kept her eyes trained on Gary the entire time. Anxiety had joined the adrenaline and anger. She knew he was better, that nothing would happen to him, that he was safe, but she was still shaken to her core.

  As soon as they reached an unobstructed view of the depression, she managed to get hold of Julie and Marcus on the radio to share what had happened. They agreed to head back to the jeeps as soon as possible. The rest of the hike off the glacier passed in a chaotic blur.

  When her team reached the lake, Kea made sure she was in Gary’s raft, her eyes boring into his back. It was only once they had crossed to the other side and Marcus offered to take over, that she started to calm down. Now she trailed behind the other volunteers on the hike across the depression, falling back to her standard rearguard position, waiting for her mind to reboot.

  Gary would be grounded for the remainder of the week. His only option was to sit back at camp or remain with a team that worked a site near the jeeps. Julie had mentioned wanting to take some measurements of the kettle holes. That was safe. Or he could help sort out the gear at camp.

  The air around Kea grew hazy and red. Pre-occupied, she had veered too far east and walked straight into the middle of a dry lakebed. The winds blowing off the glacier combined with the warm, dry weather to lift the fine clay into a miniature dust storm. The dust cloud blew around her, a fine mist that reduced visibility to less than a few meters.

  Kea tucked away her glasses and fumbled in her pack for her goggles. She zipped up the collar of her jacket to encompass her nose and mouth. With her hat, her goggles, jacket, snow pants, boots, and gloves sealed, she was completely enclosed, like an astronaut walking on the surface of another world. It helped her detach from her anger and focus on making it through the dust cloud.

  Perspective, Kea reminded herself. Perspective and scale. They were going to be okay. Everyone was okay.

  She crested the rise at the edge of the dry lake basin. The cloud of sediment fell away around her feet as her boots touched the gravel and cobbles once more. Leaving the tranquility of the red mist made her sad, but she found that her steps were now confident, more purposeful.

  Ahead, the jeeps parked atop the wall of the depression were visible and the last of the volunteers were already climbing up the slope. By the time she arrived at the parking area, the teams had loaded their bags into the trailers. Skimming the crowd, she spotted Gary’s gray head in the back of one of the jeeps.

  Almost home.

  Marcus addressed the group as he stowed his gear. “Everyone’s fine, just a bit of a slip.” Over the radios, the leads had agreed to downplay the event for Gary’s sake. “Please make sure you’ve stowed all your gear in the trailers, including the high visibility jackets and helmets.”

  After the volunteers dispersed to the jeeps, Kea walked over to Marcus.

  “Well, you know how my day went,” she said. “How was yours?”

  Marcus smiled. “It really could have been much worse. This sort of stuff keeps
us on our toes.”

  “You okay?” Julie stepped closer, watching as the volunteers filed into the back of the vehicles. She smiled sympathetically at Kea.

  “I’m better now,” Kea said. “But I did have a lot of time to think on the way back.” She held out an empty palm. “Keys?”

  Julie pouted but handed over the keys to the jeep. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “I’ve just had enough excitement for one day,” Kea climbed into the driver’s seat. She pulled out her phone from the glove compartment, booted it up, and tucked it into her jacket pocket before starting the engine. Heat flooded the cabin as the vents gusted out their dusty breath. “All right, ready for a headcount?”

  The volunteers nodded and Julie began counting. When she finished, she paused, then counted again.

  The hair on the back of Kea’s neck started to stand up. “Is everything okay?”

  “Um...I don’t know,” Julie said softly. “I think we’re one short.”

  Kea turned around and counted for herself. The rear of the jeep was lined with double benches that had been knee-to-knee full on the way out. Now there was a gap. She turned back around to face the steering wheel. Fighting down a rising panic, she reached for the jeep’s CB radio. “Marcus, do you copy? Over.”

  There was a delay, then she heard Marcus say, “Roger. Over.”

  Kea checked her rear-view mirror again. “Doing a head count. How many do you have? Over.”

  Another pause before Marcus’s voice crackled over the static again. “Nine here. Over.”

  “Are you sure?” Kea fought to keep her voice steady. “We only have eight. Over.”

  “Nine. Over,” Marcus confirmed.

  “We’re one short. Count again. Over.” She turned off the ignition, jumped out of the vehicle and threw open the back doors.

  Julie got out and ran to join her. “How can we be short?”

  Kea started calling names even though she could see everyone crammed onto the benches.

  Julie counted off before arriving at the same conclusion, her chorus of profanities following Kea as she jogged down the hill to the other jeep. Marcus was already at the back door calling the names on his list. Still one short. Nausea clawed up the back of Kea’s throat as she realized who was missing.