Free Deep Ice by Karl Kofoed

something out. That’s the Navy’s problem. Maybe the admiral has a private garden where me and Shep can take a nice stroll, smell the flowers and take a leak. I don’t care. It’s Shep and me, or neither of us. I’ve made up my mind on this. I’m not leaving Shep here.”
    Grimes stamped a foot again and it broke through the thick ice crust into softer snow, throwing him off balance. This seemed to anger him more. “Shit, Henry!” yelled Grimes. “I’ve told you the answer’s yes, as far as I’m concerned. If the general says otherwise, you argue it out with him , okay? We have more important things to deal with. If there’s a way to find that other bomb, we need to find it. It may be you’ll be no damn’ good to us at all, but we have to have you on hand. Shit, you can take movies – whatever it is you do. But we need you there to collar these guys.”
    He took a breath. Henry patted him on the shoulder.
    “You’re trying too hard, Kai. Anyway, it won’t work. We can stand here and freeze to death or we can walk together; you, me, Sarah and the. . . other witness.”
    Grimes growled and turned to walk back to the HQ.
    “If you can convince the gen. . .” But the wind blasted the words from his lips. “Fuck it!” He began running towards the HQ building.
    Henry put an arm around Sarah’s shoulders and they followed Grimes. Then he paused, bent over and unhooked the malamute’s leash, setting the dog free. Shep bounded in a happy circle around them, oblivious to the cold that seemed to deepen with every passing second. Henry whistled softly and slapped his left side. Obeying his master’s command, Shep immediately leapt to Henry’s side.
    “No more kennels for you, boy,” said Henry.
    Once more a light snow began to fall ; propelled by the wind, it stung any exposed flesh. Even Henry pulled his hood tight around his head as they trudged back towards the cluster of buildings grouped around the main complex.
    That night a major storm blew in from the sea. By nightfall four Cobra attack helicopters, awash with weaponry, sat on the main helipad. There was nothing to do except tie down the choppers and wait for the storm to pass. Everyone ended up in a meeting room adjacent to the mess.
    There were a lot of unfamiliar faces in the room.
    General Hayes told Henry the strangers were a special team from the Enterprise . “They’re here to sniff out the nukes.”
    Grimes watched the general carefully, waiting for him to question the presence of Henry’s dog in the room, but the question never came. Finally Grimes took Hayes aside and mentioned that Henry was “kind of firm on the subject of his dog coming along”. To his astonishment, Hayes just looked at him and then at the dog, and casually said, “Fine.”
    #
    The storm lashed McMurdo all night. Gradually everyone broke up into small groups, playing cards, watching tapes, reading or simply drinking coffee and talking.
    Finally an exhausted Grimes headed for bed. “You gotta Z when you can,” he said with a yawn.
    Sarah and Henry spent another three hours looking at her laptop computer and “trying out heads”, as he described it. Still to no avail.
    Finally everyone but Henry was asleep. Lying on his cot, listening to the ice hit the tin roof of the building, he let his thoughts roam. Even if they found out where the second bomb was located, what good would it do? They couldn’t remove it without setting it off. So what was the point of looking for it or, even, the terrorists? All he wanted to do was go back to his life before this happened. Back to the ice and the aurora. How long had it been? He’d lost track of the time. Easy to do in Antarctica.
    He glanced across at Shep, asleep on the floor next to his cot.
    Henry Scott Gibbs of the Antarctic smiled, closed his eyes, and slept.

Three
    Next morning at 5:42am the ice shifted.
    Henry’s eyes opened wide as he felt it. Then came the sounds: the creaking of buildings, falling dishes,