Granger teetered on his heels a second and fell over backward, driven by Nimec’s weight and momentum. He grunted as the air went out of him, Nimec holding his legs in a tight clinch, his shoulders slamming hard onto the ice and snow.

Somehow his right hand maintained its grip on the Beretta. All in a heartbeat Nimec saw the pistol sweep down toward him, broke his clasp on Granger, and boosted himself halfway on top of him, reaching for the strap from which his rejected metal snowshoes hung around his shoulder.

Nimec swung the paddles at Granger’s gun just as he squeezed the trigger, deflecting its barrel so the round fired harmlessly into space. He swung them twice again, hard, making contact both times, striking Granger on the wrist and knuckles.

Nimec heard Granger’s exclamation of sudden pain, glimpsed the Beretta flying free of his fingers as they involuntarily released it, a black projectile hurtling off against the whiteness.

He also saw that both he and Granger had fallen precariously near the crevasse, their heads mere inches from its broken lip. Granger was heaving, grabbing, thrashing underneath him, his wild struggle to dislodge him moving their bodies closer to its edge—close enough for Nimec to hear miniature cascades of snow and ice spill down and away into its gaping emptiness.

He did not waste an instant. Pushing off with his toes, he clambered further up Granger’s body, got fully on top of him now, and brought an elbow down on Granger’s throat, hacked it into his throat, catching him squarely in the windpipe.

Granger made an umphing sound and went limp, sinking back into the snow, his chest seeming to collapse, his arms falling strengthlessly to his sides.

Nimec gulped a breath. Then he rose onto his knees, straddling Granger, bunching his fists around the collar of the man’s parka to pull his head and shoulders out of the snow.

“You son of a bitch,” he said. “Let’s see what you’ve got to gain by talking now.”

NINETEEN - COLD CORNERS BASE, ANTARCTICA MARCH 17, 2002

NINETEEN

COLD CORNERS BASE, ANTARCTICA MARCH 17, 2002

MEGAN WATCHED PETE NIMEC AND RON WAYLON ENTER her office.

“Red dog,” Nimec said, shouldering through the door first.

She remained quiet behind the desk, where she’d sat for over an hour, waiting for them to complete their latest interrogation of Russ Granger and report on whether they’d gotten anything out of him.

Waylon pulled up a chair opposite her. Nimec strode over to the big Dry Valley satellite map.

She looked at him.

“I gather,” she said, “you’re going to explain what you mean.”

“Red dog,” Nimec repeated. “It’s the name of a card game I learned—”

In your pool-shark days with your reprobate father, she thought.