Outpost H311 Read online

  Copyright 2018 Sara Jayne Townsend

  Sara Jayne Townsend has asserted her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or other-wise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover designed by G.S. Parker from KGHH Design

  Published by KGHH Publishing 2018

  OUTPOST H311

  By Sara Jayne Townsend

  Contents

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MORE BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  DEDICATION

  For Frankie

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The process of creating this book was long and arduous, and there are several people without whom it might never have come into existence.

  Firstly, thanks to my husband, Chris Harlow. We both work long hours at the day job, and quite often communicate by email more often than we actually speak to each other. Sometimes he emails me news articles he thinks I might be interested in. One day he sent me a link to a news story with a message saying, ‘how about this for a story idea?’. The story was about a hidden Nazi base in the Arctic that had recently been discovered. My writer’s brain seized on this and asked ‘what if?’. And the initial germ of an idea was born. Chris also offered invaluable advice on the subject of World War 2-era German planes and weapons, these being things I didn’t know much about. At least I didn’t until I started writing this novel. And he advised me on what essential things the hidden Arctic base needed to have, which made it twice the size I had originally envisaged, to the point that I had to draw a map to keep with me during my writing so that I could remember what was where as my characters explored the base.

  I do most of my writing in a coffee shop before going to the day job, sustaining myself with tea and muffins as I work out my plot. Thanks are due to the staff of Caffe Nero on Kingsway in Holborn, Central London, which is where I wrote most of this novel. One day when I was having a particularly disorganised morning and found myself late for work I ended up inadvertently leaving my base map in the coffee shop. After fretting all day and night I went back the following morning and asked if any papers had been found. The staff cheerfully handed over my map, which they had found and kept safe for me. If my map had been lost forever the novel might never have been finished, and I owe them big for that one. I also felt that after its adventures the map deserved inclusion in the book.

  I’d also like to thank the Bruce family, Paul, Angela and Frankie, for being the wonderful friends that they are and for making so many good memories with us over the years, including holidays, science fiction conventions, Welsh castles, and Nazi zombie films. Especially the latter.

  Finally, thanks to my publisher, Graeme Parker and editor, Mia Zielinska, for making this a much better book. It’s been a bit of a journey, but we got there in the end, folks. Thank you.

  CHAPTER 1

  The plane rocked violently. Stowed bags lurched into the aisle. From somewhere at the back of the DH6-6 Twin Otter, someone screamed.

  “What the hell’s going on?” demanded Nathan Price, a tall, thin-faced man with thinning hair and a permanently sour expression.

  The pilot, Andres Larsen, muttered some choice Nordic curses and said, “The storm. Everyone strap in. We are in for bumpy ride.”

  “I thought you said you were going to go around the storm,” Nathan snapped.

  “Storm is too big,” said Andres. “Hold on. I will do my best.”

  Ellen Palmer hastily shoved the National Geographic she’d been reading into her seat pocket and did up her seatbelt just as the plane lurched downwards. Her stomach rose up and she swallowed hard, worried that the tuna salad sandwich she’d eaten two hours ago was about to reappear. She wasn’t usually bothered by air sickness. But then, she’d never been on such a small plane in a violent storm. She stared out the window, trying to identify geographic masses to take her mind off her roiling stomach.

  There was very little to see. For the last hour the clouds had gone from grey to black and now the plane seemed to be flying straight through the middle of a cloud formation. The plane had been flying above clouds for most of the journey from Norway, which had begun nearly three hours earlier. Ellen had started the journey excitedly peering out the window, trying to get a glimpse of land and ice formations in the Arctic ocean, but after a while of being able to view nothing but dull grey clouds she had got bored and resorted to reading to pass the time. As she looked out the window now, a bolt of lightning lit up the angry sky and the driving rain buffeting the plane. The lightning strike had been close to the aircraft. Ellen wondered uneasily if it was possible for an airborne plane to be struck by lightning and what would happen if it was. Her speciality involved what happened on the ground, not in the air.

  Daniel Jenner, her American counterpart from the Texas office of OLKON Energy hunched over in his seat, groaning and throwing up into an air sickness bag.

  “Are you OK?” Ellen asked.

  Daniel looked up as he folded over the top of the bag, his face white. “Just peachy.”

  The plane lurched forward and dropped a few more feet. An insistent beeping noise emitted from the plane controls. Andres slapped at them and muttered savagely in Norwegian. Nathan leaned forward, straining on the seatbelt. “What’s wrong now?”

  “We have lost the radar,” Andres said.

  “So we don’t know where we’re going?”

  “I do not know how to get out of storm. I think we have to make emergency landing.”

  “Emergency landing where?” Nathan demanded.

  “I do not know. I have lost radar.”

  Out of the window, another lightning strike illuminated the sky. From her vantage point, Ellen saw it strike the engine at the end of the wing. The engine started smoking, and a moment later flames trailed from it. The plane plummeted again and started a nosedive.

  Ellen screamed. Everyone around her screamed.

  “We are going down!” Andres yelled. “Everyone please adopt brace position!”

  Ellen bent forward and clasped her hands to the back of her head. She closed her eyes, doing her best to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach and the painful popping in her ears. It had been a long time since she’d given any thought to theolo
gy. She hadn’t believed in any kind of god for many years. The more she learned about science, the less likely it had seemed that there was some all-powerful deity in the sky somewhere controlling things. The concept was illogical, just a way for ruling classes to control the population the way parents told stories to their children to make them behave.

  But Ellen’s grandmother on her mother’s side had been Irish and staunchly Catholic, and every time Ellen had visited her as a child, she’d been taken to Mass and made to say her prayers before bed. If she’d ever been naughty her grandmother, diminutive in stature but large in personality, had glared at her with folded arms and said haughtily, “God sees you, so He does, and His judgement means more than mine.”

  It was her grandmother’s face in Ellen’s mind now as she found herself praying to the God she didn’t believe in. Oh please, I don’t want to die. If I live through this I promise I’ll start going to church again.

  Acrid smoke seeped into the cabin as the fire in the stricken engine spread. A horrible high-pitched whine joined the chorus of screams. The plane rapidly descended, lurching back and forth as it was buffeted by winds. Anything not strapped down flew through the cabin – handbags, wallets, phones, tablets. An iPad crashed into Daniel’s armrest. Its screen smashed. Glass sprayed. People were crying, praying, wailing. Ellen could not differentiate the voices; they all merged together in a horrible cacophony.

  The suspense became unbearable. Ellen risked raising her head to see what was going on. In the pilot’s seat, Andres yelled and struggled with the controls. Beyond him, the black clouds had parted for a view of ice and snow that rapidly grew closer. The plane raced along, smoke from the fire trailing from both sides.

  Land was only a few feet below them. Ellen put her head back down and prayed again for a long-lost God to save her.

  The impact came: a thunderous bang, screech of metal. Ellen’s jaw snapped shut, her knees slammed into her face. Blood filled her mouth. She slipped into darkness.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ellen was running down a long, dark tunnel. She was dogged by the uneasy feeling that there was something behind her and that if only she could reach the end of the tunnel she would be safe. Far ahead there was a glimmer of light and safety. Ellen ran on, ignoring the pain in her side, towards that faint glimmer of light. Behind her she was aware of a dark mass moving quickly. She could hear ragged breathing, heavy footsteps thudding on the damp ground. Moving faster.

  She didn’t dare look behind her. She tried to run faster, but the pain crippled her. The light ahead was close now, but the thing behind her was even closer. And then there was something holding her back, something gripping her legs, forcing them to stop moving...

  Ellen swam back to consciousness, disoriented and confused. She couldn’t remember where she was. A blast of snow rushed past her face. Howling wind. Human wailing.

  Then she remembered. The plane had been going down.

  The front half of the plane was several feet in front of her, nearly obscured by a blizzard of snow and ice. The window next to her had shattered. She could see nothing outside it now but swirling snow, dislodged and churned up from the impact. The wing she had been looking out at during the flight had gone, shorn off during the crash.

  Beside her, Daniel was still in his seat. He was awake but white-faced and moaning. A large piece of twisted metal had skewered diagonally through the cabin. It pinned Daniel’s left leg to the ground.

  As reason seeped back into her addled brain, Ellen decided her first priority should be to establish if she herself was injured. She could move her head, her arms and her legs, but she couldn’t stand up. Then she realised that the seatbelt still held her in place. The pain in her side that had been plaguing her in her dream was still with her. She looked down to see a shard of glass sticking out of her jacket. She was wearing several layers of cold-weather clothing, and she didn’t think the glass had penetrated too deeply. She took a deep breath, gripped the shard of glass, and pulled it hard. It revealed a hole in her jacket and a small circle of blood staining the layer beneath, but it didn’t seem to be a serious injury. She pressed her right hand hard to the puncture to try to encourage the wound to clot.

  “Hurts,” Daniel wailed beside her. “Oh God.”

  Ellen reached out with her left hand, and put it on his arm. “Take it easy. “We’ll get you out of there as soon as we can.”

  She tried to see what was going on in the back of the plane. She craned her neck to see Nathan Price, the finance guy, rocking back and forth. “Oh god, we’re all going to die,” he wailed. “I never wanted to come on this stupid mission, I’m just an accountant. I’m not an Arctic explorer. But when the Big Cheese asks you personally, says you’re the only one he trusts to keep an eye on the expenditure, you don’t say no. And he hinted I might be up for the FD post when he retires in a couple of years. I didn’t want to come, but how could I say no to that? And now we’re all going to die!”

  A bulky figure appeared in Ellen’s sight line – the American marine, Jake, hired by the corporation to accompany the mission because he was an expert in extreme weather survival. With him, maybe they actually had a chance of surviving this.

  “Can you all just shut up a minute?” Jake bellowed. “We need to establish our situation. Who is wounded?” He leaned over Ellen and Daniel. “How are you folks doing here?”

  Ellen shifted her hand on her side. “I had some glass stuck in me, but I don’t think it’s serious.”

  “How about I take a look and confirm that?”

  “Look at Daniel first,” Ellen said. “I think he’s pinned.”

  Jake examined the bar pinning Daniel’s leg and then looked back at Ellen. “Let’s get you out of there first. Can you walk?”

  Ellen fumbled with the seatbelt’s buckle but it wouldn’t undo. “The seatbelt’s stuck.”

  “Hold on.” Jake produced a wicked-looking knife, leaned over and sawed at the seat belt strap. It fell away. “Climb over the seat back,” Jake said and held out his hand to help Ellen to stand.

  Jake’s calloused hand was strong and firm and offered comforting support, but her legs trembled.

  Jake inspected the wound in her side, parting layers of fabric for a closer look. “It’s not serious,” he said. “Go sit down back there and keep applying pressure.”

  Ellen lowered herself into one of the seats at the back of the plane, sheltered from the storm raging through the gap in the cabin. She felt dizzy. She pressed her hand to her injury, making a point of not looking down. Jake was stooped over Daniel, inspecting the piece of metal holding him down. He barked an order to two able-bodied men – the engineer, David and the camera man, Pete – to help him. Between the three of them, they managed to dislodge the bar pinning Daniel.

  Jake picked Daniel up in a fireman’s lift and hefted him out of his seat, gruffly ordering the other two to clear a space in the aisle for the injured man.

  Even from where she was sitting Ellen saw that Daniel’s leg was badly broken. His hiking pants were soaked in blood and shredded. A shard of bone poked through the flesh halfway up his thigh. He was wailing in pain, which at least proved he was still conscious.

  With Daniel settled in the aisle, Jake looked back at the survivors huddled at the back of the plane. “OK we’ve got a man with a broken leg, but I don’t think we’ve got any other injuries.”

  “Shouldn’t we be trying to get out of the plane?” Nathan said.

  “With the blizzard raging outside we’re safer in here.” Jake had to shout to be heard over the racket of the storm ripping through the hole in the plane.”

  “What if it explodes?”

  “The fuel tank is intact,” Jake said. “It’s not going to explode.”

  “We all clearly saw the flames in the engine as the plane was going down,” Nathan said.

  Jake glared at Nathan. “The engine on the right-hand wing did catch fire. But that wing fell off the plane before it came down and is currently burning
away a good five miles away from the crash site. What we have now is a fuselage in two pieces, but there’s no danger of anything else catching fire. The other engine is still intact. Once the blizzard dies down we can take stock of where we are, but for now we’ve got a better chance of survival if we shelter from the storm. Though I would advise everyone to wear as many layers as possible for warmth.”

  The project manager, Allison Brewer, said, “All of our luggage is in the hold.” Allison’s name had been the only one on the list of team members that Ellen had recognised. She was a good ten years older than Ellen, a tall and somewhat imposing woman Ellen had seen on occasion in the corridors at Head Office. She always wore sharply tailored suits, two-inch high heels and had her brown hair forever pulled back in a severe bun. In truth, Ellen had always found her slightly intimidating. Things were different now, of course. Allison looked as scared as everyone else, and tendrils of her hair had escaped from the ever-present bun.

  “We’ll try and get to that as soon as the storm dies down. For now, stay together. We need to find the first aid kit.”

  “On it,” called out an Asian woman in her late thirties. She was rummaging around in boxes stored at the back of the plane. She was the documentary maker, Ellen recalled, doing a feature on how climate change was affecting the polar ice caps. Ellen didn’t know how she’d managed to persuade the energy company to let her and her camera man tag along on the exploration mission, but somehow she had. What was her name?

  “Now is anyone missing?” Jake asked.

  Ellen looked around at the frightened faces huddled together in the rear of the fractured cabin. These were all the people assigned to the project, a joint venture between the UK and American offices of OLKON Energy. Herself and Daniel, the geologists. Allison, the project manager. David, the engineer. Nathan, the finance guy. Jake, the Arctic survival expert. The film maker and her camera man. A feeling of dread gripped Ellen as she realised someone was missing. “Where’s the pilot? Where’s Andres?”