Arctic Rising Read Online Free

well due to something as simple as running out of fuel.
    She could hear Michel let out a deep breath. “We have two cutters headed out at top speed for the area. We’ve put out an alert for the Kosatka . Five airplanes, two airships, and the Canadian Navy and U.S. have been updated. We’re looking over a recent satellite scan of the area. We will find and catch up to these assholes.”
    “Thank you, sir. If you hear anything more about Tom, please call this number back.”
    She handed the satphone back over, and Jen exchanged it for some faded blue jeans, a garish neon yellow t-shirt, and a thick, beige Carhartt jacket. “You’re about five eleven?” Jen asked.
    Anika nodded. “Five ten…”
    “Those’ll fit you well enough.” She shook her head. “You’re damn lucky we were out here.”
    Anika pulled them on, loving the feel of warm cloth against her skin. They’d almost died. Then almost been rammed. Then frozen. She felt numb, not just physically, but mentally.
    And exhausted.
    But she had enough energy now to remember to ask for her uniform. She unzipped the shoulder pocket and found the backup from the scatter camera. She slipped it into her new jeans.
    The ferry was on its way to Thule’s floating assemblage of old tankers, barges, and laced-together ice islands at the Pole. There they’d offload goods in the hold and workers for Gaia, Inc., a multinational company with interests in carbon mitigation. For now, though, they’d remain in place until help could get to Anika.
    Fifteen minutes later she was out in the whipping cold of the rotor wash of another helicopter, into the rescue basket, and then being winched up.
    As one of the chopper crew busied himself getting an IV in her arm, Anika stared out at the gray sea and the bright evening sky to the west of them.
    That’s where the Kosatka was, somewhere out there over the curve of the horizon.
    Another chapter of her life had just slammed shut, Anika realized, as anger gelled inside of her. A chapter of routine, calm, and knowing what each day would hold. A peaceful chapter. A good chapter.
    But that was over.

 
    5
    Tom’s wife, Jenny, leapt up from a padded bench near a nurse’s station at the Nanisivik Hospital and grabbed Anika in a fierce hug. Her small hands gripped the back of Anika’s jacket. “Oh my God,” she said. “They said you were okay. I kept thinking, if Tom’s spent the same amount of time in the water as you, maybe they weren’t telling me everything.”
    Anika squeezed her back. Having Jenny as a friend was like having a hyperactive, overly eager-to-please, little white sister. But it was okay. Jenny and Tom were the closest things Anika had to family out here in the Polar Circle. Anika was slow to make friends, a casualty of the last ten years spent hiring her services out as a pilot. She kept to herself and kept others at a distance, as she was going to leave anyone she met in a few months when she hopped off to a different job. And maybe a part of the fact that being distant came so naturally to her was due to the violent early years before she earned her first chances to pilot. Back when she’d always had to carry a gun. “I think his suit got water in it. I got off easier.”
    “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
    They hugged again. Anika got a mouthful of Jenny’s blond curls. Then she pulled back and looked Jenny in the eye. “And Tom?”
    “He’s peeing into a jug right now, made me leave the room,” she said.
    “He’s awake? He’s okay?” Anika felt the hundred pounds of anxiousness that had been clinging to her drop away.
    Relief prickled at her.
    Jenny nodded. “He’s really tired. But he’s talking.” Her translucent green eyes teared, and she wiped at them with a sleeve. “I’m sorry.”
    Anika shook her head. “Sorry? You have nothing to apologize for.”
    Jenny rubbed her upper arms nervously, her sweater sleeves flopping about. “I don’t understand how you can be so calm. Anika: they