Ice Hunt

“All of them?” she asked, daunted.

“Just some key sections. I must know if we have the right books.”

Amanda had been following their discussion intently. “To ensure the research data is secure.”

Craig nodded, barely hearing her, glancing down at the book in Je

Edgy from all that had happened, Je

Amanda remained still, then gave the tiniest shake of her head.

No.

Viktor Petkov enjoyed the look of surprise on the prisoner’s face. He was so sick of Americans blithely ignoring their own histories, their own atrocities, while vilifying the same actions among other governments. The hypocrisy sickened him.

“Bullshit. There’s no way this is an American base,” the man insisted. “I’ve crawled all through here. Everything’s written in Russian.”

“That’s because, Mr. Pike, the discovery here in the Arctic was our own. The Russian government refused to allow you Americans to steal what we found. To claim all the glory.” He waved a hand. “But we did allow the United States to fund and oversee the research.”

“This was a joint project?”

A nod.

“We put up the dough, and you spent it.”

“Your government supplied more than just money.” Viktor pulled the small boy onto his knee. The boy leaned into him, sleepy, seeking the solace of the familiar. Viktor stared over to the American. “You supplied the research subjects.”

A horrified expression widened the man’s eyes as understanding dawned. His gaze took in the boy in his lap. “Impossible. We would never take part in such actions. It goes against everything the United States stands for.”

Viktor educated him. “In 1936, a crack unit of the United States Army was dropped near Lake Anjikuni. They emptied a remote village. Every man, woman, and child.” He stroked the boy’s hair. “They even collected dead bodies, preserved in frozen graves, as comparative research material for the project. Who would miss a few isolated Eskimos?”

“I don’t believe it. We wouldn’t participate in human experiments.”

“And you truly believe this?”

Pike glared, defiant.

“Your government has a long history of using those citizens it considers less desirable as research subjects. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Two hundred black men with syphilis are used as unwitting research subjects. They are not told of their disease and treatment is withheld from them so that your American researchers could study how painfully and horribly these men would die.”

The prisoner had the decency to glance down. “That was back in the thirties. A long time ago.”

“It didn’t stop in the thirties,” Viktor corrected him. “Nineteen-forty, Chicago. Four hundred prisoners are intentionally sickened with malaria so experimental drugs could be evaluated. It was this very experiment that the Nazis used later to justify their own atrocities during the Holocaust.”

“You can’t compare that to what the Nazis did. We condemned the Nazis’ actions and prosecuted all of them.”

“Then how do you justify Project Paperclip?”

The man frowned.

“Your intelligence branches recruited Nazi scientists, offering them asylum and new identities, in exchange for their employment into top-secret projects. And it wasn’t just the German scientists. In 1995, your own government admitted doing the same to Japanese war criminals, those who had firsthand involvement with human experimentation on your own soldiers.”

By now, the color had drained from Pike’s face. He stared at the Inuit boy, begi

“Exactly.” Viktor lifted his hands. “When do you think this base was built?”

Pike simply shook his head.

“And don’t delude yourself that such secret experimentation upon your own people was ancient history, something to be dismissed. In the fifties and sixties, it is well documented that your CIA and Department of Defense sprayed biological and chemical agents over major U.S. cities. Including spreading mosquitoes infected with yellow fever over cities in Georgia and Florida, then sending in Army scientists as public health officials to test the unwitting victims. The list goes on and on: LSD experiments, radiation exposure tests, nerve-gas development, biological research. It is going on right now in your own backyards…to your own people. Does it still surprise you it was done here?”

The man had no answer. He stared, trembling slightly — whether from his recent near drowning in the Arctic Ocean or from the truth of what really had gone on here, it didn’t matter.

Viktor’s voice deepened. “And you judge my father. Someone forced at gunpoint into service here, torn away from his family…” Viktor had to choke back his anger and bile. It had taken him years to forgive his father — not for the atrocities committed at the station, but for abandoning his family. Understanding had come only much later. He could expect no less from the man seated before him. In fact, he didn’t know why he was even trying. Was he still trying to justify what happened here to himself? Had he truly forgiven his father?

He stared into the face of the boy on his lap. His voice grew tired, fingers waved. “Take him away,” he called to the guard. “I have no further use for this man.”

The motion startled the little boy. A tiny hand raised to a cheek. “Papa,” he said in Russian. The child had imprinted to him like a gosling after first hatching.

But Viktor knew it was more than that. He knew what the child must think. Viktor still had a few worn pictures of his father. He knew now how much he looked like his father did. Same white hair. Same ice-gray eyes. He even wore his hair like the last picture of his father. For the boy, fresh from his frozen slumber, no time had passed. He awoke to find the son had become the father. No difference to the boy.

Viktor touched the child’s face. These eyes looked upon my father. These hands touched him. Viktor felt a deep bond with the child. His father must have cared for the boy to engender such clear affection. How could he do any less? He ran a finger along one cheek. After losing all his family, he had finally found a co

Practicing a smile, the boy spoke to him, softly. It was not Russian. He didn’t understand.

The American did. “He’s speaking Inuit.” Pike had stopped by the door, held at gunpoint, staring back.

Viktor crinkled his forehead. “What…what did he say?”

The man stepped back into the room. He leaned toward the boy, bowing down a bit. “Kinauvit?”

The child brightened, sitting straighter and turning to Pike. “Makivik…Maki!”

The man glanced to Viktor. “I asked him his name. It is Makivik, but he goes simply by Maki.”

Viktor pushed a wisp of hair from his face. “Maki.” He tried the name and liked it. It fit the boy.

The child reached up and pulled a lank of his own hair. “Nanuq.” This was followed by a giggle.

“Polar bear,” the prisoner translated. “From the color of your hair.”

“Like my father,” Viktor said.

Pike stared between them. “He mistakes you for your father?”

Viktor nodded. “I don’t believe he knows how much time has passed.”

Maki, now with an audience, chattered blearily, rubbing an eye.

Pike frowned.

“What did he say?” Viktor asked.

“He said that he thought you were supposed to still be sleeping.”

“Sleeping?”