Beneath the Ice Read Online Free

flight was,’ Luca said.
    ‘Weird, isn’t it?’ his friend replied, with a thin smile. ‘I get motion sickness from just about every form of transport and there I go, choosing a job in the bloody Foreign Office. You’d have thought I might have opted for something with a bit less travel as part of the job description.’
    Luca didn’t respond, his mind still preoccupied by Bates’ unannounced visit. In all the time they had known each other, Bates had only ever come to see him for a reason, and already Luca was trying to guess what it might be. But as he stared into his old school friend’s face, he was struck by how much Bates had changed. He looked softer, paunchier.
    When they had first met, Kieran Bates had been obsessive about martial arts and his body had borne the hallmarks of strict training. He had been supple and lean, with explosively fast reactions. Now, he looked every ounce the drab office worker, beaten down by life and the daily commute. But as Luca studied him more closely, he wondered if there wasn’t perhaps something more deliberate about this change in his friend. Anonymity was an attribute highly prized in Bates’ line of work.
    ‘You’re looking well,’ Luca lied.
    ‘I look fat. But at least I’ve seen the inside of a shower room in the last month. You, my old friend, smell like the arse end of a donkey,’ Bates replied while idly scratching his thinning hair. ‘Still, I guess there aren’t too many ladies to impress around here – aside from Miss November over there.’
    Luca’s eyes flicked to the
FHM
poster on the wall. He had passed it hundreds of times, but would never have been able to say what edition it was. Bates had always been like that. He had a photographic memory and could remember even the most spurious details of their childhood years.
    ‘So how have you been keeping?’ Bates offered, his smile widening.
    Luca shrugged. ‘Come on, Norm, we’ve known each other for far too long. You didn’t come all this way to check up on me.’
    ‘Fair enough. Same old Luca – straight to the point.’
    Dragging the neighbouring armchair a little closer, Bates hitched up his suit trousers and perched on the edge.
    ‘The truth is,’ he said, ‘there’s been an incident. A couple of scientists out in Antarctica got themselves trapped in a crevasse last week. Messy business. They had to cut them out with a damn blowtorch. The closest one to a guide in the whole group was a man named Sommers. They found him with all the skin stripped off his fingers from where he’d tried to claw his way out.’
    He looked to Luca for a reaction, but his expression remained blank.
    ‘You see, the scientists were drilling into this lake – a very special lake. Nearly two miles under the surface of the ice, they’ve found
unfrozen
seawater. It’s been there for nearly twenty million years, with all sorts of lost enzymes and bacteria locked within.’ Bates crunched his fists together as if trying to trap the water in his own hands. ‘Imagine it, Luca! Bacteria that was around when the world just began.’
    ‘Bacteria?’ Luca repeated. ‘Since when did you give a shit about bacteria?’
    ‘Don’t knock the little stuff. Life’s in the detail. Aside from finding unknown microbes, drilling down that low tells you exactly what the atmosphere was like all those years ago. Kind of important if you want to prove whether climate change is man-made or not.’
    Luca’s eyes passed over the ceiling of the canteen as if encompassing the entire oil rig.
    ‘You need to drill into an Antarctic lake to tell you that?’
    Bates ignored him, leaning forward in his seat.
    ‘Four different nations have pooled their resources and come together on this project. We’ve been at it for three years now. And this January, the Russian team finally succeeded in drilling into the lake.’ Bates shook his head in disbelief. ‘Drunken sods actually made it on schedule. Then it was supposed to be the British