East of Desolation

East of Desolation
Jack Higgins

Classic adventure from the undisputed master of action and adrenalin-pumping suspense.When a plane crashes in the icy Greenland desert with no passengers on board, and no means of identification, Joe Martin is hired to fly to the scene of the crash by the insurance company involved and the beautiful widow of the dead pilot. But the routine mission spirals into hair-raising suspense when a priceless batch of emeralds are added to the mystery, and suddenly Joe finds himself in mortal danger.

EAST OF DESOLATION

JACK HIGGINS

Copyright (#u51c2e289-5a22-5f0b-9f6d-75850883424f)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HARPER

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)

First published in Great Britain by Hodder and Stoughton 1968

Copyright © Jack Higgins 1968

Harry Patterson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007223701

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007290420

Version: 2016-10-25

Contents

Title Page (#u6d247711-3abb-5258-9170-9f9433b18b9b)Copyright (#ua6823ae3-b50f-59c1-9327-36fc29ac228c)Dedication (#u96ce3caf-42b8-588f-9312-78b6b2b69891)Publisher’s Note (#u0a11d459-0727-53e6-8ee9-be3046395945)Chapter One (#ud34a9203-eed0-5d2e-9db3-e84f57de31e5)Chapter Two (#u8f148c02-bd88-550f-b18e-459430512a87)Chapter Three (#u9cf59da3-ad8c-52ab-8474-9e81943c3300)Chapter Four (#u47ab814d-ddec-5640-87cc-cd6670edc2a1)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)Also By Jack Higgins (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PUBLISHER’S NOTE (#u51c2e289-5a22-5f0b-9f6d-75850883424f)

EAST OF DESOLATION was first published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton in 1968. It was later published in paperback by Coronet but has been out of print for several years.

In 2006, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a good story languishing on his shelves. So we are delighted to be able to bring back EAST OF DESOLATION for the pleasure of the vast majority of us who never had a chance to read the earlier editions.

For Arnold Spector – good friend

1 (#u51c2e289-5a22-5f0b-9f6d-75850883424f)

I brought the plane in low over the sea and took her up to three thousand as land appeared and beyond, through the harsh white moonlight, the Greenland ice-cap gleamed like a string of pearls.

East from Cape Desolation the Julianehaab Bight was full of smoky mist indicating no wind to speak of and certainly nothing more than five knots, which was something. At least it gave me a chance of dropping into the valley at the head of the fjord. Not much of a one, but better than staying here.

It was cold in the cabin with the night wind streaming in through the splintered windscreen and the lighted dials on the instrument panel were confusing in their multiplicity, occasionally merging together in a meaningless blur.

And then, on the far side of the mist the waters of the fjord gleamed silvery white in the intense light and the strange twisted moonscape rolled towards the ice-cap, every feature etched razor-sharp.

It was time to go. I reduced speed, put the auto pilot in control and unbuckled my safety belt. When I turned, he was there as he always was, the head disembodied in the light from the instrument panel, eyes fixed, staring into eternity as he lolled back in the co-pilot’s seat.

I moved into the darkness of the cabin and stumbled, falling to one knee, my outstretched hand touching the cold, ice-hard face of the other, and panic seized me as it always did and it was as if I couldn’t breathe as I lurched through the darkness and clawed at the quick release handles on the exit hatch.

It fell away into the night and I stepped into space without hesitation, aware of the intense cold, feeling strangely free. I seemed to somersault in slow motion and for a single moment saw the plane above me in the night drifting steadily eastwards like some dark ghost and then I reached for the ring to open my chute and it wasn’t there and I gave one single despairing cry that was swept away into the night as I plunged into darkness.

I usually only got the dream when I was overtired or depressed, but it always left me in the same state – soaked in sweat and shaking like a leaf. I lay there looking up at the ceiling for a while, then flung aside the bedclothes and padded across to the window. When I rubbed the condensation away a fine morning greeted me.

I was flying out of Frederiksborg that year, Godthaab the capital having got just a little too civilised for comfort. It was a small place about two hundred miles below the Arctic Circle on the south-west coast. The population couldn’t have been more than fifteen hundred, but during the short summer season it was artificially inflated by the influx of two or three hundred construction workers from Denmark who were engaged in building rather ugly three-storied blocks of concrete flats as part of the government development programme.

But Frederiksborg, like most places on the Greenland coast, still had the look of a raw pioneering town, the mushroom growth of some gold or silver strike. The roads were unsurfaced and most of the town was scattered over a peninsula of solid rock. The houses were made of wood and painted red, yellow and green, and because of the rock foundations everything went overhead and telephone and electric cables festooned the air from a forest of poles.

The harbour was half a mile away at the end of a rocky road beside the new canning factory and contained half a dozen fishing boats, a Catalina flying boat used by East Canada Airways for coastal traffic, and my own Otter Amphibian which was parked on dry land at the head of the concrete slipway.

It was almost ten o’clock and I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. There was a quick knock on the outside door and I wrapped a towel around my waist and returned to the bedroom.

Gudrid Rasmussen looked in. ‘You are ready for coffee, Mr Martin?’ she said in Danish.

She was a small, rather hippy girl of twenty-five or so, a Greenlander born and bred, mainly Danish by blood which showed in the fair hair plaited around her head, with just a touch of Eskimo in the high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes. Most of the year she spent housekeeping for her grandfather on his sheep farm at Sandvig about a hundred miles down the coast, but during the summer she worked as a chambermaid at the hotel.

‘Make it tea this morning, Gudrid,’ I said, ‘I’m feeling nostalgic.’

She shook her head in reproof. ‘You look awful. Too much work is not good for a man.’

Before I could reply the sound of an aeroplane engine shattered the stillness of the morning and I went to the window in time to see an Aermacchi flip neatly in across the harbour and drop flaps to land on the airstrip beyond the canning factory.

‘Here comes your boy friend.’

‘Arnie?’ There was a touch of colour in her cheeks as she crossed to the window. ‘Any girl is Arnie’s girl, Mr Martin. I hold no special rights.’

It would have been pointless to try and pretend otherwise and we stood there together for a moment in silence watching the wheels come down beneath the skis with which the Aermacchi was fitted.

‘I thought he was going to take those off and put his floats back on,’ I said.

‘The skis?’ She shrugged. ‘He’s got an extension of his service contract with the American mining company at Malamusk on the edge of the ice-cap. Up there the only place to land is the snow-field.’

His landing was good – not excellent, but then we all have our off-days. The Aermacchi rolled along the airstrip and disappeared from view behind the canning factory.

Gudrid smiled brightly. ‘I’ll bring your tea while you have a shower, then I’ll order breakfast for you. I’ll change the bed later.’

The door closed behind her and I went back into the bathroom and got under the shower. It was nice and hot and very relaxing and after a while my headache started to go, which was a good thing considering that I had a two and a half hour flight ahead of me. I pulled on my old silk dressing gown and went back into the bedroom towelling my hair briskly. In my absence, Gudrid had brought in a tray and the tea, when I poured it, was scalding. I finished the first cup and was pouring another when the door burst open and Arnie Fassberg blew in.