Trenchard frowned. He looked thoughtful. Marina’s pulse rattled away as she held her breath. But then he shook his head and Miss Smith shrugged, defeated.
‘I thought not.’ She stood up, shoulders squared in determination. ‘We must find the Commander. Before he can do any harm.’ She took Marina by the elbow. ‘Help me, Marina. We have to find him. Perhaps you can reason with him and convince him to give up his treachery, help him to fight for the right side.’
‘What will you do with him?’ Marina said. ‘If you find him.’ It was clear that her father had done something very serious and very wrong. ‘Will you put him in prison?’ She couldn’t bear to be the person who helped Miss Smith find him if it meant he would be locked away, possibly for years.
Miss Smith’s face creased in anguish. ‘Prison?’ She pulled Marina towards the door. ‘He will be sentenced within the hour of his capture. He’ll be shot moments later. It’s the punishment for all traitors. Oh, don’t look at me that way. You scare me.’
‘You can’t! You mustn’t . . . He’s a good man . . .’
‘If only we can find him – stop him before he does something we all regret.’
‘Will that help him?’
‘I promise –’ Miss Smith held both of Marina’s hands tightly in hers. Her eyes flashed. Marina smelled a heavy perfume of gardenias. ‘If you will help me find him before he wrecks my signals equipment – as heaven is my witness, I swear to you that I will stand before the judge and beg for his life.’
30
Outside the hut, men in white hooded jackets trimmed with fur were harnessing dog teams to sledges. Others were carrying skis and rifles. Beams of light lanced down from watchtowers. The wail of a siren. Miss Smith, holding Marina tight by the hand, ran across the snow, dodging the men. Those who realized who she was stood smartly to attention.
‘They’re sending out more men to find him,’ she cried over the wind. ‘Pray that we find him first.’
Trenchard was already waiting for them at the door to a small hut. Paddy had run after him and stood at his feet, panting.
Why were they going to that small hut? Her father would hardly be hiding there! Why were they wasting time?
Trenchard stepped in front of them and opened the door to reveal a metal grille, which he swung across, the metal screaming.
‘Hurry,’ Miss Smith cried. ‘Into the lift. We will get to the transmitter quicker underground. I think that must be where your father has gone. He thinks he can still complete his mission.’
Trenchard swung the grille shut and in the next second the cage shivered and shook and started to drop slowly through the ice. Marina willed it to move more quickly. Her father was in danger!
Some moments later, the cage door was opened and they stepped out into an ice cave as long and as high as a cathedral. This space was illuminated by vast glass lanterns suspended from the carved arched ceiling on thick metal chains. In front of them, the entrances to a baffling number of ice passages branched off in every direction.
That there should be a whole network of tunnels beneath the ice: how would they ever find her father?
But Miss Smith did not hesitate. ‘He will be at the transmitter station. That’s half a mile yet. Can you manage, Marina?’ Marina nodded. ‘Well, come – and quickly. We don’t have much time.’
They ran at speed through seemingly endless ice passages. Marina’s thoughts battled to catch up with her feet. Only now could she begin to think about what Miss Smith had told her. But her chaotic thoughts made no sense: her father was no traitor. The woman must be wrong. But still, to excavate all these tunnels, the Admiralty must be doing something up here that was of great importance. Why did her father think he could break in and destroy their transmitter? Was he really working for the enemy? Oh, why couldn’t Miss Smith have stopped her father before he left London if she really suspected him? It seemed beyond cruel to allow a man to attempt a crime that could have been stopped. And why? So he could be arrested and shot as a traitor? And what sort of man must Trenchard be, to spy on his fellow sailors? Didn’t that make him just as treacherous?
Paddy ran just ahead of her, his gait smooth, his breathing regular. If only she had her sledge, they would have raced along.
The walls flickered with blue and silver lights: gases trapped inside the ice. What had the gases been called in the glass phials that powered the bird of ill omen? Philium and sentium. Very rare. How had the Mordavians got hold of such substances? Did they have their own supply? But Marina couldn’t think of that now. Her legs hurt. The ice groaned. Marina’s lungs burned with the effort of running. Oh, let them find her father before he was discovered. She would make Miss Smith understand that he was a good man. Mistaken, perhaps, but not someone who would ever do anything that would harm anyone.
Just as Marina thought that her legs or her lungs might give out, she caught the sharp tang of salt air. But they were meant to be going to a transmitter station, not the sea!
Miss Smith stopped running and put her finger to her mouth to show that they must be quiet. They crept forward, Marina holding her breath.
Ahead, at the mouth of the tunnel, a man-made ice jetty extended into a dimly lit cavern. Black seawater lapped at the icy walls.
This was not a transmitter station, and there was no transmitter to be seen. Had Miss Smith taken the wrong tunnel? Would they have to run back and start to look for her father in
