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shirt off the back of the chair.
    “That’s what I figured you’d say.” Gabriel slid his arms back into the shirtsleeves. “How would you fly into Antarctica anyway? Christchurch to McMurdo, and then inland from there?”
    “For heaven’s sake, Gabriel,” Michael said. “Surely you’re not considering—”
    Gabriel buttoned his shirt and grabbed his jacket. “Considering it? Of course I’m not considering it,” Gabriel said, and Michael sighed with relief. It was short-lived.
    “I’ve decided,” Gabriel said.

Chapter 6
    The Christchurch pub where Gabriel had arranged to meet the other members of the expedition was—prophetically?—called the Hot Spot and had a jaunty hellfire theme featuring buxom cartoon devil girls and lurid flames on the black walls. The clientele was about a third Kiwi locals and two-thirds Antarctic researchers and McMurdo support staff, either on the way in or on the way out. The ones on the way in were quiet and thoughtful, savoring their last Guinness on tap while working up the nerve to face the killing cold, darkness and isolation of the coming Antarctic winter. The ones on the way out were scruffy, unkempt and pale as the ice they’d just left behind, except for masks of peeling pink sunburn that outlined the shape of now-absent goggles. They were also, without exception, falling-down drunk.
    When Gabriel entered, he could see the pub’s inhabitants trying to size him up, attempting to fit him into one of the three categories and failing. He was searching through the curious, occasionally hostile faces, looking for his people, when he overheard the tail end of a loud conversation about a Harley chopper the guytalking had had extensively customized by some celebrity mechanic with his own TV show and air-shipped over from the States. The proud owner was going on and on about all the special expensive features of his brand-new toy and Gabriel smiled slightly to himself. If Rue Aparecido was anywhere within earshot, there would be no way she’d be able to keep out of that conversation.
    Sure enough, just as Gabriel spotted the heavily tattooed Kiwi biker who was boasting loudly about his recent acquisition, he heard Rue’s distinct, husky Brazilian accent cut right through the bar noise and chatter.
    “Might as well put a saddle on your ninety-year-old grandma and ride her around,” Rue said. “She’d be faster, handle better and be less likely to die under your ass.”
    The biker turned and Gabriel followed his gaze to where Rue stood alone against the bar. She was in her early twenties, whippet-thin and wiry with closecropped dark hair, sharp black-coffee eyes and two hundred pounds of attitude packed into her hundred-pound body. The youngest child of a family of ten, she was the only daughter, an unapologetic tomboy with engine grease under her fingernails and utter disdain for anything she saw as frivolous or girly, such as makeup or high heels. Rue was a crackerjack mechanic in love with all things vehicular. Anything that flew, floated or submerged, she could pilot. Anything with wheels, she could drive. And if it broke down, she could fix it with nothing but elbow-grease and sweet talk.
    Gabriel grinned in recognition when he saw her. Rue had a heavy sweatshirt tied by the sleeves around herwaist. Even in the loose-fitting cargo pants she favored, there was no hiding the one part of her otherwise boyish body that was unabashedly feminine: her round, curvy backside. She’d always been self-conscious about it and habitually tied long-sleeved shirts around her waist to cover it up. Gabriel wasn’t fooled. He’d seen that particular feature up close and personal, without all the layers of tomboy camouflage. It was more than a year ago now, but he still felt a kind of melancholy ache under his sternum when he thought about the time they’d spent together. Today was the first time he’d seen Rue since she’d told him, over a crackling phone line, that long-distance