The Arctic Event

Chapter Forty-nine

South Coast, Wednesday Island

“How are you doing?” Smith glanced across the compacted snow foxhole.

“I say again, I’m just fine!” Randi snapped back. “God, Jon, don’t hover!”

“You’re getting cranky,” Smith approved. “That’s a good sign.”

“I’m not…” She caught herself, then grinned sheepishly. “Really, I’m okay. You’re a good doctor.”

They were forted up atop a point of land that buckled outward from the southern flank of the island, a position that gave them both concealment and an overwatch of the shoreline to the east and west. Over the past few days the grip of the pack had solidified, the only differentiation now between the sea and shore being that the sea ice was the more broken and irregular.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Thanks. I’ve been out of general practice for a while and I was afraid my technique was a little rusty.”

Randi lifted a hand off the stock of Valentina’s model 70 and wriggled her gloved fingers. “None of them have fallen off yet.”

“Still, I want you to see a good dermatologist when we get out of here. You might sluff some skin, and your hands are going to have to be watched for infection.”

Randi sighed in a swirl of vapor. “Jon, trust me, your technique isn’t rusty in the least. You can fuss as well as any doctor I have ever known! Sophia would be proud of you.”

There was a silent pause; then Randi took the awkwardness out of the moment with another smile. “She really would be, you know.”

The moment was broken by the scrabble of boots and gloves on ice. Staying low in a fast hands-and-knees crawl, Gregory Smyslov snaked into the foxhole beside them. The Russian had established a second observation post deeper along the point that provided a better view eastward.

“It has worked,” he said, panting a little. “Spetsnaz. Coming toward us along the coast trail.”

“Where are they?

“About a kilometer out, at the foot of the trail down from West Peak.”

Smith glanced first at his watch and then toward a mound of snow at the edge of the foxhole. The cigarette lighter/transponder sat atop it, its antenna extended. “It’s working. We’re tolling them in. And the timing should be pretty good. How many?”

“Six. They must have split their force again.”

“Damn! I was hoping for the whole platoon.” Smith reached across and collected the transponder. Collapsing its antenna, he pocketed it. It had served its purpose.

“The others are probably following,” Smyslov added.

“Maybe, but they might not get here in time to do us or themselves any good. Let me have the glasses.”

Smyslov unslung the binocular case and passed it to Smith. Coming up on his knees, Smith aimed the field glasses westward toward the science station, tracking along the flag-marked coastal trail.

“Can you see her yet, Jon?” Randi inquired.

“Not yet…Wait a minute. Yeah! There she is. She’s running.”

In his magnified field of view he could make out Valentina trotting along, seemingly at ease, the red and green of her clothing, or rather Randi’s clothing, making her stand out against the sun-washed white of the terrain. Again the timing was about what he had hoped for. Elevating the glasses farther, he could make out the knoll with its radio mast that overlooked the science station. Smoke seemed to be rising from behind the hill, and on the side facing them flyspeck figures moved. A line of men hastened down toward the shoreline, pursuing that other small, colorful dot that moved toward Smith’s position.

“Val’s pulling in her share! Five…six…eight-damn, not as many as I’d like there, either.”

Smith swiveled around 180 degrees and ran a scan down the east shore. There was the other half of the equation, the Spetsnaz force. Only one man followed the compacted pathway; the other five had fanned out on either side, scuffling along on snowshoes. The Russians were closer than the force advancing from the science station, but they were also moving slower. And so far, with the point blocking their line of sight, neither converging force had become aware of the other. Smith mentally computed times and distances. Yeah. It was going to be just about as good as they had any right to expect.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he said, lowering the binoculars, “it’s coming together. Randi, give Val the word.”

Randi gave the stainless steel signaling mirror a final quick buff on her sleeve. Squinting through the tiny sighting hole in its center, she acquired the dot on the snow that was Valentina Metrace. Angling the mirror, she produced a single flash that might be mistaken for a sun strike off the snow were you not looking for it.

After a few moments the pursued dot glinted back.

“She’s acknowledged,” Randi reported.

“Right. That’s all we can do here. Let’s move out.”

“I don’t like this, Jon,” Randi spoke vehemently under her breath. “I don’t like this part at all!”

“I’m not crazy about it myself.” Through the glasses he could make out Val as a human figure moving effortlessly as if she were out for a morning’s jog. Leading your troops into battle is easy, Sarge. Having to leave them there, on their own, that’s the real bear.

“She doesn’t even have a gun, damn it!”

“She didn’t seem to think she’d need one.” Smith slammed the binoculars back into their case.

“I do hope you realize that woman is just a hopeless showoff,” Randi said, binding on her bear-paw snowshoes.

“Oh, yes, most definitely. And speaking about guns…” Smith drew his sidearm from the holster pocket of his parka, passing the automatic to Smyslov, butt first. “You might find use for this today, Major. This one works, guaranteed.”

Smyslov grinned and accepted the P-226, stowing it in his pocket. “That is good to hear. I had a most disappointing experience with an American firearm not long ago.”

Valentina Metrace was a predator and huntress by both instinctive nature and personal preference. But as a successful predator, she also understood what was required of a successful, i.e., survivable, prey animal.

Staying alive as prey mandated you not only knew when to run but when, where, and how to hide, and the moment to break trail and disappear was almost upon her.

The single mirror flash from the top of the point had told her Jon Smith’s plan was on track. The Spetsnaz were moving into the killing zone from the other side of the point. Two flashes would have meant a scrub and for her to keep going, pulling her pursuers under the fire of the long guns atop the point.

As it was, their unknowing allies, the Spetsnaz, would hopefully do the job for them.

Smith had orchestrated his engagement well. On the landward side a thirty-foot cliff rose above a narrowed boulder-strewn beach, while to seaward the point acted like the prow of a ship, building up an exceptionally jagged and tumbled pile of pressure ice. It was a natural choke point and a superb killing ground, leaving neither force room to maneuver or successfully disengage.

All she had to do now was to squirm out from between their two fires, and the pressure ice jumble provided a magnificent maze to disappear into.

Now Valentina started looking back. The men chasing her were perhaps a quarter mile behind and slowly closing. She’d been deliberately sandbagging her pace, allowing them to overtake her, dangling the prospect of bringing her within gun range as a lure.

It was working.

She had no clear idea of how close the Spetsnaz were, so she dare not waste any time. The instant she rounded the tip of the point, breaking the line of sight with her pursuers, she broke laterally into the sea ice, scrambling over the man-high pressure ridge at the beach edge.

Crossing from the trail, Valentina carefully plotted each step and handgrip, hopping from one slab of snow-bared ice to the next like a person crossing a stream on stepping-stones, striving to minimize the trail she left. It would be impossible to leave no trace at all. Her pursuers would see where her boot tracks stopped on the main trail, but she was striving for confusion, to hold this one facet of the enemy in the killing zone for the arrival of the second.

Working her way roughly twenty yards offshore, she swung westward again, like a canny white-tail buck circling behind its stalking hunter. Out here, the sea ice was a living thing-softer, green-tinged, buckling and breaking with the rise and sink of the tides and the drag of the currents. Whipping out the survival blanket she carried, Valentina donned it as a camouflage cloak, wearing the white side out. Sinking down, she wormed along on hands and knees, staying below the outer edge of the pressure ridge.

She moved silently, but once she was almost startled into a yelp when a mushy emerald puddle of ice crystals erupted in front of her and she found herself literally nose to nose with an equally unnerved ring seal. Snorting in her face, the seal plunged back through his breathing hole, leaving her to reestablish her own breathing.

Then she heard the voices to shoreward. Her hunters had come to the break in her trail. That was it. The time for running was over. Drawing the white protective sheeting closer, she merged into a notch in the pressure ridge. Drawing her legs up tightly against her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees, she assumed the pu ning mu position, the “hiding like a stone” of ninjutsu. She also drew the neck of the sweatshirt up and over her mouth and nose, breathing down into the garment to kill her breath plume. Valentina Metrace became just another block of ice.

The pack beneath her creaked and sighed. The voices faded to an occasional fragmented mutter. By now the arms smugglers must have figured out what she had done and where she had gone. By now someone would be standing atop the pressure ridge, scanning with binoculars.

He’d be looking for color and movement. If she denied her hunters both, she’d be immune, at least for a time. Unfortunately Randi Russell had given these men the slip in much this same way before. It was questionable that they’d just give up twice. They’d look. They’d think. They’d talk it over for a minute. Then they’d start probing into the sea ice after her.

At least until the Russians walked in on them.

Valentina focused on breathing without chest movement. This was no worse than sitting it out in a leopard blind, only she couldn’t see, and she was the one being set for. She pushed her other senses out beyond the second skin of the survival blanket, listening for the rasp of exertion breathing or the vibration of a footfall on ice. Her fingers eased into the sleeve of her sweater, their tips touching the hilt of the knife strapped to her forearm.

Jon and the others should be well on their way by now. They’d be moving toward the station along the base of the ridge. With this batch of guns drawn off and theoretically engaged by the Spetsnaz, they’d have a better chance when they put the station and landing ground under sniper fire. Divide and conquer. Good strategy, Jon.

She gulped and wished she could sneak a mouthful of snow. Let’s see, what to do should the Spetsnaz not show? Don’t wait to be fallen over. Jump and knife the nearest man. Drop the second closest with a throw. Commandeer a submachine gun and ammunition. Keep to the cover of the pressure ridge, maximize casualties, and buy Jon and Randi their time yourself.

There, that was something of a plan anyway.

Where in the hell were those bloody Russians? Wasn’t that just the way of the world? There was never a Bolshevik around when you needed one.

Someone nearby gave a startled yell and an SMG chattered. Valentina went stark stiff for an instant, then realized there had been no shock of a bullet impact. Another automatic weapon replied-the sharper, more piercing crackle of a small-caliber assault rifle. Valentina recognized an AK-74. The Spetsnaz had just put their foot in it!

More shouts followed. A scream trailed off. The exchange of gunfire built explosively.

Valentina allowed herself a full, deep breath. Blinking for a moment in the snow-refracted sunlight, she slipped out from under the camo blanket. Drawing one of her knives, she began to slither on her belly through the buckled ice, moving toward the heart of the burgeoning firefight.

Jon’s orders had been specific. When their enemies engaged each other she was to fall back and disengage immediately. But Valentina had decided upon a loose definition of “immediate.” She intended to linger a bit, extending military assistance to both sides of the conflict.

At the first crash of automatic weapons fire, Jon Smith had drawn up sharply and looked back. Then, when it was returned and built in volume, he managed a grin. That was a battle, not an execution.

They’d been double-timing along the base of the central ridge, keeping out of sight of the shoreline trail. It had been snowshoe work and hard going, but they’d already covered a fair portion of the distance back to the science station. Now if they could only make the high ground overlooking the helipad and Kretek’s helicopter without being seen, they’d stand a chance of bitching somebody’s works.

The question marks were Val and Randi. Would Val be able to get clear and rejoin, and could Randi keep it together? Randi was slumped against Smyslov with her eyes closed and with the concerned Russian half-supporting her as she gasped for breath. She was carrying neither pack nor weapon, and he couldn’t doubt her will. But running in snowshoes was murderous even for someone who hadn’t already been half-killed by hypothermia.

“Randi?”

She looked up, her shadow-rimmed eyes fierce. “Go!” she whispered. “Just go!”

Three plumes of smoke rose over Wednesday Island Station. All three huts had now been torched. The remaining security teams had been pulled in tight around the Halo, the flight and demolition men were on board, and the heating tents around the engines had been stricken. Kretek paced warily beside the big aircraft, his sense of unease growing.

He glanced down at the submachine gun he carried. The MP-5 was a professional’s weapon, and the woman who had carried it had been a consummate professional. What of the others he had been told of? This history professor, the Russian and American military officers. Had they been of the same breed as the lethal little blonde? What of the team leader, this Jon Smith? Obviously it was the crudest of cover names. Who was he really?

For the thousandth time Kretek’s eyes swept the high ground above the station, tasting the blood from his cold-cracked lips. He could smell more than the smoke of the burning huts. He could smell the stink of an operation going rotten.

This was wrong. He’d acted without thinking when he’d sent Mikhail after the girl. Appearing above the camp at that moment had been too convenient, and he had snapped at the dangled bait too rapidly. Somebody was setting something up.

On an ordinary job, any other job, he would abort and run. But this was the job. The one that would never come again.

Abruptly he stopped his pacing and yelled up through the Halo’s open fuselage door, “Prepare to start the engines.”

One of the demolitions men leaned out of the hatch. “I haven’t rigged the time fuse on the other helicopter yet, sir.”

Because of its proximity to the parked Halo, the smaller Jet Ranger couldn’t be blown until after they were in the air.

“Then get on with it!” Kretek snapped back impatiently. “We’re taking off.”

“What about Vlahovitch and the others?”

At that instant the faint ripple of distant gunshots reverberated over the knoll-automatic weapons exchanging fire, many of them.

Everyone froze in place, listening. Then Kretek broke the lock with his bellow. “Everyone aboard! Everyone aboard now! Get those goddamned engines started! We’re getting out of here!”

The gas turbines began to crank with their hollow baritone moan, the huge rotor blades sweeping past overhead. The security perimeter collapsed in on the helicopter, men hurling their weapons through the open side hatch and scrambling in after them. Kretek was last aboard as displaced snow started to swirl, tornadolike, around the mammoth heavy lifter.

Kretek raced forward to the cockpit. “Get us in the air!” he yelled, leaning in between the pilots’ seats. “Take us to the crash site!”

The pilot twisted in his seat, looking back at his employer. “Aren’t we going after the others?” He was a former Canadian naval aviator who had been cashiered for wife beating. He had fallen a great distance, but he still remembered how things had once been done.

“The sea is frozen,” Kretek said, glaring out of the windscreen. “They can walk home.”

They were half a mile short of the station when they saw the gleaming red bulk of the Halo lifting from behind the antenna knoll. The big machine swung parallel to the ridge, climbing under full power. Instinctively, Smith and the others went facedown flat on the snow, camo-merging into their background. The aircraft thundered almost directly overhead, heading for the central peaks and the saddleback between.

“Damn it!” Smith raged, scrambling to his feet and staring after the departing helicopter. “I’d hoped splitting them up would keep them pinned! They’re bailing out on their own men!”

Randi shook her head, coming up onto her knees. “They don’t give a damn, Jon. They’re criminals, not soldiers. They well and truly don’t give a damn.”

“What do we do now, Colonel?” Smyslov asked.

“We fall back to Plan B.”

“What is Plan B?”

“That depends on what’s left at the station. Let’s go!”

Mikhail Vlahovitch fumbled the little Belgian-made pocket grenade out of his parka, feeling the bullets hitting on the far side of the ice slab he crouched behind. Pulling the pin, he let the safety lever flick free, counted two, and pitched overhand. He waited for the flat crack of the grenade detonation, then lunged out from behind the slab, rolling across the frozen beach to get the angle on the men who had been firing on him.

Vlahovitch came up onto his knees, saw a wounded Spetsnaz trooper kneeling beside a second downed man, and leveled the Agram, emptying the submachine gun in a single prolonged figure-eight burst that engulfed both the wounded and the dying.

As the bolt clicked open on an empty chamber, Vlahovitch was caught by the silence. His had been the last gun firing. The only sounds remaining were the creak and whine of the pack ice and the hiss of his own breath. Staggering, he got to his feet, drawing a fresh clip out of his belt pouches.

The Russians had come out of nowhere while Vlahovitch and his men had been distracted by their search for the woman. The Spetsnaz had apparently been taken as much by surprise by the presence of the arms smugglers as the reverse. It had been an unexpected-meeting engagement, inevitably the most chaotic and savage of battles.

“Lazlo,” he yelled, ejecting the empty and forcing the reload into the Agram’s magazine well. “Lazlo!…Vrasek!…Prishkin! To me!”

No one answered. Blood streaked the ice. The scattering of bodies lay unmoving. Their men and his.

“Lazlo!…Prishkin!”

He turned in place slowly, looking around. It was a wipeout. A mutual massacre. He was the only one left of either side.

“Lazlo?”

Then he heard the distant, rhythmic thudding of rotors. It was the Halo. He couldn’t see it from the base of the point, but he could follow the sound of its flight. It was heading up to the glacier. Kretek was going after the anthrax, and Vlahovitch knew without the faintest shadow of a doubt that he wouldn’t be coming back.

And Vlahovitch finally acknowledged something else that he had known down deep in his belly for a long time: that Anton Kretek would eventually betray and abandon him like this.

“Kretek, you bastard!” He almost burst his throat with the scream.

“He’s not a very nice man really.” The voice was conversational, feminine, and coming from directly behind him.

Vlahovitch spun to find the woman standing some twenty feet away. She hadn’t been there a few moments before, but she was there now, her materialization as silent as the arrival of a stalking cat. She wore the red ski pants worn by the blonde they had captured the day before, and the green sweatshirt she had stolen from the body of Kretek’s nephew, the overlong sleeves rolled up. But this wasn’t the brown-eyed American blonde. The thrown-back hood of the shirt revealed high-pinned raven black hair and chill gray eyes, and the accent to her words was vaguely British. She stood relaxed with her arms held loosely crossed over her stomach.

“But then, you really aren’t a very nice man, either,” she went on. And then she smiled.

A strange, uncontrollable horror welled up within Vlahovitch. There was no justification for it. He was a man cradling a loaded machine gun, and she an unarmed woman. Yet he was stricken with the fear a condemned prisoner feels when he hears the approaching footfalls of his hangman. He brought up the Agram, trying to draw back the SMG’s bolt, his terror making him fumble.

The first thrown knife sank into his right shoulder, paralyzing his arm. The second struck in the center of his chest, driving through his breastbone and into his heart.

Valentina Metrace allowed herself that single, deep, deliberate breath. An enemy was dead and she and her friends were alive, and that was how it should be. She knelt down beside Vlahovitch’s body, reclaiming her knives. She cleaned each blade with a handful of snow, drying them on the clothing of the arms smuggler before resheathing them.

She’d started to salvage the man’s weapon and remaining ammunition when a new factor intruded. From this position, she had a fair view down the eastern side of the point. Standing, she shielded her eyes against the growing sun glare and peered down the revealed reach of the shoreline trail. “Oh, dear,” she murmured under her breath.