After hearing the first two shots, he ran to the Arctic Cats. They were the fastest snowmobiles in camp and could reach a speed of a hundred miles per hour. That wouldn’t be enough to outrun an attack helicopter, but there were plenty of ice fissures and natural caves out on the ice cap where it might be possible to hide. Anything was better than dying like a trapped animal. He started the engine on the white one, hoping it might blend in better with the pallid landscape in the feeble morning light.
A moment later, he was racing out of the tent at the edge of the compound, heading east toward the coast. For more than a minute, the attack helicopter appeared to take no notice of him. By then, he was streaking across the ice toward exactly the kind of depression that could provide him with a temporary hiding place. A snow squall was coming in the distance that would make it even harder to find him. He was home free.
Racing up the ascending ice shelf at breakneck speed, he reached the top and launched the snowmobile over the wide depression, sailing out for ten meters before the Arctic Cat came down with a heavy thud on the ice floor.
He could hear the attack helicopter coming as he slowly braked the snowmobile to a halt under the concave wall above the depression. It was just the kind of protective barrier he needed until visibility disappeared under the snow squall.
He suddenly felt the ice floor begin to shift underneath him.
With mounting awareness, he realized that he wasn’t in a natural depression at all. He had landed on an unstable ice bridge. A few moments later, the tenuous bridge began to give way under the weight of the Arctic Cat.
“Oh shit,” Cabot muttered as he plummeted soundlessly down through space into a chasm that seemed to have no bottom.
EIGHTEEN
23 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap
When Lexy saw the phalanx of commandos fanning out across the compound, she shut the outer door of the washroom and searched for a possible place to hide. The small outbuilding was modular fiberglass. It had two shower stalls, four sinks, and two small built-in cupboards on the far wall. A squirrel couldn’t find a hiding place there.
The latrine end of the building had been positioned over a bulldozed ice pit that was lined with a heavy-duty 20 mil polyethylene tarpaulin to contain excrement and effluent from the toilets.
She knew they would search every stall in the latrine. The only possible hiding place was the ice pit beneath it. She stepped into the last stall of the latrine, raised the back of the toilet seat, and hurled the leather satchel holding her toilet articles down the open hole.
Stepping up onto the fiberglass deck that surrounded the opening, she looked down through the hole. Six feet below it, she saw the accumulated mounds of frozen excrement covering the plastic lining.
The hole appeared too small to get through, but it was her only chance. She heard shouting outside as the attackers continued rounding up the expedition team members in the compound. They would be coming through the door at any moment.
Putting her feet together, she slid down the hole, stopping short when her hips came to a halt halfway down. If she tried to force her way farther down, she knew she would only remain stuck.
Another gunshot rang out.
Terrified at the thought of being captured, she pulled herself back up from the opening, unzipped her thermal suit, and stepped out of it. A moment later, she heard the outside door of the washroom slam open and then the guttural voices of two of the attackers as they stepped inside.
She dropped the thermal suit through the hole and slid down into the opening again. Although her hips quickly jammed again, she grasped the back of the toilet seat in both hands and forced herself downward. A moment later she was through the opening, landing on all fours on top of the frozen mound.
Glancing upward, she could see the face of the attacker as he entered her stall, the barrel of his machine gun pointed ahead of him. If he looked down through the hole, he couldn’t help but see her.
His face disappeared. She heard the outer door of the washroom slam shut again as they went outside to continue their search of the compound. Without the heat protection of the thermal suit, her body was already going numb from the agonizing cold. Sitting up, she quickly put it back on.
There was a small vent at each end of the fiberglass housing a few inches above the edge of the pit. Climbing across the frozen excrement, she looked through the vent facing the compound.
Two of the expedition team members were being herded toward the elevator cage at the top of the first ice shaft. Six more were already waiting there under guard. She heard the power winch begin its familiar clanking noise, and the elevator slowly descended out of sight.
NINETEEN
23 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap
At the other end of the compound, John Lee Hancock stood waiting behind the inner flap of his sleeping tent. The Alsatian sensed his tension and began growling at the sound of a man approaching the tent.
Hancock was holding the Louisville Slugger baseball bat given him by the owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team after they had won the American League Championship Series.
After seeing Doc Callaghan and Thorwald murdered, he had no doubt what they would do to him if he was caught. But why? He understood that the find in the Viking cave had significant financial value, and that there were plenty of bragging rights to be had if the secrets of the cave were as important as Sir Dorian had suggested. But who would slaughter two men for that? It made no sense.
He saw that the morning sky was already darkening. It would be almost pitch-black again in less than an hour. He just needed to avoid capture until he could make his way out of the camp in the darkness.
The inner flap of the sleeping tent swept open and the nose of a submachine gun preceded one of the commandos into the tent. Momentarily stunned at seeing the snarling dog about to lunge for him, the commando lowered his weapon to fire at Hap.
Hancock swung the heavy bat with all his strength at the back of the man’s head. When he dropped to the floor, Hancock swung again, crushing his neck below the helmet.
Now there was a chance. The commando was about his own size. Wearing the man’s thermal suit and helmet, he might be able to pass for him outside and then make his escape. He quickly removed his own thermal suit with the Anschutz International logo.
While stripping off the man’s body armor, Hancock noticed a red emblem stitched over the heart of his tunic. It looked like a small upright ship’s anchor with the ends of the two flukes trimmed off. Maybe they were part of some nautical unit, he thought as he removed the man’s thermal suit and began putting it on.
A small gold pendant was dangling from the dead man’s neck. It was the same shape as the red emblem. After putting on the man’s upper-body armor and helmet, Hancock picked up the submachine gun and stepped outside.
Three of his expedition team members were being taken at gunpoint to the elevator cage at the top of the shaft. After what had already happened, Hancock presumed it would be a one-way trip.
He thought about what he could possibly do to help them survive.
One of Hancock’s strengths throughout his adult life was his innate capacity to recognize an opportunity and exploit it when it arrived. When he saw that the pilot of one of the transport helicopters had started his engines again, he resolved an immediate plan of action.
The ship was ready to fly. It had a radio transceiver in the cockpit. All he needed to do was get airborne long enough to radio for help and give his position. The transport couldn’t outrun the attack helicopter, but once word of their attack was out, the intruders would have to head for cover.
Like Steve Macaulay, Hancock had plenty of experience flying helicopters. The German Eurocopter couldn’t be all that much different from American military models. He just had to get aboard t
he ship, disable the pilot, and take off. He would deal with the attack helicopter once he was in the air.
Carrying the Czech submachine gun, he began walking toward the landing pad. The helicopter pilot saw him coming and waved. He waved back. The passenger hatch was wide-open.
Stepping inside the fuselage, he moved toward the cockpit. Glancing outside, Hancock saw that Hap had followed him from the tent. A moment later, the dog leaped through the hatch to join him.
In the cockpit, the pilot was eating a sandwich while he adjusted the pitch on the jet engines. Hancock brought the stock of the machine gun down on the back of his neck, and he slumped forward.
Dragging him out of the seat, Hancock took his place at the controls. His eyes scanned the gauges. It would be easier than he thought, slowly moving the throttle forward to takeoff speed.
A moment later, he felt the barrel of a machine pistol at the back of his neck.
“They say that a dog is a man’s best friend,” said Jensen. “In this case, I’m afraid yours has cost you your freedom.”
TWENTY
23 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap
The Lynx surveyed the tent encampment in the garish glare of the helicopter floodlights. Everything had gone smoothly so far, even though he had received orders to conduct this operation less than twelve hours earlier.
His mission was to secure the expedition site on the ice cap and to recover everything that Jensen considered important enough to bring back with them.
Jensen told him he had already eliminated two of the targets by placing a bomb aboard their helicopter.
Hancock, the expedition leader, was now being held in the larger cavern along with all but two of the other targets. One had tried to escape in a snowmobile, but the gunner in the attack helicopter radioed that he had disappeared down a thousand-foot chasm. The other missing target was a woman. Jensen told him he wanted her taken unharmed.
“She may prove to be of important value to us in the future,” he had said.
The Lynx wondered if Jensen’s motives were personal or professional. The Lynx had already killed two women, both sanctioned executions, and he had found a particular thrill in observing their final moves and reactions, the two of them unaware of what he planned to do until the moment he ended their lives.
In hunting for this woman, his men had searched every tent and outbuilding in the small complex several times. Jensen told him she had definitely been there. The one remaining possibility was that she had been working down in one of the caverns when they had arrived, and had hidden in an ice pocket. His commandos were now scouring the walls of the ice shafts and the caverns.
The Lynx had no idea what these people had done to deserve elimination, and he did not care. He had already informed his men that he would personally carry out all the executions, telling them he didn’t want them to feel guilt over these people being unarmed and defenseless. From their reactions, it was clear they now admired him even more for making the supposed sacrifice.
In truth, he was looking forward to each one. He knew he was unlike other men. His urge to kill was deep and primal. Once again, he would bestow the God power to himself, the excitement of standing close to a person who was full of life and sending him into the everlasting void.
Where was the woman? he wondered again.
* * *
Through the tiny vent under the latrine, Lexy had watched the last members of Hancock’s expedition team being captured one by one. They were all taken to the elevator rig and then sent below.
At one point, she was shocked to see Hjalmar Jensen, now dressed in the same kind of thermal suit the attackers wore, personally deliver John Lee Hancock into their hands at gunpoint. The Norwegian archaeologist no longer resembled the Mr. Rogers character she remembered from her childhood. His eyes were cold and pitiless.
Soon after the prisoners were taken below, a new round of activity commenced as the marauders began to bring to the surface a stream of objects that were quickly stowed aboard the transport helicopters.
With no physical threat remaining, the attackers had removed their body armor. She now noticed the red emblem that was stitched over the hearts of their thermal suits. From a distance, it looked anchorlike and vaguely familiar.
The first objects that went into the transports were black plastic body bags, each one carried by two men. She counted ten of them, concluding they contained the Vikings from the deep cave.
The next load of items consisted of large metal bins, more than a dozen of them, each heavy enough to require two men to carry them. A second load of bins followed the first as darkness fell over the compound. The pilots of the helicopters turned on their searchlights to illuminate the compound as work continued.
Her view of their actions was interrupted several times by the commandos’ use of the latrines. In order to avoid detection, she had built a pillar of excrement near the vented end of the pit. It blocked any view of her through the latrine holes.
Less than two hours after they arrived, the procession of metal bins ended and things became quiet for a few minutes. Then she heard one of the bulldozers being started, quickly followed by the second one.
As she watched, the larger of the two began rumbling toward the latrine.
TWENTY-ONE
23 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap
Hancock stood with the other captives in the March Hare cavern one hundred forty feet beneath the surface of the ice cap. Their wrists had been bound behind their backs with fiberglass handcuffs, and they were guarded by two commandos with machine guns.
In the previous two hours, he had witnessed the looting of the deeper cave by Jensen and the others. They had brought up the ten Norsemen and reverently placed them in body bags to be transported to the surface. Several ornately carved sea chests, including the one he had seen in the bow of the longship, came next. Their weapons, personal regalia, and equipment were brought up and stowed carefully in solid metal bins before being sent up in the elevator cage.
The last thing to be hauled up was the large flat stone engraved with rune markings. Two men wrapped it in several layers of padded blankets and hand-carried it to the elevator cage.
Still outwardly calm, Hancock remembered his own excitement when he and Steve Macaulay had stood in almost the same place and were about to enter the nose compartment of March Hare. In hindsight, he wished that he had never given the order to go after the second discovery. He realized that decision was about to cost him his life.
With everything of importance removed from the cave, the Lynx ordered all but four of his commandos to return to the surface. As Hancock watched impassively, the blond-haired killer fed a round into his 9 mm Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol.
Hancock hated the thought that his time on Earth had to end here. He had always lived on the edge, and he had taken enough risks to know the slender thread of life. That was why he had eventually come to savor every day of it.
A fatalist, he was sure that there was no afterlife, no spending of eternity in one of the mansions of heaven. If there were a heaven and hell, they were right here on Earth. He had sampled both.
Two of the soldiers forced the first captive to his knees. The blond-haired killer stepped quickly behind him, grabbed him by the hair, placed the barrel of the silenced pistol to the back of his head, and fired. The man fell forward and they moved on to the next captive. Trying to escape their grasp, he began shouting for help.
Hancock had two principal regrets.
There was so much more he wanted to do in his life, women he hoped to meet, places he wanted to explore, mysteries he wanted to solve. Now, there would never be the chance. His only other regret was that he wouldn’t be alive to see these bastards destroyed. He would have enjoyed doing it himself.
Two of the commando
s forced him to his knees. He felt the cold muzzle of the pistol against the back of his head as the Lynx moved behind him.
“Why?” he called out to Jensen, who stood off to the side near the elevator rig.
He didn’t expect an answer. None was given.
Hancock could hear Hap Arnold howling madly at the top of the ice shaft. His last conscious thought before the bullet tore through his brain was the hope that Jensen would let the old Alsatian live.
TWENTY-TWO
23 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap
The final stage of the operation was under way. The two hours of light left in the subarctic region had disappeared, and the last part of the mission had to be performed under the powerful searchlights mounted on the transport helicopters.
Returning to the surface after executing his prisoners, the Lynx ordered his commando team to eliminate every trace of Hancock’s expedition that remained on the ice cap.
The smaller bulldozer began grinding its way through the tent complex, driving everything in its path toward the ice shaft and shoving it over the edge, then returning to cut another broad swath of destruction through what remained, including the operations tent, snowmobiles, the kitchen and mess tents, and the flagpole that was still flying the American flag and Hancock’s family coat of arms.
The larger bulldozer, a Caterpillar D10R, focused on flattening the more significant structures in the compound, and plowing the wreckage into the same shaft. In ten minutes, the massive generator housing was reduced to rubble and had disappeared down the twelve-foot passage.
As Lexy watched with horror from her hiding place in the pit, the rumbling snarl of the Caterpillar grew to a bedlam as its treads rolled toward the modular fiberglass latrine.
She could see the vague outline of a man in the insulated cab above the steel blade as it slammed into the front wall, crumpling the fiberglass structure as if it were made of cardboard.
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