The group of snowmobiles crossed the winter landscape with deliberate caution. The heavy clouds, falling snow, and gusting winds were creating a whiteout effect. It made the terrain hard to navigate.
Twice, the lead snowmobile got caught in deeper, softer snow and had to be pulled out. At one point, the grade became too steep for the machines to safely climb, and they were forced to back out and find another way.
Paused in a sheltered area while Gregorovich studied a map, Kurt flipped up his goggles and turned to Hayley. “Are you okay?”
“Freezing,” she said. “Can’t feel my toes.”
She flipped up her own goggles, her cheeks were windburned, her lips were blue, strands of blond hair that had slipped out from under her cap were coated with ice.
He climbed off the seat. “We should walk around while we’re stopped. Get our blood pumping.”
Hayley agreed, and Kurt helped her off the machine.
“Where are you going?” one of the Russians asked.
“Out for a walk,” Kurt said. “It’s such a beautiful day.”
“Don’t get lost.”
Kurt considered the statement. The blizzard would have been good cover if he’d wanted to make a break for it, but there was no point in that. There was nowhere to go.
He took a few steps and pointed up the slope. “Tell the commissar I’m climbing that ridge to get a better look at what’s ahead. Won’t be gone long.”
With that, Kurt took Hayley’s hand and began to hike upward. The exertion of trudging up a hill through knee-deep snow at a thirty-five-hundred-foot altitude was enough to get his heart pumping, all right. By the time they were halfway to the top, Kurt felt he’d lit an inner furnace, even his face was flushing.
“Feeling any better?” Kurt asked.
“I’m warming up, yes,” Hayley said. “Any chance there’s a ski lodge at the top?”
“Doubtful,” Kurt said. “But just in case . . .”
He never finished the sentence, as his ears picked up an odd sound above the wind. It was a high-pitched whine, almost like a small jet engine. It faded and then returned.
Looking around, Kurt realized the confining ridge was shaped in a rough semicircle, a half bowl almost perfect for catching distant acoustics.
When the sound returned, he looked across the ice field. The falling snow made it hard to see anything. He flipped the orange-tinted goggles down to get a better contrast. In a second, he caught sight of movement. A group of small vehicles coming their way.
There was something odd about the way they moved, gliding over the snow with almost effortless ease.
“Houston, we have a problem.”
“What is it?”
“Trouble.”
He grabbed Hayley’s hand and they began to climb down, hopping and jumping and sliding down the steep sections to cover as much ground as possible. They reached the bottom, just about tumbling into the group. “Someone’s coming,” he said sharply.
“From where?” Gregorovich asked.
“From the other side of the ridge.”
“On foot?”
“No,” Kurt said. “I think they’re using hovercraft.”
Seconds later, the high-pitched whine became audible on the ground.
“Move!” Gregorovich ordered.
In seconds, the snowmobiles were firing up, but they were almost too late. The group of hovercraft came charging up the slope, appearing out of the snowy haze like avenging ghosts.
Kurt and Hayley jumped on their machine. “Hang on!” Kurt shouted as he pressed the starter and twisted the throttle.
She clung to him as the snowmobile leapt forward. The rest of the group scattered in different directions like a herd of gazelles set upon by lions. It was an unplanned tactic, but it was effective. There were six snowmobiles but only four hovercraft. Not all of them could be followed.
Racing down the slope and cutting around a snowdrift, Kurt glanced over his shoulder, looking past Hayley. Unfortunately, one of the sleek predatory craft was hot on their tail.
“Hang on tight!” he shouted. “This is going to get rough.”
He turned his eyes forward, pinned the throttle full open, and began weaving back and forth across the snowfield. If there had been a forest on the island, he would have driven straight for it, but Heard Island was treeless, a fact that didn’t bode well in terms of finding a spot to hide.
He cut to the right and caught sight of a small explosion from the corner of his eye. He avoided it and cut back to the left, only to see another one.
There was no sound to accompany the phenomenon, no concussion wave or smoke. In fact, the display looked more like the blurred pattern one sees out behind a running jet engine.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Flash-draw,” Hayley yelled. “Stay out of it.”
“Sound advice,” he said.
They continued on at breakneck speed, and Kurt strained to see details of the near-featureless terrain streaking past him. Even with the goggles, the light was so flat it was almost impossible to spot dips and rises. Twice, uneven sections of the ground almost tipped them over, and then suddenly they were airborne, flying off the crest of a small ledge.
The snowmobile caught air at forty miles per hour, dropped about five feet, and landed solidly on the downslope like a contestant in the X Games.
Kurt’s chin hit the windshield, gashing it and jarring him, while Hayley’s boa-constrictor-like grip around his waist kept her on board.
The hovercraft launched itself over the same ridge without any hesitation. It dropped and landed smoothly on its cushion of air without any hint of the jarring impact Kurt and Hayley had felt. With his chin bleeding and his mind racing, Kurt realized what Joe had discovered in the outback: a hovercraft was the ultimate all-terrain vehicle.
He raced on, desperately trying to think of a way to escape its grasp.
• • •
AS KURT AND HAYLEY RACED OFF, Joe Zavala found himself pointed in the wrong direction, with the nose of his machine aimed toward the ridge that Kurt and Hayley had climbed. He got on the throttle fast and twisted the handgrips. The engine revved and the tracks spun, and Joe manhandled the nose of the snowmobile around to a new heading.
He shot forward, racing up a small hill and down the other side, almost T-boning one of the Russians.
Right behind the Russian sled, one of the gray hovercraft flew down the hill. The wide, flat hovercraft reminded Joe of a stingray. The central portion of the machine was raised to hold a crew cabin and a turbine engine, while the thinner surrounding section and the rubber skirt that drooped from it were there primarily to create the cushion of air that it rode on.
As the gray machine followed the Russian commandos, Joe cut in behind it. He had the impression its driver hadn’t seen him, since his attention remained locked on the original target. As they raced across the ice, Joe tried to get at the rifle strapped across his back, nearly wrecking in the process.
Eventually, he managed to slide the rifle around until it rested at his side. It was balanced by the strap that remained across his shoulder. Situated like this, he closed in on the target like a fighter pilot trying to save the life of his wingman. With the hovercraft crossing in front of him, Joe tried to flick off the safety, but the bulky gloves he wore made it impossible. He was still fumbling with it as the Russian snowmobile turned hard to the right.
The hovercraft followed, and Joe leaned into the turn, swinging wide, until he was back on target. He put the glove to his mouth, bit down on the fabric of the fingertips, and ripped the glove off. The frigid air chilled his fingers instantly, but with his bare hand he was able to grab the rifle grip, flip the safety off, and fire.
A spread of bullets lanced forth from the barrel to no effect.
The hovercraft turned left, and Joe fired again. This time, he hit the target—something confirmed by bits of fiberglass flying into the air—but still the hovercraft raced forward unaffected.
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Ahead of them, the two Russian commandos had come to a narrow gap between a rocky ridge and a high drift of soft snow. They shot toward the gap, a fatal mistake.
The hovercraft’s driver lined them up easily and triggered his own weapon. A direct hit from the flash-draw stunned the men into unconsciousness and stalled the snowmobile’s engine. The fleeing sled turned sideways. Its right-hand ski caught a rut, and the machine tumbled out of control, ejecting the limp commandos in different directions.
Rather than repeat the snowmobile’s mistake, the hovercraft turned right. It raced up the hill, skidded sideways, and pointed its nose back around and down toward Joe.
Joe flipped the selector to full auto and fired at will, tearing up the front end of the hovercraft and shattering its windshield. Despite the damage, the charging machine didn’t stop.
Joe tried to dodge the oncoming craft, but he skidded on the ice. He was either about to get zapped or be decapitated. He dove off the snowmobile, throwing himself to the ground.
The hovercraft raced over the top of him, roaring like a tornado and hammering the snowmobile like a battering ram. The tremendous downward air pressure underneath the hovercraft’s skirt blasted Joe out to the side as if he were a newspaper caught in the swirling air behind a truck on the highway.
As soon as he tumbled to a stop, Joe was up and running. Across from him, the hovercraft began to turn back. It swung around and charged back toward him. Joe could just imagine the thugs inside, drooling as they growled: “Run him down!”
It wouldn’t take long.
As Joe lumbered through the snow, the hovercraft bore down on him at ten times his speed.
The whine of the approaching vehicle rose in Joe’s ears. He threw himself to the ground as the din of automatic gunfire rang out. He looked up just in time to see the hovercraft going off course and trailing smoke. It carried on for a hundred feet before losing power and crashing nose-first into the snow. It burrowed for ten feet before grinding to a halt.
Another snowmobile raced toward Joe and skidded to a stop.
“Get on!” Gregorovich yelled.
Joe normally preferred to drive, but he wasn’t about to argue. He clambered onto the seat, barely grabbing the handholds before Gregorovich gunned the throttle and took off.
• • •
A HALF MILE AWAY, Kurt was doing a yeoman’s job avoiding the stun blast of the flash-draw, but he could neither shake nor outrun their pursuer. He noticed only one advantage.
“We have better traction,” he yelled to Hayley.
“What?”
“That thing turns more like a boat or a plane, it skids and slides. But when we’re not on ice, we’re able to turn inside his radius every time.”
“How does that help us?”
“Watch,” he said, cutting hard to the right, racing back in the direction they’d just come.
The hovercraft dutifully followed, swinging wide, turning back on course, and then closing the gap again.
Kurt kept the throttle at full, almost losing control as they skipped across bumpier terrain.
Another miragelike apparition ripped past them to the right.
“That was awfully close,” Hayley said.
They’d come to a narrow section now, almost like a catwalk on a ski slope. The glacier dropped down to the right as a rocky ridge climbed up to the left and around the edge of Big Ben like a mountain road.
Kurt chose the ridge, hugging the wall, as the terrain beside them fell away precipitously. He backed off the throttle just a bit.
“They’re closing in!” Hayley shouted.
As the ridge narrowed, Kurt hit the brake, turned the handlebars, and threw all his weight to the left side of the snowmobile. He leaned hard, like a motorcycle rider in a hairpin turn.
The snowmobile’s skis dug in hard. And Kurt caught sight of the hovercraft, whipping into the turn behind them. Then he saw a flash of light in his mind and felt a falling sensation. It seemed as if everything went dark.
His limp body flew off the snowmobile and slid fifty feet into a thick bank of snow. He came to rest, all but buried and completely unconscious. Hayley tumbled off the snowmobile as well, but a handlebar caught her parka, tearing it open and yanking her to a halt like an arresting wire on an aircraft carrier. She ended up only a few yards from the damaged sled.
Kurt never saw her, nor did he see how effective his plan had truly been.
Just as he’d hoped, the snowmobile’s sharp turn was beyond the hovercraft’s ability to match. It skidded out over the sheer face of the ridge, carried sideways by its speed and momentum. A small cliff would have been no problem, but the eighty-foot drop was too much.
The hovercraft had to stay in close contact with the ground to generate lift, and with that ground suddenly gone, the craft dropped and rolled to the side as it fell.
It hit hard, landing on its side and tumbling in summersaults down the slope. Pieces of fiberglass sailed in all directions. It came to a stop in a heap, and no one climbed out of it.
• • •
FARTHER DOWN THE SLOPE, Joe and Gregorovich were in trouble. Another of Thero’s hovercraft had found them. It was driving them toward the towering wall of the glacier.
“He’s going to trap us against the ice,” Joe shouted.
“I can’t get around him,” Gregorovich said.
Joe looked over his shoulder. The hovercraft was hanging back, swerving from side to side. Any move Gregorovich made was easily countered. Joe knew he had to do something. He tried to pull the clip from his rifle, but by now his ungloved hand was completely numb. He pulled the other glove off, yanked the empty clip out, and jammed a new one in.
“This is my stop,” he shouted.
He pushed off Gregorovich and extended his legs, launching himself off the snowmobile, landing and tumbling through the snow for a second time.
Joe bounced and rolled and then slid face-first, cringing as the snow was shoveled through the gap in his collar. In seconds, he was up, shaking the snow from his face and getting his bearings.
Gregorovich was still heading toward the glacier. The hovercraft had ignored Joe and followed.
Joe raised the rifle and locked onto the hovercraft, calculating how much to lead it by. He was about to fire when a second high-pitched whine caught his attention.
He pulled the trigger, but the blur of Thero’s stun gun had already hit him. The flare of blinding light seen only in Joe’s mind encompassed him as it had in the outback and he collapsed in the snow, never knowing if he’d hit anything.
Thirty minutes later, with the white sky beginning to darken, the two remaining hovercraft made a cautious approach to the ridge where Kurt and Hayley had crashed. Using an infrared scope, Janko spied the wrecked vehicle at the bottom of the drop. Seconds later, he spotted the snowmobile.
He keyed the transmit switch on his radio. “Unit two, make your way back down the slope and check for survivors. We’re going up top.”
“Roger that,” the other driver replied.
As the two craft broke formation, Janko scanned the surrounding incline for heat sources. Only two signatures registered; the red-hot engine from the snowmobile and a figure lying ten feet away from it.
He pulled off his goggles and brought the hovercraft to a stop. As it settled, he threw open the hatch.
“Stay here,” he said to his gunner. “Keep your eyes peeled.”
With a short-barreled submachine gun at his side, Janko climbed from the hovercraft and edged his way toward the wrecked sled. He found it to be inoperable, engine off, battery drained.
“At least they hit something,” he said to himself.
He moved to the body in the snow and rolled it over. To his surprise, a mop of blond hair spilled out from under the white hood of the parka.
Janko pulled the goggles from the woman’s face. He recognized her. She was the woman he’d left tied up beside the explosives in the lab at the flooded mine.
“So yo
u survived,” he muttered.
The radio crackled. “Janko, this is unit two.”
Janko lifted the portable radio to his mouth. “Go ahead.”
“We’ve made it to the bottom of the ridge. Unit three is demolished. The driver and the gunner are both dead. No way to get it back up. Want us to burn it?”
“No,” Janko said. “We don’t need to draw any more attention to ourselves. The blizzard will dump a foot of snow in the next twelve hours. That will keep it out of sight.”
“And the men?”
“Get them out,” he said. “I want all the bodies off this glacier. Ours and theirs.”
A double click told Janko his subordinate understood and would comply. Janko then switched channels and began a new transmission.
“Thero, this is Janko,” he said. “Do you read?”
“Go ahead,” Thero’s raspy voice replied.
“We’re done out here.”
“Did you get them all?”
“All the snowmobiles have been accounted for,” Janko said. “We lost two hovercraft in the process.”
“Who are they?” Thero asked tersely.
“Australians, I think,” Janko said. “I recognize one of the survivors. A blond woman who was at the station in the outback when the ASIO tried to raid it.”
Silence for a moment, and then: “Is she alive?”
“Affirmative. We have two male captives as well. The rest are dead.”
“Bring them in,” Thero said. “I want to interrogate them. We need to know if they’re alone or not.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Janko said.
He clipped the radio back onto his belt, scooped the woman up, and threw her over his shoulder.
Seconds later, he’d dumped her in the cargo bay of the hovercraft and was back in the cockpit, powering up the engines once again. As the sleek machine rose up off the ground, Janko eased it forward and then turned around only twenty yards from where Kurt lay.
The deep snow he’d become buried in masked Kurt’s infrared signature, while his white camouflage, the failing light, and the continuing blizzard made him all but invisible to the naked eye. As a result, neither Janko nor his gunner saw Kurt as they trundled off into the graying horizon.
Zero Hour (9781101600559) Page 24
