Into the Black

by Sean Ellis

  With a shout to the horses and a shake of the reins he urged the team into motion. Immediately as they began to move, he pulled them right, angling toward the gap between the drift and the leading snow-cat. The horses could not comprehend his urgency, but the ferocity of his manner sufficed to motivate them to a trot.

  He heard Irene shouting in his ear, demanding an explanation but there was no time for him to give one. The side of the sleigh banged into the front corner of the first vehicle, sending a shock wave through the sled and jostling its passengers. The iron rails bounced out of the grooves in the snow, skipping sideways as the horses' forward motion pulled it into line. The hop carried the sleigh into a snowdrift and dislodged a torrent of the frozen powder into the interior before it straightened out.

  Kismet kept at the horses, shouting for them to go faster as they threaded the narrow gap. They shot past the first snow-cat and into the open space between it and the next vehicle in the convoy. The commandos clinging to the open platform on the rear of the transport stared in disbelief. Each one fingered his weapon nervously, but without orders from their commanding officer, chose to fire nothing except for harsh curses.

  Abruptly, Kismet realized the fallacy of his thinking. The snow-cats were not in a perfect line. In fact, the second one was nearly two feet closer to the bank on Kismet's right side. He swore under his breath, unable to judge the distance between them and the gap or to tell if the space was wide enough to allow them to pass.

  The problem solved itself. Ignoring the possibility of failure, Kismet adjusted the course of the horses so that the edge of the snowdrift was virtually brushing against the right horse's flank. The rest he left up to luck.

  The horses balked, but Kismet shook the reins vigorously, snapping them like whips against the animals' hindquarters. Grudgingly, they responded and burst forward into the narrow pass.

  Each horse tried to turn inward to avoid striking whatever lay alongside. The harness allowed for very little of this sort of movement, but somehow, the two mighty horses squeezed between the icy wall and the metal behemoth. The sleigh however was another matter.

  The front end was too wide by a fraction of an inch, but that was enough for it to come to a dead stop, wedged between the unyielding fender of the second troop mover and the snowbank. The sudden halt confused the horses, causing them to slide and stumble in their rig.

  "We're stuck!" Irene shrieked, once more stating the obvious to Kismet's continued chagrin. He ignored her. The horses were strong enough to get them through, even if it meant shaving off the side of the snowdrift with the sleigh. All that was required was the proper motivation. Shouting meaningless vocalizations at the pair, he repeatedly shook the reins, trying if nothing else to aggravate the horses into reacting. Eight hooves bit deep into the snow; massive legs that were nothing less than great pillars of muscle strained against the grip that held the sleigh in place.

  "It's working," Kerns shouted, now completely awake. Kismet did not relent in his efforts, nor did he look to see if the assessment was correct. There was still a long way to go.

  A towheaded man, about Kismet's age, looked down from the window of the vehicle directly above them. He shouted in German for them to surrender, and brandished a sidearm to enforce his command. In the reflection of the windscreen, Kismet saw the troops from the lead cat disgorging onto the snow and advancing on them with rifles at the ready.

  The sleigh lurched forward nearly a few feet before binding up again. A second violent movement took it further, and this time it was not halted, but merely slowed as it scraped through. A burst of noise rattled the mountain pass as one of the Kalashnikovs discharged, and Kismet ducked reflexively. An instant later, the sleigh burst into the clear between the second and the last snow-cat in the convoy.

  Troops from both vehicles were spilling out onto the snow, bent on impeding their escape. It seemed obvious that commandos were linked by radio and getting updates from the front. The men in the last vehicle had probably known about them almost from the start, and had formed a human wall in the narrow gap beside their cat.

  The troops behind them had also closed the gap, the foremost attempting to manually seize control of the sleigh. Kerns roused himself to fight them off with his fists, and unprepared for foot pursuit in the icy conditions, the men slipped and fell against each other like dominos. Soon white clad commandos were piled up behind them in the narrow space.

  Kismet leapt forward, onto the back of the left-hand steed, and used the reins like a whip against the soldiers directly in their path. The leather straps proved more intimidating to these well-trained warriors than a blazing muzzle flash from a machine gun. The thought of the rawhide burning into their exposed faces, tearing out their eyes or disfiguring them with long, painful cuts, caused even the toughest of them to recoil, and the human barrier crumbled.

  The draft horses plowed forward. The troops ran from before them, knowing that a slip might find them crushed beneath the massive hooves or sliced apart by the iron rails of the sleigh. With Irene and her father successfully repelling the advances from their rear and sides, the sleigh passed the final snow-cat and burst into the open.

  Right away Kismet found himself imperiled by a new threat. Beyond the mountain pass the trail began declining again. Moreover, a broad corner loomed ahead, with a precipice on one side. He immediately let the horses' pace slacken as to approach the curve at a less hectic clip.

  As he clambered back to the bench seat of the sleigh, he risked a rearward look, confirming his belief that the pass was too narrow to allow the snow-cats to turn and pursue. Like the barbs on a fishhook, the vehicles were firmly inserted into the narrow passage. They might, with great difficulty, be able to back up, but the only viable way of using the caterpillar driven transports to pursue the sleigh would necessitate driving them forward until a space wide enough to come about could be found.

  However, Kismet quickly realized the commandos would not need their vehicles to mount an effective pursuit. Dozens of the soldiers were breaking out long containers, from which they took narrow strips of carbon fiber, each as tall as a man, which curved like scimitars at one end.

  "Skis," rasped Kismet, as if the word were an oath. The elite soldiers had brought along cross-country skis. In a matter of seconds, the first of the troops had secured his boots in the toe bindings and pushed off with his ski poles.

  Kismet brought his focus back to the trail ahead. The snow-cats had stamped a broad path of packed snow leading back down the mountain. That was the good news. Their speed was gradually increasing as the slope began to drop away beneath the rails. Kismet felt the shift in their momentum as first, the horses altered direction, and then the sleigh, like a pendulum, swung into line.

  Beyond the corner, the track led into a rapid descent across the face of the mountain. Sheer ice rose above on one side, while a drop-off opened up on the other. The side nearest to the edge of the precipice put them dangerously close to going over, but there was no way to effect a change. The only option was to once more put their fate in the slippery hands of luck.

  Three fearless ski-troopers screamed toward them, leaning forward as the slope increased their own speed. The first tucked his poles under one arm and brought his rifle around. Using the web sling like a bracing arm, he fired the weapon one-handed into the air. They were only warnings shot, but nonetheless close enough to let the fugitives know where the next discharge would be aimed.

  Kismet found the threat bitterly amusing. They were committed to a descent of the mountain; they could not stop now, even if they wanted to. Any attempt to slow the draft horses would end disastrously, with the sleigh jack-knifing and causing a lethal tumble down the trail, or shooting out over the edge. The commando dropped the smoking weapon, allowing it to dangle impotently from the strap and tucked in to increase his speed. As he maneuvered closer to the speeding sleigh, Kismet saw what he was up to.

  Despite the urgency of the moment, gears were turning in Kismet's h
ead. In the back of his mind, he was putting seemingly unrelated facts and observations together. It was glaringly apparent that Grimes and Harcourt still had a use for Peter Kerns. Perhaps Harcourt had begun to suspect what Kismet now knew; namely, that Peter Kerns had deliberately misdirected the British archaeologist, that he had not discovered the artifacts in the mountain camp, and that in all likelihood, the Russian engineer had already laid eyes on the Golden Fleece and probably concealed it somewhere far from the Caucasus. Irene was merely a pawn, useful alive, but no loss if killed. What was not so obvious was the value of his own life to Grimes. The pursuit in New York had seemed openly hostile, yet throughout Grimes had made a pretense of wanting Kismet's assistance. What was his value to the traitor now? Had Grimes ordered the soldiers to kill him, or to simply commandeer the sleigh and return all three to the mountain camp?

  Because life or death odds gave him an adrenaline edge, Kismet chose to believe the worst. As the ski trooper drew alongside the sleigh and reached out to pull himself in, Kismet unleashed his kukri.

  The wounded soldier cartwheeled away, his skis whirling like fan blades. His crash created an obstacle in the path of his confederates. The second commando's skis hit the motionless form of the fallen man, ripping his feet from the bindings to send him sailing through the air, over the cliff. The third skier turned hard, angling into the snow piled up along the wall. Rather than losing control, he skillfully negotiated the sheer wall and actually advanced upward as his skis cut a new path through the accumulated snow. Without slowing, he angled his skis down and skipped across the nearly vertical surface, directly ahead of the sleigh. As the horses passed beneath him he pushed out with his legs and launched himself at the sleigh.

  Kismet had followed the soldier through his maneuvers, but the last move caught him by surprise. Unable to throw together a last-second response, he simply ducked his head as the skier slammed into him.

  He felt a searing pain along his back as the sharp edge of one ski raked through his thick leather jacket, gouging a bloody trail from his shoulder blade to his waist. Before he could give voice to his pain, a second blow exploded like fireworks in his skull; the trooper's gun, swinging wildly from its sling, had chanced to clout him in the back of the head.

  As he crashed down on top of Kismet, the soldier wrapped an arm around his neck. His head presented a perfect target for the German's blows. Flashes like lightning swam before his eyes while the dull hammering left his ears ringing. In desperation, he drove backward with his elbow. A grunt signaled that the blow had done some harm and was accompanied by a momentary respite in the assault.

  Kismet became aware of two things in that instant. First, that Irene and her father were struggling to overpower the unwelcome visitor. This gave him the strength of will to muster his own retaliation, in spite of his indefensible position. The second observation, which lent urgency to the first, was that no one was driving the sleigh.

  A second blow from Kismet's elbow elicited an outcry from the soldier. As his stranglehold weakened, Kismet changed his aim, driving downward into the man's genitals. The attack drew a primal response. Howling, the German's hands flew to protect his bruised groin. Kismet raised his head, and with a vicious grin, launched a cross-body left to the man's jaw. The commando rolled over, making a desperate effort to save himself with one hand, but was unable to resist the persuasive power of Kismet's boot in his back. He flipped over the side railing and tumbled into the snow as the sleigh raced away.

  Through a haze of pain, Kismet looked with groping hands for the reins to the sleigh. Although several seconds had passed with no one to guide them, the horses had maintained reasonable control over the descent. Holding the reins loosely, he let them have their head and turned to scan the slopes behind for signs of other pursuit.

  He quickly found it. Charging in loose formation down the trail were at least a dozen more skiing commandos. With their bodies crouched low and their weight forward over the curving tips of their Nordic skis, the soldiers were rapidly gaining on the sleigh.

  Ahead, the trail was starting to level out. The merits of this fact were eclipsed by his realization that the short flat stretch was followed by a hairpin turn that led into a switchback. He had precious few seconds in which to slow almost to a complete stop, or their momentum would carry them past the turn and headlong into certain disaster.

  Irene saw it too. She slid into the seat beside him and grabbed his arm. He shook his head and pulled free. "No time for that!" Thrusting the reins into her hands, he vaulted over the back of the bench and past Kerns.

  With both hands fiercely gripping the backboard, he hurtled out over the snow. Like a crazed gymnast, he dangled behind the sleigh, thrusting forward with his legs. His feet hit the snow heels first. He kept his knees locked and ankles rigid so that the thick boot soles would dig into the icy surface. For a moment his plan seemed to work. Then his feet hit an unyielding bump and his legs were driven backward under his torso to flop uselessly behind him.

  Seeing his peril, Peter Kerns leaned out over the back end of the sleigh and grasped Kismet's forearms. At the same time Irene began to haul back on the reins, attempting to convince the horses to arrest their downhill charge, but her efforts were futile. The horses had too much momentum and not enough room to stop.

  Kerns' timely assistance roused Kismet for a second try. Swinging his legs forward, he once more attempted to slow their descent. The friction of his heels in the snow, coupled with the leveling of the trail and, in some part, Irene's efforts to control the team, accomplished the impossible. The horses came to a complete stop a few lengths from the hairpin curve.

  Kismet let go and dropped back into the snow. Icy shavings had filled his trouser legs up to his knees, but there was no time to shake the cold powder away from his clothes.

  The skiers were visible but still a ways off, but in the time it took Irene to maneuver the horses around to face the next leg of the descent, they halved the intervening distance.

  "Go!" Kismet urged as he scrambled aboard. He made no effort to take the reins; her control of the draft horses was far superior to her performance behind the wheel of the garbage truck in New York. As they began descending once more, he retrieved his kukri from the splinters of broken skis and poles and slid it into its leather scabbard.

  His assumption that his foes would have to slow down before making the hard turn was only partially correct. Several of the more confident among their number elected to cut out the switchback altogether by turning prematurely and charging down the vertical face of the cliff.

  "They're crazy.“ whispered Kismet. “And they're about the best damn skiers I've ever seen. We've got to try something else, and fast."

  Irene took his final word literally. With a shout, she urged the team into a full run. Their path took them directly under the skiers and just past them before they could complete their descent. Nevertheless, as soon as they touched down on the slope, the commandos were in close pursuit. Less than a hundred yards separated the sleigh from a pack of four soldiers. The rest of the group had already rounded the hairpin curve and was not far behind.

  The trail they followed soon opened up into a broad powder valley. The passage of the tracked vehicles had carved a pathway through the soft accumulation, allowing them to proceed without slowing, and soon they were once more following a gradual decline. They were no longer on the trail that they had originally followed up from the foothills. Instead, they were now on the path Grimes' snow-cats had blazed, a route that would bring them east along the southern flank of the range.

  "We can't keep running like this," he announced. "Eventually we're going to get chased over a cliff, or worse."

  "So what have you got in mind?"

  "Change the rules," he replied, understanding even as he said it, what that would mean. "Go on the offensive."

  "How?" wheezed the Kerns. "We haven't any guns. And as good as you are with it, I don't think that knife of yours is any match for an automati
c rifle."

  "You might be surprised," he muttered, then in a more commanding voice added: "Get down this mountain any way you can. Then go to Anatoly's house. I'll catch up to you as soon as I can."

  "What?" Irene gaped at him and let her hold on the reins momentarily go slack. The concern in her eyes hit him like physical blow. "Nick, you can't leave me."

  Her tone said more than her words. Without even realizing it, she had fallen for him, and the thought that he might vanish forever from her life was too horrible to contemplate. This unspoken revelation filled him with apprehension. He didn't want to leave her behind, didn't want to face the prospect of death or capture alone. More than anything, he wanted her to get away safely. But there was the Fleece....

  The Golden Fleece. That was what it was really all about. Men and women would continue to fall in and out of love for the rest of eternity. Once in a millennium such a love might actually shape the course of history, but more often than not, even the greatest lovers faded into obscurity. Not so with power. Power, used or abused, left a mark for generations. Just as it was impossible for mankind to unremember the atomic bomb, so too the Fleece and whatever diabolical machination Grimes and his allies had planned for it, would surely haunt the planet for the rest of its existence. He alone was in a position to prevent that—to stand between that relic of uncertain power and the forces of evil. Nothing else really mattered.

  Peter Kerns knew where it was, of that Kismet was certain. He could not allow Grimes to recapture the old man or his daughter.

  "If I don't make it back by midnight tonight, I want you both to head two miles north of the city. Wait on the shore for an hour. Lyse—a friend of mine—will rendezvous there and get you back home. As for you, sir, I want you to promise to tell my friend the truth."

  Kerns looked back at him with a stupefied expression, but Kismet wasn't buying. "I mean it. Grimes must not be allowed to get it. I think you know that."

  The old engineer tried to maintain his poker face, but finally relented, sagging as if the acknowledgment left him drained. Irene was not so quick to accept his decision. "Nick, stop talking like this. We've got to stick together."