The Arctic Event

by Robert Ludlum

  An instant more, and terror of the grenade was forgotten. Splintered ice sprayed as automatic weapons raked the glacier around him. The dead Spetsnaz trooper saved Smith’s life. Convulsing grotesquely, it absorbed bullets meant for him. Valentina was screaming something, and he heard the piercing reports of the model 70 as she returned fire.

  Unseen things tugged viciously at Smith as he rolled onto his stomach and scuttled backward into the cave like a frightened lobster. He made it behind the low snow wall across the cave mouth. Throwing his arm around Valentina, he hauled her down beside him, and for a long second they huddled together as a storm of vengeance-aimed gunfire sparked and shrieked off the sides of the tunnel.

  Out on the glacier, clips emptied and guns fell silent. The hollow ghost-moan of the wind returned.

  “Val, are you all right?”

  “No hits. What about you?”

  Smith noted a couple of bullet rips through the loose cloth of his snow smock. “Close, but nobody won the cigar.”

  “Cuban, no doubt.” Valentina squirmed loose and eased a look over the snow wall. “Damn, but this lot is good! I never had a hint they were out there until they opened up and I could pick out their muzzle flashes. They have us targeted from at least half a dozen different positions.”

  Smith had been given vivid proof of that. The cave mouth was covered by a complete arc of fire. Come the inevitable nightfall, that arc would begin to contract as patient, deadly men wormed closer across the ice. The climax would be a concentrated and overwhelming blast of high explosives and autofire poured down the throat of the tunnel.

  He and Valentina could retreat deeper into the cave, but they would merely be rats retreating deeper into the trap, to be systematically grenaded out of existence. Nor did surrender appear to be an option.

  There had to be something else. There had to be!

  “Can you hold the fort here for a while, Val? I want to go check a few things out.”

  “I can manage,” she replied, thumbing reloads into the magazine of her rifle. “I don’t think they’ll be in a mood to play any more pranks for a time.” She nodded toward the corpse sprawled beyond the cave mouth.

  “Right.” He left her the SR-25 and his cartridge belt and backed to the bend in the tunnel on his hands and knees. Beyond the bend he stood and switched on the hand lantern. For a moment he considered the generator set and the Russian transmitter, then disregarded the notion. The batteries were decades dead, and the available gasoline had been reduced to wax and varnish. Even if they could get the set operational, whom could they call who would make any difference? The only way out of this mess would be one of their own making.

  Smith descended into the main cavern, working toward the small puddle of light produced by the candle he had left burning.

  “Colonel?”

  “It’s me, Major.”

  Smyslov was awake and had worked himself to a sitting position on the survival blanket. Smith knelt down and steadied the bound man with one hand. “How are you doing? Any dizziness? Double vision?”

  “Nothing bad.”

  “How about the cold? Getting to you? Is your circulation being cut off anywhere?”

  “No. Not bad.”

  “How about some water?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Smith gave Smyslov a swallow from his canteen. The Russian rolled the water around in his mouth and spat a glob of congealed blood to one side. “Thank you. A cigarette?”

  “It’s against my principles, but under the circumstances...” Smith went through Smyslov’s pockets until he found the Russian’s smoking materials. “What does this one do?” he asked, holding up the butane lighter.

  “It lights cigarettes,” Smyslov replied laconically.

  “Good enough.” Smith slipped the filter tip between Smyslov’s lips and kindled it.

  “Thank you,” the Russian said around the smoke. “What’s happening? I have heard gunfire.”

  “Your people made a try for us,” Smith replied, returning the canteen to its pocket.

  “Is the professor all right?”

  “Yeah. But your side’s lost two so far.”

  Smyslov closed his swollen eyes. “Shit! This was not supposed to happen!”

  “What was supposed to happen, Major?”

  Smyslov hesitated.

  “Damn it, this situation’s already blown!” Smith said urgently. “I’m open to the possibility that something is going on here that neither of our countries really wants to have happen. Give me something to work with and maybe we can stop this thing!”

  Smyslov shook his head. “No, Colonel, I’m sorry, but it is already too late. The escalation has begun. It is now inescapable.”

  “Then answer me one question. Why?”

  Smyslov sighed heavily. “My government has always known that the Misha 124 had gone down on Wednesday Island. They also knew that the anthrax was still aboard the aircraft and that the aircrew had survived the crash. They had succeeded in establishing radio communications with our Siberian bases. They called for rescue. But the Politburo felt that a rescue mission would present...difficulties. There were no atomic submarines at the time. Wednesday Island was beyond the range of the ski planes then available, and trying to reach the island by icebreaker would draw the attention of the Canadian and American militaries. It was feared that the United States might learn of our aborted attack on North America and you would retaliate with your own nuclear first strike. Accordingly the Misha’s political officer was ordered to eliminate all evidence of the bomber’s mission.”

  “Including the crew?”

  Smyslov nodded, not meeting Smith’s eyes. “Yes. The crew was considered the greatest security risk. It was feared that when they realized that no help was forthcoming from the Soviet Union, they might try to contact the Western powers for rescue. Cold and starvation are not pleasant ways to die. The Misha’s political officer was instructed to...deal with this potential threat to the state.”

  “Including himself?”

  Smyslov shrugged. “He was a political officer of the Strategic Attack Forces of the Soviet Union. Such men were fanatical party members. He would consider dying for the glory of Mother Russia and the Communist Revolution the greatest of honors, even if that death came by his own hand at the party’s order.”

  “But the aircraft commander apparently didn’t take too well to the whole glorious-death concept.”

  Smyslov half-smiled. “Apparently. The Soviet government feared that something had gone wrong when they received no final acknowledgment from the political officer verifying that he had carried out his duty, but there was nothing more they could do. They chose, as the saying goes, to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ They hoped the wreck would simply never be found.”

  “But it was.”

  “Quite so, and apparently intact. My government knew the wreck would be investigated. I was attached to your team to learn if the political officer had succeeded in eliminating the evidence of the Misha 124’s mission. If not, I was supposed to see to its destruction myself. But the political officer and I have both failed. An alternative plan is now in effect to ensure the truth never reaches the outside world.”

  Smith tightened his grip on Smyslov’s shoulder. “Can you order the troops outside to stand down? Or can you contact someone who has the authority to call this mess off before we take any more casualties out here?”

  “I wish I could, Colonel. But the Spetsnaz have their orders from a higher authority, and I am outside their chain of command. Wednesday Island is now to be sterilized. All evidence of the Misha’s mission is to be eliminated, including the investigation team. To my government, the threat of the anthrax is lesser than the threat represented by the truth about the Misha’s mission.”

  “But why?” Smith demanded. “Why all of this for something that happened over fifty years ago?”

  There was a sad irony in Smyslov’s voice as he replied. “In my culture we would say ‘only fifty years ag
o.’ You Americans are mayflies. You forgive and forget quickly. One day you make war on a nation, and the next you are giving them foreign aid and arranging for tourist groups. It is not so in Russia and in the nations surrounding Russia. Our memories are long, and we nurse the bitter ones.

  “If word got out that Russia had come within a hairsbreadth of unleashing a nuclear holocaust upon the world, even after half a century, there would be a reaction: anger, fear, retaliation—things my government does not want or need. Within your own country, there are political leaders who would remember the Cold War and would work to cut off the aid we are receiving from you. Even among our own people there would be outrage, enough perhaps to fuel further secessionism and a final collapse of our national authority.”

  “And your government thinks there won’t be repercussions for killing a team of American agents and a group of innocent civilian scientists?” Smith demanded.

  Smyslov shook his head. “I will not attempt to justify my nation’s actions to you, Colonel, but our leaders are afraid, and frightened men sometimes do not react sensibly.”

  “Christ!” Smith rocked back on his boot heels.

  “I hope you will believe me when I say this, Colonel, but I am sorry, truly sorry, you and the others were caught up in this.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Major.” Smith caught up the lantern and rose to his feet. “But I’m like the bomber commander. I don’t intend to lie down and die for the convenience of the Motherland.”

  “I understand. We are soldiers, the two of us. We each do what we must.”

  Smith played the lantern beam in Smyslov’s face. “Could you at least tell me why the attack was launched and then recalled at the last second?”

  “I cannot do that, Colonel.” Smyslov’s face was impassive as he squinted into the light. “That is a state secret even greater than that of the Misha 124.”

  Smith stepped back from his prisoner. There was nothing more to be gained here, and his time was running out.

  There was one possibility he had yet to fully investigate. Smith began a slow and deliberate examination of the walls of the cavern, probing with the lantern beam into the numerous crevices and fissures in the jagged lava rock. He had almost despaired of finding anything when, high up on the tumbled rear slope of the cave, beyond the cove where they had found the bodies of the aircraft commander and political officer, he spotted something that sheened palely.

  Smith scrambled up the jumbled blocks of basalt to a point near the cavern roof. The paleness was a piece of doubled parachute silk, staked out and held in place by wedged chunks of stone.

  A windblock.

  Smith tore out the stones and pulled the cloth aside and felt the icy, dank flow of air on his face. The lava tube continued beyond the survival camp cavern! At some time in the past there had been a rockfall that had created a natural bulkhead in the tunnel. But a gap remained, large enough for a man to crawl through to another open section that lay beyond.

  Smith snaked through the gap and worked his way down the slope of the inner face. Probing ahead, the beam of the lantern faded into the darkness. The tube flared out to the size of an automobile tunnel and seemed to continue for some distance. Taking a compass from his pocket, he flipped it open and checked the glowing luminescent dial. Orienting himself and making the mental correction for the nearness of the magnetic pole, Smith judged that the tunnel roughly paralleled the outer facing of the mountain.

  Maybe...just maybe. It depended on how far the tube ran and if there was a second way out. With deliberation he started to work his way deeper into the tunnel, trying to gauge the angle of the slope. Was he above or below the level of the glacier?

  The going was slow and treacherous. Olive-tinted puddles of slick, transparent glaze ice lay congealed around furniture-sized slabs of fallen basalt. The floor of this tube section was more broken and uneven than the camp cavern, possibly an indication that it was more unstable as well. Smith had neither the time nor the inclination to be concerned about it. A hundred yards...two hundred...

  There! A ribbon of white against the black rock, a spill of snow down the tunnel wall!

  Smith scrambled up the glassy slope of the miniature glacier to where the compacting snow was being forced into the lava tube. It was at a point maybe eight feet above the cave floor and took in an area the size of a coffee table. Bracing a foot on a solid stone ledge, he snapped off the lantern and let his eyes adapt. After a couple of minutes he could make out the faintest luminescence radiating through the snow plug from the outside. Daylight!

  Drawing his bayonet, Smith started to dig, tunneling his way carefully toward the outside world. The luminescence grew brighter, and Smith recognized that he was digging through another of the ice-crusted snowdrifts such as they had found caking the first lava tube entrance. This was the back door he’d been seeking.

  Suddenly Smith froze. Something more was leaking in from the outer world beyond the light.

  Voices—faint, muffled, and not speaking English.

  Smith resumed his digging, but he moved slowly, quietly, and with infinite care not to break through the drift. He eased a last knife thrust through the ice shell, creating a single blade-wide horizontal penetration to the outside. Daylight gleamed, bright to Smith even through the heavy overcast. He squinted through the narrow observation slit he had created.

  This second entrance opened into a shallow notch in the cliff face. A bare forty feet away, two armed figures in snow camouflage crouched behind the shoulder of the notch, peering around the corner toward the main cave entrance.

  Like a man moving on nitroglycerin-filled eggs, Smith backed out of the snow tunnel and down to the cave floor, easing each step and testing each foot and handhold. He had found an option.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Wednesday Island Station

  Randi saw it coming and was ready for it. The blows were delivered open-palm, but they were no mere slaps. She relaxed her neck and shoulder muscles and rode with the vicious left-right-left of the blows, minimizing their effect. Even so, stars flashed behind her eyes for a moment, and her skin burned.

  There had been no reason for the assault. Randi had not spoken a word to her attacker, nor he to her. It was only the predictable start of the testing and breaking process, a testament on the part of her captors that they were not the least bit hesitant about inflicting pain and injury. Randi was already fully aware of that fact. She shook off the effects, straightened, and met her assailant’s gaze, her features defiantly neutral.

  She knew from her escape-and-evasion training that this was a bad tactic. She should be keeping her eyes lowered in submissive mode. Given the animalistic psychology of the terrorist, meeting eyes was a threat act that could trigger a violent if not lethal reaction.

  But what the hell, they were going to kill her anyway.

  The man who had struck her was a giant in size and in dissipation, his height and bulk enhanced by his cold-weather gear. A tangled, graying ginger beard flowed over the opened collar of his parka, and narrowed pale blue eyes peered from beneath shaggy brows of the same color, bloodshot and intent.

  Those eyes studied Randi’s face for a long moment; then the laughter wrinkles clenched around them and he chuckled, deep in his chest. Randi was not comforted. This man’s anger would likely be more merciful than his humor.

  “This is a sassy little bit,” the big man rumbled. “What do you know about her, Stefan?”

  “That she is some kind of American government agent, Uncle,” Kropodkin replied, spite heavy in his reply, “and that the bitch owes me.”

  Uncle, Randi mused grimly—so it was all a family affair. Some incredible roll of random chance’s dice had placed Kropodkin’s fox inside the science expedition’s henhouse. The security services of the world were totally at the mercy of such flukes.

  They were in the laboratory hut: Randi, Professor Trowbridge, Kropodkin, the redheaded giant, and two more of his gang—watchful, stone-featured Slavic ty
pes. Randi had been disarmed, searched, and stripped of her parka and heavy outer snow pants, and her wrists cuffed with the good old-fashioned steel variety of handcuffs.

  One of the guards stood immediately behind her, and intermittently she felt the brush of a submachine gun muzzle between her shoulder blades.

  “And what of him?” the giant asked, nodding toward Dr. Trowbridge.

  Kropodkin’s flat, dark eyes flicked briefly toward the academic, the man he had beseeched for aid and who had defended him in the face of Randi’s accusations. “A schoolteacher. He is nothing.”

  Trowbridge, his hands cuffed behind him as well, was reaching the apex of his waking nightmare. He had gone so pale, his skin had a greenish tinge, and Randi feared cardiac arrest might be imminent for the man. He stayed on his feet only because of the blows and kicks that had followed when his legs buckled. The crotch of his corduroy trousers was soaked.

  Randi wanted to speak to him, to say some word of encouragement or comfort, but she dared not. For Trowbridge’s sake, she had to maintain a posture of complete indifference to him. If she exhibited even a hint of compassion toward the academic, their captors might view his systematic torment as a lever to get at her.

  “Come, now, Stefan,” the big man said jovially. “No one is nothing. Everyone is something.” He turned to Trowbridge. “Come, now, my friend, you are something, aren’t you?”

  “Yes! Yes, I’m...I am Dr. Rosen Trowbridge, the administrative director of the Wednesday Island Science Program. I’m a Canadian citizen. I’m...a...a noncombatant! A civilian! I have nothing to do with...with these other people!”

  “See, Stefan?” The big man stepped across the laboratory to where Trowbridge cowered against the wall near the stove. He gave the doctor a light slap on the shoulder. “He is a doctor. A man of learning. An intelligent man.”

  He glanced back at Randi. “And you, my pretty pretty? Are you intelligent, too?”

  Randi didn’t reply. She stared past him out of the laboratory hut windows, her unfocused gaze automatically taking in the movements of the other men brought in aboard the giant helicopter, noting the supplies they were unloading, trying to spot where they might be establishing their sentry goes and guard posts around the camp perimeter.