The Arctic Event

by Robert Ludlum

  “Hmmm, maybe the lady is not so intelligent as you are, Doctor. Who is she? What agency does she work for?”

  Trowbridge’s tongue dabbed at his lips as he tried not to look at Randi, as he tried to not look at anything. “Like Stefan said, she is some kind of American government agent. I don’t know any more about her than that.”

  “My friend”—the redheaded giant’s voice grew ominously soft—“don’t stop being an intelligent man.”

  A big, hairy-backed hand shot out and engulfed the front of Trowbridge’s sweater. Swinging the handcuffed man around, the terrorist leader bent him backward over the lab hut’s coal stove until the bare flesh of Trowbridge’s hands and wrists sizzled on the hot stovetop.

  Randi’s jaws clenched so tightly, her back teeth almost shattered.

  After Trowbridge had stopped screaming, he started talking, the words gushing from him in a whimpering babble. There was no need for the redheaded giant to conduct an interrogation. He merely guided the flow of words with an occasional quiet, nudging question, occasionally cross-checking a given answer with Kropodkin.

  Trowbridge gave it all up: Jon, Valentina, Smyslov, the Haley, the mission. The doctor was no trained agent. Randi could expect the hapless, terrified man to do nothing more or less.

  As Trowbridge talked, Randi thought. Her mind raced, using every precious second gained to develop some kind of con or angle that might save the doctor and herself. She had been in similar situations before where she had bought herself survival time with a skillfully crafted lie or cover story. But, damn it, this scenario gave her no maneuvering room!

  Between Trowbridge and Kropodkin and overt, common knowledge, these people simply knew too much. She had nothing to sell, bargain, or bluff with. In the hands and eyes of the enemy, she and Trowbridge were irrelevant and disposable.

  Across the room, Trowbridge’s flow of words was going dry. Randi frantically tried to telepath him a message. Keep talking! For God’s sake, make something up! Anything! Just keep talking!

  He didn’t hear her unspoken entreaty. His words trailed off with a final, near-whispered, “That’s all I know...I’m cooperating...I’m a Canadian citizen.”

  The big man turned toward her, those ghost-pale blue eyes speculative. “Well, pretty-pretty? Do you have anything to add?”

  Randi read those eyes and knew that he had her pegged. He understood her, and he understood that anything she might say would be merely a stratagem, offered to stave off the inevitable. She stared back as impassively as the statue of Venus, her pride and instinctive discipline blocking her despair and rage.

  “You’re absolutely correct, my pretty-pretty. No sense in wasting everyone’s time.”

  The big red-haired man turned back to Trowbridge, drawing a big Czech-made CZ-75 automatic out of the side pocket of his parka. “Thank you, friend Doctor. You have been most helpful.” He lifted the pistol. With a flick of his head, he indicated to the guard covering Trowbridge that he should stand clear.

  Trowbridge caught the meaning of the act, and a dawning, ultimate horror filled his features. “No! Wait! I’ve told you everything I know! I’m cooperating! You have no reason to kill me!”

  “He’s right! He’s not part of this!” Randi blurted. She had to speak, to protest just once, even though she knew with a sick certainty that it was useless and worse than useless. “You have no reason to kill him.”

  The aimed muzzle of the pistol wavered. “This is very true.” The big man looked back at her and smiled. “I have no reason to kill him...but then, I have no reason to keep him alive, either.”

  The CZ-75 roared. The single 9mm slug embedded in the radio room partition, surrounded by a splatter pattern of blood, bone splinters, and homogenized brain tissue. Death limp, Trowbridge’s body collapsed into the corner of the lab.

  Randi closed her eyes, and no one heard her sob of regret and despair but herself and the universe. Trowbridge, I’m sorry! Jon, I’m sorry! I wasn’t good enough!

  She opened her eyes again to find the redheaded giant circling the worktable to confront her. So this was it. The ending place she had known she would stand in someday. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but few of her kind found good endings. It was an aspect of the profession.

  The CZ-75 leveled at her stomach. “Well, pretty-pretty? Do I have a reason not to kill you?”

  The man behind the gun was speaking rhetorically. Randi sensed he had already decided. He knew he needed nothing from her. Any ploy she might try now, any bargain she might offer, any attempted diversion would be recognized as sophistry. Randi reverted to silence.

  “No, I suppose not.” The automatic lifted and aimed into her face.

  “Wait.”

  It was Kropodkin speaking. He was standing at his uncle’s shoulder, and his expression was one of smug cruelty. His flat, dark eyes ran the length of her body, slipping under her clothes.

  The faintest spark of hope gleamed.

  “Do we have to be so fast with this one? We have a long, cold night ahead of us, Uncle. It would be a waste.”

  That faint spark of hope flared as a hint of thoughtful consideration crept into the big man’s eyes. The muzzle of the automatic lowered to Randi’s chest, brushing lightly against the fabric of her sweater, slowly tracing the outlines.

  Randi knew she was an attractive, even a beautiful, woman. Sex and seduction had been useful tools in her agent’s kit, and she had no problem with employing them. But any overt coquetry on her part now would blow the fragile potential. This man was not a fool. Still, Randi inhaled slowly, a deep breath that lifted and subtly offered her full breasts.

  “Yes, Stefan. This one might be worth enjoying a bit,” the red-haired man murmured.

  Very carefully Randi metered a hint of fear into her expression, the promise of a chink in her iron control. Fear and vulnerability would be an aphrodisiac to men such as this. They would react to it in the way a shark would react to a drop of blood in the water. The one chance might be the briar patch tactic.

  Come on, you bastards! You want it! Screw me before you kill me!

  Existence balanced on a razor edge.

  “Yes, a waste.” The automatic sank away from her chest and disappeared into the pocket of the parka. “Recreational facilities are decidedly lacking on this misbegotten rock. Remember this, Stefan. You must always look to the morale of your employees. Our men would not forgive us for denying them this charming lady’s company.” The big man reached up and playfully patted Randi’s bruised cheek. “Take her back to the bunkhouse and keep her secured until this evening. Work must come before pleasure.”

  Randi pretended to crack, registering an expression of sick horror. Inwardly, she exulted. They had thought with their glands instead of their brains. They were only a bunch of thugs, after all. Thugs on a world-class scale, perhaps, but thugs nonetheless. They had made a mistake a real pro outfit would never have made. They had allowed another pro to remain alive. She must now make them pay for that folly.

  Wednesday Island Station had undergone a population boom. Anton Kretek had brought in a twenty-man security and technical team aboard his Halo. Now that crew was hard at work securing the mammoth helicopter against the weather and establishing a sentry perimeter.

  With matters dealt with inside the laboratory hut, Anton Kretek made a tour of inspection, ensuring that his detailed ops plan was being followed to the letter. He could still make this thing work—he was certain of it, even in the face of the niggling interference of the Western security agencies—but the margin for error would be small.

  His dead sister’s son crunched through the layering snow at his side. Kretek was pleased with how things had worked out with him. Stefan had been a wild one a few years back. Kretek had once despaired over the boy. No discipline. No common sense, like so many of them these days.

  It had been bad enough when Stefan had knifed that German student over some tourist girl in Belgrade, but he had cut the girl’s throat as well. There
was no putting a fix in for that. Kretek had expended a great deal of time and trouble in spiriting the boy out of Europe and getting him established under a new identity in Canada.

  But the boy had made amends with this current coup. He had acquitted himself well, and perhaps there would be a place for him in the business after all. An heir.

  Stefan squinted through the growing sweep of wind-driven snow. “We’re awfully open here, Uncle. The American spy satellites could spot this activity.”

  Kretek nodded to himself, pleased. The lad was thinking. Yes, he had come a long way. “Let them look all they like. This was one of the reasons we delayed our arrival. We had to get the timing and the weather just right. We had to squeeze in just ahead of this next storm front. Now the flying conditions are impossible everywhere between us and the Canadian coast. No one can get at us.”

  “But it must clear sometime.”

  “Very true, Stefan. There should be a break in the weather tomorrow morning, in fact. But in this part of the world the weather breaks from the north. We will be able to take off first. I have my best explosives men with me, and they have ribbon charges already cut to fit the bulkheads of a TU-4. I have also obtained a set of schematics for the biowarfare system, and I have had a lift harness made to fit the anthrax reservoir.

  “Tomorrow morning we will fly to the crash site and open up that aeroplane like an oyster. Then we will pluck out the pearl and be on our way. It should take only half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes at the most. By the time the authorities arrive, we will be gone.”

  “Where do we go from here, Uncle?”

  “I have three refueling sites established in isolated areas across northern Canada. We will stage through them to reach Hudson Bay, flying at treetop altitude to evade the NORAD radar. In Hudson Bay we will rendezvous with an Icelandic trawler. The helicopter will go to the bottom of the sea, and we sail for the mid-Atlantic. There, we will transfer the reservoir to one of the group ships and we will dispose of the trawler and its crew. After that, we are free and clear. We need only decide if we should sell our prize in bulk to one buyer or if there is more money to be made breaking it down into penny packets.”

  Kropodkin laughed and clapped Kretek on his shoulder. “The old wolf always has a plan.”

  “Yes, but this time it was the sharp-nosed cub who sniffed out the prey.” Kretek peered intently into the eyes of the younger man. “You are sure the investigation team didn’t have the opportunity to get out a radio report on the situation here?”

  “I am certain. The transmitter they brought with them did not have the power to penetrate the solar flare, and I had sabotaged the station set. It was a close thing. Very close, but they didn’t radio out.”

  Kretek nodded. “This is good. As far as the outside world knows, the investigation team and the crew from the science station might still be here in the camp. The Americans won’t risk cruise missiles or radar bombing through the storm if it might kill hostages. That was the last thing we had to fear.”

  “I’m not quite so sure, Uncle.” Kropodkin glanced back toward the laboratory hut. One of Kretek’s guards was dragging the body of Dr. Trowbridge out into the snow. Another was herding a handcuffed Randi Russell toward the bunkhouse. “We still have the other members of the American investigation team loose on the island. If they are anything like that bitch, they could be trouble.”

  Kretek shrugged. “Pish, pish, pish! Three are only three. Worry about things worth worrying about. If they come stumbling back into camp tonight, we will kill them. If they are still up at the crash site tomorrow morning, we will kill them there. If they choose to hide from us somewhere on the island, let them hide. They are nothing as long as they do not interfere with us.”

  “All but that one.” Kropodkin nodded toward Randi. “She is something to me.” His voice was tight and as cold as the polar winds.

  “I can understand that. You will be the first in her tonight. You are owed that.” Kretek gave his nephew a bearlike cuff. “Just see you leave plenty for the rest of us,” he continued boisterously. “Remember, you are a member of the firm now. Fair shares for all.”

  The two men shared a warm family laugh.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Saddleback Glacier

  The black rock of East Peak loomed over the pale sheet of glacial ice, becoming one with the deepening night. At its base, the final approach began. Dark, leathery faces and dark, narrowed eyes peered from parka hoods, gauging the growing strength of the wind and the density of the snow being driven before it. As each gust blurred the line of sight between them and their objective the Spetsnaz troopers snaked forward another few meters, taking advantage of every minute concealing swale and depression in the ice, relentlessly tightening their half-circle perimeter around the cave mouth.

  They were Siberian Yakut tribesmen, the ancient seed race from which the American Indian had sprung, adept at survival in this kind of savage, frigid environment. They could ignore the wind that drove through their arctic gear, turning the windward side of their bodies into a half-deadened ache. They were inured to the burning numbness of the frostbite eating into their faces. The resulting scabs and scars would be badges of honor, a testament to their ability to survive and fight in realms that would destroy lesser, softer men.

  This night, if they felt anything, it was heat. The fires of revenge burned bright for the teammates who had died at the hands of those in the cave. They hoped that their enemies would not die swiftly in the initial assault. In their worldview, vengeance was something worth taking one’s time over.

  Lieutenant Pavel Tomashenko peered cautiously from behind a jumble of snow-sheathed slide rock. He and his platoon sergeant had worked their way along the cliff face to within fifty yards of the objective cave. Through his night-vision monocular he could make out the body of Private Uluh sprawled on the ice outside of the cave mouth. It gave him the range he needed.

  Trying to get a grenade in there that afternoon had been a mistake, but he had been angry over the loss of Scout Toyon to that sniper’s shot. He had gotten impatient, and it had ended up costing him two men instead of the one.

  That would make it a total of three to be avenged. The attack signal from the radio transponder carried by Major Smyslov had been their last contact with their agent within the American investigation team. The Americans must somehow have learned of Smyslov’s true mission intent and killed him. It was unfortunate but also one less factor to worry about in the upcoming assault.

  They were good, Tomashenko mused, the man and the woman in the cave. Probably United States Military Special Forces or Central Intelligence Agency. When he and his troopers went in after them it would be like hunting down a mated pair of Siberian tigers. They must be sure to kill them both very dead.

  Full darkness settled, the beginning of a sixteen-hour arctic night. Tomashenko squinted through the monocular one last time. The photomultiplier helped against the lack of light but not the thickening snow, and now the battery was fading in the cold. His men had their orders, and the platoon would be in position. There was no sense in prolonging this.

  “Stand ready, Sergeant.”

  Sergeant Vilyayskiy grunted an acknowledgment and drew the flare gun from the holster clipped to his harness.

  Tomashenko slipped an RGN-86 limited-fragmentation grenade from a bandolier pouch and tugged a whistle from the neck of his parka. When he had first been assigned to the Siberian garrison he had made the mistake once of letting his whistle dangle outside on his chest on its chain. The metal of the mouthpiece had peeled the flesh right off his lips.

  “Illuminate!”

  The platoon sergeant fired, skidding the flare flatly across the ice so it came to rest near the cave mouth, revealing it in a blue-white glare of burning magnesium. Lifting the whistle, Tomashenko blew a prolonged, piercing blast.

  Around the perimeter, the RPK-74 squad automatic weapons raved a long, focused burst, their tracer streams converging on the cave mo
uth. A second later half a dozen rifle grenades impacted around the cave mouth, flinging Private Uluh’s body aside in a grotesque tumble. One of the grenades scored a clean hit down the throat of the tunnel, kicking a spray of snow and ice from the barricade across the mouth.

  Tomashenko blew the double blast that signaled the cease-fire and the assault charge. Then he was on his feet and running for the cave mouth. For his own pride and the mastery of his platoon, he must be in the forefront of the attack.

  His men were rushing the cave from all angles, pale spectral figures rising up from the ice, weapons lifted. But Tomashenko arrived first.

  “Beware grenade!”

  He tore the pin out of the RGN-86 and allowed the safety lever to flick away from the deadly little sphere. He counted two racing heartbeats before hurling the grenade into the tunnel mouth and pressing against the cliff face.

  The heavy thud of the detonation sounded well back in the lava tube, snow and shock waves belching from it once more. Catching up his AK-74 from where it hung slung under his arm, Tomashenko pivoted in front of the cave mouth, emptying the thirty-round magazine in a single protracted burst. Sergeant Vilyayskiy was at his side, hosing out a second stream of bullets, sparks kicked up by the ricocheting slugs dancing in the cavern throat.

  There was no replying fire.

  As the remainder of the platoon deployed on either side of the cave entrance, Tomashenko and Vilyayskiy activated the tactical lights clipped under the barrels of their weapons.

  Nothing. Beyond the swirling mist of pumice dust and picric acid fumes, this first length of tunnel was empty. The Americans must have withdrawn deeper into the cave before the attack.

  Tomashenko slapped a fresh clip into his rifle. “Corporal Vlahvitich. You and your fire team will remain here covering the cave approaches. The rest of you, follow me!”

  It was not an appealing concept, but it must be done. Hunched into a single file, they plunged into the deeper darkness of the tunnel.