“I always keep a Plan A, and a Plan B, and a Plan C…”
“And which plan are we on now?”
“Somewhere further down the alphabet, I’m afraid. When my men betrayed us, I realized my base of operations in Turkey had been compromised as well. I used this”—Ufuk held up the tablet he’d been using inside the refuge—“to program the drone-copters to touch down and take off again. Whoever is chasing us will follow them first. I created other diversions also; sent off dozens of decoys to create radio chatter in all directions. It will take them half-a-day at least—if not days—to get to the top of the mountain and discover we aren’t there.”
“And just who is chasing us?”
“Sanctuary military,” Ufuk replied. “But really, it’s Müller.”
“And why would he still be hunting us? He’s already won. Why would he still care?”
“Because they think we destroyed San EU.”
“They also think you destroyed Vivas.”
“We didn’t destroy either.”
Jess fought the feeling of being trapped in a mirror maze. “If that’s true—and I’m not sure what to believe—then why would Müller still be chasing you?”
“Because he wants access to my systems.” Ufuk held up his tablet again. “I have three space launch facilities my company maintained. Two of which might still be operational for getting up communication satellites. That, plus my drone fleets.”
“Just how many of these drones do you have?”
“Thousands. At locations spread around the world. As I said, my company did a lot of work for the US military. Many have been destroyed, but much has survived. I knew Nomad was coming.”
“And these don’t need humans to operate them?”
“Some human intervention is required, but a lot of my systems can be autonomous for long periods of time. They work together like bees in a hive.”
Jess paused to let all this sink in. Great. So she’d attached herself to maybe the single most important military target in the world. If Ufuk had everything he said he did, just about anyone on the planet that wanted power would be searching for him. And her.
“So what’s the plan now, then?” she said after a minute or two of thought.
“I honestly don’t know,” Ufuk replied quietly. “We need to get south. It’s too cold for us to survive long this far north. And winter is coming. It will only get worse.”
Jess looked out the window of the cab. They bounced up and down over the snow and ice. Maybe ten or fifteen kilometers an hour? Maybe twice that on flat ground. This thing could cross almost any snow-and-ice covered terrain, but could they use it to travel fifteen hundred kilometers south? This snowcat had to be guzzling diesel like crazy. Where would they get diesel fuel? And what about water? Food? They had a few packs of emergency rations, but not enough for weeks. Or months.
Jess’s heart sank as she gripped Hector. Back to this old game. The same one they’d tried to play—and lost—two weeks before. Only to be rescued by Ufuk’s magical machines from the sky. From Ufuk’s grim expression, she sensed there weren’t any more fairytales coming—but then again, they had their own private army of drones.
Chapter 8
Northern Italy
They’d been weary enough when they left the refuge, exhausted by the night’s events and the hostile conditions, but seven hours later and Jess realized it wouldn’t be good for them to keep moving any longer. Better they managed a few hours' rest, then continue for as long as they were able to once refreshed. Twice, Ufuk had made them pull under cover as he worked a scanning device from the back of the snowcat. The weather offered them some camouflage—endless fog, riven by new snow and old ash, as much a hindrance to those searching for them as it was for the snowcat to slog through it.
At least dawn brought some feeble light through the heavy clouds.
The awful-but-familiar stench of sulfur found its way with sickening speed into the snowcat as they descended in altitude. Jess began to cough up sticky wads of phlegm. She tried to ignore it, tried not to remember what it was like waking up in a comfortable bed, eating eggs and drinking coffee around a table while reading emails. She tried to forget how easy it was to turn on a faucet and find clear, fresh water coming out.
After two hours they reached Cavagliola—or their best guess of what the snow-mounds of ruins once were, where the Bernina Railway hid beneath meters of thick pillow drifts. What looked like the road snaked down the mountain. Giovanni had maneuvered the snowcat onto skittish surface hoar, which at least led downward. From there, the going had been slightly easier.
It still took them more than four hours to make their way painstakingly down the snow-laden road, crossing the border into Italy where a small Lombardy town called Tirano had once stood. Giovanni recalled it had had a beautiful basilica, but now there was nothing but rolling mounds of snow and ice. No one stopped them, no guards waited at the border to check identification or refuse entry. In fact, they didn’t see a living soul.
It was like traveling across Antarctica, Giovanni had said.
Nobody had replied.
At that point, the gas tank was nearing half empty. They had two hundred liters in ten jerry cans stuffed in the cargo, Ufuk said. He also said he could have drones drop supplies for them, MRE rations. He’d set up an automated facility in case some of his people got trapped outside. He hadn’t imagined it would be him. He warned against sending the drones to a specific spot they may stop at. He’d have them air drop as they passed over, wherever they may stop. Not ideal, but at least they wouldn’t starve.
Not right away, anyway.
Massarra took over driving, and five hours later they were on almost flat ground, the tiny drone still blinking and flashing ahead of them in the semi-darkness of what passed for daylight. The snowstorm was clearing, which made it easier to drive—they were making thirty kilometers an hour—through the heavy, sastrugi-carved drifts, past mounds of abandoned cars pushed into culverts or off the road and into ravines. Right now the only mission was to put as much distance between themselves and Sanctuary.
As they worked their way down out of the mountains, a choice had to be made: follow the main highway down the middle of Italy, or head for the coast? Either choice had its problems, but either way they’d have to stop and refuel soon, and maybe it wouldn’t make a difference either way. In this gas-guzzler, the two hundred liters of fuel wouldn’t even get them halfway to Rome, never mind to the tip of Sicily.
In the event, though, it wasn’t much of a decision.
“Boat, we take the boat,” Massarra said when Jess told her to pull over.
Ufuk had been busy on his tablet. Jess had told him to be careful, not to do anything stupid. He said he was trying to come up with a plan, but so far he just watched a bunch of moving dots and cursed every ten minutes.
They’d reached a town called Brescia.
Massarra pulled the snowcat in beside what had once been a hotel, where their vehicle couldn’t be seen from the road. The hotel had several stories, the upper level could provide a serviceable place to institute an overwatch. The lower levels were buried deep beneath wind slab. Nothing alive moved.
“What boat?” Jess said as the snowcat’s engine whined to a stop.
“The boat I came here in. At La Spezia.”
“I thought you said one of Ufuk’s drone-copters took you to Sanctuary.”
The Israeli nodded. “But from La Spezia.”
“You really have a boat anchored at La Spezia?”
The Israeli nodded again. “As Mr. Erdogmus has said. Plan A. Plan B. I like to have my plans.”
“How on Earth did you get…I mean, what about sea ice?”
“Ice at the edges, but the open water is clear. The Mediterranean was a hot sea. Some pancake ice and slush, but it won’t freeze for a few weeks still, I would guess. Fuel is scarce so I went in search of a sailboat.” She picked up her M4. “After our last failed attempt to navigate over land, I decided
a boat was a better option. And I love sailing.”
“A sailboat?” Jess said, still incredulous.
“Most were wrecked by the huge waves breaking over the coastline, but there are large marinas in Monte Argentario. Much of the landscape is hills hundreds of meters high where they store boats for the winter. The story is a long one I can tell you, but there is a boat.”
“How do we get onto it?”
“It’s anchored away from the ice in open water. No new tsunamis the past week, so it should still be there. I took a rigid inflatable from Porto Ercole and towed it behind. It is upturned on the ice as we speak.”
“That could work.” Ufuk had switched off his tablet. “Lots of wind.”
Jess held her palms out. Going back anywhere near the water was the last thing she wanted to do. “Wait a second. What about another tsunami?”
“As long as we are away from coast, no problem. Tsunami only a problem if you are in shallow water.”
Jess tried to quell her fear. “And where do we go, exactly?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Ufuk said. “Your friend, Ain Salah, in that town called Al-Jawf. You said he wanted to help you.”
“Yeah, but, I mean I haven’t talked to him in a few weeks. And I don’t really know him. He was just a person we talked to on the radio.”
“Do you think you can trust him?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think so,” Giovanni offered.
“And that’s where you wanted to go before you got wrapped up in this whole mess,” Ufuk added. “Right?”
Something about the way Ufuk said it made Jess feel like he had some other motive, as if he wanted to make this sound like Jess’s idea.
“And Massarra and I have a lot of connections in North Africa,” Ufuk continued. “Libya. Benghazi—”
“Wait a second,” Jess said, her voice rising. “Benghazi? That place where the American ambassador was assassinated? You want to go there?”
“Where did you think Al-Jawf was?”
“In the desert.”
“Massarra, why didn’t you say something before?” said Ufuk, almost ignoring Jess now. “This is a fantastic idea.”
“You never asked. You were busy playing.” She pointed at the tablet. “And beside, sailing through ice and snow, I think they had enough of this, no?”
“But it’s a brilliant.” Ufuk stowed his tablet.
“We have to talk about this more,” Jess said.
“You decide, Jessica,” Ufuk said. “It’s your decision.”
“Great, that’s just great.” Jess reached over the seat to grab a pistol. “Let’s go and see if there’s anyone in this place.”
Chapter 9
Northern Italy
The journey to La Spezia might have taken two hours a few months ago, but with the roads almost invisible beneath the snow and ice, and the wind blowing a white sheet across the landscape, it would take three or four times that long. For much of the way they drove across open fields, threading a line between Brescia and Verona. They skirted around larger towns, selecting instead a circuitous route that avoided anywhere there might still be people.
The night before they had decided what to do: Head for the boat.
It wasn’t much of a discussion. Out here they would die. Ufuk only had twenty drone-copters, he explained, big enough to carry a human, hundreds of times bigger than the tiny drones buzzing around them now. They were much more easily spotted and conspicuous, and all of them now had disappeared from his networks—destroyed or disabled. It was probably better that they hadn’t attempted to use them. The only possible chance at survival Jess could imagine required getting south to where the temperature was still above freezing. She still held out hope that the situation in the fabled Al-Jawf camp in Libya was still stable, and they’d be able to find their friend Ain Salah. Ufuk and Massarra assured them that they had a lot of contacts in that area as well, and that they would be able to find them friends and protection, and supplies.
At least it was a plan.
For a short time the next morning, they took the Strada Provinciale between Montichiari and Piadena, Ufuk’s drones their quiet sentinels ahead of them, searching for signs of cars stacked across the road to form an impromptu obstruction that might be a trap. They used the drones sparingly, Ufuk sweeping one in from time to time. There was a danger their control systems could be intercepted, and other dangers they couldn’t assess.
No signs of life anywhere.
Doubtless there were more dead stacked inside the buildings, huddled together in a failed search for warmth, the same as the frozen families they’d found on a sweep of the hotel the night before. After finding all the dead bodies inside the hotel, they’d decided instead to sleep in the cab. It was too cold to try to warm up any room inside the structure, and too dangerous to light fires of any large size. They left early. Jess preferred to remain protected by continued movement, and afraid of her growing numbness and indifference each time she saw more dead.
They did stop once, to pick up emergency supplies dropped by Ufuk’s smaller drones. They approached cautiously, and Ufuk had his drones monitor for heat signatures. Nothing anywhere. He had lost two dozen of the smaller drones to a hacking attack the night before, but they had no more contact with Sanctuary forces beyond that. Jess didn’t trust Ufuk, but had to trust in his own desire to save himself. That was their only common interest that she could trust.
They approached La Spezia from the north, using the Strada Provinciale delle Cinque Terra, a coastal road somewhat concealed by forest. The sailboat was moored away from La Spezia, more than four hundred feet from the shingle beach. Massarra tried to point it out, and it looked surrounded by white ice already, but was difficult to see through a white fog rolling off the ocean.
“I will get the small boat,” Massarra said as the snowcat shuddered to a stop.
Giovanni got out of the passenger side door with the shotgun and watched their tracks behind them for any signs of movement.
“How far is it?” Jess asked.
“About a hundred meters. It’s visible, just.” She gestured out over the ice to where there might have been a mound at the edge. It was hard to tell through the haze. “It is hidden beneath a tarpaulin, covered by snow and ash.”
“We should rope up again,” Jess said. “Giovanni and I on a rope with you. Just in case.”
Massarra considered this for a moment. She nodded. “Stay as far back as possible. Better only one of us goes through. The water is freezing.” She grimaced and put a hand on Jess’s shoulder. “But then you know that. Let’s not do that again.”
“Let’s not,” Jess agreed.
They pulled out the climbing ropes and coiled them in the snow. Jess stepped into a harness and tied Massarra onto a line connected back to Raffa and Giovanni. As Massarra’s silvery silhouette faded into the mist and eddying spindrift, Jess found herself again wondering why. Why Massarra had risked her life for her so many times? And for Ufuk as well? What it was about her that was so important, and what was the real relationship she had with the billionaire?
For a long while, they fed the rope out to her, keeping it taut enough that if she fell through they could hold her, but loose enough so she could still move freely. They had to tie two and then three climbing ropes together. Eventually, there came three sharp tugs and Jess allowed herself a moment’s relief. They began to pull in the slack.
“We’re ready, ”Massarra said as she returned without incident, her slender outline materializing slowly through the mist. “The ice is solid, but still not formed more than an inch or two thick around the sailboat. We will be able to break a path out.”
Massarra returned across the ice to the inflatable, and ferried herself out to the sailboat. She then tied another hundred foot climbing rope to the front of the inflatable. They hauled back the boat onto the ice, and she pulled it back with their help. A few more trips and they ferried all the supplies they scavenged fro
m the snowcat across the ice.
Jess waited and took the final trip across the black water with Hector. The boy was brave but trembled upon seeing the water. “Be brave,” Jess told him.
She wished she could be, too.
The sailboat appeared through the mist in the half-light, and Jess’s heart sank a little as she looked into the cold depths. She was hoping for something like a yacht. This couldn’t be more than forty feet from end to end. The rigging was coated in yellow ice. The hull looked scratched.
But it was their only hope now.
Beyond the mists lay a trackless and bottomless world they’d only barely escaped from with their lives, just weeks before. When they came alongside the hanging steps on the side of the boat, Jess pushed up Hector first, and then hauled herself aboard and stowed her gear in one of the aft cabins. She busied herself following Massarra’s directions to prepare for sailing, more to occupy her mind than because the Israeli really needed any help. Running the sheets, loading batons, chipping off ice from the deck and rigging, and stowing gear below. Giovanni took Hector into the back cabin and wrapped him in blankets, humming lullabies in Italian that Jess didn’t understand but understood just the same.
In less than an hour they were underway, in time to use the last of the dim light that filtered through the thick clouds as the invisible sun set. Massarra started up the small diesel engine to guide them out of the harbor as pitch-blackness enveloped them. A stiff wind sprang up as the rolling swells pitched the boat back and forth. Massarra turned off the diesel and winched down the main sail. The boat listed to one side and bit into the wind.
They were away.
Ufuk’s drones flew ahead of the boat in the darkness, sometimes invisible but always reappearing, blinking red sprites that appeared insect-like to hover and show them the way forward. All GPS and electronics on the boat were dead of course, fused in the radiation storms of Nomad. The compass still worked—but was off by about twenty degrees to the west. Magnetic north had been shifted by Nomad by about that much, Ufuk told them, and maybe was still shifting. They had navigational charts, and Massarra was ready to dead-reckon a course south, but with the terrible visibility admitted this would be difficult without much visual reference. Ufuk crouched over his tablet, huddled against the cold on a bench on deck, and assured them his drones would be able guide them safely.
Resistance (Nomad Book 3) Page 10
