The Cold Edge

by Trevor Scott

  “Makes sense. Now that you spell it out for me. How we going to find Petrova now?”

  They both heard the helicopter approaching from the north at a high rate of speed, and looked up as it buzzed past them fifty feet above the lake.

  “That’ll help,” Toni said.

  ●

  They were cruising at maximum speed for the Bell 407 at that elevation, over a hundred forty miles per hour. Kjersti looked determined behind the stick. Anna, in the second front seat, turned to the cargo area and saw the two MI6 officers, Jimmy McLean and Velda Crane, strapped into benches, the tall Scotsman calm and cool and the little English woman, white knuckles, holding on for her life.

  They had hurried back down the road to Lillehammer, the area still foggy, but Kjersti saying she could take off, clear the low ceiling, and pull back down once they got down the lake a ways. After all, the weather report had Hamar nearly clear and the fog thinning out the farther they got from Lillehammer. They could have taken more people on the flight, but Kjersti wanted her chopper as light as possible for maximum speed and maneuverability.

  Anna had asked for the main highway between Hamar and Lillehammer to be closed, but the local police said that would take a while. It was almost forty miles between the two cities by road—longer by the lake—so it would take some time to clear the cars from that highway. She had also asked the police to set up on the main bridge crossing the lake, but the police had not been able to reach the bridge in time.

  Through the headset, Anna said, “Would it be better to vector over the mountains and come at them from the other side?”

  Kjersti thought for a moment, no certainty in her expression. “I don’t know.”

  “Victor Petrova could feel cornered, nothing to lose, and decide to kill Jake.”

  “I don’t think so. He wants those gems more than he wants Jake dead.”

  Anna hoped so, but she still thought she was right. Why not come around and catch them off-guard? “Move to the east,” Anna ordered.

  Instantly after Anna spoke, Kjersti banked hard left, the helicopter responding to her actions. As they approached the hills around the lake, she pulled back on the stick and they rose over the trees and hills. Once over the top, she banked to the right and continued south. From that position they could only catch periodic glimpses of the lake as they passed river valleys or lower humps in the hills.

  The quick maneuvers put a lump in Anna’s throat and she thought she might lose her lunch. But she was convinced they had done the right thing.

  ●

  Jake checked his watch. They had traveled by boat for an hour now. Perhaps thirty miles at their rate. Moments ago, the driver slowed and pulled over to the east bank of the lake. A couple miles back they had passed under the main highway that ran from Hamar to Lillehammer, with Jake guessing they would have had at least a modest police presence on the bridge. But he had only seen a couple cars cruising along the highway as they passed under the bridge, none of them police types.

  The boat slowed now and pulled into a small sheltered inlet. Ahead on the shore, Jake saw movement. Victor Petrova had men waiting there. They nudged the shore and two Swedish men, the remaining two that Jake had followed from Falun, including the man he had encountered on the train, held the boat as all but the driver and one of Petrova’s men remained on the boat. The man Jake had thrown overboard. Seconds later, the boat was shoved off and it quickly made its way back out to the center of the lake at their original speed.

  All of them trudged through the thick woods—no trail at all—until they came to a small dirt road where two identical Volvo sedans sat. They piled in, Jake ending up with the driver who would no longer drink Coke, he and Petrova in the back, and another little man with an MP5 in the front. The one with the blond spiked flat-top.

  As they pulled away, Jake said to the driver, “I’m getting kind of thirsty. You wouldn’t happen to have a Coke hanging around up there would you?”

  The driver scowled at Jake in the rearview mirror. They all ignored Jake. Fine. They can’t take a joke. But Jake guessed the Swede hadn’t mentioned the incident on the train to anyone.

  “You all seem to know where you’re going,” Jake said. “Glad someone knows. I get all turned around on these back roads in foreign countries.”

  The front passenger leaned over, digging into Jake’s backpack, and came out with his hand-held GPS, showing it to them in the back seat. Good thing Jake had wiped out his waypoints and not written down the location where he had placed the box of gems.

  “Yeah, that’s mine,” Jake admitted.

  Jake could see Victor Petrova’s smirk from the corner of his eye.

  “I think you know precisely where we’re going,” Petrova said.

  “I barely use the thing,” Jake said. “A GPS is great for wilderness hikers. When they get lost, those finding their bones years later will know exactly where that person died.”

  “But I’m guessing you wouldn’t hide millions of dollars of Alexandrites without taking an exact GPS reading.”

  Jake shrugged. “Check it out.”

  “We have,” Petrova said, the snide smile still smack on his face. “You cleared all of your waypoints and locations. But if I had to bet that entire box of Alexandrites, I would guess you placed the location in memory.”

  Jake laughed and said, “That’s a lot of numbers. I can barely remember my banking pin number.”

  “Your intelligence report says you have a photographic memory.”

  “Near photographic,” Jake corrected. “And I’ve been drinking a lot lately. I can hardly remember the last time I changed my underwear.”

  They had been traveling a back road, nothing more than a narrow one-lane that had switched from dirt to pavement. Now they reached the main road to Hamar, and Jake hoped the police had stopped traffic. But they hadn’t, because cars flew past heading toward Lillehammer. They picked up speed on the wider road.

  Finally, Petrova said, “We have the general area figured out. Thanks to the computer box on the car you stole from the train station in Sweden. As I’m sure you know, many of these new cars have black-box-like computers that not only tell you where your car is now, but also where you have been. They’re not perfect, though. We know you went to the hospital in Falun, for instance, before following my men to Lillehammer. It did read a turn somewhere along the way, yet that is not very precise. That’s when you dropped off the gems. We’ll go there now.”

  Damn it. Jake knew he should have disabled that system on the car he had acquired. Still, Petrova could know the general area, but finding the gems there would be harder than in the Arctic.

  33

  The Bell 407 had swooped down from the mountains, banked to the west and slowed above the lake, waiting for the boat to appear. They had to be in front of the boat, Anna thought, peering through her binoculars to the north.

  “Anything?” Kjersti asked her.

  Just as she asked the question, a boat appeared in the distance. “There,” Anna said. “Moving at a good clip.”

  Kjersti powered up and pushed the stick forward. The Bell responded, sending them toward the lake surface. She pulled back and leveled off fifty feet from the water, cutting the distance to the boat in a hurry.

  Anna called in their position across the radio and waited for response.

  Nothing.

  She called in again.

  Finally, she got a response from the police boat, saying they were perhaps ten minutes back.

  Ahead the boat saw them and slowed down. Kjersti slowed also and eventually hovered to the side of the boat, which had come to a complete stop now.

  “Two little people aboard the boat,” Anna said, her eyes focused through the binoculars.

  “You sure?” Kjersti asked.

  “That’s all I see. Unless there’s more hiding under the seats.” Anna got on her radio and relayed this info to their police boat.

  Jimmy McLean nudged forward, his head between Anna and Kje
rsti. “Drop me down onto that boat, ladies. That’s my target there. Gary Dixon.”

  “I can’t do that,” Kjersti said. “We’ll wait for the boat.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. Moments later the police boat cruised up alongside Victor Petrova’s speedboat. Anna watched as the little men raised their hands and a police officer boarded them. He checked the men for weapons and then searched the rest of the boat. Then the police officer raised his hands in frustration.

  “What’s going on?” Kjersti asked.

  Anna asked over the radio.

  This time Toni Contardo answered. “They aren’t armed,” she said. “Say the boat is Victor Petrova’s, but they were just out for a little ride.”

  “Right,” Anna said. “They must have stopped somewhere to drop off Petrova and the others.”

  “You mean Jake,” Toni said.

  “Of course. Jake and more of those little people.”

  “Pull over to that bank,” Toni ordered, her arm waving to the nearest lakeshore, with a field where the chopper could land. “I’m coming with you.”

  Anna knew better than to argue with Toni. “Fine.” She clicked off the radio and said to Kjersti, “I hope she has some idea where they are.”

  McLean leaned back in and said, “Let me at Dixon. I’ll make him talk.”

  The two boats went ashore and then Kjersti set her chopper down in the field a short distance away. Jimmy McLean and Velda Crane got off and went to interrogate the two men from the boat. Meanwhile, Toni Contardo and Colonel Reed ran across to the helo and got aboard.

  After putting on a headset, Toni said, “Let’s go. How much fuel you have?”

  Kjersti checked her fuel gauge. “Depends on where you want to go.”

  Anna turned to the back and said, “Do you have any idea where they might be going?”

  “No,” Toni admitted. “But let’s get to the Hamar airport and top off the fuel. Maybe the Brit will have some luck with our little friends.”

  They lifted off the grassy field and flew toward Hamar. Kjersti was familiar with the area and had flown into that airport before.

  Once they got to the airport and waited for a fuel truck, Toni went off and made some phone calls. Kjersti went into the operations building to find some bottled water and something to eat for them.

  Alone in the helo, Anna got out of the front and went to the back with Colonel Reed.

  “You sure you have no idea what Victor Petrova has planned?” she asked the colonel.

  The colonel, looking tired and depressed, ran his fingers through his short hair, his eyes avoiding contact with Anna. “I have no clue,” he said. “I’m sorry I got the two of you involved.”

  Anna shrugged. “We’re adults. This is my job. Jake is another story, though. He trusted you. But you lied to him.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? But I had to. If that virus got into the wrong hands. . .”

  God, she felt like shit. Maybe she should make the guy sweat more, thinking this was still about the virus. And she believed that he believed that was the reason for the whole mission.

  The colonel continued, “Jake will kill me. Do you think he’ll kill me?”

  “Literally?” she said. “Probably not. Might kick your ass, though. Do you have a good dentist?”

  He looked concerned and afraid.

  “I’m kidding.”

  Toni and Kjersti both showed up at the same time; both carrying bags of food and water. The colonel and Anna got out while the truck topped off the fuel.

  Kjersti had two bags full of chips and other goodies from the machines in the operation building.

  “Did you wipe them out?” Anna asked.

  Smiling, Kjersti said, “Didn’t have any change so I picked the lock.”

  The fuel truck left and the four of them started back toward the helo. Anna pulled Kjersti back and let the others continue on.

  “What’s up?” Kjersti asked.

  “We need to tell Toni about the gems,” Anna said.

  Kjersti nodded agreement. “Better now than later.”

  When they got to the chopper, Toni was on the phone, more listening than talking. Then she hung up.

  “Good news or bad news?” Anna asked Toni.

  “Jimmy McLean. Said they dropped Victor, Jake, and a few more little people with two Swedes in identical Volvo sedans. But he had no idea where they were going. He didn’t even think Victor knew. Not yet anyway. Said that Jake had stashed the metal box somewhere.”

  “Of course he did,” Anna said. “He would have never brought them to Petrova’s mansion. He would have wanted some leverage.”

  “Them?” Toni asked. “You mean the virus.”

  Anna and Kjersti exchanged glances. Letting out a deep breath, Anna said, “There is no virus.”

  “What?” Toni looked dumbfounded.

  Colonel Reed had been sitting calmly in his seat, and leaned toward the door now. “What do you mean no virus?”

  Anna quickly explained what they had really found in the Arctic, how the bullet had broken open the box, which allowed them to take the train at that point, and how Jake had only told Anna and Kjersti just before they had split up in Sweden. When she was done, Colonel Reed looked genuinely relieved. Toni seemed profoundly pissed off.

  “Why the hell didn’t Jake tell us?” Toni demanded.

  “Jake doesn’t even know you’re involved,” Anna explained.

  “I didn’t mean me personally.” Toni had become extremely defensive, as if she had been not only deceived as she had, but not deemed trustworthy. “The two of you knew this in Oslo. You knew this and we still raided Victor Petrova’s estate. Who else knows?”

  “Other than Petrova and his men,” Anna said, “just Jake. As far as we know. We’re guessing Petrova had anyone in Russia who knew either killed or shipped off to Siberia. Regardless, they’re probably dead by now.”

  Toni took a deep breath, calming herself. “All right. It doesn’t matter. If Petrova gets the gems he can buy all the weapons he needs.”

  “That’s what Jake thought,” Anna said.

  “Does anyone have any idea where Jake would stash those gems?” Toni asked.

  Kjersti pulled a small map from her pocket and unfolded it. “There are only a couple roads between Falun or Mora, Sweden and Hamar. This is the best route.” She pointed to a remote highway.

  “That’s a long stretch of road,” Toni complained.

  Anna thought for a moment. “Are you familiar with GPS games?” she asked. Nobody answered so she continued, “In the past year Jake and I have done some geo-dashing and geo-caching.”

  “What the hell is that?” Toni asked.

  Colonel Reed spoke up. “I’ve heard of geo-caching. You get a GPS coordinate and the first person or team to get there wins. . .something. But what’s geo-dashing?”

  Anna got onto her cell phone and asked for a pen and paper. Kjersti handed them to her. Anna smiled and scribbled a series of numbers onto the paper. Then she hung up. “Geo-dashing is usually done by placing GPS receivers somewhere, and then the first to get to various dash-points or waypoints wins. Jake and I do it once in a while in Austria and Switzerland. The waypoints can be out in the middle of the forest or in a trash dumpster in a city.”

  “What did you get on the phone?” Kjersti asked Anna.

  “I started thinking. Once in a while Jake would leave me a message on my machine with a GPS waypoint and have me meet him there. It usually resulted in. . .sex.” She glanced embarrassedly at Toni.

  “He left you a message?” Toni asked her.

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “But it’s coded. He probably didn’t trust that Victor Petrova wouldn’t find the message.” She looked at the numbers and converted those quickly to other numbers. “Here we go. Got a location.”

  “All right,” Kjersti yelled. “Let’s punch that into my GPS and rock and roll.”

  The four of them hurried into the chopper and strapped in. As the rotors st
arted to spin faster, Anna punched in the GPS coordinates. Now they had a direction, but would they get there in time?

  34

  Jake had plenty of time to consider how he wanted to play this. After all, he knew that Petrova would keep him alive to get his gems back. Jake even guessed how many men Petrova would bring with him for insurance, and he had only been off by a couple men. He didn’t think most of the crew would be dwarfs, trolls and other such little people. Regardless, they were probably all pawns to Petrova. Yeah, Jake had thought this through from the moment he found the box in Svalbard. Well, not exactly. At that time he thought the contents were the deadly flu virus. In that case he would have turned the box over to the U.S. Army scientists, tell Petrova he still had it, and meet in a remote location to isolate him.

  This location was Jake’s turf, even though he had only been there once before. He knew the northern forests. Understood them much more than he understood urban areas. His turf. Petrova couldn’t manipulate the situation to his own favor. He’d try, Jake knew.

  They had driven toward the Swedish border and turned down the remote road heading north. Jake sure as hell didn’t need a GPS to find where he had stopped the car on the side of the road and buried. . .

  “Pull over here,” Jake said. They were a quarter mile from the real location.

  The driver pulled to the edge of the road and Jake turned to see the car behind them pulled in behind them. The forest came right up to the edge of the road, with large trees surrounded by thick alders and huge boulders dispersed among them. The ground was spongy moss with pot-holes of water. A little stream meandered through the lower areas.

  “This is it,” Petrova said excitedly, scampering out of the car.

  The driver got out and opened the door for Jake, who stepped out onto the road. By now the others from the second car were also on the road.

  The numbers ran through Jake’s mind. Number of men. His GPS location. Number of seconds it would take them to react. Numbers.

  “All right,” Petrova said. “As we discussed on the way, there will be no funny stuff. No playing around. Oh, it’s here. No, it’s here. I thought for sure I put it here. None of that crap.”