Athabasca

by Alistair MacLean

  “They’re not snowmobiles,” a black-haired slender youth said.

  “Sorry.” Willoughby turned to Dermott. “John Lowry, an expert on those machines. The Edmonton people sent him up to show us how to operate them.”

  “They’re everything-mobiles,” Lowry said. “Snow, roads, rough terrain, marshes, sand—you name it. Comparatively, the American and Canadian snowmobiles belong to the age of steam radio. Made by the firm of V.P.L.O.—initials only, the full name is unpronounceable—in Oulu, Finland. Called, naturally, the Finncat. Made of fibre-glass. Unlike the ordinary snowmobile, it has no skis up front. That motor-driven traction belt you see extends under the full length of the body.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “We got three to put through extended tests—you know, the old test-to-destruction bit. Those are the three.”

  Dermott said to Willoughby: “Nice to have friends.”

  “Not quite standard models,” Lowry went on. “The front compartments are usually for stowage of gear. We’ve converted them into jump seats.”

  Brady said: “You mean I can ride in one of those right now?”

  Dermott said, sotto voce to Willoughby: “Test to destruction is right.”

  Lowry said: “I should think so, sir.”

  “That’s great, just great.” Brady’s tone was hushed and reverent. The prospect of trudging a fourteen-mile return journey through Albertan snows had held singularly little appeal for him.

  “Driving is simple,” Lowry said. “Changing the inclination of the traction belt changes the direction of travel: done by the handlebars. You have forward and reverse gears and, a very sophisticated touch, hydraulic disc brakes. It can also do forty miles an hour.”

  “Forty?” Dermott said. “It looks as if it would be hard pushed to touch five.”

  Lowry smiled. “Forty. Not on rough terrain, of course. Incidentally, these don’t come cheap—four thousand dollars—but then the unique never does. I understand that you gentlemen are in a hurry. First three drivers up, please.”

  Dr Kenmore returned from the plane with Mackenzie while Willoughby and his two men were learning the controls of the Finncats. Kenmore said: “Concussion. Nothing very serious, not the blast, he must have hit his head on the ice—there’s a beauty of a bruise just above his right ear. I’ll have him brought across here—we have a heating and lighting generator running all the time when the motors are switched off.”

  Brady said: “Thank you, doctor. We appreciate it.”

  “Nothing. May one ask where you’re off to in those toys?”

  “Don’t let young Lowry hear you. He’d have a fit,” Dermott said.

  Brady said: “Please understand we don’t mean to be churlish. We’ll tell you when we come back. How’s your expertise on shotgun wounds and bones shattered by high-velocity bullets?”

  “Not very extensive, I’m afraid.” Kenmore’s expression hadn’t altered. “You plan to remedy that before the night is out?”

  “I hope not.” Brady’s face was suddenly serious. “But it may come to that.”

  The six men left at four-thirty, exactly one hour after the Sikorsky had touched down. The helicopter’s crew were there to see them go. Lieutenant Brown said: “Air Force personnel are not as stupid as they look. We know where you’re going, naturally. Good fortune.” He looked at the arsenal of weapons they carried, ready for action, shoulder-slung or in holsters. “Dr Kenmore may be in for a sleepless night.”

  The Finncats were everything that Lowry had promised, nimble, manoeuvrable, and possessed of remarkable traction. Two carried small but efficient headlamps which picked out a path through the straggling alders. It said much for the dogged willingness of the little two-cylinder engines that a heroically suffering Brady had only to get out twice—the Finncat on those occasions had refused to budge another inch—and walk a total of two hundred yards on the way to the gently-rounded convexity which marked the watershed of the Birch Mountains. Shortly before the little army reached this point they had switched off their headlights.

  The descent was simple but just as slow as the ascent because, in the absence of lights, the half-seen alders had to be negotiated with care. The engines, no more than idling, were gratifyingly quiet. Willoughby called softly and the three Finncats came to a halt.

  “Far enough,” he said. “We can’t be more than three hundred yards from the shore.”

  “O.K.,” Dermott agreed. “How many crew at the Met. Station, Willoughby?”

  “Just two. I shouldn’t imagine that any harm has come to them. They have to keep sending their regular radio reports: any breakdown in those would have brought an official helicopter out here very quickly. So the reports must have continued to go out—under duress.”

  They made their way down to the lake’s edge, keeping their voices low—sound travels as well over ice as it does over water. Tall reeds grew by the frozen shore. Carmody parted these, unshipped his infra-red night-sight, pressed his face against the rubber eye-piece and switched on.

  The Crowfoot Lake meteorological station consisted of only two huts, one about three times the size of the other. The smaller one had a variety of poles, boxes and what appeared from that distance to be uncovered recording instruments on its roof. This smaller hut was dark; the larger, presumably the living quarters, showed two brightly-lit windows. Beyond this hut was parked a large, white-painted helicopter.

  Jones passed the night-sight to Brady, who studied the station briefly, then handed the instrument on. The last man to use it, Dermott, took the sight from his eye and said: “As a target for tonight, I’ve seen worse. We go now?”

  “We go now,” Brady said. “And we don’t treat them like human beings. No warnings. No fair play. No sportsmanship. Shoot first, questions afterwards. People who plant time bombs in aircraft—or steal my Jean and Stella—know nothing of finer feelings—or the rules of civilised warfare.”

  Willoughby said: “Fair enough. But shoot to cripple, not to kill. I want those men to stand trial.”

  Brady said: “Of course, the conduct and termination of the trial would be greatly speeded if we had their confessions in advance.”

  “And how do you figure on getting those?” Dermott asked.

  “Simple, George. It all depends upon how intrepid you’re feeling this afternoon.”

  15

  The wicked wind hissed through the clump of alders some twenty yards behind the meteorological station. The trees offered little in the way of cover, but it was the best and closest that the men could find. Luckily, the night was moonless: the buildings showed as black lumps in the snowy landscape.

  Bulky as bears in their Arctic gear, the raiders silently watched another figure, flattened to the snow, inch his way up towards them, propelled only by elbows and toes. Arrived in the shelter of the trees, John Carmody rose to a kneeling position.

  “They’re there,” he whispered. “Reynolds and the ladies. The ladies are handcuffed together, but they seem all right. Don’t look as though they’ve been maltreated. There are five other men in there, smoking and drinking, but not drinking too much. A little room leads off the big one. Could be there’s someone asleep in there, but I don’t think so. The door’s ajar and the light’s on. Any person who wanted to sleep would have switched the light off.”

  “Well done, boy,” said Brady.

  “Three other things, sir. At least three of the men are armed, although none actually had a gun in his hand. The whole group is sitting round the table listening to a radio. They’re listening pretty hard, too—trying to catch something. That made me think there wouldn’t be another of them in the small room: he’d have been out there listening too.”

  “Could be the two station operators are in there,” said Dermott. “Tied up, I mean.”

  “I thought that too,” said Carmody.

  “I know what they’re listening for,” Brady whispered. “News of a certain jet having crashed in Alberta this afternoon. What was the t
hird thing you saw?”

  “All five men are wearing stocking masks.”

  Dermott said: “Which they wouldn’t bother with if they intended to dispose of the hostages.” His husky murmur dropped to a whisper. “Keep low. Keep quiet.”

  A rectangle of light had appeared at the side of the cabin. A figure walked through the opened doorway and headed towards the smaller building. Moments later lights came on there.

  “One of them,” Brady said. “Hardly likely to let one of the operators stroll across there and send off an S.O.S. Perfect. Come, George, this is where you earn your Congressional Medal of Honour or whatever.”

  Brady moved out, travelling quickly and silently, no trace of the comfort-loving fat man left. Arriving at the main cabin door, he looked over his shoulder to check the smaller cabin. The light was still on, the door still closed. Brady turned back to the cabin door, gripped the handle, opened the door and walked inside, .38 in hand, Dermott and Mackenzie at either elbow, with their guns levelled. Brady advanced on the four stocking-masked men sitting round the table. Several started up.

  “Keep your hands on that table,” he said. “If you’re not entirely mad. We’re just looking for an excuse to shoot you through the head. One of you turn that radio off—the good news you’re waiting for has just arrived.”

  “Jim! Jim!” Jean Brady was on her feet. “You’ve come!”

  “Of course.” Brady’s voice held a curious mixture of irritation and smug self-satisfaction. “You thought I wouldn’t? Brady Enterprises always delivers.” As his wife made to approach him, he raised his left hand. “Just a minute. Don’t come too close. These are desperate men. Mr Reynolds, Stella. Sorry we took so long about this but—”

  “Dad!” Stella was on her feet, a desperate urgency in her voice. “Dad, a man—”

  “Drop your guns.” The deep voice came from the doorway. “Don’t turn round or you’re dead.”

  “Do what the man says.” Brady set the example. Within a second the other two guns had clattered to the floor.

  “Stay where you are,” the same voice ordered. “Billy.”

  Billy didn’t have to be told what to do. His search was quick but thorough. He stepped back and said: “Clean, boss.”

  “So.” The door closed and a burly man appeared before them. Like the others, he was masked. “Sit on that bench there.” He waited until they had done so, seated himself by the table and said: “Watch them.” Three of his men produced pistols and covered the three seated men. He put away his gun.

  “The ladies, I must say, seem very disappointed. They shouldn’t, really.”

  Brady looked at them. “What he means is that things could be worse. If his plan had worked, we three would be dead. As it is, Ferguson is critically ill and two others seriously injured.” He looked at the leader. “You placed that bomb in the plane?”

  “I can’t take all the credit. One of my men did.” He lit a cigarette and stuck it through a hole in the stocking mask which had been cut out for that purpose. “So now I have Mr Jim Brady and his two invaluable associates. A full hand, one might say.”

  Brady said: “Designed to blow our tail off at 30,000 feet?”

  “What else? It would be interesting to know how you’re alive.”

  “We’re alive. But one man’s probably dying, and two are seriously injured. God, man, what are you—a psychopathic killer?”

  “Not psychopathic. Just a businessman. How come you didn’t die?”

  “Because we landed before the bomb went off.” Brady sounded very tired. “We got a report from a forest ranger saying that an off-white helicopter had been seen in these parts. Nobody paid attention except us—we knew you had a white helicopter.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “A lot of people saw it around the plant at Athabasca.”

  “No harm done.” He waved a hand. “All the aces in the pack.”

  “Whoever placed that explosive charge in my plane made a lousy job of securing it,” said Brady sarcastically.

  “I can vouch for that. He was interrupted.”

  “The package moved forward and jammed the controls—the tail ailerons. The pilot had to land—it was on the way down that we caught a glimpse of your helicopter. We crash-landed on another lake. Pilot told us to get out. He tried to remove the charge, and the two others stayed with him. I guess they felt they had to—they were cops.”

  “We know that, too.”

  “So they were expendable. You had no compunction about murdering them, too?”

  “Compunction is not a word in my vocabulary. Why did you come here?”

  “For your helicopter, of course. We have to get those injured men to hospital.”

  “Why hold us up?”

  “Don’t be so stupid. We can’t fly the damn thing.”

  The leader turned to one of the masked men. “Sorry about that, Lucky. A pleasure spared.”

  “And of course, you people killed Crawford.”

  “Crawford?” He turned to another of his men. “Fred, that lad you attended to—”

  “Yeah. That was him.”

  “And you critically wounded Sanmobil’s president, and a policeman?”

  “Seems to have been an awful lot you didn’t know.”

  “And it was you who blew up the plant and destroyed the dragline. A pity you had to kill and wound so many in the process.”

  “Look friend, we don’t play kiddies’ games. Too bad if someone gets in our way. This is a man’s world, and we play for keeps.”

  Brady bowed his head in apparent acceptance, raised his hands to cross them behind his neck. His fingers touched.

  What should have been the tinkling of shattered glass was lost in the crash of three shots that sounded almost as one. The masked men with the guns yelled out in agony and stared in shocked disbelief at their shattered shoulders. The door was kicked violently open and Carmody jumped in, machine pistol steady in his big hands. He moved a couple of steps forward. Willoughby ran into the cabin carrying a revolver.

  Dermott said: “Your words. This is a man’s world, and we play for keeps.”

  Carmody advanced on the masked leader and thrust the barrel of his machine pistol hard against the man’s teeth. “Your gun. By the barrel. Do you know what is my one ambition in life right now?” The man, apparently, did. Carmody pocketed the pistol and turned to the remaining and unwounded member of the quintet, who had his gun on the table before Carmody could even speak to him.

  Brady said: “Satisfactory, Mr Willoughby? The floor is yours.”

  “An Oscar, Mr Brady. They sang beautifully.” He advanced to the table. “I think you all know who I am?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “You.” He indicated the person who had so hastily placed his gun on the table. “Towels, cotton wool, bandages. Nobody’s going to mind very much if your three friends bleed to death, but personally I would sooner see them die legally. After they’ve been tried, of course. Let’s see your faces.” He walked round ripping off masks. The first three faces apparently meant nothing to him. The fourth, belonging to the man he’d just appointed to first-aid duty, clearly did.

  “Lucky Lorrigan,” Willoughby said. “Erstwhile helicopter pilot, more recently a murderer on the run from Calgary. Severely wounded a couple of officers in your breakout, Lucky, didn’t you? My, aren’t they going to be pleased to see you again!”

  He tore the mask from the leader’s face. “Well, well, would you believe it? No less than Frederick Napier himself, second senior charge-hand in Sanmobil security. You’ve strayed a bit from home, haven’t you, Freddie?

  “All five of you are hereby taken into arrest and charged with murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and industrial sabotage. I don’t have to remind you about your legal rights, silence, access to lawyers. You’ve heard it all before. Not that it will do any of you the slightest good. Not after the beautiful way Napier sang.”

  Brady said: “Would you say he was the best singer of t
he lot, Mr Willoughby?”

  Willoughby stroked his chin. “A moot point, Mr Brady.” He had no idea what Brady was talking about, but had learned to listen when he suggested something.

  Brady said: “You really are extraordinarily naïve, Napier. I told you that Mr Willoughby and his officer were severely injured when our plane crash-landed, yet you seemed hardly surprised to see them here. Perhaps you’re just stupid. Perhaps events have moved too fast for your limited intellect. Our plane, of course, did not crash-land. No forest ranger pilot spotted you. We never saw your helicopter on the way to our alleged crash-landing.

  “Deerhorn, the lake just over the hill there, was our destination from the time we left Fort McMurray, because we knew exactly where you were. You sing like a lark, Napier. But Brinckman and Jorgensen sing like angels. They’re going to turn State’s evidence. Should get off with five years.”

  “Brinckman and Jorgensen!” Napier jumped to his feet then collapsed back in his chair with a whoosh of expelled air as the barrel of Carmody’s machine pistol caught him in the solar plexus. He sat there gasping for breath. “Brinckman and Jorgensen,” he wheezed, and had just started in on a résumé of their antecedents when Carmody’s gun caught him lightly on the side of the head.

  “Ladies present,” Carmody said pleasantly.

  “State’s evidence!” Napier said huskily. “Five years! Good God, man, Brinckman’s my boss. Jorgensen’s his lieutenant. I’m only number three on the totem pole. Brinckman is the one who fixes everything, arranges everything, gives all the orders. I just do what I’m told. State’s evidence! Five years! Brinckman!”

  Willoughby said: “Would you swear to that in court?”

  “Too damn right, I would! Treacherous bastard!” Napier stared into space, his mouth no more than a compressed white line.

  Willoughby said: “And before all these witnesses, too.”

  Napier shifted his gaze from faraway places to Willoughby. His expression was one of total incomprehension.

  “Mr Brady was quite right, Napier. You really are a rather simple person, but as a singer you just got raised to the rank of angel. Until this moment we didn’t have a single solitary thing we could pin on either of them. Thanks to you, they’ll join you behind bars tonight. It should be a fascinating get-together.”