The interior erupted in a holocaust of flame. The horrified guards, their uniforms ablaze, leaped from the Sno-cat and rolled frantically on the ice to smother the fire. Even if they had been successful, their lives would not have been spared. The men of Cleary's command who had suffered so appallingly from the guards earlier were not in a benevolent mood. They burst from the storeroom and put the guards out of their agony in a flurry of gunfire. The Sno-cat, now hardly identifiable as a mechanical transport, lurched driverless through the tunnel, grazing the slick walls of ice that did little to slow it down.
No time was spent inspecting the death scene. Cleary regrouped his men and got them moving again. Not one man turned and looked back or showed a sign of remorse. They pushed on through the tunnel, anxious to end the nightmare and punish those responsible. With a conscious effort of will, Pitt rose to his feet and leaned on Giordino's rock-strong shoulder for a few steps until his legs worked efficiently again, then set off after Cleary.
When his radio calls to the Sno-cat went unanswered and the sounds of gunfire reverberated from the tunnel, Hugo Wolf assumed the worst. With no more armored vehicles, he had one more hand to play before the Americans reached the hangar and engaged in another free-for-all battle with his eight remaining security guards. He had little confidence in the small army of engineers, who hardly knew how to handle weapons or had the fortitude to shoot down another human, especially a trained professional who was shooting back. What he was about to attempt, Hugo thought morosely, was the last throw of the dice.
He walked over to where Karl, Elsie, and Blondi were conversing with Jurgen Holtz. Karl turned and looked at Hugo, seeing the dark expression. "Problems, brother?"
"I believe I have lost my last armored Sno-cat and four men who were not expendable."
"We've got to hold out," said Elsie. "Bruno is on his way with two aircraft and is scheduled to arrive five hours from now."
"Three and a half hours after the ice shelf breaks free," Holtz remarked. "The activation sequence for the ice machines has begun and there can be no stopping it."
Karl swore softly. "Can we hold out until then?"
Hugo stared at the tunnel leading to the mining facility as if he were expecting an army of phantoms. "They can't have but a handful of men left. If my guards can eliminate them in the tunnel or at least whittle them down to a pitiful few, then between the rest of us, we easily have enough firepower to stop them for good."
Karl faced Hugo and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Regardless of the outcome, brother, I know you will have conducted yourself bravely and with honor."
Hugo embraced Karl, then moved off to join the last of his guards and lead them into the tunnel. They were followed by a tow vehicle pulling a flatcar loaded with a fifty-five-gallon drum and a large six-foot-diameter fan.
The Special Forces team stopped short of the last bend in the tunnel before it straightened and ran another fifty yards into the hangar. A light mist appeared ahead that seemed to grow thicker as it rolled through the tunnel and began to envelop the men.
"What do you make of it?" Cleary asked Pitt.
"Nothing good. We encountered nothing like it when we passed through here with the Snow Cruiser." Pitt raised a finger as if testing for wind. "It's not a natural phenomenon. Not only does it have a strange smell, but it's being sent by some sort of mechanism, probably a large fan."
"Not poisonous," said Cleary, sniffing the mist. "Part of our training is in recognizing toxic gas. My guess is they're laying a harmless chemical on us to screen their movements."
"Could be they're short on manpower and making a desperation play," suggested Jacobs, who came up alongside the major.
"Close up," Cleary ordered his men through his helmet radio. "We'll keep going. Be ready to take whatever cover you can find, should they advance and fire out of the mist."
"I don't recommend that course of action," Pitt warned him.
Cleary simply asked, "Why?"
Pitt grinned at Giordino. "I think we've been here before."
"And done that," Giordino added.
Pitt stared appraisingly at the mist, then put his hand on Giordino's arm. "Al, take one of the Major's men, run back to the tow vehicle, and bring back its spare tire."
Cleary eyes reflected curiosity. "What good is a tire?"
"A little subterfuge of our own."
Minutes later, a tremendous detonation tore through the heart of the tunnel. No flame or swirling smoke, but a blinding flash followed by an enormous shock wave that crushed the confined air before it shot away like a missile through a pneumatic tube. The explosive sound came like a giant clap of thunder before it rumbled away and its echoes slowly faded.
Very slowly, stunned by the sheer density of the shock, his ears ringing like cathedral bells, Hugo Wolf and his eight remaining security guards staggered with numbed senses to their feet and began to advance through mounds of fallen ice, expecting to find nothing but the disintegrated bodies of the Americans. The sheer concussion was far beyond what they'd expected, but their hopes were buoyed into thoughts that their enemy had been eliminated.
Rounding the bend and using flashlights to penetrate the remnant of the mist and vapors from the explosion, they slowly moved forward until they could distinguish bodies lying gruesomely in and under the ice dislodged from the tunnel's roof. Hugo's eyes wandered from figure to figure, satisfaction and elation rising inside him at the sight of the dead Americans. Not one had survived. He looked down at two men who were dressed as civilians and wondered who they were and where they had come from. They were lying facedown, and he failed to recognize them as the two men who'd driven the abominable vehicle that had caused so much death and destruction at the control center.
"Congratulations on a great triumph, Mr. Wolf," one of his guards complimented him.
Hugo slowly nodded. "Yes, but it was a triumph that came with too high a cost." Then, mechanically, he and his men turned their backs on the seeming carnage and began walking back to the hangar.
"Freeze!" Cleary shouted.
Hugo and his men whirled around, aghast at seeing dead men suddenly leap to their feet with their guns leveled and trained. He might have surrendered then and there. Any sane man would have seen that resistance could only end in certain death. But Hugo, more on reflex than with a stable mind, threw up his gun to fire, the guards following his action.
The Special Forces weapons roared as one. The security guards managed to fire only a few frenzied rounds before they were cut down. Hugo stumbled backward, stood motionless in his tracks, his face contorted as he dropped his gun and stared through shocked and glazed eyes at the neatly spaced bullet holes that crossed the stomach of his black uniform from chest to waist. Finally, with sick certainty that he had failed, and knowing he had only a few seconds to live, he crumpled to the ground.
The gunfire had died away, and Jacobs, followed cautiously by his men, began inspecting the bodies and removing all weapons clutched in dead hands. Pitt, with his Colt hanging loosely in his right hand, came over and knelt at Hugo's side. The leader of the Wolf family's annihilated security force became aware of a presence and stared up expressionlessly.
"How did you know?" he murmured.
"Your people used the same booby-trap trick on me in the mine in Colorado."
"But the explosion…?"
Pitt knew the man was going, and he had to get it in fast. "We rolled the spare tire and wheel from a tow vehicle down the tunnel, tripping the wire to your explosive charge. We then took cover in a storeroom. Immediately after the blast, we ran out and scattered ourselves in the ice debris caused by the concussion and played dead." "Who are you?" he whispered. "My name is Dirk Pitt." The eyes widened briefly. "Not you," he whispered. Then the eyes froze open and his head slumped to the side.
46
The explosion, followed by a storm of gunfire, resounded through the tunnel and into the hangar like thunder rumbling from the other end of a drainage pipe. Then the racket a
bruptly stopped and the sounds ebbed, until an ominous silence spread and hung heavy inside the hangar. Minutes passed, with everyone standing frozen, staring into the yawning darkness, waiting with uneasy trepidation. Then the eerie stillness was broken by the approaching sound of footsteps echoing along the ice floor of the tunnel.
A figure slowly took form and walked into the refracted light falling through the roof of the hangar. A tall man, holding a stick with a white rag flowing from the top, advanced toward the semicircle of a hundred men and women holding guns, every muzzle pointed at the stranger. A scarf was wrapped around the lower half of his face. He walked directly up to Karl Wolf and his sisters, stopped, and pulled away the scarf, revealing a craggy face darkened with bearded stubble and haggard with fatigue.
"Hugo sends his regrets, but he is unable to join your little bon voyage party."
There was a moment of incredulous confusion throughout the hangar. Blondi stared in amazed fascination. Elsie's face took on an expression of shock and baffled rage. Predictably, Karl was the first to recover and come back on keel. "So it's you, Mr. Pitt," he said, observing Pitt through suspicious eyes. "You're like a curse."
"Forgive the casual dress," said Pitt cordially, "but my tux is at the cleaners."
Glaring at Pitt, her blue eyes furious, Elsie stepped forward and thrust an automatic pistol into Pitt's stomach. He grunted in pain, stepped back, and clutched his midriff, but the smile never left his face.
"You will notice," Pitt spoke tautly, "that I am unarmed and carrying a flag of truce."
Karl pushed Elsie's gun hand away. "Let me kill him," she hissed venomously.
"All in good time," he said conversationally. He looked Pitt in the eves. "Hugo is dead?"
"As we say back home, Hugo bought the farm."
"And his men?"
"In the same category."
"Were you responsible for the destruction of my aircraft?"
Pitt looked around at the smashed aircraft and shrugged. "I drove rather recklessly, I must admit."
"Where did you come from?" Wolf asked sharply.
Pitt smiled, ignored him completely, and said, "I suggest you order your people to lay down their weapons before they get hurt very badly. More than enough blood has been spilled here today. It would be the height of stupidity to add to the carnage."
"Your men, Mr. Pitt, how many of the American force are left?"
"See for yourself." Pitt turned and made a motion with his arm. Giordino, Cleary, and his remaining twenty men stepped from the tunnel into the hangar and spread out in an even line nearly ten paces apart, guns held at the ready.
"Twenty against a hundred." Karl Wolf smiled for the first time.
"We're expecting reinforcements momentarily."
"Too late," Karl said, firmly believing that Pitt was desperately attempting to save himself through deception. "The nanotech systems created to break away the ice shelf have been activated by now The world is headed for a cataclysm as we talk. Nothing can stop it."
"I beg to differ," Pitt said, his tone purposefully neutral. "All systems were shut down ten minutes before they were to be set in motion. I'm sorry to disrupt your plans, Karl, but there will be no cataclysm. There will be no New Destiny, no Fourth Empire. The world will go on spinning around the sun as before, far from perfect, with all its man-made weaknesses and frailties. Summer and winter, blue skies and clouds, rain and snow, will continue uninterrupted until long after the human race has ceased to exist. If we become extinct, it will be from natural causes, not from some outlandish scheme by a megalomaniac bent on world domination."
"What are you saying?" Elsie snapped in growing alarm.
"No need to panic, dear sister," said Karl, his tone a shade less than congenial. "The man is lying."
Pitt shook his head wearily. "It's all over for the Wolf family. If anyone deserves to be indicted by a world tribunal for attempted crimes against humanity, it's you. When seven billion souls find out how you and your family of ghouls tried to exterminate every man, woman, and child on the planet, you're not going to be very popular. Your giant ships, wealth, and treasures will be seized. And if any of your family members do escape a lifetime in jail, their every move will be closely watched by international intelligence and police agencies to ensure that they won't have any ambitions for a Fifth Empire."
"If what you say is true," Karl said with a sneer, only slightly diminished by uncertainty, "what do you plan to do with my sisters and me?"
"Not my call." Pitt sighed. "Sometime, someplace, you'll be hanged for your crimes, for all the murders you've ordered of those who stood in your way. My satisfaction will be sitting in the front row and watching you drop."
"A most provocative illusion, Mr. Pitt, and most intriguing. A pity it's pure fantasy."
"You're a hard man to convince."
"Give the order to fire, brother," Elsie demanded. "Shoot the vermin. If you don't, I will."
Karl Wolf stared at the weary and battle-exhausted veterans of Cleary's command. "My sister is right. Unless your men surrender within the next ten seconds, my people will cut them down."
"Never happen," said Pitt, his voice hard and abrupt.
"One hundred guns against twenty? The battle will not last long, and there can only be one conclusion. You see, Mr. Pitt, too much is at stake. My sisters and I will gladly sacrifice our lives in the name of the Fourth Empire."
"It's stupid to waste lives for a dream that's already dead and buried," Pitt said casually.
"The hollow statement of a desperate man. At least I will have the gratification of knowing you'll be the first to die."
Pitt stared at Wolf for a long moment, then glanced down at the automatic rifle in the madman's hands. Then he shrugged. "Have it your way. But before you get carried away with blood lust, I suggest you look behind you."
Wolf shook his head. "I'm not taking my eyes off you."
Pitt turned slightly to Elsie and Blondi. "Why don't you girls explain the facts of life to your brother?"
The Wolf sisters turned and looked.
Every neck in the hangar turned and every pair of eyes looked toward the rear wall and the entrance of the far tunnel. If there was one thing the hangar was lacking, it wasn't an arsenal of automatic weapons. Another two hundred had joined the drama being enacted around the wrecked aircraft. Two hundred nasty-looking Eradicator rifles all aimed at the backs of Destiny Enterprises engineers and scientists and held in the hands of men whose faces were hidden by helmets and goggles. They were ranged in an orderly semicircle, the front row kneeling, the back row standing, dressed in Arctic battle gear similar to that worn by Cleary and his team.
One of the figures stepped forward and spoke loudly with authority. "Lay down your weapons very slowly and back away! At the first sign of hostility, I will order my men to open fire! Please cooperate and no one will be hurt!"
There was no sign of hesitation or resistance. Far from it. The men and women who made up the scientific team for Destiny Enterprises were only too happy to rid themselves of weapons few of them knew how to operate properly. There was an almost universal sigh of relief as they backed away from the Bushmaster rifles and raised their hands in the air.
Elsie looked as if she had taken a knife in the heart. She stood with a stunned, uncomprehending look on her face. Blondi, her eyes stricken and bewildered, looked as if she was going to be sick. Karl Wolf's face went tense and hard as stone, more angry than fearful at the certainty of seeing his grand plan to launch a new world order suddenly evaporate.
"Which one of you is Dirk Pitt?" inquired the leader of the newly arrived Special Forces.
Pitt slowly raised his hand. "Here."
The officer strode up to Pitt and gave a slight nod of his head. "Colonel Robert Wittenberg, in charge of the Special Forces operation. What is the status of the Ross Ice Shelf operation?"
"Terminated," Pitt answered steadily. "The Valhalla Project was shut down ten minutes short of the ice-cutting syste
m's activation."
Wittenberg relaxed visibly. "Thank God," he sighed.
"Your timing could not have been more perfect, Colonel."
"After making radio contact with Major Cleary, we followed your directions through the opening in the ice you smashed with your vehicle." He paused and asked as if in awe, "Did you see the ancient city?"
Pitt smiled. "Yes, we saw it."
"From there it was a routine run with full battle gear," Wittenberg continued, "until we arrived at the hangar and assembled before anyone turned and noticed us."
"It was touch and go, but Major Cleary and I managed to keep everyone's attention focused away from your end of the tunnel until you took up your battle position."
"Is this all of them?" asked Wittenberg.
Pitt nodded. "Except for several of their wounded back at the control center."
Cleary approached, and the two warriors saluted before shaking hands warmly. Cleary's smile was tired, but the teeth showed. "Bob, you don't know how happy I am to see your ugly old face."
"How many times does this make that I saved your tail?" Wittenberg said, humor in his eyes.
"Twice, and I'm not ashamed to admit it."
"You didn't leave much for me to do."
"True, but if you and your men hadn't shown up when you did, you'd have found half an acre of dead bodies."
Wittenberg stared at Cleary's men, who stood gaunt and weary but still vigilant, watching every move made by the Wolf personnel as they dropped their rifles on the ice floor and gathered in hushed groups near the wrecked aircraft. "It looks like they whittled you down some."
"I lost too many good men," Cleary admitted grimly.
Pitt gestured to the Wolfs. "Colonel Wittenberg, may I introduce Karl Wolf and his sisters Elsie and…" Not knowing Blondi, he paused.
"My sister Blondi," Karl intervened. He was a man in the middle of a nightmare. "What do you intend to do with us, Colonel?"
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