Joe Rush 02: Protocol Zero

by James Abel

  Three guys—including Jens—quickly loaded the snowmobile onto the plane via a ramp. No more evidence! The fourth guy stood guard, vigilant as a pro even though, to them, probably, no one else was there.

  Well, I had one thing to do before they left. If I couldn’t stop them, maybe I could get them to leave something behind that would let Eddie and Merlin and maybe Homza, if he wasn’t involved, figure out who they were.

  I owed it to Karen and Ted, Cathy, Kelley, and Clay Qaqulik and the others who had been murdered. I didn’t much care what happened to me at the moment, but I knew, whatever happened, that I owed something to them.

  You’re not just going to fly out of here.

  Eco lodge my ass!

  TWENTY-TWO

  A U.S. Army M4 assault rifle weighs 6.36 pounds and extends out fourteen inches. The thirty round 60x magazines stuffed in my pockets were lead weights. The carbine had a telescoping butt stock and the gas-operated magazine fired 5.56mm ammunition. I was an excellent shot with an M4 when I was healthy. I was not particularly healthy just now.

  That my snowmobile had run out of gas had probably saved me. Otherwise the pilot of the incoming Twin Otter would have seen the headlight, and the men up there might have mowed me down. Circled a bit. Just like hunting wolves from the air. Bangbangbang!

  I pushed myself forward. No snow falling, but no moon or starlight out. Just a black land and ahead, a slowly collapsing cabin, a jagged circle of orange in which figures moved like Neanderthals silhouetted in the glow of the first fire.

  I was in range, three hundred yards, but for accuracy wanted to be closer. I mentally reviewed the invisible part of the layout, outside the light.

  The cabin—or what was rapidly becoming a pile of glowing charcoal—sat at the extreme northern end of the pencil-thin lake. The lake extended south in the usual elliptical shape. It was probably a mile and a half from end to end, probably a third of a mile across at its widest. I had no idea of the depth of the water. The rapidly cooling shape of the Twin Otter was parked where it ended, its three small skis atop the layer of white.

  Fire. Now. Do it. Kneel down. Shoot.

  No, get closer. They’ll move fast when they hear shots, and you’ll need every advantage.

  I pushed through a windblown snowpile and kept going. Suddenly there were two blurred cabins, and then the two merged back into one. I tripped but stayed up. I was losing strength fast. The digging pains in my chest came steady and deep, with or without movement. Four guys, I thought, five including the pilot.

  Or are there more inside the plane?

  At sixty yards, the flames died down, relaxing into a peaceful orange glow. Evidence gone. The tundra dipped and I almost toppled into a small depression, deep as a golf course sand trap. It was what I needed, a natural shield. I was out of strength, breath, and time.

  Carbine in hands, I lay belly down in the granular cold, as at the old Quantico rifle range. I could hear them talking from here, not words yet, too far, but a rapid, businesslike snap of orders. From the nasal intonations I realized that they might not be speaking English at all.

  The snowmobile had been loaded into the Twin Otter. It was gone. Anyone arriving here would assume that the cabin had been hit by lightning and burned, or that a passing traveler had started the fire; drunk maybe, a firebug, or hunter cooking when suddenly something exploded . . . a mystery not worth thinking about. One more collapsed wreck outside the border of human thought.

  The guard stood casually in the cold, yet I sensed a tense awareness in him. Two of the guys out there came together and one lit a cigarette.

  The balaclava in my crosshairs. If these guys wore armor, I needed a head shot.

  I fired.

  I didn’t wait to see if I hit him because I had to move fast. I swung the barrel and the second head came into view and crackcrackcrack and this time I saw the guy go down. They were both down. I rolled left, screamed from the pain. I was on a roller coaster. My head was spinning. The muzzle bursts would have revealed my location, and the sound of gunfire, too. I was aware of figures scattering, moving left and right, throwing themselves to the ground.

  Two down. Two or three left.

  Whatever was happening inside my head was climaxing. The booming and dizziness came in a roar. I stayed in the depression, peered out and saw orange glow, a charcoal heap, a couple of body-sized lumps in snow, but nothing moving except smoke. They’d found shelter, too.

  Someone out there shouted a name. “Andre? ANDRE!”

  Then, the same voice, louder, deep: “Ty v poryadke?”

  Another, coarser voice: “Zdyes bolit . . .”

  “Kakoy Movoz!” The words ended in a gasping, choking sound, which cut off abruptly.

  Russian?

  • • •

  NOW THE DEEP VOICE WAS THERE AGAIN, FROM THE DARK, FROM THE LEFT side. But I couldn’t see anyone. “Jens?”

  “Ya v poryadke!”

  That was Jens’s voice, but there was no pain in it. The living guys were taking stock.

  “Niki?”

  No answer.

  “Niki?”

  So. Niki dead, hopefully. Two dead. At least two more mobile, including Jens, and maybe one more in the plane. Yes, because the lights in the plane went off suddenly. There were at least three of them.

  Shooting suddenly erupted out there, coming at me from two locations. It tore up the snow to my left and right. I wriggled back. They knew where I was.

  I fired and heard a scream. I needed to move location, but my head was spinning. If they were smart they’d be using hand signals, or whispers, and would come at me from flanking directions.

  I told myself to roll right, and crawl out of the depression. But my muscles refused to move. A fine time to run out of gas! It was like one of those nightmares where you are lying on the street and a bus is coming, or maybe you are running away from something, and it is about to hit you. Safety is a foot away. You need to move a little. You try to take a step, but your muscles refuse to operate.

  My right leg just lay there, twitching. I couldn’t feel it anymore. My hands were tingling, not hurting, but just not there at all.

  I rolled onto my back, pushed with the other leg, and backed farther down into the depression. My one chance was that they would assume I’d moved because moving is what they would do. Anyway, I had no choice. My blood was probably filling my brain cavity. The snowmobile ride had worsened my condition. Offensive action was out.

  With the pain coming harder, I had to concentrate to move even fingers. Move! I was disembodied, detached from any connection to earth, sight, sky. Vision is a tunnel and mine was contracting. I watched my breath rise and wondered if it dissipated by the time it reached the top of the depression, or whether someone crawling toward me from three feet away would see swirls of condensation that, like cigarette smoke, would pinpoint where I lay.

  I listened but only heard my own heartbeat. My fitful breathing sounded like a jet engine to me. I did not hear anyone crawling up there, whispering, flashing signals.

  I could only hope that when someone came over the top, they would be directly in front of me, not behind or to the side.

  Suddenly the snow turned green, not mildly green, not a hint, but an electric hue that burst onto the snow like lines on a sonar screen. A luminous presence that extended into the depression and danced on my snowsuit and created green spots on the M4 and illuminated a small burrow in the snow six inches to my left. Vole hole. Some animal’s hiding place. Emerald lights. Oz of the Arctic.

  I thought I was hallucinating but realized it was the aurora borealis, back again, stage lights highlighting the cripple. The clouds had parted. I saw, high above, the pulsating, greatest show on Earth, the glowing star called Polaris, by which I’d tried to summon Eddie, and the northern constellations, Vega . . . and I thought, Close your eyes, lay her
e. But that was a surrender voice. Light meant opportunity. And anyway, at that moment, I heard the vaguest hint of a scraping sound to my right.

  The whole tundra was probably bathed in green out there. They’d feel exposed. They’d move faster.

  The lights danced and flickered and formed geometric patterns on my parka. The sky and stars were drenched by an undulating curtain of magnetic light.

  Silence.

  Maybe I’d been wrong about the sound.

  No, between heartbeats, it was back. The smallest brushing. Then a pause. Then the sound.

  And then, directly before me, two fingers of a three-fingered shooting mitten appeared at the lip of the depression. They dug into the snow. The black top of a balaclava followed, and then a forehead smeared with black.

  I shot him in the face.

  My cheek lay in the snow with the lights dancing inches away. The lights smelled like Avgas. They smelled like a fired M4. They smelled like the dead man lying at the top of the depression had voided himself.

  “You don’t look so good, Joe,” said Jens Erik Holte’s voice from behind me, and slightly left. “You’re not shot, though. So, what?”

  Something, a rifle I assumed, poked my back. A boot appeared. My M4 lifted away. Jens, kneeling beside me, probed for hidden weapons. It was an expert search and it involved, at one point, using his foot to turn me over, which caused someone to scream. I realized the screamer was me.

  “Huh! A vest! I should have known. You’re not hit, so what’s the problem? You got four of us, Joe. Four!”

  He squatted a few feet off, like a tribesman in the jungle. He didn’t look angry, though, and he certainly was not hurt. A dark brown fur-flapped hat had replaced his snowmobile helmet. He still wore a thermal snowmobile suit. He was armed with what looked like an AK-47 variation, from the banana clip and length.

  There was no rush. He sat down heavily, sighed, and nodded at the dead man, without breaking eye contact. “That was the pilot, Joe. How do I get out now?”

  I said nothing. I tried to, but I couldn’t.

  “You’re pretty busted up. I don’t know how to fly a plane—just choppers. Do you?”

  I tasted something coppery and metallic. Joe Rush, still life in the Arctic.

  Jens sighed, disgusted. “I didn’t think so, not that you’re in shape to move. Also, my snowmobile’s in the plane now, with a busted chain. Yours? The lights showed it, out there. Got gas?”

  I managed to shake my head.

  “I guess I could siphon fuel from the plane. Avgas ought to work in a snowmobile, don’t you think? No? Yes? No? No opinion? What good are you. Help me out here, man.”

  The northern lights danced across his strong Nordic features. Handsome guy. Adolf Hitler’s ideal. He said, “I would have been out of the country in no time, but now, if Homza’s got satellites up, shit. Canada is at least two hundred miles from here, and if they’re tracking, even if they can’t reach you in time, they call the Mounties, and they’re waiting when you arrive.”

  I managed to force out, “You’re Russian?”

  “Nah. They are. Not me. I hate Russians.”

  I heard myself whisper, “Who are you?”

  “International citizen of the world.” He grinned. “One for all and all for one.”

  My mind was pain. I tried to get words out and he watched, curious about what I would say, now that he was master here. He coaxed me. “You can do it. Try it slow. I need a few minutes rest before I get out of here anyway. Long day, Joe.”

  “The . . . rabies isn’t . . . con . . . contagious?”

  “Nah.”

  “You . . . spread . . . it.”

  He nodded. “One person at a time, except for the first ones. Damnit, Joe. I put it in Ted’s ice cream, the goddamn ice cream. He never shares his ice cream. Except Kelley decided to play a joke on him on his birthday, share it with all of them: Ha-ha, Dad, we ate half your precious supply! They all ate it. He was supposed to get sick alone and that would end the project. Stupid teenage joke.”

  I tried to think. Through the green dancing light, black spots appeared. I forced out, “Why . . . give it . . . why . . .”

  “Why give it to others? In town? Come on, man! Think! Once four people had it, we needed to keep you away from here, from connecting the deaths to their work. So we created an emergency. We gave you what you looked for. A ‘new’ disease. We shifted attention. It should have worked.”

  He stood up. He seemed amused. “I thought you were going to ask me about her, but you didn’t, Joe. You asked about something else. Marine to the end.”

  “What is . . . here?”

  He made a noise like a game show buzzer. “Gotta go!”

  “I’ll . . . find . . . you.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He sighed, getting up. “You’ll hunt me down. I can see you’re in good shape. Anyway, just so you know? I liked all you people. You are one fucking bird dog once you get an idea in your head. Everyone else, fooled. Gotta go, Joe. Gotta reach Canada.”

  I tried to claw my way through the snow to him. I managed to move my left hand a whole inch.

  I whispered, “Eco lodge?”

  “Hey, Joe, remember that time early on, in the season, that homemade pizza at the Harmons? That was a good night. Kelley rolling dough. Ted chopping onions. Lillienthal and his nympho sister coming in with that Texas brewery beer? Summer friends.”

  “Who . . . ?”

  “You still haven’t asked about her. Some fiancée you were, Colonel. Workaholic to the end. Well, you get no sympathy from me. I could shoot you, but hell. Freeze.”

  He leaned down. I was as helpless as an infant. He stripped off my hat and mittens, and instantly I felt the temperature plunge. He unzipped my thermal suit. He took my M4. He said, “Well! Gotta burn those bodies and get gas!”

  He stomped off into the snow, green lights playing on his back. I heard him crunch away, right about the time that the aurora borealis failed and night came back. Show over.

  When I was conscious again I heard grunting from some distance off, probably him dragging a corpse toward the fire. I heard a smashing noise, and imagined Jens busting up a dead man’s teeth with his rifle stock. Can’t have authorities checking teeth on bodies burned in the fire. He’d probably blow up the Twin Otter, too, try to obliterate the record, once he gassed up one of the snowmobiles.

  And the evidence here, a burned-down cabin, a blown-up plane. Hell, put it down, Detective, as a cocaine or illegal alcohol delivery gone bad . . . one more mystery of the High North to be written up in the adventure magazines.

  • • •

  KAREN VLESKA PAUSED AT THE TOP OF THE DEPRESSION, HER LONG SILVER hair flying in wind, her mittens wrapping ski poles, her eyes hidden by goggles, her hip jutting out, feminine, petite, perpetually sexy. There was a long red scarf wrapped around her neck, and I understood it hid a knife scar. She’d heard Jens Erik Holte’s accusation. I thought you were going to ask about her, but you didn’t, Joe.

  I told her, “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  She said, “I’m not.”

  I said, “Where are you going?”

  She said, “Oh, I’m already there.”

  “Karen. I love you.”

  “Funny way to show it, Joe.” She skied away.

  • • •

  BACK IN WASHINGTON, BEFORE EDDIE AND I HAD FLOWN TO ALASKA THIS summer, the admiral had insisted that we watch a warning film, an old black-and-white copy of an original made at a German World War Two prison camp, Treblinka. It was one of the films that Admiral Galli came up with from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of archived, classified files, which he regularly used to underline points. We’d pissed and moaned because it was a nice, warm spring day, and Eddie wanted to shop for souvenirs for his wife and daughters, and I wanted to sleep at the hotel.

&nb
sp; Instead, we were ushered into the admiral’s screening room, space for six, where we slumped into cushioned chairs and, coffee before us, watched a grainy film. We sat up a little. Then we sat up a lot. Eddie grew so sick at what we were seeing that at one point he gagged.

  Shot one: three smiling white-coated doctors standing by a bathtub filled with water. Shot two: the biggest, fattest, least-healthy looking doctor waves his hand, and two German soldiers dump lots of ice cubes into the tubs.

  The three prisoners look like toothpicks when they lurch in, terrified, eyes swinging between the smiling doctors and the ice-filled tubs. And then, clearly forced, they remove their rags. The man folds his neatly. Maybe once he was a lawyer, or businessman, the kind of guy who draped his clothing neatly over the top of a chair each night, before climbing beneath laundered sheets with his perfumed wife. The woman refused at first to get into the tub. The soldiers pushed her in. The kid was screaming, but the film had no sound reel with it. We only heard the whirring projector and the muted hum of Washington on a warm spring day outside, where cherry blossoms bloomed.

  “You two Marines will not let yourself get frostbite or hypothermia this summer,” Admiral Galli said. “I hate this film and the people who made it. But it’s the best graphic warning I know. Watch!”

  Watch? Horrified, we couldn’t stop. The Nazi doctors slid big red thermometers in the water, and smaller ones in victims’ mouths. Someone, an Allied technician likely, had added numbers on the bottom of the screen. The thermometers in the film showed temperature in Centigrade. The added numbers were Fahrenheit, easier for us to understand.

  “Body temp, ninety-eight point six,” whispered Eddie. The immersion had begun.

  The victims began shivering.

  The shivering grew worse.

  The child shivered more than the adults.

  “Keep watching,” Galli said.

  He’d given us reading material, and I’d skimmed it, but now, facts slammed home. I knew for the Jews in the tubs, as their skin temperature dropped, the nerves on the surface pulled back, pushed blood farther into the body. It was natural triage, the body sacrificing its skin in exchange for keeping organs—heart, lungs, kidneys—warm.