”Crystal, sir,” Lynch replied smartly.
”Good. Carry on.” Philips took a final look around, smiled, and then marched out of the room.
”Lassen, you’re with me,” Lynch called. “The rest of you, pack up-you heard the general, 0600.”
The men rose and scattered; a moment later only Schaefer, Lynch, and Lassen remained. Lynch waited a few seconds, then leaned over close to Schaefer. He grimaced, producing what Schaefer thought might have been intended as a conspiratorial smile.
”Look, Schaefer,” he said, “this squad’s been training as a team for six months. We don’t need some second-rate gumshoe telling us our jobs. The general wants you along, you come along, and maybe we’ll use you as a translator if we need one, but otherwise, you just stay safely out of the way and everything’ll be fine, okay?”
Schaefer stared coldly at him.
”You’re a civilian,” Lynch said, trying to explain himself. “You aren’t being paid to risk your neck.”
”I’m a cop,” Schaefer replied. “You think I’m not paid to risk my neck?”
”Yeah, well,” Lynch said, “so I phrased it badly. Siberia’s still outside your jurisdiction, okay?”
Schaefer stared at him for a second longer, then said, “You know, I’ve always heard that it’s up to the officers to set the tone for the whole unit. Maybe that’s why your men are all assholes.”
It was Lynch’s turn to stare angrily, fighting to keep control of his temper. Finally he wheeled away and shouted, “Lassen! The general wants this man briefed; brief him, already!”
”This way, sir,” Lassen said quietly, pointing at a side table that held a variety of equipment cases.
Schaefer ambled over and watched as Lassen opened case after case and lifted out various items.
”Type 19D Ranger-wear snowsuit,” Lassen said, holding up a shiny light-brown jumpsuit. “Thin and practical, with none of the standard bulk to inhibit movement. Tested to fifty below zero.”
Schaefer crossed his arms over his chest.
”The suit is warmed by high-pressure, thermally charged fluid pumped through the fabric by an electrical unit worn on the belt,” Lassen explained.
”Cute,” Schaefer said. “Does it come with matching pumps and a purse? And if it’s meant for the snow, why the hell isn’t it white?”
Lassen ignored the questions and set the bodysuit aside. He picked up an automatic rifle.
”M-16S modified ice-killer,” he said. “Nice piece of work-you won’t find one of these at your local sell ‘n’ shoot! The barrel and firing mechanism have been crafted out of special alloy steel, perfect for cold-weather firing-again, down to fifty below. It’s a ...”
He stopped in midsentence; he’d lost his audience. Schaefer had turned away.
”Hey!” Lassen called. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
”Toys ‘R’ Us,” Schaefer answered. “They have a better selection of toys.” He turned at the doorway.
”Listen, I don’t blame you, Lassen,” Schaefer said, “but you’ve been brainwashed by this high-tech crap. You and the others think this stuff makes you superior to those things, ready to handle anything they throw at you. You’re wrong; you don’t know them, don’t know what they’re like. You’ve heard the stories, but deep down you don’t believe them, you still think you’re the toughest thing going, with your American know-how and guts and your fancy equipment.” He shook his head.
”That’s not how it is,” he said. “When it comes right down to it, it’s going to be you against walking death, just you. And when it gets to that point, all the fancy knickknacks in the world won’t mean shit, and how tough you think you are won’t matter. What matters is whether you’re ready to do anything to take ‘em down. I killed one of them once, Lassen, and you know how I did it?”
Lassen shook his head.
”With a big pointed stick,” Schaefer told him. “I had guns and lots of other toys, and so did it, but it was a wooden stake through its heart that punched out its lights once and for all.” He waved an arm at all the cases. “This crap won’t matter. You’ll see. It’ll probably just make you overconfident and get you all killed.”
”No, I ...” Lassen began.
Schaefer didn’t stay to hear what the soldier had been going to say; he marched out, intent on getting a hot meal and a little sleep before they shipped him off to the arctic.
Chapter 17
Rasche sat at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper. The front-page headline was about the American ambassador to the U.N. publicly calling the Russian ambassador a liar and insisting that there were nukes being moved around illicitly in the arctic, but Rasche was more interested in the funnies-”For Better or For Worse” was his favorite.
He sipped coffee and looked up at the clock: 7:20. It would be three hours later in New York, the middle of the morning.
He lowered the paper. “Shaef never called back, did he?” he asked.
”No,” Shari said. She was standing at the sink, rinsing the kids’ breakfast dishes.
”That’s not like him,” Rasche said.
He’d tried calling Schaefer three or four times the night before and hadn’t gotten an answer.
He’d left a message on the machine at Schaefer’s apartment.
”Maybe he’s on a stakeout,” Shari suggested. “If he is, he could be gone for days.” She didn’t mention all the times Rasche had been gone for-days on stakeouts, or that there hadn’t been any since they had moved to Oregon.
”Maybe,” Rasche admitted. He smiled at Shari to show he wasn’t worried, that everything was fine and that he was happy to be out here in Bluecreek.
Then the smile vanished. “What the hell,” he said, ”I’ll give him another try.” He tossed the paper aside and reached for the wall phone. He knew Schaefer’s office number by heart.
Someone picked up on the fifth ring, and Rasche started to relax-but then he realized that the voice on the other end wasn’t Schaefer’s.
”Detective Schaefer’s office, Officer Weston speaking,” the voice said.
”Weston?” Rasche frowned. “This is Rasche-is Shaef around?”
”No, he.. .” Weston began. Then he recognized the name. “Rasche? My God, you haven’t heard?”
”Heard what?”
Shari looked up at the sudden change in the tone of her husband’s voice.
”Schaefer’s gone,” Weston explained. “His whole squad was wasted in a drug sting that went bad-we still don’t know what the hell went down, but we wound up with a van full of dead cops, three dead perps, a shitload of questions, and no Schaefer. Rawlings and Horshowski and a couple of techs bought the farm on this one.”
”What about Schaefer?” Rasche demanded. ”What do you mean, ‘no Schaefer’?” The possibility that Schaefer might have been included in the vanful of dead cops simply didn’t occur to Rasche. Schaefer couldn’t have died that way; it wasn’t his style.
”Schaef’s disappeared,” Weston said. “Gone without a trace. One reason I’m on his phone is in case someone calls with a lead.”
”Schaefer doesn’t just vanish,” Rasche said.
”He took off to Central America that time without telling anyone here,” Weston countered.
”Yeah, but he told me,” Rasche replied. “Look, check around his desk, will you? Appointment book, calendar, maybe he left some kind of note.”
”Jeez, Rasche, I don’t . : .” Weston didn’t finish the sentence; Rasche could hear, very faintly, the rustling of paper as Weston poked around on Schaefer’s desk.
”There’s some stuff about the sting,” Weston said at last, “and a note here on top with no explanation, just a couple of connected names ...”
”What names?” Rasche asked. He’d been Schaefer’s partner a long, time; he thought he might recognize names that had never made it into any official records.
”Philips and Smithers,” Weston said.
That first name struc
k Rasche like a thunderbolt. “Philips?” he said. “Philips?”
”Yeah, Philips, one L,” Weston said. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Rasche hung up the phone without answering.
In New York Weston called “Hello?” into the mouthpiece a few times before he gave up and did the same.
Rasche was staring at the wall.
”Honey?” Shari asked. “What is it?”
”Schaef,” Rasche replied.
”What about him?” she asked, putting down the last cereal bowl. “Is he okay?”
”He’s missing.”
”Oh,” she said quietly, staring at him.
”I have to go, Shari,” Rasche said.
”But if he’s missing, how will you know where to go?” Shari protested.
”It’s more than that,” Rasche said. “It’s not just that he’s missing ...” He stopped, unsure how to explain.
Schaefer was his friend, and more than just a friend; he was Rasche’s partner, and that held true even if they weren’t working together anymore. Schaefer was someone who’d always been there for Rasche whenever he needed him, no matter what, and Rasche had tried to do the same, to always be there when Schaefer needed him.
And if General Philips had turned up again, then Schaefer damn well might need Rasche’s help.
If Philips was involved, then two things were certain-Schaefer was in trouble, and it had something to do with those things, those murderous monsters from outer space that had been haunting Rasche’s nightmares for the past six months. Those were Philips’s special province.
Schaefer being in trouble was nothing new; Schaefer lived and breathed trouble, and was a match for just about anything he ran into.
If there was anything on Earth that Schaefer wasn’t a match for, though, it was those damned alien creatures-and General Philips.
”I have to go to New York,” Rasche said.
”But how ...” Shari stared at him. “I mean ...”
”I have to,” Rasche said simply.
Shari sighed. She’d lived with Rasche long enough to know not to argue. Usually he was a good husband, a thoughtful man, a loving father-but sometimes something would come along that made him suddenly push all that aside, and when that happened there wasn’t any point in argument. His sense of duty, of responsibility, was stronger than anything she could say-and that sense of responsibility was part of what made him the man she loved.
”If you’re sure,” she said.
Rasche pulled on his coat. “Call the mayor for me, would you? Tell him it’s a family emergency,” he said. “Tell him whatever it takes. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He headed for the garage.
Shari watched him go.
”I hope so,” she said quietly.
Chapter 18
The plane was a modified B-2 “Stealth” bomber, modified to carry paratroops rather than bombs.
It hadn’t been modified enough to be comfortable, though-the seats were small and hard, the air was dry and cold, and there wasn’t anything to drink but water and fruit juice. Wilcox and Lassen had complained about that for most of the last few hours, making the same stupid wisecracks over and over before they finally ran out of steam and shut up.
Schaefer didn’t care whether the seats were comfortable or not; the only thing that had been bothering him had been Wilcox and Lassen bitching about it, so he couldn’t get some sleep.
Now that they had stopped, he had been enjoying the silence, up until Philips emerged from the forward hatch and said, “Well, that’s it we’ve crossed over into Russian airspace, and the pilot’s taking us down low and slow for the drop. ETA at the dropsite is three minutes.”
Schaefer stretched and stood up. “You sound pretty damn nonchalant about it,” he remarked. “I thought we spent all those billions on defense because we were worried about stuff like Russian radar.”
Philips snorted. “They can’t even make a good copying machine, and you think we can’t beat their radar net? This plane’s part of what we spent those billions on, and we got our money’s worth.”
”You think we got our money’s worth,” Schaefer corrected him. “We won’t know for sure until we see whether they shoot it down.”
Philips ignored him and gestured to Captain Lynch.
Lynch got to his feet. “All right, you crybabies,” he said to Wilcox and the others, “time to earn some of that exorbitant salary we’ve been paying you. Make your final equipment check and let’s boogie.” He tripped the switch and the hatch slid open.
Wind howled; nothing but gray darkness showed through the opening, though. Schaefer stepped up closer.
”Looks like a long drop,” Lynch said. “Getting nervous, cop?”
Schaefer smiled a tight little smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I forgot to set my VCR to record this week’s Melrose Place. Maybe you’ll let me watch yours when we get back.”
Lynch glared at him for a moment, then turned away in disgust. “All right, boys,” he said. “Do it!”
One by one, the seven men leapt from the plane-first the four enlisted men, then Schaefer, then Lynch, and finally Philips.
Frigid air screamed up around Schaefer; his goggles protected his eyes, and his high-tech snowsuit protected his body, but the rest of his face stung fiercely, then went numb as he plummeted through space. He jerked at the handle on his chest.
Schaefer’s chute opened just the way it was supposed to when he pulled the cord, blossoming into a big off-white rectangle above his head and jerking him suddenly upward, turning his downward plunge into a gentle glide-but the cold didn’t go away. He grimaced, then tugged experimentally on the lines, and discovered that yes, it steered exactly as it should. So far, so good.
He looked down, trying to pick out a good landing spot, but all he could see was blank grayness. At first he thought his goggles had fogged up, but he could still see the other men and their parachutes clearly; there wasn’t anything wrong with his vision, there just wasn’t anything to see in the frozen wasteland below.
Well, one patch of snow was as good as another, he thought. He adjusted his lines slightly to keep from drifting too far away from the rest of the team, then just waited for his feet to touch down.
As he descended, he looked around at the others: Philips had really come all this way with them, which surprised Schaefer; the general had to be in his sixties, which was pretty damn old to be jumping out of airplanes over enemy territory or hunting alien monsters.
Philips had guts, anyway.
Schaefer looked down again. The ground was coming up surprisingly fast. His feet were mere yards above the surface, and Schaefer concentrated on turning his controlled fall into a run, getting out from under his chute before it collapsed onto the ice.
Then he was down on one knee in a puff of powder, the chute spread out behind him. He stood up, dropped the harness, and began reeling the whole thing in. He could tell that the chute was scraping up several pounds of snow, but he didn’t worry about it.
The others were landing around him; because of his size, Schaefer had been the first to strike ground. Captain Lynch came down less than fifteen feet from where Schaefer stood.
Lynch threw Schaefer a glance, then looked around for the others.
He spotted one of them helping another up.
”Lassen!” he called. “What happened to Wilcox?”
”I think he landed on his head,” Lassen shouted back.
”Guess he didn’t want to injure something important,” Schaefer said.
Lassen whirled and charged toward the detective, fists clenched. “We’re through taking shit from you, Schaefer!”
Lynch grabbed Lassen, restraining him.
Schaefer didn’t move. He said, “That’s funny, I figured you were up for a lot more yet.”
”All right, that’s enough!” Philips shouted from atop a snowbank. “We’ve got a job to do here!”
Lassen calmed enough that Lynch released him; the whole party turne
d to face Philips.
”There’s an oil pipeline that runs just west of here, the Assyma Pipeline,” he said. “Whatever it was we spotted landed right near it, north of here. There’s a pumping station just two klicks from here, with a small garrison, some workmen, and maybe a couple of geologists stationed there-that’s the closest thing to civilization anywhere in the area. We’ll take a look there, see what the Russians have been up to-if they’ve been doing anything with our visitors, they’ll have been working out of that station, because it’s all they’ve got. Keep your mouths shut and your eyes open, and move it!”
Philips turned and began marching, leading them toward the pumping station. No one bothered to say anything as they followed.
For one thing, Schaefer thought, it was too damn cold to talk. The spiffy electric underwear really worked, and from the neck down he was as toasty warm as if he were home in bed, but the suit didn’t cover his hands or feet or head, and his gloves and boots were plain old heavy-duty winter wear, with nothing particularly fancy or high tech about them. He wore a thick woolen hood over his head, with a strapped-on helmet and his goggles on top of that, but most of his face was still bare, exposed to the Siberian wind, and it wasn’t much better down here than it had been a mile up.
It was like having his face stuck in a deep freeze. His body was warm, but his face was already just about frozen. His skin was dry and hard, the sweat and oil whipped away by the wind; when he opened his mouth it was like gulping dry ice, burning cold searing his tongue and throat. His eyebrows felt brittle; his nostrils felt scorched.
Odd, how intense cold burned like fire, he thought.
He wondered how the hell Philips could find his way through this frigid gloom. The night wasn’t totally dark; a faint gray glow seemed to pervade everything, reflecting back and forth between the clouds and the snow, though Schaefer had no idea where it came from. Still, everything Schaefer could see looked alike, an endless rolling expanse of ice and snow; how did Philips know exactly where they’d landed or which way the pipeline lay?
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