He stood and shivered while the Russians talked.
After a moment’s conversation the ambassador turned to Rasche.
”This is General Ponomarenko,” he said. “This entire military district is under his command, and he personally selected the officer in charge of operations at the site, a Lieutenant Ligacheva.”
”I regret to say that that is correct,” the general added, speaking slowly and with a heavy accent. “Her performance has been a disappointment. I look forward to relieving her of her command as soon as we locate her.” He gestured at one of the snow tractors; as he did the engine started with a roar, making further conversation impractical.
”Come, we board now,” Ponomarenko shouted, holding open the tractor door.
Rasche shrugged and climbed aboard.
Chapter 28
Schaefer paused, balanced atop a ten-foot slab of rock, and looked back at Ligacheva, with his “borrowed” AK-47 held easily in one hand. She was moving slowly, creeping across the rocks. “We have to keep moving,” he called. “As soon as those things figure out that we killed their sentry, they’ll be coming after us!”
”Keep moving,” Ligacheva repeated, nodding as she shifted her own weapon to the other hand so that she could better steady herself against the rock wall. “Ah. This must be what you Americans call a ‘strategy.’ Very good.”
Schaefer smiled slightly, then looked around at the icy walls of the canyon.
Another reason he had wanted to keep moving was so he wouldn’t freeze to death; his fancy plastic suit was less and less usefull with each step, as more of the insulating fluid leaked out, and he’d lost more blood than he liked. The blanket wrapped around his head was stiff with blood; he was pretty sure the flow had stopped, but if he’d been safe at home he knew he’d be in bed-or a hospital!-resting and recovering.
He sure wouldn’t be out here in subzero weather.
Ligacheva had her heavy overcoat and fur hat, so maybe the cold wasn’t such a problem for her.
He paused, noticing something.
Was it really a problem for either of them? The air didn’t have the same vicious numbing bite to it that it had had before. True, the canyon walls shut out the wind,
but ...
”Is it my imagination, or is it warming up out here?” he said.
Ligacheva glanced at him. “Why do you ask?”
”Because the ice ahead looks like it’s melting,” Schaefer said. “And unless I’m hallucinating from loss of blood, I hear water dripping somewhere. It’s midwinter, this is Siberia-ice melting?”
“Indeed,” Ligacheva said, staring. “And beyond that, the ground is bare.” She pointed.
Schaefer looked at the area the Russian indicated and saw earth that was not just uncovered, but torn up and raw. “Something tells me that’s not shown on your friend’s map,” he said.
”Your something speaks the truth,” Ligacheva agreed. She watched as the American trudged ahead.
Schaefer was an enigma to her. He was endlessly bitter and cynical, constantly mocking any sort of authority, loyalty, trust, even simple humanity yet he was here, pushing on into the unknown against a fearsome foe. He had fought the alien sentry with little more than his bare hands-and for what? He professed no love for his fellow man, no devotion to his homeland. The other Americans plainly hated him, he had mentioned no family or friends ...
Perhaps his life was so empty that he had no fear of losing it. He seemed to exist in a friendless world of pain and death; perhaps those devils from the stars were all he had left to give his existence meaning or purpose.
”It’s warm,” Ligacheva said; removing her hat and shoving it into a pocket.
”It’s more than warm,” Schaefer replied, unclipping the collar of his plastic suit. “Something’s got the temperature way up-it must be pushing sixty degrees ...”
”Sixty?” Ligacheva exclaimed. Then she realized that the American must be using the foolish, archaic Fahrenheit scale, and quickly worked the conversion in her head. Fifteen or sixteen degrees Celsius-yes, that was about right. She unbuttoned her coat as Schaefer unzipped.
They were walking on bare, moist stone now, without even lingering traces of ice. Something had not just melted the ice and snow, but had boiled most of it away, heating the canyon air in the process.
”What could possibly produce so much heat?” she wondered aloud.
Schaefer, in the lead and scrambling up onto a boulder just at a bend in the ravine, stopped in his tracks and pointed around the corner.
”How about that?” he asked.
She stepped up on the boulder beside him, to where she could see around the corner, and she, too, stopped dead.
They had, beyond question, found the alien ship. It lay in a pit ahead of them; the heat it radiated had melted the permafrost, and its weight had let it sink down into the formerly frozen mud that lined the bottom of the canyon. It was half-buried in dirt, mud, and gravel.
It was gigantic. It was an immense mass of something, but neither Ligacheva nor Schaefer could decide, upon looking at it, whether it was metal or some other material entirely-to Ligacheva it looked almost like bone. Its shape was curving, organic, impossible to describe. Large parts of its surface were an eerie red that seemed to glow dully in the darkness of the arctic night; the rest was lost in shadows, black against that luminescent crimson.
And one arched area, roughly the size and shape of a large door, glowed a brighter red and appeared to be an opening into the ship’s interior.
”I think it’s a different model from the ones I saw in New York,” Schaefer said. “Can’t be sure, as I didn’t get a look at those from above like this.”
”Is that ... that opening, there ...” Ligacheva struggled to phrase the question she wanted to ask.
”Looks like the welcome mat’s out,” the American said, answering her.
”Should we go in?” Ligacheva asked.
Schaefer hesitated, considering his answer, and saw the air shimmer slightly just beside the opening. The shimmer seemed to move away, across the hull-then the rock blocked his view and he lost sight of it.
It could have been that dizziness from loss of blood had made him imagine it, but Schaefer didn’t think so. He thought it was real.
”No need to hurry,” he said, stepping back down off the boulder. He ducked back out of sight and settled comfortably onto a rock.
If that shimmer had been an alien, and it had already seen him, they were as good as dead-but he was hoping it hadn’t seen him.
Ligacheva joined him behind the bend in the canyon wall and looked at him, puzzled.
”Now what?” she asked.
”Quiet,” he said. “And try not to move. I thought I spotted one of those things.”
Ligacheva tensed; the two of them sat motionless in their sheltered corner for a long moment.
Schaefer was just beginning to decide that he had imagined that shimmer after all when he saw it again, moving along the far wall of the canyon. He watched.
Ligacheva saw the American’s eyes focus on something across the ravine; she turned her own head and searched, but couldn’t spot it.
Then it was gone, and Schaefer relaxed.
”I think our boy’s gone to check on his buddy up the canyon,” he said.
”The sentry we killed?”
Schaefer nodded.
”Then it will know we are in the area,” Ligacheva said. “What will it do?”
”That’s a very good question,” Schaefer said. “And figuring out an equally good answer is why I’m sitting here trying to think.”
He looked around, studying their surroundings-which were almost entirely bare rock. This entire stretch of the ravine had been cooked free of ice. “That thing’s radiating an unbelievable amount of heat,” he said. “That would explain why the satellites picked it up on infrared.”
Ligacheva nodded. “We knew this,” she said.
”But when those boys stopped by the Big
Apple to play last year, we couldn’t spot them with infrared,” Schaefer pointed out. “We couldn’t spot them with much of anything. They’ve got stealth technology that makes a B-2 bomber look like a fucking Goodyear blimp wrapped in neon.”
”Then I would say that something must be broken in there,” Ligacheva said. “This ship is hardly invisible.”
”That’s another thing,” Schaefer said. “The ships that cruised Third Avenue were invisible, but we can see this baby just fine. I’d say a lot of things must be pretty broken up in there.”
Ligacheva nodded. She gestured at the sides of the ravine, where the rock had been broken and scarred by some recent impact. “As you said earlier, I do not think they intended to land here at all, and from the appearance of this place, I do not think they landed well.”
Schaefer nodded. “That’s right-it’s pretty clear that this wasn’t a planned visit. That might explain part of their attitude problem-it must have been a rough ride bouncing down this canyon.”
”Understanding their ill temper does not tell us how to deal with it.”
”Oh, I don’t know,” Schaefer said. “Knowing that they’re pissed at the whole damned universe gives us a clue that they aren’t going to want to listen when we ask them nicely to surrender.”
Ligacheva frowned. “If you actually saw one of them just now...” she began.
”Oh, I saw it, Schaefer said. “And I’m glad it didn’t see us.”
”When it finds its dead companion, it will return here,” Ligacheva pointed out. “It will then be angry at us, as well as the universe, no?”
”Could be,” Schaefer conceded.
”And while it did not detect us this time, we cannot count on being so fortunate a second time.”
”Yeah, I’d thought of that.”
”We must act quickly then, before it returns.”
”Act how? What would you suggest we do?”
Ligacheva’s mouth opened, then closed again.
”I don’t know,” she admitted.
”Neither do I,” Schaefer said. He dumped the pack from his shoulder. “I think it’s time to check out just what General Philips and his high-tech boys packed us for lunch; maybe there’s something here that will give us an idea. After all, the general got all this fancy equipment to deal with that ship down there-maybe some of it’ll actually work. I’ve lugged this stuff all this way on the off chance we’ll need it, so let’s see what Lynch handed me to carry.” He opened the pack’s top flap and reached in.
Most of the pack was filled with solid chunks of something heavy. Schaefer pulled out a few and inspected them, then poked at the gadgets underneath.
”C-4,” Schaefer said. “Demolitions grade. And detonators, timers, impact fuses ... we’ve got a whole wrecking crew here. Tasty stuff.”
”Useful against that?” Ligacheva said, pointing at the alien ship.
”If it were detonated in the right place, yes,” Schaefer said thoughtfully. “At least, if their vehicles are anything like ours, and not completely invulnerable.” He reached into the pack again and brought out several ammo clips. He hefted them, feeling their weight, and read the label on one.
”Teflon-coated,” he said. “Depleted uranium shells, magnum charge. These things ought to punch through steel plate as if it were cheese.” He fitted one magazine to the AK-47. “And interchangeable,” he said. “Smithers and Lynch and the rest may be a bunch of assholes, but the general’s tech boys think of everything.”
”The Kalashnikov Design Bureau, you mean,” Ligacheva said. “The AK-47 was designed to accept almost any standard light round.”
”These things may be small caliber, but they aren’t light,” Schaefer said. “We’ll let everyone share the credit, shall we?” He turned the pack over to be sure he hadn’t missed anything, then looked at the booty he had, spread on the rock. “Now, what can we do with it all?”
Ligacheva looked around.
”The permafrost is melting,” she said. “That’s what holds this place together-the ice. If you planted some of your explosives in the canyon wall, you might be able to bring the whole thing down on top of them.”
Schaefer looked up and around at the rocks. He stuffed the explosives back into the pack, slipped the AK-47 onto his shoulder, then stepped back up on the boulder overlooking the downed ship.
Ligacheva stepped up beside him.
”You think the rocks are ...” Schaefer began, leaning forward for a better view.
He didn’t finish the sentence. The boulder abruptly gave way beneath them.
Together, man, woman, and rock tumbled down the side of the pit and slammed heavily onto the top of the spaceship, landing with a resounding crash. A full-blown avalanche followed them immediately, showering stone and debris onto the hot surface of the ship.
Schaefer landed flat on his back, then slowly sat up. His plastic jumpsuit pulled away from the hot metal only reluctantly, leaving an oval of sizzling goo-the outer layer of the plastic had melted away.
Ligacheva had landed on her side and had climbed quickly back atop the fallen boulder, burning the palm of one hand in the process and scorching a long streak of black onto her overcoat. The ship was hot.
Schaefer joined her atop the rock. before the rest of his suit could melt away, and the two of them crouched there, staring at the opening into the ship’s interior, scarcely a dozen meters away.
”Do you think anyone heard that?” Ligacheva asked.
”You could have been front row center at a Who concert and heard that,” Schaefer said. “If there’s anyone still aboard, let’s just hope they’re too damn busy with repairing everything that’s busted in there to come check out another rockslide.” He pointed at a few scattered rocks that had apparently fallen onto the ship earlier as the ice had melted. Then he hefted the pack that he had somehow managed to hang on to and scanned the sides of the ravine.
He didn’t see any suspicious shimmer, but that didn’t mean much-it was dark up there.
It was light inside the ship, though-the red glow was almost alluring from this angle. And if that one he had spotted was the only one left, if there had only been two aboard this ship, then right now the ship was deserted.
Even if there were others aboard, they might be too busy with repairs to notice intruders. They certainly wouldn’t expect intruders-walking straight into the enemy’s home would surely seem insane to them.
Hell, it probably was insane, but that didn’t bother Schaefer at all.
”As long as we’re on their front porch,” he said, “let’s drop in.”
Ligacheva turned to stare at him. Schaefer hefted the pack full of C-4.
”And while we’re in there,” he said, “we’ll give them a little something to remember us by.”
Chapter 29
He must be here someplace,” Kurkin said as he peered down an empty corridor, his AK-47 at the ready. His breath formed a thick cloud in the cold air, and he suppressed a shiver. “He wasn’t with the others, and we didn’t find any tacks in the snow...”
”This is mad,” Afanasiev said as he swung his own weapon about warily. “He could be anywhere in the entire complex! How can so few of us hope to search it all without letting him slip past us? Especially when one of us must guard the other Americans!”
”And what would you have us do instead?” Kurkin asked sarcastically.
”Let him go!” Afanasiev said. “He is only one old man, what can he do?”
”One man with a weapon can do quite enough ...” Kurkin began. Then he stopped. “Listen!” he whispered.
Afanasiev stopped and listened. “Voices,” he said. “But ... do I hear two voices?”
”The radio room,” Kurkin said. “He’s in the radio room, and he has contacted his people, perhaps with his own satellite link, perhaps with our equipment. That’s the other voice you hear.”
Afanasiev frowned thoughtfully. “That room has only one door, yes?”
Kurkin nodded.
/> ”We have him trapped, then.”
”Let us take no chances,” Kurkin said. “I have had enough of these damned Americans and their tricks. I say we go in shooting.”
Afanasiev considered that, then nodded. “I have no objection,” he said.
”On my signal, then.”
Together they crept up toward the radio-room door, AK-47s at the ready. The voice from the radio grew louder as they approached.
”... read you, Cold War One, and acknowledge your situation. We reiterate, new orders per Cencom, the mission has been scrubbed, repeat, scrubbed. Over.”
Kurkin’s rusty schoolbook English wasn’t enough to make sense of any of that he could only pick out about one word in three with any certainty.
He hoped that whatever the voice was saying wasn’t of any real importance to anyone.
The radio voice stopped, and the trapped American didn’t reply-he was undoubtedly, Kurkin thought, considering his answer.
The silence was unacceptable, though if they waited, the American might hear their breath or the rustle of clothing. Kurkin waved.
The two of them swung around the door frame, weapons firing in short bursts as they had been taught. A dozen slugs smacked the concrete walls, sending chips and dust flying in all directions.
Then they stopped shooting as they both realized they had no target. The radio room was empty. The radio was on, and a metal case stood open on a table with wires and a small dish antenna projecting from it-the American’s satellite uplink, obviously.
The American wasn’t there.
”Where is he?” Afanasiev asked, baffled. He stepped into the room.
The open door swung around hard and slammed into him, knocking him off his feet, and before Kurkin could react, he found himself staring at the muzzle of an M-16. He had lowered his own weapon and could not bring it up in time.
He couldn’t understand what the American said, but the situation was clear enough. He carefully placed his AK-47 on the floor, then stood up again, hands raised.
Afanasiev, on the floor, turned and sat up-and saw the man with the M-16. He put down his AK-47 as well.
”You boys are noisy,” General Philips remarked. “I heard you coming a hundred yards away. Took you long enough to get here.” He kicked the AK-47s away, then looked over his two prisoners. He frowned.
Predator Cold War Page 18
