SKELETON GOLD: Dark Tide (James Pace Book 4)

by Andy Lucas

  The Daimler-Foster, 6-cylinder engine pumped out one hundred and five horsepower, all of which could only propel the cumbersome machine at little better than walking pace. Still, when they inspected it briefly, the engine looked as new as the day it had first been installed, although it was so complicated to Pace’s eyes, and Hammonds come to that, that they had no hope of repairing it if it did not start.

  Using the generator and a set of original starter leads, propped in a box at the rear of the tank bay, they had tried to start it up. The first two attempts failed but they had persevered, realising the fuel would need time to make its way around the system. They were also keenly aware that it might not start at all so when the old engine finally roared into belching, smoking, glorious life on the third attempt, they had both back-slapped like excited children attacking presents under an early morning Christmas tree.

  The Mark IV needed a crew of eight to operate it as a war machine but it could be driven by two, which was handy. Neither of them was skilled at driving old tanks but, working together, they quickly fathomed out the rudimentary gearing system and shut themselves inside.

  The remnants of the doors were jammed so the tank ploughed through them as it drove forward, returning to life with venom and easily traversing the gulley, coming out at the top of the ridge where they stopped.

  Despite the snow fall, with Hammond spotting the Hagglund tracks through the forward Lewis gun port, they had started to follow, creeping at a comparable snail’s pace.

  If Sharpe had not turned and headed back towards them, their rescue charge would have come hours too late but, after ten minutes, Hammond suddenly glimpsed the reflections of the two sets of headlamps just ahead. Both sets were static but one of them was brighter, enhanced with yellow flickering between the snow flakes. Taking a chance that nobody else would be crazy enough to be out on the ice, Pace steered straight at the lights, finally able to distinguish between the two Hagglunds with barely a couple of metres to spare.

  He did not intend to run over the enemy vehicle at all. In the rapidly heating, horrendously noisy tank, he just happened to find himself on top of it, with no time to operate the brakes. If it had been Sharpe’s Hagglund, the outcome would have been the same.

  ‘I see Sharpe and some of the others!’ Hammond yelled. ‘Over by the burning Hagglund.’

  ‘All of them?’ asked Pace, as the crunching of the doomed Hagglund beneath their tracks ceased and the scene dissolved back into the blizzard.

  ‘I can’t be sure,’ said Hammond. ‘Turn back around. I only saw a few but it was all a bit quick.’

  ‘At least that means the one we just crushed wasn’t theirs.’ Pace shouted to be heard over the roar as he pulled and pushed levers to bring the heavy tank around.

  ‘I think there were some other people,’ Hammond added. ‘Wearing red snowsuits.’

  ‘Tell me what you see now,’ hollered Pace, as the tank came back in sight of the burning Hagglund.

  ‘Armed men, dead ahead. They’re going to run.’

  ‘Use the Lewis gun,’ suggested Pace. ‘Make them reconsider.’

  Hammond slipped back the bolt, sighted at the snow in front of the men, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Time had frozen the firing mechanism on that particular gun.

  ‘Won’t shoot,’ he told Pace calmly.

  ‘Try one of the sponson guns. I’ll turn for you.’

  Hammond dived at the port gun as Pace chugged the tank around. This time, the machine gun worked as planned, stitching a line of bullets that kicked up little spurts of snow in a line by the mercenaries’ feet. They should have surrendered because they must have known that their own guns would not penetrate the tank’s armour, but they didn’t. Instead, they made a fatal decision, with their leader suddenly pointing to the exposed scientists.

  As the mercenaries made a break for the scientists, either to kill them or take them hostage, they sealed their own fate. Pace did not have time to say anything. Hammond was manning the machine gun and he saw everything. The Lewis gun was renowned as an accurate, powerful weapon, and it barked its authority again. This time there were no warning shots as Hammond emptied the entire drum into the men. Four were killed instantly, with the other two taking hits to their legs, collapsing to the snow; their screams of agony whipped away by the howling wind.

  Pace opened the hatch and climbed out, quickly followed by Hammond. They wasted no time on conversation but manhandled, cajoled and dragged the survivors inside the protection of the tank, including the two wounded mercenaries.

  Once inside the warmth of the tank, only then did Pace share a grin with a shivering, blue-lipped Sharpe. ‘I hope you know where we are. I do not want to stay out in this storm much longer, even in this thing,’ he patted the metal affectionately.

  Sharpe was stunned and barely managed to give Pace a heading that would take them back to Scott Base before he succumbed to silence. With Hammond looking after all the passengers, and hastily using torn strips of some oily rags to bandage the leg wounds of the whimpering mercenaries, Pace steered the old tank in the direction he’d been shown.

  There was no problem heading back to Scott Base now. Most of Fiona’s force was dead, or wounded. He was determined to find her and then finish the fight on their own terms.

  25

  Fiona Chambers was worried and checking her watch far too often. She had lost radio contact with her men some time ago and her impulsive rage, triggered when she was roused from a nap to be informed of the escape, had now transmuted into concern.

  She had been so confident in her team that she had sent most of them after the fleeing scientists, cramming four of them in the front of the second Hagglund and filling the rear unit with a dozen more. She only had Yucel and two other men left with keep her company.

  ‘What are your orders?’ Yucel enquired, bringing her a mug of milky coffee. All four of them had now relocated to the communications room. He joined her with his own hot drink but left his men standing guard outside the door; sipping with a welcome drink of their own.

  ‘’Do you think your team has been compromised?’ she asked, ignoring his question.

  ‘Yes,’ he stated flatly. ‘Those men were chosen by me personally. The radio is out but a couple of them have satellite phones with my number on speed dial. I know it’s storming like a bitch out there but one of them should have been in touch by now.’

  After all, he thought, they had been keeping him updated with a running commentary right up until the point that the fleeing scientists had been run down. The last call had said something about the vehicle being on fire. Then nothing.

  ‘The plane is due here soon. We all need to be on it. If they are not back here by then, are you happy to leave them behind?’

  Yucel had seen how ruthless Fiona could be. If he said no, then he would be left behind.

  ‘I have no problem with that,’ he said. ‘If they’re not back then they’re dead. I don’t know how, but waiting around would be a waste of time.’

  ‘Good answer,’ she smiled, taking a sip of the hot liquid. ‘The plane will land on the water so we’re going to need to head out to the meet it. Where would be best? I need to radio the pilot final landing instructions in a minute.’

  Yucel thought for a moment. ‘We’ve managed to avoid any problems from McMurdo up until now, unless they’re somehow responsible for our team going dark,’ he added. ‘Let’s meet the plane to the east of the American station. We can wait at the water’s edge. I assume they will send a zodiac across for us?’

  ‘It’s a huge, jet-propelled flying boat,’ Fiona explained. ‘I’ve been told that it carries its own tender boat onboard, which probably is a zodiac. They would not use a rigid boat, it would be too heavy.’

  ‘Then that’s settled,’ Yucel nodded, checking his watch. ‘I’ll work out the coordinates and you can radio them over the plane. Then we’ll have just enough time for another hot drink before we go.’

  Fiona eyed him suspici
ously. ‘That doesn’t give us much time to get there, walking in this storm, does it? I don’t want the plane hanging around. We need to get out of here and get those samples safely back to the facility.’

  ‘Who said anything about walking? Don’t forget the garage here.’

  ‘The vehicle we sent our men out in,’ said Fiona, ‘was the only one working. The other one was broken. We can’t use it.’

  ‘We don’t have to. At the back of the garage, there are a dozen skidoos which the scientists probably use for short trips out onto the ice.’

  ‘Skidoos?’

  ‘Snow mobiles,’ Yucel clarified. ‘Motorbikes for the snow.’

  ‘Oh, I know what you mean now,’ she said, as realisation struck. ‘That’s helpful. It will save us a walk and get us there fast.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly. Anyway,’ he said, ‘I need to sort out the landing co-ordinates. Give me a moment.’ He proceeded to punch in information into a small, hand-held GPS unit and soon passed her the information that the pilot would need. Fiona wasted no time in sending it to the rapidly approaching aircraft.

  Outside, slowly trundling towards the base, the old WW1 tank drew nearer. Oblivious, Fiona and her remaining men paused to make another hot drink before bundling up in their snowsuits and heading outside into the blizzard.

  The skidoos were two person affairs. The two remaining guards took one while Yucel took the front seat on theirs. Fiona was happy to take the literal back seat this time, purely because she’d never ridden one before and there wasn’t any time for a lesson.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she nodded and the two vehicles buzzed out of the garage, heading outside the base perimeter, aiming for their rendezvous point a few miles away. The skidoos stayed abreast of each other but Yucel checked his hand-held GPS to make sure they did not stray from their course. The machines were purpose-built for such conditions and tore across the snow and ice with ease. Within ten minutes, the edge of the ice came into view. There was not a beach; at this point ice extended out from the land to a distance of one hundred metres, although Yucel warned her that the edges would be thin and dangerous.

  ‘Let’s hope that pilot is on time,’ he shouted to her, twisting in his seat to do so.

  ‘The plane is on time. It should be losing altitude and heading in to land in the next few minutes. Keep your eyes open.’

  ‘Naturally,’ he snorted back. As though he wouldn’t?

  They left the engines running on their machines just in case the plane landed farther along the water’s edge than planned but, five minutes later, the powerful whine of jet engines cut above the wind and the large red shape of a Russian-built Beriev BE-200 seaplane dropped out of the filthy, low cloud. Making a single, slow, circle of the water off shore, the pilot chose his moment and dropped the plane expertly onto the sea, throwing up fountains of cold spray. The two Progress D-436TP turbofan engines went into reverse to slow the aircraft until it came to a bobbing, impressive halt two hundred metres from their position.

  As they watched, a large square cargo door in the port rear side opened and a small inflatable dingy was seen being manhandled through the gap.

  ‘I thought you said we would ride over in a zodiac?’ Yucel queried. ‘That thing is little better than a child’s summer lilo.’

  ‘No idea,’ confessed Fiona. ‘Maybe they’ve had a problem. Look, as long as it floats and can carry us off of this horrible ice, that’s all that matters.’

  ‘True enough,’ said Yucel. Watching intently, he nodded as the dingy hit the water and a figure jumped down into it, immediately grabbing up a pair of oars and beginning to row powerfully across the small stretch of water separating them.

  Elated, Fiona and her remaining team dismounted the skidoos and switched off their engines. Only then, did a distant rumbling sound filter through to their chilled ears. It seemed far away but it was definitely coming closer.

  ‘I need to get on that aeroplane,’ she commanded Yucel.’

  ‘’I understand. Whatever it is, we’ll take care of it. Hopefully, it’s our people.’ Climbing back onto his skidoo, turning over the engine again, he beckoned for his two men to follow on their own machine. Leaving Fiona standing, alone, by the water’s edge, they all checked their automatic weapons before roaring off into the storm, heading back the way they’d just come. In moments, their engines were indistinguishable from the approaching rumbling.

  Feeling strangely vulnerable, with nothing she could do but wait for the dingy to reach her, Fiona stared at it intently as though the force of her willpower might somehow speed it faster through the frigid swells.

  Through the storm, she suddenly heard the unmistakable pops and crackles of automatic gunfire although she could see nothing. Some were high pitched but others seemed lower, as though fired from something heavier.

  Yucel and his men had plainly run into something that they needed to shoot.

  ‘I hope it’s Pace and his friends,’ she muttered angrily to herself. She had come too far for anything to go wrong now. She did not consider the murder of scientists, or the loss of a dozen of her own men, as a failure. As long as she got back to Josephine, with the vials intact, her mission could be considered a success.

  Another agonising minute and the boat bumped gently against the edge of the thin ice. The man who had rowed so hard puffed and panted as he held out a frozen, ungloved hand, and helped her into the tiny inflatable.

  ‘Go,’ she commanded.

  ‘What about the others?’ When he had been hired as the aircraft’s co-pilot, he’d been sworn to secrecy and told to expect a callous approach to expendable staff. Even though he had clearly seen others on the ice, who now seemed to have driven away on their snow bikes, he had no problem following her orders.

  ‘Just go.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Broad and powerful, he easily coaxed the flimsy boat around in a one hundred and eighty degree spin with the oars. Then he poured his strength into rowing and began the voyage back across to the flying boat, where the anxious face of the pilot hovered in the hatchway, willing them to hurry up. He had no desire to stay on the deck, not here. The winds, tides and ice were too unpredictable. Although it looked clear at the moment, it might change quickly and he wanted to be back up in the safety of the clouds.

  Curious, now that she was in the safety of the boat and putting distance between herself and danger with each passing stroke of the oars, Fiona fixed her gaze behind. She wasn’t sure if she would see anything, or if Yucel and the others were still resolving the situation.

  Suddenly, Yucel burst into view through the falling curtain of snow, weaponless and on foot, with no sign of his skidoo.

  The boat was about half way across the water and she could see him perfectly well. He shouted at her to come back and get him but she simply waved.

  Then, from behind him, a huge, terrible white monster appeared, smoking and belching it anger. Having already despatched the other two mercenaries, who had been insane enough to try and take on the tank, Yucel had managed to dive to safety and then run back towards the boat. He was not crazy enough to try and fight an armoured vehicle with small arms.

  Fiona watched events unfold as though she were in a theatre, sitting through an exciting play.

  Fearing for his life, Yucel ran forwards and threw himself into the black, choppy waves. Instantly crippled by the freezing water, his many years of military training kicked in and his arms began to strike out after the boat. He no longer had the breath to call for help, instead focusing everything he had left in swimming.

  The hatches on the tank opened and two recognisable figures, in bright yellow survival suits, jumped down onto the ice.

  ‘Come back,’ yelled the familiar voice of Pace. ‘That’s suicide. We’re not going to hurt you.’ And he meant it. The man had no gun now. ‘Swim back quickly, before you freeze.’

  In the water, Yucel stopped splashing. He could see the little dingy had almost reached the aircraft and he co
uld also tell that the swimming distance would be too far for him to make. Mind dulled with cold, his sluggish thoughts failed him. Even though somewhere deep inside he made up his mind to turn around, his body would not respond to commands. Fiona was clearly not coming back for him and Yucel began to drown.

  Leaving Hammond with the others, Pace saw what was happening. Glancing across at the dingy, he could even see a smirk of satisfaction settle on Fiona’s face as she watched her man flailing, going under, and then splashing in panic back to the surface. He could almost read her mind as she knew that another witness to ARC’s involvement was about to disappear.

  ‘No way,’ Pace spat, running to the water’s edge and taking a flying leap out across the water.

  Apart from an instantly frozen head, his survival suit protected him from the dramatic cold yet again. He needed to reach the man quickly, which would not happen if he just tried to swim.

  When they had escaped their shattered lifeboat, both he and Hammond had inflated their suits using an in-built canister of compressed air. He had let his out when he was down in the underground cave but each suit was fitted with a back-up canister.

  Quickly triggering the secondary toggle, he watched in satisfaction as the loud hissing was immediately accompanied by the suit re-inflating until he bobbed, weightlessly again, on the surface. Now he could move fast, which he did, powering his arms through the water to reach Yucel just before the man went under for the final time.

  As he grabbed on tightly and began to head back towards shore, Fiona could only follow the action impotently from the hatch, into which she had just climbed. Neither she, nor the aircrew, carried any ranged weapons. If there’d been a rifle aboard, she would have tried shooting both men in the water but it was their lucky day. She knew the little pistol she’d used to kill Hansol would be useless at such a distance.

  ‘Leave it,’ she ordered, as the co-pilot began to try and haul the dingy back aboard. ‘Let’s just go.’