Jack thought again about Seaquest. She should have been hove to above Atlantis after following the storm back south as it abated. He dared not mention her in case she had escaped detection, but it seemed inconceivable that she would not have been spotted once she was within radar range of Vultura. He remembered the distant gunfire he was sure they had heard in the mortuary chamber. He was beginning to fear the worst.
“We are nearly ready for our maiden voyage. You will be my guest of honour at the commissioning ceremony.” Aslan paused, his hands folded over his belly and his face set in gluttonous contentment. “With my two ships I will be able to roam the high seas at will. Nothing will stand in my way.”
As Jack took one final look over the scene, the awesome magnitude of Aslan’s power began to sink in. Where the valley narrowed to the east were firing ranges and structures that looked like mock-ups for urban warfare training. Between the terminal and the sea was another circular hub, this one festooned with satellite dishes and antenna arrays. Along the ridge were camouflaged surveillance stations, and on the beach were weapons emplacements among the palm and eucalyptus trees which were all that remained of the Communist Party resort that had once occupied the valley.
“You will now appreciate it is futile to attempt escape. To the east are the Caucasus Mountains, to the north and south is bandit country where no westerner would survive. I trust you will instead enjoy my hospitality. I look forward to having a companion with whom I can converse about art and archaeology.”
Aslan seemed suddenly overcome by euphoria, his arms raised and his face suffused with rapture.
“This is my Kehlsteinhaus, my Eagle’s Nest,” he ranted. “It is my holy temple and fortress. You will agree that the view is as beautiful as the Bavarian Alps?”
Jack replied quietly, his eyes still fixed on the valley below.
“During what you would call the Great Patriotic War my father was a Royal Air Force Pathfinder pilot,” he said. “In 1945 he had the privilege of leading the raid on the Obersalzberg at Berchtesgaden. Neither the Führer’s villa nor SS headquarters proved quite so invulnerable as their creator had envisaged.” Jack turned and gazed unwaveringly into Aslan’s jet-black eyes. “And history, as you said, Professor Nazarbetov, has a nasty habit of repeating itself.”
CHAPTER 24
There was little sensation of speed as the shuttle accelerated down one of the tubular passageways, the air pocket beneath cushioning it like a hovercraft. Jack and Aslan sat on opposite seats, the other man’s girth occupying the entire width of the compartment. Jack guessed they had descended to the valley floor and were now approaching the central hub he had seen from the Pantheon room.
A few moments earlier they had stopped to pick up another passenger who now stood motionless between them. He was an immense bear of a man in a tight-fitting black overall, with sloping forehead, flattened nose and pig-like eyes that stared out blankly under a pronounced brow ridge.
“Allow me to introduce your bodyguard,” Aslan said good-naturedly. “Vladimir Yurevich Dalmotov. A former spetsnaz commando, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, who defected to the Chechen freedom fighters after his brother was executed for garrotting the officer who sent his platoon to their deaths in Grosny. After Chechnya he hired himself out to the al Qaeda holy warriors for the liberation of Abkhazia. I found him by following the trail of bodies. He believes in no god yet Allah forgives him.”
As the shuttle drew to a halt the door slid open and two attendants entered to help Aslan to his feet. Jack had been biding his time since guessing that Costas and Katya were still on the island. As Dalmotov hustled him out Jack noted he had an Uzi slung over his back but wore no body armour.
The space they stepped into was in stark contrast to the opiate splendour of the living quarters. It was a giant hangar, its door retracted to reveal the helipad Jack had seen earlier. On the tarmac was the bulky form of the Hind; a maintenance crew was scurrying around the airframe and a fuelling tender stood waiting.
“Our transport from the island last night,” Aslan said. “Now about to fulfil the purpose for which it was built.”
The view outside was partly obscured by a flatbed truck parked just outside the door. While they watched, a team of men began offloading crates and stacking them against the wall beside a rack of flight suits.
Dalmotov muttered something to Aslan and loped across. He picked up one of the crates and prised it open with his bare hands, extracting and slotting together the components it contained. Even before he raised it to test the sights, Jack had identified the Barrett M82A1, probably the most lethal sniper rifle in the world. It was chambered for the Browning Machine Gun BMG 50 calibre round or the Russian 12.7 millimetre equivalent, firing a high-velocity slug that could penetrate tank armour at five hundred metres or take a man’s head off at three times that distance.
“My modest contribution to the jihad.” Aslan smiled widely. “You must have spotted our sniper training school beyond the runway. Dalmotov is our chief instructor. Our clients include the Irish Republican Army’s New Brigade as well as al Qaeda, and they have never been less than entirely satisfied.”
Jack recalled the spate of high-profile sniper attacks earlier that year, a new and devastating phase in the terrorists’ war against the west.
While Dalmotov oversaw the assembly of the weapons, Jack followed Aslan to a warehouse on the opposite side of the hangar. Inside, crates were being hammered shut and audited by figures in maintenance overalls. As a forklift passed by, Jack caught sight of the word stencilled in red letters on the side. One of Jack’s first assignments with military intelligence had been to intercept a freighter from Libya carrying identical crates. It was Semtex, the deadly plastic explosive from the Czech Republic used by the IRA in their campaign of terror in Britain.
“This is our main transit facility,” Aslan explained. “Normally the bay is sealed off to contain biological and chemical weapons, but I have just routed our last batch by transport helicopter to another satisfied customer in the Middle East.” Aslan paused, his hands clasped over his belly and his fat thumbs slowly revolving. His eyes narrowed and he stared into the middle distance.
Jack was beginning to recognize the warning signs of Aslan’s volatile temper.
“I do have one unhappy customer, someone whose patience has been sorely stretched since 1991. When we tracked Seaquest from Trabzon we knew there could be only one possible destination, the place Olga had pinpointed from her study of the ancient text. We made our way to the volcano under cover of darkness. You have provided me the perfect screen to go where politics had denied me access for years. In the past any visit to this island would have provoked an immediate military response. Now if the satellite picks up any activity they will assume it is you, a legitimate scientific project. This was to have been our rendezvous point with the Russians, if that fool Antonov had not sunk his submarine and my merchandise through his own incompetence.”
“Captain Antonov would have delivered his cargo,” Jack replied bleakly. “There was a mutiny led by the political officer. It was probably the only good thing the KGB ever did.”
“And the nuclear warheads?” Aslan cut in sharply.
“We saw only conventional weapons,” Jack lied.
“Then why did my daughter threaten nuclear holocaust when she negotiated with my men?”