They collapsed the wing, unharnessed the backpack and approached the body of a woman, who was curled up in the raft in a fetal position. Austin squatted next to the raft and felt her pulse. It was weak, but she was alive. He and Zavala gently rolled her over onto her back. Blood stained her jacket near the left shoulder. Austin pulled the first-aid kit from his pack, and Zavala went to open the jacket so they could inspect the wound. The woman groaned and opened her eyes. They filled with fear when she saw the two strangers.
"It's all right," Zavala reassured her in his soft-spoken voice. "We're here to help you."
Austin brought his canteen to the woman's mouth and gave her a drink of water.
"My name is Kurt, and this is my friend Joe," Austin said when the color came back to her face. "Can you tell us your name?"
"Maria Arbatov," she said in a weak voice. "My husband …" Her voice trailed off.
"Are you with the expedition, Maria?"
"Yes."
"Where are the others?"
"Dead. All dead."
Austin felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach. "What about the young woman? Karla Janos?"
"I don't know what happened to her. They took her away."
"The same people who shot you?"
"Yes. Ivory hunters. They killed my husband, Sergei, and the two Japanese men."
"Where did this happen?"
"The old riverbed. I crawled back to the campsite and put the raft in the river." Her eyes flickered and she passed out.
They inspected the shoulder more closely. The wound wasn't fatal, but Maria had lost a great deal of blood. Zavala cleaned and bandaged the wound. Austin called the Kotelnyon his hand radio.
"We found an injured woman on the beach," he told the captain.
"Miss Janos?"
"No. Maria Arbatov, one of the expedition scientists. She needs medical attention."
"I'll send a boat in immediately with my medical officer."
Austin and Zavala made Maria as comfortable as possible. The boat arrived with the medical officer and two crewmen. They carefully loaded the woman aboard and headed back to the icebreaker.
Austin and Zavala hooked up the paraglider. The takeoff went much smoother than their icebreaker launch. As soon as they had gained altitude, Austin steered the paraglider along the river. Alerted by Maria, they kept a sharp eye out for the ivory hunters. Minutes later, they made a soft landing in the permafrost near the old sheds. They slipped their side arms from their holsters and cautiously made their way toward the settlement.
While Joe covered him, Austin checked out the main tent. There were broken eggshells in the rubbish bin, evidence of a recent breakfast. They peeked into the smaller tent, then made their way to the sheds. All the buildings were unlocked except one. They pounded the padlock with a boulder. The lock stayed intact, but the nails holding the clasp in the rotting wood gave out. They opened the door and stepped inside. A musky animal smell greeted their nostrils. The shaft of light coming through the open doorway fell on the fur-covered creature stretched out on the table.
"This isn't something you're likely to see at the Washington Zoo," Zavala said.
Austin bent over the frozen carcass and examined the stubby trunk and undersize tusks. "Not unless they've opened a prehistoric wing. This is the carcass of what looks like a baby mammoth."
"The state of preservation is incredible," Zavala said. "It looks freeze-dried."
After inspecting the frozen animal for a few minutes, they went back outside. Austin noticed boot prints in the permafrost leading to a path that ran alongside the river. They set the paraglider up for a takeoff from a low hill and flew along the winding path of the river, reasoning that Maria Arbatov couldn't have been far from the waterway when she was shot. Austin saw three bodies lying near a fork in a narrow canyon. He circled the immediate area but saw no sign of ivory hunters, and set the paraglider down near the edge of the gorge.
They climbed down the side and made their way to three bodies. The three men had been shot. Austin's jaw hardened, and all traces of warmth vanished from his light blue eyes. He thought about Maria Arbatov's harrowing escape down the river and vowed that whoever did this would be made to pay.
Zavala was bending over scuff marks in the gravelly sand. "These guys didn't care about covering their tracks. The trail should be easy to follow."
"Let's go pay them our respects," Austin said.
Moving stealthily with guns in hand, they followed the footprints along the winding canyon. Rounding a corner, they came upon a fourth body.
Zavala knelt by the side of the dead man. "Knife wound between the shoulder blades. Strange. This gentleman wasn't shot like the other people. I wonder who he is."
Austin rolled the corpse over and stared at the unshaven features. "Not the kind of face you'd see at a chamber of commerce meeting."
The ground around the dead man showed evidence of a scuffle, and prints led away from the body. Austin thought he saw the smaller boot prints of a woman in with the others. Moving even more quietly, they made their way along the gorge and eventually came to a place where the footprints ended and the banking had been broken down.
They climbed from the ravine, and picked up the trail again in the permafrost. Although the countryside was open and they could see for miles, there was no sign of life except for a few wheeling seabirds. The trail led to a shallow valley that brought them to the cave entrance.
"Someone has been doing some mining," Zavala said.
"Nice call, Sherlock." Austin picked up a jackhammer, attached to a portable compressor, that had been lying on the ground near the entrance.
Zavala's sharp eyes examined the charred rubble around the hole. "Okay, Watson. Someone did a little blasting here too."
Austin said, "We've been here less than an hour and I'm already starting to dislike Ivory Island."
He crawled into the hole and came out a minute later shaking his head. "Suicide. We don't know how far it goes. We don't even have a flashlight."
They made their way back to the paraglider, called the icebreaker and asked Ivanov to send in a party to collect the dead and to bring in electric torches. Austin suggested that his men be armed. Knowing the captain's interest, Austin said he was hopeful that Karla was still alive. The captain said Maria Arbatov had been treated and was doing well. They wished each other good luck and clicked off.
Minutes later, the paraglider took off from a low hill with all the grace of a drunken gooney bird. They gained altitude and wheeled high over the island. Austin had thoroughly examined the charts, but still he was surprised at the size of the island. There was a lot of territory to cover with an aircraft that moved with a cruising speed of twenty-six miles per hour.
Austin marked their takeoff point as a center, and then he flew in an expanding spiral that allowed for an overlapping search of a large area. They saw only the featureless permafrost. Austin was about to head back to the beach to rendezvous with the boat party when Zavala shouted in his ear.
Austin followed Zavala's pointing finger and saw a well-defined track leading up the side of the volcano. They flew toward the volcano and saw that the trail was not a natural feature but rather a series of switchbacks cut into the side of the mountain. Austin suspected that man had a hand in the track's creation.
"Looks like a road," Austin said.
"That's what I thought. Want to take a look?"