Al-Khalifa steered to the ramp leading out of the underground facility and started to drive up to ground level.
Lincoln reached for the microphone on his lapel and called the Oregon.
“The principal is aboard a BMW motorcycle,” he shouted.
Kasim balanced his handgun in his good arm. Carefully taking aim, he squeezed off a trio of rounds that struck Esky in the groin, heart and throat. He dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes and the AK-47 fell to the concrete floor. Lincoln raced across the distance to the van, slid the rifle farther away, and stood guard over the dying man. The sound from the BMW grew faint in the distance.
HITTING THE TOP of the ramp at ground level, the BMW’s front wheel pawed at the air. Al-Khalifa threw his weight forward to bring the wheel down and exited the parking structure onto the road in front of the hotel. He turned right, down Steintun Road, and traveled a few blocks to where it intersected with Saebraut before turning east and racing along the harbor. The road led out of town and there was no traffic.
Al-Khalifa stared at the emir in the sidecar—the man seemed strangely unafraid.
AFTER RACING ACROSS the lobby and bursting through the hotel’s front door, Crabtree and Hornsby caught sight of the retreating motorcycle. They raced for their black SUV parked in front of the hotel.
“Okay, everyone,” Hanley said over the radio from the Oregon’s control room, “our principal is aboard a BMW motorcycle.”
Hornsby hit the key to unlock the doors of the SUV and climbed into the driver’s seat. Crabtree reached for her radio as she sat down.
“They turned east and are driving along the harbor,” she said. “We’re giving chase.”
AL-KHALIFA TWISTED THE throttle and took the BMW to seventy miles an hour on the snow-covered road. Passing three turnoffs, they crossed over a hill and were out of sight of Reykjavik. Watching the side of the road carefully, he located a trail where he had packed down the snow yesterday with a rented snowmobile. He turned onto the narrow strip of packed snow and drove over another small hill. A fjord with a thin crust of ice extended almost to the base of the hill. Suddenly, civilization seemed far away.
There, on a pad of packed snow, a Kawasaki helicopter was waiting.
HORNSBY SLOWED THE SUV as they passed the first turnoff and glanced at the snow for tracks. Finding none, he stepped on the gas and checked the next. Slowing to check the side roads was killing time, but Hornsby and Crabtree had no other choice.
The BMW motorcycle was nowhere to be seen.
AL-KHALIFA PLACED THE blindfolded emir in the passenger seat of the Kawasaki then locked the door from the outside with a key. He had removed the inside latch from the passenger side and now the emir had no way out. Walking around to the front of the helicopter, he climbed into the pilot’s seat and slid the key into the ignition. As he waited while the igniters warmed, he stared over at his prisoner.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
The emir, still blindfolded with mouth taped shut, simply nodded.
“Good,” Al-Khalifa said, “then it’s time to take a little trip.”
Twisting the key, he waited until the turbines had reached proper thrust. Then he pulled up on the collective and lifted the Kawasaki from the snow. Once the helicopter was ten feet off the ground he eased the cyclic forward. The Kawasaki moved forward, passed through ground effect as it rose in the air, then headed out to sea. Keeping the helicopter low over the terrain to blend in with the mountains, Al-Khalifa looked backward toward Reykjavik.
“THE TRACKS END here,” Hornsby said, staring down at the snow through the open door of the SUV.
Crabtree was glancing out the side window.
“There,” she said, pointing. “There’s a packed trail.”
Hornsby stared at the thin trail. “The snow’s too soft. We’ll just get stuck.”
After calling the Oregon,which quickly dispatched George Adams in the Corporation’s Robinson helicopter, Hornsby and Crabtree started hiking along the packed trail. They found the BMW motorcycle ten minutes later. By the time Adams flew overhead they had figured out what had happened. They called him on the radio.
“We have a blast patch from a rotor blast,” Hornsby reported.
“I’ll keep an eye out for another chopper,” Adams said.
Adams flew as far from Reykjavik as he could before fuel ran low, but he saw no other helicopters. The emir had simply vanished, as if plucked from the earth by a giant hand.
14
CABRILLO DROVE THROUGHthe darkness with the lights atop the Thiokol cutting a dim path through the sea of white. Five hours and fifty miles north of Kulusuk, he was finally settling into a groove. The sounds from the snowcat, which at first seemed chaotic and indistinctive, were now taking form. He could feel the pulses from the engine, the roar from the treads, and the groaning from the chassis, and he used the noises to gauge his progress. The sound and the vibrations signaled to him when the snowcat was climbing. The squeal from the treads indicated the type of surface he was crossing.
Cabrillo was becoming one with the machine.
Twenty minutes earlier, Cabrillo had first steered onto the massive ice cap that covered most of Greenland. Now, by using Campbell’s maps and detailed notes, he was guiding the Thiokol through a series of ice-covered valleys. If all continued according to plan, he would reach Mount Forel at about breakfast time in Iceland. Then he’d snatch the meteorite, load it aboard the snowcat, then cruise back to Kulusuk and have the Oregon’s helicopter pick him and the orb up. In a few days they’d have their fee and it would all be over and done with.
At least that was the plan—in and out and home.
CABRILLO FELT THE front end lighten and jammed the levers in reverse just in time. The Thiokol stopped dead in her tracks then quickly roared backward. Since leaving Kulusuk, the trip had gone smoothly. Still, the unforgiving wilderness rarely allowed such easy passage and, had Cabrillo not stopped and backed up, in a few more seconds he and the Thiokol would have been at the bottom of a wide crevasse in the ice.
Once he had reversed a safe distance away, Cabrillo slipped on his parka and climbed from the cab. Reaching up and adjusting the lights, he walked forward and stared into the abyss. The thick wall of the glacier glowed blue and green in the lights.
Staring across the rift, he estimated the gap at twelve feet. There was no way to estimate how far down the crack went before it narrowed and closed. He tightened the hood of his parka against the howling wind. A few feet more and the snowcat would have tipped into the crevasse and downward until the crack narrowed and it was pinned facedown. Even if Cabrillo had survived the fall, there was a good chance he would have been trapped in the cab with no way out. He would have frozen to death before anyone could have found him, much less mount a rescue.
Shuddering from the realization, Cabrillo walked back and climbed into the cab of the Thiokol and stared at the clock. The time was now 5 A.M., but it was still as dark as it had been all evening. He glanced at the map, then took his divider and measured the distance to Mount Forel. Thirty miles and three hours of travel time left. Reaching for the satellite phone, he dialed Campbell. Surprisingly the phone rang only once.
“Yep,” Campbell said in a clear voice.
“I just about ran into a crevasse.”
“Give me your GPS numbers,” Campbell said.