The skimobile was where they’d left it, lightly powdered with new snow. They got aboard and Grofield switched on the engine and headlight and drove them away from there.
They traveled in silence for ten minutes, curving in a great loop around to the right, the lights of the lodge frequently out of sight, and the snowfall gradually increasing in intensity. By the time they came around to the lake again it was a heavy slanting fall, being driven by an ever-strengthening wind. They weren’t all the way across the lake from the lodge this time, Grofield having stopped about halfway around the shore.
He turned around when he got to the edge of the lake and put a snow dune between himself and the lights of the lodge before stopping. Then he and Vivian got off and stretched and she said, “What now?”
“We bed down here,” he said.
“Till when?”
“Till morning.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Depends. If the storm is over, I’d like to try driving south and see where we come out. If the plane comes back for our shpikee-tikee friends—”
“Shqipenija,” she said.
“That’s what I said. If the plane comes back and takes them away, we can go over there and see if they have a radio. It depends what the circumstances are.” He turned to untie the blankets from the skimobile.
She touched his arm. “Grofield.”
He looked around.
“You may have been right about those four guys,” she said. “Anyway, I believe you about why you did it.”
“I should think so,” he said, and handed her her blanket.
Twenty-Seven
“Grofield!”
He was freezing, and somebody was jostling his shoulder. His face was covered by a cold damp blanket, and when he pushed it away snow spattered all over his face and neck.
He sat up, shocked awake by the cold, to find he’d been covered by nearly an inch of powdery snow overnight. It was daylight now and no longer snowing, though the sky was covered completely with gray clouds, as though the earth was wearing a shower cap.
“I missed sunrise!” he said, starting to get up, but she tugged him violently down again and he fell amid another little swirl of snow. “What the hell?”
“The plane’s back!” She was talking in a hushed whisper, as though the plane were hulking just past her shoulder.
It wasn’t. Grofield looked at her, blinking, and said, “When did it get here?”
“I don’t know. I just woke up a minute ago, and there it was.”
Grofield got to his feet, and went up the snow dune at a shambling crouch until he could see over the top, and there was the plane. He could see now it wasn’t the same one that had brought him up here, but it was the same or a similar model. He watched for a minute, and nothing happened around the plane, and he went back down to where Vivian was waiting. “I suppose the thing to do,” he said, “is wait and see what happens next.”
“Do you think they’ll leave?”
“Nobody there knows where the canisters are. The snow wiped out our trail, so even if they think I know where they are they can’t come after me to ask. I can’t think of any reason for them to stay.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said. “God, how I want to get warm again.”
“While we’re waiting, let’s eat.”
“I wish we could have a fire.”
“Keep on wishing,” he said unhelpfully.
They ate cold canned food, sitting on their folded blankets, and were just finishing when they heard the plane engines, a faint sound, muffled by all the fresh soft snow. They climbed to the top of the dune again and watched the troops loading into the plane across the way. It didn’t take long, and then the plane cumbersomely turned around and rolled slowly past from right to left. At the far end of the lake it turned again and came back, this time steadily gaining speed and finally lifting into the air, raising its nose toward the clouds.
Grofield watched it climb until it was way up, then looked across the lake at the lodge. “We’ll give them a chance to get out of sight,” he said, “and then we’ll—”
“Look!”
He looked at her, and she was staring skyward. He followed her gaze, and there were three planes in the sky all at once, the lumbering cargo plane and two slender, darting sharks. “Where the hell did they come from?”
“They dropped out of the clouds,” she said. “They’re Migs.” She looked at him. “Russian.”
“Who’s minding the UN? Everybody’s here.”
They watched the three planes, saw the two Migs zooming past the heavier plane, flashing by and then turning to make another pass. They couldn’t hear the firing, but they saw the black smoke start on the cargo plane’s right engine, saw the plane seem to dip as though tired, saw it falter, and then all at once it was falling out of the sky, the Migs circling higher, fading into the clouds before the plane hit the ground far away. A pillar of smoke rose up black to mark the place where it had hit.
“It looks to me,” Grofield said quietly, “as though nobody wanted the Chinese to get that stuff.”
Twenty-Eight
Grofield stood at the window of his room in the Chateau Frontenac, frowning at the walls outside. “The United States Government is very cheap, Ken,” he said. “They wouldn’t even spring for a room with a view.”
Ken said, “Never mind the view. Let’s finish your statement.”
Grofield turned away from the window. “It is finished,” he said. “The cargo plane took off, the Russian planes shot it down, Vivian and I went over to the lodge and found that everybody still alive had been locked up in rooms on the second floor. We let them out and they radioed their pilot down in Roberval and we all came home. Three of the government heads had been killed in the fighting, Colonel Rahgos of Undurwa and two others. I’m sorry, I didn’t get their names or countries.”
“We’ll find out eventually. Are you sure these were Russian planes? Did you see any markings?”
“Vivian told me they were Migs, that’s all I know. They didn’t get low enough to see markings.”
Ken nodded, and glanced at his notes. “You’re lucky that bunch decided to bring you back and not leave you up there with a bullet in your head.”
“Vivian was on my side,” Grofield said. “And we didn’t tell them I was the one who killed the four Americans. The whole operation was a bust anyway, so they didn’t have anything to gain by killing me.” Grofield stretched hugely and hugely yawned. “You may not believe this, buddy of my life,” he said, “but I am tired. Why don’t you go away now, and if you have any more questions write them out on a slip of paper and shove them under the door? Or somewhere.”
“This should do it,” Ken said, and got to his feet. “I must admit I’d thought you’d run out on us, Grofield.”
“I must admit I would have liked to,” Grofield said.
“Well, you came through. You’re a free agent from now on, we’re pulling out. You have this room paid for till Monday anyway, if you want it.”
“I’ll probably sleep till then.”
“Do that. I expect we’ll have to wait till spring to go up there and look for those canisters. We’ll find them, though.”
“Wonderful,” Grofield said, and yawned again.
“Well, I’ll let you get some sleep.” Ken stuck his hand out. “We do appreciate it,” he said.
Grofield looked at the hand in astonishment, but then took it, mostly because if he did Ken’s ritual with him maybe then Ken would leave. “If you ever need me again,” he said, “I want you to know you’ll have to blackmail me.”