“Approaching new heading,” the navigator called out nervously. “Three hundred twenty-three degrees.”
“He’s toying with us,” Kirov said dangerously. “And you’re indulging him.”
Gregorovich stared. The presence of the second commando was Kirov’s idea. A show of force. No doubt the mutiny he felt brewing was close to being launched.
The men were getting nervous. It was palpable. They were land-based commandos far from home in a dangerous situation with deteriorating conditions. The ship was rolling appreciably in the growing swells, and the sky had turned gray-white. It looked like snow would be falling soon. At Austin’s direction, they’d come so far south they’d begun dodging small icebergs, an effort not helped by the reduced visibility.
Worst of all, they’d heard in detail how the Orion was crushed and dragged to the depths as if by a monster from the deep. So far, order remained, but Gregorovich sensed it would not last.
“At least we’re heading north,” he said, turning to the navigator. “What’s in this direction?”
The navigator tapped the screen, and the map zoomed out slowly until finally Gregorovich spotted a yellow dot directly in their path.
“Heard Island,” the navigator said.
By tapping the screen at the island’s location, Kirov was able to bring up a block of information about it.
“Australian territory,” he said, reading from the screen. “Volcanic. Last appreciable eruption 2005. Covered in glaciers and completely uninhabited.”
Kirov looked up, a grin plastered from ear to scabbed-over ear. “That’s it,” he said. “Heard Island is the target. That’s where Thero’s hiding. Austin finally showed his hand. We can kill him now along with his crew and finish the job without worrying about them.”
Gregorovich didn’t like the idea of losing his counterweight. Nor did he think, after proving so crafty for so long, that Austin would have been dumb enough to blunder into revealing his secret with such ease.
“Zoom out,” he ordered.
The Vietnamese navigator did as he was told, and the map expanded again. Another set of dots appeared. These were roughly two hundred and seventy miles beyond Heard Island, directly on the same course line, 323 degrees.
Austin had maneuvered the Rama to a point where they were approaching both islands simultaneously.
“French Southern and Antarctic lands,” the navigator said.
“What kind of a name is that?” Kirov blurted.
“One you won’t forget, I trust,” Gregorovich said. “The same course line takes us to both of them. Thero could be hiding on either one. Or Austin could take us a little closer and then turn us in a new direction. We can’t kill him until we know for sure.”
“And once we know for sure?”
“Can you not think more than one move ahead?” Gregorovich asked. “Suppose Thero’s lab is on Heard Island. Our orders are to destroy it with a nuclear weapon. It’s Australian territory. Do you not see the advantage of leaving a few charred and radiated American bodies at the outer limit of such a blast?”
Kirov nodded.
“Launch the long-range drones,” he said. “If anything’s moving on Heard Island, I want to know about it.”
The noisy hum of piston engines caught Joe Zavala’s attention as he neared the ship’s mess with Hayley Anderson at his side.
“What’s that?” Hayley asked.
Joe cocked his head to listen. The sound reminded him of unmanned military aircraft he’d worked with a few months back. “The Russians are launching something up on deck,” he said. “A small plane, or maybe a drone.”
“Why would they be doing that?”
Joe considered several possibilities but put the thought aside when he saw a gaggle of the Russian commandos coming down the passageway. “No idea,” he said. “But let’s get in that chow line before those guys do.”
Turning quickly, he ducked into the mess hall. Hayley lingered just behind him, keeping an eye on the hallway.
Stepping to the buffet, Joe inhaled deeply. He loved Vietnamese food, the spices and all the vegetables. The ship’s cook had whipped up a pretty good spread. It almost seemed a shame to ruin it.
“They’re coming,” Hayley whispered.
Joe nodded, smiled at the chef, and began to load up his plate with heaping piles of everything on the menu. It was enough food for him and two others.
As the cook stared at him in wonder, Joe rubbed his stomach. “Nothing works up an appetite like being shipwrecked in frigid waters and then being kidnapped by your would-be rescuers.”
The cook’s face remained blank. Joe guessed English was not one of his languages. He put his hands together and bowed slightly. “Kam ung,” he said, thank you being one of the few phrases he knew in Vietnamese.
The cook smiled, his smooth face genuine and true. In a way, the Rama’s crew were as much prisoners of the situation as the Orion’s survivors.
Hayley sidled up to him, and began filling her own plate. “It’s now or never,” she said.
Joe pointed behind the cook to a wok that was smoking and starting to catch fire. As the cook turned around and went to put it out, Joe slipped a pouch from his sleeve as neatly as any magician. With a quick swish of his arm, he sprinkled the contents across everything in the buffet line. When the pouch was empty, he drew his hand back and stuffed it in his pocket.
As the Russians came in, they eyed Joe and Hayley for a moment and then moved to the head of the line. However odd they found the situation, they seemed more interested in feeding themselves than starting a confrontation they would catch hell for later.
Joe and Hayley sat down in the corner, trying not to watch as the commandos all but inhaled generous helpings of the tainted food.
Eight hours later, Kurt found himself on the bridge, staring at photos of Heard Island and wondering if the jig was up.
About fifteen miles long and ten miles wide, the island was roughly almond shaped and tilted at a forty-five-degree angle. A thin tail of land called Elephant Spit jutted out to the east like a breakwater, and a small blob called Laurens Peninsula clung to its northwest corner connected by a narrow isthmus.
In profile, Heard Island was obviously volcanic. The central peak, named Big Ben, towered nine thousand feet above the sea in a classic conical shape. It was actually one of the highest peaks in Australian territory, higher than anything on the continent itself.
A satellite view showed glaciers spreading out from Big Ben like the spokes of a wheel. They followed the steep grades down to the ocean in every direction, calving icebergs where they met the water. White chunks of ice, many larger than the MV Rama, encircled the island like pilot fish around the head of a great shark.
As Kurt studied the photos, Kirov and Gregorovich stood quietly, looking smug and very pleased with themselves. They were more than happy to show Kurt everything they’d discovered.
“Do you have any infrared shots?” Kurt asked.
Gregorovich slid a new series of photos across the table toward him.
These shots, taken by the Russian drones, showed seals and penguins and colonies of nesting birds. The next photo depicted a series of distinct heat sources grouped on the southeast coast of the island. A spot called Winston Lagoon.
“The first group of targets are thermal vents of some kind,” Gregorovich explained. “They could be naturally occurring and linked to the volcano or they could be man-made, indicating underground activity. The other images are unequivocal. They’re men on snowmobiles. Whoever they were, they disappeared into holes in the ground moments after these shots were taken.”