“What kind of problem?”
“We’re no longer alone on our deserted island.”
Janko’s body tensed. “Is it someone we can allow to leave undisturbed, like those seal poachers who came ashore last year?”
“No,” Thero said. “They’re inland on snowmobiles. They must have been airlifted onto the glacier. That means they’re military.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get the hovercraft ready, and go deal with them.”
“On my way,” Janko said.
He hung up and exchanged glances with the foreman.
“The jig is up, isn’t it?”
“Not necessarily,” Janko said. “But we knew this wouldn’t last forever. Maybe you’d better get the last shipment ready. If everything goes south, we’re going to need some portable wealth fast.”
THIRTY-SIX
The group of snowmobiles crossed the winter landscape with deliberate caution. The heavy clouds, falling snow, and gusting winds were creating a whiteout effect. It made the terrain hard to navigate.
Twice, the lead snowmobile got caught in deeper, softer snow and had to be pulled out. At one point, the grade became too steep for the machines to safely climb, and they were forced to back out and find another way.
Paused in a sheltered area while Gregorovich studied a map, Kurt flipped up his goggles and turned to Hayley. “Are you okay?”
“Freezing,” she said. “Can’t feel my toes.”
She flipped up her own goggles, her cheeks were windburned, her lips were blue, strands of blond hair that had slipped out from under her cap were coated with ice.
He climbed off the seat. “We should walk around while we’re stopped. Get our blood pumping.”
Hayley agreed, and Kurt helped her off the machine.
“Where are you going?” one of the Russians asked.
“Out for a walk,” Kurt said. “It’s such a beautiful day.”
“Don’t get lost.”
Kurt considered the statement. The blizzard would have been good cover if he’d wanted to make a break for it, but there was no point in that. There was nowhere to go.
He took a few steps and pointed up the slope. “Tell the commissar I’m climbing that ridge to get a better look at what’s ahead. Won’t be gone long.”
With that, Kurt took Hayley’s hand and began to hike upward. The exertion of trudging up a hill through knee-deep snow at a thirty-five-hundred-foot altitude was enough to get his heart pumping, all right. By the time they were halfway to the top, Kurt felt he’d lit an inner furnace, even his face was flushing.
“Feeling any better?” Kurt asked.
“I’m warming up, yes,” Hayley said. “Any chance there’s a ski lodge at the top?”
“Doubtful,” Kurt said. “But just in case…”
He never finished the sentence, as his ears picked up an odd sound above the wind. It was a high-pitched whine, almost like a small jet engine. It faded and then returned.
Looking around, Kurt realized the confining ridge was shaped in a rough semicircle, a half bowl almost perfect for catching distant acoustics.
When the sound returned, he looked across the ice field. The falling snow made it hard to see anything. He flipped the orange-tinted goggles down to get a better contrast. In a second, he caught sight of movement. A group of small vehicles coming their way.
There was something odd about the way they moved, gliding over the snow with almost effortless ease.
“Houston, we have a problem.”
“What is it?”
“Trouble.”
He grabbed Hayley’s hand and they began to climb down, hopping and jumping and sliding down the steep sections to cover as much ground as possible. They reached the bottom, just about tumbling into the group. “Someone’s coming,” he said sharply.
“From where?” Gregorovich asked.
“From the other side of the ridge.”
“On foot?”
“No,” Kurt said. “I think they’re using hovercraft.”
Seconds later, the high-pitched whine became audible on the ground.
“Move!” Gregorovich ordered.
In seconds, the snowmobiles were firing up, but they were almost too late. The group of hovercraft came charging up the slope, appearing out of the snowy haze like avenging ghosts.
Kurt and Hayley jumped on their machine. “Hang on!” Kurt shouted as he pressed the starter and twisted the throttle.
She clung to him as the snowmobile leapt forward. The rest of the group scattered in different directions like a herd of gazelles set upon by lions. It was an unplanned tactic, but it was effective. There were six snowmobiles but only four hovercraft. Not all of them could be followed.
Racing down the slope and cutting around a snowdrift, Kurt glanced over his shoulder, looking past Hayley. Unfortunately, one of the sleek predatory craft was hot on their tail.
“Hang on tight!” he shouted. “This is going to get rough.”
He turned his eyes forward, pinned the throttle full open, and began weaving back and forth across the snowfield. If there had been a forest on the island, he would have driven straight for it, but Heard Island was treeless, a fact that didn’t bode well in terms of finding a spot to hide.
He cut to the right and caught sight of a small explosion from the corner of his eye. He avoided it and cut back to the left, only to see another one.
There was no sound to accompany the phenomenon, no concussion wave or smoke. In fact, the display looked more like the blurred pattern one sees out behind a running jet engine.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Flash-draw,” Hayley yelled. “Stay out of it.”
“Sound advice,” he said.
They continued on at breakneck speed, and Kurt strained to see details of the near-featureless terrain streaking past him. Even with the goggles, the light was so flat it was almost impossible to spot dips and rises. Twice, uneven sections of the ground almost tipped them over, and then suddenly they were airborne, flying off the crest of a small ledge.
The snowmobile caught air at forty miles per hour, dropped about five feet, and landed solidly on the downslope like a contestant in the X Games.
Kurt’s chin hit the windshield, gashing it and jarring him, while Hayley’s boa-constrictor-like grip around his waist kept her on board.
The hovercraft launched itself over the same ridge without any hesitation. It dropped and landed smoothly on its cushion of air without any hint of the jarring impact Kurt and Hayley had felt. With his chin bleeding and his mind racing, Kurt realized what Joe had discovered in the outback: a hovercraft was the ultimate all-terrain vehicle.
He raced on, desperately trying to think of a way to escape its grasp.
As kurt and Hayley raced off, Joe Zavala found himself pointed in the wrong direction, with the nose of his machine aimed toward the ridge that Kurt and Hayley had climbed. He got on the throttle fast and twisted the handgrips. The engine revved and the tracks spun, and Joe manhandled the nose of the snowmobile around to a new heading.
He shot forward, racing up a small hill and down the other side, almost T-boning one of the Russians.
Right behind the Russian sled, one of the gray hovercraft flew down the hill. The wide, flat hovercraft reminded Joe of a stingray. The central portion of the machine was raised to hold a crew cabin and a turbine engine, while the thinner surrounding section and the rubber skirt that drooped from it were there primarily to create the cushion of air that it rode on.
As the gray machine followed the Russian commandos, Joe cut in behind it. He had the impression its driver hadn’t seen him, since his attention remained locked on the original target. As they raced across the ice, Joe tried to get at the rifle strapped across his back, nearly wrecking in the process.