He keyed the transmit switch on his radio. “Unit two, make your way back down the slope and check for survivors. We’re going up top.”
“Roger that,” the other driver replied.
As the two craft broke formation, Janko scanned the surrounding incline for heat sources. Only two signatures registered; the red-hot engine from the snowmobile and a figure lying ten feet away from it.
He pulled off his goggles and brought the hovercraft to a stop. As it settled, he threw open the hatch.
“Stay here,” he said to his gunner. “Keep your eyes peeled.”
With a short-barreled submachine gun at his side, Janko climbed from the hovercraft and edged his way toward the wrecked sled. He found it to be inoperable, engine off, battery drained.
“At least they hit something,” he said to himself.
He moved to the body in the snow and rolled it over. To his surprise, a mop of blond hair spilled out from under the white hood of the parka.
Janko pulled the goggles from the woman’s face. He recognized her. She was the woman he’d left tied up beside the explosives in the lab at the flooded mine.
“So you survived,” he muttered.
The radio crackled. “Janko, this is unit two.”
Janko lifted the portable radio to his mouth. “Go ahead.”
“We’ve made it to the bottom of the ridge. Unit three is demolished. The driver and the gunner are both dead. No way to get it back up. Want us to burn it?”
“No,” Janko said. “We don’t need to draw any more attention to ourselves. The blizzard will dump a foot of snow in the next twelve hours. That will keep it out of sight.”
“And the men?”
“Get them out,” he said. “I want all the bodies off this glacier. Ours and theirs.”
A double click told Janko his subordinate understood and would comply. Janko then switched channels and began a new transmission.
“Thero, this is Janko,” he said. “Do you read?”
“Go ahead,” Thero’s raspy voice replied.
“We’re done out here.”
“Did you get them all?”
“All the snowmobiles have been accounted for,” Janko said. “We lost two hovercraft in the process.”
“Who are they?” Thero asked tersely.
“Australians, I think,” Janko said. “I recognize one of the survivors. A blond woman who was at the station in the outback when the ASIO tried to raid it.”
Silence for a moment, and then: “Is she alive?”
“Affirmative. We have two male captives as well. The rest are dead.”
“Bring them in,” Thero said. “I want to interrogate them. We need to know if they’re alone or not.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Janko said.
He clipped the radio back onto his belt, scooped the woman up, and threw her over his shoulder.
Seconds later, he’d dumped her in the cargo bay of the hovercraft and was back in the cockpit, powering up the engines once again. As the sleek machine rose up off the ground, Janko eased it forward and then turned around only twenty yards from where Kurt lay.
The deep snow he’d become buried in masked Kurt’s infrared signature, while his white camouflage, the failing light, and the continuing blizzard made him all but invisible to the naked eye. As a result, neither Janko nor his gunner saw Kurt as they trundled off into the graying horizon.
THIRTY-EIGHT
After a twelve-hour shift of breaking rocks and loading the rubble onto the endlessly moving conveyor belt, Patrick Devlin felt as if he’d been beaten with a club, run over by a truck, and forced to breathe in smoke all day.
He was surprised by the grace of a hot shower, even if it was a communal one. The water at his feet was dark sludge from the dust covering his body. A hearty dinner of seal meat and some kind of wild bird surprised him further, but then those things were in abundance on the island, and starving workers slowed down the production line.
After dinner, he was led to a room carved out of the rock. Bunks four high were spaced along two of the walls. Most of them were empty.
As the door was locked behind him, he spotted Masinga and the South American, playing cards.
“Which bunk?” he asked.
“Pick any of them,” Masinga said. “There’s plenty of space.”
He threw his stuff on one of the bunks and then sat down by the other men. “Why is it so hot down here?”
Masinga played a card. “Because we’re in a volcano,” he said. “Where do you think the hot water comes from?”
“Geothermal?”
They nodded in unison.
Devlin looked around. There was no shaft leading to the surface here, only a thin grate above the door for ventilation.
“How far down are we?”
Neither man answered. The South American played a card. Masinga looked at it briefly and then reached for it. Devlin slammed his hand down on Masinga’s. “I said how far down are we?”
Masinga threw the table over and grabbed Devlin by the shirt, hauling him up and slamming him into a locker.
“You think you’re the first one here with plans to get out?” Masinga shouted. “The men who run this place aren’t fools. They know that a death sentence awaits them for the things they’ve done. To think of escape is a crime, to talk of escape will land you in the torture chamber. And to actually try… The rule here is simple: one man fights back, three men die.”
Devlin shook loose of Masinga’s grasp. “So you just put up with it until they work you to death?”
Masinga glared at him. “My father spent twelve years in a South African jail for his political activities. He survived by putting up with it until salvation came from the outside. That’s the only way any of us are going to see home again, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you get us killed with your rabid tongue before that happens.”
Devlin stared at his two roommates. “Maybe that’s how you’re going to play it, but I’m going to get out of here or die trying.”
The South American spoke next. “There are informers everywhere,” he warned, “even among the men. Maybe even Masinga or me. So if I was you, I’d watch what I say. And who I say it to.”
Devlin took a deep breath and came to a decision. “They brought me here on a ship. I’m going to find my way back to it at some point. If either of you are going to rat on me, then do it quick and put me out of my misery.”
They stared at him with sullen eyes. Finally, Masinga reached over and righted the table. “And what do you know about sailing a ship, my friend?”
Devlin sat down and grinned at his fellow prisoners. “Just about everything,” he said.
THIRTY-NINE
Kurt woke up from the flash-draw as disoriented as Joe had been in the desert. He thought he’d fallen asleep on his couch at home after a long day. But he couldn’t ever remember it being so cold in his town house, even in the dead of winter.
As he moved about, the icy sensation on his face cleared the cobwebs a bit. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but white. Realizing it was snow, he brushed it away and dug himself out.
Once he’d burrowed clear of the snowbank, Kurt got to his feet and looked out over the escarpment. The flat light of the snowfield and the gray sky was broken only by a few jagged sections of black rock.
He quickly remembered where he was, how he’d gotten there, and who was with him.
He looked around, saw no trouble or any sign of movement. “Hayley!” he shouted. “Hayley!”