Chapter 40
Paul had spent a solid hour quizzing his wife before agreeing to let her join the expedition.
Her official diagnosis had been a stinger, a type of injury football players get from a particularly violent collision.
The tons of snow that piled on top of the van had pushed it down on her spine, compressing the nerves, creating swelling and numbness, which went away as the swelling receded.
The doctors said she was fine. Gamay insisted she was fine. But, until she offered a biting comment in response to his fifteenth question, Paul hadn’t been entirely sure. Even so he filled her backpack with lightweight items before allowing her to pull it on.
Bundled up, and hauling backpacks full of supplies, she and Paul went down the ramp to the dockside, arriving beside the Big Orange Rig.
A taller figure with silver hair partially tucked under a black wool hat stood there. “Are we ready?”
“Yep,” Paul said. “Let’s mount up.”
As Paul stowed the backpacks and helped Gamay into the back seat, the gray-haired man jumped into the passenger seat.
A shorter man with dark hair climbed into the driver’s seat.
He started the engine, put the vehicle in gear, and drove the rig cautiously along the crowded dockside.
He pulled to a stop at the entrance to the harbor.
Three roads intersected at the entrance, one to the left, one to the right, and one that would lead them into town.
“Which way?” the driver asked.
Paul looked up, considering the options. He waved his hand like a sultan. “Off that way somewhere,” he suggested. “Just drive until something interesting happens.”
Aboard the Chinese icebreaker, Gushan had been watching the Americans load up their ostentatious land yacht.
He’d seen two figures who looked like Austin and Zavala climb in and then the unmistakable pair of Paul and Gamay Trout.
He with the lanky basketball player’s build and she with the wine-red hair spilling from her stylish hat.
But the Chinese camera technology was as good as NUMA’s. And as Gushan zoomed in on the figures walking dockside he knew something was wrong. Despite the gray hair sticking out from under the cap, he could tell that the leader of the group wasn’t Austin at all.
Austin moved with a type of calm confidence, his actions were slow and easy, as if there was not a care in the world that could hurry him along. The man playing his part was a little stiff, a little too earnest in his steps.
As for the man who was supposed to be Joe Zavala, he moved like an athlete, with a bounce in his step much like the man he was imitating, but his look was all wrong. A closer shot of his face showed him to be grim and serious.
In Gushan’s time working with NUMA, he couldn’t recall a moment when Zavala wasn’t cracking a joke, or smiling at life in general. The worse things got, the more he seemed to laugh at the circumstances.
Gushan sat back. “So, we’re meant to believe this is an expedition to the downed aircraft. Very well.”
He plucked a radio from beside the computer. “Haifeng,” he called. “Send one of the cars to follow the NUMA expedition vehicle. Tell them not to get too close unless the Americans get out and start digging in the snow.”
Gushan had co-opted Haifeng and several others after the incident at the tavern. With five members of his squad in the hospital after the car chase, he needed all the help he could get.
“Sending one car,” Haifeng replied.
He turned to the drone operator on his right. “Show me the American ship again.”
A side-angle view from the icebreaker’s mast camera was enough to take in the entire NUMA vessel. Their position across the harbor meant they could see only the undamaged side, but drones and a few surreptitiously placed cameras made sure every angle was covered.
The damaged side remained abuzz with activity.
Workers on scaffolding could be seen inspecting the damage, planning the repair process.
Yellow tarps stretched across the gaping holes.
The blue glare of arc-welding equipment and acetylene torches was already flashing here and there.
A flatbed truck idled on the dockside. New sections of hull plating were off-loaded and the dismantled wreckage was piled into a jumble on the back in return.
The side facing the water was quiet. Just another ship slumbering at the dock.
“Give me infrared,” Gushan demanded.
The ship blushed in a smear of colors when viewed through the heat sensors. The central section of the hull was emitting heat in red, yellow, and tan. The funnel glowed bright white surrounded by shades of pink. Portholes glowed like circular disks of fire.
Up on the top deck, Gushan saw something that caught his eye.
A bright pink heat source that was flickering.
He changed the settings on the camera, zoomed in, and discovered the unmistakable outline of the NUMA helicopter.
Its engines were running as a human-shaped figure walked around it to the far side.
“Regular light,” Gushan ordered.
The technician switched to the visual image. Gushan saw no lights on the deck where the helicopter stood. The pad was dark instead of illuminated, as it would normally be during flight operations. The helicopter was dark as well. Even its navigation lights were off.
“Infrared,” Gushan now commanded. “Put them on split screen.”
The two images flickered side by side. The helicopter was even hotter now. The exhaust trail plainly visible against the cold backdrop.
He reached for the ship’s intercom and called the captain. “How soon can the helicopter be ready?”
“Five, maybe ten minutes,” the captain replied. “Why?”
That was too long. The Americans would be miles away by then. Gushan didn’t bother to explain. “Get it ready. Me and my team will meet the pilots in the hangar.”
On-screen the American helicopter began to rise. “Damn,” Gushan muttered. He turned to the drone operator. “Follow them. Do not lose sight of the aircraft.”
The drone operator took command of his craft and turned it toward the fjord, locating the American helicopter and surging after it. The helicopter was dropping to the deck and flying to the northeast.
With a featherlight touch, the drone pilot turned his craft to follow.
The drone accelerated quickly, but would not be able to keep up with the American helicopter if it went to full speed.
Still, the cameras on the drone were powerful and the night was dark and cold.
The heat from the helicopter’s jet engine would be visible for miles and miles.
They would not lose track of it while it remained in the air.
With the drone locked onto the Americans, Gushan pressed the intercom button again. “Have my team gear up and meet me in the hangar. If the Americans find anything, we’re going to take it from them.”
As the American helicopter and the Chinese drone flew off to the northeast, the repair work on the American ship continued unabated. A crane load of debris was lowered toward the flatbed, placed down gently and then covered with a tarp.
Amid that debris—which was mostly lightweight materials, insulation, and the deflated lifting bags—Kurt and Joe huddled under gray blankets.
Joe laughed at their unceremonious method of departing the ship. “I’ve had a few girlfriends say they wanted to throw me out with the trash, but I never thought I’d choose that option myself.”
Kurt grinned in the dark, happy to feel the flatbed kick into gear and lurch forward on its journey. “I like to consider this more along the lines of repurpose, recycle, reuse. As in, we’re repurposing this flatbed as a getaway vehicle.”
They rumbled across the dock at perhaps five miles per hour. “Slowest getaway ever,” Joe quipped.
“It’s not speed but stealth that matters,” Kurt said.
“How far is the driver going to take us?”
“We get dropped at the dump with the rest of the wreckage. From there, it’s snowmobiles. Which is where we’ll make up some time.”
Kurt looked out from under the blanket. Carefully hidden among the debris were two battery-powered NUMA snowmobiles. The sleek vehicles had a top speed of ninety miles per hour, a two-hundred-mile range, and hard-sided saddlebags filled with tools and explosives.
After checking in with NUMA headquarters and the White House, their orders had been made crystal clear.
If they found the EAGL in the middle of the lake, they were to remove a small number of the most advanced parts—to prevent any chance of them being found and reverse engineered—and then blow the rest of the aircraft sky-high.