Chapter 45
Joe heard and felt the explosion, but was already half a mile away. He wanted to come about and check on Kurt, but he had more pressing issues. The three Russian snowmobiles were chasing him. They were big and loud, but mostly they were fast. And, he had to admit, well driven.
The Russian drivers worked together, hounding him like a pack of border collies.
One led the chase, with the other two keeping formation a little way back.
If Joe turned right, the main pursuer tracked him, while the machine on the right turned hard to cut him off.
If he turned left, the same thing happened.
So far, Joe hadn’t been able to get out of their headlights.
He needed a smoke screen, or a mine-deploying system, or a rearward-firing machine gun. “Where are all the cool James Bond switches when you need them?” he muttered.
Remembering Kurt’s rooster tail as he topped the aircraft, Joe realized he could make a smoke screen of his own, or a snow screen at least.
He whipped the snowmobile into a turn, slowed, and then gunned the engine as it began to sink into the powder. A spray of snow and ice crystals surged into the night air behind him. He turned the other way and repeated the procedure, going back and forth.
After a few practice rounds, he went all out, creating a huge curtain of ice crystals behind him and then turning hard and racing back toward his pursuers.
The suspended crystals shimmered as the lights of the snowmobiles converged on it, becoming more opaque as it brightened, the way fog becomes harder to see through when it’s lit up at night.
The first Russian snowmobile burst through the curtain like a train coming the opposite direction on a high-speed track. It passed on Joe’s right, vanishing in a blink.
The second sled passed by wide to the left. But the third appeared almost directly in front of him.
Joe flicked his sled to the left, trying to avoid a head-on collision.
The other driver turned harder, lacking Joe’s finesse and failing to shift his weight. As his runners turned, he caught an edge and the sled tumbled hard, catapulting the driver out into the night.
“One down, two to go.”
He held the throttle wide open and looked back. The remaining sleds had made the turn and were spreading out, widening their formation to prevent Joe from performing the same trick again.
Still, Joe had bought himself some time and space, and he was no longer heading for the Russian coast. Instead he was charging toward the cliff and the drop-off on the other side, where the lake tumbled in a series of frozen waterfalls toward the fjord, a thousand feet below.
In the daylight it would have been no problem, but at night he would not see where the lake ended and the thousand-foot drop began until his headlight stopped reflecting off the snow. That would not leave enough time to turn.
Still, he charged toward it like a man possessed. The Russians chased him with no less determination.
He glanced over his shoulder toward the dim, orange glow of the burning plane.
It looked to be a long way back. Miles back, Joe thought.
But as the only point of light it was impossible to really tell.
He squinted, trying to see out beyond the headlights.
For another moment he continued to speed into the darkness.
Then all at once, he decided against it.
He carved another sharp turn, kicking up a wave of snow as he cut hard to the left. Much of the snow fell quickly, some of it lingered. Other flakes dropped over the edge of the cliff, floating gently down toward the waters of the fjord far below.
Joe would never know what instinct caused his nerve to fail at just the right moment, but he was glad of it. He was now racing along the edge of the cliff, heading toward the Norwegian border.
Looking back, he saw the Russians making the same turn. They closed in once again, this time flanking him to the inside and pinning him against the cliff’s edge.
Joe bent his course inward, but at the same moment the nearest Russian sled pulled even and blocked him. The two machines crashed together and then veered apart.
Joe sped up, cut the throttle, then sped up again, trying to create some space.
But the Russian driver was too good. He matched Joe’s pace changes almost instantly.
With Joe effectively blocked, the Russian inched closer, far too smart to swerve foolishly toward Joe and risk overshooting and flying off the cliff himself.
No, it seemed this would be a slow, firm shove.
The front cowlings hit and bounced apart. The skids scraped against each other, locked for a second, and then freed themselves.
Joe held his ground with only a few yards to spare. But that allowed the second Russian snowmobile to close in behind him. Together they tried to run Joe toward his doom.
A bump from the back pushed him forward. A bump from the side sent him to the right. He had maybe thirty feet to play with. Then it was twenty.
The first sled hit him again, knocking him closer to the edge of the world. The second one slammed him from behind.
Joe felt a sudden lack of control and a dearth of power as he tried to accelerate.
A vibration through the machine told him the track had been damaged.
Most likely the tread was unraveling. He cut his speed to conserve what was left.
But that was just blood in the water for these sharks. The lead sled hit him once more.
This time the two machines locked together. The Russian sled leaning into his. Joe shoving back against it. Joe pushed the runners as hard as they would go, but he was losing the battle. Glancing to his right, he saw the edge and the void and a smattering of lights miles off and far below.
The tread suddenly unraveled. It flew off the back end, soaring directly into the chest of the rider trailing behind. Joe lost all control of the machine. In desperation, he leapt from his snowmobile onto the Russian one beside him.
The move surprised the Russian driver so much that he leaned and twisted, lifting one hand off the controls and swinging it backward in hopes of swatting Joe away.
Joe grabbed his arm, pushed it upward, and twisted, wrenching the driver out of position and forcing him off the machine. He fell sideways, hitting the snow and tumbling like an acrobat. At the same time, Joe lunged for the handlebars and took control of the speeding machine.
With a new horse under him, Joe watched the NUMA snowmobile nosedive off the cliff.
It was followed by the trailing Russian snowmobile, whose driver had reacted late after being struck by the flying tread and had plummeted over the edge.
Joe turned away, gunning the throttle on the machine and leaving the last of the pursuers behind him.
Kurt found himself in a far different predicament than Joe. Instead of moving too fast, he wasn’t moving at all. Having been catapulted off the snowmobile and into a drift, he’d burrowed downward, covering his face as a wave of flame washed over his back.
Snowmelt poured over him as the heat turned the water to liquid once more. Kurt crawled forward, escaping the flames by staying in the drift and emerging on the far side.
Looking back, he saw a mushroom cloud of smoke and flame rising into the sky. The body of the C-17 was a shattered hulk; the fuselage and wings engulfed in the unmistakable cloud of orange and black that only a fuel-fed fire produced.
The heat from the fire had cleared the snow from the plane. What was left sat as he suspected, with only the top half visible. The Russians were scattered about. Some of them scrambling to get back to their vehicles, others just running from the plane.
A sudden shift of the ground told Kurt why: the explosions had cracked the ice. The fire was weakening it further. With the weight of the aircraft pressing downward, it wouldn’t be long before it broke through.
With the snow around his feet turning to slush, Kurt looked for the snowmobile. It had run on after he was unhorsed, speeding and turning back toward the plane. It lay on its side near the tail, a few hundred feet from him.
It had been pushing full speed when the explosion launched Kurt off of it. Without any weight on the seat, the automatic kill switch had shut it down, but momentum and speed had carried it to where it now rested. Kurt just hoped it was still operational.
He trudged toward it, pushing through the soft snow and shielding his face from the waves of heat. As he neared the tail, one of the Russian commandos lumbered after him.
The man had been near the plane when it blew.
His coat had been ripped open. His arm and shoulder were on fire; his face was singed.
His rifle was nowhere to be seen. Staggering forward in the orange light, he looked like a member of the walking dead, but when he saw Kurt, he drew a knife and charged.
Kurt took a half step back as he blocked the stabbing motion. With a twist of the man’s arm Kurt separated the elbow. The knife went free, the man grunted, and Kurt leaned hard, throwing the man over his shoulder and down into the slush.
Kurt landed on the man and put a knee on his chest. He raised his fist for a knockout blow, but instead of hammering the Russian in the face, Kurt shoved his arm and shoulder down into the slushy mix. The flames went out, the burning clothes flaked off, revealing red, charred skin.
The Russian stared upward, squirming. Obviously in some kind of shock. Kurt lifted him to his feet.
“Get out of here,” he shouted. “Idti!” he added, using the Russian word for “go” or “run.”
The Russian stared blankly. In addition to the shock, he might have been deaf from the explosion. Kurt pointed him away from the aircraft and shoved him forward. He stumbled onward toward safety, never even looking back as Kurt turned for the snowmobile.
Kurt’s method of escape was no more than sixty feet away, but the journey to get there was a surprisingly difficult one.
The snow was now twenty inches of deep mush.
Not firm enough to walk on, not watery enough to wade through with ease.
The slush gripped Kurt’s legs with a tremendous amount of suction. Each step requiring a herculean effort.
He trudged forward as waves of heat baked his face and kerosene fumes stung his eyes and irritated his lungs.
Halfway there the ice shuddered and tilted as a heavy section of the C-17 broke through, settling a few feet deeper.
The tremor knocked Kurt down on one knee.
He got up and pushed forward, slogging his way toward the tail end of the aircraft.
A secondary explosion went off as he reached the snowmobile. A new fissure emerged in the ice, snaking its way almost directly beneath the snowmobile. Water shot up from it and spread out, mixing with the slush.
As the gap widened, Kurt righted the snowmobile, jumped aboard, and pressed the start switch. The lights came on instantly.
Moving was another story. The tread churned in the slush, blasting a slurry of material out behind him. It was a slow, fitful process, with Kurt backing off the throttle and then pumping it again like a man trying not to spin his tires in a Chicago blizzard.
Just as he slithered out of the muck, one of the Russian snowcats appeared.
“Not today,” Kurt said. He turned hard and went back the other way. The heavy tracked machine followed until it hit a fissure and went down at the front end.
The last Kurt saw of it, the men were abandoning it and running for safety.
On his own now, he sped past the ruined nose of the aircraft. Somewhere inside he imagined Ahab still talking, no doubt congratulating himself on his own greatness. The idea was both revolting and laughable.
Clearing the plane and leaving the Russians behind, Kurt attempted to call Joe on the small radio attached to the console. Without the helmets and their built-in speakers he had to lean close to the snow machine’s console with its built-in microphone. He shouted, hoping Joe had his volume up.
Three tries brought no response.
Kurt scanned the open snowfield in front of him. There was no sign of Joe. But a headlight blazing through the night was racing toward him from the Russian side. It was a warm yellow beam, as opposed to the cool, blue-white glow the NUMA headlights made.
Apparently, the Russians weren’t done yet.
Kurt turned hard, making sure to stay out of reasonable firing range. But instead of going after him, the Russian snowmobile raced on by, heading directly for Norway. Either a lone Russian had decided to invade Europe all on his own, or it was Joe.
Kurt turned to follow and put on the speed. He pulled alongside Joe and the noisy machine.
“I see you have a new ride,” Kurt shouted.
Joe nodded at his friend. “I jumped at the chance to get it.”
Kurt had a feeling Joe meant that literally. “You get much on your trade-in?”
“Not really,” Joe shouted. “It wasn’t going to be in drivable condition much longer.”
Kurt looked back. They were unfollowed and home free at this point. The Norwegian border was no more than a mile away, with the safety of the tree line a few miles beyond that.
As they reached it, the euphoria of escape gave way to the reality of the situation.
They’d survived Ahab’s trap, escaping both the plane and the Russians, but they had little else to show for it. The laser was gone, the C-17 was destroyed, and the hijackers were dead. Any link they could forge to Ahab, or any hint regarding his ultimate plans, had vanished as well.
“Now what?” Joe shouted, a hint of dejection evident in his voice.
There was only one answer. “Now we go find Ahab,” Kurt said. “And stop whatever he’s planning to do.”