Cold War

Chapter 25

It would have been convenient, Yashin thought as he and his men herded the prisoners through the corridors, if at least one of the Americans could speak Russian. Trying to communicate in his own miserable, half-forgotten schoolboy English was a nuisance.

Then he stopped in his tracks, thinking. When they had captured the Americans before, there had been that big American who had spoken Russian, the one the lieutenant had spoken with so freely.

What had happened to him?

For that matter, what had happened to Lieutenant Ligacheva? She should be here trying to reassert her authority, and she wasn’t.

She had spoken to Kazakov and Maslennikov outside, in the valley beyond the little eastern ridge, and then… then what? Where was she?

”What the devil is keeping the lieutenant?” he demanded of Kazakov.

”I don’t know, sir,” Kazakov said. “She was just over the ridge, talking to that American…”

”An American?” Yashin frowned. The lieutenant still had the big American with her?

What was she up to?

This would not do, Yashin thought. This would not do at all. Lieutenant Ligacheva was no fool. She was a woman, and perhaps in consequence she lacked a man’s true fighting spirit or love for the Motherland, but still, she was not stupid. She knew that Yashin was bucking for a promotion at the cost of her own standing, and she would not want to pay that cost. Whatever she was doing out there with the big American would not be in Yashin’s own best interests, he was sure-and probably, if it involved that American, would not be in the best interests of Russia, either.

”Kazakov, Kurkin, Afanasiev – you stay with the prisoners. If they try anything, kill them.” There were still half a dozen other loyal men somewhere in the station, if the Americans had not killed them; that would be enough. “The rest of you, come with me.”

He turned and headed for the vehicles.

”Something tells me this overgrown snowmobile isn’t going to make it,” Schaefer muttered to himself.

Ligacheva didn’t hear the words, but she didn’t need to. She knew what Schaefer had to be saying. The little snow tractor was dying; she wasn’t sure whether it was succumbing to the fierce cold, or whether it was simply out of fuel, but the engine was sputtering and banging.

Then it stopped completely.

She tried not to think of the eighteen or twenty kilometers they would have to walk in the unforgiving cold of the arctic night in order to get back to Pumping Station #12, once they were done with whatever they might do here. First they had to survive their investigation of the alien ship.

”Now we walk,” she said. “We’re almost there, the tractor wouldn’t have taken us much farther in any case.”

”So we walk,” Schaefer agreed. “After all, we wouldn’t want our noisy engine to bother anyone, would we?” He grabbed one of the spare blankets from the little vehicle’s storage compartment before climbing out into the darkness and wind; he had never entirely trusted the Pentagon’s spiffy little electric suits, and after seeing Gennaro’s sleeves dribbling yellow gook he wanted something more to protect him from the wind and cold. He wished he still had his helmet, which was probably back in the pumping station’s common room, but settled for pulling the blanket over his head like a hood.

It didn’t help much; his ears started stinging with cold almost immediately. He ignored that as he stepped forward into the beam of the headlights and took a good look at what lay ahead, and why they would have had to stop the tractor soon in any case.

He was able to walk another fifteen feet or so; then they were standing on the brink of a ravine, a split in the ice fifty yards across and at least twenty yards deep.

Ligacheva studied Sobchak’s map as Schaefer looked over the area.

”They’re on the other side?” he asked.

”No,” Ligacheva said. “Not according to Sobchak’s measurements.” She pointed. “Down there.”

”Perfect,” Schaefer growled as he studied the dim expanse of jagged rock and ice, the shadows and cul-de-sacs and natural ambuscades. “Perfect for them. If it was my ass on the line and this was my front walk, I’d have this hole booby-trapped with all the ordnance I could find.”

Ligacheva nodded. “As would I-and some things are, I fear, universal,” she agreed. “So-how do you Americans put it?” She smiled at him, a humorless, toothy smile, and concluded in English, “Watch your step.” She turned and started to clamber down over the canyon rim.

”Wait a minute,” Schaefer said. He jogged back to the vehicle, then reached inside and pulled out two packs-the one he had been given by Lynch, and one that had been in the vehicle’s storage bin. “Might be something useful in these,” he said as he ran back up to the rim. He tossed the pack from the little truck to Ligacheva.

She nodded and slung the knapsack on her shoulder before resuming her climb.

Ten minutes later, halfway down the canyon wall, Schaefer’s foot slipped on an icy protrusion. The sudden jar was enough to snap his handhold off the wall, so that he slid four or five feet down the slope clutching a chunk of dirty ice before catching himself on a narrow ledge.

He wasn’t injured, but the rocks left long white scratches down the front of his snowsuit, and his fingers were blackened with dirt.

They would have reached the bottom of a mere rock wall in half the time, he thought; it was the ice coating every hold and the snow hiding every weakness that made the climb so treacherous and slowed them to a mere crawl.

”And this is the easy way?” he said.

”Nothing is easy here, Detective,” Ligacheva called from below. “You should know that by now.” She laughed and lost her own hold, sliding a few centimeters, just as a sharp crack sounded.

At first Schaefer thought a larger-than-usual chunk of ice had broken somewhere, but then he heard the unmistakable whine of a ricochet and saw the puff of snow where Ligacheva’s head had been a few seconds before.

”What-?” Ligacheva turned her head, staring upward to see what was happening.

Standing on the rim of the canyon, fifty meters away, was a man with a rifle-a man in the heavy khaki overcoat of a Russian soldier.

”Yashin?” she said, astonished.

She had known that Sergeant Yashin disliked her, known he was ambitious and saw this mission and her alleged weakness as his great opportunity for promotion, but to attempt to shoot his superior officer? It was madness!

But in that case, he was clearly mad. That had not been a warning shot; she looked at the silver bullet scar in the ice above her. That shot had been meant to kill her.

Up on the rim the half-dozen men hung back and watched as Sergeant Yashin took aim again.

”Sergeant, are you certain of this?” a soldier asked uneasily..

”Of course I’m certain!” Yashin barked. “She’s a traitor! Why else did she come out here with the American, without any of us, without telling us? They must be planning to steal the alien technology and sell it to the Americans! Or since he abandoned his companions, maybe to the highest bidder-do you want the Chinese to have it?”

”No…”

”Then she and the American must be stopped!” Yashin said, his finger tightening on the trigger. It was a fairly tricky shot; the lieutenant was half-hidden in the uneven, icy wall of the crevasse, and the light was terrible. Still, he knew he had her.

Then something bright red flicked across his vision for an instant. He blinked and glanced down.

Red dots were scanning across his chest, weaving about; then they focused into a neat triangle.

”Chto eto?” he asked. “What is this?”

Then white fire blazed, and a sound like thunder echoed from the walls of the canyon.

To the soldiers behind Yashin the light was blinding; they saw the blue-white flash, then a spray of dark red mist as what was left of the sergeant’s body was flung backward. Then they stood, blinking, eyes trying to readjust to the gloom of the arctic night.

One of them finally stepped forward to where Yashin’s corpse lay smoking on the ice.

His chest had been ripped apart, ribs bare and blackened; no more blood was flowing because the heat of the blast had cauterized the blood vessels. There was no question at all that the sergeant was dead.

”What happened?” someone demanded.

”He’s dead,” replied the soldier who had first stepped forward.

”How?”

”Ligacheva and the American,” someone else replied. “They must have killed him!”

”I don’t know…” said the man looking down at Yashin’s corpse.

”Who else could it have been?” the other demanded. He pointed down into the canyon. “Do you see anyone else down there?”

The man in the lead looked down into the ravine and could see no one but Ligacheva and Schaefer, still inching down the rocks-but it was dark down there, and there were dozens of places to hide among the rocks.

”I see no one else,” he admitted, “but this, what could they have that would do this?” He gestured at the body.

”Some secret American weapon,” another soldier replied. “The Americans love secrets.”

For a few seconds the six of them still milled about uncertainly; then Maslennikov took charge and said, “Follow them!”

Meanwhile, Schaefer and Ligacheva had completed their climb down into the darkness of the ravine. With Yashin’s shooting and subsequent death as their inspiration they had descended the last few meters a little more quickly than they had planned; Schaefer had dropped his blanket and stooped to retrieve it when he reached bottom. His now-brittle, scratched, and battered electric snowsuit had stopped working, he noticed; the power supply had scraped against something as he slid down the rocks, and wires had torn loose. Even if the current had still been flowing, Schaefer doubted the suit would have lasted much longer; yellow fluid was oozing from a crack on one knee, and yellow drops seeped from the scratches on his chest.

”Looks like Yashin got someone down here angry,” he remarked as he wrapped the blanket around his head again. “Probably one of their security guards.” In English he added, “Goddamn rent-a-cops can be somethin’ when they’re pissed.”

”Be careful where you step,” Ligacheva replied. She had pulled a flashlight from her pack and was sweeping the beam across the ice ahead of them.

”They’ll see us!” Schaefer shouted when he spotted the light. “The men up there, I mean-the creatures can probably see in the dark anyway, from what I’ve seen.”

The light stopped on something that glittered, something that wasn’t ice.

”It would appear that your ‘rent-a-cops’ have left us a souvenir,” Ligacheva said. “I would not like to step on that, whatever it is.”

”Okay, okay,” Schaefer admitted, “so maybe the light was a good idea. Now turn it off!”

Ligacheva did just as a rifle cracked and snow spat up from a bullet impact.

”Jesus!” Schaefer said. “Your boys up there are stubborn! I thought that even if seeing Yashin’s head blown off didn’t send them running home, they’d take their time about coming after us again.” He turned.

The Russians had secured ropes, Schaefer saw, and were lowering themselves down the wall of the crevasse. Judging the speed of the shadowy shapes was difficult, but it appeared to Schaefer that the climb that had taken Ligacheva and himself fifteen minutes would only keep these fellows occupied for about fifteen seconds.

They were obviously a lot more stubborn than he had realized. They weren’t turning back or hesitating; instead they were already in active pursuit again.

”Back!” Ligacheva shouted at the descending soldiers, waving frantically. “Go back! It’s not safe down here!”

An AK-47 stuttered, and bullets shattered ice at the lieutenant’s feet.

”I don’t think they’re listening,” Schaefer said as he swept an arm around Ligacheva and snatched her off her feet. He slung her over one shoulder and ran.

He hadn’t forgotten the traps, though; he deliberately chose an indirect, inconvenient route, pushing himself partway up the scatter of debris along the base of the canyon wall, squeezing between outcroppings where those eight-foot hunters from space wouldn’t fit. The instant he found something approximating shelter behind a slanting slab of rock and ice he stopped, lowered Ligacheva, and turned to watch.

The first of the Russians stepped off his rope and charged forward-impaling himself almost instantly on a spearhead that seemed to appear from thin air. He gasped once, tottered, and fell forward.

For a moment the spear supported him; then the incredibly sharp spearhead cut through his spine and he slid forward down the shaft.

Blood ran down the shaft ahead of the dying Russian, and he landed facedown in a pool of his own blood, cooling quickly on the ice.

The spear was snatched from his back by a shadowy, indistinct figure, and the second man down cut loose with his AK-47, spraying bullets at the barely glimpsed spear-wielding killer.

The thing moved so fast it almost seemed to be dodging the bullets as it turned and ran back down the canyon. The Russian charged after it, bellowing.

He never saw the thing he stepped on, never saw the curving metal strips that snapped up out of the snow and drove spikes into his sides and shoulders, trapping him instantly. His AK-47 flew from his grip.

One spike had rammed through his cheek, so that he could not move his head without inflicting further injury; he was caught staring directly ahead. He could not look away as that shadowy figure stopped, turned, and came slowly toward him.

He could have closed his eyes, but he did not, he wanted to see what he faced, what it was that had trapped him.

It wasn’t quite so shadowy and indistinct now. The soldier could see that the thing he faced stood two and a half meters tall and was shaped more or less like a man, its wrists and shoulders sheathed in jagged black machinery that looked somehow barbaric, its face covered by a metal mask and ringed by black tendrils.

The spear in its hand was already red with blood.

It raised the spear very slowly as it advanced.

”Gunin!” one of the Russian’s companions called.

Gunin couldn’t turn his head to see whether help was coming; the spike would tear open his cheek if he tried.

”Shoot it!” someone barked.

”I’d hit Gunin!”

”Shoot it anyway!” the other shouted. “He’s probably dead already! “

That was Pushkov’s voice-that bastard! Gunin had never liked him. Gunin tried to open his mouth, to shout that he was still alive, but the pain stopped him-the spike was pressing against his jaw muscles.

Someone, Pushkov or someone obeying Pushkov, fired; Gunin felt burning lines of pain as bullets tore through his right sleeve and through his arm, but the pain was not bad, not enough to make him scream-the spikes had already hurt him enough to deaden his sensitivity.

The creature holding the spear seemed to sidestep the bullets easily.

Then it jabbed the spear forward, and Gunin no longer worried about spikes or bullets or anything else as the thing cut his heart out with a single quick gesture.

After that, the alien disappeared, blurring into invisibility.

The other Russians never saw what hit them, but even so, it took several long minutes for them all to die.