Climate Killers: Book 3. Bernadette Callahan Detective Series

by Lyle Nicholson

  Morgan turned. Katia had a gun with a silencer. She shot Morgan twice in the head. Sokolov only hired the best.

  34

  The plane’s engines changed their pitch as it began its descent. Bernadette could only see darkness. Clouds were covering the moon. Danny was busy at the controls and calling to the Eureka weather station to inform them of his arrival. He got no response.

  Bernadette and McAllen grabbed their duffel bags and took out their down jackets. They’d been advised that they needed to wear their outerwear in case of a crash landing. The last thing you wanted to have is severe exposure if the plane landed too short of the runway.

  “I’m going to do a quick fly over to make sure there’s no equipment on the runway,” Danny told them.

  He banked the plane and dropped towards the ground. A sliver of moonlight appeared through a broken cloud revealing snow-covered mountains surrounding a fjord with ink black water. They dropped lower. The water looked dangerously close.

  Lights of buildings on shore appeared ahead. Bernadette looked at them and saw something else in her side vision. She turned her head to see a black shape in the water. A small blue light shone down on what looked like a platform. It only appeared for a moment then it was gone as the plane flew inland. Danny made a pass of the airfield. It was narrow with reflectors on both sides, some on top of weighted down oil drums to keep them from being blown away in the Arctic winds.

  There were several low buildings and a dome-like structure that Bernadette took to be the weather station. Oil drums and a collection of vehicles surrounded the buildings. She could see large orange snow removal equipment and a few trucks in the pools of light from the buildings. There was still no sign of people.

  The plane gained altitude and did a go around. Danny hadn’t seen any problems with the runway so he told them to “buckle up, we’re going in.”

  The plane came in low again over the ocean and landed on the short runway. Its big wheels bounced softly on the snow and came to a stop short of the buildings. Danny turned the plane around to have it ready for takeoff and turned off the engine. He came out of the cockpit, opened the door and released the stairs. Lights of two vehicles came towards them as he jumped out of the plane.

  “I told you’d they’d arrive to pick you up,” Danny said with a smile. “That’s Arctic hospitality for you.”

  Bernadette and McAllen climbed down the stairs shielding their eyes from the headlights. One truck stopped directly in front of the plane, turning sideways as if to block it. The other one pulled up beside them. Five men dressed in white military parkas glared at them behind machine guns pointed in their direction.

  “Holy shit!” Danny exclaimed. “Who the hell are you guys?”

  “Hands up. Hands up,” one of the men yelled. He waved his machine gun in the air and pointed it skywards.

  They put up their hands.

  McAllen whispered, “We got Russians.”

  “No talk,” the Russian yelled.

  Three Russians jumped down from the truck. They were joined by four more from the other truck. With shouts and gestures the three of them were forced towards one of the trucks then hoisted into the back. The Russian pounded on the truck cab and yelled a command; the truck started up and headed away from the plane and the buildings. They went from the bright lights of the buildings towards the mountains.

  They were huddled together with their backs to the cab. The Russians kneeled and sat on the truck bed with their machine guns trained on them. Bernadette could make out their faces in the moonlight. They were young, clean-shaven and uncomfortable with the guns they were pointing at them. To Bernadette, these didn’t look like soldiers; there was something about them but, currently, she couldn’t register it.

  The moonlight began to fade as they headed inland. It was like closing down the aperture on a camera lens. In slow gradients it faded until they were in darkness. The truck sped up.

  Sokolov called Volkov and told him about his conversation with Morgan and why he eliminated him.

  “Okay, this is not good, but then not so bad,” Volkov said.

  “But I think this FBI Agent Winston will give whatever information Morgan had in his files to the media.

  “Yes, you are right. How close is Derman to getting Congress to ask for Russian assistance?”

  “He’s close, but many are worried how it will look to the American people. They’ve always given aid to Russia. They would have to receive it on a mass scale. I think they are worried about their next election.”

  Volkov laughed. “These Americans know nothing about how to fix an election. If they did, they could run the country the way they wanted and screw the people. Like we do.

  “Yes, I know, but if Congress doesn’t vote for aid, we cannot bring our planes in. This plan will fall apart.”

  “Leave it to me. I have something that will make them come screaming for Russia,” Volkov said. “We have infiltrated all of their crazy militia groups. There are Nazi’s and white supremacist, and these ultra-right groups that are all armed to the teeth. They have weapons that we Mafia would like to have.”

  “What can you make them do?”

  “We’ve already done it. Our infiltrators have been telling them for months that the time to take over the American Government is coming. I will give the word, and our people will tell all these groups the time is now.”

  “You think this will work?”

  “Of course. We will also flood their Facebook and social media with messages that the people need to rise up and take control. In one week, Congress will be begging for our aid.”

  Sokolov marveled at how devious Volkov was. Even he couldn’t have thought of such a plan.

  “Okay, boss, I’ll be here in San Francisco waiting to hear from you.”

  “Good, and how is Sigurdsson’s family? Are they keeping well?”

  Sokolov turned and looked into the window of the room where they were being held. “Yes, the wife and the granddaughter are well.”

  “Good keep them alive. Sigurdsson will contact them, then he will come to us, and do whatever we ask.”

  Sokolov put down his phone. He wandered out to look over San Francisco Bay. The ocean was rising fast. He might need to move them to higher ground.

  The truck came to a stop. Bernadette, McAllen and Danny were pulled to their feet and shoved towards the back of the truck. One by one they were dropped to the ground and pulled along by the soldiers.

  One of the soldiers pushed McAllen, he whirled and muttered, “Skhodite, ya ustal.”

  The other guards laughed and clapped McAllen on the back and smiled at him.

  Bernadette got beside McAllen. “What did you say to them?”

  “I told them, go easy I’m old.”

  “You speak Russian?”

  “No, I’d learned that from a Russian hooker in Barcelona,” McAllen said.

  The soldiers propelled them forward into a large Orange building. The place was the PEARL lab. The walls were covered in maps with an array of computer equipment scattered throughout the room.

  The place looked like it had been ransacked. Papers were everywhere, file drawers open and desks overturned. In the middle of the room lay the body of a man face down in a pool of blood.

  It looked like a usual crime scene to Bernadette, but in this case she knew the killers. Two men and a woman were crouched against a wall with their hands on their heads. She could see the fear in their eyes.

  A soldier pushed them towards the other captives with his hand on the butt of his machine gun. He yelled, “Sit down.”

  “Great English skills,” McAllen said. “They must have learned taking captives 101.”

  “No talk,” another guard yelled.

  They slid down the wall beside the others. Bernadette was shoulder to shoulder with a man who looked in his early thirties. A knitted cap was pulled down over his head with wisps of long blond hair poking out. His face wore a mask of terror.

  He leaned o
ver to Bernadette and whispered, “We thought you might be our rescue squad.”

  Bernadette looked at him and raised her eyebrows in a gesture of resignation. She glanced around the room. Two small satchels caught her eye. They looked out of place for a research facility.

  She whispered quietly to the man beside her, “Are those explosives in the bags?”

  “Afraid so. Looks like C-4, the soldiers put them in here and played with the timers. I don’t know if they’ve been activated.”

  The soldier with the machine gun came back and stared down at them. He was furious.

  Bernadette looked up at him and smiled. “No talk,” she said.

  The soldier walked back to huddle with his compatriots in the middle of the room. A door from the outside opened and they stood to attention.

  A small man with a grey beard walked in. Bernadette could see from the salutes of the soldiers he was their commander. His steely blue eyes took in the captives. He walked towards them, taking wide berth to avoid the body and blood on the floor.

  “I am here to find some information on the research of a Doctor Sigurdsson. We know he was working here, but unfortunately he is not here now. You will direct us to this research and we will leave you in peace,” the man said.

  “Is that what you call this? You’re here to find some research? Is that why you killed our colleague?” the man with blond hair said.

  The bearded man looked down at the dead man, “Unfortunate. I understand he was trying to communicate with your military. We could not allow that.”

  “Well, for your information, buddy, my dead friend did get hold of the military. He told the base at Alert that a bunch of Russians arrived in a submarine and attacked our station. The Canadian Forces are on their way to take you out.” The blonde man said.

  “That is amusing. Thank you for this funny scenario. The base you called at Alert is 400 kilometres away. They have only seventy personnel, half are civilian weathermen the other half are trained as military observers, and there is no fighter aircraft.”

  He knelt down in front of the captives. “You see, you are in the High Arctic, you are in front of the commander of one of the greatest submarines in the Russian fleet.” He smiled and winked at them. “Let me tell you the situation. The Canadians have a few submarine hunters. They are called Auroras. They are stationed over 7000 kilometres south of here on your east coast in Newfoundland. If they took off the minute we arrived they are now maybe 700 kilometres closer.

  He stood up and paced the room. “You Canadians have a small air force of CF-18 fighters but they cannot even reach here with their short flight range. You are all alone. I am the only friend you have and I want your cooperation or your lives. Isn’t that simple?”

  “If we give you what you want, you’ll let us go and return to your sub?” McAllen asked.

  “Of course. I am reasonable.”

  “Give us a minute to confer with my friends,” McAllen said.

  The Russian captain walked away from the captives.

  McAllen turned to the others. “Okay, we’re searching for the same thing. Professor Sigurdsson’s wife told us he had found evidence of a secret river under the ocean. He said he could cool the planet with it. But these guys know it also has a river of magma beneath that could heat the Earth. You guys get my meaning?”

  “I’m Doctor Curtis Weppler,” the man with the blond hair said. He pointed to the woman and man beside him. “This is Doctors Jane Russey and David Maslam.”

  “Great,” Bernadette said. “What do you know about Sigurdsson’s research?”

  Doctor Weppler was taken aback by Bernadette’s sharp reply. He straightened his hat and looked at the other doctors. “We know quite a lot about it. We helped him find it. Well, let’s say so much as we came up with a premise that it might in fact exist.”

  “Really, Curtis,” Doctor Russey said. “How can you even try to take credit for Sigurdsson’s research? You told Sigurdsson his idea was daft and that if there was such a river there with a magma flow beneath, every geological survey ever done in the ocean would have known about it.”

  Weppler’s eyes went wide in disbelief, “I never said such a thing—”

  “Okay,” Bernadette cut in. “Let’s just say you two agree to disagree. Now, do either of you know where he may have hidden this file?”

  “But, if we give the file to them, they’ll kill us anyway,” Maslam said.

  “You’re absolutely right.” Bernadette said. “But we need to make like we’re looking for it so we can stall them until help arrives.”

  “The Russian said it was hours away,” Weppler pointed out. “You heard how long it’s going to be before help arrives.”

  “The Russian may know his distances but he doesn’t know squat about Canada’s Northern defenses. Six months ago, they moved the Aurora sub hunter and six F-18s with supporting air tankers for refueling to Rankin Inlet, the former North American Defense system base,” Bernadette said.

  “Rankin Inlet, that’s only 1,500 kilometres from here,” Russey said.

  “That’s right. The Aurora has a max speed of 750 kms an hour and the F-18’s can do 1,800 kms an hour. I figure with the big shots in Ottawa having to have a shit fit on taking on a Russian sub, then getting the balls to actually do it, that they scrambled the planes over an hour ago,” Bernadette said.

  McAllen moved closer. “What we need to do is get ourselves into position to do something the moment these guys hear aircraft overhead.”

  “But… we’re not fighters… we’re scientists. I don’t even have my pepper spray on me,” Maslam said.

  “Don’t worry about that. You get us standing and walking around and making like we’re searching for this file and we’ll take care of the rest,” Bernadette said.

  McAllen looked at the Russian captain. “You got yourself a deal. You let my scientist friends and me have access to the computers and we’ll get you the information you seek.”

  “That is better,” the Russian captain said. “Now, one wrong step and my men will be happy to kill you.”

  “Of course, with that in mind let’s get to work,” McAllen replied.

  McAllen and Bernadette moved into the main computer room with the other scientist and Danny. McAllen shooed the soldiers away, telling the leader they needed to be able to confer in private. The Russians wandered off to the far corner and lit up cigarettes.

  Dr. Maslam looked at the soldiers in disgust. “Don’t they see the no smoking signs?”

  “The only smoking you should be worried about is if one of those guys shoots off one of his machine guns. Then you’ll have some smoke you don’t want,” Bernadette said.

  McAllen got everyone around the computers and made like he was pulling up files. He looked at Weppler. “When did these guys arrive?”

  “About two hours ago. The guys in the weather station saw the sub surface in the moonlight and their zodiacs come to shore. They went out to meet them. They shot two of them but the other guy escaped and got up here in a truck. He screamed that the Russians had landed in a submarine and got on the radio the Canadian Forces in Alert, the nearest base to us.

  “Did he make radio contact with Alert?” Bernadette asked.

  “Yeah, the guy in Alert said help was coming. Told us to sit tight,” Weppler said.

  “Then the Russians shot him?” Bernadette asked.

  “Yeah,” Weppler said, “they burst into the lab twenty minutes later and saw our guy on the phone. He screamed at them that our military was on its way—waved the phone at them like it would stop them. They shot him right in front of us.”

  The Russian captain came over. “You have some results yet?”

  “No, we’re in conference,” McAllen said. “Please let us work on this.”

  “I have a way to help you,” the Russian said.

  “What’s that?” McAllen asked.

  “I will shoot one of you every twenty minutes that you delay.”

  “Thanks, nice
pep talk, now, let us get back to our work,” McAllen said.

  The captain walked back to his men. They got busy crowding around the computers.

  “Do you think he’d do that?” Russey asked. Her face was screwed up with the question and the tension.

  “He’s already shot someone for trying to call our military. I’m certain he’s going to shoot one of us if we delay,” McAllen told her. “Now, which one of you knows where Sigurdsson left his data?”

  Weppler leaned forward into the group. “You don’t get it. Sigurdsson never left any notes. He came to us with this story of the underground rivers, saying he knew how to find them.”

  “You mean there’s nothing here?” Bernadette said.

  “Not a damn thing. Sigurdsson was here from May to June this year; he came up with his idea then headed off to Stockholm to give a paper on it. We thought he’d be laughed out of the conference,” Weppler explained.

  “But that didn’t stop you from telling us you knew all about this river did it, Weppler?” Bernadette asked.

  “Don’t mind him, he hasn’t had an idea of his own for years, and is always trying to piggy back on other people’s research,” Russey said.

  “If I may interject,” Maslam said, “and, if you’ll discount the statements of my two colleagues, as the two of them are going through a trial separation and using me and this Arctic lab as their sounding board.”

  “Really, Maslam, if we’re so tiring, perhaps you’ll offer yourself up as the first one to be shot in the next twenty minutes,” Russey said.

  The three scientists eyed each other with a hatred that had developed over a long summer of Arctic isolation.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Bernadette said. “We either come up with something to stall them further or have something that looks like information.”

  “I know what you can do,” Danny said.

  They turned and looked at Danny. He stood there his hands thrust firmly in his pockets, his smile wide. His eyes gleamed with an answer they hoped would save them all from imminent death.