Ben smiled.
“My superior has seen to everything. We will take the Jeep to the glacier. There is a pass leading through the crevasse to the first plateau. It is a difficult climb but not a long one. My superior will meet us there. At that time your task will be completed, and you will return to your plane and leave.”
Louis added, “Yeah, well, it’s kinda cold. I have some warm jackets stowed in the overhead compartment. The kid can wear one, and I think I have one that will fit you.”
“I have no need for warmth,” Ben snarled ungratefully.
As Louis pulled the coats from the bin, he also grabbed the plane’s emergency flare gun. Furtively slipping it into his jacket, he thought, This might come in handy.
Louis looked almost apologetically at Colin as he handed him a down-filled jacket. To Alexandra he said, “Good thing you wore a coat. How’d you know you were going camping?”
“What kind of a man are you?” she spat.
“Just a guy tryin’ to make a living,” he joked.
Ben said, “Enough talk.”
Forty-Two
“ARE you sure it is wise to involve Mundus in what is essentially a family problem? Personally, I do not think it is right for you to do this,” Joachim Nussbaum said.
Jan’s mute and immediate reply was to push the Ferrari’s supercharged engine harder as he forced a path through the late-night truck traffic that routinely shuttled between Philadelphia and the city’s airport. He was headed for a private hanger on the fringe of the airport complex where the delta winged supersonic aircraft, resembling a needle rather than a plane, waited, engines idling.
Jan wheeled the sleek sports car past warehouses stuffed with contraband confiscated by the US customs service, driving at breakneck speed toward the Mundus complex. As they approached the main gate, Jan stabbed the brake pedal causing the car to swirl around on the loose gravel that had collected on the parking pad. He looked around. Victor Carew sat in his limousine about fifty yards from the hanger’s security fence.
He turned to Joachim and said, “This is my son we’re talking about. For him, I would reach into the sky and with my bare hands pull the sun out of heaven—do you understand! If not, then stay behind. I’ll go alone.”
“So, it is your will that dictates here.”
Jan’s eyes bulged at Nussbaum’s audacious remark.
“How dare you! You of all people dare to quote Hitler to me! I would have thought better of you,” Jan said bitterly.
“I am only saying what others will say when they hear of this.”
“I am a man, not a machine, Joachim, and I’m certainly not a hero. If the other five Mundus Masters have a problem with me, then I can step down.”
“That will not happen, and you know it.”
“I know nothing of the kind,” Jan snapped.
Joachim made no reply.
Jan pushed the accelerator again, inching the car forward until it was parallel with a security pad identical to the one in his command center. He turned and eyed Joachim.
“Well, old friend, Reykjavik?”
“What do you think?”
Jan smiled. “I won’t forget this.”
Joachim looked past Jan and jerked his chin toward the driver-side window.
“We have company.”
Jan turned to see a man dressed in dark overalls approach the car.
Jan caught Joachim’s forearm as the ex-spy’s hand went for the gun holstered at his side.
“Easy, it’s just security. We have to show ID,” Jan said as he lowered the Ferrari’s driver-side window.
Jan flashed his Mundus ID. Joachim fished out his Interpol identification card and handed it over to the man, who up until now had not spoken a word as he stood beside the car. The man swept a red laser light over each ID card’s barcode with a handheld scanner. Satisfied, he smiled as he returned the identification cards.
Confident they wouldn’t be shot, Jan and Joachim exited the Ferrari.
“Victor Carew’s here too. He’s coming with us.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I say so,” Jan said as he walked off.
The security officer nudged Joachim. “Say, is that guy really in charge of this place?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“He looks like a kid, you know… like he should be shooting hoops or riding a skateboard.”
Joachim took a long look at the man who ruled from the shadows one sixth of the world. Jan was by most standards short, just five feet seven inches. His smooth face showed none of the ravages of worry, while his slim body remained more like a boy’s rather than a middle-aged man, and yet he was, unmistakably, the man with the power.
He thought of a saying he learned as a boy, Whom the gods would destroy they first make powerful.
As Jan and Victor joined Joachim and the security officer, a man in a black jumpsuit approached them.
“Mr. Phillips, we’ve been expecting you. My name’s Amos Mink. I’ll be your pilot tonight. Do you have coordinates for me?”
Amos read the small card Jan handed him.
64° 8’ N 21° 56’ W.
“Hmm… looks like Iceland,” he said.
“That’s right, and before we land I need to know if a Beechcraft Hawker 800XP landed at Reykjavik.”
“What if the plane’s not there?” Amos said.
Jan looked up into the black sky and said, “It’s got to be there.”
Amos was on a need-to-know basis with Mundus operations. Still, he wondered why he was making a one o’clock in the morning flight to Iceland, of all places.
Jan reached into the Ferrari and pulled his artic parka from the rear of the car while Joachim slung a small rucksack over his shoulder.
“Ready?” Joachim said.
Jan nodded to Amos, who led the three men to the rear of the hanger where the delta winged MSST-3 squatted like a giant dragonfly. The black plane’s silhouette was all but lost against the night sky.
“Jesus!” Victor said, standing wide-eyed. Until this moment, Victor had known Jan as a powerful, if pesky, lawyer, but this was something out of a fantasy novel.
“I’ll bet you’ve never seen anything like this,” Jan said.
Victor shook his head in awe. “Never.”
Once inside the craft each man donned an inter-cabin headset. Amos slung himself into the pilot’s seat while Jan took over the copilot’s spot.
Ignoring Victor, Joachim reclined his seatback as far as it would go and stretched out. He wrapped a loose buckle around his waist and immediately fell into a snooze. His motto… You never know when you won’t be able to sleep, so grab it when you can.
Victor sat uneasily in a wide leather seat, glanced around the spacious main cabin, and fastened his seat belt. The interior’s soft lighting and cool air failed to soothe his frayed nerves. He rested his head on the seat’s high back and closed his weary eyes.
Where did I go wrong? Oh God, I didn’t see this coming, not this! Louis wanted space, so I gave him space. No, that’s not true. I wanted the space. I didn’t want to see what he’d become, and so I ignored him. If only…. If only. Then Saint Augustine’s words came back to him, Too late, have I loved Thee.
After performing what seemed to Jan an endless round of systems checks, the black wedge rolled onto the tarmac where Amos brought the engines to an earsplitting roar. Jan went over the copilot’s checks a second time.
A long black squeegee swept over the plane’s cockpit window as the damp became mist, then rain.
Minutes later, the jet, cleared for takeoff, dashed along the runway and skyward, north to Iceland and Jan’s personal battle with al-Qâdi.
Outside, silver lightning flashed brilliant warnings.
Forty-Three
AFTER a little more than an hour’s flying time, Amos Mink banked the jet, dipping the wing slightly. Tapping Jan on the shoulder, he pointed to a small green radar screen set at the center of the plane’s instrument console. A thi
n light traced a dim arc from right to left, making a single blip before disappearing.
“That’s our bird,” Amos said.
“How can you be sure?” Jan asked.
“There’s an automatic tracking signal coming from those coordinates. It matches the kind used by Beechcraft’s manufacturer. We’ll be able to make a visual in a few minutes, then we’ll know for sure.”
The pilot slipped the plane below the clouds so that Jan could get a look at their updated destination, the Murderküll glacier. What appeared to be an unbroken block of ice and snow extended for as far as they could see. The origins of the glacier dissolved in a swirl of snow and frozen mist well beyond the gleaming horizon.
Joachim moved up and squatted between the two men. Awed by the sight, he whispered, “You know, I’ve been all over the world, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Jan thought of a line from scripture. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting unto everlasting, Thou, art God.
“Yeah.” Jan breathed deeply. “All you have to do is look at this and you believe.”
Jan looked at the radar. Once again, the pale arc swept over the dull screen. Once again, the blip flashed, this time larger and brighter.
Jan knew from Mink’s suppressed grin that the pilot had been right. Ignoring his smirk, Jan said, “Amos, get me a secure frequency. I need to contact Reykjavik HQ.”
Amos nodded, flipped a switch, and gave Jan a thumbs-up. “You’re good to go.”
Jan waited for his Mundus counterpart to answer with the code for the day.
“Dagmar, this is Jan Phillips.”
“Jan,” she said anxiously, “what is going on? Have you lost your mind? You cannot go joyriding in a billion dollar plane! Our GPS saw your new SST delta wing entering Icelandic airspace. Coming here unannounced is a breach of protocol—you know that! And, I’ve got the Interior Minister wanting to send up a fighter jet to shoot you down! What am I supposed to tell him?”
Jan’s first impulse was to scream into the headset. Jan’s devil prodded, Tell that bitch where to head in!
His angel whispered, Be calm. Remember why you’re here. There’s more at stake than your pride!
“Dagmar, this is anything but a joyride, and you can tell your Minister anything you want. I don’t have much time, so I’ll be brief. Al-Qâdi has my son, Colin. In a few minutes I’ll be landing at the base of the Murderküll glacier.”
“What? How do you know?”
“All my intelligence information says al-Qâdi has taken him. They’ve brought him to Iceland in a Beechcraft. That plane is sitting at the foot of the glacier.”
Jan shoved sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “God only knows what they’ll do to him. They also have a fifteen-year-old girl. Her name is Alexandra Betterman. She’s a US citizen too, so you know their lives depend on my getting to them soon. I’m landing with Joachim Nussbaum. We will begin immediately tracking them on the glacier.”
Whatever the Mundus Master felt as a woman and mother, she set aside for the time being.
“Jan, you may be in a little luck.”
“What do you mean?”
“Then you have not heard?”
“Heard what, Dagmar? I’ve been busy chasing the bastards who have my son for the last eight hours. I haven’t heard anything.”
“Well, just about the time your son was taken, my team raided an al-Qâdi camp on the Murderküll glacier. The police were brought in, and they arrested six men. We caught them in the act of making a crude nuclear bomb. When your kidnappers get to the glacier they won’t have any support.”
Jan considered these facts. Grateful that he wasn’t going up against a band of thugs, nevertheless, he was frightened for his son’s life.
“Jan,” she said, “let me send a team to the glacier. We know the beast. You could get lost up there!”
“Dagmar, we’re about to land. I can’t wait.”
“At least let me have my people meet you at the glacier,” she pleaded. “I can send a helicopter.”
“You can send one, but I won’t wait for them.”
“Agreed, but I should warn you that there’s a storm brewing on the glacier. It may move off, or it may come straight at you.”
Jan brushed the warning aside. No snowstorm was going to stop him from finding his son.
“Dagmar, I’m going to need lodging for three people who’re following me in another plane. They’ll arrive at Reykjavik in a few hours. The plane’s a Lear Jet, not a commercial flight. As for your helicopter, please have it stand by at the glacier. We may have injured. Say a prayer we won’t need it.”
There was a long pause as Dagmar considered pulling rank. Iceland was her chapter. Here, her decisions were final. She knew Jan’s taking the plane and flying into another master’s domain would raise serious issues when the details came out in the next meeting of the Mundus Masters, but now was not the time to discuss it.
“All right, Jan,” she said. “I understand. I’ll be standing by if you need me.”
Jan broke the connection without further comment. He was staring blindly out the cockpit window when his eyes focused on a black all-terrain vehicle parked near the base of the glacier. He nudged Joachim and said, “What do you make of that?”
“Looks like a Jeep. There’s no snow on it. That would suggest it was recently used.”
“Do you think Louis used it, or do you think someone else is around?”
“I guess we are going to find out.”
Minutes later, Mink guided the MSST-3 over the small airstrip and let the plane settle into an agonizingly slow descent until it touched solid ground.
Jan turned to Amos and said, “As soon as we’re clear, you can leave. Thanks, Amos. I….”
Jan’s reference to his son and the nature of the situation was the first inkling the pilot had as to what was going on. He looked Jan in the eye and said, “It’s okay, Mr. Phillips, no need to say more.”
Once on the ground and safely away from the big plane, Jan waved an all clear.
“That’s Louis’s plane!” Victor said, pointing to the Beechcraft parked at the edge of the tarmac. “That means they’re here, right?”
“It means they landed here, that’s all,” Jan said. “Come on, we need to check out that Jeep.”
The men pulled their parka hoods over their heads, checked their climbing gear, and then struck out for the point where the glacier spilled onto solid ground. The wind picked up. An earlier snowfall had welded itself onto the frozen ground. Alternating between jogging, trotting, and walking across the broken ground, they were already breathing hard in the thin air as they approached the Jeep, parked near what looked like a ragged split in the glacier’s frozen face.
Joachim pulled his gun and slipped up to the car’s window. He peeked inside. Empty.
“The car’s clear,” he said.
Jan scanned the barren ground and then looked at the massive wall of ice. “Where could they be, Joachim? They didn’t grow wings and fly away!”
“Maybe there’s a cave near here,” Victor said hopefully. “They could be really close, right?”
Jan squatted near a boulder, his eyes fixed on a piece of broken shale. “I don’t know,” he said wearily.
Victor wiped his face with the back of a frozen glove, slid down against the Jeep’s rear fender, and said, “I’ve gotta sit for a minute.”
Suddenly, Joachim said, “Jan. Look at this!”
Jan watched as Joachim reached under the Jeep. He retrieved a square plastic case. A garish design identified the CD as Nectar by Black Azalea. Joachim opened the CD’s cover, glanced at the silvery disk, and then handed it to Jan.
“Smart boy you’ve got there,” Joachim said.
Jan looked first at the case and then read a note scratched across the CD.
“First Plateau.”
Alive! He was alive when he wrote this!
&nb
sp; Jan’s brain whirred into action. He pulled out a palm-sized handheld computer, typed in a few coordinates, and a map showing the Murderküll glacier and its plateau levels appeared. His eyes panned the glacier’s icy façade.
“Damn!” Jan said.
“What?”
Jan looked at Joachim, pointed to the slit in the ice, and said, “It’s not a long climb, but it’s straight up and through that!”
Joachim eyed the vertical rip in the glacier’s otherwise unbroken face. The raging storm swirling high up on the glacier’s rim stood in surreal contrast to the eerie silence that surrounded the glacier’s base.
“Victor,” Jan said, “you stay here with the Jeep.”
“No! I want to go with you.”
“That’s not an option, Victor. You’re not trained to do this kind of thing.”
“But… Louis. I….”
“What I said before still goes. You’d better pray he hasn’t hurt my son.” Jan turned to Joachim. “Okay, I guess this is it. Ready?”
Joachim nodded to Jan and then led the way toward the glacier’s frozen heart.
Forty-Four
“FINALLY!” Louis gasped as he pulled Colin up and out of the crevasse, which had narrowed into an upward slope.
The climb from the valley to the first plateau was an indictment against excess. Strewn with boulders and large blocks of jagged ice, the area of no more than a few hundred square feet was little more than a flat shelf. A narrow pass opposite the crevasse Louis had just left was the only way inland. Eyeing the plain made up of sheets of thin shale, ice, and frozen snow, he vowed if he got back alive, he would join a gym, swear off red meat, and perhaps even beer. He looked around the empty ledge. Ben’s promised allies, and more importantly his money, were conspicuously absent.
Shit! So where the hell are they?
Colin collapsed on his side and pulled the jacket Louis had given him tighter around his chest. He looked anxiously back for Zan. Louis grabbed him by the hair and pulled the boy to his feet.
“Get up, get up! We’ve no time for that,” he growled, just as Ben prodded Alexandra over the rocky rim.
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