Earthfire North

by Nick Carter

  Josepsson's car was nowhere in sight. But the dirt track led off to the right about two hundred and fifty yards, going between two mounds that looked like the breasts of a gigantic woman lying back.

  "Roberta and I will have a look-see," Ari said to Paul, "while you bring up the car."

  "No heroics," Paul said, and he went back to the car as Ari and Roberta headed down the dirt track that Josepsson's car had to have followed.

  Paul was just coming over the crest of the hill when she and Ari rounded the curve. She had expected to see the road continuing off into the distance. Instead, across the far side of the mound was a large steel door, almost like an air raid shelter. It was open.

  One of Josepsson's gigantic men popped out from below and immediately opened fire.

  Ari raised the Uzi and fired from the hip, catching the man in the chest, spinning him around and back inside.

  Paul came up with the car, jumped out, and raced over to them.

  "What happened?"

  "One of Josepsson's guys," Ari said.

  The three of them approached the open door cautiously. Josepsson's man lay dead on the floor of a very large, immaculately clean room. Valves and dial faces adorned the far wall. A door off to the left was open, the sound of heavy machinery running very loud now.

  Ari motioned for Paul to take the right side of the door while he and Roberta took the left. Weapons at the ready, they raced across the control room and looked down.

  The door opened onto a catwalk that looked down into a two-story-deep room filled with a maze of multicolored pipes, valves, and other equipment. It was very hot here, and the noise of the machinery seemed to be changing pitch… to a much deeper, almost off-key rumbling.

  The other bodyguard trotted into view below, and when he spotted them up on the catwalk, he ducked back out of sight. They returned to the control room.

  "Josepsson," Ari shouted down, but his voice was lost to the noise.

  The bodyguard came back around the pipes, fired several shots up at the doorway, the slugs ricocheting off the metal catwalk. Then he ran to the bottom of the stairs and started up.

  Ari turned through the doorway and fired a burst down the stairs, making a bloody pulp of the man's chest, sending him tumbling backward down the stairs.

  A second later Josepsson came running around the corner, waving them away and shouting something they could not hear. Ari almost shot him until he realized the man was not armed.

  Josepsson got about five paces away from the corner joints of a mass of pipes when the machinery noise suddenly exploded into a cacophony of explosions, high-pitched screams, and discordant rumblings. The Icelander was engulfed in a tremendous billow of high-pressure, superheated steam, dying instantly.

  "This place is going to blow!" Ari shouted, his voice all but lost. "They must have overloaded the pumps!"

  They scrambled back away from the doorway, raced through the main door outside, and got to the jeep just as the ground underfoot began to shake ominously.

  Paul had the jeep started as Roberta leaped in the back seat, and he spun it around in a tight circle and headed away as fast as he could shift through the gears.

  They just made it over the crest of the hill when an ear-splitting explosion shattered the morning stillness, both mounds behind them rising straight up.

  Whatever had been down there was not there any longer, but ail that Roberta could think about was Nick Carter, whom she was convinced now had returned to the reactor site to finish the job he had set out to do, and to rescue her.

  Ziegler's car was a very large, dark Cadillac limousine. Carter started it and brought it around to the front of the house. He opened the rear car door, then went inside to the study and returned carrying Ziegler's body. He propped the body up in one corner of the back seat, strapped a seat belt around him, then headed back through Reykjavik and out to the reactor site.

  At least Roberta wasn't dead yet. He had learned that much from Ziegler. Beyond that meager information he had no idea where she was or in what condition she might be in.

  But he damned well was going to find out, and anyone who got in his way would be dead. Instantly.

  With his Luger on the seat next to him. Carter accelerated out of town, and soon he was doing better than a hundred miles an hour down the narrow, blacktopped road. In his mind was nothing but a single direction, a single operation. And when it was finished, either he would be dead or a lot of others would be if they got in the way.

  At that speed, he made it out to the turnoff in less than an hour, and he didn't slow down very much as he barreled down the dirt road, the car's heavy-duty springs bottoming out several times on the ruts.

  When he came within sight of the front gate, however, he slowed down and checked in the back to make sure Ziegler's body hadn't fallen over, the general looked like a tired man staring out the window on the opposite side, lost in thought.

  Carter stopped just at the gate, and the guards, recognizing the car, swung the shaky barrier open and waved them through. Carter waved back as he passed, then half turned and opened and closed his mouth as if he were talking to Ziegler.

  The ruse worked, and he drove up to what he took to be the administration center, where he went behind the building to the parking area and pulled up next to a truck.

  There was a lot of activity on the site today, but no one noticed as Carter reached back, unstrapped the seat belt holding Ziegler's body, and pushed it over down onto the floor, out of sight.

  Pocketing his Luger, Carter got out of the car, went across the parking area, and entered the building. The place was humming with activity, and Carter stopped the first man he passed.

  "Is General Ziegler's secretary still here?" he asked.

  "Of course," the harried man snapped. He pointed down the corridor to the left. "She's in her office, I assume." Then he was gone.

  Carter hurried down the corridor and into the reception area. A young woman was seated at a desk. "Is General Ziegler's secretary in?"

  "Yes," she said. "Just through there." She pointed over her shoulder and looked up. "But the general isn't here."

  "I know that," Carter said. He went around her desk and entered the general's outer office without knocking. A man in coveralls was seated on the desk, talking with a young, blond woman. They both looked up when Carter came in. The man jumped up.

  "Can I help you?" he said.

  Carter closed the door behind him and pulled out his Luger. "For your sake you'd better hope so," he said.

  The man stepped back, nearly falling over the desk.

  "Oh," the young woman said.

  "There was a woman here. General Ziegler has her. Where is she?"

  The man hesitated.

  Carter raised the Luger and flipped the safety off. The man blanched.

  "She was here. But she's gone. Two men took her."

  "You're lying!" Carter snapped.

  "No. I swear it. Two of them got in the compound somehow. They killed four of our people. They're gone."

  "When?"

  "Hours ago."

  Carter didn't think he was lying. There was no reason for it. He stepped aside and motioned toward the door with his gun. "Let's go."

  "Where?" the woman asked.

  "For a ride. I have the general's car outside." He pocketed the gun but kept his hand on the butt, his finger curled around the trigger. "I will not hesitate to kill you if either of you makes the slightest false move. Do you understand?"

  The girl and the man nodded as they edged around the desk to the door.

  "If anyone asks where you're going, we've been summoned by the general."

  The man nodded, and Carter motioned for the door. They all went out. No one challenged them as they went down the corridor and out the back door.

  "You can drive," Carter said to the man. "You next to him," he instructed the girl. He wanted them both up front, because he had no idea how they would react if they saw Ziegler's body.

  "You
're the one who was here last night… setting the explosions," the man said. Carter gave him the keys, and he started the car.

  "That's right. Only now you're going to help me finish the job. And if you both behave, you won't get hurt."

  "But General Ziegler…" the girl started.

  "He's gone. He won't be back," Carter snapped. "Let's go."

  The man backed out of the parking area, and Carter directed him further within the compound to the small shed that contained the dynamite. They backed up to the door.

  Carter took the keys, and he and the man got out.

  "If you run, miss, I'll come after you and kill you. If you stay here and behave yourself, you'll live through this."

  "Yes, sir," the frightened woman said.

  Carter opened the trunk, and he and the workman loaded it with four boxes of the dynamite. Then they closed the trunk lid.

  Back in the car, Carter directed the man back to the construction road, and they headed up the hill to the reactor building.

  "You can't do this," the workman said.

  "Yes, I can, and I will," Carter said. "Stop the car."

  The workman complied. They were still several hundred yards around from the reactor core control support.

  "Out. Both of you. And you'd better run like hell away from here, because within a couple of minutes there's going to be one hell of an explosion."

  The man and woman leaped out of the car and headed directly across the rock-strewn field as Carter climbed behind the wheel and took off up the hill to the reactor core support.

  The big car slewed around in the gravel at the base of the massive concrete support, and Carter jumped out, opened the trunk, and began piling the cases of dynamite against it.

  Two guards came around the corner. "Hey! What the hell are you doing?" one of them shouted.

  Carter pulled out his Luger and fired three shots, both men going down. He stacked the fourth case against the base of the support, then jumped back into the car and raced off down the hill.

  The compound siren began to wail as Carter pulled up behind a huge earthmover a hundred yards down from the core support base, jumped out of the car, and hurried around so that he had a clear sight line to the dynamite. From this distance he could barely make out the stacked-up boxes, but he drew out his Luger, got down on one knee, steadied the weapon in the classic shooter's position, and squeezed off the first shot.

  A puff of concrete dust rose from the core support a couple of feet above the boxes. He lowered his aim and squeezed off two shots, both low.

  Other sirens were wailing now, and the dirt began kicking up around Carter. They were shooting at him.

  Oblivious to that, he raised his aim, held his breath, and delicately squeezed off a fourth shot. Almost at the same instant the Luger fired, the dynamite exploded in a tremendous roar. Carter just managed to scramble back behind the huge earthmover when huge chunks of concrete, some of them larger than a car, began raining down from the sky.

  He ducked beneath the machine as the hunks of concrete and metal reinforcing rods slammed into the car.

  Gradually the debris stopped falling, and Carter scrambled out from beneath the earthmover and climbed back into the incredibly battered car that looked as if it had fallen off a mountain.

  It started and drove all right, however, and within seconds he was careening down the road, dodging the larger chunks of fallen concrete, to the main gate, which was half open.

  He was racing down the dirt road toward the highway when he spotted the jeep coming his way.

  He pressed harder on the accelerator, but as he passed the jeep he caught just a glimpse of Roberta.

  He slammed on the brakes, made a skidding U-turn, and started back at the same time the jeep headed toward him.

  They stopped together. "Nick! Nick!" Roberta screamed, leaping out of the jeep.

  Carter had his Luger at the ready as she fell sobbing into his arms.

  "We're friends, Mr. Carter," Ari said.

  "He's telling the truth, Nick!" Roberta screamed. "They saved my life."

  "We've got a Lear jet on the other side of Reykjavik. I think it'd be wise if we got the hell out of here."

  "I'll drive," Carter said, and they all piled into Ziegler's battered Cadillac, Roberta staring down at Ziegler's body.

  * * *

  The western shores of Iceland dropped away as the Lear jet headed up into the perfectly clear blue sky. Paul Ahrens was in the left seat, and Ari Ben Shamonn was in the right. Roberta had gone back into the cabin to rest, while Carter talked with the two Mossad agents.

  "You've been following us since Buenos Aires?" Carter was saying.

  "On and off. You lost us in Germany."

  "And in Washington?"

  "We missed you there, too. We were doing our homework. Although we did trace you and the girl to your apartment."

  Ari looked at his watch. "We've got a five-hour flight ahead of us. You might want some rest."

  "Washington?"

  "New York," Paul said. "You'll have to make it the rest of the way on your own, although if you get the chance, and your boss — whoever he is — gives you the go-ahead, we'd like a report."

  "I think mat can be arranged."

  Ari looked at Carter. "It would have been better if Ziegler had lived to stand trial, but I'm glad it happened the way it did."

  "Yeah." Carter said. "Me too."

  He turned and went back into the Lear's main cabin. The plastic windowshades had been drawn, and the cabin was in semidarkness. For a moment or two he couldn't see a thing.

  "Close the cockpit door, Nick," Roberta called out to him.

  He did, and when he turned back he began to make out Roberta's form. She had made up the small bed, and she was lying there, fully clothed.

  "Hold me," she said. "Please."

  He kicked off his boots and went back to her. It'd be a while before she'd be able to forget what had happened to her. Until then, or at least until the pain eased for her, he'd suck close… very close.