Cold War (2001)

by Tom - Power Plays 05 Clancy

  "You want a problem," Granger said, "you've got it."

  "What is this?" Nimec said. His gaze was fixed on Granger's drawn Beretta. "What the hell are you doing?"

  Granger stood there pointing it at Nimec, his expression masked by his goggles and balaclava. "It's like I said. You came here looking for a problem. But sometimes you find ones you don't expect."

  Nimec looked at Granger, remembered something that had occurred to him just a short while ago. When the chopper was lifting out of sight of the paleontologic expedition.

  The last known person in the world to set eyes on Scarborough and his team.

  The thought turned over in his mind with new, cutting significance.

  "That day in Bull Pass," he said. "You didn't just happen to see our people. You were scouting them."

  Granger held the gun steady.

  "Forget about a confession from me," he said. "Won't happen. I've got nothing to gain from it." He shrugged. "You'll just have to leave this world holding on to all your questions."

  Nimec lifted his eyes to Granger's covered face.

  "No," he said. "Not about you."

  Granger stiffened almost imperceptibly, the hand in which he clenched his gun tightening around its stippled rubber grip. Then he motioned its snout toward the crevasse zone beyond the marker.

  "All right, hero," he said, pulling his probe out of the snow. "I'm taking you for another walk."

  This time their walk was a short one. Moving behind Nimec, his gun held out between them, Granger suddenly ordered him to halt near a cluster of hazard wands some fifteen or twenty yards past the first red marker.

  He sidled around him toward the red-flagged bamboo poles, never lowering the Beretta.

  "Here," Granger said. "Let me show you something."

  He inched closer to the poles, extended his probe beyond them, and grooved its tip through the snow. Testing, exploring, prodding.

  Moments later Nimec heard a sound like a deep swoop of breath--a giant's breath. Then the icy crust underneath the probe gave way in a great matted hunk, breaking apart as it spilled into a wide-open hole it had covered from sight.

  Nimec stared into the crevasse exposed by the disintegrated snow bridge. Its jagged lips were about six feet apart and around the same length. He couldn't know how far down it went into the ice sheet, but the darkness filling it hinted at an evil drop.

  Granger stood eying him from behind the snout of the Beretta.

  "What you see is a pretty small crater," he said. "Deep and wide enough, though." He made a snorting sound that might have been intended as a laugh. "I always call holes like this hag's mouths. You curious why?"

  Nimec looked at him and said nothing.

  "It's because they're ugly," Granger said.

  Nimec continued to say nothing.

  "And because they're just the right size to be man-eaters," Granger said.

  Nimec just looked at him.

  Granger jammed his probe into the snow, then snorted out another humorless burlesque of a laugh.

  "What's wrong? Don't like my riddle?" he said. "Or maybe you're thinking about how you're going to miss another man-eater. Your friend Megan over at Cold Corners. She's got a helluva lot sweeter lips than the one that's about to gobble you up, huh?"

  Nimec was silent.

  "Well, okay. Whatever. No need to kiss and tell." Granger nodded to his left. "All you have to do is walk over to that hag's mouth over there. Right up to its edge. I'll take care of the rest."

  Nimec looked at him. Looked at the gun between them. What was it Granger had said to him after he'd almost taken that spill in the snowshoes? I know this has to be tricky. It was yet another comment that had suddenly taken on new and unforeseen meaning.

  Granger brought his gun up higher now.

  "Do it, hero. Walk. Show me how brave you are," he said, and raised the pistol another few degrees, bringing it level with Nimec's chest. "Do it or I'll shoot you dead where you stand."

  Tricky, Nimec thought.

  He turned slightly, took a half step toward the crevasse.

  Tricky.

  "You don't think I--" he began, giving voice to whatever words came into his mouth, intentionally breaking off, trying to sound like he'd really been about to say something as he feigned a slip on the ice and then thrust himself toward Granger in a sliding, lunging belly-dive.

  His arms reached for Granger's legs now, grappling them below the knees, knocking him off balance before he could recover from his stunned surprise.

  Granger teetered on his heels a second and fell over backward, driven by Nimec's weight and momentum. He grunted as the air went out of him, Nimec holding his legs in a tight clinch, his shoulders slamming hard onto the ice and snow.

  Somehow his right hand maintained its grip on the Beretta. All in a heartbeat Nimec saw the pistol sweep down toward him, broke his clasp on Granger, and boosted himself halfway on top of him, reaching for the strap from which his rejected metal snowshoes hung around his shoulder.

  Nimec swung the paddles at Granger's gun just as he squeezed the trigger, deflecting its barrel so the round fired harmlessly into space. He swung them twice again, hard, making contact both times, striking Granger on the wrist and knuckles.

  Nimec heard Granger's exclamation of sudden pain, glimpsed the Beretta flying free of his fingers as they involuntarily released it, a black projectile hurtling off against the whiteness.

  He also saw that both he and Granger had fallen precariously near the crevasse, their heads mere inches from its broken lip. Granger was heaving, grabbing, thrashing underneath him, his wild struggle to dislodge him moving their bodies closer to its edge--close enough for Nimec to hear miniature cascades of snow and ice spill down and away into its gaping emptiness.

  He did not waste an instant. Pushing off with his toes, he clambered further up Granger's body, got fully on top of him now, and brought an elbow down on Granger's throat, hacked it into his throat, catching him squarely in the windpipe.

  Granger made an umphing sound and went limp, sinking back into the snow, his chest seeming to collapse, his arms falling strengthlessly to his sides.

  Nimec gulped a breath. Then he rose onto his knees, straddling Granger, bunching his fists around the collar of the man's parka to pull his head and shoulders out of the snow.

  "You son of a bitch," he said. "Let's see what you've got to gain by talking now."

  NINETEEN

  COLD CORNERS BASE, ANTARCTICA MARCH 17, 2002

  MEGAN WATCHED PETE NIMEC AND RON WAYLON ENTER her office.

  "Red dog," Nimec said, shouldering through the door first.

  She remained quiet behind the desk, where she'd sat for over an hour, waiting for them to complete their latest interrogation of Russ Granger and report on whether they'd gotten anything out of him.

  Waylon pulled up a chair opposite her. Nimec strode over to the big Dry Valley satellite map.

  She looked at him.

  "I gather," she said, "you're going to explain what you mean."

  "Red dog," Nimec repeated. "It's the name of a card game I learned--"

  In your pool-shark days with your reprobate father, she thought.

  "--in pool halls when I was a kid," Nimec said. "My old man used to play with some Philly Inquirer beat reporters. Everybody's dealt five face-down cards. Then the dealer starts around the table, deals each player a card face-up. If the player owns a higher card in the same suit, he shows it and wins double his bet for that round. If he doesn't, he tosses his hand and his stake gets added to the pot. If they want to make the game more interesting, the dealer burns a card from the top of the deck . . . shows it to everybody, then tosses it to give the bank an edge."

  Megan nodded.

  "So Granger displayed a burn card when he let us know Scar and Shevaun Bradley are alive," she said.

  "Right."

  "What's he shown you now?"

  "The notch." Nimec stabbed a finger at the blue pin identifying the area
of Scout IV's disappearance. "They're being held prisoner in the notch. At some kind of underground base."

  Her eyes widened.

  "Pete, that's incredible. . . ."

  "Don't unbuckle your seat belt yet," he said. "He gave us the exact location. There's some kind of tunnel or mine shaft. He wouldn't tell us what's being dug up. Or stored. I figure he knows, or has a damned good idea--"

  "But that's another burn card he can show when it's advantageous to him."

  "Yeah. Granger's got a full deck. And he intends to use it to win himself the sweetest deal possible with INR at State, CIA, Interpol . . . whoever winds up with custody of the slug once they can sort that out."

  "Meanwhile he's playing UpLink . . ."

  "Dealing us what he figures we want most . . ."

  "The whereabouts of our people, in other words . . ."

  "In exchange for our agreeing to testify that he was cooperative when the time comes to face the music," Waylon said.

  Megan looked from one man to the other.

  "This explains a lot," she said. "Explains almost everything, in fact. Our rover coincidentally rolls too close to the notch . . . we'd programmed it to explore the area . . . and then whoever is out there in Bull Pass takes preemptive action. Disables or destroys it before we can receive telemetry that exposes their presence."

  Nimec was nodding.

  "Next our S&R team arrives," Megan said. "They pick up Scout's trail, follow it to where it ends--"

  "Come too close to the notch themselves with Granger sounding the alert . . ."

  "And stumble into the same concealed pitfall as the rover," Megan said.

  Nimec and Waylon gave her near-synchronous nods. Then they were all silent for some moments.

  "Why would they want to kill David Payton if they were going to let the others live?" Megan said.

  "Granger swears he doesn't have any idea," Nimec said.

  "And you believe him?"

  Nimec shrugged.

  "Hard to be sure, but my gut sense is he's on the level," he said.

  Waylon looked at Megan.

  "You know how Doc Payton was," he said. "I want to say the crew here got along with him. But the truth is there isn't anybody at CC that didn't have the urge to strangle him at least once." Waylon shook his head. "Don't get me wrong. It's terrible what happened to him. I wish it hadn't happened. But I'm thinking it's possible he could have done something to provoke it."

  There was more silence.

  "Okay," Megan said. "We have to make some decisions--"

  "Like how we get Scarborough and Bradley out, you mean?" Nimec said.

  Megan exchanged glances with him.

  "You know what I mean," she said. "It isn't that simple. I won't allow any more of our own to find themselves in a situation where they're easy targets. There's a question of how we can accomplish it. Whether we should request help--"

  "From who? And when's it going to reach us? I thought we went through this together once before. The boss got us the authority to act."

  "No argument about that," Megan said. "But we have a small force here . . . and a slice of it's been allocated to recovering function at the desalinization plant."

  "You know the pump kicked in for a little while this morning," Nimec said. It had been a good piece of news he'd gotten upon his return from Marble Point, where he and his rescue pilot had spent an overnight due to passing fog whiteout. "Don't ask me how the crew did it. For all I can tell they used string, scotch tape, and chewing gum. But they got it to show signs of life. And they figure to have some of its capacity back soon."

  Megan looked at Waylon.

  "How much?" she said. "And how soon?"

  "I'm estimating we can get to almost a quarter of our regular freshwater output in a couple of days. That's with four or five of us on it round the clock." Waylon spread his hands. "I can't guarantee the pump'll stay up, but if we lose it again manpower won't matter. We've done about all we can with the parts we've cannibalized."

  Megan shook her head.

  "I don't know," she said. "There are other considerations to weigh. Before she left yesterday, Annie Caulfield advised me about a range of problems we can expect because of the solar flares--"

  "Just another reason we should move fast."

  "Pete, we've already felt some effects," she said. "Though they haven't even emerged from the far side of the sun, it appears we've already had some irregularities in our satellite and radio connections. Dead spots." Megan gestured toward her timed-out desktop computer. "I've experienced them myself. Annie provided an access code for a turnkey NASA Web site. A half hour ago I tried to log on and access the latest models for when the activity's going to peak. And couldn't. The data link broke on me. It's still fouled up. We might be looking at periods when our radio connections go partially or entirely down over the next couple of days . . . can you imagine what kind of tactical problems that would lead to in the field?"

  Nimec nodded.

  "Yeah," he said. "But it'd be an equal disadvantage. The other side would run into the same complications."

  She shook her head. "Still . . ."

  "I'm no world-beater," Nimec said. "I wouldn't take anybody out there to the Valleys without a solid plan."

  "I'm not implying that. I trust you. But it's my job to measure the risks. Make the final decision. Nobody else can do it. I can't unload the responsibility. I own it. . . ."

  She trailed off, her features tight with concentration.

  Nimec watched her a moment. Then he stepped away from the map and softly rested a hand on her shoulder.

  "Meg, listen," he said. "One thing I learned from the boss . . . from Gord . . . is that part of owning it is knowing when to trust somebody enough to let go."

  Silence in the room.

  Megan sat with her face turned up toward Nimec's as that silence spooled out between them like an invisible thread. Then she took a deep breath, seemed to hold it a moment, and released a long, deep sigh.

  Nimec could feel her muscles loosen under his palm.

  "You said you've come up with a plan?" she said.

  "No," he said. "Not me."

  She looked at him.

  "Who?" she said.

  Waylon thumbed his chest, moved his shaved head up and down in a single nod.

  "You," she said.

  He nodded again, his long-sword earrings gleaming softly under the fluorescent lights.

  Megan half smiled.

  "Tell it to me, Ron," she said.

  "Sure," he said, "I was just waiting for you to ask."

  And then he told her.

  Bull Pass

  Burkhart did not decide upon a conclusive plan of action until several hours after Granger failed to report--convincing him the pilot's true failure was more critical than that.

  The plan's crucial elements, however, had germinated in his mind much earlier. In fact, its rough contours had emerged after his return to Bull Pass. He had known that even Granger's success--his elimination of UpLink's head of security--would only forestall the inevitable.

  Looking backward, Burkhart could see the road to his fall so clearly. With all veils of conceit and ambition lifted from his eyes, now he could see. The destruction of UpLink's robotic probe, his taking of its recovery team, his exposed sabotage attempt and the bloodletting that followed, and at last, his hastily necessitated reliance on Granger to do what Burkhart had recognized was far beyond the pilot's competence . . . from the day he'd set foot on that road, and perhaps onto the many forking junctures he had walked along the way, it now seemed there had been something almost deterministic about where he was headed.

  Gabriel Morgan was dead. The Albedo Consortium's vast and elaborate underpinnings were on the verge of complete breakdown, a thunderous crash that would send legal and political ground quakes through scores of nations.

  What options remained before him then? What roads on which to push toward success . . . or if not that, then some little measure of sel
f-redemption? There was no way to erase--or substantially reduce--the evidence of the uranium digging and transshipping operation in whatever scant time was left to him. Not even if the mines were razed would that evidence be concealed for long. He could, perhaps, physically remove himself from it, arrange to be carried off in a small plane from one of the South American gateways . . . but that would mean abandoning all or most of his men.

  They were men who had fought bravely beside him. Men who had been loyal and true to him in the darkest face of his own failure.

  He would not do it.

  Would not desert them.

  Deep beneath the frozen earth, Burkhart had decided to make his stand in the pass above, and hold the high ground where he was certain the enemy would show his own resolute face.

  Cold Corners Base

  "These ATVs were shipped from Kaliningrad a few months back, when they ordered and got themselves updated models," Waylon was saying. "They're two-passenger, fully automatic, and have noise-dampened engines. Our field researchers love zipping around in them."

  Megan stood beside Nimec and Waylon in the heated garage arch outside CC1, looking at the ten parked, neatly aligned vehicles, and remembering.

  "They were used by Max Blackburn in Operation Politika," she said. "I was . . . we were together in Russia at the time." She paused and glanced at Nimec. "When you and I signed off on the upgrade request right before leaving San Jose, it came to me that the older vehicles might be perfect for the ice. Waste not, want not, you know?"

  Nimec was quiet a moment. He had tried very hard to ignore the sadness in her voice as she'd spoken of Max.

  "Their VVRS pintle guns," he said. "They were transported with the ATVs?"

  Megan nodded.

  "And stored away, yes. It's ironic, I suppose, that we stripped down the weapons. It was the one feature we never thought we'd need here."

  Nimec nodded thoughtfully.

  "Waylon, you grab some men, take care of getting the guns remounted," he said. Then he turned to Megan. "In the meantime we better see about getting those extra choppers from MacTown."

  Bull Pass