by Tom Clancy
He wanted to return to America, with its free air and ready indulgences. Even to go to a place like Thailand or Malaysia, where he could live like a king — what would be the point? If it meant giving up greater glories, the chances of appreciating moments like the one that lay ahead of him, what would be the sense?
“Boat’s clearing,” said the pilot.
“Very good.”
His men in the speedboat, carrying off the professors. He had actually considered keeping them alive — he did owe them a debt of gratitude — but in the end, he judged that this treasure was simply too valuable to jeopardize. The two men would not reach the shore.
The fact that Elata had been treated differently by the Italian bothered Morgan. His men, of course, would find him, but it raised the possibility — distant but distinct — that this was an elaborate fraud and that Elata was involved in it. It would be foolish to try to cheat Morgan, but men did foolish things all the time.
The Italian was no doubt halfway to Milan by now. He might as well go to Antarctica, for all the good that would do him if the Picassos proved to be fake.
The helicopter pitched its nose downward, passing over the fortress twice. Morgan’s men had already searched it using IR sensors; they’d swept it for booby traps and neutralized the electronic surveillance system. What they hadn’t done was establish a suitable place for a helicopter to land. The castle covered the entire island; while there were two courtyards, neither was particularly large, and the pilot feared he’d damage the rotors on the side wall even of the biggest.
“I can take you back to the shore and meet the speedboat,” suggested the pilot.
“Not viable,” said Morgan. “I’ll climb down.”
“Long way to go, even if we had a ladder,” said the pilot. “Which we do not.”
“The boat landing then.”
“I can’t get in with those rocks.”
Morgan considered waiting for his people to finish with the professors. But every night — and every morning, and every afternoon — since meeting the Italian, he had taken out the photocopies and reexamined them. He had decided beyond question to keep the bull and the infant; he suspected, in fact, that he might eventually decide to keep them all. Fifteen million dollars was a minuscule amount of his fortune. Compared to the true worth of the paintings, it was laughable.
If they were real. Elata and the others had said they were, but he had to see himself.
“Get as close as you can and I’ll jump. Hover over the boat landing.”
When he was younger, Morgan had been a good enough athlete to play first-string soccer through college. He still worked out every day and, largely because of his stomach problems, was not horribly overweight. But the wash from the helicopter blades and the craft’s jittery approach nearly unnerved him as it hovered near the wall. The Sikorsky’s stowed landing gear made it impossible for him to climb down, and while the pilot was able to get closer than he’d thought to the wall, there was still a considerable distance between Morgan’s legs and the stones as he lowered himself out the doorway.
But he remembered the face of the child. Holding his breath, he let go.
Morgan landed on the smooth stone ramp, a good two feet from the edge of the water. He tottered forward, but easily regained his balance. There was more room here than it seemed from the air, he decided. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he walked up the ramp into the empty castle.
The paintings were in the small courtyard, ahead on the left. His heart began pounding heavily, his feet slipped, his head buzzed.
Smaller than he imagined, though he had pored over every detail beforehand, the paintings stood on cheap wooden easels in staggered rows at the middle of the twenty-by-ten-foot atrium. His glimpse of the first left him disappointed; the perpendicular outline of the lantern outline in the teeth of the horse played poorly against the boldness of the flaming background.
But his next step took him in view of the child. Morgan felt the mother’s hand clawing with despair, grasping for the last breath draining the infant’s lungs. The baby’s eyes — top closed, bottom fixed upward — took hold of his skull. Morgan took another step and felt his senses implode.
Who could have faked such work? No one, not even Elata.
He walked to each canvas as if in a dream. He touched each in succession, running his fingers around the edges of the canvas, tracing the edge of the stretcher at the back.
My God, he thought — war provoked this. Violence begat such awesome beauty.
The helicopter revved outside. Morgan remained fixed, lost in a trance. Finally, after he had seen each painting again, after he had absorbed each one’s beauty and ugliness — yes, of course they contained ugliness, they had to, as man possessed good and evil — he took each with great care and placed them in the vinyl cases the Italian had left. Then he made seven stacks, and carried two out toward the helicopter.
The pilot had put out his landing wheels and managed to perch at the edge of the ramp. The rotor continued to turn, albeit slowly.
“Help me!” Morgan yelled as he struggled with the door.
“I’ve got to hold the aircraft,” shouted the pilot. “We’ll slide into the water if I don’t.”
Morgan carefully slid the paintings into the rear of the craft.
“There are twelve more,” said Morgan.
“Wait!” the pilot yelled as he started to go back. “You have a message — a radio message.”
“What?”
“Here.” The pilot handed him the headset and then fiddled with the radio control. Morgan, leaning into the helicopter, put it on.
“What?” demanded Morgan.
“The Swiss have arrested Constance Burns,” said Peter. He must still be aboard the boat — Morgan could hear the motor’s drone in the background. Of course — they would be running south for Italy, having panicked and initiated the backup plan.
So be it. They were small insects who could be dealt with at a more convenient time.
“Danke schön,” said Morgan simply. “Thank you very much.” He reached to pull the headset off.
“Interpol was involved,” said Peter, flustered by his employer’s nonchalance. “The Kommando der Flieger has been alerted.”
“Danke,” repeated Morgan, removing the headset. Swiss Air Force or no, he would take every Picasso from the castle. He clambered back across the ramp, losing his footing because the spray from the helicopter made the rocks slippery. He dropped one of the paintings on the way back, held his breath as it careened toward the water, propelled by the wind. It smacked against the wall, pinned there until he retrieved it.
“Turn off the rotors,” he told the pilot when he reached the helicopter.
“We’ll slide into the water.”
“I’ll take the chance,” he told him.
“We may not be able to take off.”
“Turn them off,” said Morgan in a voice so strong it could have killed the engine on its own.
* * *
The heavy drone of the Aérospatiale Alouette III’s Turboméca made it nearly impossible for Nessa to hear the transmission, so even if she had spoken German and could have deciphered the heavy Swiss accent, she would have had trouble understanding what was being said.
The ever-helpful Captain Theiber, sitting in the rear compartment behind her, had no difficulty, however. In his calm baritone voice, he supplied a concise interpretation when the transmission was complete.
“Two jets from Fleigerstaffel 8 have taken off from Meriringen,” he said. “That’s north of us. A pair of trainers from Magadino are airborne as well. They are propeller-driven, but they should match a helicopter. And a liaison is contacting NATO. Herr Morgan will not escape.”
“I’m confident,” said Nessa, though she felt anything but. Having rallied such vast resources, she had better end up with something in her net besides the gorgeous scenery.
And a case of airsickness, which had started to creep up her esophagus.
&nb
sp; “The lake,” said the pilot.
The edge of a blue-green bowl opened in the white and gray ahead. A town, two towns, lay to the right. The pilot had the throttle full bore — they whipped forward at just over two hundred kilometers an hour.
“Ten minutes,” predicted Theiber. “Less.”
“The PC-7’s will approach from the west,” said the pilot, pointing in the distance. “Castello Dinelli will be straight ahead.”
Nessa leaned straight ahead, willing it to appear.
* * *
Morgan’s ankle had started to swell and his knees were deeply bruised from his falls by the time he slid the last painting into the helicopter. He had to shove his chest to the side awkwardly to get into the craft, which was listing and had its left forward wheel underwater. The pilot’s frown did not lift as the rotors whipped into action; he wrestled with the controls as the aircraft began bucking violently.
“Go!” commanded Morgan.
“I’m trying,” growled the pilot.
Morgan buckled his seat belt and leaned against the seat as the helicopter pitched upward. Falling on the rocks had temporarily fatigued him, but as he thought of the paintings he now possessed, his characteristic bonhomie returned. “Now, now,” he told the pilot. “Come — you’ll be richly rewarded. Let us fly back to Zurich now.”
The helicopter trembled for a few moments more, but began gradually to lift steadily. The pilot’s frown faded.
Then a dark cross appeared a bare meter from the windshield and the Sikorsky lurched sideways to duck it.
* * *
“Shit! Don’t ram them!” shouted Nessa. “Tell them not to ram him!”
The two Pilatus PC-7’s buzzed in front of the Sikorsky so close, it seemed as if one of the wings would clip the rotor.
“It’s under control, I’m sure,” said Captain Theiber. He leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder.
A few minutes before, Nessa would have reached up and touched his hand with her fingers. But the captain’s tone suddenly felt patronizing.
“Can you reach them on the radio?” she asked the pilot, ignoring Theiber.
“That switch,” he said. “The international emergency band.” His own hands were busy — he ducked the Alouette to the right as the Sikorsky began skittering away from the two orange-red Swiss Air Force planes.
“Helicopter leaving Castello Dinelli, this is Interpol,” said Nessa. “You are ordered to follow the directions of the Commando Fliers.”
“Kommando der Flieger,” corrected Captain Theiber over the circuit.
“Yeah, thanks.” Nessa flicked his hand off her shoulder. “Follow our directions and you won’t get hurt. You are to follow us back to the Magadino airport.”
The Sikorsky began powering away southward. It was a civilian version of the American Blackhawk combat helicopter, and its twin turboshafts could propel the helicopter more than twice as fast as the Alouette — and in fact could give the two small trainers a decent run if its maneuverability was used correctly.
It was not, however, in any way a match for the F-5E’s the Swiss Air Force had scrambled, which chose this moment to close from the rear.
“You’re surrounded. Give up,” said Nessa. “Mr. Morgan can’t possibly pay you enough to die for. We can arrange a deal, I’m sure.”
* * *
Morgan punched the radio with his fist. Interpol? How in God’s name had the inept bastards traced him here?
“We have to land,” said the pilot.
A silvery-gray object whizzed down from overhead, whipping across the lake in front of him. The helicopter pilot threw the Sikorsky around, heading back toward the castle. Another helicopter, probably the one with the woman who had been speaking to them over the UHF band, was heading for them.
“We have to land,” repeated the pilot.
There were always contingencies; there were always escape routes. When the Americans had closed in on him for that tax nonsense, he had found a way to get out. There would be an escape now.
Morgan thought of the eyes of the child in the painting. One closed, one open.
“The jets are firing at us,” said the pilot.
“Fly into the helicopter,” said Morgan, pointing ahead.
“Into it! You’re insane.”
“They’ll veer off,” he said. “The jets will back off.”
“And then?”
“Then we will think of what to do next.”
* * *
“He’s heading right for us!” Nessa shouted as the Sikorsky came on.
They were low to begin with. The pilot veered to get out of the way, and the aircraft’s doors and rotor blades practically touched the lake.
“Get the sodding buggers!” said Nessa, clenching her teeth against the rising bile.
* * *
For three hours, the German bombers attacked Guernica. First they hit it with explosives and firebombs. The people of the town fled into the nearby fields, seeking shelter. The planes followed them there, strafing victim after victim, the aircrews laughing as the bullets danced into the bodies. Red blood pooled everywhere. There was no escape.
Morgan would not be captured. It was not a matter of spending time in prison, or being paraded around as an international prize. He would not give up the Picassos.
“Where do you want me to go?” asked the pilot calmly as the other helicopter veered away. Castello Dinelli sat in the water about a half kilometer away. “Should we land back near the speedboat dock, or follow them all the way to Magadino?”
“Neither,” said Morgan softly. “Go for the castle.”
“It’s fifty meters away. Then what?”
In answer, Morgan slipped the small Glock from his belt and shot the pilot twice in the head. His body slumped forward, but the aircraft continued ahead, its trajectory edging slightly downward but still aimed at the stone walls.
It was not the contingency he had wanted, but there was the consolation of having owned the Picassos, if only for an hour.
* * *
Nessa watched the Sikorsky slow as it approached Castello Dinelli.
“I think they’re going to try to land on the castle island, maybe in one of the courtyards,” she said.
The Sikorsky glided toward the yellow stone rampart, its nose tipping lower. It seemed to hesitate, then slide to the left, then crumple into a red burst of flames as it smacked into the wall.
“No!” shouted Nessa. “No, no, no!”
The only answer was a spray of black and red as the Sikorsky’s fuel tank exploded.
SIXTEEN
COLD CORNERS BASE, ANTARCTICA MARCH 13, 2002
Nimec had owned a motorcycle when he was in his twenties, and had rented a snowmobile on two separate winter vacations with his ex-wife and son. Riding them was similar, but it could be dangerous to think they were exactly alike. A snowbike’s lower center of gravity demanded a light touch when you leaned and cornered. There were differences in surface traction speeding across snow and ice. And you had to keep your feet on a snowmobile’s running boards, avoiding the habit of kicking one of them out for balance. That was bad enough on a cycle because it could easily hit a road obstruction; it was worse when deep snow might drag hold of you, tearing up an ankle or knee.
He was not a man to make foolhardy mistakes.
Waylon’s experience qualified him for the lead position, and Nimec had jumped his machine out of the utilidor’s exit ramp right at his back, the others following in single file as Cold Corners One vanished behind them in a swirling curtain of snow.
Nimec thought about their next move as they approached the dome. He couldn’t make assumptions about his opposition’s force size or resources. He didn’t have time to worry about their reasons for striking at the base. But their strike’s intent was clear; they’d stuck it to one of the CC’s critical life-sustaining functions, and the immediate question was what they would do next. Whether they would break for it, or wait to ensure that the bleeding they’d infl
icted wasn’t stopped.
He gripped his handlebars, plunging directly into the teeth of the wind, his knees bent against the snowmobile’s metal flanks, its powerful engine vibrating underneath him. The best he could manage was a guess, and that guess would determine his tactics. Meaning it had damned well better be a good one. So what did he know about the men who’d hit the water-treatment plant?
The important things weren’t hard to deduce. He didn’t know where they’d come from, but there was only cold desolation for miles around. Since they hadn’t popped out of a hole in the sky, he presumed they must have traveled a very long distance. Someone would need extensive skill and knowledge of the terrain to manage that under the best of circumstances, and in this storm it would be incredibly rough going by any means. In fact, it would have seemed unthinkable to Nimec just a small packet of minutes ago.
Whoever these people were, they had already demonstrated themselves to be capable, selective about their target, and committed to taking it out. Above all, they had shown they had moxie to spare. They would count on the weather getting worse before it got better, know it would be impossible to remount their strike, know they only had one real shot. Nimec thought it apparent that they’d hoped to accomplish their mission on the sneak — but say they had a notion they’d been discovered. They definitely would’ve had to contemplate it. Would men of their caliber and determination withdraw before they were positive of success?
Nimec wondered about it a second. Would he?
“Waylon, you reading me?” he said into the voice-activated radio headset under his hood.
“Loud and clear.”
“How far to the dome?”
“Close,” he said. “Under a thousand yards.”
Nimec was taken by surprise. That was much too close. He couldn’t see anything past Waylon’s tail, and had no intention of rushing in blind.
“Okay,” he said. “Listen up. Here’s how I want to do this… ”
* * *
Snow splayed around Burkhart’s bike as he brought it to a stop. The dome was just ten or fifteen yards to his left, its tetrahedral planes and angles smeary in his vision.