Operation Doomsday

by Paul Kenyon

  The entire pop-tent lifted, Karp and all. He looked startled.

  Outside, Gorev turned around and stared in amazement. The tent was rising off the ground. Underneath the seven-foot dome was a pair of naked female legs. Very shapely. The thought filtered through his mind that it looked like a walking breast.

  Then he recovered and ran toward the levitating tent with the hunting rifle in his hand.

  Inside, Penelope, her arms crucified to the supports, tilted the tent. Karp tumbled backward in a pratfall, his feet high in the air.

  She let the tent down, hard, and pulled both feet back inside. They shot forward like a double hammer straight into Karp's crotch. The heels crushed the spongy tissue between Karp's legs to jelly. He screamed.

  There was no time to waste on him. Her right foot flashed toward the Tikka shotgun-rifle lying on the floor. She hooked her big toe into the trigger guard and pivoted the weapon on its butt so that it faced the tent flap.

  Gorev poked his head into the tent just then. She curled her toe around the trigger and fired. The shotgun barrel went off with an earth-shaking blast. Gorev's head disappeared. His brain splattered against the tent fabric on either side of the flap like some kind of bloody Rorschach test.

  Instantly she swung the gun back toward Karp, her other foot levering the release for the under barrel.

  She needn't have bothered. Karp was dead. The karate kick she'd used could shatter pine planks or brick. She didn't want to think about what kind of mess was under Karp's pants.

  She rummaged through the scattered implements with her foot until she found the razor blade again. Balanced on her bottom, she raised her foot above her head and sawed at the ropes on her wrists until she was free.

  It was getting cold in the tent, with the open flap and the rent in the bottom. She shivered. She got back into the hot-suit, zipped it up, and turned the heating element to high.

  Cleaning up wasn't too bad. The remnants of Gorev's head had mostly been contained within the tent. She tied a duffle bag over the stump of the neck, and dragged the two bodies outside.

  She propped Karp and Gorev behind the handlebars of their snowmobiles and piled all their gear behind them. There was nothing except a trampled area in the snow and a dying fire to show that anyone had been there.

  A few hundred yards away was a frozen lake. She'd noticed the dark patches, beginning of the spring thaw, out on the ice.

  She set the snowmobile engines going and aimed the vehicles in low toward the lake. They glided in slow motion over the surface, the bodies bouncing behind the windscreens. Gorev's body, with a duffle bag for a head, looked like some kind of Halloween goblin.

  The snowmobiles sped over the ice, gathering momentum. They reached the dark patches. A moment later they were gone, plummeting like stones to the bottom of the lake. They'd never be found.

  The Baroness found a stimulant in her belt kit and popped it into her mouth. She'd need it. Her burns and bruises and pinpricks ached abominably. With a sigh, she unfolded her skis and bent to put them on. It was going to be a long push back.

  Chapter 9

  The Russian border was unmarked. They crossed it at midnight, by the light of a sun that hung a few degrees above the western horizon. It wouldn't set at all for a couple of months now.

  Penelope trudged beside Vana, clad in her Lapp clothes again. Chances were that somewhere out there in the snowy wastes, a pair of Russian binoculars were trained on them. But the Russians wouldn't bother to investigate closely. Too many migrating Lapps had passed this way in the last week or two. They kept coming across vast avenues of reindeer-trampled snow and the remains of cooking fires and little garbage heaps of discarded fish bones and coffee grounds.

  She and Vana were at the head of the herd. She was leading a buck with a bell around its neck by a long braided rope. Close behind was the reindeer they called Follower, drawing the rest of the herd behind him like a magnet.

  Vana stopped abruptly. The vast throng of animals and people behind him straggled to a halt. Vana frowned at the sight that lay in their path.

  Penelope advanced a few feet for a closer look. They were reindeer carcasses, at least half a dozen, though they were so torn and mangled that it was hard to be sure. Bits of frozen flesh and splintered bones lay strewn over the snow.

  "Volk!" Vana spat.

  He'd used the Russian word for wolf, probably without thinking. Like the other Lapps, Vana spoke a bastard mixture of the languages of the countries his tribe passed through, along with his own dialect But she'd never heard him use the Russian term before. Always he'd used the Swedish word for wolf, varg.

  She looked at him. His face showed nothing but anger.

  "This is the same one," he said, pointing at an enormous paw print with his staff. "The devil wolf, the one who kills for pleasure."

  She studied the carnage with him. They'd come across similar butchery several times in the last couple of days. Most of the carcasses were uneaten, just chewed up and played with.

  "How big a pack does your devil wolf lead?" Penelope said.

  He examined the circling tracks. "Forty, maybe fifty."

  "We're catching up with them, aren't we?"

  "Tomorrow, maybe the day after, they will catch our scent." He shook his head. "These are not wolves that will carry off a few sick animals, or pick off the strays. If they get in among the herd, they will kill and kill until they are too tired to lift their heads."

  He began moving forward again on his skis, making a wide circle around the dead animals so as not to upset the herd that was following them.

  The wolves began stalking them the next day. They stayed just out of sight: dim gray shadows in the distance that faded as you looked at them. The dogs were uneasy. A couple of wolf hunters, led by Aslak, picked up their rifles and went off on skis. They came back without having found anything.

  "The wolf is clever," Vana said. He hadn't bothered to go out with Aslak and the others. He sat by the fire and sharpened his knife.

  The wolves grew bolder. A count of stragglers the next day showed that a half-dozen reindeer had disappeared. And that night a pet calf, tethered outside one of the tents, was carried off. The wolf prints in the snow were eight inches across. The family dog lay nearby, its throat ripped out.

  A delegation came to Vana. "Tomorrow," he said. They muttered and went off. Vana continued to sharpen his knife.

  The next morning he came to Penelope's tent. "Don't feed your dogs today," he said, and turned to go.

  Penelope got through the day in a fever of anticipation. She stayed close to Vana, looking for signs, the two borzois tied to her sledge. She didn't want them running off on their own.

  The Lapps made camp about ten that evening. It was still light; the nighttime sun scudded in a low arc above the horizon, never setting, casting long goblin shadows over the snow.

  Penelope ate with Vana and Aslak, a simple meal of reindeer cheese and dried meat and blood soup, with the inevitable strong coffee. Vana had loaned her a wooden staff and a puuko — the long knife that every Lapp carries.

  Vana was stuffing sedge grass, the Lapp equivalent of thermal socks, into his reindeer-leather shatters, singing a joik to himself.

  "Gumpi don ednak vahag lek dakekam…"

  I curse you, wolf, flee far away. Penelope smiled at the words.

  Aslak looked up. "A woman. On a wolf hunt. I don't like it."

  Vana went on singing. "I'll kill you with my hunter's knife."

  Aslak stirred uneasily. "The wolves won't come tonight anyway," he said.

  Vana kept singing, a small anticipatory smile playing about his lips.

  Penelope stayed out of it. She sat cross-legged in her leggings and Lapp blouse, patting Stasya and Igor. Wharton had told her she was crazy to go after a pack of Arctic wolves with a knife and a stick. "The Lapps themselves use rifles," he'd said.

  "There's no point in doing it at all if I do it the easy way," she'd said. Wharton didn't understand. A kill
was a kill to him. Nobody understood, except Vana.

  Igor lifted his narrow head and whined.

  "Easy, boy," she said.

  There was a commotion outside. A child's voice cried, "Gumpi lae bottsuin!"

  Other voices took up the traditional warning. The wolf is in the herd!

  Vana got up without haste. He put on his long embroidered kofte over his underfrock, and donned his wolfskin coat over that. He nodded to Penelope and she got up too.

  Aslak was already at the tent flap with his rifle. He looked at Vana and flushed. That strange look passed between them again. Aslak put the rifle down and went out with only his knife and staff.

  The reindeer were milling around in panic. Through the teeming jam, Penelope caught the flesh of gray shapes. A Lapp raised his rifle, then lowered it in frustration, unable to fire.

  Penelope waded into the herd with the other hunters. The wolves were clever, eluding them in the confused mass. They were as bold as if the hunters were not there, cutting frightened animals out of the herd one at a time and ripping the living flesh away. The wolves faded away whenever a Lapp approached and went after another reindeer, leaving their meat. It was a slaughter.

  The borzois were pulling her left arm out of its socket. She held on to the chains grimly. It wasn't the time.

  She caught a glimpse of Vana through the sea of reindeer. Somehow he was facing a wolf, the only Lapp who had got that close. The terrible staff lifted and rapped the wolf on the nose. Vana crouched, moving like a flash, his knife hand a blur. Then he and the wolf were separated. The big gray beast, eight feet from nose to tail, lay dead on the ground.

  The Lapps had organized themselves into an advancing line that combed through the herd. A man screamed and went down. A wolf circled behind and got shot. The gray shapes flowed through the herd like quicksilver, getting out of the way, their long jaws snapping to take snacks of living reindeer flesh on the run.

  The nightmare shadows broke from the far boundary of the herd, running across the flat white land, getting out of rifle range before the Lapps could get clear.

  The great creature at the head of the pack was the one Vana called the devil wolf. With a shock of disbelief, Penelope saw that it was carrying a fawn in its jaws. The fawn must have weighed a hundred pounds, but the huge wolf was lifting it completely off the ground, his teeth in its throat, the body flung back across his shoulder. It didn't seem to slow him down at all.

  A few of the hunters had broken free of the packed reindeer and were firing at the wolves. The range was too great. The wolves knew it. They were running at a leisurely lope now, contemptuous of their adversaries.

  Vana was at her side.

  "Quickly!" he said.

  They put on their skis. The borzois were going wild, making the incongruous high-pitched yelping sounds that gazehounds utter when they want to hunt.

  Penelope unsnapped their leads. The big white wolfhounds shot forward like arrows. They streaked over the snow, side by side, following their ancient instinct to run in pairs. A cheer went up from the Lapps.

  Penelope pushed off with her skis, following them as quickly as she could. Vana was at her side. We make a fine brace of hunting animals too, she thought.

  The two dogs were already out of hailing range, speeding over the tundra at a deceptively easy gallop that gulped distance at close to fifty miles an hour. The wolves looked curiously over their shoulders and continued running. They didn't seem worried.

  Beside Penelope, Vana suddenly grinned. He increased his speed, and she drove her legs harder. They both were enjoying the sight, the tireless piston running of those two mindless machines for killing. Igor and Stasya didn't much resemble the aloof aristocrats that had posed with her in so many fashion photographs.

  The wolfhounds were at the rear of the pack now. They'd picked out their first quarry. It was a big brindle male wolf, running a little apart from the others.

  When the wolf saw them coming, he picked up his speed. But a wolf can't outrun a borzoi.

  They bracketed him, running easily on either side. It looked like a game. The borzois didn't seem at all menacing. Tall and heavy as the huge white dogs were, the wolf outweighed them by a good seventy pounds.

  He turned his head to the right to snap at Igor. Igor danced casually out of the way. Instantly, like a striking snake, Stasya fastened his teeth in the left side of the wolf's neck.

  It would have been all over for any other breed of dog. The Siberian wolf has enormously powerful neck muscles that can toss a full-grown donkey over his shoulder. Even Stasya couldn't have held on if he'd been alone.

  But when the wolf turned to deal with Stasya, Igor made the instinctive move that is bred into a borzoi's genes. Timing it to the split second, the big white dog grabbed the wolf by the other side of the neck.

  They dragged the wolf to the ground. He couldn't move his head in either direction. He'd stopped struggling by the time Penelope and Vana caught up.

  Igor wagged his tail.

  Vana said, "He is yours."

  Penelope drew the long Lapp knife and slid it expertly into the wolf. The two-hundred pound creature went limp, the fire dying in its eyes. The two dogs looked up for approval. Penelope patted them and praised them. They wagged their tails and took off again after the fleeing wolf pack.

  They picked off another couple of wolves and held them for Penelope. Then the pack, getting worried, began to protect its own.

  The borzois changed their tactics. Now they turned killers. They bracketed their chosen prey as before, but now, when the wolf whirled to snap at the dog that was grabbing its neck, the other dog darted in and ripped out its throat. It was done too swiftly for the wolf to react.

  The two wolfhounds roamed through the running pack, killing swiftly, dancing out of reach of the snapping jaws that sought to bring them down. Penelope and Vana skied past dead wolf after dead wolf, straining to follow.

  The pack was slowing down. The effort of trying to deal with the two borzois had cut its forward momentum. The pack drew closer for common self-defense, in effect being herded by the two terrible white dogs. A couple of wolves sat down on their haunches and howled.

  It was like skiing toward a collection of demons from hell. But Penelope didn't feel at all frightened. It was exciting, the most exciting thing she'd ever done. She could smell the rank fur, see the dozens of baleful eyes glaring. She laughed with the sheer joy of anticipation.

  A huge gray shape leaped at her. She swung the wooden staff the way she'd seen Vana do it. It thudded into the wolf's muzzle and knocked it to the ground, dazed. Before it could recover, she drew the sharp blade along its underside, splitting its belly in two. Another animal was after her. She whirled and hit it on the side of the head with the stick. She could hear the solid thunk, feel the blow jar her own spine. She slipped her hand under the snapping jaws and cut the beast's throat.

  The other Lapps were coming up fast. She could hear shots. Beside her, Vana was doing yeoman's slaughter, killing wolves with his own knife and staff. His coat and leggings were ripped and bloody, but there was a joyous unholy light in his eyes. The borzois worked the pack with the two humans, darting and snapping and harrying.

  Another wolf came at her. She swung the staff and missed. The wolf was still moving. One hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid flesh rammed into her legs and knocked her over. The wolf immediately went for her throat. She flung out her hand, and the wolf grabbed it in his jaws.

  She remembered what Aslak had told her. Don't try to pull free. She pushed hard, and the wolf swallowed her hand.

  She could feel the long fangs raking her arm. The arm was buried in the wolfs gullet to the elbow. The wolf was gagging. Her hand closed on something rubbery down there. She squeezed.

  It had all taken only a second or two. She brought up her knife hand and plunged the blade deep into the wolfs belly. She dragged the blade upward, through the dense wolf flesh, until it grated against bone. Carefully she worked her a
rm out of the dead throat. Her sleeve was in tatters.

  Around her, the Lapp hunters were mopping up the pack with club and gun and axe. The snow was littered with bloodstained gray bodies. The surviving wolves were taking off in all directions, forgetting to run as a pack.

  Aslak came up to her, a bloody knife in his hand. He shook his head. "A woman! To kill the wolf in the ancient way!"

  "Where's Vana?"

  He gave her a strange look. "He is gone. After the devil wolf, the leader of the pack."

  "I'm going after him."

  "No. The devil wolf is his."

  "You're right. He'd never forgive me."

  Aslak said, "Vana will not stop until he has caught the wolf. I must follow him and collect his clothes."

  "What are you talking about?" she said sharply.

  "A Lapp on skis does not rest when he is after a wolf," Aslak said. "Even in freezing weather like this, he will sweat. It is dangerous. He must throw away his clothing, piece by piece. If there is no one to follow and give him back his clothes after he has killed the wolf, he will freeze to death."

  The image came to her unbidden. Vana, the lean wiry body naked, gliding on skis in the killing cold, chasing a gaunt gray demon the size of a donkey.

  "Go quickly," she told Aslak.

  He set forth with another man, an elderly Lapp in a gay red and blue tunic.

  The Lapps were all around her, grinning and touching her shyly, like children.

  "Buurist, buurist!" they said. "God save you!"

  They made a fuss over the two dogs. Penelope clipped their leads back on and gave them to a pair of overjoyed little boys to take back to the encampment. The Lapps were babbling at her. A couple of them were already singing, improvising a new joik about her hunting prowess. She sighed. It was going to be a long night of partying.

  She was halfway back to the encampment when she felt something cold on her cheek.

  She looked up. Another snowflake was falling. And another.

  The Lapps were looking worried. "Mika kanhea," one of them said.