Blue & Gold

by Clive Cussler

  “Had you figured for some kind of government guys,” Tinook said knowingly. “Too clean for oil men or hunters and too sure of yourselves to be tourists. We had a NUMA team drop by a few years ago. They were doing research in the Chukchi Sea. What brings you to the Land of the Midnight Sun?”

  “We’re doing sort of a geological survey, but I must confess that we’re not having much success,” Austin said. “We’re looking for a point of land that sticks out into the water. It’s shaped like an eagle’s beak.”

  Tinook shook his head. “That’s my plane out there. I do a lot of flying when I’m not fishing or helping to tend the reindeer herd, but it doesn’t ring a bell. C’mon up to the store. We can look at a map.” They climbed a rickety staircase to the plywood building. It was the typical Alaskan general store, a combination of grocery, pharmaceutical, hardware, gift shop, and wilderness outfitter. Customers could take their pick from insect repellent, canned goods, snowmobile replacement parts, and TV videos.

  Tinook checked a wall map of the area. “Nope. Nothing like an eagle’s beak.” He scratched his head. “Maybe you should talk to Clarence.”

  “Clarence?”

  “Yeah, my grandfather. He used to get around a lot and likes visitors.”

  Austin’s eyes glazed over. He was impatient to get in the air again. He was trying to think of a diplomatic way to put Tinook off without hurting his feelings, when he noticed a rifle hung on the wall behind the counter. He walked over for a closer look. It was a Carbine Ml, the workhorse rifle carried by American infantrymen in World War II. He had seen M1’s before, but this was in exceptionally mint condition.

  “Is that your rifle?” he asked Tinook.

  “My grandfather gave it to me, but I use my own gun for hunting. That thing has got quite a story behind it. Sure you wouldn’t want to talk to Clarence? Might be worth your while.”

  Zavala saw Austin’s newfound interest. “I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs for a while longer. At least we don’t have to worry about getting home before dark.”

  Joe’s point was well taken. Daylight was more than twenty two hours long, and even after the sun set, technically, night was only a short period of dusk.

  Mike guided them along a muddy street past more shacks, gangs of round-faced children, sleeping huskies, and racks where crimson strips of salmon dried in the sun. He went up to the door of a shack smaller than the others and knocked. Someone inside told them to come in. They stepped into the one-room house. It smelled of wood smoke and something meaty cooking on a camp stove. The house was sparsely furnished with a bunk bed in one corner and a table covered with a red-and-white checkered oilcloth. A man who looked as old as a glacier sat at the table carefully painting a wooden polar bear figure about six inches high. Several others figures of wolves and eagles had been painted and lined up.

  “Grandpa, these men would like to hear the story about your rifle.”

  Dark Oriental eyes sparkled with intelligence and good humor from a face creased in a thousand wrinkles. Clarence wore dark-framed glasses, and his thick silvery hair was neatly parted on one side. His mouth widened in a grin that seemed to take over his whole jaw. Although he must have been in his eighties, he shook hands in a bone-crunching grip and looked as if he could still wrestle a sea lion to the floor. Yet the voice that should have been amplified by the powerful frame was as soft as wind-blown snow.

  His grandson said, “I have to go back to the shop. I’ll have the plane refueled by the time you get back.”

  “I make these for the gift shops in Anchorage,” the old man said, putting the polar bear and paints aside. “Glad you dropped by. You’re just in time for lunch.” He indicated a couple of rickety chairs, and, refusing the protests of his guests, he spooned the stew from the stove pot into some chipped willow-pattern china bowls. He took a big spoonful as if to show there was no harm in his cooking. “How is it?”

  Austin and Zavala tentatively sampled the stew and pronounced it quite good.

  The old man beamed with pleasure.

  “Is it caribou?” Zavala asked.

  The old man reached into a trash bucket and pulled out a can of Dinty Moore beef stew.

  “Mike’s a good boy,” Clarence said. “He and his wife buy me stuff so I won’t have to cook. They worry that I’m lonely since my wife died. I like visitors, but I don’t want to bore you men.”

  Austin looked around the room. The walls were decorated with primitive harpoons and Eskimo folk art. A Norman Rock well print with the boy sitting in the dentist’s office was hung in congruously next to a fierce walrus mask. There were family pictures, including many of a stout, handsome woman who could have been the old man’s wife. The most out-of-place object was a computer tucked in the corner. Grandpa Tinook saw Austin’s amused gaze and said, “It’s amazing. We’ve got the satellite so the kids can learn about the rest of the world. I can talk on that machine with anyone, so I’m never alone.”

  Clarence was no old blubber-chewing windbag, Austin deduced. He was sorry he had been in such a rush to avoid meeting him. “If you don’t mind, we’d very much like to hear your story,” he said.

  Grandpa Tinook noisily scooped up the last of his stew, put the bowls in the sink, and sat down again. He squinted as if the memory were hard to recall, but when he started to talk it was clear he had spun this tale before.

  “One day many years ago I was out hunting. There was some good trout and salmon fishing, fox to trap, and herds of caribou. I always got something. I had this little aluminum skiff and a fine motor. Got me around pretty good. It was too far to come home after the hunt, so I used to stay over a couple of nights at the old airfield.”

  Austin glanced at Zavala. Alaska is dotted with airfields hardly worth the name.

  “Where was this airfield?” he asked.

  “Up north a ways. Left over from the Big War. They used to ferry planes to Russia and used it as a stopoff. Blimps there used to look for subs. Not much left. There was a hut where I could light a fire and keep warm and dry. I could store game and smoke it there ‘til it was time to come home.”

  “How long ago was that?‘7

  “Oh, fifty years ago or so. My memory ain’t what it used to be. I remember when they said I had to stop going there, though.”

  ”171~y?”

  The old man nodded. “For months I never seen anybody. Then one day two men come by in a plane just as I’m cooking up some trout. Hard-lookin’ white men. They flash their badges, say they’re with the government and want to know what I’m doing. I give them some fish, and they’re a lot nicer. They say there’s going to be a big secret at the base and I can’t come there anymore. But they will buy any fresh meat and fish I can get them. One of them gave me that gun you saw so I could shoot game. I took them lots of game and fish, never to the base, though. I’d meet them halfway.”

  “Did you see any planes?”

  “Sure, lots coming and going. Once I was hunting and I heard one that sounded like a hundred rushing rivers. Big as this whole village and crazy shape.”

  “What kind of shape?”

  He went to the wall and took down a harpoon. Touching the sharp metal point with his finger, he said, “Something like this.”

  Austin’s gaze was unwavering. “How long did you hunt game for these men?”

  “‘Bout six months, I think. One day they showed up, said they didn’t need any more. They told me to stay away from the airfield. Didn’t want me to step on a mine. Said I could keep the rifle. They left in a big hurry.”

  Zavala said, “We’ve been looking for an old airfield supposed to be on a piece of land that looked like an eagle’s nose, but we can’t find it.”

  “Oh, sure, this place used to be like that. Things have changed from ice and wind. In the summer the water comes in from rivers and floods the land. Doesn’t look the same as it did back then. You got a map?”

  Kurt pulled the map from his jacket and unfolded it.

  Grandpa Tinook�
�s thick finger came down on a section of coast under the pencil shading. “Right here,” he said.

  “We must have flown right over it,” Zavala said.

  “Tell me,” Austin said, “those men, did they give you their names?”

  “Sure, Hewy and Dewy, they said.”

  Zavala chuckled. “I suppose Lewy was busy.”

  The old man shrugged. “I read Donald Duck when I shipped out on merchant ships out of Anchorage. They figured I musta ate whale blubber all my life. I let them think that.”

  “It was probably a good thing that you did.”

  “Like I said, they were hard men, although we became pretty good friends. I went back to the old base after the war. I think they just said that about the mines to scare me off. Felt like something had been poisoned and left to rot.” He paused thoughtfully. “Maybe you can tell me. One thing I always wondered. What was the big secret? We weren’t fighting the Japanese. The war was over.”

  “Some men can’t live without war,” Austin replied. “If they don’t have one they find another.”

  “Sounds crazy to me, but what do I know? Well, that was years ago. Why do you men want to go to that old place?”

  For once Austin was at a loss for words. He could have said how important it was to find an odd substance named anasazium before Gogstad got its hands on it and made worldwide mischief. But he suspected his real reasons were more visceral. The story of Buzz Martin’s father had smoldered in him and offended his sense of right and wrong.

  The best answer he could muster was, “There was a boy once who went to his father’s funeral, only his father wasn’t dead.”

  The old man nodded solemnly as if Austin had been the soul of clarity.

  Austin’s mind was already racing toward the task ahead. “Thank you very much for telling us your story,” Kurt said, rising. “And for lunch, too.”

  “Wait,” Clarence said. He perused the wooden figures he’d carved, picked out two, and gave one to each of the NUMA men. “Take these. The bear for strength and the wolf for cunning.”

  Austin and Zavala thanked the old man for his generosity.

  “Makes me feel better to give you some luck after telling you how to get to that place. You go back to that old base, I got the feeling you’re going to need it.”

  Chapter 30

  The Sun’s blinding reflection on the mirrored surface of the water had prevented a good look at the Eagle’s Beak on the first pass. Only a thin, ragged crescent of tundra could be seen, part of an inundated coastal plain ex tending into a pear-shaped bay. Zavala angled the plane so that the dark outline of General MacArthur’s nose was visible under the translucent covering of water. Austin gave Zavala the thumbs up. This is it. The thumb pointed down. Land.

  Zavala brought the plane around in a low sweep and flew the length of the peninsula at an altitude of about two hundred feet. The crooked finger of land was more than a mile long and less than half as wide. Blackwater marsh had encroached on its borders and added to the ravages of wind and ice that had distorted its original shape.

  “See how close you can get us to those moraines,” Austin said, pointing to the low, glacier-carved mounds that began where the peninsula joined the mainland.

  Zavala tapped the brim of his NUMA baseball cap. “No sweat. This baby can land on the head of a pin. Stand by for a picture-perfect landing.”

  Austin had every bit of confidence in his partner’s flying ability. Zavala had logged hundreds of hours flying every conceivable type of aircraft. There were times, though, when he had visions of Snoopy pretending his doghouse was a World War I Sopwith Camel. He pushed the thought out of his mind as Zavala circled the strip again, dropped into a long glide, and reduced speed until the plane’s floats skimmed the shallow water.

  The plane was about to set down smoothly when they heard a loud thump under their feet followed by the tortured sound of metal tearing. The plane snapped around like an amusement park ride. The two men were flung against their seatbelts like rag dolls. The spinning plane came to rest at a drunken angle. Zavala had the wind knocked out of him but managed to kill the engine.

  As the propeller spun to a stop Austin felt his head to make sure it was still attached to his shoulders. “If that was picture perfect, I’d hate to see a rough landing. What happened to the head of a pin?”

  Zavala adjusted his baseball cap and straightened his reflecting sunglasses on his nose. “Sorry,” he said with uncharacteristic humbleness. “They must be making pins bigger than they used to.”

  Austin shook his head and suggested they inspect the dam age. They climbed out onto the pontoons to be met by the local welcoming committee. A cloud of condor-sized Alaskan mosquitoes thirsting for human blood drove them back into the cockpit. After liberally dousing themselves with Cutter’s industrial-strength bug repellent, they ventured out again. They stepped off the plane into about two feet of water and examined the twisted metal around the right-hand float.

  “We’ll have some ‘splaining to do at the plane rental place, but we’ll be able to take off,” Zavala said. He sloshed back along their landing path. Moments later he bent over and said, “Hey, check this out.”

  Austin came over and examined a metal post covered by a few inches of water. Metal gleamed brightly where the top was sheared off and copper electrical wires dangled out.

  “Congratulations,” Austin said. “I think you found a landing beacon.”

  “The unerring Zavala homing instinct never fails,” Joe said as if he had hit the landing light on purpose. He expanded his search and within minutes located another light. This one had the glass lens and bulb socket still intact.

  Austin surveyed their surroundings and tried to get his bearings. It was easy to see why the remote spot was picked for a secret airstrip. The terrain was naturally as flat as an aircraft carrier and would have needed little grading. He looked toward the hills where the sun sparkled off a lacework of streams that pooled into the lake that hid the strip.

  They unloaded the plane, slung their packs over their shoulders, and waded toward the hills less than a quarter of a mile distant. Although they wore boots that kept their feet dry, the water sloshed onto their waterproof Gore-Tex pants, and they were glad the temperature was in the fifties. The water became shallower and turned into spongy bog, then they were crunching on permafrost as they made their way through patches of buttercup, wild crocus, and poppies. They spotted more landing lights, all leading in a line toward the hills. At one point they stopped and looked off at a huge flock of eiders floating over the marsh like a dark plume of smoke. With the unearthly quiet they could have been on the surface of another planet.

  Continuing their hike they came to the foot of an escarpment that angled sharply up from the ground. The elongated hill was round at the top and shaped vaguely like a loaf of Italian bread. Patches of black rock splotched with lichens and moss were visible through the thick vegetation that covered much of the hill. Austin thought it peculiar that the mound stood by it self, isolated from the nearest hills by several hundred yards. He mentioned his observation to Zavala.

  “Notice how the land here is flat except for this bump?”

  “If I were a geologist I might be able to make something of it.”

  “I was thinking more of the landing lights. They lead right to the face of this hill.”

  He stared at an exposed section for a moment, then put his face inches away and ran his fingers over the shiny surface. Using the large blade on his Swiss Army knife he poked at the rock and chipped off a thin piece about as big as his palm. He examined the material, then grinned and handed it to Zavala.

  “Paint,” Zavala said with wonder. He ran his hand over the shiny area exposed by Austin’s knife. “Sheetmetal and bolts. Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep this thing hidden.”

  Austin took several steps back and raised his eyes to the top of the mound. “I remember Clarence Tinook saying something about an old blimp base. Maybe there’s a diri
gible hangar under this stuff.”

  “That makes sense and goes with our theory that they used an existing base. The next question is how we get inside.”

  “Try saying ‘open sesame’ and hope for the best.”

  Zavala stood back and bellowed the famous command from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. When nothing happened he tried again in Spanish, also to no avail.

  “You know any more magic words?” he asked Austin.

  “You just exhausted my entire repertoire,” Kurt said with a shrug.

  They walked around behind the hangar. Sticking out of the permafrost were the foundations of several small buildings that could have been Quonset huts. A dump area revealed piles of rusty tin cans and broken glass, but no entrance to the mound presented itself.

  It was Zavala who stumbled, literally, on the entrance.

  Austin was walking several steps ahead of his partner when he heard a yell. He turned quickly. Joe had vanished as if the earth had swallowed him up. Confirming this possibility, Zavala’s disembodied voice, swearing in the tongue of his ancestors, issued eerily from the ground. Austin carefully back tracked and found Zavala in a cellar hole that had been covered over by vegetation. Austin had walked right by the hole without seeing it.

  “Are you okay?” Austin called out.

  More mutterings. “Yeah, the brush that covered this damned hole cushioned my fall. C’mon down. There’s a short set of stairs.”

  Austin joined Zavala at the bottom of the hole, which was about eight feet deep. Joe was standing in front of a partially open door of heavily riveted steel.

  “Don’t tell me,” Austin grunted. “The unerring Zavala homing instinct.”

  “What else?” Zavala said.

  Austin pulled a small but powerful halogen light from his pack. The door noisily opened with some persuasion from his shoulder. He stepped inside with Zavala close behind. A blast of cold and fetid air hit them in the face as if they were standing in front of an air conditioner for a mausoleum. The beam of light showed a corridor whose concrete walls and ceiling were inadequate insulation against permafrost and seemed to amplify the cold. Pulling their jacket collars tight around their necks, they started along the corridor.