by Kari Nichols
“Druid can concentrate the blast closer to Matochkin, leaving the northern tip intact.” She looked to the soldier for confirmation.
“No problem, sir, I like a challenge.” Druid pulled a pencil and a small map of the area from his pocket and started to scratch lines on it.
Tate turned at the sound of approaching helicopters. Painted to look like an adventure tourist operation, each bird could carry eight passengers and their gear. The pilots were Sector; once they’d deposited their passengers, they would remain within short flight range until called for extraction.
“Once we’re inside that rock our radios will be useless,” Tate continued. “Hancock will plug Godin’s escape hatch. Druid’s team is on demolitions. The rest of us will search for Warp’s team before going after Godin. Assume two hours for Druid’s team to plant the charges and a countdown time of sixty minutes until detonation. That gives us three hours from the moment we hit the island until we have to be outside the blast zone.”
Their initial insertion point was on Yuzhny Island, south of the Matochkin Strait. Yuzhny offered beautiful landscapes and rugged terrain for quasi-adventurers. The distance from the mainland and lack of direct flights hindered the tourist trade. What was bad for tourism was good for Tate. Their flight had put them at the very edge of the Strait. Disembarking the helicopter, Tate’s crew gave every appearance of setting up a base camp. In fact, they did set up tents and other gear that could remain while they set out to explore. Outfitted with dry suits, rebreathers and portable water skids, the crew was about to set off when Tommy chimed in again.
“Blackburn has flown the coop,” he informed them. “He made a backup of his files and removed them from the building.”
“But you can’t find him,” Tate said.
“No, he’s not in the building. I sent a team to his apartment and it’s been rented out already. If he’s working for Godin then he could be on his way to you now.”
“If we find him, you’ll never see him again.” Tate glanced at Gibson when she made that promise. He winked at her in return.
“There’s something else you should know,” Tommy said, then hesitated.
“Spill it.” Tate knew it wasn’t good. Whatever he had to tell her, she wouldn’t like hearing it.
“Bailey is in the hospital. Her assistant shot her and left her to die in her office.”
“Tell me you sent someone after him,” Tate demanded.
“He was dead before our agent could get to him. We figure he was Blackburn’s mole and that Blackburn executed him before leaving the area. We know he stole her notes on the locators, but we don’t know if he took anything else.”
“How is Bailey?”
“Too early to tell. They’re still working on her.”
Tate signed off and examined her team. They were fit, they were mad and they were ready to go. “Let’s rock,” Tate said, grabbing her water skid and climbing gear. She led the way to the edge of the island.
One hundred feet high and full of natural crevices, the descent would have been an uncomplicated affair if not for the thick ice that coated every square inch of surface rock. Striking their pitons and attaching ropes that would carry them all the way down to the water, and then some, they set out. Emily remained close to Tank and slightly above, as she had never rappelled before.
The spikes from their boots cut through the ice and dug into rock. Hands on their ropes, they belayed downward, releasing and catching in short jumps. Emily slipped only once, crashing into Tank who was two feet below her. His spikes firmly planted, he absorbed the impact easily. Whispering encouragement in her ear, he gave her a minute to regain her composure before telling her to re-spike and keep going.
The remainder of the descent went without a hitch and soon the group was using their water skids to cut through the sea on a direct route to the Strait. Tate was infinitely grateful for her skid. Her wounded side and still healing arm would not have been up to a swim in the open sea. They made the Strait in less than ten minutes. Once they slipped between the two islands the crashing of the surf subsided to more manageable swells.
The Strait averaged a mile in width between the two islands, extending to a mile and a half at its widest point. The effect of the currents was still present, but greatly reduced from those in the open sea. Birds swooped down from the island’s surface to skim the water.
Tank, skimming along at a lower level than everyone else, pulled a quick u-turn to investigate a sound coming from deeper water to his right. Hugging the curve of the rock, he saw that a large section of it fell away and disappeared into the depths of the sea. It was a narrow section, ten feet wide, but as soon as he crossed into it he heard a very distant vibration.
Checking his depth gauge and marking the spot with a bioluminescent divers tag, he resumed his progress toward the middle of the Strait. Moving beyond the float plane to the far side of the docking area, Tank secured his skid with the rest of them before surfacing.
Once his head popped above the surface, he saw that the cavern was both monstrously large and empty. Removing his rebreather and reattaching his subvocal mike, he called out to Tate. “I want to investigate something back there,” he said, pointing over his shoulder. “I heard something that I can’t quite place, and I want to know what it is.”
Tate nodded as she attached her own mike. “Take Hancock with you and keep an eye on your dive watch.”
Attaching his rebreather once more, he led Hancock to the skids and started the swim back to his tag.
Gibson and Tate donned their Bionacles and searched the area, switching between NV, IR and EM-scan. There were no warm bodies and nothing electronic in the cavern. Any cameras, even concealed to look like rock, would have shown up on the EM scan.
Striding from the water, Tate pulled her M4 out of its dry sac and checked the magazine. Donning her Kevlar vest, she attached her combat webbing and loaded it with frag grenades. A pack full of band-aid bombs came next. Suited up, she saw that her team had done likewise.
Turning toward the exit from the cavern, she peered around the edge. Judging the way to be clear, she headed down what looked to be a natural crevasse in the rock. It widened into a more man-made opening that split off in two different directions.
“We’ll take the left. Braddock and Druid go to the right. Braddock, when you find the soldiers, get them back to the Strait and get them out. Don’t wait for us.” Braddock nodded and led his team up the right side tunnel, Druid and Cisco right on his heels. Tate took the lead down the left tunnel.
They’d traveled close to a quarter of a mile when their tunnel ended at a ledge overlooking a sharp drop. The area, over 2000 square feet of ground space, had been created by a bomb blast. The walls were blackened from the blast and razor sharp rock points stuck out from all sides. Below the ledge, the cavern floor was thirty feet lower than their current position. The area was lit by a series of gas lights, positioned fifteen feet apart, halfway up the cavern walls.
It looked like an underground parking lot. There was no way to walk down to ground level, but once down, there were many passages that led out of the cavern. Five Jeeps were parked along one wall.
“How do they get from up here to down there?” Emily asked.
Tate looked to both sides of the ledge, but there were no hidden stairs or ladders. Looking back at the tunnel they’d just traveled, she inspected the walls. They were blasted out, similar to the cavern, but not as recently done by the looks of it. Emily’s quick Wikipedia search mentioned that from 1963 to 1990 the island had been the site of underground nuclear tests. Russia had started to enlarge the existing tunnels when Godin bought the island and took over its excavation.
“Braddock, our tunnel is a dead end. What have you got?” Tate whispered, forgetting that her radio wouldn’t work inside the rock.
“Ours just came out onto a road,” he replied, surprising her. “It looks like a very long walk from here.”
“Can you take a left, or head in a
southward direction?”
“Yes, sir,” Braddock confirmed, leading his team around the bend and into one of the entrances to the cavern. He looked up the back wall and spotted Tate’s team looking down from the ledge.
“Get those Jeeps started. We’re right behind you.” Tate turned and led her team back to the fork in the road.
***
Nearing the Matochkin Strait
The swim had damn near killed him, but he’d always felt that if you weren’t close to dying then you weren’t really living. A few times in his less than illustrious past Simon had been beyond the point of caring whether he’d lived or died. Now, he had a great respect for life and wanted to continue with his for a good while yet. Still, one had to test one’s limits.
It was fucking freezing in this godforsaken part of the world. There was a reason it was called tundra. No logical person would live there. No one would put anything interesting in an area that never thawed. With no mountains of any decent size, the Russians couldn’t even turn the area into a winter getaway.
It was remote as fucking hell and about as hospitable.
And he wasn’t even on the tundra anymore. Not technically speaking, anyway. He’d been forced to swim in the near-Arctic ocean. Not a simple prospect, even for a man of his varied talents. It was the distance more than anything else that had been the ultimate challenge.
Oxygen tanks only held so much air. Rebreathers, same deal. Eventually a rebreather couldn’t put any more oxygen into the carbon monoxide. You either grabbed a breath of real air, or you suffocated. And out here, if you ran into trouble, you were dead. There was no lifeguard on duty and no friendly Coast Guard to come to your aid.
The problem was compounded by the fact that no one could know he was in the area. The island he was headed for had a military base planted on it, but the intel he had access to didn’t offer up a precise location. He’d have to land and hope he didn’t pick a place where they had set up a listening post.
His water skid was a gift from the Gods. If not for it, he’d never have attempted the crossing; not in the water, at any rate. Capable of speeds in excess of 70km/h, underwater, and able to hold a bevy of extra oxygen tanks, the water skid was the only piece of equipment that ensured him a safe crossing.
A ten-hour underwater crossing was a dangerous undertaking, even for an experienced water baby such as him. The water skid allowed him to clear the surface and remain there, unmoving, long enough for his body to realign itself. After a sensible amount of time he could safely return to the underworld and carry on with his mission.
It was a self-imposed mission and it had two parts that must be completed before he’d consider it a success. First, he’d see about destroying Godin’s operation, once and for all. Second, and this was far more important to him, personally, than the first, he’d destroy the man who put him here.
Simon neared the edge of the Matochkin Strait. The Strait ran the complete width of the island, separating it into two individual land masses. It was the further, larger land mass that Simon was most interested in. Seismic readings indicated regular spikes in activity, though the island was not volcanic. The documents that Simon had found while on Godin’s island in the South Pacific showed regular underground blasting that would account for the increased activity.
What the documents hadn’t been able to tell him was where on the island that blasting had occurred. He’d spent two days in the nearest town trying to determine where Godin was hiding. None of the locals had ever been to Severny. They did, however, inform him of the flights that were made to the island. Simon had set out in search of the most likely mainland-based landing point.
He’d found it quick enough. They’d created their own bloody landing strip in the middle of nowhere. One building made of corrugated steel would house the plane when it wasn’t in use. There was no control tower or any airport facilities to speak of. Tied to a newly constructed dock at the edge of the Kara Sea was an arctic float plane, capable of landing on ice or water. It too had a shed to protect it from the elements.
When he’d first arrived, the float plane was in the shed, but it had since departed. He’d spent a very frigid night nestled into a bed of snow, his arctic gear blending in with the surrounding landscape. With the howling winds blocking out all other sound, the private jet had been coming in for a landing before he’d even known it was there. He’d pulled his binoculars from his pack and watched the remainder of her descent.
Close to a dozen people had disembarked the plane. They wouldn’t all fit into the float plane. From his time spent surveying Godin’s island, he’d known who most of the arrivals were. Vlad, the useless cokehead son had been the first to step from the warmth of the plane, followed by Morrison. A few more soldiers had followed and then Simon had watched as Pleski stepped to the top of the stairs and looked around him before descending the stairs.
The float plane was warmed up and driven to the dock. Vlad had climbed on board first and moved to the far row of seats. Morrison had sat in the middle row and Pleski sat next to him. The guards had returned to the plane to await the return of the pilot.
Simon had watched the float plane’s flight for as long as he could see it. Visibility was good, but the plane had still reached the edge of his binoculars’ range before he saw where it would land. Repositioning himself closer to the dock, he had waited for the plane to return. Assuming a speedy disembarkation and turnaround for the plane and given its average flight speed, Simon had determined that she’d flown close to six hundred kilometers.
He slowed his skid to a near crawl as he edged closer to the Strait. The water was pitch black and he couldn’t risk using an underwater light. Edging inside, he rose to within ten feet of the surface, careful of the bubbles caused by emptying his ballast tanks.
Above his head were the skids of the float plane. He wasn’t certain of the original geography of Severny Island, but he could recognize recently blasted rock when he saw it. What had been a very narrow channel between the two islands was now a cleverly concealed inner harbor. From above and from the sides, the Strait would look as it always had. It was only once inside the Strait that anyone would see the changes made.
Godin had blasted out a cavern over one thousand feet long and fifty feet high. Aside from the float plane and what appeared to be stanchions for a dock, there was nothing in it. A few cabinets with emergency supplies were built into one wall. Tying the water skid to one of the stanchions, Simon broke the surface of the water.
The cavern was empty.
Swimming to the edge of the rock face, Simon pulled himself from the water. There was only one exit from the cavern and he headed for it. Creeping through the rocky passage, Simon came to a fork in the road. Without hesitation, he headed down the path to the right.
Chapter 17
Godin’s Office, Main Complex – Severny Island
Dr. Ho edged around Pleski, giving the man a wide berth. A short, nearly hairless man, Pleski conveyed a fussy primness in his mannerisms. He was always very precisely dressed, except when he was cutting into someone. Then he removed all of his clothing, right down to his skin and donned a clear plastic cover-suit that enveloped him from head to toe. It left nothing uncovered except at the round opening for his face. Dr. Ho had been forced to watch one of Pleski’s dissections. Godin used it as a method for maintaining a fear-based loyalty. The clear suit had made it impossible to ignore just how much Pleski enjoyed his job.
Approaching Godin’s desk, Dr. Ho reminded himself that this man was funding his greatest project to date and that he shouldn’t make demands until he had solid evidence that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. Today was not that day. They’d lost another four test subjects to a psychotic state that left them manically enraged and exceedingly violent toward themselves and others. He’d been forced to lock the men away in an unused section of his lab, enclosing them in small cages designed more for animals than for men.
These last four cases were all th
at was left of Dr. Ho’s initial test group of twenty-six individuals. He’d started work in his lab on Godin’s island, using numerous test subjects to explore the effects of his earlier drugs, but he’d left for his lab in Shanghai when Godin insisted on evacuating. He had barely gotten started on a new generation of his drugs when Godin ordered him to come to Severny. The lab here was far better than the one he’d had in Shanghai and his lab assistants and fellow scientists were at the top of their respective fields, but Ho preferred the solitude of his own lab. Still, he needed to complete another set of human trials and it was easier to comply with Godin’s request and have access to the men currently stationed on Severny.
Dr. Ho stood before Godin’s desk as the man talked on the telephone. He didn’t bother to sit, because he didn’t want to be away from his lab for longer than it took to get the approval for more humans. Ho ignored Godin’s side of the conversation because it didn’t interest him. Once Godin hung up the phone, he raised his eyes to Ho and gave him a go-ahead gesture.
“My latest generation of drugs is ready for experimentation, but it requires a new round of human test subjects.” He didn’t make any suggestions on the number of subjects he required. Godin would give him fewer, to be contrary.
Godin stared at Dr. Ho. He’d just learned from Mark Blackburn that their raid of Bailey Rhodes’ vault was successful. Blackburn had left The Sector with everything they needed to crack the code on the self-destruct mechanism. Rhodes’ death meant that The Sector no longer held the upper hand in the tech industry. Once he had those codes cracked, Godin could carry out the next phase of his operation.
“Take the prisoners,” Godin told Dr. Ho. “I have no use for them anymore.”
***
Tank and Hancock had swum for close to thirty minutes, the noise increasing in volume as they went, before he determined what the sound was. The regular vibrations traveling through the water were coming from an engine. They were looking for a submarine, but even running, it wouldn’t make that much noise.