"Any idea, Admiral, how long that will be?"
There was a heavy pause, then, "Two hours, hopefully less."
"I know you tried," said Gunn quietly, a patient understanding in his voice, "and we thank you." He knew the admiral's hard shell was about to crack. "Not to worry. Al and I will be back in the office by Monday."
"See that you are," said Sandecker somberly.
"Goodbye, sir."
"Goodbye, Rudi. God bless. And tell Al I owe him a cigar."
"I will."
"How long?" Giordino asked, seeing the disquieting expression on Gunn's face and expecting the worst.
"Two hours."
"That's just peachy," Giordino grunted. "I wish someone would explain to me how those murdering slime knew we were here."
"Good question. We were part of a select group. No more than five of us knew the location where the Madras passengers found the black skull."
"I'm beginning to think they have an international army of finks," said Giordino.
The search party split up. Three of the armed men spread out fifty yards apart and began sweeping their way around the mountain. The other three took off in the opposite direction. It looked evident that they were going to spiral their way up the mountain until they found the tunnel.
"An hour," murmured Gunn. "It will take them the better part of an hour to stumble on the old road."
"More like five minutes," said Giordino, gesturing toward the helicopter that rose in the air. "The pilot will lead his buddies right to our doorstep."
"Think it will do any good to parley?"
Giordino shook his head. "If these guys are tied in with the bunch Dirk and I met in Telluride, they don't shake hands, hug, or give quarter."
"Two unarmed men against six loaded for bear. We need to even the odds."
"Got a plan?" asked Giordino.
"I certainly do."
Giordino gave the little man with the academic, nerdy look a bemused stare. "Is it evil, rotten, and sneaky?"
Gunn nodded, with an impish grin. "All that, and more."
The helicopter circled the mountain nearly four times before its pilot spotted the ancient road leading to the tunnel. Informing the two search teams, one of which was far around the other side of the mountain, he hovered over the road as a guide. The first team of three men converged on the road and advanced in a line, a good twenty yards apart. It was a classic penetration pattern- the first man concentrated on the terrain ahead as the second studied the upper slope of the mountain, while the third trained his concentration on the lower side. The helicopter then moved toward the second team to guide them along the easiest path to the road.
The first team on the road negotiated the landslides and approached the giant rock Gunn and Giordino had passed earlier just outside the tunnel entrance. The lead man moved around the rock and found himself standing outside the archway. He turned and shouted to the men behind. "I've reached a tunnel," he said in English. "I'm going in."
"Be wary of an ambush, number one," the second man in line shouted back.
"If they had weapons, they'd have used them by now."
The leader disappeared around the rock. Then two minutes later, the second man did. Out of sight to the others, the third man in line was approaching the rock, when a figure quietly rose up from the rocks where he had been buried. His concentration trained on reaching the tunnel, the searcher did not notice the soft clunk of loose rock or hear the almost silent crunch of footsteps at his back. He never knew what hit him as Gunn swung a large rock with such viciousness it fractured his skull, and he dropped without a sound.
Less than a minute later, the body was completely covered and hidden under a pile of rocks. A quick look to ensure that the helicopter was still out of sight on the other side of the mountain, and Gunn was creeping around the rock. This time, though, he was armed with an assault rifle, a nine-millimeter automatic pistol, and a combat knife, and protected by a body armor vest. He had also removed the searcher's radio. Gunn's sneaky survival plan was off to a running start.
The lead man of the search team cautiously entered the tunnel, a long flashlight tucked under his armpit, lighting his path. He stepped slowly from the tunnel into the first chamber, crouched in a firing position, and pivoted his body from right to left, swinging his flashlight as he moved. All he saw was the skeleton of the old sailor, the rotting furniture, and the seal hides that hung from one wall.
He relaxed, lowered his gun, and spoke into a radio set that was clamped around his head. "This is Number One. There is nobody in the tunnel and cave except the bones of an old seaman who must have been a castaway on the island. Do you read me?"
"I read you, Number One," came the voice of the helicopter pilot, accented by the roar of the engines above and behind him. "You're certain there is no sign of the NUMA agents?"
"Believe me. They're not in here."
"Soon as Numbers Four, Five, and Six reach you, I'll conduct a search of the sea cliffs."
Number One switched off his radio. It was the last act of his life. Giordino sprang from behind the sealskins and rammed one of the ancient obsidian-tipped spears into the man's throat. There was a ghastly coughing, gurgling sound, and then silence, as the searcher crumpled to the floor of the chamber, dead.
Giordino snatched away the assault rifle almost before the man struck the ground. Quickly, he pulled the body off to the side of the tunnel portal and removed the headset radio, placing it on his own head. Next he wadded up his foul-weather gear into a ball and pressed it against the muzzle of the rifle.
"Number One," shouted a voice from the archway tunnel entrance, "what have you found?"
Giordino cupped his mouth with one hand and shouted toward the rear of the chamber. "Only an old skeleton."
"Nothing else?" The second searcher seemed reluctant to enter the cave.
"Nothing." Giordino decided to take a risk. "Come on in and see for yourself, Number Two."
As if he were a buck sniffing the air, Number Two warily entered the chamber. Giordino switched on a flashlight with the beam aimed at the intruder's eyes and shot him once in the head between the eyes, the foul-weather gear muffling the gunfire. Gunn came rushing into the chamber, assault rifle at the ready, not knowing what he would find.
"Now it's two against three," Giordino triumphantly greeted him.
"Don't get cocky," Gunn warned him. "Once the helicopter returns, we're trapped in here."
"If they buy my act as Number One Eke Number Two did, maybe I can play P T Barnum again and sucker them inside."
The next batch of searchers were not nearly as guileless as the first. They approached on the road leading to the cave with the same degree of wariness as a postal inspector examining a possible letter bomb. While the helicopter hovered overhead, they advanced one by one, two covering their comrade, who dropped flat before covering them in a leapfrog tactic that moved them ever closer to the archway at the tunnel entrance. They were on their guard because Giordino was staying off the radio as much as possible and not responding to their calls, for fear of their wising up to a strange voice.
Gunn and Giordino stripped one of the bodies that closely matched Giordino's shoulder and waist size. After slipping into the black coveralls that were two inches longer in the sleeves and three inches in the pants length, he simply folded them back, slung the assault rifle over one shoulder, and boldly stepped outside. He spoke out of one corner of his mouth into the headset's microphone, trying to use the same pitch as had the man he'd killed.
"What's taking you so long, Number Four?" he asked, unruffled, without looking up at the helicopter. "You're acting like old women. I told you, there is nothing inside the tunnel and cave but the rotting bones of a seaman who was a castaway on the island."
"You do not sound yourself, Number One."
Giordino knew he couldn't fool them any longer. "I've got a cold coming on. Not surprising in this intolerable weather."
"Your cold must have cost
you four inches in height."
"Make jokes if you will," mumbled Giordino. "I'm getting out of the rain. I suggest you do the same."
He turned and reentered the cave, certain he would not receive a bullet in the back, not until the searchers were positive they would not be shooting one of their own men.
"They're wise," said Gunn. "I heard your exchange over the radio."
"What's plan Two-A?" Giordino asked laconically.
"We crawl back through the roof collapse in the next tunnel, and ambush them from there."
"We'll be lucky to hit one or two at the most."
"At least that will put the odds in our favor," Gunn said, almost cheerfully.
They had only a few minutes, so they worked feverishly to reopen a crawl space through the rock into the tomb vault. Despite the damp cold, they were sweating heavily by the time they dragged the two dead bodies through the narrow opening and snaked in themselves, dragging their backpacks after them. Their timing was near perfect. They had no sooner propped the rocks back in place and looked into the outer chamber through tiny peepholes than Number Four leaped into the chamber and dropped to the floor as Number Five raced in just behind, both rotating their lights and their gun muzzles in swift arcs from wall to wall.
"I told you so," Giordino whispered softly in Gunn's ear, so it would not be picked up by the microphone in front of his mouth. "They left Number Six outside as reserve."
"There is no one in here," said Number Four. "The cave is empty."
"Impossible," came the voice of the helicopter pilot. "All three were approaching the tunnel not fifteen minutes ago."
"He's right," agreed Number Five. "Numbers One, Two, and Three have disappeared."
They talked in undertones, but Gunn picked up every word over his headset radios. Still on their guard and alert for any movement, they nonetheless relaxed to a small degree when they saw no possible hiding place for anyone inside the chamber.
"Take the one standing," Giordino whispered softly. "They're wearing body armor, so aim for the head. I'll take the one on the ground."
Slipping their gun muzzles into holes no larger than an inch and a half in diameter, just enough to see over the front sight, they lined up on the men who had come to kill them and squeezed off two shots in unison that sounded like a thunderclap inside the rock-walled chamber. The man on the ground merely twitched, while the one standing threw up his hands, gasped, and folded wearily over the body at his feet.
Giordino brushed away the rocks in front of his face, extended the flashlight through the hole, and studied their handiwork. He turned to Gunn and made a slashing gesture across his throat. Gunn understood and switched off his headset radio.
"We must remain where we are," Giordino muttered.
Before he could explain, a voice burst over the radio. "What happened in there?"
No longer interested in subterfuge, Giordino replied, "No big deal. We shot a rabbit."
"Rabbit?" demanded the helicopter pilot. "What sort of nonsense is that?"
"I fear our comrades are dead," said Number Six, soberly. "Those NUMA devils must have killed them."
"Those were the rabbits I was talking about," announced Giordino, adding insult to injury.
"You will surely die," said the helicopter pilot.
"As the old gangsters used to say to the cops, come and get us."
"That won't be necessary," said the pilot.
"Duck down!" Giordino hissed to Gunn. "Here it comes."
The pilot fined up the nose of his bird with the entrance of the tunnel and fired off one of his missiles. Then came a loud whoosh, as the rocket burst out of its pod attached to the fuselage of the helicopter. The rocket did not make it through the tunnel before striking against one wall and exploding. The force of the blast inside a rock-hard contained area was deafening. The concussion felt as though a grand piano had fallen on them from the tenth floor. Pulverized rock erupted in a deadly spray that sliced every object in the chamber into shreds. Smoke and dust compressed together in the small space, seethed and whirled with hurricane force, before taking the path of least resistance and funneling out the tunnel and into the atmosphere outside. Every combustible object inside the chamber immediately burst into flame.
Incredibly, neither the roofs of the tunnel nor the chamber collapsed. The main force of the explosion was blown back through the tunnel along with the smoke and dust. Giordino and Gunn felt as though huge fists had punched the air out of their lungs. Quickly reacting, they pulled the upper half of their coveralls over their faces to filter out the dust and smoke, before retreating temporarily into the inner tomb.
"I hope to God… they don't send another rocket in here," Gunn said, coughing. "That will spell our end for sure."
Giordino could hardly hear him above the ringing in his ears. "I have a hunch they'll think one was enough," he rasped between hacks. Slowly recovering his numbed senses, he began pulling away the rocks and widening an opening. "I'm getting damned tired of moving rock, I'll tell you."
Once through, they groped through the smoke and dust for the extra weapons from their assailants' bodies until they had five assault rifles and an equal number of automatic pistols between them. Struggling to breathe in the nonexistent air, and working blind, Giordino lashed three of the assault rifles together with cord from his backpack. The three guns were now wrapped parallel. Then he ran a cord around the triggers and tied it under the guards.
"The last thing they'll expect is for us to rush out the tunnel shooting," he said to Gunn. "You take Number Six. I'll try for the helicopter."
Gunn wiped his soiled glasses clean on his sleeve and nodded. "Better let me go first. You won't have a chance at firing at the helicopter if Number Six isn't eliminated."
Giordino was hesitant to let the little deputy director of NUMA take on an almost suicidal job. He was about to voice a protest, when Gunn raised his weapon and disappeared into the fire and smoke.
Gunn stumbled and sprawled on his chest in the tunnel, staggered to his feet and ran forward again, fearing that bullets would cut him down the second he materialized from the residue still pouring from the tunnel entrance. But Number Six was incapable of believing anyone was still alive inside, and he had let down his guard while talking with the pilot of the helicopter.
Gunn's disadvantage was that he could hardly see, and he had no idea where Number Six might be standing in relation to the archway. His glasses filmed with soot, his eyes running, he scarcely discerned a vague figure in black standing ten yards away and to the right of the archway. He squeezed the trigger and opened fire. His bullets flew wide around Number Six without striking flesh. The searcher spun around and snapped off five shots at Gunn, two missing but one striking him in the calf of his left leg, the others pounding into the body armor and sending Gunn reeling backward. Then, unexpectedly, Giordino burst through the smoke with all three guns blazing and nearly tore the head off Number Six. Without hesitation, he swung the barrels of the three guns skyward and opened up on the belly of the helicopter, sending nearly three thousand rounds a minute tearing into the thin metal.
Stunned at what he witnessed below, seeing two men in the same uniform as the searchers' shooting at each other, the pilot hesitated before taking any action. By the time he set up to fire the machine gun mounted under the nose of the M-C Explorer, Giordino was pouring a startling volume of bullets into the unarmored helicopter. As if a sewing machine were stitching a hem, the constant stream of fire moved up the side of the fuselage and sprayed through the windshield into the cockpit. Then all went silent as the rifles' ammo magazines ran empty.
The Explorer seemed to hang suspended, then it abruptly lurched, fell out of control, crashed into the side of the mountain three hundred yards below the archway, and burst into flames. Giordino dropped his rifles and rushed to the side of Gunn, who was clutching his wounded leg.
"Stay where you are!" Giordino ordered. "Do not move."
"Merely a scratch," Gunn for
ced through clenched teeth.
"Scratch, hell, the bullet broke your tibia. You've got a compound fracture."
Gunn looked up at Giordino through the pain and managed a tight grin. "I can't say I think a hell of a lot about your bedside manner."
Giordino didn't pay any attention to Gunn's heroics. He pulled out a lace from his shoe and made a temporary tourniquet around the thigh above the knee.
"Can you hold that for a minute?"
"I guess I'd better if I don't want to bleed to death," Gunn groaned.
Giordino ran back into the tunnel, through the smoldering chamber, and from behind the cave-in retrieved his backpack, which contained a first-aid kit. He was back in a few minutes and worked swiftly, proficiently, disinfecting the wound and doing his best to stem the flow of blood.
"I'm not even going to think about setting it," said Giordino. "Better to let a doctor do it in Cape Town." He didn't want to move the little man, so he made him as comfortable as possible and covered him from the drizzle with a plastic sheet out of his backpack. His next chore was to call the admiral, report on Gunn's wound, and beg for a quick rescue.
When he finished his conversation with Sandecker, he put the phone in his pocket and stared at the burning helicopter on the mountain slope below.
"Insanity," he said softly to himself. "Pure, unadulterated insanity. What cause can possibly motivate so many men to kill and be killed?" He could only hope the answers would come sooner rather than later.
20
"One hundred and sixty feet to the bottom," said Ira Cox, staring into the sinister hole in the ice that marked the grave of the smashed and sunken U-boat. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Repairs to the Polar Storm's engine room and bridge by the Navy damage-control team won't be completed for another two hours," explained Pitt. "And since the ship carried Arctic diving equipment on board, I can't pass up the opportunity to investigate inside the sub's hull."
"What do you expect to find?" asked Evie Tan, who had accompanied Pitt and a small crew from the ship.
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