“Sir.” One of Kerikov’s people entered the control room, a dusting of snow covering his wide shoulders. “It’ll take another two hours to secure the nitrogen packs.” He spoke in German-accented Russian and his voice was apologetic. “Our intelligence didn’t specify that the pipeline would be so high off the ground when it reaches this station. We only have two trucks equipped with cranes, so the work is slowed considerably.”
Kerikov’s feeling of self-satisfaction evaporated.
The final packs, the linchpin for the entire operation, had been lost when one of them had split during transfer from the Arctica to the fishing boat Jenny IV. Captain Albrecht had had one of his arms frozen off when it was doused in two-hundred-degrees-below-zero nitrogen. During the confusion following the accident, a fire had broken out on the Jenny IV. The crew of the boat had been unable to put it out before it boiled the cryogenic tanks already stowed aboard. The resulting explosion had all but destroyed the fishing boat. JoAnn Riggs had assured Kerikov that the hulk wouldn’t float for more than an hour after they cut her away from the tanker. Of course, the Jenny IV hadn’t sunk and was discovered the next day. Though Kerikov had been forced to act against the men who found the derelict, his more pressing demand was to find additional liquid nitrogen and get it in position. The original KGB blueprint for Charon’s Landing had called for eighty tons of liquid nitrogen to be placed in a remote area on the downward leg of the pipeline as it descended the Brooks Range, fifty miles north of his present location. Without that quantity of nitrogen to work with, Kerikov had had to modify the plan and place a much smaller amount directly at Pump Station 5.
He’d timed the attack so there would be only about twelve hours between the assault on the pump station and the release of the nitrogen, but every second they spent here increased their chances of either being caught or being forced to release the nitrogen prematurely, reducing its effect. In a small way, he blamed himself for not telling Voerhoven to sabotage this critical section during the beginning of the operation and not waiting for it to be the last set of packs coupled to the pipeline. Coming here was a calculated risk, but like any calculating man, Kerikov planned to stack the odds in his favor.
“Tell your men to stop helping the PEAL members placing the packs. I know it’ll slow us further, but I need you and your troops ready for the American response. By now, they must know we’re here. I expect a counterassault shortly.” Kerikov spoke with confidence. He was back in his element. “Deploy the Grails and the RPG-7s and send a vehicle down the road as a rear guard. The authorities haven’t had enough time to organize their attack, which gives us the tactical advantage. And remember to make sure the missile strikes count. If you miss even one of their helicopters, they’ll be able to radio for reinforcements. I’m sure by now, those vans of Alyeska employees that were run off the road by the trucks have attracted police interest. The cops could show up quickly if they knew something was happening here.”
While the brunt of the PEAL activists had arrived at Pump Station 5 in the lumbering trucks transporting the heavy nitrogen packs, Ivan Kerikov, Jan Voerhoven, and Kerikov’s two bodyguards had flown to the station in a helicopter. He thought that if the Americans managed to land a large number of shock troops, they could use the chopper again to escape, leaving the environmentalists to fend for themselves.
If Voerhoven had any misgivings about allowing his people to be used as cannon fodder, it didn’t show. He was outside, braving the arctic storm, cheering on his workers like this was some great adventure that they would all reminisce about in the years to come.
There was no way Kerikov would allow any of them to live even if they somehow survived the imminent American attack. He smiled tightly and lit a cigarette.
VLCC Southern Cross
According to the tiny constellation of luminous dots on Lyle Hauser’s watch, it was twenty minutes before midnight, twenty minutes until his deadline for Chief Engineer Patroni to shield Hauser’s launching of the lifeboat from the vessel. But that would not happen now. Those twenty minutes would tick by. Midnight would come. Then go.
An hour earlier, he’d heard a rippling stitch of automatic gunfire through the lifeboat’s fiberglass hull. The shots sounded as if they’d come from the bridge, but to Hauser, the sound was as deadly as if he’d been shot himself as he lay cocooned under layers of blankets, the crumbs of iron ration crackers sprinkled around him. The gunfire could only mean that Patroni had been prevented from deactivating the bridge indicators for the three lifeboats. JoAnn Riggs and her terrorist comrades must have discovered Patroni’s actions and killed him, sawing his body in half with lead slugs from their Uzi machine pistols. Hauser couldn’t get the gruesome image out of his mind.
All was lost. Riggs would surely investigate why Patroni wanted to disable the indicator panel, and trapped as he was, there was nothing Hauser could do. There were no weapons in the craft, only an orange flare pistol, its great muzzle over twice the size of a ten-gauge shotgun. But to fire it within the life raft was tantamount to suicide. The phosphorus flare would ignite the boat, its toxic fumes overcoming anyone trapped within, leaving them incapacitated as liquefied plastic and fiberglass poured onto their inert bodies as the craft melted around them.
Ten minutes till midnight.
Patroni was dead, but maybe Riggs didn’t know what he had been attempting, Hauser hoped. Maybe he could hide in the hyperbaric lifeboat for a few more hours and then decide what was best, not only for himself but for the rest of the crew. If he launched now, the panel on the bridge would light up, sounding a number of alarms. Riggs would have plenty of time to send a soldier to investigate long before Hauser could motor away from the tanker. A machine gun from the stern rail would make his the shortest escape in history.
He began working on a new plan. It was obvious that he couldn’t get off the Southern Cross undetected. Riggs and her followers had the ship locked up too tight. His only hope lay in sabotaging the vessel again and making sure that she didn’t reach a continental port. Hauser remembered hearing how important it was to Riggs that the tanker reach Seattle. According to his dead reckoning, they were still a day away from Washington’s port city.
Suddenly a nearby voice called into the night, “Checking aft lifeboat now.”
Hauser reacted instantly, thrusting aside the blankets, bringing the flare gun to bear on the boat’s hatch. Outside, hands fumbled with the double closure of the craft.
This was it. Of all the fear Hauser had faced, nothing could compare to this. His throat was dry, his hands trembling as they gripped the flare pistol. Sweat slicked his face, burning his eyes as he watched the inner door of the life raft rotate to the unlocked position. A few more ounces of pressure and the terrorist would swing the hatch inward and discover Hauser’s secret hiding place.
No matter what, he would fire. Riggs knew about him through Patroni’s actions, and it had been only a matter of time before he was ferreted out and summarily shot. It was better that he discharge the flare at the terrorist as he peered into the life raft. Hauser would die, but he would take one of the bastards with him.
The inner hatch finally released, a slight hiss escaping as the circular door was pushed against its internal stops. Lyle Hauser had tucked himself back under the blankets so only the open mouth of the flare gun gave away his presence. It wasn’t until the outer door was opened that he became aware of how stale the air in the lifeboat had become. The cold, tangy breeze that enveloped the terrorist as he leaned into the lifeboat was like a moist caress, intimate and loving and just as fleeting.