The two of them slowly crawled across the ice. Both knew that motion, particularly any kind of fast motion, caught the attention of the human eye.
The polar camp had crate piles, big tents and bulldozer-made ice-walls. Between some of the ice-walls were huge tubular bladders containing something liquid.
“I suspect diesel fuel,” had been Red Cloud’s guess.
There were also smoothed lanes leading to the crate piles, to the tents and to other places. After an hour of study, Paul concluded the tents held supplies. This looked like a supply dump.
“It seems foolish,” Paul said, “but I think they’re storing ammo and fuel close together.”
“Maybe they’re not worried about an attack.”
“That’s why I said it was foolish. You should always worry about that.”
In the darkness, Paul and Red Cloud counted eight hovertanks, six small bulldozers and four Thunder-10 transport planes waiting to be offloaded. There were also two big supply helicopters. Red Cloud estimated about sixty Chinese, maybe twelve of them stacking supplies. The most interesting thing had been a laser caterpillar coming off a transport. From another plane had come a towed 30mm flak-gun. The two large devices were anti-air defense weapons, meaning that maybe the Chinese did expect eventual attacks. If that was true, it was even crazier to store fuel and ammo in the same supply dump.
As Paul crawled across the ice, he kept his gaze un-focused. Most people could sense a person staring at them. Paul wanted to be aware of where the nearest Chinese were, but he didn’t want to stare at a man and make him feel uncomfortable.
“As you crawl into their camp, you have to go somewhere else in your mind,” Paul had explained to Red Cloud.
During the slow crawl, an unloaded cargo plane used the airstrip. It revved its engines, roared down the runway and banked north, heading up into the night sky.
Just what did it mean that the Chinese were building a supply dump this close to Alaska? Just how big of a raid were they planning against the oilfields—if that was the Chinese desire? How did the attackers plan to make their escape? It was dangerous being on the ice. It was even more dangerous using heavy military vehicles and fighting on the ice.
As he crawled, Paul shook his head. Don’t worry about that now. Just find your radio and crawl away.
Paul neared one of the tents. It was big enough for a man to walk into and it was made of some kind of shiny, synthetic material. It had pegs hammered into the ice and lines to keep the tent taut. There was a two-foot ice-wall here, a perimeter wall. Ever since they’d been unpacked from a transport, the Chinese bulldozers must have been busy.
The eight hovertanks were on the other side of the camp, where the airstrip was. Paul could hear bulldozers, although they were a ways off. Nearer the perimeter wall, he heard men speaking Chinese.
Are any of these soldiers White Tiger Commandos? Does my promise mean I have to kill them now, or can I wait for a better time?
Paul stopped so he lay motionless on the ice. From where he was, he spied the head and shoulders of three workers. They moved to one of the tents, which was approximately fifty yards away. One of them moved from his fellows, undid his fly and took a leak.
Later, two soldiers reappeared. They carted what looked like an ammo crate between them. They moved the crate into one of the tents.
How well will the ammo keep in this cold? The military had had trouble with that in Quebec. Thinking about that, Paul realized he was becoming cold. The ice hungrily sucked the warmth from his body.
“We must move in,” Red Cloud whispered.
It seemed like a bad idea to try it now, but frostbite was an even worse idea, especially frostbite along his belly. Without nodding or saying a word, Paul began crawling. He moved slowly, too slowly to keep warm.
The Chinese would have spotted them except for three things: One, that perimeter wall gave them a bit of cover. Two, it was dark. And three, the workers kept their heads down. The soldiers concentrated on the ammo crates more than their surroundings.
Paul realized there were only two Chinese nearby. Just two men, two of the soldiers who had killed everyone at Platform P-53. As he thought about P-53, the old anger began to build in him. It roiled in his chest like a living thing and radiated outward to his limbs. It was hard sneaking around an enemy camp. It was even harder to kill a man in cold blood. To just get up and stick a knife into a man… most people could never do it. It did violence to their basic human nature. Paul had been trained, however, and he had killed before, but it was still hard for him to kill a man who wasn’t fighting back. He needed the anger in order to push himself toward what needed doing. So he thought of Murphy, and he told himself these soldiers had known about the killings and they had laughed about Murphy dying alone in a stalled cat.
“Okay, you bastards,” Paul whispered. He was twenty yards away from the perimeter wall. He was freezing cold and he didn’t think these two were going to go anywhere else anytime soon.
The two heavily-bundled Chinese moved to a new snow-caterpillar that had just pulled up between the rows of tents. That made it three Chinese now, which included the cat driver. The two working soldiers moved to the back of the caterpillar.
Three Chinese, I have to kill three men fast with a knife.
Paul paused, and he unbuttoned his parka. He needed whatever advantage he could get. Slowly, he slipped out of the parka. An icy cold squeezed his ill-clad flesh. He clenched his teeth, drew his knife and waited for the moment to charge. Red Cloud moved beside him.
The pair of soldiers returned and entered the tent with a crate.
Paul rose up, jumped the perimeter wall and sprinted to the tent. Behind him, he heard a softly grunted curse—Red Cloud. Paul reached the tent, slipping past the flap.
The Chinese soldiers heaved a crate onto the top of a pile. With the sound of scraping wood, they shoved the crate into place.
Paul sprang like a panther as the nearest Chinese turned around. Paul rammed a knee into the man’s soft stomach, driving the air from his lungs in a whoosh of pain and shock. Then Paul leaned forward, placing one hand firmly over the soldier’s mouth. He put his weight behind his knifepoint. It went in like a skewer into carefully tenderized steak, sinking without a sound. Paul felt the body tense with the agony. Then he twisted the blade so it tore the soldier’s lungs and heart apart in one savage moment, killing the man instantly.
The soldier’s back arched and his teeth clenched on Paul’s palm. Blood trickled from the soldier’s nostrils and his eyes protruded as if he’d been strangled.
Paul withdrew his knife and wiped the blade on the soldier’s parka. He felt dirty killing like this. It was horrible work, but so was Murphy dying alone in a stalled cat.
Red Cloud’s soldier lay on the crates, his throat cut and blood pumping out and misting in the cold.
“There’s still the one in the caterpillar,” Paul whispered.
“We must hurry. Our luck can’t last much longer.”
Paul and Red Cloud strode out of the tent, their knives ready.
“You tap on his window,” Paul said. “I’ll come in from the passenger-side.”
The caterpillar was parked ten feet away. Red Cloud went around the back.
Paul took six rapid steps. Then he heard Red Cloud knocking on the soldier’s window. Paul opened the caterpillar’s passenger-side door. A Chinese man listening to his earphones looked up at Red Cloud. Paul could hear the tinny musical sounds as he climbed into the warm cab. The Chinese soldier whirled around, stared at Paul and went for his gun as he shouted. Paul thrust the Gerber blade into the man throat, the knife grating against neck-bones.