Karla examined the hole. "There's something strange here," she said.
The other scientists clustered around her.
"I don't see anything," Sergei said.
"Look. There are other bones much deeper in the permafrost. They are evidently thousands of years old." She reached into the hole and scraped out some decayed vegetation and showed it to her colleagues. "This stuff is not very old. Your little elephant came into the hole more recently."
"Perhaps it is my poor English, but I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying," Sato said politely.
"Yes, what are you saying?" Sergei said with no attempt to hide his impatience. "That the mammoth is not part of its surroundings?"
"I don't know what I'm saying. Only that it is odd that the flesh is not rotting."
Sergei crossed his arms and looked around at the others with a triumphant grin on his face.
"I understand," Maria said. "I'm surprised we didn't see it before. This ravine still floods from time to time. It's possible that a flash flood washed the specimen away from a wall farther along and that the baby floated here, where it lodged in the hole and froze again."
Sergei saw that he was losing his conversational edge. "We're not here to look at holes," he said brusquely. He led the way about a hundred feet from the discovery site to where the ravine branched off.
"You go with Maria down there," he said, pointing to the left-hand branch. "We'll examine the other ravine."
"We've already been down this one," Maria protested.
"Look again. Maybe you'll find some more of your floating mammoths."
Maria's eyes flashed. Sato saw that a salvo was coming and intervened. "We had better make sure our hand radios are tuned to the same channel," he said.
With a verbal brawl averted, they all checked their walkie-talkies; and made sure the batteries were good. Then they split up into two groups, with the three men going one way and the women the other.
"What's wrong with Sergei today?" Karla asked.
"We got into an argument over your theory last night. He said it was all wrong. I said he wasn't giving you credit because you were a woman. He's such a male chauvinist, my husband."
"Maybe he just needs a little time to cool off."
"The old goat will be sleeping with an iceberg tonight. Maybe that will cool him off."
They both burst into laughter that echoed off the walls of the ravine. After walking several minutes, Karla saw why Maria had been so angry about being ordered to the left-hand branch. There were few bones to be found. Maria confirmed that the expedition had partially explored the other gorge and found it far richer in bones than the one they were in.
As they scanned the walls of the gorge, Maria's hand radio crackled. Ito's voice came on.
"Maria and Karla. Please return immediately to the point where the party split up."
Minutes later, they were back at the place the ravine forked. Ito was waiting for them. He said he had something to show them, and led the way along the tributary to where the other two men were waiting in front of a section of banking that looked as if it had been blasted open with dynamite.
"Somebody has been digging here," Sergei said, stating the obvious.
"Who could have done such a thing?" Sato said.
"Is there anyone else on the island?" Karla asked.
"We didn't think so," Ito said. "I thought I saw a light a few nights ago, but I couldn't be sure."
"It appears that your eyesight was working very well," Sato said. "We are not alone on the island."
"Ivory hunters," Sergei pronounced. He picked up a splint of bone from the hundreds of broken pieces that littered the ground. "I had no idea they had found this place. It's a sin. There's no science here. It looks as if someone has taken a hammer and chisel to it."
"Actually, we use a portable jackhammer."
The words came from thickset man who stood looking down on them from the top of the bluff. His broad face, his narrow, hooded eyes and high cheekbones advertised his Mongol ancestry. A thin mustache drooped down on either side of his mouth, which was wide in a thin-lipped grin. Karla had studied Russian while she was in Fairbanks and got the gist of what he was saying. The assault rifle cradled in his arms spoke louder than any words.
He whistled and a second later four more men appeared in the gorge, two from each side, all armed with similar weapons. They had tough-looking, unshaven faces, with sneering mouths and hard eyes.
Sergei may have been vain and disagreeable, but he displayed an unexpected courage born of scientific anger. He pointed to the broken bones. "You did this?"
The man shrugged.
"Who are you?" Sergei said.
The Mongol ignored the question and looked past Sergei.
"We are looking for the woman named Karla Janos."
The man was staring at Karla, but she was startled to hear her name from the stranger's lips. Sergei glanced at her in reflex, then thought better of it.
"There is no one here by that name."
The Mongol issued a curt order, and the man nearest to Karla grabbed her roughly by the arm with his dirt-encrusted fingers and pulled her away from the others.
She resisted. He squeezed her arm so hard it bruised. He smiled when she grimaced in pain, and he put his face close to hers. She almost gagged on the odor of his unwashed body and his foul breath.
She glanced over her shoulder. The other scientists were being herded along another ravine. The man at the top of the banking had disappeared. As she was hustled out of sight, she heard Maria scream, then male voices shouting.
Shots rang out, the noise echoing off the walls of the gully. She tried to run back to her colleagues, but the man grabbed her by the hair and jerked her back. First came excruciating pain, then anger. She whirled around and tried to claw his eyes out. He pulled his head back, and her fingernails scraped harmlessly against the stubble of his scruffy beard.
He lashed out with the back of his hand. Karla was stunned by the blow, and offered little resistance when he put his foot behind her legs and pushed her down. The back of her head hit the ground and galaxies whirled before her eyes. Her vision cleared, and she saw the man staring down at her with amusement, then lust, in his piglike eyes.
He had decided to have some fun with his lovely captive. He put his gun safely out of reach and began to unbutton his fly. Karla tried to crawl out of his way. He laughed, and put his boot on her neck. She pounded at his ankle and struggled to escape. She could barely breathe.
The man coughed suddenly, and the grin on his face changed into a mask of shock. A trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. He pivoted in slow motion, his boot slipped off Karla's neck and she saw the hilt of a hunting knife protruding from between his shoulder blades. Then his legs turned to rubber and he collapsed.
Karla rolled over to keep from being crushed by the falling body. Her elation was cut short. Another man was coming toward her.
He was tall, and limped when he walked. The sun slanting into the ravine was behind him and his face was obscured in shadow. She wanted to get up, but she was still dizzy and disoriented from hitting the ground.
The man called her by her first name. It was a voice she hadn't heard in many years.
Then she fainted.
When she came to, the man was bending over her, holding her head in his hands, soothing her bruised lips with water from a canteen. She recognized the long jaw and the pale blue eyes that were filled with concern. She smiled even though it hurt her cracked lips.
"Uncle Karl?" she asked as if in a dream.
Schroeder placed his fox-fur hat under her head as a pillow, then went over to retrieve his knife, wiping the blade on the man's coat. He picked up the dead man's assault rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Then he took his hat back, placed his arms under her body and lifted her like a fireman carrying a smoke-inhalation victim.