"They don't look human," Karla said as they made their way around the mangled bodies.
Austin remembered the dead scientists lying in the ravine. "Who's to say they ever were."
Schroeder let forth with a deep laugh.
"I learned long ago that in the right hands anything can be used as a weapon," he said. "But there was nothing in the textbook about little furry elephants."
Austin wondered what book Schroeder was referring to and what school he had gone to. He put his thoughts aside. They weren't out of trouble yet. They made their way through the ruined city and the rubble. The sunlight slanting in through the gap in the rocks gave them renewed energy. They went to retrieve the paraglider, and discovered that Grisha and his men had smashed the power unit and slashed the canopy.
Using sections of aluminum tubing and pieces of the canopy, they fashioned a rough splint for Schroeder. They climbed the low bluff at the bottom of the slope and ascended the road to the rim of the caldera. The switchbacks cut the steepness of the climb but made it much longer. They stopped frequently for Schroeder's sake, but he only allowed the rest stops to last a few minutes before urging the party to push on.
Hours later, they stood on the rim and looked down on the other side of the volcano. Mist obscured most of the island. After a last, wondering glance back into the caldera, they started down the outside of the volcano. The descent was as difficult as the climb. The road was a glorified mountain trail, the uneven surface covered with rocks and boulders that would have made walking hard even under ideal circumstances.
About two-thirds of the way down the outside of the mountain, they discovered they were not alone. Antlike figures were making their way up the trail. Austin's party kept on moving. They had been seen, so there was no use hiding, but they kept their weapons ready. Austin counted six people in the unknown group. As the newcomers neared, the man leading the procession waved his arm. A few moments later, Austin was close enough to see Petrov's grinning face.
The Russian was accompanied by members of his special ops team, including Veronika and her husband. Petrov sprinted the last few steps up the path.
He was grinning. "Good afternoon, Austin," he puffed. "You and Joe have added mountain climbing to your many accomplishments.
You never cease to amaze me." He turned to Karla. "And this must be Mademoiselle Janos. Very pleased to meet you. I don't know this gentleman," he said to Schroeder.
"I'm just an old man who should be home in his rocking chair," Schroeder said with a weary grin.
"How did you find us?" Austin said.
"We talked to the captain of the icebreaker. He said you were striking off to explore the volcano in some sort of aircraft."
"We had a paraglider."
"I remember now. The two large bags you brought with you."
Austin nodded. "You missed all the fun."
"On the contrary," Petrov said in a cheerful tone. "We have had a great deal of fun. We encountered a group of armed men coming in on a boat. They gave us a warm welcome, but our thank-you was even warmer. The survivor said they had been sent in to help some men who were already here." He looked over Austin's shoulder as if he expected to see someone following him.
"Those men are no longer with us," Schroeder said.
"Yes," Austin said. "They were trampled by a herd of woolly mammoths."
"Dwarf mammoths," Zavala corrected.
Petrov shook his head. "I studied American culture for years, but I'll never understand your strange humor."
"That's all right," Austin said. "Even we don't understand it. Do you think you can give us a hand the rest of the way down the mountain?"
"Of course," Petrov said with a grin. He reached into his backpack and produced a bottle of vodka. "But first we will have our drink together."
32
Austin was having a weird dream in which a procession of pygmy mammoths paraded along the streets of a crystal city to the tune of "St. Louis Blues." His eyes snapped open. The mammoths and the city had vanished, but the blues were still playing. The music came from his phone.
Vowing to stay away from crazy Russians who drank vodka like water, he dug the phone out of his pack and managed a fuzzy, "Austin."
Trout's voice said, "We've been trying to get you and Joe for days. Have you been down in a mine?"
"More like a cave," Austin said. "We found Karla Janos, and were on a Russian icebreaker headed for the Siberian mainland."
"Glad to hear she's okay. She may be our only hope."
Austin was struck by the seriousness in Trout's voice. He sat up on the edge of the bunk.
"Our only hope for what, Paul?"
"Gamay and I found a copy of the Kovacs Theorems in Los Alamos. I did a computer simulation based on the Kovacs stuff and existing material on polar reversal. The situation doesn't look good."
"I'm listening." Austin was fully awake now.
Trout paused. "The simulation showed that the magnetic polar reversal is not as elastic as some people think. A shock that's strong enough to cause a magnetic polar reversal will trigger a geologic shift of the earth's crust."
"Are you saying that a polar shift, once begun, is irreversible?"
"That's the way it looks."
"Is there any margin for error in the simulation?"
"It's so slim as to be negligible."
Austin felt as if a wall had fallen on him. "We're talking about a catastrophe."
"Worse," Trout said. "This is a doomsday scenario. The worldwide destruction if this thing is unleashed is beyond anything that can be imagined or previously experienced."
"How long do we have?"
"The reaction would be immediate. The timing depends on when the people who've been causing the whirlpools and giant waves decide to pull the switch."
"I may be able to offer a ray of hope." He told Trout about his encounter with Barrett, and the possibility of an antidote for a polar shift.
"Encouraging. When will you get back to Washington?"
"We'll make landfall tomorrow. We've got a plane waiting. I'll call when we're in the air to give you an ETA."
"I'll be standing by."
After hanging up, Austin sat in his darkened stateroom listening to the grumble of the ship's engines and cursing the slowness of ocean travel. He had been unaware of the urgency of the situation when Captain Ivanov invited him to sail on the icebreaker. Austin could have gone back with Petrov, but he politely refused the offer, saying it was important for him to talk to Karla Janos. Petrov had given him a knowing smile, and told Austin to call on him anytime.
Since coming aboard Austin had spent very little time with Karla. After she and Maria had a tearful reunion, and Uncle Karl got patched up, everyone retired to their respected staterooms to catch up on badly needed sleep.
Austin got dressed and went out on the deck, which was bathed in the subdued arctic light. The Kotelny was plowing through the ocean at a steady clip. The cold air hit his lungs like the blast from an open refrigerator. Fully awake now, he made his way to the mess hall and poured himself a mug of coffee. The place was deserted except for a couple of crewmen who were coming onto a shift. He found a corner table, slipped the phone from his pocket and called the number Barrett had given him. After a few seconds, a woman answered and said hello.
"I'd like to speak to Barrett," Austin said.
"This is Barrett. I programmed a woman's voice to take the place of mine."
"Aren't you taking this electronic cloak-and-dagger stuff a bit too far?"
"Hell, Kurt, you're not the one who got shot," Barrett said. "You don't know the kind of people you're dealing with."