Exactly why was beyond Smith’s comprehension. He had always viewed himself as a fairly prosaic individual. Any romance that might cling to him was only a reflection of his careers, and likely a misunderstood one at that. He had always felt very fortunate to have gained the love of one beautiful and intelligent woman. To have this second bold, enigmatic and decidedly attractive female move deliberately into his orbit was an unexpected phenomenon.
He felt Valentina’s head lift, and she shook free of her sleeping bag’s hood and face flap, peering into his face from a range of a few inches. “I would cheerfully and without a moment’s hesitation kill,” she murmured, “for a long, hot soak in a bathtub, and a change of lingerie.”
“I could loan you a spare disinfectant towelette,” he replied.
“Your counteroffers are growing steadily more pathetic, but I suppose I’m stuck with it.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, and for a few moments they lay together in the bizarre little pocket of intimacy they had found on the ice-slickened deck of the ancient bomber. The wind outside had subsided to only the faintest intermittent whisper. In the crew’s cabin aft, they could hear Gregori Smyslov snoring softly in his bunk.
The night before, Smith had been careful in the way he had arranged their gear to make sleeping room on the deck. He’d propped his loaded packframe in the hatchway between the compartments, stacking his snowshoes atop them, rendering a silent access to the radar-observer space impossible. The necessity of that action and the angular feel of his sidearm under the wadded bulk of his parka pillow pushed his momentary nonprofessional musing about Valentina Metrace into abeyance.
“What is it, Val?” he said under his breath. “What are the Russians hiding? You have some ideas, don’t you?”
She hesitated; then he felt the shake of her head, her soft hair brushing his chin. “Not that I’m prepared to say, Jon. The historian in me is appalled by the concept of providing poor history, and the spy, of giving poor intelligence. But we’ve got to find the survival camp. If there are any absolute answers to be found, we’ll find them there.”
“I can understand that. But that’s only one set of answers. The Russians are only one factor of what I’m coming to see as a three-point equation. The other two points are who is on the island now and who may be coming for the anthrax. I left Randi hanging back there as bait for whoever may be here now.”
“Shouldn’t worry, Jon. Anyone who endeavors to gulp down our Ms. Russell is going to find himself gagging on her…and I mean that in the best of possible connotations.”
“I know. She can take care of herself.”
“But you’ll still blame yourself if anything happens to her. As you still do for the deaths of her sister and her fiancé.”
Smith scowled down at the top of her head. “How the hell did you know about that?”
“Randi and I discussed you rather intensively one evening,” Valentina replied. “A species of girl talk. I’ve also studied you for a bit, and I’ve come to certain conclusions of my own. You’re one of those poor bastards stuck in the middle-tough enough to make the blood decisions, but with enough humanity left for it to gnaw at you. It’s a difficult balance to maintain. That makes you rare and worth keeping. That’s why, in due course, we’re going to become lovers.”
Smith couldn’t prevent the soft bark of laughter that escaped him. He had wondered, and he had been given an answer. “I see. Don’t I have any say in the matter?”
Valentina nestled contentedly again, tucking her head in under his chin. “No, not really. Don’t bother yourself about it now, Jon. I’ll handle all the details.”
She had to be joking in her usual quirky manner. But there was something about the calm woman’s surety in her voice that didn’t seem to apply to that scenario. He couldn’t help but recall the last lingering warmth of her lips on his yesterday, and he had a sudden urge to experience that warmth again.
Then the muzzy grumble and stirring of Major Smyslov in the next compartment broke the fragile bubble and returned them to the bleak reality of Wednesday Island.
It was a pale gray world atop the saddleback glacier. The dully luminous cloud cover hid the tops of the peaks and faded the horizons to the north and south into a vague nonvisibility. The surface snow and ice had been infected by the grayness as well, losing their luster. Only the dark exposed rock of the mountain flanks stood out, extruding from the dingy-paper whiteness with an exaggerated three-dimensionality. The immediate visibility around the downed bomber and the three human flyspecks standing beside it was good, yet it was difficult to truly see. Amid the blanched contrasts it was hard to gauge sizes and distances, and something akin to vertigo intermittently tugged at the consciousness.
Jon Smith felt the effect as he panned his binoculars in their instinctive slow circle, seeing nothing either desired or unwanted.
“All right, lady and gentleman, where are they?” he asked. “Where did they go after the crash?”
“I would say down the coast, Colonel,” Smyslov replied swiftly. “They would need food, and there is nothing to be had here. Along the coast there would be seals and bears. There would also be better opportunities for shelter. The weather up here on the glacier would be too bad.”
Valentina shook her hooded head. “No, I disagree, Gregori. They made their survival camp up here, probably within sight of this aircraft.”
“If they did, it’s pretty well hidden.” Smith returned his binoculars to their case. “And the major makes a pretty good case about the food. What brings you to your conclusion, Val?”
“A number of things,” she replied. “For one, the stripped state of the aircraft. It would take a lot of work and a lot of trips to move all of that material out of the wreck. They wouldn’t have carried it far. For another, they wouldn’t be immediately concerned about food. They would have had emergency rations for at least a couple of weeks, and they weren’t planning to stay around for that long.”
“Would they have had much choice?”
“They thought so, Jon. These people were not planning on setting up housekeeping. They intended to go home. Remember how they pulled the radio and radar systems out of the plane, as well as the auxiliary power unit? They had all of the components and expertise they needed to build one hellaciously powerful radio transmitter, one that could reach halfway around the world, and certainly back to Russia. That’s another reason they’d want to stay up here. The higher elevation would increase their broadcast and reception range.”
“Then why didn’t they use it?” Smith asked.
“I don’t know.” Smith could feel the words the historian didn’t want to speak aloud. He turned toward Smyslov. “What do you think, Major?”
The Russian shook his head. “I must disagree, Colonel. If they had built such a radio, they would have called for rescue. Obviously they did not.”
Whoever had chosen Gregori Smyslov had made one critical error with the man. He could lie well with his mouth, but not with his eyes or body language. The Russian’s words only emphasized a subtle change that had crept into the team’s dynamics overnight. Once more it had become an us-versus-them scenario, with Smyslov standing alone.
And yet, Smith pondered, if it was an us-versus-them, why hadn’t Smyslov simply allowed him to suffocate in the bomb bay the previous afternoon? He’d had a blank check to kill.
“We’ve got to find out which one of you is right, and fast,” Smith continued. “We know the anthrax is in the wreck. We know that someone else positively knows about it. We must assume these individuals are en route to collect it. Given that the hostiles have gone active on the island, we must also assume that we may have only hours before their main body arrives.”