“No,” Kretek fell back on the threat of his leveled automatic. “Keep going.”
“You stupid son of a bitch! We’ve taken a major blade strike! The fucking rotor assembly’s coming apart! If we don’t land now we are going to fucking die!”
The pilot grabbed for the sling release, and Kretek used the last of his strength to smash his gun butt down on the groping hand.
“No!”
Then all time for debate was past. The Halo’s tortured transmission exploded like a howitzer shell. Centrifugal force hurled fifty-foot rotors away like thrown sword blades, and the Halo pitched over into its death dive, the white ice and black water of the pack below filling the shattered windscreen as it rushed toward them.
Anton Kretek screamed like the trapped animal he was. Emptying his pistol into the pilot, he denied the Canadian an extra second or two of life.
They watched as smoke and sparks streamed back from the Halo’s engine bays; then the rotor assembly came apart and tore away, and the massive helicopter assumed the flight dynamics of a filing cabinet.
Pitching over onto its nose, it plummeted toward the sea ice. With gravity’s tension off the sling tether, the bioagent reservoir seemed to float beside the falling hulk of the heavy lifter, the maimed aircraft and its canister of death tangled in an entwining, dream-slow dance.
Then they hit, and a mushroom of black and scarlet flame sprouted and grew over the huge hole blasted through the ice.
“What about the anthrax, Jon?” Valentina inquired, watching the fireball.
“Flame and seawater,” Smith replied. “You couldn’t ask for two better spore destroyers.”
“That’s it, then?’
“That’s it.” Smith looked forward into the cockpit. His throat was raw from yelling and his lungs burned from the cold. As his adrenaline load burned out he was suddenly aware of the aching bruises from the previous night’s icefall. It was becoming harder to force the words out. “Randi, do you think you can find the Haley from here?”
“With the radios working, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”
“Then take us back to the ship. Somebody else can pick up the pieces back on Wednesday.”
“I hear that!”
Smith slammed the side hatches shut and collapsed with his back to the pilot seats. Unbidden, his eyes closed, and he was only dimly aware of a warmth beside him: Valentina’s head resting lightly on his shoulder.
Chapter Fifty-two
Ascension Island
It was early spring in the South Atlantic, but a storm had rolled in with the sunset. The ghost blue runway lights of Wideawake Field glowed through a watery mist, and rain dripped from the wings of the two huge jet transports sitting side by side on the most isolated parking apron of the joint UK/US air facility. One, a Boeing 747 wearing the blue and white livery of the Presidential Squadron; the other, an Ilyushin 96, it’s opposite number from the Russian Federation.
The world at large did not know of the presence of the two aircraft here, nor of the meeting between the two national leaders they carried. As armed sentries circled the sodden parking apron, a confrontation without records or witnesses took place in a soundproof, electronically screened briefing room aboard Air Force One.
“I recognize it’s sometimes necessary for a President to lie to his constituency,” Samuel Castilla said coldly to the lean, aristocratic figure seated across the conference table from him, “but I damn well don’t like having to abuse the privilege. I especially don’t like having to lie to those people about how their family members died. It leaves a sick taste in my mouth.”
“What other choice do we have, Samuel?” President Potrenko replied patiently. “To rip open the healing wounds of the Cold War? To set the rapprochement between our nations back by decades? To play into the hands of the hardliners on both sides who say the United States and Russia are meant to be hereditary enemies?”
“You spin that line very smoothly, Yuri, and so do my advisors and the State Department, but even if I accept it, I still don’t have to like it.”
“This I can understand, Samuel. I know you to be a man of conscience and honor”-the corner of the Russian’s mouth quirked-“possibly too much so for the realities of our profession. But we need more time. We have to let more of the old Cold Warriors die, and we have to move the fear further into the past. But at least you will have the consolation of knowing the truth will come out in the end.”
“Oh, it will, Yuri. You can bank on it. We’re in agreement that in twenty years’ time all documentation on the Wednesday Island incident and the March Fifth Event will be unsealed and there will be a full joint disclosure by both governments.”
“It is agreed.”
Castilla pressed the point home. “Said pact to be made over our signatures and with the two of us accepting the full responsibility for the secrecy lockdown and the whitewash.”
Potrenko’s eyes flickered toward the tabletop; then he nodded. “It is agreed. Until that day, the members of the Wednesday Island science expedition perished in the tragic fuel dump fire that swept through the station. The members of our Spetsnaz platoon were lost in a training accident. The crew of the Misha 124 will simply not be found, their disappearance becoming one more mystery of the Arctic. And the aircraft itself was destroyed when an old onboard demolition charge was accidentally triggered. All eventualities are covered.”
“I doubt it will be quite that easy,” Castilla replied dryly. “Lies seldom are. No doubt Wednesday Island will become yet another conspiracy theory haunting the Internet. Maybe we can take a page from John Campbell and Howard Hawks and blame it on a flying saucer.”
Castilla took a sip from the glass of branch water sitting beside his place and wished the shot of bourbon were sitting beside it. “Why couldn’t you have told me the truth in the beginning, Yuri? We could have rigged this somehow. Nobody had to die. We didn’t have to come within a hairsbreadth of loosing that anthrax on the world.”
Potrenko continued his silent study of the maroon leather tabletop. “No doubt things could have been managed…more effectively. But I cannot apologize for being part of the Russian bureaucracy or for the protocols set by my predecessors. We are all still very much ‘slaves of the state,’ and we are likely to remain so for some time to come. I can only apologize for allowing this situation to slip so far out of control. Certain…individuals within governmental and military chains of command exercised poor judgment. They are being dealt with.”
“I daresay they are,” Castilla replied, his voice arch. “Now, there’s one last point for us to cover. When our relief force occupied Wednesday Island, the body of one man was not accounted for, that of Major Gregori Smyslov, the Russian Air Force liaison officer assigned to our inspection team. Do you have any information on him?”
Potrenko frowned. “That need not be a point of concern, Mr. President.”
“Colonel Smith, our team leader on Wednesday, seems to think differently. When I spoke with him, he asked specifically that I inquire about the fate of Major Smyslov. I am inclined to favor his request. What happened to him, Yuri?”
“The major was…injured during events on the island, but he survived. He was evacuated to our submarine. He is now being held for trial on a variety of charges.”
“Stemming from the fact he sided with Colonel Smith and against your government?” Castilla’s voice softened in an ominous manner. “That is not acceptable, Mr. President. You will see that all charges against Major Smyslov are dropped immediately and that all ranks and privileges are restored to him without prejudice. If you feel that to be impossible, you will turn the major over to our ambassador in Moscow for repatriation to the United States. If you don’t want him, we’ll be glad to have him.”