“I think there’s something there,” Smith said finally, “but I can’t be sure.”

“Neither can I. So let’s…just…make sure.” There was a piercing whip-crack report as the vicious little.220 round screamed on its way. The “snowdrift” quivered under the impact of the hypervelocity hollowpoint. Then as Smith looked on, a dot of color became apparent on the whiteness. Spreading, it became a stain, the red of the spilling blood darkened by the overcast.

Valentina flipped open the Winchester’s bolt, ejecting the spent brass. “Well, now we know.”

“Indeed we do.” Smith nodded slowly. “Probably one of their fourteen-man Spetsnaz platoons. Anything bigger would have been spotted by our satellites.”

“Um-hum.” She drew a fresh round from the shell carrier, pressing it into the Winchester’s magazine. “I’ll wager they’ll be out of the Vladivostok garrison, either Mongolian Siberians or Yakut tribesmen under a Russian officer. The Soviets used them to guard the gulags. They’re totally adapted to an arctic environment and generally nasty to cross. Arms-wise, I think we can expect AK-74 assault rifles and at least three RPK-74 squad automatic weapons. They’ll be in light marching order in this terrain, so I don’t think we’ll see an RPG grenade launcher.”

“But they will have rifle grenades.” Smith looked across at her. “I figure you understand where that leaves us.”

Valentina lifted an eyebrow. “Very much so. For the moment we’ve got the range on them. As long as we can keep them out there with the long guns, we’re all right. But as soon as night falls or the weather closes in and they can work closer to, oh, say, about seventy-five yards, we’re quite dead.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Wednesday Island Base

“Wednesday Island Base calling Haley, calling Haley. Do you copy? Over.” Randi repeated the call for the dozenth time. Lifting her thumb from the transmit button, she tried to listen through the static that squalled from the speaker of the little transceiver.

For a moment her heart leaped. Beyond the electronic rage of the solar flare she heard a faint voice responding with what sounded like the Haley’s call sign. Then she caught the repetitive cadence of the transmission. It wasn’t a reply. It was an interrogative.

She glanced at her wristwatch. It was on the hour, and the Haley’s radio operators were calling Wednesday Island, trying to establish contact from their end according to the radio schedule. And if this was the best the ice cutter’s powerful transmitters could do in this anarchistic communication environment, there was no hope of the little SINCGARS set being heard.

Angrily she twisted the frequency knob to the tactical channel and lifted the mike once more. “Wednesday Island base to aircraft party. Wednesday Island base to aircraft party. Jon, are you receiving me? Over.”

She lifted her thumb, listening impatiently, wanting to scream back at the jagged static roar issuing from the speaker.

“Jon, damn it, this is Randi! Can you hear me? Over!”

Nothing discernable.

Solar storm or not, she should be hearing from the others. They should be on their way back by now and clear of the mountain. What in the hell was going on up there? Randi had the growing sensation that things were rapidly reaching some kind of a nexus, that the situation was collapsing in on her in a way she didn’t and couldn’t understand.

“What will happen when they don’t hear from us?” Dr. Trowbridge inquired.

Randi resumed awareness of the room around her. After a sleepless night spent keeping a vigil over Kropodkin, she had moved the station party across to the laboratory hut, where she had spent the morning fruitlessly rechecking the station’s big SSB radio and satellite phone and making equally futile calls on their backup transceiver.

“Don’t worry, Doctor. If we’re out of communication for a certain length of time, a contingency plan goes into effect.” Randi snapped off the transceiver and replaced the microphone on its clip. “We’ll get all the help up here that we can ever use.”

“Good, perhaps we will get someone in here other than the Gestapo.”

Randi ignored Kropodkin. With his hands bound behind his back, he sat perched on a stool in the far corner of the lab. He’d spoken intermittently and ingratiatingly with Dr. Trowbridge, mostly about inconsequential matters, but he’d been sullenly silent with her, barring the occasional barbed comment.

But he was listening, his eyes intently taking in everything. Randi could almost hear him thinking. She could sense expectancy in him. Kropodkin knew that something was going to happen.

Randi sank down on another of the stools and braced her elbows on the lab table. God, but she was tired. She hadn’t slept or even gone off alert for two nights. She had her little packet of go-pills in her kit, but she didn’t like the chemically enhanced overconfidence that came with them. She also knew that when she came down off the drug, she would crash into total worthlessness.

She rubbed her burning eyes and looked out of the frost-fogged windows of the hut. What she hoped to see was Jon coming into camp. She wanted to be able to let her guard down just for a little while. Just to close her eyes for a minute or two.

“Ms. Russell, are you all right?” Dr. Trowbridge asked warily.

Randi snapped erect. Her eyes had closed for a moment, and she had swayed on the stool.

“Yes, Doctor, I’m fine.” She got to her feet, mentally slapping herself back into wakefulness.

Over in the corner she caught Kropodkin smirking at her, sensing her growing vulnerability.

“All right,” she said, turning abruptly to face him. “It’s time somebody tells us how he sabotaged the big transceiver.”

“I did nothing to the radio! I did nothing to anything.” His words were mushy through his bruised and swollen lips. “Or anyone.” The malevolent glitter lingered in his eyes as he met Randi’s eyes, but his words were plaintive. “Dr. Trowbridge, can’t you keep this madwoman off me until I can be turned over to the proper police? I’m not eager for another beating.”

“Please, Ms. Russell,” Trowbridge began in a weary monotone, “if the authorities are on their way, can’t this be put off…”

Randi gave an impatient shake of her head. “All right, Doctor, I’ll drop it.”

All morning Trowbridge had been moving and speaking like a man trapped in a nightmare, with Randi as one of the premiere monsters. A modern, upscale urbanite, he lived in a world where violence and death were essentially abstracts, something to be clucked over in a television news bite or enjoyed vicariously in media entertainment. Now he was being confronted with the genuine article, up close and personal. And like the victim of a violent car crash or natural disaster, the academic was slipping steadily deeper into a state of emotional traumatic shock. Randi recognized the symptoms.

What was worse, she was the heavy in the scenario. So far, she had been the visible purveyor of the violence. In a popular culture caught up in the fad of elaborate conspiracy theories and X-File fears, she was the figurative “woman in black.”

Stefan Kropodkin represented normality. He was the honor student, the eager face in the front row of the classroom, the recognized and comfortable name on the test paper and expedition roster. Randi was the “agent working for the shadowy government agency,” the twenty-first-century incarnation of the boogeyman.

She could see the fear in Trowbridge’s eyes every time he looked at her. She could also see Kropodkin working that fear. Any denials of the scenario she might make would be an act of futility.

Lord, what a total mess!

Catching up the MP-5, she crossed into the radio shack. Settling down before the open console, she checked the components and settings of the big sideband set for the hundredth time, making the final futile gesture of switching it on to listen to the soft hiss issuing from the set.