Pandora's Curse - v4 (36 page)

“Do you?” Marty asked.

“No one knows except the poor slave Mercer found in Camp Decade.”

Something Puhl had said struck Anika. Her brow furled and her thin eyebrows arched. Her tone was accusatory. “When did you read Schroeder’s journal?”

Erwin looked away, pained. “Shortly after you went to interview him,” he said evasively.

“How shortly?” Her anger rose because she was pretty sure of the answer.

“We found it in his house after driving off Rath and his neo-Nazi thugs.”

Anika exploded. “Those snipers were your people? You son of a bitch! You were there the whole time and you let Schroeder die. You let me get shot.” And then everything else came clear. “It was you who set this whole thing up — my
opa
, me. You fucking bastard!”

She lunged from her seat and would have reached Puhl had she not gotten tangled in her sleeping bag and fallen. Mercer dove to pin her to the deck, holding her arms over her head so she couldn’t squirm free. She was a foot shorter than he, eighty pounds lighter, but for a few desperate seconds he was afraid she’d beat him. Fury augmented her strength, so she was like an enraged animal.

“Anika, stop it,” Mercer pleaded, his teeth gritting against the pain as she bit his shoulder.

She got a hand free and went for his eyes, her fingers cocked like talons. Mercer ducked his head and felt her try to tear a piece of skin from his cheek. And then it was over. Anika went completely limp. Mercer opened his eyes, confused, wondering what had calmed her. Chef Hilda stood over them massaging one fist. She said something over her shoulder for Erwin to translate.

“She knew you would never strike a woman, so she did it for you.”

Hilda gave Mercer a proud smile and a wink.

“Danke,”
he replied, checking on Anika. She had a growing bruise under her left eye, but otherwise she’d be fine. He moved her back to her seat, secured her seat belt to stop her from charging the instant she woke and leveled a gaze at Erwin. “She’s right, you know. You are a son of a bitch. What gives you the right to drag innocent people into your fight?”

“In this fight, no one is innocent. The Brotherhood of Satan’s Fist has spent nearly a century protecting the world from what we know. I think for that kind of dedication we should be allowed to involve others if we need them.”

“But why involve Anika and her grandfather? Or me?”

“I will answer your second question first,” Erwin said calmly. “We did not get you involved. You were already scheduled to come to Greenland with Geo-Research. It was just luck on our part. We mentioned your name to Schroeder as a possible ally in case something went wrong with our plans. You have a reputation for being a very capable man.”

Mercer remained unconvinced, but if Erwin was revealing the truth about the cavern and Anika’s grandfather, why would he lie about him?

“I don’t know this Charles Bryce you mentioned earlier,” Puhl continued, “so I think his invitation for you to join the expedition to Camp Decade was legitimate.”

“And Anika?”

“We sent information to her grandfather that would lead him to Schroeder in the hopes that he would be able to expose the Kohl Company and the Pandora Project. It wasn’t until we followed Anika to Schroeder’s house that we realized our security had been compromised. Gunther Rath, who is the special-projects director for Kohl, somehow learned about Schroeder and had beaten us there. We suspect that Anika’s grandfather’s office in Vienna was bugged.

“Igor and I chased off Rath and his group. Well, Igor and another Brother chased them off. I don’t know the first thing about guns. We broke into Schroeder’s house and found the diary he kept hidden. We gave it to a lawyer in Munich to forward to you. The operation was falling apart and once we reached Greenland we feared we would need your help, considering Rath’s brutality. By this time Anika had vanished, so we couldn’t warn her off. I didn’t know her whereabouts until we heard the SOS from that helicopter. We never intended for anyone to get hurt. None of us were supposed to be here. Geo-Research’s expedition would have been canceled had Anika been able to reveal what we intended her to learn.” His voice trailed off.

Mercer sat back in his seat, trying to absorb everything. It would take a while, he knew, maybe forever. It was an amazing story. Meteors, radiation, secret brotherhoods, Rasputin, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Nazi hunters, and a planeload of innocent people trapped on a glacier between a Gunther Rath and his goal. “What do you think, Ira?”

“Since we kicked ass in W.W. Two, we can assume that the Germans never got the meteorites. Which means they’ve been down there for the sixty years since the start of the Pandora Project.”

“Go on.”

“Makes me wonder why this Rath character is so hot to find them now. This thing’s been in the works for a while, considering Kohl bought Geo-Research to spearhead their hunt a year ago. What I want to know is what happened last year to make this such a priority. Any ideas, Erwin?”

“We don’t know,” he admitted.

“Ah, guys,” Marty called. “This has been very interesting but it doesn’t help us. We’ve survived one murder attempt but I doubt we’ll survive the next if we stick around.”

“We should try for the air shaft,” Mercer said, looking at Puhl. “Rath knows that Igor Bulgarin was part of the Brotherhood because of his interest in the body. Do you think he’s aware you’re part of it too?”

“Since they didn’t kill me at the base, I doubt it. There have been only a few Brothers who weren’t Russian and Rath knows I’m German. When Igor set up our being here, he falsified some of my records so it didn’t show I had studied in Moscow when East Germany was their vassal state. Rath has nothing to connect me to the Brotherhood.”

Mercer remembered Erwin making certain that none of the Geo-Research people were in earshot when he explained how he knew about Igor’s alcoholism aboard the
Njoerd
. In retrospect, his secrecy seemed well warranted.

“Better and better. Rath doesn’t know we’re aware of the cave. When he finds this plane abandoned, he’ll assume we made a run for the coast, our only logical choice. If we can reach the air shaft before him, we can seal ourselves inside and wait until he gives up looking for it. He can’t search forever because Geo-Research has obligations to other scientific teams coming to their camp in a few weeks. We can make it until then.”

“How?” Marty asked. “That cave is full of deadly radiation, for Christ’s sake.”

“No, it isn’t. And the survivor we found at Camp Decade proves it. He lived down there for ten years, eating supplies left by the Nazis, no doubt, until loneliness or madness forced him to leave.”

“And how do you know a sudden radiation leak didn’t force him out?”

“Erwin said that Russian villagers exposed to the radiation died within days. If he’d been dosed, he never would have made it to Decade.”

“Okay, but why do you think we can beat Rath? His company dug the damned air shaft. The rotor-stat is probably moving them there as we speak.”

“I doubt it. Remember, they brought four Sno-Cats here as well as the Land Cruiser. There’s no need for that many vehicles if they know the vent’s exact location. They need to search for it, and thanks to the map I found at Camp Decade, we know right where to look.”

“You’d make a good detective.” It was Anika. She’d been awake, listening, but hadn’t stirred.

“Are you okay?” Concern lowered Mercer’s voice to a whisper.

“Yes. I’m sorry about that.” She included Mercer and Erwin in her apology. “I just… I don’t know. It was all too much for a second.”

“You had every right,” Erwin said. “I am more sorry than I can ever tell you.”

Ira scraped some snow off the wall and bundled it in a handkerchief for Anika. She gratefully pressed it to her swollen eye. “Who hit me?”

“Hilda, Germany’s finest combat chef. If her Wiener schnitzel doesn’t get you, her right cross will.”

Switching to German, Anika addressed the stout woman with a smile. “Remind me never to insult your cooking and get you really angry.”

“It’s nearly midnight,” Mercer announced. “If we leave at first light we’ll only need to spend one night on the ice to reach the cave. I for one am exhausted. I’m usually in bed by ten on days I’m in a plane crash.”

When Mercer had been returning from the C-97 crash scene, the survivors had slept far from one another. With him back now, they huddled close, drawn into a cohesive group by his strength. This didn’t go unnoticed by him. And he was glad for it, because as much as they looked to him for leadership, he needed them for the encouragement to keep going. They had been through a lot together and he knew the worse was yet to come. He also noticed, as he settled into his sleeping bag, that Anika was at his side, her delicate face turned to him.

“Anika,” he whispered and her eyes fluttered open. “Can you do me a favor? I’m pretty sure Hilda has a crush on me. Do you think you could be my bodyguard?”

She suppressed a laugh. “My hero.” Then her expression turned serious, a worried frown pulling at her mouth. “I’m thankful for what you said earlier about me being able to lead us to the cave, but I don’t think I can do it.”

Mercer could see how much this admission cost her. It was in her eyes. The defiance she normally showed the world had evaporated. “Why?”

She was wrenched by such doubt that she questioned the very thing she had always believed defined her. “When I go mountain climbing or hiking in some rain forest, I think I’m being daring,” she said, “but I’m really just pretending. None of it’s real. It’s make-believe. With a rescue chopper only a radio call away, I’m never in any actual danger unless I do something stupid. This is different. Lives depend on us reaching the cavern. I can’t take that kind of responsibility. I’ve been kidding myself to think I’m brave, Mercer. I’m a fake, a fraud.”

He snaked a hand out of his bag to stroke her short hair. “Anika, we’ve barely met and yet I can tell you that you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever known. You’ve already proven that you are cool under fire. Literally. You can think on your feet and” — he touched the red mark on his cheek where she’d raked him — “you have unbelievable determination. To me, that’s the definition of courage. Only a fool goes in search of danger. A brave person avoids it when he can but faces it when he has to. Your hobby is dangerous to be certain, but that’s not what makes you brave. You’re brave because you know the difference between fantasy and reality. And when reality hits you, you strike back.

“I won’t patronize you by tossing around platitudes like ‘I’m sure you’ll do fine’ because I don’t know. However, I
believe
you can do it. For me that’s enough.”

She simply said, “Thank you,” because there was no phrase that fully expressed her gratitude.

“You’re welcome,” Mercer said because any other reply would have betrayed how much he wanted to kiss her. Anika fell asleep with a trace of a smile on her lips and he wondered if she already knew.

T
he following morning, Mercer found Marty Bishop standing over the graves the team had dug while he was investigating the Air Force Stratofreighter. The others were preparing for the trek, packing everything from sleeping bags and extra Arctic clothes to a cooking stove, propane cylinders, and as much food as they could carry. There had been a few arguments over items individuals felt they had to bring — Marty’s videotapes for his father, Erwin Puhl’s thick journal, even Hilda’s personal recipe book. Mercer won them all. They stripped themselves to the absolute essentials, and even then they were dangerously overloaded. Only Magnus, the Icelandic pilot with the broken arm, would walk unencumbered. Mercer made up for him by carrying the heaviest pack at sixty pounds.

“I didn’t really know her,” Marty said when he felt Mercer’s presence. Ingrid’s tombstone was a piece of metal with her name scratched on one side.

“Doesn’t matter. For a few days she was part of your life. That’s more than enough time to feel grief.”

“We were just having some fun, you know. It would have ended as soon as we got to Iceland.” He wiped his cheeks with a glove. “I would have walked away. Now I can’t.”

“No, you can’t,” Mercer agreed. “She’s going to be with you for a long time. Nothing is as casual as we’d like to think. Especially people.”

“I’ve never spent much time thinking about consequences.”

“I have a feeling you’ll be thinking of nothing else for a while.” Mercer put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll give you a couple more minutes. Then we have to go.”

“Thanks.”

While the fog had lifted, the tracks Mercer had left on his trip to the C-97 had been nearly obliterated by Greenland’s constant wind. For this, he was grateful. It meant that by tomorrow there’d be no trace of their trek, no trail Rath could follow. They reached the Stratofreighter before noon and spent a couple of hours burying what pieces of wreckage were exposed. No one wanted Rath to make the same discovery Mercer had about Major Jack Delaney.

Because he knew the route to the plane, Mercer led, but when they started the long march to the air shaft, each member of the team took a turn at point. Trailblazing in the deep snow was exhausting work that only he and Ira could maintain for more than an hour at a time. Anika spent the day behind the leader, keeping track of their course with a handheld compass taken from the DC-3’s emergency kit. When not at the head of the column, Mercer walked with Marty as he helped Magnus. Anika had found a balance of painkillers to keep the aviator alert yet comfortable for the march. He was young and strong and could maintain their pace despite being unbalanced by his slinged arm.

Protected in the latest foul-weather gear, they had no problem handling the cold. It was exhaustion that slowly ground them down. Because of her size, he’d expected Hilda to have the greatest difficulty, but it was Erwin who needed the most encouragement. By five, the group had covered only a third of the distance, and their pace was a quarter of what it had been when they’d commenced. Mercer’s plan to spend only one night in the open wasn’t going to happen.