The Valhalla Prophecy (36 page)

Chase pressed on through the jungle. “Once we get to the river, we can find that crossing point and go back to the village,” he said over his shoulder. “We’ll ask your friends to look after you while I …”

He realized Natalia was no longer following him. She had not fallen or been forced to sit to catch her breath; instead, she had simply stopped walking, staring blankly at the ground. Everything about her bowed stance suggested utter defeat. “What is it?” he said, going back to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” she replied, her voice filled with misery. “Everything is wrong.”

“Yeah, I know. But we need to keep moving. It’s not safe to stay here.”

“But that is the point!” she cried, raising her head to regard him with despairing eyes. “It is not safe anywhere! Not for me. That man at the river, the one who pretended to be my father—he is working for the Americans, yes?” Chase nodded. “And the men who kidnapped me are Russians. Do you think they will stop looking for me?”

“I’ll make sure they don’t get you.”

“For how long? A week? A month? A year? Are you going to be my bodyguard forever?” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Eddie, these people will find me wherever I go. If they think they can use me to continue my grandfather’s experiments, they will never give up. They will keep sending people after me until they get what
they want—and they will kill anyone who tries to stop them. They will kill
you
, Eddie.”

“They can fuckin’ try,” he growled.

“Do you think you are invincible?” She held out her hands almost pleadingly. “They will come for me, and they will kill you, and then they will use what is in my blood to kill even more people. I do not want that to happen. I—will not
let
that happen!”

“I won’t let it happen either,” Chase insisted. “And the first thing we need to do to make sure of that is get out of here. Come on.”

He reached for her hand, but she pulled away. “No. I will not let anyone die because of me. Not you, not my friends in the village, not anyone! And I do not want you to have to kill people to protect me. Even if they are doing … bad things. It would still be because of me that they were dead, and I cannot live with that.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I cannot live.”

Chase understood her meaning, but refused to accept it. “Don’t say that. I can still get you out of here.” Natalia shook her head. “No. This … this is where it has to end.” She slowly turned, taking in the verdant jungle around them. “It is beautiful here, isn’t it? The Americans tried to kill it with Agent Orange, but it grew back. Nature will recover.” Then she looked back at him, suddenly firm. “But what my grandfather was trying to do was against nature. He wanted to
corrupt
nature, to make monsters. And that is what the Americans or the Russians will do if they find me. They will fill the world with monsters, and poison everything living. There is only one way to stop them.”

Now it was Chase’s turn to shake his head. “No, there isn’t.”

“You know I am right, Eddie!” She walked to him, more tears swelling. “I am going to die young, no matter what—my grandfather’s curse has seen to that. But that does not mean I have to die like my mother and my grandmother. I can
choose
how I die—and I choose to die to save other people. Including you.” There was a
long pause, then she drew a decisive breath. “Give me the gun.”

He stared at her, appalled. “I’m not going to let you fucking shoot yourself!”

“Then
you
will have to shoot me.”

“No!” he protested. “No, that’s fucking crazy.”

Almost angry, she jabbed a hand back along their path. “Your friend, the Belgian …”

“Hugo.”

“Hugo, he was willing to give his life to protect us. And you are willing to give your life to protect me. Am I wrong?”

“No, but there’s a difference between
giving
your life to protect someone, and
risking
it—”

“The only difference is if you are lucky. But you cannot be lucky forever. We all die in the end. And this is where I am going to die.” She gestured at the surrounding trees, her anger replaced by an almost peaceful acceptance. “Once I am dead, if you burn my body there will be nothing for them to take. My grandfather’s work will be ended.”

“This is insane,” he said, shaking his head again. “Natalia, I’m not going to kill you. I promised to protect you!”

“But I am just one person. If I am dead, many more lives will be saved.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Once these people have the eitr, do you think they will not use it? Why else would they want it? And,” she added, “one of the lives that will be saved is yours. If I am gone, they will have no reason to kill you.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” he muttered.

“But you know I am right, Eddie,” Natalia continued, desperation entering her voice. “And it is what I want to do. Please!” She wrapped her hands around his. “I will not let anyone else die because of me. You have to do it. You have to!” She squeezed his hands, then let go and turned away, getting down on her knees. “You … you know how to make it not hurt, don’t you?” she said quietly.

“Yeah, I do,” he replied. “But—”

“Then do it. It is the only way to end this.” She raised her head and closed her eyes.

He stared down at the young woman. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes” came the reply.

He was silent for a long moment. Then he slowly raised the gun.

“Please,” whispered Natalia. “Do it.”

Chase hesitated—then pulled the trigger.

The elevator came to a stop. Eddie and Nina went to one side of the doors, Tova and Kagan the other as they parted. A freezing wind gusted in.

To everyone’s relief, it was not accompanied by bullets. Kalashnikov raised, Eddie cautiously exited. Nina followed. The business jet had gone, though a constant low drone told them that another aircraft was idling on one of the base’s long taxiways. But the only movement was of snow flurries swirling across the flat expanses between the concrete lanes. “Okay, there’s nobody here—yet.”

Kagan limped to the racks of gas tanks at one end of the blockhouse and indicated a group of concrete buildings across the runway. “We need to reach the base headquarters.”

Eddie judged the distance. “Christ, that’s more than half a mile away.”

Nina, however, was looking at something closer. “Maybe these guys’ll give us a ride!” she said, pointing in alarm. A military UAZ jeep was tearing along one of the taxiways. On seeing the group, its driver made a sharp turn to angle across the snow-covered grass directly
toward them. She turned to Kagan. “Good, or not good?”

A man leaned out of the four-by-four’s side and raised an AK. “Take a guess!” said Eddie. “Get back!”

They retreated—only to come face-to-face with Tova as the elevator closed. “What is happening?” she asked.

“No, keep them open—oh, shit!” Eddie yelped as the weather-scoured metal doors slammed shut. “Now Slavin and his guys’ll come up behind us!”

“Sorry, I am sorry! But you said there was no one here,” the Swede protested.

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” Nina told her. “What do we do?”

Eddie had an idea. “Get behind the bunker,” he said, gesturing in the opposite direction from the approaching UAZ.

Nina, Tova, and Kagan scurried for cover—but Eddie hared into the open, running across the taxiway. “Eddie!” Nina yelled, stopping. “What are you doing?”

“Giving ’em a warm welcome!” he shouted.

A glance back. The two men in the four-by-four had seen him, the bounding jeep changing direction to intercept. He adjusted his own course; he needed the vehicle to pass close to the bunker—

The passenger’s AK thudded. Eddie heard bullets sear past him, little puffs of snow marking their impacts on the frozen ground. He reached the edge of the concrete and dropped flat on the grass, scrambling around to bring up his own rifle.

The gunman fired again, a three-round burst this time chipping the taxiway only feet from the Englishman. He flinched, then raised his head and took aim. With only three bullets left, he had to make them all count …

He pulled the trigger.

The shot crazed the jeep’s windshield. The driver made a rapid stop, the four-by-four slithering on the snow to end up almost side-on to Eddie. Both men scrambled out to take cover behind the unarmored vehicle.

Just as Eddie had hoped.

He switched his aim—to the gas tanks along the bunker’s side, about fifty feet from the stationary UAZ. He aligned the sights on a valve on the nearest tank, held his breath to steady the rifle—and fired.

The shot clanged off the tank just below the valve. The sights were slightly off. Eddie muttered a curse, raising the gun to compensate—just as the two soldiers opened fire.

This time, their aim was much better.

“Shit!” Eddie gasped, dropping his head as bullets smacked against the concrete. The shooting stopped, but he knew they had not given up—they would be switching their rifles from burst-fire to single-shot mode for greater accuracy.

He raised his head again, lining up the sights on the tank for his final shot. In the corner of his vision, he saw one of the soldiers taking aim …

He took the shot.

The acetylene tank blew apart, the shock wave throwing the soldiers to the ground. A fireball roared out from the side of the bunker. Both Russians felt the hellish heat sweep over them, and simultaneously made the same wordless decision to jump up and run as quickly as they could away from its source.

Eddie was also back on his feet—running for the UAZ, the front end of which was now adorned by spots of flame where its paint had caught fire. He waved for the others to join him. “Anyone order a taxi?” he shouted.

Nina led the others out from behind the bunker, giving the blaze around the remaining acetylene tanks a very wide berth. “I am
so
never putting you in charge of any barbecues,” she said as she reached the jeep. Her husband, already in the driver’s seat, grinned.

Tova gave the UAZ an unhappy look as she helped Kagan aboard. “But it is on fire!”

“Secondhand cars’ve always got
something
wrong with ’em,” said Eddie. He put the jeep into gear and
made a sharp turn to head away from the bunker. “Okay, where are we going?”

Kagan was thinking out loud. “We will never reach the commander to explain the truth—he has issued orders for us to be shot on sight. The orders can only be countermanded from above … I need to speak to my superiors in Moscow,” he announced, now focused. Nina started to take out her phone, but he shook his head. “All the cell towers in the area will have been shut down when the base was put on alert. I need a secure line.”

“Where can we find one?” she asked.

“The main communications center—but we will never get to it alive. Or …” He pointed off to one side. “Or there!”

Nina looked around—and did a double-take when she saw what he was indicating. “On a
plane
?”

Standing on one of the taxiways was the silver bulk of a Tu-95MS Bear bomber, the thrum of its eight massive propellers at idle the source of the droning rumble. Ladders led up into its long fuselage, a couple of small trucks waiting nearby. “It’s got a radio link?” Eddie asked.

Kagan nodded. “There is an emergency frequency that will connect me to the Kremlin—my superiors can order the base commander to arrest Slavin. It will take only a few minutes.”

“If we even
have
a few minutes,” said Nina in alarm, seeing several other jeeps charging across the great expanse of the air base.

“Better than nowt,” Eddie told her, swinging the UAZ onto the grass to head for the bomber. In the wing mirror, he saw figures piling out of the bunker’s elevator. “Shit! Slavin and his lads just got to the surface.”

“Keep down,” Kagan warned. They all hunched lower. A few shots cracked after them, but none hit.

“We’re out of range,” Nina said in relief.

Eddie dampened her mood. “We won’t be for long,” he warned, glancing back at the pursuing vehicles.

Kagan checked his gun’s magazine. “I only have seventeen bullets. It will not be enough to hold them off.”

“We need more guns …” Eddie looked again at the Bear. They were approaching the huge bomber from behind—and he saw windows at the very end of the fuselage beneath the tail, a turret mounted below it.

A turret from which jutted the long black barrels of two AM-23 autocannons.

“And we’ve
got
more guns,” he concluded.

“Where?” Nina asked, not seeing any in the UAZ.

“There.” He pointed at the turret.

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope!” One of the ladders led into the tailgunner’s compartment. He looked under the wings. Pylons were loaded with sleek gray shapes: The Bear was fully armed with Kh-101 cruise missiles. He hoped the cannons were combat-ready too. “Nina, Tova—go up the front ladder and get Kagan to the radio. I’ll hold ’em off with the guns.”

Kagan shot him a sharp look. “You are going to kill Russian soldiers?”

“No, just scare ’em—unless they’re stupid enough to keep coming!”

He brought the smoldering UAZ onto the taxiway, the jeep bouncing hard over the edge of the concrete. Two men with thick parkas over grubby overalls were working on the landing gear. They looked around in surprise as the four-by-four skidded to a halt, then hurriedly backed away as Kagan pointed his gun at them. He limped for the steep metal steps leading into the forward fuselage, Nina and Tova going with him.

Eddie, meanwhile, clattered up the aft ladder. A confused face peered down through the hatch at him, asking a question in Russian.

The Englishman reached the top and replied with a punch. “Sorry, mate,” he said, pulling himself up into the cramped compartment and dropping the dazed airman out of the opening. The fall was about twelve feet; the man hit the runway hard and yelled in pain, but no bones were broken. “If I were you, I’d shift your arse!”

He turned to survey his surroundings. The tailgunner’s station was cut off from the rest of the bomber’s interior, a lonely, claustrophobic, and noisy eyrie whose sole saving grace on the Bear’s long patrols would be a spectacular vista beyond its panoramic windows. The current view of the flat and bleak expanse of Engels was less inspiring, but Eddie was more concerned with targets than scenery. The incoming jeeps were barreling down the taxiway toward the Tu-95.