“Because the Americans beat them to it.”
Borisov didn’t need the simple truth explained any further. If anyone had the information, it would be the men from NUMA.
“That’s one hijacker,” Borisov said. “There must be others.”
“All dead,” Ahab insisted. “Ridley eliminated the others.”
Borisov’s face turned sour, but to some extent he was relieved. At least things had fallen apart before he transferred the inordinate sums the hijackers wanted. “It seems our quest is at an end.”
“Not quite,” Ahab said. “I’ve had Ridley’s phone for the past hour. He was not as careful as he believed. I located the plane on a frozen lake not far from here.”
Borisov was not moved. “And how does that help me? If the Americans know where it is they’ll surround it with a platoon of NATO soldiers and helicopter gunships.”
“I very much doubt that will be the case,” Ahab said. “For one thing, the American in charge is a brash and arrogant sort of man. He has a history of acting on instinct and abhors waiting for approval or the marshaling of backup forces. Fearing the Chinese may know where the plane is, he will move the instant he narrows down the location. The overriding desire to reach the prize first—either to collect it or simply deny you and the Chinese access to it by destroying it—will be the rationale for his haste. But more importantly…the lake in question is on the border between your country and Norway. Depending on where you draw the line, the EAGL is almost certainly in Russian territory.”
A sort of awed silence descended over the table.
“The Americans would never send an army onto the lake,” Borisov acknowledged.
“Austin will go for it alone,” Ahab insisted. “Or perhaps with a small crew he trusts. With my help, you can meet him at the aircraft.”
Borisov warmed to the idea. If the plane was in Russian territory, he would be able to do as he pleased. Encountering Americans on his side of the lake, he would be free to repel them as invaders or simplyleave them dead on the ice. “I suppose you’ll want the same outrageous payment the hijackers demanded.”
To Borisov’s surprise Ahab shook his head slowly. “The original deal died with Ridley. I would never have demanded so much. We’ve worked together before. You know that. My fee in this would have been ten million dollars, but considering this particular American is the reason I walk with this limp, and this damn cane, I’ll take half that much, as long as you make sure he dies up there and does so painfully.”
Borisov felt his chest swelling with anticipation. Things had turned in his favor. All things. All at once. Not only did he still have a chance to secure the plane and the laser inside it, but he could act under the cover of repelling American spies, and he could do so without risking his career (and life) by dipping into funds best left alone.
He imagined the payoff. If he could return to Moscow with the laser, if he could bring even part of the system home…A victory like that would see him rewarded with wealth, prestige, and honor, the likes of which few Russians had ever known.
He would get his men ready. He would draft a few extras from the trawler’s crew. He would make all of them understand the need to act with violence and fury, leaving no survivors to tell the tale.
“We’ll be ready,” he told Ahab. “Give me that location and we’ll finish the job.”
Chapter 39
“We need to go now,” Kurt said.
He was in the captain’s quarters addressing Joe and theLyra’s captain. Gamay was in the sick bay, having X-rays and MRIs run on her back. Paul was unwilling to leave her side.
“We don’t even know if we’re looking in the right place,” the captain said.
They’d looked over charts and maps and satellite photos, trying to find a body of water called Fish Head Lake. They’d found nothing in the English language or any form of Norwegian. Then Kurt had noticed a curving lake that came to a point near the edge of a cliff while widening in a soft curve as it drew farther back. The lake was symmetrical on the top and bottom. A small island emerged on one side, appearing vaguely like an eye. The lake was fed by a number of streams that met up and joined in the rocks behind it. Because they came in from both sides, they resembled the thin bones of a fish from which the flesh had already been taken.
“If that’s not a fish head, I don’t know what is,” Kurt had suggested.
It turned out the lake had been scanned by a passing satellite twice in the first thirty hours after the EAGL had vanished. The firstimage was blacked out by thick cloud cover. A foot of snow had fallen in Tromsø that night. Another five inches followed the next day.
The second image was taken after the weather had cleared. It showed a surface blanketed with deep snow, which had been heaped up into drifts by the wind. Kurt motioned toward one of the drifts that appeared much larger and regular than the others.
“That’s the plane,” Kurt insisted. He pointed to a rise in the snow near the middle of the lake. It was long and straight and compared roughly with the length of the C-17’s fuselage.
“Where are the wings?” Joe said. “Where’s the tail?”
“Buried under the snow.”
“I hate to argue with you,” the captain said. “But they got twelve inches of snow that night, not twelve feet. Which means, things should be sticking out.”
“Have neither of you guys been to Buffalo in the winter?” Kurt asked. “It’s a lake-effect area. If the town got twelve inches they might get twelve feet.”
