Clive Cussler - Fire Ice

The rotors had slowed to a point where individual blades were visible, but the spin was enough to create a parachute effect. The chopper came down like a falling leaf. The impact with the ground was hard enough to crumple the landing gear, but the fuselage remained intact. Seconds after the helicopter hit, Kaela, Lombardo, Dundee and another man spilled out like dice from a shaker.

The Cossacks saw the stunned crew and pilot, and their frustration and anger erupted like a long-dormant volcano. They swung into their saddles and charged down on the hapless foursome at a mad gallop. Austin's blood went cold.

The Cossacks were seconds away from their targets. There was no time to save the crew. He sprinted toward them anyhow, pistol in hand. He was still a hundred yards away when the Cossacks started to pop out of their saddles like grain being harvested by a giant, invisible scythe.

The charge that seemed so inevitable faltered, fell apart, then stopped completely. The horsemen milled around in confusion. More Cossacks dropped from their saddles.

Austin saw movement at the edge of the woods bordering the field. Men clad in black uniforms were emerging from the trees. They advanced slowly and deliberately toward the horsemen, weapons at their shoulders, firing as they walked. Seeing themselves overmatched, the Cossacks rode off in panic toward the distant woods.

The men in black moved relentlessly after the retreating horsemen. Except for one. He broke off from the others and came toward where Austin and Zavala stood. He was limping, Austin noticed. As the man drew closer, Zavala automatically raised his gun. Austin put his hand on the barrel and gently pushed the weapon down.

Petrov stopped a few yards away. The pale scar on his face stood out in vivid relief against his sunburned skin. "Hello, Mr. Austin. A pleasure to see you again."

"Hello, Ivan. You have no idea how nice it is to see you."

"I think I do," Petrov said, with a careless laugh. "You and your friend must join me for a shot of vodka. We can talk about old times and new beginnings."

Austin turned to Zavala and nodded. With Petrov leading the way, the three men made their way to the soccer field.

WITH HIS TALL gangling physique and questing intelligence, Yuri Orlov reminded Paul Trout of himself as a kid hanging around the ocean scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The way Yuri stood in the stem with one hand on the tiller, the Russian student could have been any of the skiff fishermen Trout knew on Cape Cod. All the youth needed to complete the picture was a Red Sox baseball cap and a big black Labrador retriever.

Yuri had taken immediate control of the boat, steering it a few hundred feet offshore, then stopping and letting the motor idle.

"Thank you so much for allowing me to go with you, Dr. Paul and Dr. Gamay. It's really an honor to be in the company of two such famous scientists. I envy you working for NUMA. My father told me all about his experiences in the States."

The Trouts smiled, even though the young man had upset their plan to sneak off on a scouting expedition. He brimmed with youthful enthusiasm, and his big blue eyes danced with excitement behind the thick glasses.

"Your father often talked about his family back in Russia," Paul said. "I remember him showing me pictures of you and your mother. You were younger then, so I didn't recognize you today."

"Some people say I look more like my mother."

Trout nodded in agreement. During Professor Orlov's stay in Woods Hole, the Russian had countered bouts of homesickness by whipping family snapshots from his billfold and proudly passing them around. Trout remembered being struck by the contrast between the bearlike professor and Svetlana, his tall, willowy wife.

"I enjoyed working with your father. He's a brilliant man, as well as personable. I hope we can work together again someday."

Yuri lit up like a bulb. "Next time Professor Orlov goes to the States, he has promised to take me with him."

Trout smiled at Yuri's use of the proper title before his father's name. "You should have no problem. Your English is excellent."

"Thank you. My parents used to have American exchange students stay with us." He pointed in the opposite direction from the one the Trouts wanted to take. "It's pretty nice along the coast here. Are you bird-watchers?"

Gamay saw their mission going astray. "Actually, Yuri," she said sweetly, "we were hoping to go to Novorossiysk."

A look of amused amazement crossed Yuri's young face. "Novorossiysk? Are you sure? The coast the other way is much prettier."

Paul picked up on Gamay's cue. "We do a lot of bird-watching in the Virginia countryside, but as an ocean geologist I'm more interested in deep-sea mining. I understand one of the largest ocean mining companies in the world has its headquarters in Novorossiysk."

"Sure. You're talking about Ataman Industries. They're huge. I'm doing my grad work in ecological mining, and I may apply for a job there myself when I get out of school."

"Then you'll understand why I'd be interested in taking a look at their facilities."

"Absolutely. Too bad I didn't know earlier. Maybe we could have set up a tour with them. You can't get a good idea of the scale of their operation from the water." Yuri grinned with relief. "I like birds, too, but not that much."

Gamay said, "I'm a marine biologist. Fish and plants are my game, but I think it would be interesting to go to Novorossiysk."

"That settles it, then," Paul said. Yuri goosed the throttle and brought the boat around in a big, lazy turn. He stayed about a quarter of a mile offshore on a course roughly parallel to the coast. After a while, the woods began to thin out, giving way to coastal plain and high, rolling hills. The beach was replaced by extensive reed-grown marshes and meandering creeks.

Paul and Gamay sat side by side on the center seat as the powerboat plowed through the sun-sparkled sea. The boat was around eighteen feet long and built like a tank, with overlapping planks and a thick prow. Yuri kept up a running narrative as he pointed out landmarks. The Trouts nodded with appreciation, although the snarl of the motor and the shush-shush of the hull drowned out most of Yuri's words.

Any misgivings the Trouts had about Yuri were quickly dispelled. He turned out to be a godsend. He knew how to keep the touchy motor supplied with the proper mixture of air and fuel, and was intimately acquainted with the countryside. They would have had trouble navigating the busy port on their own. Finding Ataman would have been almost impossible without a guide. As they got farther into Zeroes Bay, the city's importance as a major Russian seaport became apparent. Ship traffic in both directions was nonstop. The parade included every type of commercial vessel imaginable: cargo ships, tankers, oceangoing tugs, passenger ships and ferries.

Yuri kept a respectful distance from the big ships and their boat-swamping wakes. The shoreline became more built-up. High-rise buildings, smoking chimneys and grain elevators could be seen through the industrial haze that hung over the port. Yuri slowed the boat down to a fast walk.

"The city is very historic," Yuri said. "You can't go ten feet without tripping over a monument. The Russian Revolution ended here, when Allied ships evacuated the White Army in 1920. It's also one of the biggest ports in Russia. Oil is piped here from the wells in the northern Caucasus. That's the Shesharis Oil Harbor over there."

Paul had been studying the dark hue of the water. "It's a deep-water port, judging from the size of those ships."

"Novorossiysk doesn't freeze up in the winter. This is the major port for cargo moving between Russia and the Mediterranean and the rest of Europe, and it's also more or less convenient to Asia, the Persian Gulf and Africa. The port facilities are state-of-the-art. There are actually five parts to the harbor: three dry cargo handling areas, the oil harbor and the passenger terminal. You came in through the airport, so you know it's got connections allover the world."