Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

Realizing the tubes of ice made for half-decent sandbags, Paul slid a group of the core samples from their bin, stacking them in front of him in a small pyramid. He dropped down behind the stack, lying prone on the floor and looking over it and using it as a gunsight. Flat like this, he would be hard to hit and would be in a good position to shoot anyone who came his way.

When the men at the end of the aisle reappeared, Paul fired, missing wildly but forcing them back into hiding.

“I’m a better shot than this,” he said to himself.

Checking the rifle, he realized the problem. One of the core samples had hit the weapon as it fell, slamming it into the hard floor. The result was an almost imperceptible bend in the barrel, causing every shot to peel off high and wide to the left.

Guessing at a correction, he fired a third salvo of shells. Still, the weapon proved hard to dial in.

—

Watching Paul from above, Gamay and Räikkönen could see a new problem developing. After a brief exchange among the men, one of them sprinted away, backtracking and vanishing down the next aisle.

“They’re flanking him,” Gamay said.

“Hang on,” Räikkönen warned. “I’m moving us into the action. We can swing around and intercept.”

Räikkönen pushed the cherry picker’s joystick forward while Gamay pulled additional ice cores from the stack beside them, loading them into the basket of the picker.

The cherry picker began to move, accelerating in a jerky motion. It quickly reached the end of the aisle, at which point Räikkönen pushed the stick to the side.

Gamay was sure they’d go over. When Räikkönen leaned in the opposite direction, the vehicle somehow remained upright.

“This thing is not very stable,” Gamay said.

“Don’t worry,” Räikkönen said. “We do this every day. Too time-consuming to descend back down to the ground, reposition and then raise the platform back up.”

Räikkönen released the stick and the cherry picker stopped.

“Is he coming?” Räikkönen asked.

They were parked at the endcap of the aisle. Gamay leaned out and peeked around the corner. The man who was attempting to outflank Paul was racing down the aisle toward them.

“Yes.”

“Tell me when.”

She waited. “Now.”

Räikkönen pushed the joystick once more and the mobile platform surged into the adjacent aisle just as the fleet-footed pedestrian reached the corner.

The impact sent him flying. To Gamay, at least, the man seemed to be airborne for several seconds before slamming into the ground and sliding into the next rack of ice cores.

She hoped he was knocked out, but he rolled to the side, got his bearings and then looked directly up at them.

“Trouble,” Gamay said.

Räikkönen moved the joystick back. As the cherry picker reversed course, it bumped into the corner of the storage rack. The platform swayed precariously, stabilizing just as the gunman below found the trigger.

The soft popping sound of a rifle was cut off by Räikkönen shouting in pain as a spread of shells punched holes in the floor of the platform. Gamay pulled back, lucky to avoid being hit, but Räikkönen crumpled to the floor, two shots having pierced the same leg.

Gamay went for the ice cores, heaving the tubes over the side one after the other. She tossed them without looking, hoping to make up for it with sheer volume.

When the shooting ceased for a moment, Gamay reached over and pushed the joystick that controlled the platform.

The cherry picker surged across the aisle, heading in a diagonal path, until it slammed against the storage rack on the far side.

More shots came their way.

“We’ve got to get off this thing,” Gamay said, throwing the last of the frozen missiles toward the shooter. “We’re birds on a wire here.”

“Up,” Räikkönen said. “Take us up.”

Gamay pressed the button and the platform rose another six feet before stopping. It was now even with the top of the rack.

Gamay gave Räikkönen a boost, pushing him up and out. He climbed onto the top of the storage rack and turned around to reach for her.

As Gamay pulled herself up, another spread of bullets tore into the cherry picker. She leapt for safety, her foot shoving the picker over and toppling it like a tree.

She crawled forward, glad to be off the unstable machine.

“We’re safe up here,” Räikkönen said. “No bullet can go through thirty feet of ice. But what about your husband? He’ll be surrounded.”

—

Paul wasn’t oblivious to the danger of being surrounded, but there was little he could do about it. He kept his eyes on the men down at the end of the aisle, trying to track their movements.

He ducked for cover as one of them opened fire. His small pyramid of ice took a few hits and then began to crumble.

Paul fired back and rolled to safety under the nearby stack of shelves. Pressing as far into the space as he could, he felt as if he were about to make his last stand. He gripped the weapon and peeked out into the aisle. To his surprise, the attackers were running away.

Paul looked around, baffled. He heard no alarms. He saw no police or security teams coming to their rescue. Why their tormentors would suddenly depart in what seemed likely to be a moment of triumph made no sense to him.

At least until a series of explosions erupted.

A half-dozen grenades and incendiary charges went off in rapid succession. Flames shot through the stack of shelves that Gamay and Räikkönen had been searching only minutes before. Magnesium and thermite burning at temperatures of several thousand degrees.

What wasn’t blasted to shreds in the initial series of explosions would melt in the ensuing fire. Worse yet, the detonations had bent the support columns and the heat was weakening and deforming them.

The multistory rack of ice began to sag. It leaned in Paul’s direction. Dozens and then hundreds of the silver tubes slid free just as the entire unit toppled over.

The rack fell like classic steel shelves in the stacks of a library, collapsing sideways, slamming against the next storage rack and then sliding halfway down. It wedged itself tight and held ten feet above Paul’s position on the ground.

Paul crawled out from under the debris and stared in silence at the devastation. He scanned the aisle, peering through the smoke, looking for any sign of their attackers.

The men were long gone, even the man who’d been knocked unconscious. In fact, the only thing that remained were the shattered remnants of a thousand tubes of ice spread across the floor.

17

TAMBO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

Kurt and Joe were back on solid ground.

After catching up on sleep while the Providence sailed north, they’d boarded the ship’s Jayhawk once more, this time for a long flight back to Cape Town. From there, they’d taken a commercial jet to Johannesburg, arriving midafternoon to glorious sunshine and eighty-degree temperatures.

“That’s more like it,” Joe said, stepping through the airport’s exit doors and out to the curb. “Who’s picking us up?”

“A friend of Rudi’s,” Kurt said. “Her name’s Leandra Ndimi. She’s a NUMA liaison officer.”

“Great,” Joe said. “Any word from Paul and Gamay?”

Kurt was in the process of checking his phone. “They report Helsinki to be both freezing and dangerous. They were attacked inside the ice core facility. At least four men with guns. Authorities are checking surveillance footage, but the cameras inside the facility were turned off.”

“Are they all right?” Joe asked.

“No injuries to report. But the attackers used incendiary charges and grenades to destroy the cores they were looking for. Computer records had already been tampered with, but there’s some reason to believe that was Cora’s doing.”