Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

If he wasn’t on the grass, maybe he was still hiding in the rocks.

Kurt made another half circle, churning up a new cloud of dust, and headed for the outcropping of rock they’d used as a refuge.

The radio attached to the dashboard squawked. Kurt turned it up, catching the back end of the message. “. . . He’s alone in the jeep,” a bitter voice said. “If you can’t catch him, light him up.”

A couple garbled responses were unintelligible, but the sound of rifles discharging was perfectly clear.

The men were shooting at him from the backs of the Toyotas. He took evasive action and didn’t hear or feel anything hitting the jeep. Not a surprise, considering the darkness, dust and the uneven terrain they were bouncing over.

Still, it took only one lucky shot to put the jeep or him out of action. Kurt chose to make himself harder to hit.

Cutting one way and then back the other, he raced past the outcropping of granite with the high beams on. The lights swept the ledge, but there was no sign of Joe.

“Come on, Joe,” Kurt said. “This is no time to play hide-and-seek.”

He was forced to swing wide as bullets ricocheted off the weathered stone, but once he’d gone wide he cut back in the other direction and drove behind the bluff, putting the rock formation between him and the men with the guns.

“Keep him away from the fence,” another voice said over the radio. “If he breaks through, there’s nothing but open road out there.”

Kurt found the radio call odd. For one thing, he was nowhere near the fence. For another, the voice sounded awfully familiar.

“He’s gone behind the bluff,” a harsher voice snapped. “ Cut him off on the far side.”

The Toyotas were still following, while the flatbed raced around the far side, attempting to catch Kurt in a pincer move.

Kurt slammed on the brakes, sliding the tires and stirring up a billowing cloud of dust. Killing the headlights, he spun the wheel and mashed the accelerator to the floor once again, turning away from the rocks and out into the dark.

Driving blind was dangerous, but it made him almost invisible. Kurt squinted through the coated windshield, trying to avoid crashing. He clipped a small tree and then swerved to avoid a boulder, barreling through some low bushes in the process.

The two vehicles attempting to trap him fared worse. They converged in the cloud, each thinking they’d found him, shooting first and then nearly colliding.

“Look out.”

“Stop shooting. You’re firing at us.”

“Where the hell did he go?”

Kurt took great pleasure at being the cause of their frustration.

“Well, he’s not heading for the fence,” the more familiar voice said. “Clearly, he’s too dumb to try that.”

Kurt grinned as he heard the last radio call. It was Joe. The sarcasm only drove the point home.

He couldn’t fathom how Joe had gotten a radio. But Joe was clearly telling him to run for the fence.

Keeping his foot off the brake so the taillights wouldn’t give him away, Kurt circled around one more time, clearing the bluff and heading for freedom.

The jeep picked up speed on this straightaway, its wheels rumbling across the dry terrain. Spotting the silhouette of the Mercedes parked on the access road, he grabbed the microphone from the cradle and pressed the talk button. “What happened to the other American?”

“You mean the good-looking one?” Joe replied. “ He probably met up with a beautiful woman and drove off into the sunset.”

“Correction,” a female voice said. “ He was rescued by a beautiful woman and they drove off into the moonrise.”

Even better, Kurt thought. “I’ll ram the fence,” he replied, done with the pretense. “You guys get ready to pull through behind me.”

Knowing it would best to hit a weak spot, Kurt aimed for a joint where two sections of the cast iron fence had been welded together. He kept the accelerator down and barreled forward, pulling the seat belt on with one hand and driving with the other.

The jeep bounced across the access road and surged toward the barrier. It hit the fence at forty miles an hour, acting like a three-thousand-pound battering ram.

The impact was sudden and jarring. Kurt felt the belt tighten and yank him hard. His head snapped forward and his hands flew off the steering wheel. The jeep tilted and went over on the passenger’s side, sliding to a stop.

Kurt looked up. The jeep was on its side, partially caught in the fence, but only after breaking through to the long driveway.

The Mercedes turned on its lights and rumbled through the gap and stopped next to him.

Joe leaned out the window. “Careful, the fence might be hot even though it’s down.”

Kurt noticed Joe’s hair was standing straight up. “What happened to you?”

“Electroshock therapy,” Joe said.

“I’ve been recommending you try that for years,” Kurt said.

Unlatching his seat belt, Kurt freed himself and used the roll bar to pull himself up. Standing on the side of the jeep, he leapt over the downed fence and into the bed of the Mercedes.

Securely down, he tapped the roof twice and Leandra hit the accelerator.

The Mercedes roared off, heading down the road. The turbocharged, 500 horsepower engine propelled it at a pace that neither the workman-like Toyotas nor the diesel-powered flatbed could possibly hope to match.

Watching the road behind them, Kurt saw the vehicles pull up to the fence and stop.

A sliding window in the back of the cab opened and Kurt came face-to-face with Joe. His hair looked even more amusing up close, like a punk rock musician’s. “That’s a good look for you. I’d keep it like that.”

“Very funny,” Joe said. “Speaking of keeping things. Tell me you didn’t drop that water sample in all your antics out there.”

Kurt reached into his jacket pocket. The bottle was there, tucked down deep inside. He pulled it out to make sure the cap was still screwed on tight.

“Safe and sound,” Kurt said. “Now all we have to do is find out what we risked our lives for.”

27

UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG

JOHANNESBURG

The Auckland Park Kingsway campus of the University of Johannesburg sported a collection of futuristic buildings arranged around a manicured lawn. Bountiful trees here and there offered shade for the students and professors, while curving paths branched out from one building to the next.

Kurt, Joe and Leandra made their way down one of those paths and into the science building, where they entered a lab run by Noah Watson.

Watson was the ranking professor in the microbiology department. He and Leandra knew each other well. Like her, the professor had worked with NUMA before, primarily as part of their effort to save the world’s reefs from the effects of pollution and ocean acidification.

“Professor,” Leandra said warmly as they came through the door.

Watson was in front of a computer when they arrived, an intense look firmly in place. Seeing Leandra, his face softened considerably. “Ah, you’re here,” he said, standing and greeting her. “At last I can stop reading the endless footnotes in this student’s paper.”

The professor stepped forward, hugging Leandra and offering a hand to Kurt. He was a bit taller than Kurt, a bit rounder, too. He wore a polo shirt with the Springboks logo on it, the South African rugby team. He seemed quite pleased to meet Kurt and Joe in person.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” he said, his voice filling the room. “Too much, perhaps. When Leandra called and asked that I assist you, I was very skeptical. Considering the stories I’ve heard, I assumed you were imaginary figures, mere figments of some publicity department’s creative minds.”