Polar Shift Read online

  It is an old city, founded in the 1600s by a band of Cossacks, and was long considered the last outpost of civilization for explorers. It gained later fame, or notoriety, as one of the islands in the Gulag system, where enemies of the Soviet state found ready employment as slave laborers in the gold and diamond mines. Since the nineteenth century, it has been the world capital for the woolly mammoth ivory trade.

  The Ivory Cooperative is one of the prime distributors in the ivory trade. The cooperative is housed in a dark and dusty warehouse, surrounded by crumbling apartment buildings that go back to the time of Khrushchev. Behind the nondescript, concrete walls and steel door are thousands of pounds of mammoth ivory worth millions of dollars, waiting to be shipped out to China and Burma, where they will be carved into trinkets for the thriving Asian tourist market. The white treasure is contained in crates that are stacked on shelves running from one end of the warehouse to the other.

  Three men were standing in one of the aisles. They were Vladimir Bulgarin, the owner of the ivory business, and two helpers, who were holding each end of a huge mammoth tusk.

  “This is beautiful,” Bulgarin was saying. “What’s its weight?”

  “One hundred kilos,” one of his helpers said with a grunt. “Very heavy.”

  “Wonderful,” Bulgarin said. Prime ivory was going at one hundred dollars a kilo.

  A third helper was hustling down the aisle. “Your partner is here,” he said.

  Bulgarin looked as if he had bit into a lemon. He instructed his helpers to load the tusk into a sawdust-filled crate and to set it aside. He might have the tusk carved into little ivory mammoths or earrings rather than send it out as raw ivory, increasing the value even more.

  As he headed back to his office, he had a frown on his fleshy face. His so-called partner was what they called a “bagman” in the United States. He was a Mafia thug who showed up once a month from Moscow to collect a percentage of the take, accuse Bulgarin of holding out and threaten to break his legs if he was.

  It was inevitable that the Russian Mafia would find a way to get its sticky fingers into the profitable mammoth tusk trade. Business was booming, thanks to the international ban against the sale of ivory from the African elephant herds that had been decimated by hunters. Inhabitants of Yakutsk had a history in the mammoth trade going back hundreds of years, and, with an estimated ten million mammoths buried under the Siberian permafrost, a vast source of material.

  Political change had boosted the ivory trade as well. Moscow had always regulated commerce in Yakutsk, and still controlled the diamond and gold business, but the local inhabitants had been trading with the Chinese for two thousand years, and they knew better than anyone how to make money off the bones of ancient, dead giants. The ivory first had to be worked in order to be exported legally under the law, but some distributors, like Bulgarin, ignored the law and sent raw ivory directly to the buyers.

  When Moscow stepped out, the Mafia stepped in. The previous year, the cooperative received an unannounced visit from a group of the most frightening men Bulgarin had ever met. They wore black turtlenecks and black leather jackets, and they spoke softly when they said they were becoming partners in the business. Bulgarin was a petty thief, and he rubbed elbows with the more violent elements of the Russian underworld. When these hard men said he and his family needed protection, he knew exactly what they meant. He agreed to the arrangement, and the people from Moscow installed the two guards with machine guns at the door to protect their investment.

  Bulgarin was puzzled as well as annoyed at the timing of the visit. As regular as clockwork, his partner showed up on the fourth Thursday of every month. This was the second Wednesday. Despite his annoyance, when he entered his tiny, cluttered office near the entrance to the warehouse he wreathed his face in a broad smile, expecting to see Karpov, the usual representative from Moscow. But the man dressed in the black suit and turtleneck was younger, and, in contrast to Karpov, who stole money with a tough-guy affability, his expression was as cold as Yakutsk on a winter night.

  He glared at Bulgarin. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Bulgarin said, maintaining his smile. “I was at the far end of the warehouse. Is Karpov ill?”

  “Karpov is only a money collector. We have serious business. I want you to get in touch with the men on Ivory Island.”

  “It’s not easy.”

  “Just do it.”

  Several days before, Moscow had called, and told him to assemble a team of his most hardened ivory hunters and send them to the island. They would find a scientific party working there, and were instructed to hold a woman scientist named Karla Janos. They were to hand her over to a team coming in from Alaska.

  “I can try,” Karpov said. “The weather—”

  “I want you to change their orders. Tell them to take the girl and transport her off the island.”

  “What about the Americans?”

  “Their people are unable to come. They were willing to pay a great deal of money for the job, so she is evidently of some value. We will talk to her, to see what she has to say, and hold her for ransom.”

  Karpov shrugged. It was typical of the Moscow Mafia. Double cross. Crude and direct.

  “What about the other scientists?”

  “Tell your men, no witnesses.”

  A chill ran down Karpov’s spine. He was no angel, and had broken a few heads as a young smuggler. Ivory hunting was a cutthroat business. After the Mafia got into ivory hunting, they had recruited men who could be charitably called “scum of the earth.” Some of his competitors had conveniently vanished.

  At the same time, he was smart enough to know that, as a witness, he too would be in line to be eliminated. He would do as the man said, but his mind was already working on ways to fold his business and leave Yakutsk. He nodded, his mouth dry, and opened a cabinet that housed a state-of-the-art radio.

  Within minutes, he had contacted the ivory hunters. Using a carefully crafted code in case someone was listening, he called the leader of his team, a violent man named Grisha, who was a Sakha descendant of the Mongols that had lived as ivory hunters going back hundreds of years. He relayed the instructions. Grisha asked only for clarification to make sure he had heard the order correctly, but otherwise had no questions.

  “It’s done,” he said, replacing the microphone.

  The Mafia man nodded. “I will come back tomorrow to make sure.”

  Karpov wiped the sweat off his brow after the man left. He didn’t know which was worse, dealing with the cutthroats from Moscow or the cutthroats who worked for him. What he did know was that his days in Yakutsk were numbered. He would be safe until they brought someone in to replace him, but, in the meantime, he would activate plans made long ago. He had millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts.

  Geneva would be nice. Or Paris or London. The gem business would be profitable.

  Anything would be preferable to a Siberian winter.

  He smiled. The Mafia may have done him a great favor.

  22

  PETROV WAS LEAVING his office in the drab Moscow government building when his secretary told him he had a telephone call. He was in a foul mood. He had been unable to extricate himself from a diplomatic party at the Norwegian embassy. Norway, for God’s sake! Nothing but smoked fish to eat. He planned to get tanked up on vodka and disgrace himself. Maybe they wouldn’t invite him back.

  “Take a message,” he had growled. As he was going out the door, he turned. “Who’s on the line?”

  “An American,” his secretary said. “He says his name is John Doe.”

  Petrov looked dumbstruck. “You’re sure?”

  Petrov brushed by his astonished secretary and returned to his office, where he snatched the phone off the desk and stuck it to his ear. “Petrov here,” he said.

  “Hello, Ivan. I remember when you answered the phone yourself,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

  “And I rememb
er when you were still named Kurt Austin,” Petrov said. His snarl didn’t match the gleam of amusement in his eyes.

  “Touché, old pal. Still the same old, sharp-tongued KGB apparatchik. How are you, Ivan?”

  “I’m fine. How long has it been since the Razov affair?”

  “A couple of years, anyway. You said to call if I ever need a favor.”

  Austin and Petrov had worked together to torpedo the plans of Mikhail Razov, a Russian demagogue who was behind a plot to launch a tsunami against the East Coast by using volatile methane hydrate ocean deposits.

  “You’re lucky to catch me. I was on my way to a thrilling party at the Norwegian embassy. What can I do for you?”

  “Zavala and I need to get to the New Siberian Islands as soon as possible.”

  “Siberia!” Petrov chuckled. “Stalin is dead, Austin. They don’t send people to the Gulag anymore.” He glanced around him. “Those who offend their superiors are given a promotion, a title and a large office decorated in atrocious taste, where they are bored to death.”

  “You’ve been a bad boy again, Ivan.”

  “The term doesn’t translate into Russian. Suffice it to say that it’s never wise to offend one’s superior.”

  “Next time I talk to Putin, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  “I would appreciate it if you didn’t. President Putin is the superior I offended. I exposed a close friend of his who had been embezzling money from an oil company that the government had taken over after arresting its owner. The usual Kremlin follies. I was removed from my intelligence position. I have too many friends in high places, so I couldn’t be punished overtly, and instead was placed in this velvet cage. Why Siberia, if I may ask?”

  “I can’t go into details now. I can only tell you it’s a matter of great urgency.”

  Petrov smiled. “When is it not urgent with you? When do you want to go?”

  Austin had called Petrov after trying to trace Karla Janos at the University of Alaska. The department head he spoke to said Karla was on an expedition to the New Siberian Islands. Austin knew he had to act fast when the department head mentioned that this was the third time that week people had inquired about the Ivory Island expedition.

  “Immediately,” he told Petrov. “Sooner, if you can pull it off.”

  “You are in a hurry. I’ll call the embassy in Washington and have a courier deliver the paperwork to you. There is a price for my help, though. You must allow me to buy you a drink, so we can talk over old times.”

  “You’ve got a deal.”

  “Will you need support once you get here?”

  Austin thought about it. From past experience, he knew that Petrov’s idea of support would be a tough, special ops team armed to the teeth and spoiling for a fight.

  “Maybe later. This situation may require a more surgical touch at the outset.”

  “In that case, I will have my medical team ready in case you need surgery. I may join them myself.”

  “You weren’t kidding about being bored,” Austin said.

  “It’s a far cry from the old days,” Petrov said with nostalgia in his voice.

  “We’ll reminisce over our drinks,” Austin said. “Sorry to cut you off, but I’ve got to make some calls. I’ll call you with my final travel details.”

  Petrov said he understood, and told Austin to be in touch. He hung up, and told his secretary to cancel the car that was supposed to take him to the Norwegian embassy. He called the Russian embassy in Washington. No one there knew about his bureaucratic exile, and he was able to authorize papers that would get Austin and Zavala into Russia for a NUMA scientific expedition. After he had been assured that the paperwork would be delivered within the hour, he sat back in his chair and lit up one of the slim Havana cigars he favored, and thought about his encounters with the brash and daring American from NUMA.

  Petrov was in his forties, with a broad forehead and high cheekbones. He would have been handsome, if not for the massive scar that defaced his right cheek. The scar was a gift from Austin, but he bore the American no ill will. He and Austin had clashed several times when they were working for specialized naval intelligence units in their respective countries during the Cold War. Things got hot when their paths crossed during a Soviet attempt to capture a sunken American spy submarine and its crew.

  Austin had rescued the crew, and warned Petrov that he had placed a timed explosive charge on the sub. Angry at being bested, Petrov dove in his minisub and was caught in the explosion. He had not held the incident or the resulting scar against Austin, and, in fact, took it as a lesson not to let his temper guide his actions. Later, when they found themselves working together on the Razov affair, they proved a formidable team. If Austin thought he was going to cut him out of some fun in his own country, he was greatly mistaken, Petrov ruminated. He picked up the phone to start things rolling.

  AUSTIN WAS on the phone to Zavala. “I was on my way out the door,” Zavala said. “See you at NUMA.”

  “There’s been a change of plans,” Austin said. “We’re going to Siberia.”

  “Siberia!” Zavala said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “I’m Mexican American. We don’t do well in the cold.”

  “Just remember to pack your fur-lined jock and you’ll be fine. I’m bringing along my blunderbuss,” he said, using Zavala’s nickname for his large-caliber Bowen revolver. “You might want to pack some insurance as well.”

  He arranged to meet Zavala at the airport, and went to dig out clothes that would be fit for arctic conditions.

  THOUSANDS OF miles away, Schroeder was in his cramped cabin, taking one more look at the topographical map before he set foot on the island.

  Schroeder had learned long ago of the need to know the theater of operations one expected to operate in, whether it was a hundred square miles of countryside or a few blocks of city alleyways.

  He had studied the map a number of times and felt that he knew Ivory Island as well as if he had been there. The island was about ten miles wide and twenty miles long, elongated in shape. The sea had eroded the permafrost, so that the coast was as jagged as a pottery shard. On the south shore, a half-moon indentation in the shoreline offered a sheltering harbor, near where a river emptied into the sea.

  Ancient rivers, some dry and some still active, had created a maze-like warren of winding, natural corridors through the rolling tundra. A long-dormant volcano rose from the permafrost like a huge, black carbuncle.

  He put the chart aside and thumbed through a well-worn Russian travel guide he had picked up in a secondhand bookstore while he was trying to arrange transportation to the island. He was glad to see that his command of Russian was still serviceable. Ivory Island was discovered in the late 1700s by Russian fur traders. They found the huge piles of animal bones and mammoth tusks that lent the island its name. The bones were piled everywhere, lying on the open ground or forming hills cemented together by the cold.

  The fur-trading business was wiped out in an orgy of murder, and the ivory hunters started coming in. Fine ivory found a ready market in the master carvers of China and other parts of the world. Recognizing the white bonanza, the Russian government awarded franchises to entrepreneurs. One businessman hired an agent named Sannikoff, who explored all the Arctic islands.

  Ivory Island held the richest trove, but because of its remoteness it was left relatively unscathed in favor of more accessible sources to the south. A few intrepid ivory hunters established a settlement at the mouth of the river, which they called Ivorytown, the book said, but the island had been largely abandoned in favor of more hospitable locations.

  The knock on the cabin door interrupted his research. It was the captain, a round-faced man who was half Russian, half Eskimo.

  “The boat is ready to take you ashore,” the captain said.

  Grabbing his duffel bag, Schroeder followed the captain to the port rail of the trawler and climbed down a ladder to a rowboat. While a crewman pulled at the oars, Schroede
r used a long-handled gaff to fend off hunks of ice that floated in the still, cold water. Minutes later, the bottom of the boat scraped onto the gravelly beach. Schroeder tossed his bag onto the beach, got out of the boat and helped push it off.

  He watched the skiff disappear into the mists. Although the fishing boat was only a few hundred yards offshore, it was barely visible behind the damp, vaporous curtain of mist. The agreement was for the boat to wait twenty-four hours. Schroeder would stand on the beach and signal for a pickup. He hoped he would have Karla with him. It hadn’t occurred to him before whether she would be persuaded enough by his warning of danger to leave the island. He would deal with that problem later. His immediate task was to find her. He hoped it was not too late. He was in good shape for his age, but his body couldn’t deny the fact that it had nearly eight hard decades behind it and was starting to fray around the edges. His muscles and joints ached, and he had developed a limp in one leg.

  Schroeder heard the grumble of the fishing boat’s engine. The boat was moving off. The captain must have decided that he would rather leave with only half the money than wait for Schroeder to return, as they had agreed, before he was paid the entire fee. Schroeder shrugged. He had the captain pegged as a pirate from the beginning. There was no going back now.

  He studied what he could see of the island. The beach rose gradually to a low banking, which wouldn’t be difficult to climb. He shouldered his duffel bag, moved closer and saw that there were boot prints in the sand. This must be the main route to Ivorytown.

  He hiked along the river for around ten minutes and laughed out loud when he set eyes on the pitiful encampment of sorry-looking buildings that had been labeled a town. The large, colorful tents erected next to the old structures told him he had found the expedition’s campsite.

  As he approached the camp, he was surprised to see that the structures, which he had assumed to be of stone, were actually built of thousands of large bones. He poked his head into a couple of buildings and saw some sleeping bags. A third building was locked for some inexplicable reason. He explored the tents and discovered one of them had been set up as a kitchen and mess hall. Schroeder walked around the perimeter of the encampment and called out several times, but there was no reply. He looked off toward the brooding, old volcano and scanned the island but saw no movement. He was not surprised; an army could have hidden in the maze of ravines that laced the island.