Polar Shift Page 29

“I’m a tough old lizard,” he said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “I’m okay, thanks to these two men.”

  Austin noticed the evident bond between the older man and the young woman. He introduced himself and Zavala.

  “My name is Schroeder,” the man said. “Thank you for your help. How did you find us?”

  “We talked to a woman named Maria Arbatov.”

  “Maria. How is she?” Karla said.

  “She’s going to be fine, but her husband and two other men were murdered. I assume they were your fellow scientists. There was another man we couldn’t identify.”

  Karla glanced at Schroeder, who said, “He attacked Karla. I had to stop him.” He squinted toward the boulder field. “This is a dangerous place. They’ll be back. They have automatic weapons, and we’re totally exposed out here.”

  “This is your neighborhood,” Austin said. “Where can we find cover?”

  Schroeder pointed to the base of the slope that came down from the rim of the caldera.

  “Down there in the city.”

  Austin wondered if the man was delirious from his injuries.

  “Did you say ‘city’?” He saw only the low bluffs at the base of the slope.

  “That’s right,” Karla said. “Oh no, the dwarves are gone. The gunfire must have scared them.”

  It was Zavala’s turn to wonder if he was hearing things. “Dwarves?”

  “Yes,” Karla said. “Dwarf woolly mammoths.”

  Austin and Zavala exchanged glances.

  “Enough talk. We’ve got to get moving,” Schroeder said.

  Clutching Karla by the arm, he limped toward the edge of the bowl. Austin and Zavala took up the rear. Schroeder’s insistence that they start moving proved to be sound advice. The group had almost reached the edge of the green area when Grisha and his men suddenly broke from their rocky cover and began firing their guns.

  Fountains of dirt erupted in the grass about a dozen feet behind the fleeing group.

  It would take only a second for Grisha and his men to get the range. Austin yelled at the others to keep going. He turned and threw himself belly-down on the ground and took careful aim with his Bowen at the nearest Russian.

  He cracked off a couple of shots that fell short. Grisha and his men were taking no chances. When Austin fired, they stopped shooting and went belly-down as well.

  Austin turned and saw that the others were nearly at the face of the bluff. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted after them. Grisha’s men started shooting again. The bullets were practically hitting the ground at his heels as he ducked the others into an opening in the face of the cliff.

  Karla shook her flashlight, and the batteries apparently still had a little juice left in them because the bulb glowed dimly. They picked their way through the winding path. When the flashlight finally sputtered and died, they had entered the area where some buildings still stood among the rubble and were beginning to see the glow from the underground city. They followed the beckoning light like moths toward a flame and soon came upon the subterranean metropolis.

  Austin gazed at the shimmering streets and buildings.

  “What is this place, the land of Oz?” he said.

  Karla laughed. “It’s an underground city built of some sort of light-producing mineral,” Karla said. “We don’t know who built it, but these are only the suburbs. It’s quite extensive.”

  Schroeder hushed Karla and said they could talk about it later, and then he led the way through the maze of streets until they were back at the plaza where they had first come upon the mammoths.

  The dwarf mammoths had returned to the plaza and were huddled around the pyramid. They seemed restive, snorting frequently as they milled around the square.

  Karla saw Austin reach for his gun. She put her hand on his arm. “It’s all right. They won’t hurt you. They must have been spooked by the noise.”

  Austin had seen many strange sights on missions that took him to remote places around the world and under the oceans. But nothing like the creatures moving around the plaza. He was looking at smaller versions, from the tips of their tails to their curved tusks, of the ancient behemoths he had seen pictured in textbooks.

  Zavala was equally dumbfounded. “I thought these things were extinct.”

  “They are extinct,” Karla said. “Rather, they were. These animals are the descendants of full-size mammoths that once lived on the island.”

  “Karla,” Schroeder said. “We should be talking about how to get away from those murderers.”

  “He’s right,” Austin said. “Is there another way out of here?”

  “Yes, but it’s long and treacherous,” Karla said.

  “I can’t make it, but that’s no reason for you not to try,” Schroeder said. “If I can borrow a gun, I’ll pin them down here while you and our new friends escape through the cave.”

  Austin grinned. “Nice try, Uncle Karl. Martyrdom went out of style in the Middle Ages. We’re sticking together.”

  “I’m just starting to like this place,” Joe said. “Warm. Romantic lighting. A unique, uh, fragrance in the air.”

  Schroeder smiled. He didn’t know who these men were, but he was glad for Karla’s sake that he had them by his side. “If you are going to be foolish, we’d better get ready.”

  At Austin’s suggestion, Zavala went to stand watch where the street entered the plaza.

  Austin turned to Schroeder. “Any suggestions?”

  “It’s useless to run. We can take positions in the square and try to get them in a cross fire.”

  Austin was glad Schroeder wanted to go on the offensive. The city provided a protective maze that offered dozens of places to hide, but, like Schroeder, he knew that the constant movement would eventually take its toll.

  “I don’t know how much firing I’ll be doing,” Austin said. “We brought extra ammunition, but we didn’t expect the Little Bighorn.”

  “They only have to wait until we run out of ammunition and they can pick us off one by one. Too bad I used my hand grenade.”

  Austin gave Schroeder an odd look. The old man didn’t look like the type who walked around with a grenade in his pocket. Austin was reminded that looks were deceiving. Schroeder was old enough for Medicare, but he talked as if he were part of a SWAT team.

  Zavala trotted over from his lookout post. “Showtime. Our pals are coming down the street.”

  Austin took a quick look around the plaza. “I’ve got a crazy idea,” he said. He quickly outlined his scheme.

  “It might work,” Schroeder said with excitement in his voice. “Yes, it might work.”

  “It better work,” Austin said.

  “Isn’t there another way?” Karla said. “They’re such beautiful creatures.”

  “I’m afraid not. If we do this right, they won’t be hurt.”

  Karla sighed, but she knew they had little choice. At Austin’s direction, Karla and the others moved quietly around the perimeter of the plaza, leaving the side nearest the street open. Then they waited.

  The mammoths had picked up their heads when they saw the humans on the move, and became more nervous at the harsh voices of Grisha and his men. The ivory hunters were making no effort to keep the noise down. They may have done it deliberately to frighten their prey, or were just plain stupid. But whatever the reason, their arrival was making the mammoths even more restless.

  The herd moved away from the plaza and stopped when the mammoths saw the humans standing around the edge of the square. Those in the front ranks turned and collided with the others in the herd. The snorts and squeaks grew louder.

  There was a flicker of movement at the entrance to the street. Grisha stuck his head around the corner. The sight and smell of another unpleasant, two-legged creature spooked the animals closest to him. In their eagerness to escape, they bumped against the other mammoths.

  Emboldened at the lack of a challenge, Grisha stepped into the open, followed by the other thugs. Th
ey stood at the edge of the square, spellbound at the sight of the animals they had glimpsed only at a distance.

  The herd had reached critical mass. Austin set off the chain reaction. He fired his gun in the air. Zavala began firing too. Schroeder and Karla yelled and clapped their hands. The herd was transformed in an instant from an uneasy group of placid animals to a full-blown stampede. Trumpeting in fear, the moving mass of heavy bodies and sharp tusks flowed toward the only avenue of escape, the narrow street that would lead them to safety outside the cave.

  Unfortunately for Grisha, he and his men stood between the rampaging herd of mammoths and their goal of freedom.

  The Russians raised their guns to fire at the crazed animals, but the herd was almost on top of them. They turned and ran. They got only a few steps before they were knocked to the ground and trampled underfoot by tons of mammoth flesh. Grisha had sprinted past the others, his eyes frantically darting from side to side as he looked for an escape route, but he slipped and fell under the furred onslaught.

  Austin and the others took no chances that the herd would turn back. They continued to make as much racket as they could.

  It was all over in a few seconds.

  The plaza was empty. The rumble of the stampeding herd echoed in the distance. Austin and Zavala cautiously advanced along the street. Zavala looked down at the bloodied mounds of clothing that once had been men. They found a flashlight that had been undamaged by the stampede. Austin yelled at Schroeder and Karla that it was safe to come ahead.

  “They don’t look human,” Karla said as they made their way around the mangled bodies.

  Austin remembered the dead scientists lying in the ravine. “Who’s to say they ever were.”

  Schroeder let forth with a deep laugh.

  “I learned long ago that in the right hands anything can be used as a weapon,” he said. “But there was nothing in the textbook about little furry elephants.”

  Austin wondered what book Schroeder was referring to and what school he had gone to. He put his thoughts aside. They weren’t out of trouble yet. They made their way through the ruined city and the rubble. The sunlight slanting in through the gap in the rocks gave them renewed energy. They went to retrieve the paraglider, and discovered that Grisha and his men had smashed the power unit and slashed the canopy.

  Using sections of aluminum tubing and pieces of the canopy, they fashioned a rough splint for Schroeder. They climbed the low bluff at the bottom of the slope and ascended the road to the rim of the caldera. The switchbacks cut the steepness of the climb but made it much longer. They stopped frequently for Schroeder’s sake, but he only allowed the rest stops to last a few minutes before urging the party to push on.

  Hours later, they stood on the rim and looked down on the other side of the volcano. Mist obscured most of the island. After a last, wondering glance back into the caldera, they started down the outside of the volcano. The descent was as difficult as the climb. The road was a glorified mountain trail, the uneven surface covered with rocks and boulders that would have made walking hard even under ideal circumstances.

  About two-thirds of the way down the outside of the mountain, they discovered they were not alone. Antlike figures were making their way up the trail. Austin’s party kept on moving. They had been seen, so there was no use hiding, but they kept their weapons ready. Austin counted six people in the unknown group. As the newcomers neared, the man leading the procession waved his arm. A few moments later, Austin was close enough to see Petrov’s grinning face.

  The Russian was accompanied by members of his special ops team, including Veronika and her husband. Petrov sprinted the last few steps up the path.

  He was grinning. “Good afternoon, Austin,” he puffed. “You and Joe have added mountain climbing to your many accomplishments. You never cease to amaze me.” He turned to Karla. “And this must be Mademoiselle Janos. Very pleased to meet you. I don’t know this gentleman,” he said to Schroeder.

  “I’m just an old man who should be home in his rocking chair,” Schroeder said with a weary grin.

  “How did you find us?” Austin said.

  “We talked to the captain of the icebreaker. He said you were striking off to explore the volcano in some sort of aircraft.”

  “We had a paraglider.”

  “I remember now. The two large bags you brought with you.”

  Austin nodded. “You missed all the fun.”

  “On the contrary,” Petrov said in a cheerful tone. “We have had a great deal of fun. We encountered a group of armed men coming in on a boat. They gave us a warm welcome, but our thank-you was even warmer. The survivor said they had been sent in to help some men who were already here.” He looked over Austin’s shoulder as if he expected to see someone following him.

  “Those men are no longer with us,” Schroeder said.

  “Yes,” Austin said. “They were trampled by a herd of woolly mammoths.”

  “Dwarf mammoths,” Zavala corrected.

  Petrov shook his head. “I studied American culture for years, but I’ll never understand your strange humor.”

  “That’s all right,” Austin said. “Even we don’t understand it. Do you think you can give us a hand the rest of the way down the mountain?”

  “Of course,” Petrov said with a grin. He reached into his backpack and produced a bottle of vodka. “But first we will have our drink together.”

  32

  AUSTIN WAS HAVING a weird dream in which a procession of pygmy mammoths paraded along the streets of a crystal city to the tune of “St. Louis Blues.” His eyes snapped open. The mammoths and the city had vanished, but the blues were still playing. The music came from his phone.

  Vowing to stay away from crazy Russians who drank vodka like water, he dug the phone out of his pack and managed a fuzzy, “Austin.”

  Trout’s voice said, “We’ve been trying to get you and Joe for days. Have you been down in a mine?”

  “More like a cave,” Austin said. “We found Karla Janos, and were on a Russian icebreaker headed for the Siberian mainland.”

  “Glad to hear she’s okay. She may be our only hope.”

  Austin was struck by the seriousness in Trout’s voice. He sat up on the edge of the bunk.

  “Our only hope for what, Paul?”

  “Gamay and I found a copy of the Kovacs Theorems in Los Alamos. I did a computer simulation based on the Kovacs stuff and existing material on polar reversal. The situation doesn’t look good.”

  “I’m listening.” Austin was fully awake now.

  Trout paused. “The simulation showed that the magnetic polar reversal is not as elastic as some people think. A shock that’s strong enough to cause a magnetic polar reversal will trigger a geologic shift of the earth’s crust.”

  “Are you saying that a polar shift, once begun, is irreversible?”

  “That’s the way it looks.”

  “Is there any margin for error in the simulation?”

  “It’s so slim as to be negligible.”

  Austin felt as if a wall had fallen on him. “We’re talking about a catastrophe.”

  “Worse,” Trout said. “This is a doomsday scenario. The worldwide destruction if this thing is unleashed is beyond anything that can be imagined or previously experienced.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “The reaction would be immediate. The timing depends on when the people who’ve been causing the whirlpools and giant waves decide to pull the switch.”

  “I may be able to offer a ray of hope.” He told Trout about his encounter with Barrett, and the possibility of an antidote for a polar shift.

  “Encouraging. When will you get back to Washington?”

  “We’ll make landfall tomorrow. We’ve got a plane waiting. I’ll call when we’re in the air to give you an ETA.”

  “I’ll be standing by.”

  After hanging up, Austin sat in his darkened stateroom listening to the grumble of the ship’s engines and cursing th
e slowness of ocean travel. He had been unaware of the urgency of the situation when Captain Ivanov invited him to sail on the icebreaker. Austin could have gone back with Petrov, but he politely refused the offer, saying it was important for him to talk to Karla Janos. Petrov had given him a knowing smile, and told Austin to call on him anytime.

  Since coming aboard Austin had spent very little time with Karla. After she and Maria had a tearful reunion, and Uncle Karl got patched up, everyone retired to their respected staterooms to catch up on badly needed sleep.

  Austin got dressed and went out on the deck, which was bathed in the subdued arctic light. The Kotelny was plowing through the ocean at a steady clip. The cold air hit his lungs like the blast from an open refrigerator. Fully awake now, he made his way to the mess hall and poured himself a mug of coffee. The place was deserted except for a couple of crewmen who were coming onto a shift. He found a corner table, slipped the phone from his pocket and called the number Barrett had given him. After a few seconds, a woman answered and said hello.

  “I’d like to speak to Barrett,” Austin said.

  “This is Barrett. I programmed a woman’s voice to take the place of mine.”

  “Aren’t you taking this electronic cloak-and-dagger stuff a bit too far?”

  “Hell, Kurt, you’re not the one who got shot,” Barrett said. “You don’t know the kind of people you’re dealing with.”

  “That’s why I called. Do you think Gant and Margrave are open to reason?”

  “Gant is about as reasonable as a rattlesnake. Tris could be reached, maybe, but he’s so damned convinced of his righteous cause he doesn’t care who he hurts. Why do you ask?”

  Austin conveyed the gist of his conversation with Trout.

  When Barrett’s voice came back on, it had assumed its masculine mode. “I was afraid of something like this. Ohmigod. I’m responsible for the end of the world. I’m going to kill myself.”

  “If the world ends you won’t have to,” Austin said.

  Barrett calmed down. “That’s the most twisted logic I’ve ever heard.”

  “Thanks. Back to my original question. Do you think Gant or Margrave would react with the same alarm if I laid out the facts for them?”