Sacred Stone of-2 Page 6

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Whalid said. “I don’t know if you are aware that I ran a mill in my own country before the overthrow. I’d be very interested—”

  Hickman cut him off rudely. His mind was racing. “Send me a résumé, Whalid,” he said, “and I’ll see it goes to the proper person.”

  “I understand, sir,” Whalid said meekly.

  Hickman hung up the telephone without as much as a good-bye.

  PIETER VANDERWALD ANSWERED his cellular telephone as he was driving down the road just outside of Palm Springs, California.

  “It’s me,” the voice said.

  “This is not a secure line,” Vanderwald said, “so speak in generalities and let’s keep the call to less than three minutes.”

  “The substance we spoke about,” the man said, “can it be applied in an aerosol form?”

  “That’s one way it could be used. It would then transfer by air or get distributed along a human chain by touch or coughing.”

  “Would the substance then transfer from person to person if it was on their clothing?”

  Vanderwald stared at the digital clock on the radio of his rental car. Half the allotted time was gone. “Yes, it would transfer from clothing and skin, even through the air.”

  “How long would it take for someone to die from exposure?”

  The digital clock on the dash flipped over a number. “Within a week—maybe less. I’ll be at my land line tonight if you want to talk more.”

  The line went dead and the man sat back in his chair. Then he smiled.

  “JUST OVER TWO million seems a steep price, considering last year’s revenue,” the lawyer said over the telephone. “Once they fill the contracts they have, their books are a little bare going ahead.”

  “Just do the deal,” Hickman said quietly. “I’ll write off any losses against the gains on my Docklands property.”

  “You’re the boss,” the lawyer said.

  “You got that right.”

  “Where do you want the funds to come from?”

  Hickman scrolled through a screen on his computer. “Use the Paris account,” he said, “but I want to close the transaction tomorrow and take possession of the company within seventy-two hours at the latest.”

  “You think there’ll be a shortage of British mills for sale in the next couple of days?” the lawyer said. “Or do you know something I don’t?”

  “I know a lot you don’t,” Hickman said, “but if you keep talking you’ll only have seventy-one hours to put this together. You just do what you’re paid to do—I’ll take care of planning.”

  “I’m on it, sir,” the lawyer said before disconnecting.

  Sitting back in his chair, Hickman relaxed for a moment. Then he picked up a magnifying glass on his desk and stared at the aerial photograph in front of him. Placing the magnifying glass down, he examined a map. Lastly he opened a file folder and flipped through the photographs inside.

  The photographs were of victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings at the end of World War II. And although the photographs were graphic and disturbing, the man smiled. Vengeance is mine, he thought.

  THAT EVENING HE called Vanderwald on his land line.

  “I found something better,” Vanderwald said. “It’s an airborne plague that affects the lungs. Very toxic, it should kill eighty percent of the population of the country.”

  “How much?” Hickman asked.

  “The amount you need will be six hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Have it delivered,” Hickman said, “along with as much C-6 as you can find.”

  “How big is the structure you’re intending to demolish?” Vanderwald asked.

  “The size of the Pentagon.”

  “That much will be a million two.”

  “Cashier’s check?” Hickman asked.

  “Gold,” Vanderwald said.

  11

  CABRILLO STARED AT the musk ox horns on the door, then reached over and lifted a fish-shaped iron door knocker and let it slam against the heavy planked door. He heard the sound of heavy footsteps from within, then it grew quiet. Suddenly a small hatch in the door the size of a loaf of bread opened and a face peered out. The man had shallow cheeks, a tobacco-stained gray beard, a mustache and bloodshot eyes. His teeth were stained and grimy.

  “Slide it through the hole.”

  “Slide what through the hole?” Cabrillo asked.

  “The Jack,” the man said, “the bottle of Jack.”

  “I’m here to speak to you about renting your snowcat.”

  “You’re not from the trading post?” the man said with more than a hint of disappointment and despair.

  “No,” Cabrillo said, “but if you let me in to talk, I’ll go down and get you a bottle afterward.”

  “You’re talking Jack Daniel’s,” the man asked, “not the cheap stuff, right?”

  Cabrillo was cold and growing colder by the minute. “Yes, made in Lynchburg, Tennessee, black label—I know what you mean. Now open the door.”

  The peephole closed and the man unlocked the door. Cabrillo walked into a living room decorated in squalor and disarray. Dust from last summer coated the tables and upper edges of the picture frames. The smell was a mixture of old fish and foot odor. A pair of lamps on two side tables cast pools of yellow light into the otherwise dark room.

  “Pardon the mess,” the man said. “My cleaning lady quit a few years ago.”

  Cabrillo remained near the door—he had no desire to enter farther into the room.

  “Like I said, I’m interested in renting your snowcat.”

  The man sat down in a battered recliner. A liter bottle of whiskey sat on the table at his side. It was almost empty, with barely an inch left in the bottom. Then, as if on cue, the man poured the last of the bottle into a chipped coffee mug and took a drink.

  “Where are you planning on going?” the man asked.

  Before Cabrillo could answer, the man had a coughing fit. Cabrillo waited for the end.

  “Mount Forel.”

  “You with those archaeologists?”

  “Yes,” Cabrillo lied.

  “You an American?”

  “Yep.”

  The man nodded. “Pardon my manners. I’m Woody Campbell. Everyone in town calls me Woodman.”

  Cabrillo walked over and extended his gloved hand to Campbell. “Juan Cabrillo.”

  They shook hands, then Campbell motioned to a chair nearby. Cabrillo sat down and Campbell stared at him without speaking. The silence sat in the room like a brick on a potato chip. Finally, Campbell spoke.

  “You don’t look like an academic to me,” he said at last.

  “What’s an archaeologist supposed to look like?”

  “Not like someone who has been in battle,” Campbell said, “like someone who has had to take another man’s life.”

  “You’re drunk,” Cabrillo said.

  “Maintenance drinking,” Campbell said, “but I don’t hear you denying anything.”

  Cabrillo said nothing.

  “Army?” Campbell said, staying on the topic.

  “CIA, but it was a while ago.”

  “I knew you weren’t an archaeologist.”

  “The CIA has archaeologists,” Cabrillo noted.

  At that moment there was a knock at the door. Cabrillo motioned for Campbell to remain seated and walked over to the door. An Inuit dressed in a one-piece snowsuit stood with a sack in his hand.

  “That the whiskey?” Cabrillo asked.

  The man nodded. Cabrillo reached in his pocket and retrieved a money clip. Peeling off a hundred-dollar bill, he handed it to the man, who handed over the bottle.

  “I don’t have change,” the Inuit said.

  “Is that enough to pay for this and another to be delivered,” Cabrillo asked, “and some extra for your trouble?”

  “Yes,” the Inuit said, “but the owner will only allow me to deliver Woodman one bottle per day.”

  “Bring the other tom
orrow and keep the change,” Cabrillo said.

  The Inuit nodded and Cabrillo closed the door. Carrying the sack with the whiskey inside, he walked over to Campbell and handed it to him. Campbell took the bottle out of the sack, wadded up the paper and tossed it toward a trash can and missed, then cracked the seal and filled his cup.

  “Appreciate it,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t,” Cabrillo told him. “You should give it up.”

  “I can’t,” Campbell said, eyeing the bottle. “I’ve tried.”

  “Bullshit. I’ve worked with guys with a worse problem than yours—they’re straight today.”

  Campbell sat quietly. “Well, Mr. CIA,” he said at last, “you figure a way to dry me out and the snowcat is yours. I haven’t used it in months—I can’t leave the house.”

  “You served in the army,” Cabrillo said.

  “Who the hell are you?” Campbell said. “No one in Greenland knows that.”

  “I run a specialized company that does intelligence and security work—a private corporation. We can find out anything.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit,” Cabrillo said. “What was your job in the service? I didn’t bother to ask my people that.”

  “Green Berets, then the Phoenix Project.”

  “So you worked for the Company, too?”

  “Indirectly,” Campbell admitted, “but they turned their back on me. They trained me, brained me, and cast me away. I came home with nothing but a heroin problem I managed to kick on my own and a host of bad memories.”

  “I hear you,” Cabrillo said. “Now where is the snowcat?”

  “Out back,” Campbell said, pointing to a door leading out the rear of the house.

  “I’m going to check it out,” Cabrillo said, starting for the door. “You sit here and figure out if you really want to quit. If you do, and the snowcat checks out, then I have an idea we can discuss. If not, then we can discuss me paying you enough money to keep you in Jack until your liver fails. Fair enough?”

  Campbell nodded as Cabrillo walked out.

  Surprisingly enough, the snowcat was in perfect shape. A 1970 Thiokol model 1202B-4 wide-track Spryte. Powered by a Ford 200-cubic-inch six-cylinder with a four-speed transmission, it was bodied like a pickup truck with a flatbed on the rear. A light bar was mounted on the roof, an extra fuel tank on the rear bed, and the treads looked almost new. Cabrillo opened the door. Inside was a metal hump between the seats where the strangely angled gearshift resided, as well as a pair of levers in front of the driver’s seat that controlled the tanklike steering. Cabrillo knew that with a flick of the levers the Thiokol could spin on its treads in a circle. The dashboard was metal, with a cluster of gauges in front of the driver and heater vents down lower. Mounted behind the seat, hung on racks on each side of the rear window, was a large-caliber rifle. There were emergency flares, a tool kit with spares, and detailed waterproof maps.

  Everything was freshly painted, oiled and maintained.

  Cabrillo finished his inspection and walked back inside. He stopped just inside the door and knocked the snow off his boots, then walked back into the living room.

  “What’s the range?” he asked Campbell.

  “With the extra fuel tank and some jerry cans, it’ll get you to Mount Forel and back, with an extra hundred miles or so in case of trouble or snow slides,” Campbell said. “I wouldn’t hesitate to make a trip anywhere in her—she’s never let me down.”

  Cabrillo walked over near a fuel-oil stove. “Ball’s in your court.”

  Campbell was silent. He stared at the bottle, looked up at the ceiling, then looked down at the floor and thought for a moment. At this pace, he had maybe one more summer. Then his body would start shutting down—or he’d make a drunken mistake in a land where mistakes are not forgiven. He was fifty-seven years old and he felt like he was a hundred. He had reached his end.

  “I’m done,” Campbell said.

  “It’s not that easy,” Cabrillo said. “You have a tough battle ahead.”

  “I’m ready to try,” Campbell said.

  “We’ll get you out of here and into detox in return for the snowcat. Do you have any living family?”

  “Two brothers and a sister in Colorado,” Campbell admitted, “but I haven’t spoken to them in years.”

  “You have a choice,” Cabrillo said, “either go home for treatment—or die here.”

  For the first time in years, Campbell smiled. “I think I’ll try home.”

  “You’ve got to hold it together for the next few days,” Cabrillo said. “First I need you to show me the route through the mountains here on the maps and help me prepare. Then I’m going to leave you with my spare satellite telephone so I can call you if I run into trouble. Do you think you’ll be able to handle that?”

  “I won’t be able to stop cold turkey,” Campbell said honestly. “I’d shake myself to death or go into convulsions.”

  “I don’t want or expect you to,” Cabrillo said. “You need medical care. I just want you sober enough to be able to answer the telephone and give me advice if any problems arise I can’t handle.”

  “That I can do.”

  “Then hold on,” Cabrillo said as he removed his satellite phone and dialed the Oregon, “and let me set it up.”

  CAMPBELL SNIFFED AT the wind and stared to the north. The Thiokol was idling smoothly a few feet away. The flatbed was loaded with extra jerry cans of fuel and the boxes of supplies Cabrillo had retrieved from the airport. Cabrillo was placing other boxes with food and items he didn’t want to freeze on top of and below the passenger seat. The door was open and the hot air from the heater was creating clouds of steam.

  “There’s a storm coming,” Campbell noted, “but I’d guess it won’t be here until tomorrow afternoon or night at the earliest.”

  “Good,” Cabrillo said, finished now and standing upright. “You remember how to use the satellite telephone?”

  “I’m a drunk,” Campbell said, “not an idiot.”

  Cabrillo stared into the darkness. “How long did you figure the trip will take?”

  “You’ll be there by morning,” Campbell said, “if you follow the route I laid out.”

  “I have a handheld GPS and I have the compass in the ’cat and the maps you marked. I think I’m set to navigate.”

  “Whatever you do,” Campbell said, “you follow that route. You’re going to be skirting the ice cap a lot of the way, but then you’ll need to go up on top. It’s rough up there and constantly changing. If you get into trouble or overturn the ’cat, help will take a long time to reach you—maybe too long.”

  Cabrillo nodded then took a step forward and shook hands with Campbell. “You take care of yourself,” he said over the increasing roar of the wind, “and watch the booze until we can get you to a treatment facility.”

  “I’m not going to let you down, Mr. Cabrillo,” Campbell said, “and thanks for making the arrangements—for the first time in a long time I feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel. Hope, maybe.”

  Cabrillo nodded and then climbed into the cab of the Thiokol. Once inside he closed the door and removed his parka. Revving up the engine, he let it settle back into an idle. Then he engaged the clutch, shifted the gear lever into first and slowly pulled away from the house. The treads of the Thiokol threw snow into the air as he passed.

  Campbell waited under the eave of the rear door until the lights from the snowcat faded into the darkness. Then he walked back inside and poured himself a carefully measured ounce of whiskey. He needed to calm the demons that were beginning to show their true colors.

  Cabrillo felt the lap belt tug at his waist as the Thiokol started down the hill toward the expanse of ice leading to the mainland. When the snowcat had leveled out and was crossing the last few feet of snow-covered dirt before the frozen fjord, he felt a tightening in his crotch. Beneath the ice only a few feet away was a thousand feet of thirty-two-degree water and then a rocky bottom.<
br />
  If the Thiokol hit a thin spot and he went in, he’d have only seconds to live.

  Banishing the thought, Cabrillo stepped on the gas.

  The tracks of the snowcat touched the edge of the ice then went out onto the frozen wasteland. The lights on the roof illuminated the blowing snow as the Thiokol headed across the ice. But the blowing wind made the snowflakes dance and their reflection was distorted, making distance ebb and flow.

  Cabrillo was lost in a world without time or dimension.

  A lesser man might have been scared.

  12

  IN REYKJAVIK, MAX Hanley was hard at work aboard the Oregon. The Arab Peace Summit was winding down and once tomorrow’s meetings concluded, the emir would board his 737 and his security concerns would pass to his staff.

  So far the operation had gone perfectly. The emir had been able to move freely about Iceland with an almost invisible security presence. The teams from the Corporation were masters at blending into the background. Today, after the meetings concluded, the emir had wanted to visit Blue Hole, a nearby natural hot springs pool that had been created when a new geothermal plant had been constructed. There, rich, mineral-laden water flowed among acres of volcanic rocks to form an outdoor oasis from the cold. Steam from the naturally heated waters swirled in the air, forming clouds like in a steam bath. People in the water appeared and disappeared like ghosts in a misty cemetery.

  Six of the Corporation team had been nearby in the water while the emir soaked.

  A few minutes ago, Hanley had received word that the emir was in the locker rooms dressing. Now, Hanley was coordinating the two separate convoys that would return the people back to the emir’s hotel.

  “Did you trip the switch?” Hanley asked Seng over the satellite phone.

  “One in,” he said, “one out. No one could see a thing.”

  “That should throw off the opposition,” Hanley said.

  “Slick as a baby’s behind,” Seng agreed.

  “Make sure you time the two caravans to arrive a few minutes apart,” Hanley said, “and go in through the back doors.”