Almost Complete Short Fiction, page 57
“Who knows?” Logan wished Misha would shut up but he realized he was talking from nerves. “Could be.”
“Those tribesmen know things,” Misha said. “Once I saw—”
He stopped. “Something happening over there.” He reached up and made a small adjustment to the night goggles. “Can’t really see anything,” Misha added. “Something that could be a vehicle, with some people moving around. Can’t even be sure how many.”
A small red light flashed briefly on the far shore, twice. Logan took the little flashlight from his jacket pocket and pointed it and flicked the switch three times in quick succession.
Misha said, “Shto za chort? Oh, all right, they’re carrying something down to the river. Maybe a boat.”
Logan wished he’d brought a pair of goggles for himself. Or a night scope. He listened but there was no sound but the night breeze and the barely audible susurrus of the current along the sandy shore. Even the wolves had gone quiet.
“Right, it’s a boat,” Misha said. “Coming this way.”
Logan slipped the Kalashnikov’s sling off his shoulder, hearing a soft flunk as Yura slid a round into the chamber of his rifle.
Misha stood up and slipped off the goggles. “I better go get the Mil warmed up.”
A few minutes later Logan saw it, a low black shape moving toward the island. There was still no sound. Electric motor, he guessed. As it neared the bank he saw that two men stood in the bow holding some sort of guns. He reached for the Kalashnikov’s safety lever, but then they both slung their guns across their backs and jumped out into the shallows and began pulling the big inflatable up onto the sand.
Several dark figures stood up in the boat and began moving rather awkwardly toward the bow, where the two men gave them a hand climbing down. When the fifth one was ashore the two gunmen pushed the boat back free of the shore and climbed back aboard while the passengers walked slowly across the sand to where Logan stood.
The first one stopped in front of Logan. He was tall and thin and bespectacled, wearing a light-colored topcoat hanging open over a dark suit. In his left hand he carried a medium-sized travel bag.
“Good evening,” he said in accented Russian. “I am Doctor Fong—”
“I don’t want to know who you are,” Logan told him. “I don’t want to know anything I don’t need to know. You’re in charge of this group?”
“I suppose. In a sense—”
“Good. Get your people on board.” Logan jerked the Kalashnikov’s muzzle in the direction of the helicopter, which was already emitting a high, whistling whine, the long rotor blades starting to swing.
The tall man nodded and turned and looked back at the boat and said something in Chinese. The boat began to move backward. The tall man spoke again and the others moved quickly to follow him toward the Mil, lugging their bags and bundles.
“Let’s go,” Logan told Yura. “Davai poshli.”
Off down the river the wolves were howling again.
The road was a dark streak in the moonlight, running roughly eastwest, across open plain and through dense patches of forest. There was no traffic in sight, nor had Logan expected any. This had been one of the last stretches of the Trans-Siberian Highway to be completed, but the pavement was already deteriorating, having been badly done to begin with and rarely maintained since; very few people cared to drive its ruinously potholed surface at night.
“Should be right along here,” Logan said, studying the map Yevgeny had given them. “That’s the third bridge after the village, isn’t it?”
Beside him, Misha glanced out the side window at the ground flickering past beneath. “I think so.”
“Better get lower, then.”
Misha nodded and eased down on the collective. As the Mil settled gently toward the road Logan felt around the darkened cockpit and found the bag with the night goggles. The next part should be straightforward, but with people like this you couldn’t assume anything.
Misha leveled off a little above treetop level. “If there’s one thing I hate worse than flying at night,” he grumbled, “it’s flying low at night . . . isn’t that something up ahead?”
Logan started to put on the night goggles. As he was slipping them over his head a set of headlights flashed twice down on the highway, maybe a quarter of a mile away.
“That should be them,” he told Misha. “Make a low pass, though, and let’s have a look.”
Misha brought the helicopter down even closer to the road, slowing to the speed of a cautiously driven car, while Logan wrestled the window open and stuck his head out. The slipstream caught the bulky goggles and tried to jerk his head around, but he fought the pressure and a few seconds later he saw the car, parked in the middle of the road, facing east. He caught a glimpse of dark upright shapes standing nearby, and then it all disappeared from view as the Mil fluttered on up the road.
“Well?” Misha said.
Logan started to tell him it was all right, to come around and go back and land; but then something broke surface in his mind and he said, “No, wait. Circle around and come back up the road the same way. Take it slow so I can get a better look.”
Misha kicked gently at the pedals and eased the cyclic over, feeding in power and climbing slightly to clear a stand of trees. “Shto eto?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Something hadn’t looked right, something about the scene down on the road that didn’t add up, but Logan couldn’t get a handle on it yet. Maybe it was just his imagination.
They swung around in a big circle and came clattering back up the road. Again the double headlight flash, this time slower and longer. “Slow, now,” Logan said, pulling the goggles down again and leaning out the window. “All right . . . that’s it, go on.”
He pulled off the goggles and closed his eyes, trying to project the scene like a photograph inside his head: the dark shape of a medium-sized car in the middle of the road, flanked by a couple of human figures. Another man—or woman—standing over by the right side of the road.
“Shit,” Logan said, and opened his eyes and turned around and looked back between the seats. “Hey. You. Doctor Fong.”
“Yes?” The tall Chinese leaned forward. “Something is wrong?”
“These people you’re meeting,” Logan said. “They know how many of you there are?”
“Oh, yes.” Reddish light from the instrument panel glinted off glasses lenses as Fong nodded vigorously. “They know our names and . . . everything, really. This is certain.”
“What’s happening?” Misha wanted to know.
“Three men in sight, back there,” Logan said, turning back around. “At least one more in the car, operating the headlights. Five men expected.”
“So?”
“So that’s not a very big car to hold nine men. You could do it, but it would be a circus act. Which raises some questions.”
“Huh.” Misha digested this. “What do you think?”
“I think we better find out more.” He thought for a moment. “All right, here’s how we’ll do it. Set her down right up here, past that rise, just long enough for me to get out. Then circle around a little bit, like you’re confused, you know? Make some noise to cover me while I move in and have a look.”
He tapped the comm unit in the pocket on his left jacket sleeve. “I’ll give you a call if it’s all right to land. If I send just a single long beep, come in as if you’re going to land and then hit the landing lights.”
“Got it,” Misha said. “Taking Yura?”
“Of course. Right, then.” Logan undid the seat harness and levered himself out of the right seat. As he clambered back into the passenger compartment, Doctor Fong said, “Please, what is the matter?”
“I don’t know yet.” Logan worked his way between the close-spaced seats to the rear of the cabin, where Yura sat next to the door. “Don’t worry,” he said over his shoulder, hoping Fong couldn’t see him getting out the Kalashnikov. “It’s probably nothing.”
Misha brought the Mil down and held it in a low hover, its wheels a few feet above the pavement, long enough for Logan and Yura to jump out. As Logan’s boots hit the cracked asphalt he flexed his knees to absorb the impact and almost immediately heard the rotor pitch change as Misha pulled up on the collective to lift out of there.
Yura came up beside him and Logan made a quick hand signal. Yura nodded and ran soundlessly across the road and disappeared into the shadows beneath the trees on the right side. Logan walked back along the road until he reached the top of the little rise and then moved off the pavement to the left.
The cover was poor on that side, the trees thin and scattered, with patches of brush that made it hard to move quietly. Logan guessed it was about a mile back to where the car was parked. Moving slowly and carefully, holding the Kalashnikov high across his chest, he worked his way along parallel to the road. The night goggles were pushed up on his forehead; they were too clumsy for this sort of thing, and anyway he could see all right now. The moon was higher and the clouds had blown away, and his eyes had adjusted to the weak light.
The Mil came back overhead, turbines blaring and rotor blades clopclopping, heading back down the road. It swung suddenly off to one side, turned back and crossed the road, did a brief high hover above the trees, and then began zigzagging irregularly along above the highway. Logan grinned to himself; whoever was waiting down the road must be getting pretty baffled by now. Not to mention pissed off.
He thought he must be getting close, and he was about to move over by the road to check; but then here came the Mil again, coming back up the road maybe twenty feet up, and suddenly there was a bright light shining through the trees, closer than he’d expected, as the car headlights flashed again.
He stopped and stood very still. As the sound of the helicopter faded on up the road behind him, he heard a man’s voice say quite distinctly, “Ah, yob tvoiu mat’.”
He waited until the Mil began to circle back, so its noise would cover any sounds that he made. A few quick steps and he stood beside the road, pressed up against an inadequate pine. He slipped the night goggles down over his eyes and leaned cautiously out, feeling his sphincter pucker.
There they were, just as he remembered: the two men standing on either side of the car, and another one over by the far side of the road. All three of them, he saw now, were holding weapons: some sort of rifles or carbines, he couldn’t make out any details.
He pushed the goggles back up, slung the Kalashnikov over his shoulder, and took the comm unit from his pocket and switched it on and pressed a single key. He held it down for a count of five, switched the unit off, slipped it back into his pocket, and unslung the Kalashnikov again.
The Mil came racketing up the road once more, slowing down as the headlights flashed again. Logan stepped out from behind the tree and began moving quickly along next to the road, not trying to be stealthy; by now these bastards wouldn’t be paying attention to anything but the helicopter with the impossible pilot.
It was moving now at bicycle speed, and then even slower. When it was no more than twenty feet in front of the parked car it stopped in a low hover. Logan stopped too, and pushed the Kalashnikov’s fire selector to full automatic as Misha hit the landing fights.
The sudden glare threw the scene into harsh contrast, like a black-and-white photograph. One of the men beside the car threw a forearm over his face. Someone cursed.
Logan raised the Kalashnikov and took a deep breath. “Everyone stand still!” he shouted over the rotor noise. “Put down the weapons!”
For a second he thought it was going to work. The men on the road froze in place, like so many window dummies. Logan had just enough time to wonder what the hell he was going to do with them, and then it all came apart.
The man over on the far side of the road started to turn, very fast, the gun in his hands coming up and around. There was a deafening blang and he jerked slightly, dropped his rifle, and fell to the pavement.
While the sound of Yura’s rifle was still rattling off through the trees the two men by the car made their play, moving simultaneously and with purposeful speed. The nearer one took a long step to one side and whirled around, dropping into a crouch, while the other dived to the ground and started to roll toward the cover of the car.
Logan got the farther one in mid-roll and then swung the Kalashnikov toward the remaining one. A red eye winked at him and something popped through the bushes, not very close; the gunman had to be shooting blind, his eyes still trying to catch up to the sudden changes in the light. Backlit by the landing lights, he was an easy-meat target; Logan cut him down with a three-shot burst to the chest.
The car door opened and someone stepped out. Yura’s old rifle boomed again from the trees across the road. Four down.
Logan walked slowly toward the car, the Kalashnikov ready. A man lay beside the open door, a machine pistol in one hand. Logan looked in and checked the interior of the car.
He took the comm unit out and flicked it on again. “All right, Misha,” he said. “You can set her down now.”
He walked over to the body of the last man he had killed and studied the weapon that lay beside the body. A Dragunov sniper rifle, fitted with what looked like a night scope. Definitely some professional talent, whoever they were.
He went back and sat down on the hood of the car, for want of any better place, while Misha set the helicopter down. He noticed with disgust that his hands were starting to tremble slightly.
Yura came up, his rifle over his shoulder and what looked like a Kalashnikov in one hand. “Sorry I was so slow on that last one,” he said. He raised the Kalashnikov and gestured with his free hand at the body on the far side of the road. “This is what he had.”
“Then for God’s sake get rid of it.” Remembering, Logan cleared the chamber of his own rifle and slung it over his back. For the first time in a long time he wished he hadn’t quit smoking.
The Mil’s rotor blades were slowing, the turbine whine dropping to idle. A couple of minutes later Misha came walking toward the car. “Bozhe moi,” he said, staring. “What—?”
“Reception committee,” Logan said. “Had a nice little ambush set up. At least that’s how it looks.”
Misha was looking around dazedly. “You’re sure?”
“About the ambush, not entirely. It’s possible they were going to let the passengers disembark and wait for us to leave before killing them. Hell,” Logan said, “just look at the kind of firepower they were carrying. I don’t think it was because they were afraid of wolves.”
Yura was going over the car. “Couple of shovels in the trunk,” he reported. “Some wire, some tape.”
“See?” Logan turned his head and spat; his mouth felt very dry. “They weren’t planning on taking anyone anywhere. Not any farther than a short walk in the woods.”
The Chinese men were getting out of the helicopter now, stopping in front of the nose and staring at the car and the bodies. Misha cursed. “I told them to stay inside—”
“It’s all right,” Logan said. “Doesn’t matter now.”
Doctor Fong appeared, walking toward them. He didn’t look happy, Logan thought, but he didn’t look all that surprised either.
Logan said, “I don’t suppose you have any idea what this was all about?”
Fong stopped beside the car and looked around. “Perhaps,” he said. “I—let me think.”
“Don’t think too long,” Logan said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Yes.” He looked at Logan. “Do you speak English?”
“After a fashion.”
“Aha.” Fong’s mouth quirked in a brief half-smile. “An American. Good. My English is much better than my Russian.”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose with the tip of a slender finger. They weren’t slipping; Logan guessed it was a nervous habit. He made a gesture that took in the car and the bodies. “Can we perhaps move away from . . .?”
“Sure.” Logan slid off the car and walked with Fong over to the side of the road. “I just need to know,” he said, “what kind of trouble this is about. If you guys are anything political—”
“Oh, no.” Fong stopped and turned to face him. “No, we’re not, as you put it, political at all. Merely a group of harmless scientists.”
“Some pretty heavy people trying to stop you,” Logan said. “Someone must not think you’re so harmless.”
“Yes, well. . . .” Fong looked off into the darkness under the trees and then back at Logan. “You saved our lives just now,” he said in a different tone. “This is a debt we can hardly repay, but there’s something I can give you in return. Some information.”
“Scientific information?”
“Yes.” If Fong noticed the sarcasm he didn’t show it. He pushed his glasses up again. “It’s the warming.”
It took a moment for Logan to realize what he was talking about. The adrenalin edge had worn off; he felt tired and old.
“It’s still getting warmer,” Fong said. “I’m sure you already knew that, it’s hardly a secret. But—” He paused, his forehead wrinkling. “The curve,” he said. “I couldn’t remember the word . . . the curve is different from what has been thought.”
His forefinger drew an upward-sweeping curve in the air. “The warming is about to accelerate. It’s going to start getting warmer at an increasing rate, and—I’m not sure how to say this—the rate of increase will itself increase.”
“It’s going to get warmer faster?”
Fong nodded. “Oh, you won’t notice any real change for some time to come. Perhaps as much as two to five, years, no one really knows as yet . . . but then,” the fingertip began to rise more steeply, “the change will be very rapid indeed.”
“You mean—”
“Wait, that’s not all. The other part,” Fong said, “is that it’s likely to go on longer than anyone thought. The assumption has been that the process has all but run its course, that a ceiling will soon be reached. It’s not clear, now, just where the ceiling is. Or even if there is one, in any practical sense.”
