must remember to grab the lab hut's survival pack and the SINCGARS transceiver as they went out the door. She would also put a burst into Kropodkin, if for no other reason than sheer self-satisfaction.
If there wasn't time, then she would put her back to the wall and take as many of them with her as she could. Maybe it would make a difference, for Jon and Valentina if for no one else.
She fell once cutting around the hut. Scrambling to her feet, her lungs burning, she charged through the snow lock doors, the first of her intended series of commands welling up in her throat. But her instincts recognized and reacted to the threat before her conscious mind did, and she was whipping the MP-5 to her shoulder before she realized exactly what she was aiming at.
Stefan Kropodkin was cowering back in the far corner of the laboratory, holding Dr. Trowbridge in front of him, a dissection scalpel gleaming at the academic's throat. Trowbridge was tottering on his feet, barely able to stand, blood streaming down his face from a broken nose and from the cuts created by his smashed glasses.
No one spoke. No one needed to. The scene was totally self-explanatory. A pair of cut disposacuffs lay on the lab floor. Kropodkin's cunning had manipulated Trowbridge's willfulness and essential humanity.
Randi raged at herself. She never should have left the two men alone together. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! But that was an irrelevancy now. She had to get to that radio. Even if she had to do it over both of their bodies.
"Don't move," Kropodkin blurted. "Put down the gun or I kill him!"
Outside Randi could hear voices shouting over the fading scream of the Halo's turbines. Ordering Kropodkin to put down the knife would be an act of futility. All the numbers were on his side, and he knew it!
Sorry, Doctor.
Steeling herself, she nestled the butt of the submachine gun more deeply into her shoulder, and her finger tightened on the trigger. Trowbridge could see it coming, and a faint denying moan escaped from his lips. Kropodkin could see it, too, and he cowered behind his human shield.
Then Randi's gaze slipped past the two men and through the door of the radio shack. Kropodkin hadn't been wasting any time, either. The transmitter chassis lay open and thoroughly smashed.
Slowly Randi let the muzzle of the MP-5 sink toward the floor, the bitterness of total defeat welling up in her throat. There was nothing of value that she could accomplish now. There was no reason to put Trowbridge's blood on her hands. Running figures moved beyond the hut windows. Armed men were streaming into the camp. But even before they crashed through the door behind her, she had set the MP-5 on the worktable.
With her hands raised, she laced her fingers together behind the nape of her neck as gun barrels ground into her back.
Chapter Thirty-two
Saddleback Glacier
A ground-hugging wisp of snow flowed past the cave mouth, driven by a rising gust of wind.
"Penny for your thoughts, Jon?" Valentina said softly.
Smith shot an angled glance toward the lowering northern sky. "We've got another front coming in."
"It will be interesting to see which arrives first: the weather or the sunset. Granola bar?"
"No, thanks."
The colonel and the historian lay side-by-side in the shadow and shelter of the cave mouth, watching the approaches across the glacier. Since the initial identification and elimination of the first Spetsnaz scout there had been no movement on the ice. There was only the sensation of activity, born out of the knowledge that a hostile force was upon them, an enemy that would not sit back passively and allow them to live.
Smith looked across at the odd other half of his rifle team as she munched her snack in seeming contentment. Her fine-planed, rather exotic features were relaxed within the shelter of her parka hood. "You doing all right?" he inquired.
"Oh, yes. Quite good." She glanced around at the black rock walls and roof of the tunnel. "It's not exactly Cancun, but I can see marvelous development potential for winter sports."
Smith chuckled softly and reset his attention on the cave approaches. A remarkable lady.
"Mind answering a question?" he asked.
"Why not?"
"What is that accent? It's not quite English and not quite Australian. I can't place it."
"It's from a country that doesn't exist anymore," she replied. "I was born in Rhodesia-not Zimbabwe, if you please, but Rhodesia. My father was a government game control officer there before Mugabe took over."