stumbling back into camp tonight, we will kill them. If they are still up at the crash site tomorrow morning, we will kill them there. If they choose to hide from us somewhere on the island, let them hide. They are nothing as long as they do not interfere with us."
"All but that one." Kropodkin nodded toward Randi. "She is something to me." His voice was tight and as cold as the polar winds.
"I can understand that. You will be the first in her tonight. You are owed that." Kretek gave his nephew a bearlike cuff. "Just see you leave plenty for the rest of us," he continued boisterously. "Remember, you are a member of the firm now. Fair shares for all."
The two men shared a warm family laugh.
Chapter Thirty-four
Saddleback Glacier
The black rock of East Peak loomed over the pale sheet of glacial ice, becoming one with the deepening night. At its base, the final approach began. Dark, leathery faces and dark, narrowed eyes peered from parka hoods, gauging the growing strength of the wind and the density of the snow being driven before it. As each gust blurred the line of sight between them and their objective the Spetsnaz troopers snaked forward another few meters, taking advantage of every minute concealing swale and depression in the ice, relentlessly tightening their half-circle perimeter around the cave mouth.
They were Siberian Yakut tribesmen, the ancient seed race from which the American Indian had sprung, adept at survival in this kind of savage, frigid environment. They could ignore the wind that drove through their arctic gear, turning the windward side of their bodies into a half-deadened ache. They were inured to the burning numbness of the frostbite eating into their faces. The resulting scabs and scars would be badges of honor, a testament to their ability to survive and fight in realms that would destroy lesser, softer men.
This night, if they felt anything, it was heat. The fires of revenge burned bright for the teammates who had died at the hands of those in the cave. They hoped that their enemies would not die swiftly in the initial assault. In their worldview, vengeance was something worth taking one's time over.
Lieutenant Pavel Tomashenko peered cautiously from behind a jumble of snow-sheathed slide rock. He and his platoon sergeant had worked their way along the cliff face to within fifty yards of the objective cave. Through his night-vision monocular he could make out the body of Private Uluh sprawled on the ice outside of the cave mouth. It gave him the range he needed.
Trying to get a grenade in there that afternoon had been a mistake, but he had been angry over the loss of Scout Toyon to that sniper's shot. He had gotten impatient, and it had ended up costing him two men instead of the one.
That would make it a total of three to be avenged. The attack signal from the radio transponder carried by Major Smyslov had been their last contact with their agent within the American investigation team. The Americans must somehow have learned of Smyslov's true mission intent and killed him. It was unfortunate but also one less factor to worry about in the upcoming assault.
They were good, Tomashenko mused, the man and the woman in the cave. Probably United States Military Special Forces or Central Intelligence Agency. When he and his troopers went in after them it would be like hunting down a mated pair of Siberian tigers. They must be sure to kill them both very dead.
Full darkness settled, the beginning of a sixteen-hour arctic night. Tomashenko squinted through the monocular one last time. The photomultiplier helped against the lack of light but not the thickening snow, and now the battery was fading in the cold. His men had their orders, and the platoon would be in position. There was no sense in prolonging this.
"Stand ready, Sergeant."
Sergeant Vilyayskiy grunted an acknowledgment and drew the flare gun from the holster clipped to his harness.
Tomashenko slipped an RGN-86 limited-fragmentation grenade from a bandolier pouch and tugged a whistle from the neck of his parka. When he had first been assigned to the Siberian garrison he had made the mistake once of letting his whistle dangle outside on his chest on its chain. The metal of the mouthpiece had peeled the flesh right off his lips.
"Illuminate!"
The platoon sergeant fired, skidding the flare flatly across the ice so it came to rest near the cave mouth, revealing it in a blue-white glare