Stephan like a cockroach, and made her escape. She was a professional in the deadliest possible definition of the term, and a pretty face and a nice pair of tits had blinded Kretek to this.
Stefan's hand protruded from beneath the sleeping bag, his fingers half curled in beseechment, pleading for revenge.
"Find that whore." Kretek's words were a growling whisper. "Get out there and find her. The only way any of you will ever leave this island is if you bring her back to me alive. Do you hear me? Alive!"
Vlahovitch, his chief of staff, hesitated only a moment before speaking. "It will be done, Anton. Come on, the rest of you. Let's get a sweep organized. She won't get far in this weather. Move!"
Anton Kretek said nothing more as his men geared up to start the search. His thoughts were distant, planning what he would do when the golden-haired woman was brought before him.
Chapter Thirty-six
Saddleback Glacier
Behind them, Jon Smith heard the thud of the explosion, faint in the face of the gusting wind. Straight off the Pole and unchecked by terrain, its cold was searing. Still, Smith viewed that wind and the ice particles driven before it as allies tonight. They would cut their pursuers' long-range vision and scour his party's crampon marks from the surface of the glacier.
Then there was also the subliminal human instinct to seek the easier path and turn away from a direct confrontation with that river of freezing fire, to keep your back to it. Accordingly, Smith would leave instinct to his enemies while he and his people would drive into the gale.
"Our friends reacquired their hand grenade," Valentina commented. She was a shadow at the end of the safety line, her words muffled by her snow mask.
"Sounds like," Smith replied. "We'd better keep moving. They won't be too pleased with us now."
"They weren't all that fond of us before, Jon. I see we're still angling to the northwest. Shouldn't we be turning south to pick up the flag trail back to the station?"
"We're not taking the trail back. Presumably the Russians know about it. They'll move to cut us off, or at least that's what I hope they'll do."
"Where are we going, then?"
"To the station. But we'll be taking the scenic route. We'll drop out of the saddleback on the north side of the island and follow the shoreline around."
"Uh, Jon, excuse me, but doesn't that mean pioneering a two thousand-odd-foot descent down broken glacier fall and sheer rock cliff at night and in a bloody blizzard?"
"Essentially."
Valentina's voice lifted. "And you intend to do this with one total climbing tyro, i.e., me, and one trussed-up captive?"
The third member of the party had no commentary to add. Major Smyslov stood by silently, his hands bound in front him and the safety rope knotted to his pack harness.
"Play the glad game, Val," Smith replied. "The Russians will never imagine us trying it."
"With excellent reason!"
"We don't have a lot of choice in the matter. Val, you have the point and I'll take the center slot. The farther down we go on the north side of the saddleback, the more broken and treacherous the ice will become. If a crevasse should open up under you, I can go on belay and haul you out."
"All right, but a pox upon the man who came up with 'ladies first.'"
Smith turned to confront his captive. "Major, I'm counting on you not being as suicidal as the Misha's political officer. I am going to point out, however, that should you feel tempted to try any shoulder blocking from behind on any crevasses or cliff edges..." Smith gave the safety line a pointed tug. "Wherever we go, you go."
"This is understood, Colonel." Smyslov's face couldn't be seen inside the darkness of his parka hood, and his reply was emotionless.
"Right, let's move out."
The slow and careful advance across the glacier began. Visibility in the snow-racked night was all but nonexistent. Valentina felt her way forward, one cautious and deliberate step at a time, probing ahead continuously with the spike end of her ice axe. Smith held to his line of advance via the glowing green screen of his handheld GPS unit, carrying the precious little device next to his skin between each position fix to keep the batteries alive.
As predicted, as the descent down the glacier face steepened, the buckled, fractured ice grew increasingly unstable, the risk of crevasses escalating geometrically. Their creeping rate of advance slowed even further as they were forced to