She flipped up her own goggles, her cheeks were windburned, her lips were blue, strands of blond hair that had slipped out from under her cap were coated with ice.
He climbed off the seat. “We should walk around while we’re stopped. Get our blood pumping.”
Hayley agreed, and Kurt helped her off the machine.
“Where are you going?” one of the Russians asked.
“Out for a walk,” Kurt said. “It’s such a beautiful day.”
“Don’t get lost.”
Kurt considered the statement. The blizzard would have been good cover if he’d wanted to make a break for it, but there was no point in that. There was nowhere to go.
He took a few steps and pointed up the slope. “Tell the commissar I’m climbing that ridge to get a better look at what’s ahead. Won’t be gone long.”
With that, Kurt took Hayley’s hand and began to hike upward. The exertion of trudging up a hill through knee-deep snow at a thirty-five-hundred-foot altitude was enough to get his heart pumping, all right. By the time they were halfway to the top, Kurt felt he’d lit an inner furnace, even his face was flushing.
“Feeling any better?” Kurt asked.
“I’m warming up, yes,” Hayley said. “Any chance there’s a ski lodge at the top?”
“Doubtful,” Kurt said. “But just in case…”
He never finished the sentence, as his ears picked up an odd sound above the wind. It was a high-pitched whine, almost like a small jet engine. It faded and then returned.
Looking around, Kurt realized the confining ridge was shaped in a rough semicircle, a half bowl almost perfect for catching distant acoustics.
When the sound returned, he looked across the ice field. The falling snow made it hard to see anything. He flipped the orange-tinted goggles down to get a better contrast. In a second, he caught sight of movement. A group of small vehicles coming their way.
There was something odd about the way they moved, gliding over the snow with almost effortless ease.
“Houston, we have a problem.”
“What is it?”
“Trouble.”
He grabbed Hayley’s hand and they began to climb down, hopping and jumping and sliding down the steep sections to cover as much ground as possible. They reached the bottom, just about tumbling into the group. “Someone’s coming,” he said sharply.
“From where?” Gregorovich asked.
“From the other side of the ridge.”
“On foot?”
“No,” Kurt said. “I think they’re using hovercraft.”
Seconds later, the high-pitched whine became audible on the ground.
“Move!” Gregorovich ordered.
In seconds, the snowmobiles were firing up, but they were almost too late. The group of hovercraft came charging up the slope, appearing out of the snowy haze like avenging ghosts.
Kurt and Hayley jumped on their machine. “Hang on!” Kurt shouted as he pressed the starter and twisted the throttle.
She clung to him as the snowmobile leapt forward. The rest of the group scattered in different directions like a herd of gazelles set upon by lions. It was an unplanned tactic, but it was effective. There were six snowmobiles but only four hovercraft. Not all of them could be followed.
Racing down the slope and cutting around a snowdrift, Kurt glanced over his shoulder, looking past Hayley. Unfortunately, one of the sleek predatory craft was hot on their tail.
“Hang on tight!” he shouted. “This is going to get rough.”
He turned his eyes forward, pinned the throttle full open, and began weaving back and forth across the snowfield. If there had been a forest on the island, he would have driven straight for it, but Heard Island was treeless, a fact that didn’t bode well in terms of finding a spot to hide.
He cut to the right and caught sight of a small explosion from the corner of his eye. He avoided it and cut back to the left, only to see another one.
There was no sound to accompany the phenomenon, no concussion wave or smoke. In fact, the display looked more like the blurred pattern one sees out behind a running jet engine.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Flash-draw,” Hayley yelled. “Stay out of it.”
“Sound advice,” he said.
They continued on at breakneck speed, and Kurt strained to see details of the near-featureless terrain streaking past him. Even with the goggles, the light was so flat it was almost impossible to spot dips and rises. Twice, uneven sections of the ground almost tipped them over, and then suddenly they were airborne, flying off the crest of a small ledge.
The snowmobile caught air at forty miles per hour, dropped about five feet, and landed solidly on the downslope like a contestant in the X Games.
Kurt’s chin hit the windshield, gashing it and jarring him, while Hayley’s boa-constrictor-like grip around his waist kept her on board.
The hovercraft launched itself over the same ridge without any hesitation. It dropped and landed smoothly on its cushion of air without any hint of the jarring impact Kurt and Hayley had felt. With his chin bleeding and his mind racing, Kurt realized what Joe had discovered in the outback: a hovercraft was the ultimate all-terrain vehicle.
He raced on, desperately trying to think of a way to escape its grasp.
As kurt and Hayley raced off, Joe Zavala found himself pointed in the wrong direction, with the nose of his machine aimed toward the ridge that Kurt and Hayley had climbed. He got on the throttle fast and twisted the handgrips. The engine revved and the tracks spun, and Joe manhandled the nose of the snowmobile around to a new heading.
He shot forward, racing up a small hill and down the other side, almost T-boning one of the Russians.
Right behind the Russian sled, one of the gray hovercraft flew down the hill. The wide, flat hovercraft reminded Joe of a stingray. The central portion of the machine was raised to hold a crew cabin and a turbine engine, while the thinner surrounding section and the rubber skirt that drooped from it were there primarily to create the cushion of air that it rode on.
As the gray machine followed the Russian commandos, Joe cut in behind it. He had the impression its driver hadn’t seen him, since his attention remained locked on the original target. As they raced across the ice, Joe tried to get at the rifle strapped across his back, nearly wrecking in the process.
Eventually, he managed to slide the rifle around until it rested at his side. It was balanced by the strap that remained across his shoulder. Situated like this, he closed in on the target like a fighter pilot trying to save the life of his wingman. With the hovercraft crossing in front of him, Joe tried to flick off the safety, but the bulky gloves he wore made it impossible. He was still fumbling with it as the Russian snowmobile turned hard to the right.
The hovercraft followed, and Joe leaned into the turn, swinging wide, until he was back on target. He put the glove to his mouth, bit down on the fabric of the fingertips, and ripped the glove off. The frigid air chilled his fingers instantly, but with his bare hand he was able to grab the rifle grip, flip the safety off, and fire.
A spread of bullets lanced forth from the barrel to no effect.
The hovercraft turned left, and Joe fired again. This time, he hit the target — something confirmed by bits of fiberglass flying into the air — but still the hovercraft raced forward unaffected.
Ahead of them, the two Russian commandos had come to a narrow gap between a rocky ridge and a high drift of soft snow. They shot toward the gap, a fatal mistake.
The hovercraft’s driver lined them up easily and triggered his own weapon. A direct hit from the flash-draw stunned the men into unconsciousness and stalled the snowmobile’s engine. The fleeing sled turned sideways. Its right-hand ski caught a rut, and the machine tumbled out of control, ejecting the limp commandos in different
