CRO-MAGNON (56 page)

Hers had been the most dangerous job.
If she’s been hit by automatic fire . . .

Chapter 24

Blaine dropped the wolf’s head into the boat. She saw that the Glock’s bullets had torn away the mandible and part of the maxilla, but the braincase looked intact. She manhandled her dismounted scuba tank, which had bobbed to the surface, into the boat and squirmed in after it.

Calder’s tank had also floated to the surface, and he’d remounted it on his back. Now he hung on the side of the boat, still catching his breath.

“
That was impressive,” Blaine said. “Worth a gold medal anytime.”

“
Only because you played your part perfectly.”

“
I don’t see any blood from Zinchenko,” she said. “Teague must have shot him standing up and knocked him into the lake.”

Calder nodded. “I’m going after him.”

“
We exceeded our time budget with this third dive. If you dive again without enough air to decompress, you’re asking for an aeroembolism.”

“
Fedor could be alive. We can’t leave him.”

“
I realize that. Just making the point.” Setting her rig on the thwart, she wriggled into the harness.

Calder stared up at her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“
Going after the heads. What else?” She glared at him. “Couldn’t you have tied them to your tank?”

“
They’d have dragged it down. I thought about tossing them into the boat and inviting Teague to a party, maybe play who’s-got-the-head.”

“
Make jokes.” She buckled her chest strap. “I’m not leaving them, bends or not.”

“
No percentage in us both getting bent. While I’m at it I’ll go for the heads too.”

“
That’s too much to manage.”

“
It’ll all be nearly weightless.”

“
It’s still a lot,” she said. “Even if you can even find everyone quickly. Fedor needs to come up now, in case he’s still alive.”

“
Everything should be near the anchor. I’ll tie him to the line and give it a triple tug. Meanwhile you swim down thirty feet by your gauge, tie your tank to the line, and come back up. You know how to do that?

“
Yes. Take a breath, keep my throat open, and don’t go faster than the bubbles. Maybe I can pull up the line now and estimate the thirty feet.”

He frowned. “There’s no time for that, I need to follow the line down. When you get the signal, pull him up and then lower the regulator. When I get to thirty feet, I’ll decompress on both tanks till they run out.”

“
I checked my gauge. There’s not a whole lot of air left air left.”

“
Oh, darn. Here, I thought we had plenty.” He peered at her. “Do you think you can get Fedor into the boat?”

“
Not without tipping it. But I can hold him alongside and breathe for him until you come up.” She stared at him. “What if you can’t find the heads right away?”

“
Then I’ll bring Fedor up and dive again.”

She shook her head. “Out of the question. Next time, my turn.”

He stared up at her. “Can you really do what you said with the heads?”

She hesitated. Ian was risking his life.

Can I do it? I
will
do it!

She nodded. “Yes.”

“
Then you need to be in shape to get out with them, which decompression sickness would prevent.”

“
I still think we should both—“

But he had already slipped under.

#

Now that there was no reason for stealth, Calder switched on his headlamp and pointed his flashlight beam along the anchor line. As he descended the tunnel of yellow light, he wondered what chance he had of finding Zinchenko alive. If Teague had dropped the man inside the boat, he would probably have administered a coup de grace before dumping him overboard. But they hadn’t found any blood. If the camp master had gone into the water alive but unconscious, his throat would have closed against the water. And the freezing temperature would have chilled his blood and slowed his heart.

Calder saw the dark maw of the tunnel move by, and felt a follow-on surge of relief that he and Blaine had not been consigned to an underwater grave. He wondered how deep the lake could be, this close to shore. At that moment, he saw the rock surface become almost vertical, the result of some long-ago calving of the mountainside.

Not wanting to spend energy with his flippers, he pulled himself hand over hand down the line, thankful that the anchor resisted the tug. The higher pressure on the lake bottom would require more oxygen. The less he used now, the more would be available for decompression.

The line led down into a dim world, as the arid compressed air tickled his Eustachian tubes. The daily cycles of cold, dampness, and pressure had congested them and he could hear the squeal of air squeezing in, one molecule at a time.

He went down and down. At last, the beam reflected off a muddy plain slanting away from the rocky surface of the mountainside. He glanced at his depth gauge. Two hundred twenty feet, much deeper than he’d hoped.

His flashlight picked out a nimbus of yellow, and he spotlighted the three cord-linked human heads lying in a row near the triple blades of the anchor. Not seeing Zinchenko’s body, he began circling the anchor. A crumpled mass appeared at the edge of his beam. He finned toward it and came upon Teague’s body, the spear protruding out the back of the neck and holding the head at a quizzical angle.

Circling, he came upon Zinchenko a surprising distance from the anchor and realized that Teague’s nine-millimeter bullet had knocked the camp master into a shallow dive. A tuft of polyester sprouted from a ragged hole in the parka, and Calder saw that the jacketed slug had entered the Russian’s left shoulder and blasted past his right scapula.

He could not see any blood, which could be a bad sign. Tearing open the parka, he put his ear against the man’s bear-like chest.

At first, he heard nothing.

Then a slow thud.

Then nothing.

Finally, another contraction.

He giggled.
Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.
Giggled again.

He shook his head, realizing he was light-headed from conserving air. He sucked on his regulator and felt oxygen flood his brain. But how much was left in Fedor’s brain? He knew that people had survived lengthy periods of freezing water, and recovered.

At least Teague hadn’t shot him through the heart or lungs. Probably the camp master had sensed the gunman’s presence and turned as he fired. Or else Teague couldn’t find cover and had fired from too far away for pinpoint accuracy.

Wrapping an arm around the Russian’s massive torso, Calder finned to the anchor, buckled the camp master’s belt around the triple tines, and gave the line three jerks. It went taut and Zinchenko began to ascend from the marly bottom.

You’re way over the limit,
Calder thought. Start back.

Glancing at his watch, he clipped his flashlight and shook his head. Was the Neanderthal’s spear worth the time to retrieve it? His words in the cave came back to him:
Someday he’ll want it.

Was that true? Was it even possible?

Anyway, he wanted the spear for study.

While pondering, he’d been finning, and with a start he realized he was at Teague’s body. In the beam of the headlamp, the enforcer’s eyes still bulged, seeming to stare at some amazing event as Calder grasped the shaft near the point, braced his flippers against the cranium, and pulled the spear through.

A billow of silt and a grayish aura of spinal fluid clouded the beam. Calder swam a few feet into clear water, glanced at his wrist compass, and finned to the three heads strung on their cord. It was but a moment’s work to tie the ends together and loop them through his harness.

Not wanting to waste precious air on the compensator, he kicked against the spongy bottom and began his slow ascent. He took a stingy breath, the hollow rattle of his regulator telling him the tank was almost empty. Letting air dribble out of his lungs as the pressure lessened, he floated slowly upward along the beam of his flashlight, careful to stay below the bubbles.

Approaching thirty feet, he saw no spare tank.
What had happened?

As soon as he stopped rising, he’d have to breathe. To ascend to the surface without decompressing would be fatal.

Then he spotted the silver glint of Blaine’s tank descending from the boat.

Of course. She had to tend to Zinchenko.

He wondered how much air Caitlin’s tank held. How frugal had she been? He knew that some degree of decompression sickness was inevitable. But if he developed a full-on case of the bends with a vengeful Laszlo Salomon scouring the narrow valleys, intent on eliminating the only obstacles to future profits . . .

#

Blaine withdrew her lips from Zinchenko’s and sat upright in the boat, nudging the four severed heads aside with her dive boot. She felt guilty treating them like inanimate objects, but reviving the man was paramount.

“
Hallelujah,” she said. “He’s breathing.”

“
Fast enough?”

“
I think so. But hypothermia is slowing his heart. He needs warmth.” Grunting, she hauled the big Russian’s torso upright, squirmed behind him and wrapped her arms around his bulky chest.

Calder made a small adjustment in the heading, and Blaine saw that he was crunching along the same path the boat had taken on the way over, even though it did not lead directly to camp.

“
The ice is thicker,” he said. “I’ve got the throttle open”

Blaine dipped her head to check Zinchenko’s breathing and found it shallow but steady. “I hate to leave him in the trailer. I wonder if he’ll even survive the night.”

“
He’s strong.” Calder adjusted the heading. “Not much we could do anyway, beyond making him warm and comfortable.”

#

Twenty minutes later, they had laid Zinchenko’s mattress on the floor by the kerosene heater. He was stripped, wrapped in a heavy sleeping bag, and propped on pillows to keep his lungs elevated. Plastic bags of heated water warmed his armpits and the backs of his knees. His wound was smeared with antibiotic cream and crudely bandaged.

To Calder’s amazement, the camp master was conscious. There was no risk of bends, as he had not breathed compressed air. Blaine was administering hot tea enriched with sugar and butter.

“
Never see Teague,” the big man mumbled to Calder, who was trying to wrap a scarf around his throat without upsetting the teacup Blaine was steadying. “Pull anchor to tie rag. Never feel bullet. Wake up here.”

“
I’ll leave the camp stove by your good side with more tea and butter,” Calder said. “Salomon will probably be here sometime before noon. Caitlin and I think you should play dumb.”

A blank look. “Play dumb?”

“
Tell him, in the presence of whoever is with him, that you didn’t see who shot you.”

The camp master looked quizzical. “That is true.”

“
Say that you heard Caitlin and me arguing outside with Fitrat. When she didn’t show for supper, you went looking for her and someone shot you off the dock. Tell them you think we did something to Gulnaz and then shot you so you wouldn’t trail us.”

Zinchenko sipped, swallowed, and motioned for Blaine to tip the cup again. “What about Teague?”

“
Say that you guess Teague pulled you out of the water and fixed you up and then went after Caitlin and me. We’ll leave a note, supposedly from Teague, confirming that.”

The bear-like man winced as hot buttered tea slid down his throat. “Meester Salomon know is not true. Maybe kill me.”

“
He can hardly murder a Tajik citizen in front of witnesses.” Calder tucked the scarf. “Are you a citizen?”

“
Da.”

“
Good. Make sure Salomon knows that. It’ll be in his interest to seem to go along with your story.”

“
He know
ya
talk later.”

“
By then he’d be long gone. He’ll figure he can let Delyanov clean up the mess. Just play dumb.” Calder pulled over the kerosene camp stove that Zinchenko normally used at base camps. “Caitlin and I were thinking of going down the valley below the dam. There must be villages.”

The big man sipped more tea. “First
qishlaq
twenty kilos. But people poor, hurt by fighting. Lo . . . lo . . .”

“
Loyal?”

“
Da.
Only to themself.” He shrugged his good shoulder. “Sell you to Salomon
.
”

“
So, our only way out is through the mountains to the southern border?”

“
Da.
But wild. Go-nowhere valleys. Glaciers. Trails not marked, no map. You not get through.” Zinchenko’s eyelids began to droop. “Even
ya
maybe not find way.”