The Explorer's Code (47 page)

“I’m joining my boyfriend. He arrived yesterday,” Anna told the desk clerk, giving Evgeny’s full name.

“That would be room four twelve,” the clerk said. “He’s already checked in.”

“Is he there now?” asked Anna.

“No, he went out.”

Anna took the key card to the room and wheeled her suitcase behind her. Room 412 was just off the main corridor. She knocked sharply on the door. No sound inside. She carded the door open.

The room was intact, the bed unused. All of Evgeny’s things were in the bathroom, and his clothes were in the closet. Where was Evgeny? How far away could he go in this godforsaken place?

Inside vault number 2, the young gunmen were nervous. Cordelia noticed they were not used to handling weapons. Bob was walking around the vault.

“Lance here has been looking for that deed for weeks now,” he said. “We even went through all your things in California.”

“How
dare
you!” Cordelia shouted, furious. “Those things were personal.”

Bob ignored her, glancing around at the vault. “Will you look at this place? Built right into the bedrock.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Erin quietly.

“The elders of the church voted on it, decided the vault must be destroyed.”

“Destroyed? How?” Erin demanded.

“You’ll see.” Bob walked over to Erin and looked down at her with contempt. “It was wrong of y’all to kill poor Evgeny. You should’ve given him the deed.”

“Why were you working with Evgeny?” Erin asked.

“We were doing our thing, to try to destroy the vault. But we ran into Evgeny and made kind of a side deal, to work together to find the deed and split the money.”

“So why do you need us? You didn’t have to kidnap us to destroy the vault,” Cordelia pointed out.

“Ya’ll know too much.”

“You won’t get away with it,” Erin snapped.

“Sure we will. Lance has just finished putting incendiary explosives in the seed boxes. The whole vault is going up, to burn out the seeds.”

“Don’t worry, it will be quick,” assured Marlene.

“You sick sons of bitches,” growled Charles.

“
What the hell
? What kind of freaks
are
you people?” Erin demanded.

“Now that is just not a nice way to talk,” said Bob patiently.

“You goddamn bastards. You think you are doing what’s right?” Erin shouted, “
I think you are goddamn nuts, that’s what I think!”

Cordelia looked at Erin. It was clear something had snapped and she was losing control. Possibly her pain medication had worn off and she was struggling to cope. Her red hair was wild, tumbling over her shoulders. Her face was contorted with rage, and her bruises were even more livid. The two black eyes gave her a ghoulish appearance, and her pupils were pinpoints of hate. Her mouth was contorted, swollen.

The three young men were looking at Erin uncertainly. They shifted their gaze to Bob and Marlene. Bob shook his head slowly, as if she were a naughty child.

“Lance, son. I don’t think we can listen to this kind of talk.”

“Yes sir,” Lance replied.

“You are going to have to keep this little lady here quiet so we can get on with what we need to do.”

“Yes sir,” Lance repeated.

Bob turned and walked to the door, not looking back. Marlene lumbered out after him.

Lance strode over to where Erin sat on the floor. He stood above her—a tall, rangy man with a heavily lined face and flat reptilian eyes.

“May the Lord forgive you,” he said in a kindly tone. Without any hesitation, he leaned over, put his gun to Erin’s temple, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the shot was a dull thud. Half of Erin’s head, behind her right ear, dissolved into a mist of blood that spattered across the floor, staining the light gray concrete. Her body slumped over on its side. She lay staring straight at Cordelia with lifeless eyes. China-doll eyes, big and green. There were bits of skull and red hair near her face; her cheek was pressed to the floor in a pool of blood. She was dead.

The room spun and Cordelia thought she would faint.
Erin. Dead. Just like that!
Cordelia was unprepared for the shock of it. She kept staring at Erin’s lifeless body, which just moments ago had been so vital and alive. Suddenly Cordelia could not feel her fingers and legs, and the concrete floor seemed even colder. She lost all sense of reality, and had the sensation of floating, looking down on the scene. Her mind was numb, and she was losing her ability to think. She realized that she must not go into shock; she had to stay alert. Then she heard someone talking. Someone was shouting.

“How could you!”
Charles yelled.
“What kind of a man are you, to shoot a woman, tied up like that?”

Cordelia looked over at Charles. She was still numb, but she was glad Charles was yelling at Lance. She didn’t have the strength herself. She couldn’t seem to speak.

Charles was fighting against his bonds with all his strength, desperate to break free. His contortions were fierce, his face purple with rage, his hair sweaty and plastered to his temples. The three gunmen watched him warily, their weapons drawn.

Lance started walking slowly toward Charles, his gun dangling at his side. Cordelia realized what was about to happen. It jolted her into action. She called out. And to her surprise, fear made her voice strong and commanding.

“Leave him alone!”

Lance turned to Cordelia with a hard stare.

“I’ll
tell
you where the deed is, just leave him alone,” she begged.

“Cordelia, no!”
Charles burst out.

“You shut up,” Lance told him, and looked back at Cordelia. “You know where the deed is? You need to talk to the boss.”

“Fine, take me to him,” Cordelia challenged.

Lance walked over, put the gun into his belt, and took out a folding knife. The lethal blade slid between her ankles, cold and frightening. He cut the duct tape, grasped her arm, and hauled her to her feet.

“Cordelia, no. Please!”

Cordelia looked at Charles as she was led away. “Charles, listen to me. It’s not worth your life.”

Lance gripped Cordelia by the upper arm and pushed her out of the room. The three gunmen backed out of the vault, keeping their weapons pointed at Charles. The steel door closed and the swoosh of the air lock sealed it. He was alone. Charles looked at Erin’s lifeless body, lying in a pool of her own blood.

Sinclair stopped the car on the rocky road. He needed to park below the lip of the cliff so no one would see him. Luckily there was a small indentation in the rock face, and the Volvo fit neatly into it.

Before closing the car door, he remembered to take the whaling fork from the backseat. As preposterous as it was as a weapon, it was better than nothing. He started up the steep incline to the exterior door of the seed vault, leaning heavily on the shaft of the whaling fork for balance. Circling around the mountain, away from the road, he found he could go higher than the entrance of the vault and then descend without anyone on the ground seeing him.

As he climbed, he slipped a little on the loose shale and gravel. But despite the uncertain footing, the slope was not difficult. Finally he stood above the doorframe and calculated his approach.

There was no one guarding the entrance. Sinclair looked at the tiny town of Longyearbyen below: toy houses and cars, the long stretch of Main Street that ended in the beautiful blue of Advent Bay. The ribbon of road winding up the mountain was empty. There would be no immediate help from Thaddeus Frost. He was clearly on his own.

From his vantage point over the door he could see the vault without obstruction. He gave it the once-over and started to move. But then something registered. There was a pattern on the ground! He dropped down the cliff, sliding on the loose gravel, knocking pebbles down like a light rain. They clattered around the entrance to the seed vault. For the final drop, he found his balance and then jumped.

Just in front of the vault, a patch of earth had been disturbed. It looked like a scratched message. He approached.
It was an ichthus wheel!
There was no mistaking it. It was distinct and very clearly drawn. Either Charles or Cordelia had left the symbol for him. They were inside!

Sinclair examined the door of the vault. It was about eighteen feet high and made of blast-proof industrial-strength steel, with no visible handle. So it must open electronically. He looked around. Sure enough, on the right side of the door was a small black square the size of a deck of cards. It must be a scanner. But he didn’t have the corresponding scan card, so there was no way to get in.

Sinclair paced back and forth in frustration. He jammed his hands into his pockets and his fingers came into contact with the bunch of keys. Of
course! The director of public construction and property would have keys to the vault! It was a very important town facility. Sinclair examined all the electronic fobs and swipe cards. A small black toggle looked promising. He waved it in front of the panel, and to his utter astonishment the door slid sideways to reveal a long passage into the mountain.

In vault number 3, Cordelia stood before Bob, her knees quaking from fear. Erin had been so brutally killed; Cordelia fully realized the same thing could happen to her in an instant.

She tried to formulate a plan, but the symptoms of shock were making her mind fuzzy. The only thing she knew and clung to was that Sinclair was coming for her. She had to believe it.

Bob was watching her suspiciously. “You say you know where the deed is?” he asked.

“Yes, at the museum. We found it and left it there because we wanted to get official permission to take it.”

Her voice came out cool and confident. It was a spectacular lie, but she managed to sound convincing.

Bob started to chuckle. “You really are a Girl Scout, aren’t you? Official permission. Did you hear that, Lance? She wanted
official
permission.”

Lance nodded, but his face was dour.

“Where is your friend, John Sinclair?” Bob asked. “Why wasn’t he with you?”

“He’s back in town, meeting with officials to claim the deed legally.”

Bob cracked up at that one too.

“You hear that, Lance—he is meeting with the town officials about the deed.”

Lance nodded.

“What kind of time you figure you need to set these charges?” Bob asked Lance. “Another half hour?”

“At the most.”

“OK. You stay here and do that. We’ll head on over to the museum,” Bob said. “If it’s easy pickings for that deed, we may as well grab it and sell it to the Russians after all.”

Lance walked away and opened a metal box resting on one of the shelves. Bob started toward the door, but turned back to Cordelia.

“I figure this is a fitting place for you to die. Right here on your great-great-grandfather’s property,” he said.

Cordelia knew better than to answer. She’d seen what had happened to Erin.

Anna decided there was no use waiting for Evgeny. She put on her jacket and sauntered through the lobby. The desk clerk of the Polar Hotel smiled at her.

“I’m going out for a little stroll.”

“You will need a rifle if you are leaving the settlement,” he warned. “There are bears. Especially this time of year.”

“Oh, I just want to walk around town,” she assured him.

“All right, then stick to the road. You should see the first buildings on Main Street right up ahead. You’ll be safe inside the confines of the town.”

“Thank you,” Anna said with her best smile, and walked out into the brisk afternoon.

As Anna strolled into town, she could see a cluster of people between the two main buildings. The dome lights of an ambulance flashed blue and red against the dullness of the landscape. A stretcher held a body bag; the form underneath was immobile. She looked to see if it was the size and shape of Evgeny. It wasn’t. Why did she have the feeling Evgeny was dead?

She sidled up to one of the men who stood watching the medics. He was a good-looking man in his midthirties, rugged with nice Nordic blue eyes. She smiled at him and he smiled back.

“Has there been an accident?”

“Yes, the fellow there has been shot.”

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Anders Olaussen, the director of public construction and property. A terrible tragedy.”

“Why would somebody shoot him?” she asked.

“No one knows. There’s no logical reason. He was a local official.”

“In charge of property? Like, what kind of property?”

“The seed vault. The old mines. The museum. That kind of thing.”

“Oh,” said Anna. “The seed vault. Where is it, exactly? I’m up here as a tourist. I’d be interested in seeing it.”

“Right there.” The man pointed above the roofline of the tallest building in the town. “See that silver structure jutting out of the mountain? That’s it.”

“Oh, interesting.”

“Don’t let this accident put you off your vacation,” the man said. “Long-yearbyen is actually pretty safe.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” said Anna, as she walked away.

Thaddeus Frost climbed out of the military jet and onto the tarmac. Long-yearbyen was bitter cold and very windy; his ears were freezing, his hair was blowing all around. Of all the godforsaken places! Why couldn’t he get assigned to tropical climates?