Hurry . . .
She drifted deeper into that darkness—when the creak of a door, a rush of footsteps, held her a moment longer from oblivion.
A hand touched her knee.
Down that dark well, faint words fell to her, nearly unintelligible, but still the desire rang through.
Where?
She took her last and deepest breath and told them, hope slipping from her lips—not for her, not for the world.
Instead, she pictured storm-blue eyes.
And was gone.
30
November 20, 9:22 A.M. IRKST
Olkhon Island, Russia
“This is nuts!” Duncan yelled.
“This is faster,” Monk said.
Duncan could only watch as his partner hauled on the wheel of the bus, careening its long length around a point of the coastline. He fishtailed across the shore ice, coming close to clipping an ice-fishing hut. Then he was trundling onward.
After Gray’s call, Monk had commandeered the bus, sending passengers and driver fleeing out the door. Monk then got behind the wheel and headed west from the southern tip of the island, blazing his own trail across the open ice. Monk must have anticipated this earlier, as he had spent much of the bus ride from Sakhyurta talking to their driver, asking about the thickness of the frozen shelf, how far it stretched from the coast this time of year.
Duncan somewhat understood his partner’s reasoning. Both of them had plenty of time to study a map of Olkhon Island after landing in Irkutsk. A topographic chart showed that the road from the ferry station to the village inn was circuitous and winding. It would be a slow slog.
Additionally, the island was crescent shaped, bending toward the west at its northern end—where they needed to go.
So the most direct path, from point A to point B, was as a crow flies—or rather a seal swims. By traveling straight across the shore ice, they could halve their time in reaching Gray’s team.
Still . . .
Jada clung to her seat, her eyes huge.
Ice boomed under them. Cracks skittered in the wake of their passage. People watched from the shoreline, pointing at them.
This far out, the thickness of the ice was questionable at best, so they dared not slow. Momentum was their best hope.
“That must be Burkhan Cape!” Jada yelled, pointing to a craggy promontory sticking out of a forested bay.
Duncan spotted the timbered houses of a small town hugging that same bay. Must be Khuzhir.
“Three more miles!” Monk called and pointed to the windows on the right side of the bus. “Gray said he’d left his ATV parked on the ice as a marker for the sea tunnel. Keep watch for it!”
Duncan moved to that side as Monk finally began angling closer to shore, where thankfully the ice should be thicker. After another long tense five minutes, Jada hollered, making him jump.
“There!” she called out and pointed. “By that big rock shaped like a bear!”
With rounded ears and stubby muzzle, the boulder did look like a grizzly’s head. And past the granite beast’s shoulders, a black dot marked the presence of a lone ATV, a small flag waving from its rear.
“That’s gotta be it,” Monk said.
As they drew nearer, the mouth of a tunnel appeared in the cliff, lined by massive icicles. Duncan thought he spotted movement in the woods at the top of the escarpment, but with the sun rising on the other side of the island, the forest was in deep shadow.
If anyone was up there, it was probably stunned onlookers come to watch the bus.
The brakes squealed as Monk slowed them—or at least, he tried to.
The bus spun sideways, skidding across the ice.
They broadsided the ATV and bulldozed it in front of them, pushing it back toward the mouth of the tunnel.
Duncan and Jada both retreated to the opposite side of the bus as the cliff wall came rushing toward them.
But the vehicle finally slowed to a shuddering stop, coming to rest ten yards from the mouth of the sea tunnel.
Monk rubbed his palms on his thigh. “Now that’s what I call parallel parking.”
Duncan scowled. “Is that what you call it?”
They all tumbled out the door, wanting to make sure they were at the right place before unloading their gear.
Gray came running from the shadows of the tunnel, drawn by the commotion, his eyes huge at their means of transportation. He clearly must have recognized the bus from his own icy sojourn from the mainland to the island.
“What?” he asked with a grin. “You couldn’t find a cab?”
9:28 A.M.
Gray gave Monk a fast hug. It was good to see his best friend, even under the circumstances and his unusual means of transportation.
He quickly shook Jada’s hand, but he pointed his finger at Duncan. “I need you to get that Eye up to that vault. Kowalski’s back there and can show you. We found the cross, but we have no way of telling if it’s energized in any way.”
“I’ll go with him,” Jada said, offering her expertise.
Gray nodded his thanks, staring out across the ice, wondering what was taking Seichan and Rachel so long. He had expected them here before Monk and the others.
Jada stepped back toward the bus. “I left my pack—”
A sharp whistle pierced the morning, followed immediately by a massive blast of fire and ice. Jada got blown into Duncan, who caught her. The concussion knocked them all off their feet and down the tunnel, accompanied by a barrage of broken icicles.
Gray slid on his back, staring past his toes.
Outside, the bus upended, tipping up on its front grill, windows exploding. A fireball rolled from beneath it and into the sky, trailed by a cloud of smoke. The ice shelf shattered beneath its bulk, and the bus sank nose-first into the lake.
A rocket attack.
But who . . . and why?
Still, a greater question loomed. “Where is the Eye?” Gray asked, fearfully yelling, half deafened.
Duncan helped Jada to her feet. She pointed to the wreckage sinking into the lake.
“My pack . . .”
It was still on the bus.
“Everybody back!” Gray said, pointing deeper into the tunnel.
They fled away from the rage of fire and smoke—and into the cold darkness of ice and frost.
As they reached a bend in the tunnel, Gray glanced back. The rear of the bus stuck out crookedly from the ice, smoking and charred. Fire spread outward in streams of gasoline and oil. Shadows moved beyond those flames.
Who were they? Russian forces? Had someone in Moscow grown wise to their covert presence on the island?
“Monk, stay here,” Gray ordered. “Alert us if anyone starts into the tunnel.”
And they would, he knew.