To think. The tablets of the Ten Commandments might be within her reach by nightfall.
She could feel the rough stone against her fingers already.
What a fine present for the master. No one would question Osip's death if she brought such a prize back to the shrine.
No one.
Brandt tried to ignore the rattling of the plane as they descended down the west slope of the Alps and headed into nearly gale-force winds. Hail bounced off the surface of the plane. Rain fell in sheets. Lopez must have been flying by instruments only.
Which, of course, the corporal would brag about.
"We've got a convective storm, guys," Lopez announced.
Great, Brandt thought. Another feather in the corporal's cap. They were going to hear about this forever.
Suddenly the pelting stopped. Everything stopped. The wind. The rain. The sleet.
Not good.
"Hang on!" Brandt shouted as the jet got knocked by a striation of the storm. They must be sitting right under the anvil.
"What's happening?" Rebecca asked, her lips pinched together. She was trying to be brave, but the jet was getting knocked around like one of those balls in the lottery spinner.
Brandt unhooked his seat belt and, gripping each chair back, made his way to the cockpit. Lopez struggled with the yoke as Talli focused on the weather pattern.
"Wind speed increasing rapidly and we've got updraft starboard."
"Still no thunder or lightning?" Lopez asked, sounding uncharacteristically subdued.
"Nope," Talli reported.
Fuck.
There had been a storm in the region like this back in '06. It had practically taken out four countries' entire infrastructure. Power transformers. Streetlights. Bridges.
And just like back then, the region had just experienced an early heat wave followed by a cold moist storm from the north. And the lack of lightning? That was an extremely poor sign. This storm had all the characteristics of tornadogenesis.
"What's ground control saying?" Brandt asked.
"They want to wave us off to the south."
Brandt glanced to the map. South was Croatia. And given how large the storm was spreading out across the Alps and valleys, they wouldn't be able to get back into the air for hours, if not days. Yet looking out the window at that huge black wall of roiling, churning, angry clouds up ahead, Brandt wasn't sure if they had any other option.
"Can you do it, Ricky?" Brandt asked, not in the mood to give an order to the corporal to land under some of the roughest conditions known to mankind.
"Phfph," Lopez snorted. "Try and stop me."
"Yes," Talli said, although Brandt wasn't sure if the perimeter specialist was kidding or not. "Please stop him."
Talli's opinion didn't really matter though. The mission's objectives did.
"All yours then," Brandt informed Lopez. South just wasn't an option. Not if Lopez felt confident he could get them on the ground.
The corporal hit the radio switch. "Control, be warned we lost radar and your beacon about a minute ago."
Yeah, Brandt thought, that would have been nice information to know before he gave the all-go.
"Once I get sight of your lights," Lopez explained, "I'm going to be coming down on your heads."
Brandt was sure control wasn't all that thrilled about the prospect.
"Sarge, you better buckle up," Lopez said as he strained to keep the jet upright. "No guarantees we're landing wheels down, if you know what I mean."
Unfortunately, Brandt did.
After the sarge got himself situated in the seat in front of him, Davidson readjusted his seat belt. The jet would go nose up to nose down in a fraction of a second. And as they entered the storm they cut across the forming funnel cloud.
Once again hail, rain, and wind buffeted their metal tube. A tube that really had no right to be in the sky under these conditions.
"I'm just going to go with the odds here," Lopez announced over the intercom, "and say everyone should assume crash positions."
Davidson leaned over clutching his knees, creating the tightest ball he could. Although if they hit anything at this air speed no position was going to save them. His eyes slid over to Bunny. He watched a timid hand reach out. This time he didn't hesitate. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly.
Perhaps it was best they couldn't really see what was happening as the jet lurched to the right, tilting at nearly forty-five degrees, then buffeted back to center.
He went to murmur a prayer as he had been trained for so many years to do. The Knot had taught him, when in trouble, reach out to God. Yet where had such righteousness gotten him? A vow he'd taken as a child had cost him so much as a man.
The warm hand in his though, thawing some of the ache from his scars, felt real and tangible.
Could God be so forgiving?
Could he be forgiven?
Davidson felt his good lip tug up into a grin. He guessed the next few minutes would give him a pretty good ballpark answer.
Rebecca desperately did not want to keep looking out the window. She really should put her forehead to her knees and ignore the groan and churn outside the plane. Yet she couldn't. Each piece of debris that flew by the window or clanged off the wing or whipped past held her fascination.
It was impossible to tell how high, or worse how low they were to the ground. The winds and clouds made it almost seem like they were deep under the North Sea again. Rebecca clutched her knees even tighter. Actually, it was more like their flight over Romania last year after the RPG attack. Or maybe it was a combination of the two.
Which wasn't at all comforting.
Then suddenly out of the dark, a light blinked. A red light. It must be the control tower. The only problem? Actually, only problems?
They'd completely overshot the runway and they were flying low. Like their wheels were barely clearing the airport's fence low.
How Rebecca wished she could close her eyes and let fate take its course, but she felt compelled to watch every moment of their doomed landing.
Lopez banked hard right, tilting the plane nearly vertical to come back around toward the emergency-lit runway. But that lost them even more altitude if that's what a few feet above the ground could be called. There was no way, just no way they were going to come into this landing parallel.
Then the storm picked them up. A rush of air under the wings had them gliding for several yards. Rebecca felt her stomach lurch. Then the same storm slammed them down long before Lopez could steady them out.
The wing hit first, leaving a line of sparks along the tarmac.
"Everyone to the left!" Brandt shouted, unhooking his belt.
Everyone followed suit as the plane threatened to tip onto its back as they flung themselves to the opposite windows. Rebecca landed hard against Brandt, who swept her up into his arms, grasping the seat in front of them, pulling it down as cover. Harvish landed in a heap next to them.
The sudden shift of weight brought the plane down onto its wheels. The jet swerved wildly on the sleet-slicked runway. Forget runway, they skidded sideways off into the greenway that separated the tarmacs. Bouncing and bounding over grass mounds, they finally slowed until they hit another runway and skidded around nearly in a circle.
The brakes screeched as Lopez laid them on hard, but a hangar was coming up fast.
"Stay to the left!" Lopez yelled, not even bothering to use the intercom.
Rebecca didn't understand why until Lopez made another sharp right, lifting them up onto one wheel, using the right wing as a pivot. The grinding of metal filled the jet. Then fire erupted at the tip of the wing. Still Lopez laid into the right until the friction finally stopped their forward momentum.
The nose of the jet gently bumped the hangar.
"Evacuate!" Brandt barked, even though everyone was already all over it as the wing caught fire, sending flames high in the air.
Talli had the forward door open and shoved out the short metal staircase before they even arrived. Lopez nodded to each as they passed.
"Just remember, folks, I'm available for charity events and private parties."
Rebecca gave him a punch in the shoulder as a tip.
CHAPTER 15.
Base of the Alps, Slovenia 10:11 a.m. GMT Sleet and hail continued, but at the least though they were on the ground. That had to count for something, Brant thought. And Lopez, perhaps his adrenaline addiction satiated by the rough landing, was actually driving at a reasonable speed. Not that the corporal necessarily had a choice. In this kind of weather the streets were nearly gridlocked.
What should have been a quick twenty-minute drive out of the capital of Slovenia to the foothills at the base of the alpine peaks had turned into over an hour long, full of blaring horns and stalled cars.
The SUV, an Italian Lancia Voyager, was pretty damned comfortable though. Fine leather seats kind of took the sting out of the assortment of cuts and scrapes they'd endured to get this far.
"I'm telling you," Lopez said as the rain turned to slushy snow the higher they climbed out of the valley. The windshield wipers could barely keep up. "This SUV isn't going to get us far up that mountain."
Brandt frowned. That was like the third time the corporal had mentioned the fact.
"Please, you just flew us through a cyclone storm," Brandt answered, but Lopez wouldn't let it go.
Before Lopez could argue, however, Rebecca leaned between the seats, pushing her laptop ahead of her. "I don't mean to interrupt, but they are reporting near blizzard conditions near the peaks, and just a mile ahead, the alpine roads are chains only. These snow tires aren't going to cut it."
This day looked on the same course as yesterday. You'd think with Rinderpest in the wind, Nature would be slightly more helpful securing the bacterial plague. Instead, she was being a complete bitch.
"Fine," Brandt grunted. "What do you suggest, Corporal?"
"I am so glad you asked," Lopez beamed.
The corporal made a fast left, sped down an alley, and then turned right into a car lot. Brandt glared at Lopez. Clearly the man knew exactly where he was going. Exactly how long had he been angling to get permission to come here?
Then Brandt saw the reason. The vehicle Lopez coveted sat at the far edge of the lot. It was like an enclosed snowmobile only on steroids. In addition, the vehicle had a strange sleek German engineering look to it. Or the Hummer of snowmobiles.
Bombardier 12 was stenciled in bright white letters across the side.
Lopez was out of the car in a flash. "It's the only model of blizzard-conditions-rated vehicle that will seat all of us," the corporal said before he trotted toward the sales office.
But how exactly had Lopez known about a car lot in Slovenia that sold heavy snow vehicles in May? Brandt turned to find Rebecca closing out a number of windows. One conspicuously had the specs for the Bombardier 12.
"Et tu?" Brandt asked.
Rebecca grinned as she closed her laptop.
And here he thought Davidson was going to be the problem.
Rebecca watched the wintery landscape change from long, low pastures to rolling hills to steep alpine inclines. Trees became more and more sparse as they ascended.
Brandt might have been skeptical about the Bombardier 12, but dang the thing was traveling across the snow at speeds over forty miles an hour. For Lopez that speed was probably embarrassing, but in the middle of a blizzard, it was downright impressive. They had skimmed past stranded car after stranded car as they made their way up the alpine highway.
She swallowed and then yawned, trying to reequilibrate her ears. They had been up down and all around. Her body didn't know which way was up.
"Next left?" Lopez asked.
Rebecca glanced down to her laptop. Bunny leaned over as well. The woman had seen some private correspondence from Nikolay's family. From that information they had been able to look up property records and had estimated the location of Nikolay's retirement home. Now that they were up in the high up in the Alps though, Rebecca was beginning to have doubts.
They had passed numerous buildings. Some sparkling Swiss chalets looked like five-star resorts. Then there were broken-down "huts," as the Slovenians called them. Basically they'd never been much more than a stick wood frame and tiled roof.
If Nikolay's place was on the five-star side, they might have some hope of recovering the stone fragments. On the other hand, if Nikolay had shacked up in some random hut, could anything have survived until now?
"Yes," Bunny answered Lopez. "This is as far as the A1 road goes north by northeast." With more conviction the younger woman stated, "We need to take a left here, but in a half a mile or so, we've got to go off-road."
Lopez patted the handlebars of the Bombardier. "Which is exactly why we needed this baby."
Rebecca noticed Brandt roll his eyes. Despite Brandt's skepticism, the Bombardier chugged its way down the side street, gliding over the freshly fallen snow. If she ignored all the guns and danger and bioweapons, she could almost imagine this was the alpine vacation she'd dreamed of.