Sacred Stone (Oregon Files 2)

is work Vanderwald received an award and a cash bonus of two months’ salary.

Without long-range delivery systems such as ICBMs or SCUD, and with only a limited air force to call upon, Vanderwald and his team had perfected methods of introducing the death agents into the population, then had them spread by the victims themselves. The name of the game had been seeding the water supplies, allowing the wind to carry the plague, or using tank trucks or artillery shells for dispersal.

EWP had been masters at the game, but as soon as apartheid ended they were quickly and secretly disbanded, and Vanderwald and the other scientists were left to fend for themselves.

Many of them took their payoffs and retired, but a few like Vanderwald offered their specialized skills and knowledge on the open market, where an increasingly violent world was interested in their unique talents. Countries in the Middle East, Asia and South America had sought his counsel and expertise. Vanderwald had only one rule—he didn’t work for free.

“YOU GOT A piece of that one,” Vanderwald said easily.

A light breeze was blowing from the tee box toward the hole. The temperature was an even eighty degrees. The air was as dry as a bag of flour and as clear as a pane of glass.

“The breeze helped,” Halifax Hickman said as he walked back to the cart and slid his club into the bag, then walked to the front and climbed into the driver’s seat.

There were no caddies on the course, nor any other golfers. There was just a team of security men that drifted in and out of the trees and brush, a couple of ducks in the lake and a skinny, dusty red fox that had scampered across the fairway earlier. It was strangely quiet, with the air holding memories of the year nearly passed.

“So,” Vanderwald said, “you must really hate these people.”

Hickman stepped on the accelerator and the cart lurched forward down the fairway to their distant balls. “I’m paying you for your knowledge, not for psychoanalysis.”

Vanderwald nodded and stared down at the photograph again. “If that’s what you think it is,” he said quietly, “you have a gem. The radioactivity is very high and it is extremely dangerous in solid or powdered form. You have a variety of options.”

Hickman pressed on the brakes as the cart approached Vanderwald’s ball. Once the cart had stopped, the South African climbed from his seat, walked around to the rear and removed a club from his bag, then approached his ball and lined up to take a shot. After a pair of practice swings, he stopped and concentrated, then made a smooth arcing swing at the ball. The ball blasted from the clubhead, gaining altitude as it traveled. A little over a hundred yards distant, it dropped to the grass less than ten yards from the green, just missing the sand trap.

“So a powdered form introduced from the air would do the trick?” Hickman asked as Vanderwald climbed back into his seat.

“Provided you could get a plane anywhere near the site.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Hickman said as he accelerated away toward his ball.

“Yes,” Vanderwald said, “striking at the heart of your enemies. But it will cost you.”

“Do you think,” Hickman asked, “that money is a problem?”

7

SOMETIMES TEMPERATURE IS as much a state of mind as a condition. See waves of heat rising from the asphalt and chances are that you will think it is hotter outside than if you see the same road lined with snow. Juan Cabrillo had no illusions as to what he was seeing. The view out the window of the turboprop as it made its way across the Denmark Strait from Iceland to Greenland was one that could chill a man’s heart and make him rub his hands together in pity. The eastern shore of Greenland was lined with mountains, and it was a desolate and barren sight. In all of the thousands of square miles that comprised eastern Greenland, there was a population of less than five thousand.

The sky was deep blue-black and roiling with clouds that held snow. One did not need to touch the white-capped waters far below to know the water temperature was below freezing and the tossing torrent was in liquid form only because of the salt content. The thin rime of ice on the wings and the edging of frost on the windshield added to the image, but the thick ice cap that covered Greenland, barely visible through the windshield ahead, lent it the most chilling and ominous feel.

Cabrillo made an involuntary shiver and stared out the side window.

“We’re ten minutes out,” the pilot noted. “The report advises wind of only ten to fifteen. It should be a cakewalk landing.”

“Okay,” Cabrillo said loudly over the noise from the engines.

The men flew along in silence as the rocky outline loomed larger.

A few minutes later Cabrillo heard and felt the turboprop slow as it neared the outer edge of the airport’s pattern. The pilot steered the plane from his crosswind leg onto the downwind leg that would take them parallel to the runway. They flew for a short distance and Cabrillo watched the pilot adjust the flight controls. A minute later the pilot turned on his base leg, then flew for a short distance and turned again onto his final approach.

“Hold on,” the pilot said, “we’ll be on the ground shortly.”

Cabrillo stared down at the frozen wasteland. The lights lining the runway cast a pale glow against the afternoon gloom. The markings on the runway came into and out of view in the blowing snow. Cabrillo caught sight of the slightly extended wind sock through the haze and growing darkness.

The airport at Kulusuk, where they were landing, served the tiny population of four hundred and was little more than a gravel runway tucked behind a mountain ridge along with a couple of small buildings. The nearest other town—Angmagssalik, or Tasiilaq, by its Inuit name—was a ten-minute helicopter ride away and had three times the population of Kulusuk.

When the turboprop was just above the runway, the pilot gave it rudder and straightened it out against the wind. A second later he kissed the runway as light as a feather. Rolling across the snow-packed gravel, he slowed in front of a metal building. Quickly running through the post-flight checklist, he shut down the engine then pointed to the building.

“I’ve got to fuel up,” he said. “You might as well head inside.”