Man on Ice

by Humphrey Hawksley

  He greeted Lagutov with a huge smile, but without a word, then clasped Vitruk’s hand with both of his. ‘What a privilege to meet you, Admiral. Your reputation dwarfs us all. I have heard some of your plan and am very excited.’

  ‘We will need our elected representatives with us, Alex,’ said Lagutov with a self-effacing frown. ‘These are not the days of President Putin.’

  ‘If you can take and hold this island for twenty-four hours, I can deliver the voice of the Russian people,’ said Grizlov. ‘The current border was approved in 1990 by Gorbachev, an arrangement between the United States and the Soviet Union, a country which no longer exists. America forced it through when we were at our weakest. The new Russia has no agreed border with America, and the Duma has never ratified the Soviet one. I also have documents disputing the Alaska Purchase of 1867. Again, Russia was vulnerable and America exploited us.’ Grizlov unlocked the briefcase and spread documents on the table. ‘So, this is what I propose.’

  As the three men worked through details, Vitruk understood how Lagutov was playing him. Grizlov’s political plan was as solid as Vitruk’s military one. For either one to win, both had to work together. If Vitruk took the presidency, it would be on the image of raising the Russian flag on American territory, of his rejection of the West and his vision of building a strong Russian friendship with a rising Asia. If Grizlov took it, it would be through his skill in political persuasion and his horse-trading with world leaders. But Russia would again be controlled again by the West, weakened, humiliated, and stripped of self-esteem.

  Over the next two months, Vitruk had put measures in place to ensure that didn’t happen. Lagutov, his patron, Grizlov, his enemy, and Yumatov, his protégé, knew barely half of what he had planned. Only the winner could take the presidential throne. Sixty-seven days after that meeting, with a high-risk teenage pregnancy, both men got their chance.

  SEVEN

  Big Diomede, Chukotka, Russian Far East

  ‘The mission is completely understood, sir,’ said Yumatov in response to Vitruk’s threatening question. He turned on a television wall screen that showed a helicopter taking off from Little Diomede. ‘This is a live video feed. The pregnant girl is on board and will be here in five minutes, sir. Eight men remain on the island. I need your orders now to send in the others and complete the occupation.’

  A jolt of exhilaration ran through Vitruk as his eyes scanned the screen of snow swirling around rotor blades. Lamps flashed on the tail, brightly lighting the luminous red cross on the side of the fuselage. The helicopter turned in the wind to fly fast towards the base. It landed just outside the building and paramedics carried a stretcher off the helicopter. A blast of freezing air filled the room as Yumatov opened outside doors, and paramedics wheeled in the Eskimo girl.

  A doctor uncovered her face. Her skin was paper-white and her eyes listless. She breathed lightly through an oxygen mask. A drip hung from a matchstick-thin arm. Two Eskimos, a thin woman and a short stocky man, were with her.

  ‘How bad is she?’ Vitruk asked.

  ‘Sir, I was not aware you would be here.’ The doctor glanced at Yumatov then back to Vitruk who asked, ‘Will she live?’

  ‘Impossible to say.’

  ‘She needs to live. Take her to the field theater.’ He turned to the two adults. ‘We will do our best to save your daughter’s life.’

  ‘We are family,’ said the woman. ‘She is not our daughter.’

  ‘Go with the medical staff. We will see you have everything you need.’

  Paramedics pushed the gurney through double doors leading to the field hospital, then through heavy drapes which hung in front to help stave off the icy draught. Once the medics were gone, Vitruk said, ‘Send them in, Colonel. It’s a go.’

  Within minutes, buffeted by blistering snow, a second M-8 helicopter landed on the American island. Spetsnaz special-forces troops spread out and took positions in the south of the village. Vitruk and Yumatov moved from the entrance hall into the cramped command and control center. Two walls were taken up with screens of visual feeds. Vitruk had set up a secure conferencing room deep underground in the base’s old nuclear bunker and shared a narrow workbench with Yumatov. Next to them was a chair for the Spetsnaz commander.

  The confined space meant Vitruk was working cheek-by-jowl with his men, unheard of for such a senior military commander. But this was not a task that could be done from his Khabarovsk headquarters two thousand miles away. When it was over, the men could tell their children and grandchildren that they had served with Admiral Alexander Vitruk during those days when, together, after centuries and injustice and humiliation, they had restored pride and strength to the Motherland.

  Yumatov pulled up a map of the island on his computer and pointed out where they would set up the gun and surveillance posts. Vitruk looked back at the wall screen where soldiers were jumping down from the third helicopter. They rigged up more video feeds from the village. There was a camera on the helipad, three along the shoreline, several going up the hill, and even one in the water-treatment plant and another on the generator.

  ‘We need a position at the top of the island,’ said Vitruk. ‘Can we get a helicopter up there?’

  ‘Negative, sir. The wind,’ said Yumatov. ‘Perhaps in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Send a foot platoon up. We need to get a visual on their mainland.’ The closest American long-range radar station was at Tin City twenty miles away with an airstrip next door at the settlement of Wales. Vitruk watched soldiers moving along the narrow ice-covered walkways layered up the hillside, going from house to house and taking people down to the school. Villagers were ushered in, stragglers rounded up. He couldn’t detect any resistance.

  ‘You need to see the first landing, sir,’ said Yumatov. He played back the footage. Vitruk studied the images, the splaying of lights, clumps of mist, snow, and litter skidding with the downdraught. Then a man appeared, confident, excited, welcoming, using his flashlight intricately to direct the pilot’s descent. Yumatov froze the image as the helicopter’s flood lamp lit the man’s face, alert, young, concentrating, his movements professional, trained, familiar with the environment, with a military aircraft, as if he did this every day.

  ‘Do we know who he is?’ asked Vitruk.

  ‘We’re checking, sir. But he doesn’t look like a civilian.’

  ‘Bring that old Eskimo couple back in here,’ Vitruk ordered.

  Yumatov radioed the instructions. The plastic drapes rose, fell, rattling like a drum roll, and the couple came back in. Vitruk examined them more closely. The man was broad and clear-eyed, his hands calloused from work. The woman carried herself with confidence. She had fashion sense, too, with hair cropped short and a pendant around her neck that looked like a piece of carved ivory from a walrus tusk. They weren’t afraid.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked, his tone soft and reassuring.

  ‘The doctor is still working,’ said the woman.

  Vitruk stood up. ‘I am Admiral Alexander Vitruk.’ He offered his hand.

  ‘Henry Ahkvaluk. She is my wife, Joan.’ His handshake was quick and weak. But Eskimos did not measure a man by the strength of his handshake. Not a flicker of expression crossed either of their faces. Vitruk knew the type. They were the ones his alcoholic father had admired. In his sober moments, he had explained to Vitruk how Eskimos lived as one with the environment, how they read the flights of birds, the currents and marine life, and shared their wives to ensure safety for women and children. Vitruk would have preferred that Henry and Joan had been doped out of their heads, not knowing or caring where they were.

  ‘Who was the man on the helipad with the flashlight?’ Vitruk asked.

  Henry shrugged. Joan stayed quiet. They knew.

  ‘Help me,’ he asked again. ‘You were with him and the patient. This man guided in the helicopter. We saw him with you when you carried Akna down the hill to the school.’

  They stood together, gutsy and silent. Henry Ahkval
uk’s eyes squinted from a life dealing with light reflected on snow. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘One of the villagers. I don’t know who.’

  Vitruk let the lie hang, then spoke to the soldiers escorting them. ‘Take them back. Don’t harm them,’ he said, loud enough for everyone to know that physical harm could be an option. When they were gone, Yumatov said, ‘A few minutes, sir. We should get something from facial recognition.’

  ‘I want to know everything about that man.’ Vitruk flipped the still image onto his laptop screen – a determined figure, wind-whipped but defying the gales, flashing an emergency SOS message. It was a defining image, a lone man in cruel surroundings appealing for help.

  EIGHT

  Little Diomede, Alaska, USA

  Rake sat on the floor of the school gymnasium, legs crossed and hands linked on his head, as they had been ordered. Carrie was next to him, in the same position.

  Household by household, soldiers rounded up more villagers, the kids with their tablets, headphones, music, and games; the older ones, defiant, edgy, some in awe, some doped out and barely able to stand. Knives, sharpened metal, anything that could be a weapon was confiscated. They were told to sit by the wall in the order in which they arrived.

  So far, Rake had counted five M-8 helicopter landings. To save little Akna, Russia had sent in more than a hundred troops. Ten feet away, by the gymnasium wall bars, a soldier wearing a medical armband kept watch.

  ‘Do exactly as they say,’ Rake advised Carrie in a low voice. ‘And we’ll pull through.’

  She shot him a tense look.

  ‘This isn’t the Middle East,’ he continued. ‘These are trained, disciplined men working under orders from their government.’

  The gymnasium covered the school’s upper floor. A classroom, washrooms, a repair shop, and an office ran off its east side. Each room had a window looking out towards Russia, but none opened wide enough for a person to get through. The repair room door led outside and there was another at the northern end near a stairwell to the top floor. The skylight in the sloping roof was large enough for him to climb through. It was a thought. But then what? How to deal with the soldiers posted on the terrace below? And how could he leave Carrie?

  Four soldiers walked in, followed by an exceptionally tall officer in full uniform. His epaulets carried two thin red stripes and three gold stars.

  ‘A moment, please.’ He raised his hands like an orchestral conductor. The hum of conversation stopped. ‘My name is Colonel Ruslan Yumatov. I understand this is very unusual for you, but I assure you there is nothing to worry about.’ He spoke in English with an American East Coast accent. Yumatov walked to the center of the gymnasium, flanked by two men wearing headgear with cameras on top which would be streaming live video back to the base.

  ‘We came here to save the life of Akna Soolook,’ he said. ‘She is now in surgery undergoing an emergency Caesarean section. The doctors tell me the chances for her and the baby are good.’

  The colonel paused, as if waiting for a reaction. There was none. Experience passed down generations had taught villagers that the safest path was to stay quiet. Teenagers and difficult childbirth were no novelty to the village, nor were the white faces of an outside power.

  Yumatov held up a folder. ‘To avoid another emergency, I’m asking you each to fill in one of these forms that contain basic health questions. My medical staff will take your blood pressure and, in another test, we will check for illnesses such as anemia with just a tiny pinprick of blood from your finger. You don’t have to do this, but it could save lives in the future.’

  ‘It’s work the US government should have been doing,’ muttered Carrie.

  ‘But Russia can’t just—’

  ‘They can if they’re saving lives.’ She was wound up. But they were a team. They would handle this together. Her face became harder. ‘You need to escape.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You need to get out of here and get help.’

  ‘Not without you.

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘We’ll be fine. They’re not planning to hurt us.’

  ‘Not them. Us. If we’re still here when that creep of a new President takes over, he’ll come in guns blazing, and won’t care about eighty Eskimos locked in a school.’

  Rake wanted to say she was overreacting. But she could be right. Could any US President allow the unauthorized presence of foreign troops on American soil? ‘You need to get yourself away from here, get word out and keep Bob Holland well away,’ she said.

  ‘The Russians are all over the island.’

  ‘If you want to protect us, just do it.’ Carrie took a phone out of her jacket pocket. ‘There are three contacts in here. Try SL first. She’s now the British Ambassador in Washington. I hit the town with her a couple of times in Moscow and Kabul. She’ll remember me.’ She slipped the phone into his pants pocket and, before he could stop her, pushed herself to her feet and walked towards Yumatov.

  The Russian examined Carrie as she approached. ‘You are the doctor,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir. Dr Carrie Walker. I was with the patient. I can help.’ Yumatov’s face creased with suspicion. His men, professional killers, were being asked to do the work of nurses. Yumatov would be reporting directly to the commander of Russia’s Far East Military District. The Kremlin would be listening in and watching. This was one day any military officer would have to get right.

  ‘Who was the man guiding in the helicopter?’ he asked her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Carrie held his gaze. ‘I’ve come to help your medics.’

  ‘You were with him when our teams arrived.’

  ‘I was with the patient.’

  Yumatov gave his response an uncompromising edge. ‘What is his name, Dr Walker?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Rake stood up. ‘That was me – Captain Raymond Ozenna. I’m a native of Little Diomede. Dr Walker wouldn’t know. She only got here today.’

  Yumatov spoke in Russian and two soldiers moved either side and loosely held Rake’s arms.

  ‘What are you doing?’ exclaimed Carrie.

  ‘Captain Ozenna is going to our base to help with the patient.’

  ‘Then I’ll come too,’ said Carrie.

  ‘Your skills are needed here.’

  Rake’s mind raced with bad choices. This was his chance. There would be a dozen opportunities to escape between here and the helicopter. Maybe Carrie even planned it this way. ‘If I am under arrest, Colonel, handcuff me,’ he said. ‘If not, let me walk as a free man.’ The grip on Rake’s arms tightened. He raised his voice. ‘If you want this to go well, you should remember there is one thing the people of the Diomede no longer tolerate and that is captivity by the white man.’

  It worked. Rake had sowed the first seed of dissent and he felt resentful menace ripple through the gym. Yumatov was smart enough to sense it too. He issued orders for the soldiers to let go of Rake’s arms. They did. One held him from behind. The other patted him down and found a knife blade strapped around his left ankle.

  ‘Go, Captain,’ Yumatov said softly. ‘And, as you say, walk as a free man.’

  The guards stayed with him, but kept their hands away. One was tall, head shaved, a powerful man, but with a face of youth and hope that could have made him a military poster model. The other was smaller, wiry, narrow eyes, ferret-like, tougher and probably more dangerous. His face carried a knife scar.

  They assessed him like military escorts do. He wouldn’t give them time to draw an accurate conclusion. Two against one were probably the best odds he was going to get and those wouldn’t last long. He had a home-ground advantage. This was his island and his old school. He would move on his own schedule. He had a couple of minutes at best. The next soldiers would be around the corner.

  Outside the gymnasium, Rake slowed at the top of the stairs where the wall was decorated with photographs of walrus and seal hunts and instructions on how to m
ake kayak canoes and boats from animal skin. He started talking in his bad Russian about how skin boats were used to hunt marine life, even whales at times. Further along there were display photographs of bridges in American cities. God knew who put them there and why, but they bought him more time. ‘Brooklyn Bridge.’ He indicated an arty black-and-white portrait of the ageing bridge running out of Manhattan. The younger soldier paused to look.

  ‘And the Golden Gate,’ said Rake. ‘San Francisco.’

  ‘Move,’ said the older one.

  Rake would have to take him first, and doubted he could do it without killing him. With two trained men, you often had to kill one to show the other that things were serious. ‘Maybe one day they’ll have a bridge like that between our two countries,’ said Rake.’ I’ve relatives over there, you know. In Uelen. You been to Uelen?’

  At the bottom, stairs led straight into a corridor with rooms running off each side that turned at right angles into another corridor. More soldiers would be by the main entrance. He pointed to the boys’ restroom. ‘Give me a moment.’ The older one nodded. Rake left the door ajar. The young soldier kept watch. Rake kept up the chatter, explaining every detail. It was a big restroom so it could take a wheelchair. It had a high ceiling that gave a sense of space and there was a single shining white commode with a stainless-steel rail for the disabled.

  He zipped up, flushed the bowl, and moved to the sink, taking time with the soap. In the mirror, he saw that neither man had moved. But their alertness levels had dropped. Naturally. This wasn’t Ukraine. They were watching a guy take a piss in a village school. He shook water from his hands, but kept the tap running as he reached for a paper towel. Rake caught the eye of the younger soldier in the mirror. ‘They have this idea for a tunnel. Chukotka to Alaska. Sixty miles,’ he said. ‘You heard of that? Sixty miles under the sea.’