Man on Ice

by Humphrey Hawksley

  ‘Mr President-elect, I need you to go back to Blair House, consult with your team, and get back to me within the hour,’ said Swain sternly. ‘I will work with whatever plan you come up with as much as I can. You have my word on that.’ He turned to Slater. ‘Mr Prime Minister, we’ll give you an escort to the embassy. Since you are with me in DC, we will ask European leaders to work through you. Perhaps Britain, France, and Germany could come up with a unified response and bring as many of the European states with you as possible.’

  ‘My hand will be stronger if there is no more military action,’ said Slater.

  Swain’s voice hardened in a way that brooked no opposition. ‘I’d like Ambassador Lucas to stay here because of her direct link to Dr Walker and Captain Ozenna. The rest of us will re-group in the Situation Room.’

  Prusak looked up from his tablet. ‘CNN are publishing their interactive poll,’ he said.

  ‘So quickly?’ said Slater with surprise.

  ‘It’s very basic,’ Prusak explained. ‘They ask the audience to press a button on a For or Against question. So far sixty-nine percent believe we should just walk away from this.’

  ‘What was the question?’ asked Swain.

  ‘“Do you believe the United States should take immediate military action against Russia’s occupation of Little Diomede?” And that sixty-nine percent has just gone up to seventy.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Holland. ‘Let’s wait for the Fox poll.’

  ‘We’ll speak in an hour, Bob,’ said Swain. Amid low murmurs of conversation, Swain stepped across into the en-suite restroom. The Oval Office emptied, leaving Prusak and Stephanie alone.

  ‘Does this stink, or what, Matt?’

  ‘Which part? Bob Holland? Your Prime Minister? Viktor Lagutov?’ Prusak asked.

  ‘Can you do as these polls suggest? Let Russia take this god-forsaken island?’

  ‘No way. It would mean we surrender the border change, the energy reserves, the gateway to the new Arctic shipping routes, the prestige of America. If we go with it now, Holland will reverse it. So, keep talking, Steph, because I need to know your thoughts.’

  ‘Lagutov’s bright, but an academic rather than a leader. Sergey Grizlov’s a street-smart wheeler-dealer.’

  ‘Didn’t you …?’

  Stephanie blushed. ‘Years ago, when we were young and believed that inside every Russian was a little democrat waiting to burst out.’

  ‘Useful, though.’

  ‘I can call him when the time’s right, if that’s what you mean. But the one we need to track is Alexander Vitruk. He is ruthless and must have wider military support. If Sergey Grizlov is behind Vitruk, we have a very dangerous situation, because however wretched and remote Little Diomede is, it’s not Crimea. It’s Russia taking America. Whatever the polls say, you’re not going to let them raise the tricolor and declare it Russian soil, whether Holland or anybody else is in this office.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Stephanie swiped her hand impatiently through the air. ‘So, what then is their plan – the humanitarian rescue, the Duma session, the new border? It can’t stop here.’

  ‘Like I said – a play for the Arctic, control of shipping routes, fossil-fuel resources?’

  ‘Too opaque. Why risk so much now against everything else they have going with the United States – trade, the Middle East deals, terror, penthouse properties, oligarch bank accounts, and Fifth Avenue shopping sprees?’

  ‘They’re doing it now because they think they can,’ suggested Prusak. ‘They took Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and Europe did nothing. They’re outpacing us many times over with bases and ports in the Arctic.’

  ‘All of that, yes. But I have a feeling this is about Lagutov’s succession. He’s playing Grizlov and Vitruk against each other.’

  ‘You think this is all orchestrated by Lagutov?’

  ‘Lagutov is a big theorist with a deep sense of history. Grizlov is his political muscle and is pro-West. Vitruk is his military muscle and leans towards China, the authoritarians, and Asia. Lagutov might be testing which of the two is stronger.’

  The side door swung open, and Swain stepped back in. ‘I agree with you, Stephanie. But first, call Ozenna. You do the talking, Stephanie. He’s the one on the island. Ask him what his plan would be.’

  They waited for the line to be set up, encryption secured. A technician’s voice came through her earpiece: ‘Go ahead, Ambassador.’

  ‘Captain Ozenna?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Captain, how best can we use you?’

  ‘I need to cross to Big Diomede. Cut off the snake’s head.’

  The snake goes all the way to the Kremlin, thought Stephanie. ‘What can you achieve there?’

  ‘I can tell you who is where and how to hit them.’

  ‘Would it be better to stay and guide in the Marine units?’

  ‘There are other Eskimos who can do that.’

  Prusak shook his head. The civilian Eskimos in Wales had declared the ice unsafe. The Eskimo Scouts were way up north near Barrow on exercises.

  ‘They’re saying they can’t,’ said Stephanie.

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  ‘Explain, Captain.’

  ‘Many will think this is a con, that you’re going across to raid homes for narcotics, skins, and guns.’

  ‘We can talk to them.’

  ‘If you’re willing to break rules, I know the best man to do this.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He’s in the Goose Creek Correctional Center. His name is Don Ondola. He’s the father of Akna, the pregnant girl. Get him to Wales, and if there’s a way across the ice he’ll find it, better than me. Don’s the best there is. The ice is thin in many places. He may miss some. Heavy with equipment, men will fall through. You may take casualties. But Don will get most across.’

  ‘Ondola is serving life for murder and rape,’ said Prusak quietly, reading from his tablet.

  Swain made his decision in a second. ‘Get Ondola down there,’ he said. ‘Send Ozenna across to the Russian base.’

  ‘How long will it take you to get across to Big Diomede, Captain?’ asked Stephanie.

  ‘Six hours, depending how the ice is packed. With the Russians watching, could be longer.’

  ‘And you will make it?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I know this place. It’s my sea. Once we neutralize the base, you can chopper in the men from Wales. If I don’t make it, Don brings them across. This way gives you two options.’

  Swain gave her a nod. ‘OK, Captain. It’s a go for Big Diomede.’

  ‘If you use Don, tell him I told you to.’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘They’ll be tracking the location of this phone,’ said Ozenna. ‘Once I’m across, I will use the Russian military radio. You’ll need to get Tin City onto that.’

  Swain stepped closer. ‘This is President Swain, Captain. Good luck and take an American flag with you.’

  ‘Copy that, sir. And thank you, sir. Please, keep that school out of it. My fiancée and eighty American citizens are there.’

  The line cut.

  ‘How long to get Ondola to Wales?’ asked Swain.

  ‘Two hours, sir,’ said Prusak. ‘But he’s—’

  ‘Do it, Matt, and the three of us will remember this as the moment we staked the future of the free world on a rapist and an off-duty soldier.’

  FOURTEEN

  Big Diomede, Chukotka, the Russian Far East

  ‘Intercept on call to Krusenstern,’ a technician told Vitruk. ‘From Washington, DC to an American number, routed through a hotspot of one of ours in the 83rd Airborne. Signal encrypted both ways.’

  Vitruk watched images of the two helicopters, one Russian, one American, now charred wreckage embedded on the sea ice, flames leaping, then dampened by the black oil seeping onto the white. His hope had been that he could take the American island without a shot being fired. He had also planned for the high chance of th
at not happening. He would now step up his reach to make sure America understood it should not mess with him. And he would deceive, too, by offering to cede his advantage here on the border. There didn’t have to be blood. At least, not here. ‘Break that encryption. Tell the Americans we’ll allow them to pick up their injured. We need our own rescue teams out there now.’

  On the visual feed from Little Diomede, troops were moving off the helipad, isolating the single Russian helicopter, which, with the outbreak of violence, would be a missile strike target. Soldiers melted into cover around the buildings.

  ‘SU-35s ready to scramble, sir,’ reported a technician. The SU-35 strike aircraft would match the American F-22s. They would also escalate.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Vitruk. ‘Stand them by.’

  He spoke to Yumatov in the school on Little Diomede. ‘Hold the Eskimos at the school until we have a peace deal. There must be no loss of life.’

  ‘One is missing, sir; Captain Raymond Ozenna of the Alaska Army National Guard.’ Yumatov spoke slowly, but he was not hesitant. ‘We are certain that he’s the one who guided in the helicopter. He has killed two, possibly three, of my men.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘In the village. He can’t have gone far.’

  ‘Find him.’

  Rake flipped out the phone’s battery and SIM card so it could no longer be traced. He moved silently around the back of the hut and up the hillside to the next, higher level of walkways where the old church was. He found cover inside a wooden meat cache built like a huge outdoor cupboard, between the wooden struts of the building. Inside was frozen whale, seal, and walrus meat. If, behind that, there was a cache of Don’s weapons, he would have a chance of getting across to the Russian island in once piece.

  The crossing would not be straightforward. Most of the ocean was frozen over, but there would be channels of open water, carrying chunks of ice on a fast-running northerly current. This was one of the most dangerous seas in the world. If he had been on the island these past few months he would know how it lay this winter. But he hadn’t. And there was no one to ask. It was shallow, making the current faster and more powerful. Out there, wind chill would drop minus 20 Celsius to minus 40 with weather that turned at any moment. He would have to check the weapons carefully. The Russian ones he had were close-quarter weapons and would be serviced with cold-weather lubricants. But Rake needed a rifle, an accurate long-range weapon that could take out a man from a distance. Don Ondola was a Diomede man and he understood that although the target of his dreams would not be Russians but agents from the American government interfering with the way he lived.

  Ondola’s stolen weapons would have come from Iraq, which meant Rake might need to strip and dry them out to ensure no condensation would freeze and lock the mechanisms. He could do that quickly, but he needed to allow time to throw out any ammunition with casings damaged by the weather.

  The Russian military gloves were cleverly designed. An outer cover could be removed leaving the trigger finger protected by a material thin enough to work inside the guard. That would prevent lethal cold-weather skin-on-metal contact. Rake had seen a man rip off half his face after resting against a metal rifle stock.

  He was well hidden and had a clear view across to Big Diomede. The Russian base was out of sight on the north side of the island. He could see no way of getting to it unseen without going right around Little Diomede, or at least over the top, which would mean having to avoid the Russian observation position up there.

  At the back, where the storeroom met the hillside granite, Rake found carefully packed weapons. There were two pistols, four M-14 carbines lubricated for Arctic conditions, a dozen grenades, and a Remington 700 rifle with a white Gore-Tex sleeve. He even found a roll of kitchen plastic wrap which would keep the weapon moisture-free until he needed to use it.

  A dog barked, but it was not Henry’s mutt. Then came a crackle of radio communication and footsteps on the walkway. He heard voices in Russian looking for him. Strong flashlights swept around the small hillside homes, illuminating them as if it were daylight.

  Vitruk looked hard into the face of the Eskimo soldier standing in front of him. He was no more than five feet four and thin like a wire doll, but strong. This was Sergeant Nikita Tuuq, aged thirty-four, from the village of Uelen in Chukotka. He stood impassive and unafraid, eyes squinted, nose skewed from being broken, his skin young but rough like leather.

  ‘Do you know Captain Rake Ozenna?’ Vitruk showed Tuuq a photograph.

  Tuuq replied with a nod. Vitruk was familiar with this type of man and allowed the apparent lack of respect. Tuuq belonged to a special Arctic-warfare unit which had flown in from the Khabarovsk headquarters in case the Americans attacked Big Diomede. But that was not why Vitruk had summoned him. The Eskimo’s file stated that he and Ozenna shared a US-Russian Arctic search and rescue training course two years earlier in Alaska. Tuuq appeared to be the only Russian soldier who had managed to match Ozenna and another American there, Sergeant Don Ondola. In unarmed combat, Ondola was ahead. In long-distance tracking, Tuuq had edged in front. In tactical thinking and leadership, Ozenna had shone.

  ‘How well do you know him?’ asked Vitruk.

  ‘He is my cousin. Our relatives are in our home village of Uelen.’

  It was a good answer because it was half right. Tuuq was smart enough to guess that Vitruk would know this. Among Eskimos, with the fractured nuclear family, anyone could end up as a cousin, and that made them neither a friend nor an enemy. In Tuuq’s case, Ozenna was more than just a cousin. After the cold war, when the border was relaxed, Ozenna’s father, a drunk, travelled to Uelen to meet lost relatives. During the visit, he had slept with Tuuq’s mother. The file said that Tuuq and Rake were almost certainly half-brothers, and Tuuq loathed Rake because of it.

  Ozenna’s father never returned to America. He vanished inside Russia. Not even the FSB or SVR knew what had happened to him. Some years later, as a child, Ozenna was taken back to Uelen in the hope that he could find his father. The file said Tuuq beat Ozenna up, but gave no details. The man who took Ozenna to Russia was his surrogate father, Henry Ahkvaluk, the Eskimo who had come across with the pregnant girl.

  ‘If you were on Little Diomede, being hunted by us, what would you do?’ said Vitruk.

  ‘I would stay free.’ Tuuq remained expressionless.

  ‘How would you do that?’

  Tuuq spent some moments studying the map on the wall. ‘I would cross to Wales to guide the American troops across the ice. Or I would come over here to be their eyes for an attack on this base.’

  ‘Which?’ asked Vitruk impatiently.

  Tuuq remained impassive, his eyes on the map. ‘Here,’ he said finally. ‘This base.’

  ‘Can you find Ozenna and stop him?’

  ‘Yes. I can.’

  Vitruk closed Tuuq’s file and, briefly alone, he called an encrypted number at the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC As he had anticipated, the ripple effect of his tiny military incision in the far-away Bering Strait had prompted an early morning crisis meeting at the American Federal Reserve.

  FIFTEEN

  Eccles Building, Federal Reserve, Washington, DC

  By the time Roy Carrol, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, stepped into the high-ceilinged chandeliered boardroom of his head-office building on Constitution Avenue, the Asian markets had fallen and then picked up, unsure how to react to Russian occupation of American territory. News channels broadcast the Duma’s emergency session, defining the story as a global crisis. On-screen experts earned their large retainers by predicting the worst.

  As Fed Chairman, Carrol’s task was to let politicians do their jobs while ensuring no cracks opened in the financial institutions, and not just in the United States. The dollar remained the go-to global crisis currency. If the Russian stand-off threatened stability, demand would build up. Carrol had to see that it was met smoothly. No one person, even one government, could make, break, repair,
or damage the global economy. Even so, a word from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve could shake markets. If he spoke, the words had to be right.

  ‘Is this meeting really necessary, Roy, so damn early?’ said his ex-wife, Lucy Faulks, as he walked to his place by the tall mantelpiece end of the large oval table.

  ‘And a very good morning to you too, Lucy,’ said Carrol, leaning over to adjust the small American flag that hung from a gold-plated stand on the table. Just over twelve hours earlier, he had been examining it with his Russian counterpart, Karl Opokin, while showing him and his entourage around the building.

  Faulks was there because she chaired the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, one of twelve such banks in the country and by far the most powerful. Their marriage, of two fiery ambitious economists, had never been smooth. Carrol’s appointment over her to the top job broke it. Or at least it did for her. Carrol had never worked that one out.

  ‘It looks to me like some Lagutov grandstanding,’ she said. ‘If someone leaks that you called a crisis meeting it will only make things worse.’

  ‘We’ll have a quorum, so by all means leave, if you need to go shopping.’ Carrol pulled out his chair, unsure why he couldn’t stop himself using words that were guaranteed to rile the mother of his children. He brushed the black leather seat with the back of his hand. ‘But if you’d listened to Bob Holland last night you would be forgiven for thinking we were all standing on the edge of history.’

  ‘Hence we meet?’ She eyed him curiously. He was sure he detected the twitch of a smile. She wore a dark pinstripe trouser suit, and had her blonde hair up as if to remind him that added to her formidable will and intelligence she was still stunningly attractive, but, as he had discovered too late in life, impossible to live with. Same old story.

  ‘You happened to be in town. You didn’t get my job, but you got the Fed in New York and you chair the Global Financial System Committee. I could use your input.’ He smiled affectionately. ‘And besides, I wanted to see you.’

  Before Faulks could answer, four other board members came in, led by the stooped, bespectacled Lewis Ash, whose brief was to keep a watch on financial stability. ‘Before you ask, Roy, we’ve reached out to the big six. HSBC, Citi, and J. P. Morgan have already got back to us and insist they would be solid through a world war. We’re talking now to Europe, Canada, Moscow, and Beijing.’