Man on Ice
Page 15
‘We’ve got someone out there,’ explained Stephanie. As she outlined the barest details, she realized now how crucial Ozenna would be to what unfolded next. She told Harry of the decision for him to cross to the Russian base.
‘Tough one,’ Harry said after a pause, thinking. ‘My guess is that Vitruk will fly back to the base as soon as he’s done with the TV and he’ll have worked out a way to protect his aircraft from us taking it out.’
‘If we could kill him, would that end it?’
‘What do you think, Steph? You said you had something else in mind.’
She poured herself more coffee, mixing the hot with the tepid, and kept pacing. ‘When did we last have a showdown like this with Moscow?’
‘Ukraine 2014.’
‘That wasn’t a direct confrontation.’
‘The cold war—’
‘Yes, but I mean a head-to-head challenge.’
Harry took a moment. ‘Way back. 1962. The Cuban missile crisis.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘The communists wanted to put missiles in Cuba, a hundred miles from our coastline. We came to the brink of nuclear war. Then Moscow backed down.’
‘That’s the point, Harry. It didn’t “back down”. Moscow withdrew only when we promised to take our missiles out of Italy and Turkey.’
Harry looked at her quizzically. She had piqued his interest. Even if she were going off on a crazy track, he wanted to hear it. That was how it had always worked between them. Stephanie stopped, put down the cup, and folded her arms. ‘No one’s putting missiles on Little Diomede. There’s no need. But Moscow does need to create leverage to get us away from its borders in Europe.’
‘Breaking NATO’s ring of steel.’
‘Correct. It needs a bargaining chip to achieve that. The only other time Moscow directly threatened American territory was Cuba, and it won concessions. Lagutov begins the crisis now because Swain is on his way out and Holland is raw and new. Holland will step straight into this with a team that has no experience of working together. Bush had more than six months in office before Nine-Eleven; Kennedy had more than eighteen months before Cuba.’
‘And your point?’
‘If this is Russia’s game plan, then it’s not Vitruk going rogue. It’s Lagutov, Grizlov, the whole Russian government.’
There was a quiet knock on the door. Harry’s gaze drifted over as it opened enough to reveal a young woman, dark hair loose on her shoulders, wearing a red silk robe. She could have been taken from a magazine cover. Harry held up his hand with splayed fingers as if to say five more minutes. She flashed Stephanie a silent smile, and the door closed. Stephanie unfolded her arms and reached for her coat. Harry shrugged as if to say, You threw me out when I was a loser; now I’m recovered and I’ve gone for someone younger and less complicated.
‘I’ll get back to the White House, run stuff past them,’ Stephanie said, fighting an urge to ask who the woman was. Was it serious? For how long had he been seeing her? Was it better? She pursed her lips to hide conflicting feelings. If she asked, they would start circling each other and it would get scrappy; it always had and there was no luxury of time for that now. Harry had helped her tonight. A lot.
‘Hold on. What’s this?’ Harry’s concentration returned to the TV screen. Fox News was interviewing Carrie directly inside the school gymnasium. Carrie was angrily gesticulating. Harry turned up the volume. The anchor had a reputation for aggressive questioning. ‘So, you agree then with the Russian assessment that the people of Little Diomede have been neglected?’
‘I’m a doctor. Don’t draw me into your politics.’ Carrie’s face was etched with irritation. ‘Check our findings here against neighborhoods in any American city and compare how normal or bad it is.’
‘When you say “our,” who are you referring to?’
‘I am working with Russian military paramedics.’
‘Cooperatively?’
‘We are medical professionals. That’s what we do.’
‘Then, I have to ask: Do you feel right about coming on air like this?’
Carrie tensed. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You are helping the Russians in this military operation against America. Your parents are Russian—’
‘My father’s Estonian.’
‘They were both citizens of the Soviet Union. Therefore, I have to ask, Dr Walker, because our viewers will want to know, what your loyalties are to Russia?’
Every muscle in Carrie’s face seemed to stiffen. Her eyes sharpened. Stephanie remembered one evening when they got drunk together while she was splitting from Harry. Carrie told how she dealt with whatever operating-theater shit was thrown at her. Stay focused. No crying in surgery. Keep punching on. That was what she delivered now, upfront and personal to the anchor: ‘How do you feel about promoting an enemy state while drawing your seven-figure salary behind your studio presenter’s desk?’
‘Excuse me, Dr Walker!’ The anchor looked stunned.
‘Your network has just given Russia millions of dollars of free publicity.’
‘That’s not the—’
‘Yes, it is!’
‘Dr Walker, I have to—’
‘Don’t you dare cut me off! I’m here because I was ordered at gunpoint to go on air to tell your audience what I’ve seen and done. And you consorted with Moscow—’
‘What I meant was—’
‘Your question was phrased to imply that I was being unpatriotic.’
‘I appreciate it must be stressful—’
‘You asked if I felt right about supporting the enemy.’
‘Yes, I did.’ The anchor recovered her composure, but only for a second.
‘I feel fine about it. And I’ll tell you what’s happening next. In the next few minutes I’m being ordered into a Russian helicopter with Admiral Vitruk to fly three miles across to Big Diomede to help in an operation to drain fluid from the brain of a one-day-old United States citizen. Why don’t you keep your cameras rolling, and ask your audience if they want President Swain to comply with your definition of patriotism and shoot our aircraft down?’
‘There’s that bit of intel we wanted,’ said Harry, as the newscast switched to a commercial break. ‘Vitruk protects himself by taking Dr Carrie Walker with him.’ Harry held Stephanie’s coat to help her into it. She took it from him and did it herself.
‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ she said. ‘By painting Carrie a traitor, they’re making her expendable.’
‘Yes. They won’t touch her on this flight. But if they choose to strike later and the casualty cost is limited to, say, eighty Eskimos and a traitor, then yes, they could get away with it.’
‘That would be Holland, not Swain,’ said Stephanie.
‘Don’t underestimate Swain.’
They walked to the entrance. Harry opened the door to a blast of cold night air. To her surprise, he kissed her lightly on the lips, then hugged her. ‘It’s good working with you again, Madam Ambassador. We’ll fix it, you and I.’
Stephanie walked into the Oval Office where Swain’s advisors were watching her Prime Minister address shift-change workers on the New Jersey docks. The television shot was stunning, Slater raising his arms, turning to the Statue of Liberty, the camera moving from the Manhattan skyline to the transfixed expressions of his audience. Slater stood next to Jeff Walsh, the union leader she had met at that dinner that now seemed so long ago. They looked like two ageing revolutionaries, brothers in arms, voices for the forgotten and ignored.
When Slater had suggested that he make this speech, she’d thought it a crazy idea. If his task was to rally support in Europe, why would a British Prime Minister make his case to American dockworkers in the middle of the night? Why not do it with a few discreet phone calls?
But she was wrong. Slater had warmed them up and they looked as if they were hanging on his every word. He spoke about the universal aspiration of mankind, a bond that no one nation could break. �
�A bond forged by working men and women, like you, not jumped-up politicians seeking a cause for war.’ A single wolf whistle was picked up by others to create cheering applause. ‘Way to go, Kev,’ came a shout, followed by another. ‘Right on, Europe.’ Slater wrapped his arm around Walsh. ‘Shoulder to shoulder. Shoulder to shoulder,’ he shouted, and the chant ran like a Mexican wave with fists pummeling the air, dockers linking arms and the camera director skillfully picking out the faces of firemen, police, paramedics, the civilian heroes who kept people safe.
‘And my message to the Russians on Alaska is clear and direct,’ Slater continued as the cheering subsided. ‘Leave, and leave now. Leave and be free.’ Sleet across lamps, breath on faces, the camera moved from him to the crowd, the stamping of feet, the raising of arms. No one else could have pulled it off as Slater had. She disagreed with just about all his policies, but she had never heard a finer orator or seen a more skillful working of a crowd.
‘And to my colleagues in Europe …’ Slater was saying as Stephanie’s phone lit up, a message from Harry. She read it and looked up, stunned and afraid. Prusak was on the phone too, his eyes on the television. The Defense Secretary took a call. A moment later, the Secretary of State did the same. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff took two fast steps to the Oval Office desk. ‘Sir, they’re saying we shot down another Russian helicopter.’
‘Who’s saying?’ said Swain.
‘Tin City radar station picking up Russian military traffic. It’s the one Dr Carrie Walker was on.’
Stephanie re-read Harry’s message – Vitruk’s helicopter down. A Moscow number on Stephanie’s phone lit up. Sergey Grizlov.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Little Diomede, Alaska, USA
Ten minutes earlier, wedged into cover just above the ice-floe edge, Rake had fixed a rocket-propelled grenade on a launcher, hoping to hell he wouldn’t have to use it. If he did, he would need to destroy the approaching helicopter with one shot because he doubted he would have time for a second. Smoke from the grenade propulsion would expose his position. The trick with this weapon was to fire and move. But the only place he could go was onto the sea ice, where he would be a perfect target for the helicopter’s fire power. He wished the helicopter crew would adhere to basic military rules and stay at least four hundred meters away from the hillside and out of range of an RPG or assault rifle. At that distance, thermal imaging would only create confusion and they would have difficulty spotting him. But those were rules for regular troops, and these were special forces whose mission must be to kill or capture him. The weather was clear too, and there were stars, the moon, and clarity of vision. If he were them, he would take the risk and come closer.
His analysis was right. The Russian helicopter flew around the north edge of the island and followed contours that rose almost straight up. At one point, the aircraft was so near that its rotor-blade draught ripped away the snow that gave him cover. Rake could see outline figures of soldiers inside. He counted four, but there would be others. The helicopter pulled away, climbed like an elevator, then began a slow vertical descent for the real search. Floodlamps lit the landscape that men would be scouring with trained eyes. Thermal imaging would pinpoint him. He could only stay hidden for so long, a minute, probably less. Within a few seconds of them spotting him, he would be dead.
Rake steadied the launcher against his shoulder and adjusted the sight. The crosswinds were well over ten miles an hour, which skewed his chances of a first good hit. He needed to allow for helicopter draught too, and that changed from moment to moment. He made ready the second grenade just in case. He scanned the landscape, checking for cover out on the ice. At about seventy-five meters, he thought he saw an ice wall. This was a glass-half-full view of the world, the part of Rake’s character that Carrie said she found attractive, the belief that he might be alive enough to take another shot if he failed with the first, might even make it out to new cover on the ice.
Rake waited, letting the aircraft get closer, gauging the wind, judging distance, what the enemy could see. Then, when the helicopter was less than a hundred meters off the hillside, the arc of the lamps sweeping down towards him, Rake tightened his finger on the trigger. The fuel tank would have the most impact. But he needed the fattest target area and the fuel was in the tail, too slender. He tilted the launcher up, waited a beat longer; it turned out to be a beat too long. Heavy machine-gun fire smashed into the hillside above him. Rounds sparked off rock. Snow sprayed across his goggles. It was random firing, to flush him out, but the next burst could cut him in two.
Rake fired.
A huge cloud of blue and gray smoke enveloped him and trailed out towards the aircraft. His position was exposed. Rake loaded the next grenade while expecting a wall of hot lead to cut into him.
Nothing came.
His shot hit the underbelly, violently tilting the aircraft backward. He fired again. More blue and gray smoke, and the fuselage peeled open like a can. Flames spread back toward the tail. The aircraft rolled away. As the pilot tried to keep control, it lurched the other way, and that was when he saw a flash of blonde hair. Carrie turned towards the window, its glass blackening with fire, her eyes dark with terror.
Rake dropped the grenade launcher into the snow. How he could have done that? Why hadn’t he thought? That’s how their twisted minds would work; use a civilian as bait. Then why didn’t they make her more visible? If he’d seen her, he’d never have …
A shrieking whine came from the stricken aircraft. The rear rotor blades stopped dead. Flames encased the tail. The fuselage was torn and the pilot had no rear power. He would only have a few seconds left in the air, to hunt for the safest glide angle, struggling to stop a lethal spin.
Rake scrambled out of the crevice onto the sea. The ice was patchy as if walrus had been there, their body warmth melting it. Thick broken ice sheets floated in channels of dark water. The pilot managed to get the nose up, but there was no way the aircraft could get back to base. A soldier smashed his rifle butt through a cracked window. Rake ran out into full view, jumping over weak ice patches. He moved unpredictably to avoid being a target, but deliberately made himself visible to show the pilot where the thickest ice was, the safest place to crash land. The ice around them was weak. It got stronger bit by bit further north, not far, maybe half a mile. Rake pointed and gave the pilot a thumbs down. Bad here. He raised both arms, hands vertical like parallel blades, slicing them down repeatedly towards the north. Good there. Trust me.
The pilot powered the blades, pitching the nose up like a rearing stallion, the tail ablaze, wild flames dancing, reflected on the ice. Rake glimpsed Carrie again. She looked at him, rigid, focused, her terror gone. ‘So sorry,’ he mouthed. ‘I love you.’ It was ridiculous. She wouldn’t hear, couldn’t lip-read it from that distance. Could she even see him; would she understand? But he had to do it, because in a few seconds she could be dead. Her expression didn’t change.
The pilot gave his wounded aircraft a final burst of speed, then cut the engine, letting the blades rotate freely in the air to give more stability. It kept going forward, foot by foot, but not far enough. Either he could try to reach stronger ice and risk a mid-air explosion. Or he could take a chance and crash-land on weaker ice. Rake watched him conduct a work of art. The pilot brought the helicopter down so that the burning tail brushed the ice to dampen the fire to try to stop it catching the fuel tank. Some flames were extinguished, but not all. Then he could hold it no longer. He levelled out and the skids settled heavily on the ice.
Rake unclipped a radio from his belt and called through, knowing that both sides would pick up: ‘Tin City. Tin City. This is Captain Rake Ozenna. Do not intervene in aircraft activity on northern edge of Little Diomede. Repeat – do not intervene. Russian aircraft is down with casualties. This is a humanitarian operation. Let Russia handle it.’
‘Copy that,’ came the American voice across the crackling channel.
A blade of wind cut through a smash
ed window into Carrie’s face. A soldier opposite was slumped, his foot shredded by shrapnel that had torn up from under them. She couldn’t tell if he was even alive. Another had his hands clasped over his eyes, and blood streaming out from between his fingers. Chilled air mixed with tail-fire heat sent warmth and cold into the cabin.
‘Out! Now!’ Vitruk shouted.
She unclipped her seatbelt just as the helicopter jolted, throwing her against Vitruk. It stabilized, then with a scraping of metal the ice gave way, and the side of the aircraft fell through. A spray of frozen water flew up into her face, unforgiving and brutal.
Vitruk slid the door far enough back to climb out. He reached down and pulled Carrie to him, gripping her arm as she started back towards the burning wreckage. ‘The wounded!’ she shouted.
‘Get back. Further!’ yelled Vitruk.
The pilot was out, guiding them to a firmer area he had identified twenty meters away. Soldiers stumbled from the wreckage. They carried two wounded colleagues and brought them to Carrie. The one with the injured foot had bled out. He was dead. The other would live, though probably blinded. Carrie recognized the faraway throbbing of an engine which became louder as three helicopters reached them from the base. Their floodlamps lit up the survivors. She could see Rake still there, a tiny distant solitary figure, so far away that he was long out of small-arms range. Vitruk’s gaze was on him too. An incoming helicopter snapped on more lights and broke away towards him.
A jagged piece of shrapnel protruded from the eyes of the wounded soldier. They lowered him onto a thermal blanket. Iced blood was hardening on his face. His teeth chattered violently, pushing the embedded metal towards his brain.