Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  “That’s very serious,” Magnus said. His eyes narrowed and his voice grew deep.

  “It did have the potential to turn into a serious problem,” Gunter said. “But we have an ace in the hole. One of the DND employees, with strong connections to the CSE, was able to blur the satellite images. The same person is a crucial part of this recon team. This person will do everything, I repeat everything, to stop the Canadians from discovering our plans.”

  The revelation took Magnus and Valgerda by surprise. They exchanged a skeptical glance, while Gunter savored his triumphant moment behind a thick veil of smoke.

  “The chances of the Canadians finding any evidence incriminating our Siriuspatruljen are so improbable one has a better luck of surviving naked in the Arctic,” Gunter said. “But our mission is too important to leave anything to chance.”

  Magnus nodded.

  Gunter placed his elbows over the black folders scattered over his desk. He said, “The Canadians have much less sovereignty over the Arctic’s barren lands than we do. We even discovered and first explored some of those islands. And now Canada claims them as theirs simply because they forced some people to go and live up there? The Arctic belongs to us.”

  He drew on his cigar, which had begun to die out. A couple of deep puffs and the sparks of the burning tobacco were alive once again. “Once climate change has melted half of the Arctic ice over the next few years, our patrol vessels will escort merchant ships through the Northwest Passage. That passage will end up being more lucrative than even the Panama Canal, raking in billions of dollars each year. And all of that will belong to us.”

  Gunter stopped long enough to take in another puff of his cigar and blow a large cloud of gray smoke. “Once our advance troops, led by you,” he pointed at Magnus, “succeed in completing this mission, then our Greenland Command will establish a permanent presence along the Northwest Passage.” He gestured with his left hand to Yuliya to take over.

  “Our teams are made up of mainly hardcore criminals, from suspected Al-Qaida members and former Taliban fighters to gang members and bank robbers,” she said. “They’ll get the job done for the sake of their freedom. And we’re going to be right there as well, to monitor every step of their progress and to make sure things end up the right way.”

  “So I take it you’re going with us and the advance troops?” Valgerda asked Yuliya.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I want to review the report on final preparations by tomorrow afternoon. Our assault will begin early next week,” Gunter said. “That’s when we’ve told the Canadians our ‘wargame’ is taking place. They think we’re going through international waters to conduct a search and rescue exercise. The fools won’t know what hit them until it’s too late.”

  “We’ll have it ready, sir,” Magnus replied.

  Gunter smiled. “Great. I’m not wishing you luck, because Vikings don’t need it.”

  Copenhagen, Denmark

  April 12, 7:40 p.m.

  “Excellent performance,” Yuliya said, looking out the window. Her eyes followed Magnus and Valgerda as they rounded the corner outside the headquarters. “It was very convincing.”

  “I’d like to talk to my wife now,” Gunter asked in a quiet, tired voice.

  “That’s not possible. One phone call a day. And you called her this morning.”

  “Bullshit. I need to talk to her.” Gunter slammed his fist on the desk.

  “You know the rules.” Yuliya turned around to face him. “I don’t make them. I’m here simply to enforce them.”

  “It’s been a month. An entire month since you have taken my wife and I—”

  “Your wife is safe, and she’ll continue to be safe as long as you continue to cooperate with us. You understand?”

  Gunter opened his mouth, then shook his head and folded his arms across his chest.

  “You understand that?” Yuliya asked.

  “Yes,” came the weak reply.

  “Good. Now that we’ve settled who gives orders around here, let’s talk about Magnus. Do you think he suspects anything?”

  “I tried my best to convince him everything’s in order. That we, the Danes, are the only one planning and carrying out this crazy operation.”

  “That’s what the Canadians and everyone else has to believe. But first, Magnus and Valgerda need to believe it too. And Magnus seemed unsure. He looked like he knew you weren’t telling him the entire truth.”

  “I don’t know what else I can do to convince him.”

  “I have to keep a close eye on him. You know he wasn’t my choice to lead this operation.”

  “I’m sure you can make your objections known to your FSB boss,” Gunter said with a grimace, referring to the Russian internal security and counterintelligence service, Yuliya’s real employer.

  Yuliya walked over to his desk. “The FSB in general and my boss in particular do not like objections.” Her Russian accent became much more pronounced as she spoke with a certain unease. “They see them as threats.”

  Gunter shrugged. “It had to be someone outside my agency. My close associates know me. They know it’s not in my character to manipulate the system and unleash a bunch of thugs in a friendly nation so they can ravage it. They know I wouldn’t betray my country and my duty to protect it.”

  Yuliya leaned over very close to Gunter’s face. “But that’s exactly what you’re doing, aren’t you? You’re throwing your country into a war. And all because of your love for a woman. What is her name? Hilda? Helga?”

  Gunter took in a deep breath and looked away. He put his clenched fists down, away from Yuliya’s face. Punching the grin off her face would not bring him back his wife Helma. “Fucking Russians,” Gunter mumbled through his teeth.

  Chapter Ten

  Cape Combermere

  April 12, 11:35 a.m.

  “Damn it, damn it, you evil witch,” Carrie shouted, kicking a snow bank. Their helicopter became airborne, turned into a small black dot, and disappeared behind a heavy gray cloud. “I should have seen it coming, the little bi—” She bit her tongue.

  “Don’t worry,” Anna said. “I pressed the beacon’s rescue button before that traitor took it away. The rescue team should already be on their way.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” Carrie drew closer to Anna, as if she could not hear her words. “Your distress signal went to Trenton, down in Ontario, more than twelve hundred miles away. By the time the Army gets a team ready and flies it up here, we’ll be frozen corpses. Damn you, Alisha!”

  “Save your energies,” Justin whispered, as he joined them.

  “For what?” Carrie asked and spread her arms with an annoyed shrug. Anna’s head sagged, and she stood silent, staring at Justin’s face.

  “She left us here, alive. That was her first mistake,” Justin said. “Her second was not taking away our pickaxes.”

  “Oh, great, so we’re gonna dig our own graves, right?” Anna blurted out.

  “We found a radio,” Justin continued, unfazed by Anna’s cry of despair. “Maybe there’s another radio that works or that we can make work. Another flare gun or something else we can use to indicate our position and call in help. Maybe there’s something we can use.”

  “Something like what? A chopper? An icebreaker? Look at where we are!” Anna shouted, stretching her arms and completing a slow pirouette. “In the middle of nowhere. No, scratch that. In the middle of frozen nowhere.”

  “Enough, OK?” Justin walked over and held her by the arms. “We can give up and die or fight and survive. You take your pick. As for me and Carrie, we’ve already made our choice.”

  Carrie began to dig with one of the pickaxes. Justin turned around and grabbed the shovel.

  “Fine,” Anna agreed, but her shaky voice showed her desperation. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Carrie and I can handle the digging. See if you can climb that cliff, the tall one.” Justin pointed to their left, where the rocks had formed a steep slope abo
ut fifty feet high. “We need to get our bearings on our exact location and find the fastest way out.”

  “I remember seeing a small inlet with a broken coastline to the east,” Carrie said between gasps.

  “You think we can walk back to Grise Fiord?” Anna asked as she headed for the rocky ridge.

  “No, absolutely not,” Justin replied without looking up, driving the shovel deep into the snow. “Too far away.”

  “So what exactly am I looking for?” Anna shouted while searching for a suitable ledge on the rock wall, one where she could plant her hands.

  “You’re looking for water,” Justin replied. “Water that’s not covered by ice floes.”

  * * *

  The rugged surface of the cliff was extremely cold and slippery. The snow had turned into a thick layer of ice, covering the rocks in a wax-like film. Anna pushed her body up by digging shallow holes in the ice layer for her gloved hands and the tips of her boots. Already shivering and experiencing numbness in her extremities, to keep her clothes dry she tried to avoid pressing against the rocks.

  Her progress was slow and at times uncertain. Her strength was draining out of her body rapidly. Every inch she advanced upward came at a hefty cost. She was losing precious body heat through tiny droplets of sweat covering her face. She agonized over the chances of a timely rescue, her judgment when volunteering for such an assignment, and the doom looming over them, as she fought her way to the flat top of the cliff. How long did that take? Was it fifteen, twenty minutes?

  Justin and Carrie were still busy, burrowing like moles. They had dug out a few piles of frozen snow and ice chunks, each about four feet high, and had discovered a couple of large wood panels. They were thicker and wider than the other boards they had already found. Those panels probably had formed the wall structure of the depot. Oh, only if they could find something useful.

  She looked to the east, squinting hard to discern anything but the whitish blinding blanket filling her entire field of vision. A few miles to the southeast she found a small hill, which was partially covered by snow and ice. It soared a few hundred feet high. A little further to the east, her eyes found a tiny strip of a dark blue color that came out of nowhere, right at the bottom of the hill.

  Anna muffled her screams of joy, unsure of whether she had really spotted water or whether the scene was an optical illusion or a trick of her hopeful imagination. Lifting her goggles for a clearer look and squinting so hard her eyes began to water, she checked again.

  “Yes,” she shouted, “that’s water, clear water.”

  A small section of the ocean, without any deadly icebergs or flimsy ice floes, was only a mile away. OK, I found the water, but how is it going to help us?

  Copenhagen, Denmark

  April 12: 8:20 p.m.

  Yuliya nodded at the waiter holding a bottle of Lois Latour Bourgogne Rouge. He filled her crystal glass, and she took a quick sip of the Pinot Noir. She smiled at the great taste and looked at the shadows cast by the black iron sconces on the restaurant’s red brick walls. The hushed voices of patrons and the large candles on every table added to the unmistakable ambiance of a mystical location.

  In truth, the seven-hundred-year-old building began as the Saint Gertrud Monastery during medieval times. Since 1985, the establishment began serving wine no longer as part of the communion, but a la carte and at extravagant prices. Gradually, the Saint Gertrud Monastery became one of the most luxurious rendezvous in Copenhagen.

  Yuliya had reserved a table for two in the Confession Room and was waiting for the arrival of her dinner date when her cellphone rang.

  “Good evening, Ms. Novikov. I’m sorry to bother you, but there have been some negative developments,” Alisha said slowly.

  “I thought the whole point of hiring you was to avoid any negative developments,” Yuliya replied.

  “I have everything under control,” Alisha broke down her reply by separating and stressing each word. “I’m just updating the Command, as I’ve been instructed, on the most recent situation.”

  “I’m listening. Go on and update me.”

  “The Canadians discovered one of the depots.”

  “What?” Yuliya’s hand trembled. A droplet of red wine trickled down the glass, staining the pristine white tablecloth. “How the hell did that happen?”

  “Here’s the condensed version. Some of the locals found and looted all the weapons and began selling them. Soon enough word got around, and Justin heard about it. He tracked down two of the locals, and a member of his team killed them in a shootout. But one of the looters didn’t die instantly; he was able to cough up the truth and led Justin to the depot, despite my constant stalling tactics. So I had to come out in the open, and I left three members of the team, including Justin, stranded one hundred and some miles northeast of Grise Fiord.”

  “You left them alive?” Yuliya struggled to keep her voice a quiet hush. She gulped down the contents of her glass. “What about the fourth member?”

  “I needed someone to fly me back out of that freezing hellhole. Plus, it would be difficult for me to explain a bullet in their head if it ever came to—”

  “Nobody will be asking questions once our plans succeed,” Yuliya interrupted her. She snapped her fingers to call the waiter. The impolite gesture was out of place in the posh restaurant but in sync with her feelings.

  “If it does succeed. One depot has been discovered and, who knows, the security of the others may have been compromised. The weapon depots were supposed to have been hidden exceptionally well.”

  “Are you having second thoughts?” Yuliya covered her cellphone with her hands and ordered another glass of wine. The waiter disappeared quietly, in the same way in which he had materialized at her table.

  “No, but I have some concerns about the implementation of your plan. We need to be even more careful, especially in light of these events.”

  “Do you have any actual suggestions?”

  “Yes, I do. I will stall the RCMP investigation and the spreading of the news about the casualties in Grise Fiord and the lost members of the recon team. You need to speed up the planned landing. I suggest a change of the landing coordinates. Ellesmere Island is too hot for action. There’s a very high probability of unnecessary exposure.”

  “I’ll talk to my boss about it, but you know how much he hates last-minute changes.”

  “In that case, let’s not call this a change of plans, but an improvement to an already excellent plan. Nanisivik has a good airstrip and very few residents at this time of year. It will be a great place to land your troops.”

  “Nanisivik? Isn’t that on Baffin Island?”

  “Yes, but still far away from civilization.”

  “All right, I’ll talk this over with my boss, and I’ll inform you of his decision. Where will you be over the next two hours?”

  “I’m going to spend the rest of the day in Arctic Bay. Once I know of the improvements to your plan, I’ll adapt my travels accordingly.”

  “OK. Talk to you very soon.”

  Yuliya flipped her cellphone shut and looked up. Grigori Smirnov, her boss, had just entered the Confession Room. Smirnov was widely known as an oil tycoon. Very few people knew he was also Deputy Director of Operations of the FSB. He walked to her table at the end of the hall.

  “I have some bad news about our Arctic operation,” Yuliya said, “but nothing that can’t be fixed.”

  Smirnov frowned. “How bad?”

  “One of our depots has been compromised, so we’ll have to make some improvements to our initial plan. I’m afraid our transportation will have to be aerial, since it seems the naval option is no longer on the table.”

  Smirnov’s frown covered his entire forehead. He leaned forward and whispered to Yuliya, “Give me everything you have.”

  Arctic Bay, Canada

  April 12, 13:35 p.m.

  “Distress signal? What distress signal, Constable?” Alisha asked, her sweaty palms as slippery as the t
one of her voice on the cellphone.

  “One of the geologists on your team, Ms. Anna Worthley, initiated an emergency SOS signal this morning at 11:30 a.m.,” Constable John Bylot of the Grise Fiord RCMP Detachment said.

  Alisha bit her lip.

  “The MCC, that is, the Mission Control Center in Trenton, received this signal, and they’re preparing a rescue team,” the constable said, “which should be dispatched . . . hmmm . . . as soon as the weather conditions improve, hopefully as early as tomorrow morning. Do you know anything about this incident?”

  “Oh, yes, Constable Bylot, now that you mentioned the right word, incident. It was an incident. A mistake, I mean. Ms. Worthley accidentally pressed the button on her PLB while taking something out of her backpack.” She bit her fingernails. C’mon, sucker, buy it.

  “A mistake you say,” the constable replied. “The signal, according to the Canadian Forces Base in Trenton, came from Cape Combermere. The beacon transmitted for a short time and then disappeared.”

  “Shit,” Alisha swore under her breath. I should have kept the beacon going, but it would have pinpointed the chopper’s location.

  “Yes, we deactivated the beacon, in order to interrupt the signal. Like I said, it was a big mistake. We didn’t want to bother rescuers with a false alarm, you see?”

  “Well, once the signal is emitted, the rescue team will have to go ahead with their mission.”

  “By all means, Constable. I’m not trying to stop anyone from doing their job. I’m just reassuring you and your colleagues that Ms. Worthley is safe and sound.” Alisha stood up from her chair and looked out of the small window of her hotel room.

  “Oh, is that so?”

  “Yes. We gathered our data and completed our trip. Everyone’s doing well.”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “Arctic Bay. Hunters and Trappers Lodge.”