Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “Is this true?”

  “Yes.” Justin limped toward them and tried to calm them with hand gestures. “The Danish troops are going to attack us, right here in the Arctic, in our homes.”

  “The Danish troops are not our enemy,” said one man. “They’re our allies. They have troops in Afghanistan to fight terrorism, and Canada trades goods with the Danes.”

  “Yes,” the bandana young man said, “I had some Danish for breakfast.”

  Noisy laughter roared among the people. Some young men were shaking their heads in disbelief.

  “Any help would be appreciated,” Justin whispered at Carrie and Anna.

  “I’ve got nothing,” Carrie replied. “If I open my mouth, I’ll make matters worse.”

  Anna raised her shoulders. Justin glanced at Nilak and Iluak, but they were staring at the ceiling.

  “Listen,” Justin tried again, “I’m telling you the truth. The Danes are launching their attack under the pretense of a training exercise. We need your help to stop this attack.”

  “Wrong choice of words, Justin,” Carrie muttered under breath.

  “Training exercise? All this brouhaha for some training?” The squeaky voice had the unmistakable hint of scorn.

  “You’re the Army, right?” An old man pointed his shaky hand at Justin. “Why don’t you call for reinforcements? Why do you need us, eh?”

  “Yes, why?” other people joined him.

  “Oh, I’m out of here, bro.” The young man in the Ecko shirt threw his hands up in the air with a snort. He turned around to leave. Justin tried to remain calm. Other people followed the young man.

  “Where the hell are you going?” A stern voice echoed throughout the entire court, suppressing everyone’s whining and mumbling.

  The crowd went still for a moment. Then it began to divide right in the middle. A low, screeching sound, resembling the metallic rattle of rusty door hinges, was the only thing breaking the silence. People were making room for a man to walk through. Not walk, roll in. A woman pushed a wheelchair holding a man wrapped in blankets. Kiawak! Yes, that’s Kiawak!

  “It’s great to see you, man.” Justin tapped Kiawak on the shoulder. His pale face was the same color as his blankets.

  Carrie and Anna offered pleasant smiles. Kiawak nodded back. The woman, who Justin realized was Emily, turned the wheelchair around so Kiawak could face the crowd.

  “I can’t believe it’s you who brought him here,” Justin whispered at Emily. “I thought you hated us.”

  “I used to, but he convinced me you’re actually the good guys.” Emily gestured toward Kiawak.

  “Maybe he can convince them, as well,” Justin mumbled, taking a few steps back.

  Kiawak faced the curious and angry stares of his own people.

  Søndre Strømfjord, Greenland

  April 14, 07:40 a.m.

  “Why the handcuffs?” Sargon asked.

  Magnus ignored his question. He marched past the man and the other recruits scurrying to form five rows of ten soldiers each inside the wooden barracks. Magnus’s team, four people in all, was handcuffing the hands of every man in front of them, refusing to give more than one-line answers to their questions.

  “Hurry up,” Magnus barked at a skinny man fumbling with his shirt’s buttons. “We’re out of here in less than thirty minutes.”

  “What’s the rush, boss?” asked a large man with a thick voice. A few steps away, he straightened the earflaps of his woolen hat.

  “The special op, for which you’ve been preparing for so long, is finally under way.” Magnus stopped in front of the man and asked, “Jack, right?”

  The man nodded.

  “Jack, and everyone else,” Magnus shouted, scanning the faces of the disorderly bunch, “the handcuffs are for your own protection. This mission is extremely important. We don’t want it threatened by your emotions, which, at times, have triggered your violent responses. In this way, your aggression will be focused at the right target.”

  “Great mental shit, boss,” Jack replied. “We still don’t know our target or any details about this important mission.”

  “Mr. Madsen, our Commander, will soon inspect this platoon. He’ll explain these final details.” He stood toe-to-toe with Jack, whose defiant grin stretched from one corner of his lips to the other.

  “Platoon my ass,” mumbled a man from the last row. “We’re being tied like prisoners.”

  “You are prisoners, but this mission will make you free, each and every one of you. That’s why your minds and your bodies should work toward accomplishing this mission.”

  “Which we still don’t know,” retorted the disgruntled man.

  “I’ll tell you exactly what it is,” Gunter replied, standing at the entrance of the barracks.

  The recruits scrambled to complete their lines. Magnus and his team turned to face the commander and stood at attention. Gunter strutted in with Yuliya in tow. She was followed by six armed guards Magnus was seeing for the first time.

  Gunter stopped in front of the platoon. “Soldiers, my name is Gunter Madsen, and I’m the commander of this operation. Soon we’ll embark on a short flight, a mission to defend our country’s sovereignty in a much-disputed region, the High Arctic. It is our duty to march forward as the leading unit to secure these Danish territories.” Gunter kept pacing in front of the platoon, his voice reaching a crescendo with the rhythm of his speech. “We will fight, and if need be, we will shed our blood, so that our land may be prosperous and secure.”

  “Did he say shed our blood?” a small man in the fourth row whispered to a tall recruit on his right. “We were told this was a patrol mission, to confirm Denmark’s presence in the Arctic.”

  “Shhhhh,” the tall recruit replied.

  Gunter paused and scanned their faces with his bright eyes. “In terms of exact details, you’ll be flying in one of the Hercules that brought you here. Our destination is Nanisivik, a small Canadian settlement at the northern tip of Baffin Island. Once on the ground, you’ll take over the town. When the area is secured, we’ll continue up north, to Resolute. At the same time, another group will take over the town of Arctic Bay, another insignificant obstacle in our way to control the entire Northwest Passage.”

  Loud mumbling broke through the crowd, mostly from the back rows.

  “Weapons will be given to you after landing,” Gunter continued, pacing to his right and then turning around. “Resistance from the enemy is expected to be pathetic, at best. Still, everyone is urged to take this mission very seriously. You should make every effort toward victory. May God bless you all.”

  “Hmm, Chief,” a scratchy voice called from the back row. “We’re all chained up here, like mad dogs.”

  Gunter tilted his head and looked for the man. He found him standing at the far end corner of the platoon.

  “I’ve got this.” Yuliya held Gunter’s arm and marched toward the scratchy voice. Two of the guards unknown to Magnus followed her. “Chained up, you say?”

  “Yes, don’t you see the handcuffs?” The man lifted up his arms.

  “I see an attitude,” Yuliya replied. “An attitude of disrespect toward authority.”

  The man snorted with a big shrug.

  “Mr. Madsen’s authority is not to be questioned, neither by you nor—”

  “I’m saying, if we’re heroes and that bullshit, why don’t you trust us?”

  “You interrupted me. But maybe you’re right. Maybe we’re asking too much of you, and we’re seeing things that just aren’t there. Maybe it’s all bullshit, as you say, and there are no heroes among you.” Yuliya nodded to one of the two guards behind her. “Yuri, what is Mr.—”

  “Villadsen, Pedar Villadsen,” the man replied. He stood straight and tall with a natural pride when giving his name.

  “Yes. And Mr. Villadsen’s reason for being behind bars?”

  Yuri swung his HK MP5 submachine gun behind his shoulder and tapped a few key
s on his BlackBerry. “Murder,” he said after a few seconds. “Mr. Villadsen was convicted for murder and has served half of his fifteen-year sentence.”

  “Murder. Interesting.” Yuliya circled around Pedar. “An innocent man?” she asked.

  Pedar remained silent.

  “What’s going on here?” Magnus asked Gunter, who was observing the exchange, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “What is she up to?”

  “I have no idea,” Gunter replied coldly. His gaze seemed distant, detached from the scene taking place in front of his eyes.

  “Tell me. Was he an innocent man?” Yuliya asked again.

  “Nobody’s innocent,” Pedar replied.

  “Quite so,” she said.

  She took Yuri’s BlackBerry and skimmed through the pages of Pedar’s file stored in the device. “You shot a liquor store clerk, after tying and blindfolding him.”

  Pedar nodded, his crooked teeth flashing an evil grin.

  Yuliya stepped closer to him. She removed her HK USP 9mm pistol with a swift gesture and pressed it against Pedar’s left side, wedging it tight in the man’s ribcage. “I’m doing you the same favor, you son of a bitch,” she sputtered.

  Pedar stumbled backwards and began to raise his arms. Yuliya was fast on the trigger. A single bullet pierced Pedar’s clothes and skin. He was dead before his body hit the cement floor.

  Magnus’s hand went for his side weapon, but the corner of his eye caught a quick glimpse of Gunter’s emotionless face. Why is he not intervening? What’s going on here?

  “Shit,” shouted the man standing next to Pedar, glancing at the pool of blood forming around the body. “You’ve killed him, you—”

  Yuliya pointed her pistol at the agitated man, in case he attempted a stupid act of revenge. “Yes, and I will not think twice about punishing any form of disobedience.”

  She returned to the front of the platoon, followed by Yuri and the other guard.

  All Magnus could do was stare in disbelief, as Gunter took a step back, giving Yuliya the floor. Some of the recruits shook their heads. Others stared at the floor.

  “Maybe the commander was thinking too highly of you maggots, when he tried to lighten up your condemned souls. Maybe we’re miscalculating your thirst for evil. Well, here it is in simple and clear words: You do what you’re told, or else I’ll kill you all with my own hands. Is that clear?”

  A couple of shy nods came from the third row.

  “I can’t hear anything,” Yuliya shouted. “Do you get it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” a few half-hearted replies came from the crowd.

  “What? I can’t hear you!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the platoon roared in a single voice.

  “Great, that’s much better. Back to you, Commander.” Yuliya placed her pistol in its holster.

  Gunter sighed and took a deep breath before speaking in a wavering voice. “Magnus, take the platoon into the Hercules. I’ll complete the inspection of the other barracks. Follow me, Yuliya.”

  “Yes, yes, sir,” Magnus replied. I’ve got to figure out what the hell is going on here, and who is actually in charge.

  Arctic Bay, Canada

  April 14, 6:25 a.m.

  “My father, Pukiq, was a hunter.” Kiawak’s voice was shaky, like his hands, and tinged with nostalgia as he began to speak to his people in their native language. He had asked for Justin’s help, and he had sat him on the floor. Everyone in the crowd had followed his example, forming a semi-circle. “Pukiq’s father, Saghani, he was a hunter too. He liked to hunt seals in particular, and he liked it when my grandma Kenojuak cooked them for him after he returned from long voyages.”

  “What is Kiawak saying?” Justin whispered to Nilak, who leaned over and began translating for him in a hushed voice.

  “Our ancestors roamed Baffin Island,” Kiawak continued, “from east to west, as far as the caribou and the polar bear wander, when the land froze and when the snow melted, and when the long dark nights were replaced by endless daylight. As far as our forefathers remember, this place, these mountains and oceans, rivers and lakes, these were always our home. We built our villages, and we hunted our food. We lived and we died. We married, and we raised our children.

  “It was a time when there was no government, no Canada. We had no enemies but our own forgetfulness, which, at times, came with the high price of famine, shortages of supplies or sicknesses. The White Wolf was our guide, and the Polar Bear our wise and powerful friend. The land gave us food, and the iceberg gave us water.”

  Kiawak’s words had begun to calm down even the loudest people in the crowd. The young man in the bandana removed it, and his eyes showed he was deeply entangled in the fascinating world to which Kiawak was taking them. Other men had closed their eyes or were blinking constantly, trying to envision the beauty and the serenity of the time far gone.

  “Summers and winters played tag with each other. Our children had children of their own, and our elders fell asleep and joined their fathers. But when the white man came, he brought division and fighting. He pillaged our land, stole our values, and crippled our spirits. He took away our names and gave us numbers, confining us to earthly dwellings, and separating us from our freedom. A country he made for us, towns and cities, promising us prosperity and security. Instead, we found misery and isolation, abandonment and rejection.”

  Justin squinted as if to come out of his trance and glanced at Kiawak. Where’s he going with this?

  “But not all white men are the same. Like fingers on our hand, they are all different. Two great women we have in our midst, our nurses, Liana and Marietta, who save lives and take good care of us. Our teachers, Sebastian and Vladimir, are great mentors to our children, as they mold their young minds. We have wonderful pilots, who fly us fast to faraway places, where it would take us weeks to get on our own.”

  Justin felt Kiawak’s feeble hand resting on his shoulder. “This hunter, Justin, one of my best friends, saved my life and rescued Tania from the claws of death. He’s a great defender of our people. He will never abandon his own. Now that our freedom is once again threatened by the white men coming from across the Great Waters, our only reaction must be to take up our arms to fight. We need to unite. We need to be one, in our goal and in our mind. Just as a single man leads his group during a hunt, so shall we go into our battle and return victorious. We will fight and win this battle. Every one of us, all of us, will join the fight.”

  Kiawak’s last words, shouted in a strong, loud voice, brought the expected reaction. People applauded, some in tears of joy and some in cheerful cries. A few young men raised clenched fists, waving them in the air.

  “Thank you, Kiawak,” Justin whispered, shaking Kiawak’s hand.

  “No, thank you, my friend. If it weren’t for your determination, I would have been dead.”

  “Determination? Some people would call it craziness.”

  “Not me, Justin. I call it what it really is.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Twenty-five thousand feet over Baffin Island, Canada

  April 14, 07:00 a.m.

  The cockpit of the C-130J Super Hercules felt warmer, and Gunter ordered the pilot to turn the temperature down. The glass-enclosed cabin provided ample room for five people. There was a second pilot and Magnus and Yuliya, who sat next to Gunter and behind the pilots. Valgerda had been assigned to the cargo compartment, along with one hundred and fifty combat troops. The contingent was almost a hundred men short of the original plan. Alisha’s unavailability and Smirnov’s paranoia had reduced the front unit to the bare minimum.

  “We’re flying over Pond Inlet, sir,” the pilot informed Gunter, who kept fiddling with his BlackBerry Bold.

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded. He squinted in order to read the small inscription on one of the screens of the aircraft’s control panel. The number 137 showed the distance in miles from their destination, Nanisivik. “What’s our ETA?” he asked.

  “ETA is twenty-eight minutes,
if we keep our current cruising speed of two hundred and fifty knots,” the pilot replied. “Plus five, ten minutes, depending on conditions at destination.”

  “Alisha’s pictures showed the runway at the Nanisivik airport as clear and suitable,” Yuliya said. “The meteo data confirm favorable conditions for landing.”

  Gunter nodded.

  Yuliya smiled at him. “Why don’t you give your wife a call, sir?” she asked.

  Gunter peered at her. “I called her earlier this morning, before leaving.” He did not say the words, but his eyes asked whether there had been a change in FSB’s one call a day policy.

  “Oh, I’m sure she would love to hear from you again,” Yuliya said. “Today’s the big day and once everything’s done—”

  “Then I’ll call her when we land,” Gunter said. “We’ll do our job here perfectly, and then I’ll give her the good news.”

  “All right,” Yuliya said, exchanging a quick glance with Gunter.

  Magnus’s frown grew larger. He was supposed to be the chief of this operation, but Gunter and Yuliya were blindsiding him at every step. He had told Valgerda about the cold-blooded murder he witnessed in the barracks and how Yuliya, not Gunter, was in fact in charge of the Arctic Wargame. Magnus and Valgerda had agreed to watch each other’s back. They could no longer trust Gunter or Yuliya.

  Arctic Bay, Canada

  April 14, 7:20 a.m.

  Kiawak’s speech had revived the warrior spirit among Arctic Bay’s residents, and their response was overwhelmingly patriotic. Everyone, young and old, men and women, even children, wanted to take up arms and fight the Danish invasion. Justin and Kiawak were very selective in their recruitment and only enlisted those who could actually be of help in the upcoming battle. Eventually, around one hundred people were loaded in half as many pickup trucks and Suburbans. They took anything that could be useful: coils of rope, shovels, boxes of dynamite and ammunition, and as many firearms as they could carry.

  As she stood inside the Health Center, Emily’s eyes followed the long convoy of the ragtag militia trailing south toward Victor Bay and then Nanisivik. She moved away from the window and retreated to the kitchen for a warm drink. The coffee she made was bitter and weak, but steaming hot, which was the only thing she cared about. She blew gently on the cup and took another sip.