by Jack Murphy
It had been just a short skip to Thule Air Base from their location near the ASX mine. After retrieving the gear they needed for the final assault, it would then be a few hours to travel 400 kilometers to their target. Deckard still couldn’t believe that the Danish government had been able to conceal such a secret from the world. Apparently, Russian military exercises has spooked the Danes far more than anyone had expected, leading them to take some fairly intense precautions.
As they came to a halt, the loadie dropped ramp.
The SCOPE think tank in Tampa had quickly coordinated with the Danish government, getting them to cave in and reveal what they had been hiding once they were made fully aware of the situation. Charlie was in the wire, and there wasn’t much that Denmark’s small military would be able to do about it. Letters of marque legitimized Deckard’s pirate crew under the U.S. government, and so they were in like Flynn.
However, Deckard had been on enough suicide missions to know one when he saw one. First, he insisted on stopping by Thule Air Base, a U.S. military installation in a remote corner of Greenland. The facility was America’s northernmost military base. It provided ballistic missile early warning systems and command-and-control systems for orbital surveillance platforms.
Since the ekranoplan needed much longer stretches to land and take off, they put down well outside the base, opting not to use their airstrip. In the distance, four snowmobiles left a wake of snow behind them as they sped toward the ekranoplan.
“Isn’t it splendid!” Mann blurted out.
Deckard flinched, not expecting the billionaire to be right behind him.
“Gorgeous, just brilliant. You know this is the only place in the world where three active glaciers come together as one?”
“No, I had no idea,” Deckard said.
“Well, I have you to thank. Short of an international security crisis, they never would have let me fly an experimental airplane like this over Danish territory.”
“You’re welcome. We’ll just be loading the cargo and then we’ll be on our way.” Deckard excused himself.
As Deckard walked down the ramp to prepare to meet the American airmen en route, Kurt Jager strolled alongside him.
“Not a big fan of Mr. Mann, are you?” the former GSG-9 trooper asked.
“Call it a difference in motivations.”
“I was thinking while we sat around waiting for Aghassi and Nikita to report back to us—”
“Please don’t start waxing poetic on me. The last few days have been bad enough as it is.”
“It’s not that, it’s just, I’ve realized what we all have in common.”
“Yeah, fuck Hillary.”
“No, besides that. I mean, all of us here in this group, from MARSOC, to SEALs, to the Italian 9th Regiment, to Delta Force, to the Norwegian FSK, to Germans like me, what we all have in common is that we have spent nearly our entire lives trying to hold Western civilization together, trying to maintain the current global order.”
“I'm not sure we’ve done such a great job, then.”
“No, we underestimated the importance of advanced communications networking and how this would lead to the erosion of the state, to the end of the Westphalian system that we have been trying to uphold all these years. Every deployment we have been on, from training African soldiers, to shooting al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, to low-visibility operations in Yemen, or Nigeria, or wherever, it has all had the same goal of maintaining the status quo.”
“We were already on a decline; global order was bound to change and evolve,” Deckard said. “A world where states are not so important freaks a lot of people out, but maybe it was inevitable.”
“A non-state world with non-state actors may be yesterday’s war. Now someone is challenging the global status quo. They don’t want a non-state world, they want a world of one-state dominance, one where they are crowned the kings in a new type of world order.”
Deckard squinted, his mind unsettled, then after a moment put his hand up on the hydraulic cylinder that opened the back ramp. “Damn Kurt, you should start charging parents to do kids’ birthday parties. The youngsters would just have a gas of a time.”
Kurt just shook his head, trying not to laugh.
Chapter 32
Greenland
“You're behind schedule!” Jiahao barked at his men.
The truth was, for all of his hyper-competency and supernatural abilities, Jiahao had little combat experience, and no real-world leadership experience. He had the skills, but not always the maturity that comes with hard-earned, real-world, life-or-death situations. Not that it mattered. The men feared him, and that was enough to motivate them.
His men were rapidly working to connect the weapon to the facility’s geothermal power plant. They had enough juice in it for a small-scale local event when they were on the ice floe, but for what they had planned next, the geophysical weapon would need substantially more energy. Oculus was quickly approaching the end game, which would reduce America to a third-rate power and bring about a world dominated by the East rather than the West.
“Vladimir!” he called to another of his cell commanders.
“Sir?” The response came almost immediately.
“I see you walking around conducting inspections. Are the preparations already in place?”
“All the entrances, including emergency exits, have been booby trapped and barricaded. As we speak, the men are preparing for a defense in depth, setting up fortifications and anti-personnel mines inside the corridors. Nothing less than a battalion will be able to penetrate the facility, and even then it will take them hours and many casualties,” the former Spetsnaz officer reported.
“How long until we are operational?” Jiahao asked the men setting up the geophysical weapon.
“We are about to start firing some test shots now to make sure our calibrations are correct. Another thirty minutes and we will be ready to trigger the event.”
“Tell me when you are ready.”
Jiahao paced back and forth inside the chamber, watching as the technicians worked, sending out invisible pulses of electromagnetic energy, firing them straight through the Earth’s core. Soon, very soon, he would attain the status of a hero in the People's Republic.
Regardless of whether or not he ever lived to see his home country again, Jiahao would find immortality in a legacy that would live on for thousands of years.
* * *
The Ekranoplan lowered its ski wheels and landed on the tundra, skidding across the ice a few times before finally coming to a halt. Once the ramp dropped, the mercenaries disembarked, dragging plastic Skedco medical litters packed with the weapons and equipment they would need for one final assault.
There were only about 60 of the Samruk International mercenaries left after those who had been wounded or killed. All of them were well aware that they would be squaring off against a force that still outnumbered them and who occupied a dug-in, fortified position. They would have to rely on surprise, speed, and violence of action to level the playing field.
“Sergeant Major,” Deckard said. Korgan turned toward him, the big Kazakh soldier’s face in a permanent scowl. “Let’s get ‘em moving.”
Deckard turned and watched as the Ekranoplan took off and flew back to Thule Air Base. The sun was getting low on the horizon now, and the mercenaries were running out of time before they would freeze to death on the barren ice field and before the enemy activated the stolen weapon one final time.
Getting their skis on, the mercs roped into the Skedco sleds and hauled them forward. Four hundred pounds of demo distributed between four plastic litters still made for a heavy load, but they had enough personnel to pull and rotate out as needed. Dag once again took the lead. With GPS not working and unreliable due to poor satellite coverage and probable enemy interference, Dag had to make some very careful calculations. Nate was backing him up, making his own separate calculations to cross reference with Dag’s. This far north, magnetic compasse
s were also next to useless.
As the sun continued to sink beneath their field of view, it cast upon the snow brilliant shades of pink and orange, a deadly type of beauty in the world’s most unforgiving environment.
The mercenaries pressed on, their legs burning, their arms numb from the straps of their rucksacks digging into them. The little rest they had gotten on the aircraft soon slipped away, replaced by the complete and utter exhaustion of pushing the human body beyond what it is supposed to be capable of over the course of their mission. Fedorchenko saw his men struggling and began stalking the lines, motivating them to press forward.
The offset infiltration had been necessary, as Samruk could not risk alerting the enemy by landing the airplane too close by. Too far away, and the movement would have killed the men, especially after nightfall. They just had to hope that the enemy had not put out seismic sensors that could give early warning.
Deckard simply focused on a fixed point in the distance, forcing his legs to keep moving and his arms to keep swinging as he dug his whippets into the snow. He had to admit that he had been shocked by what the Danes had told them when he finally got the full story. Recent Russian military aggression had inspired the Danish government to dust off a decades-old Cold War-era program that the U.S. Army had initiated back in the 1960s.
Called Camp Century, Army engineers had dug out an ice base under Greenland’s ice sheet. It was a cut-and-fill type of construction that saw massive tractors digging out trenches that were then covered over with metal roofs. Then, the entire construct was buried under the snow. Officially, Camp Century was an Army experiment to try out new Arctic construction techniques and conduct scientific experiments. The reality was that it was just a cover for a highly secretive program called Project Iceworm.
All of this had been news to Deckard, who had only been told about it by the guys in Tampa while he was on the ekranoplan. It turns out that Uncle Sam had a plan to dig out 4,000 kilometers of tunnels under the ice and station 600 Minuteman nuclear missiles there, which could then be fired over the North Pole to strike the Soviet Union during a future nuclear war that never occurred.
Denmark had utilized the Cold War-era plan and built their own Arctic base in complete secrecy. The base was not to house nuclear weapons, since Denmark didn’t have any, but would act as a perfectly camouflaged and secure military base in the event of a war with Russia. It would be a staging area for troops, and apparently they even planned on building an underground airstrip in the future. As he had witnessed firsthand, the Arctic was nearly impossible to run military operations in because of the tyranny of the long distances and harsh weather.
Denmark aimed to overcome some of those difficulties by situating a military base in the heart of Greenland. The whole thing was surreal, but at this point Deckard was just rolling with the punches.
Up ahead, Dag raised a fist into the air, halting the patrol. He didn’t use his radio, but simply waved Deckard forward in the last rays of sunlight poking out from behind the Norwegian mercenary. Face-to-face communication was better, as none of them were trusting their electronics not to be jammed, spoofed, or homed in on.
“It is time to put metal to matter and watch gray matter splatter,” Deckard said as he skied up to the front of the patrol and took a look around.
Kurt ushered forward the mercs hauling the sleds. He was in charge of running the demo team and helped offload the 40-pound cratering charges that they had picked up at Thule Air Base. The Danes had advised that finding the entrances to the ice base would be almost impossible, and getting inside even more difficult. They were not going to take any chances. If the entrances were blocked, they would simply make a new one.
While the former GSG-9 operator got the charges arranged in an oval shape on the ice, another team led by Maurizio sank metal shanks into the ice 100 meters away to serve as their hard points. Fedorchenko and Shatayeva conducted a final inspection of men, weapons, and equipment. Everyone was going into the breach on this one: mortars, recce, every swinging dick who could carry a rifle and shoot in a generally straight direction.
* * *
Tampa, Florida
“It has begun,” Joshua said, hanging up the phone.
“Seismic readings?” Craig asked.
“Small ones.”
“They are test firing,” Will said. “Getting ready for the real deal, making sure they kill us with the first shot.”
“Which is exactly what will happen if the Yellowstone caldera cooks off.”
“No, that is the thing,” Joshua said. “It isn’t Yellowstone. These odd readings are being reported by seismic stations in Europe. They are being detected near the Canary Islands.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Craig said, shaking his head.
“Get the seismologist on the phone again,” Will whispered.
Joshua picked up the phone and dialed.
“What do you think this means?” Joshua asked as the phone rang.
“I think it means we are fucked.”
Joshua blew out his cheeks impatiently until someone picked up on the other end of the line.
“Uh, yeah, hello. This is Joshua again. Yes. We need a threat assessment on an earthquake on or near the Canary Islands.” Joshua set the phone down and hit a button on the console. “Dr. Flynn, you are now on speaker.”
“OK, well without knowing the specifics, I can project some scenarios,” the seismologist told the think tank.
“We already know that the opposition has put an unprecedented amount of resources into making this attack happen in a way that cannot be attributed to the sponsor,” Will said. “Give us the worst-case scenario, which is exactly what we have to expect.”
“Worst case is that the earthquake triggers a mega-tsunami, which happens when a large mass displaces a significant amount of ocean water. They are far more dangerous than a tsunami created by seismic activity along the tectonic plates on the seabed. The initial wave could reach hundreds of meters high, if not more.”
“I’m not sure I’m tracking here, Doc,” Will said.
“In the worst case, the seismic activity would trigger the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary Islands, causing the entire flank of the island to collapse into the ocean. This would displace enough water to create an initial wave over a thousand meters high. Eight or nine hours later, the resulting tidal wave would hit America’s Eastern Seaboard. That wave would be somewhere between fifty to a hundred meters high.”
“My god,” Craig said, his eyes getting wide.
“Yes, it would take out a good portion of southern England as well,” Dr. Flynn informed them.
“An earthquake that triggers a volcano that triggers a tidal wave,” Will said to himself. “And none of it can be traced back to those responsible because of all of the human and geological cutouts used.”
“What kind of damage are we looking at?” Joshua asked.
“Tens of millions dead in the United States alone. Then you have significant damage to South America, Africa, and Europe as well.”
“Those are the desired second- and third-order effects. China and their partners get to swoop in with economic recovery packages, supplanting the economic balance of power that America has had for the last seventy years,” Will extrapolated. “Maybe even sending armed troops into these areas in the name of humanitarian aid.”
“But once they are there, they won't be leaving,” Craig said, continuing his line of thought.
“The tsunami that hit southeast Asia in 2004 was only thirty meters high,” Flynn said. “If the flank of this island cleaves off during the eruption and slides into the ocean, the amount of devastation this tidal wave causes will be unlike anything we have seen before.”
* * *
“Standby, I have control,” Kurt said.
He stood behind the front line of mercs going into the breach. He held the fuse ignitor in his hand, which was connected to the detonation system wired into a cluster of cratering charges. Arrang
ed in a circle out on the ice, the explosives were designed to create massive craters in roads and airfields, preventing the advance of enemy troops.
“Five.”
The Samruk mercenaries were strung into four separate lines, dynamic climbing rope running through carabiners attached to their harnesses. The ends of the ropes had been secured to the steel shanks they had driven into the snow.
“Four.”
The cratering charges were aligned directly above what would be the main chamber of the Danish ice base, now occupied by Oculus. According the Aghassi, this was where the radio transmissions were emanating from, and there sure as hell wasn’t anything else in the middle of Greenland.
“Three.”
The mercenaries tensed, like Olympic runners ready to sprint the second the pistol fired. Everything came down to a very exacting sequence of events. Fuck it up in any way, and they were all dead.
“Two.”
The mercenaries ran toward the charges. “Go, go, go!” someone yelled. They had to get there, pushing the minimum safe distance so they were ready to take advantage of the chaos and confusion caused by the explosive breach. Kurt yanked the safety pin out of the ignitor.
“One.”
Kurt put his finger through the metal loop at the end of the ignitor, twisted it, and then pulled it straight out. The cratering charges blew, shooting white shrapnel high into the air. The mercenaries buckled as the concussion of the blast washed over them, but continued running straight forward toward the gaping hole in the ice as the smoke was cleared away by the wind.
Chapter 33
Deckard hurled the coiled rope into the dark chasm, where it spiraled out as it descended down into the breach. He threw himself over the ledge, chasing it into the darkness. He was suddenly weightless, gravity sucking him into a black hole. Gripping the leading edge of the rope, Deckard brought it behind his back, slowing his fall as the line was routed through the carabiner on his climbing harness. He had to get to the bottom fast, before the shooting started, but too fast and he would end up a greasy stain on the ice.
