Stephen Coonts' Deep Black: Arctic Gold
Page 1
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF
STEPHEN COONTS
THE ASSASSIN
“The action moves swiftly to its Hollywood ending.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE TRAITOR
“In bestseller Coonts’s assured new international thriller, Tommy Carmellini, the sardonic, laid-back CIA agent who became a star in 2004’s Liars and Thieves, gets a shot at the big time.”
—Publishers Weekly
LIARS & THIEVES
“Vintage Coonts...plenty of action and intrigue, with the added benefit of a new lead character.”
—Dallas Morning News
“Excellent.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
LIBERTY
“Frighteningly realistic.”
—Maxim
“Gripping…Coonts’s naval background and his legal education bring considerable authority to the story, and the narrative is loaded with detailed information about terrorist networks, modern weaponry, and international intrigue…the action is slam-bang.”
—Publishers Weekly
AMERICA
“The master of the techno-thriller spins a bone-chilling worst-case scenario involving international spies, military heroics, conniving politicians, devious agencies, a hijacked nuclear sub, lethal computer hackers, currency speculators, maniac moguls, and greedy mercenaries that rival Clancy for fiction-as-realism and Cussler for spirited action.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Fans of Coonts and his hero Grafton will love it. Great fun.”
—Library Journal
“Coonts’s action and the techno-talk are as gripping as ever.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Thrilling roller-coaster action. Give a hearty ‘welcome back’ to Admiral Jake Grafton.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
HONG KONG
“Move over, Clancy, readers know they can count on Coonts.”
—Midwest Book Review
“The author gives us superior suspense with a great cast of made-up characters…But the best thing about this book is Coonts’s scenario for turning China into a democracy.”
—Liz Smith, The New York Post
“A high-octane blend of techno-wizardry [and] ultra-violence…[Coonts] skillfully captures the postmodern flavor of Hong Kong, where a cell phone is as apt as an AK-47 to be a revolutionary weapon.”
—USA Today
“Coonts has perfected the art of the high-tech adventure story.”
—Library Journal
“Coonts does a remarkable job of capturing the mood of clashing cultures in Hong Kong.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Filled with action, intrigue, and humanity.”
—San Jose Mercury News
CUBA
“Enough Tomahawk missiles, stealth bombers, and staccato action to satisfy [Coonts’s] most demanding fans.”
—USA Today
“[A] gripping and intelligent thriller.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Perhaps the best of Stephen Coonts’s six novels about modern warfare.”
—Austin American-Statesman
“Coonts delivers some of his best gung-ho suspense writing yet.”
—Kirkus Reviews
FORTUNES OF WAR
“Fortunes of War is crammed with action, suspense, and characters with more than the usual one dimension found in these books.”
—USA Today
“A stirring examination of courage, compassion, and profound nobility of military professionals under fire. Coonts’s best yet.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Full of action and suspense…a strong addition to the genre.”
—Publishers Weekly
FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER
“Extraordinary! Once you start reading, you won’t want to stop!”
—Tom Clancy
“[Coonts’s] gripping, first-person narration of aerial combat is the best I’ve ever read. Once begun, this book cannot be laid aside.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Kept me strapped in the cockpit of the author’s imagination for a down-and-dirty novel.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
SAUCER
“A comic, feel-good SF adventure...[delivers] optimistic messages about humanity’s ability to meet future challenges.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Tough to put down.”
—Publishers Weekly
Also in this series
Stephen Coonts’ Deep Black
(Stephen Coonts & Jim DeFelice)
Stephen Coonts’ Deep Black: Biowar
(Stephen Coonts & Jim DeFelice)
Stephen Coonts’ Deep Black: Dark Zone
(Stephen Coonts & Jim DeFelice)
Stephen Coonts’ Deep Black: Payback
(Stephen Coonts & Jim DeFelice)
Stephen Coonts’ Deep Black: Jihad
(Stephen Coonts & Jim DeFelice)
Stephen Coonts’ Deep Black: Conspiracy
(Stephen Coonts & Jim DeFelice)
Novels by STEPHEN COONTS
The Assassin
The Traitor
Liars & Thieves
Liberty
Saucer: The Conquest
Saucer
America
Hong Kong
Cuba
Fortunes of War
Flight of the Intruder
Final Flight
The Minotaur
Under Siege
The Red Horseman
The Intruders
Nonfiction books by
STEPHEN COONTS
The Cannibal Queen
War in the Air
STEPHEN
COONTS’
DEEP
BLACK:
ARCTIC GOLD
Written by Stephen Coonts
and William H. Keith
St. Martin’s Paperbacks
NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
STEPHEN COONTS’ DEEP BLACK: ARCTIC GOLD
Copyright © 2009 by Stephen P. Coonts and Deborah B. Coonts.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010.
ISBN: 0-312-94695-3
EAN: 978-0-312-94695-1
Printed in the United States of America
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / February 2009
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PROLOGUE
Latitude 90° N
1445 hours
IT WAS, FEODOR GOLYTSIN THOUGHT, like touching down on the surface of another planet.
“Ostorojna!” Captain Third Rank Dmitri Kurchakov warned. “Careful! Reduce speed of descent!”
“Da, Kepitan,” the helmsman replied.
“Vasily. Give me a readout on the depth below keel.”
“Deseet’ metrov, Kepitan,” the diving officer replied. Ten meters.
Golytsin stooped to peer through the thick quartz window into the alien world beyond. Another planet, yes . . . a very dark planet. Blacker than
the surface of far Pluto, for there, at least, there was a sun, if one shrunken and wan. Here there was nothing save the luminescence of the abyssal fauna, banished now by the light the submarine brought with her from above.
A dark planet, and a deadly one. At a depth of just over forty-two hundred meters, the pressure bearing down on each and every square centimeter of Nomer Chiteereh’s outer nickel-steel hull was almost two tons.
Muck swirled up off the bottom by the minisub’s side thrusters danced in the harsh white glare of the forward lights, like drifting stars. Briefly, something like a worm, half a meter long and fringed with myriad legs or swimmerets, twisted through the unaccustomed light, casting bizarre and writhing shadows within the cold and watery haze.
Astonishing. Even here, four thousand meters beneath the ice, within this frigid eternal night, there was life.
The submarine was a new, experimental, and highly secret military model with the less-than-glamorous name of Nomer Chiteereh, “Number Four.” Twenty-nine meters long and with a displacement of 150 tons, Nomer Chiteereh could reach depths of six thousand meters and could stay submerged for several days. A pair of external robotic arms operated from the forward observer’s seat gave the tiny vessel considerable dexterity beneath the glare of her external lights. She could be handled by a crew of four, but there was space in the cramped and cold-sweating pressure hull compartment for four additional passengers . . . or a squad of elite Spetsnaz in the cargo bay aft.
Today, however, there was only Golytsin.
The submersible’s sonar chirped, with ringing echoes. The diving officer read off the depth beneath the keel as they continued to descend, an almost mournful litany. “Vaseem metrov . . . sem . . . shest’ metrov . . .”
“I see the bottom, Kepiten,” the helmsman reported.
Side by side, heads nearly touching, Golytsin and Kurchakov leaned forward and peered down through the second of the forward view ports. “There!” the normally impassive Kurchakov said. He sounded uncharacteristically excited. A dour and taciturn man by nature, he now seemed almost boyish.
White light glared against the blackness, highlighted by drifting bits of organic debris. The bottom appeared disappointingly flat and featureless, an endless gray desert of fine silt and decayed plankton.
Mingled with the chirp of the sonar, the litany continued. “Chiteereh . . . tree . . . dvah . . .”
“Halt descent!” Kurchakov ordered. “Maintain position!”
The submarine’s side thrusters whined more loudly, gentling the beast to an awkward hover. The sharp increase in the thruster wash kicked up additional billowing clouds of fine silt from the bottom beneath the sub’s keel, filling the night with brightly illuminated particles. A blizzard, Golytsin thought. A winter squall such as he’d once known in the St. Petersburg—no, the Leningrad—of his childhood.
“So where is our flag?” Golytsin asked, peering into the murk as it gently subsided. As he leaned forward, the light reflecting back from outside illuminated the web of blue lines etched into his arm and the back of his hand.
Kurchakov didn’t reply at first. He was staring at Golytsin’s tattoos. Then Kurchakov looked away and shrugged. “It could be anywhere, just a few meters away, beyond the edge of the light, and we’d miss it,” he said. “Don’t worry. We will drop another.”
“No need, sir,” the diving officer reported. “I have it on sonar. Bearing one-one-nine . . . range thirty-seven meters.”
“Helm. Take us there. Slow ahead.”
“Da, Kepitan.”
In August of 2007, a pair of Russian Mir deep submersibles had reached this, the Arctic seabed at the North Pole. They’d taken readings, collected samples of the sea floor, and planted a large, rustproof titanium flag.
Since then, the Mirs had returned several times, taking further readings for the PP Shirshov Institute of Oceanology and extending Mother Russia’s claim in this freezing wasteland. And today the Mirs were back, shepherding the much larger and more sinister Nomer Chiteereh to the cold, black depths of the Amundsen Plain.
An apparition emerged from the shadows beyond the light, broad rectangular, held above the muck by weights deeply imbedded in the sediment. As Nomer Chiteereh drifted forward, the colors emerged as well . . . the white, blue, and red horizontal bars of the Russian Federation.
“The Pole,” Golytsin breathed. “The real Pole.”
Not the imaginary point on the ever-drifting, ever-changing pack of ice four kilometers overhead, but the actual pole of the planet, on the seabed 4,261 meters beneath the surface.
A point now claimed by Moscow as a portion of the Eurasian landmass and part of the sovereign territory of the Russian Federation.
A point, Golytsin thought, that would very soon return the Rodina, Mother Russia, to greatness.
1
British Airways Flight 2112
JFK International Airport
1015 hours EDT
“SO, DOC, IS IT TRUE WHAT THEY SAY?” Kjartan Magnor-Karr said with a breezy insouciance as the two men strode down the boarding tunnel. “About you and Big Oil, I mean?”
Dr. Earnest Spencer scowled. “Young man, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“This solar theory thing of yours,” Karr said. They reached the entryway of the British Airways 747 and he grinned and winked at the welcoming flight attendant.
“Welcome aboard, sir,” she said. She had the most gloriously pale blond hair. “May I see—”
Instead of his ticket, he flashed an ID at her, together with his special clearance. The ID, of course, was a fake. Despite what it said, he was not a special agent of the FBI, though the lie, the legend, as it was known in intelligence circles, occasionally was a useful fiction. Everyone had heard of the FBI; very few even knew there was such an organization as the National Security Agency. The clearance was real enough, however. It gave Karr permission to carry a firearm on the flight.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. “I’ll inform the captain.”
“You do that, sweetheart,” Karr told her.
He and Spencer filed aft and found their seats, located toward the rear of first class. For a few moments, the two men were preoccupied with putting their carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment and getting themselves settled in. Spencer had the window seat, Karr the aisle. As planned.
Spencer appeared ready to ignore the topic Karr had just raised, but the younger man persisted. “Aw, c’mon, you know, Doc. Everyone says the oil companies pay you to tell everybody that global warming is nonsense.”
“Young man . . . ,” Spencer began.
“Tommy.”
“Eh?”
“Call me Tommy. All my friends do.”
Spencer frowned at him in a way suggesting that he most assuredly did not consider Karr to be a friend. “Young man,” he repeated. “If the oil companies were paying me, perhaps I could afford to buy their product. Secondly, global warming is not nonsense. It is real. All too real. My solar model simply demonstrates that human activities have little effect on the world’s climate.”
“Sure,” Karr agreed. “So people can drive gas-guzzling SUVs all they want and not melt the ice caps, right?”
“Tell me,” Spencer said, glaring at him over the top of his glasses. “Are all FBI agents as irritating as you?”
“Well—”
But Spencer had produced a copy of American Scientist he’d purchased at a kiosk inside the JFK terminal, and made a production of opening it and beginning to read.
“Jeez, Tommy!” a voice boomed inside his head. “Lay off the poor guy, how ’bout it?”
Karr chuckled in answer but didn’t say anything out loud. Spencer glanced at him suspiciously, then returned to his magazine. Like all Deep Black field operatives, Karr had a minute speaker surgically implanted in his skull just behind his left ear, and he also had a microphone sewn into the collar of his pastel blue shirt. The transmitter hidden inside his belt linked him via satellite with
the Deep Black nerve center deep beneath Fort Meade, Maryland, the Deep Black command center within OPS 2 known as the Art Room, to be precise.
“Everything look okay at your end?” the voice continued.
Karr glanced around the first-class cabin. Three other men in plain, dark suits had taken their seats, along with the other first-class passengers. FBI, all three of them, though all were taking care not to meet one another’s eyes. The economy-class passengers were filing past, now. The agents surreptitiously watched each as he or she entered the plane and walked down the aisle.
“Mm-mm,” Karr grunted the affirmative. It wouldn’t do to have Spencer or the other passengers hearing him talk to himself.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” the voice said. The speaker was Jeff Rockman.
The last of the passengers, a frazzled-looking woman with two small and screaming children, herded her charges past Karr and into the aft section of the plane. The attractive blond flight attendant Karr had flirted with stood at the front, preparing to go into her spiel about oxygen masks and flotation cushions. She began with the usual admonition to turn off all electronic devices during the takeoff portion of the flight.
“Okay, we’re gonna sign off for a while,” Rockman told him. “Wouldn’t do to get in trouble with the FAA.”
“Mm-mm.”
“And for the love of God, stop annoying Doc Spencer! He’s not the enemy!”
Karr didn’t reply, of course, but the statement brought a renewal of recurring questions. Just who was the enemy? Why would anyone want to kill Earnest Spencer and, perhaps more to the point, why was the threat serious enough that the NSA and Desk Three were involved? It was a waste of time, money, and vital personnel assets, having him here, pretending to be an FBI agent while babysitting an Ivy League professor type from the U.S. Department of Energy.