by Dale Brown
That would change soon enough, Flynn thought somberly. Nobody in their right mind was going to be thrilled about the prospect of a night jump—let alone a night jump into the wilderness in the tail end of a blizzard. In fact, he might be lucky if he got out of this without a full-fledged mutiny on his hands. Or was mutiny only something that ever happened to the Navy?
He reached Takirak’s door, knocked once perfunctorily, and then pushed it open. “Sorry to bust in on you, Andy. But we’ve got a situation,” he said quickly.
Obviously caught off guard, Takirak looked up sharply from his tablet. He’d been sitting upright on his cot, apparently concentrating intently on something displayed on the tiny device. Hurriedly, he put the tablet facedown beside him. “Excuse me, sir? What kind of a situation?”
“A bad one,” Flynn said quietly. He kicked the door shut behind him and ran through a quick summary of their new orders.
When he was done, Takirak whistled softly and shook his head. “You weren’t kidding.”
“Oh, how I wish I was,” Flynn said with a twisted grin. “So, anyway, we’ve got a crapload of work to do and no time to do it in.” He nodded at the noncom’s tablet. “I’m sorry to cut into your poetry writing time, but there it is.”
Takirak stared at him with a puzzled expression. “Poetry, sir? Me?”
Flynn colored slightly. “Ah, shit, Andy. M-Squared hacked us all a while back, and he blew the whistle on that amateur writing group you’re part of. Forget I mentioned it.”
For a moment, the older man looked furious. It was not an expression Flynn had ever seen on him before and it made the powerfully built National Guard NCO seem strangely dangerous. But then, visibly, Takirak forced himself to calm down. He donned a half-abashed grin instead. “Already forgotten, Captain.” He shook his head slowly. “Somehow, Senior Airman Mitchell keeps managing to surprise me. I must be losing my touch.”
“He’s trouble with a capital T,” Flynn agreed. “Speaking of whom, where is M-Squared, anyway? I haven’t seen him since I got back inside.”
“In town,” Takirak said. “Along with Pedersen. They were next on the leave roster.”
Flynn nodded. Although they were still at DEFCON Three, his soldiers and airmen needed some occasional downtime to blow off steam if they were going to stay even half-sane in this remote, frozen outpost. Four-hour passes into Kaktovik were the best he could do for them. There wasn’t exactly any hell-raising nightlife in the little village, not with all alcohol sales and possession strictly banned, but at least they could eat different food and see different faces for a change.
“Look, I’ll go round those two up,” the sergeant volunteered. “Alert status or not, their phones are probably off, or out of battery. And I know most of their likely haunts.”
Flynn nodded. “Yeah.” He grinned crookedly. “That’ll give me a chance to spring the glad tidings on everybody else while you’re gone. Though maybe I should put on my body armor first.”
“Mission briefings are a prerogative of rank, Captain,” Takirak said stolidly.
“Which you wouldn’t dream of horning in on,” Flynn guessed.
“Not in a million years,” the sergeant said devoutly. “Yours is to reason why. Mine is but to do or die.” He stood up and started pulling on layers of cold weather gear, pausing only to slide his tablet into an inner pocket of his parka.
That took Flynn aback for a split second. He wouldn’t have guessed that the veteran noncom was a slave to tech gadgets, the way so many of the younger soldiers and airmen were. Then he shrugged inwardly. After all, he wouldn’t have ever pegged Takirak as a would-be poet, either. But maybe the National Guardsman just figured they might not be coming back to the radar station anytime soon, depending on how this hazardous search-and-rescue mission went.
Nearly an hour later, in the middle of supervising his men as they finished stowing their weapons and other equipment aboard the airport bus, Flynn checked his watch for what seemed the hundredth time. He frowned. Where the hell were Takirak and Mitchell?
Private First Class Torvald Pedersen, the team’s designated rifle marksman, had checked in a while back and was now busy helping the others. When asked, the dark-haired rancher’s son from South Dakota confirmed that the sergeant had found him first, as he was just finishing dinner at one of Kaktovik’s small hotels. Takirak had ordered him straight back to base, before heading farther into town to track down M-Squared. Since then, nobody had seen hide nor hair of either man. Nor were they answering repeated calls to their phones.
Flynn swung away from the bus and stared down the icy track leading into Kaktovik, hoping that he would see two figures trudging toward the radar station. But there was nothing moving. In the distance, the little village’s street and house lights twinkled brightly against a night sky speckled with thousands upon thousands of stars.
At least some of the meteorologists’ predictions of improving weather had panned out, he realized. Thick clouds still obscured most of the mountain peaks south of the small island, but the skies overhead were clearing and the north winds had calmed down some. If similar conditions held over their drop zone, the jump might not be quite as suicidal as he’d feared. But that still seemed like a big “if” when there were so many lives on the line.
Two of his men, Vucovich and Airman Peter Kim, steered their snow machines out of the station’s large-vehicle maintenance bay. Each vehicle towed an empty sled behind it. With a flourish of loud, lawnmower-like motors, they pulled up beside Flynn.
Vucovich pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. “Want us to scout the town for the sarge and M-Squared, Captain?” he asked. “It ain’t that big.”
Flynn thought about that and then shook his head. As it was, it would take more time than they could easily afford to secure the two snow machines and their sleds aboard the HC-130J’s single available equipment pallet. And the aircraft’s loadmaster, Staff Sergeant Tim Wahl, was already waiting for them with growing impatience. “Takirak knows we’re headed to the airport,” he said, more confidently than he felt. “Once he’s got Airman Mitchell in hand, he’ll meet us there. In the meantime, you guys go report to Wahl and help him load your vehicles.”
Vucovich nodded. He pulled his goggles back down and thumped Kim in the shoulder. “Let’s hit it, Pete. Last man to the airport has to do all the grunt work.” Grinning widely, they opened their throttles and sped away across the tundra, trailing plumes of ice and snow from under their ski runners.
Flynn watched them go with a bemused grin. He’d completely misread his team’s likely reaction to their new orders. Far from plunging them into gloom, the prospect of action—even incredibly hazardous action, like making a parachute jump at night over mountains—had them all pumped up. He guessed that was a combination of the same craving for adventure that had caused most of them to enlist in the first place—plus the natural, wild-eyed optimism of youth, and a desperate willingness to do anything that would get them out of the dull, grinding routine of sentry duty on this isolated island.
He turned back to find Sanchez looming over him. The big New Mexican was the only one who looked even a little disgruntled. But that was because Flynn was making him leave his beloved Carl Gustaf 84mm recoilless rifle behind. On a search-and-rescue mission, they would need extra supplies and medical equipment more than a heavy weapon designed to blow open bunkers and kill armored vehicles.
“Everything’s loaded on the bus, sir,” Sanchez reported. “The sergeant and M-Squared’s stuff, too.”
Flynn nodded. He looked down the track toward Kaktovik one more time and then shrugged. They couldn’t wait here any longer. “Then let’s mount up, Specialist,” he said. “But pass the word for everyone to keep their eyes peeled on the way through town. Our two missing guys can’t have gone far.”
Barter Island Airport
Some Time Later
Flynn felt a hand on his upper arm. He turned to find Laura Van Horn looking up at him with a concerned expression
. She also looked half-frozen to death. Her flight jacket was fine inside a cockpit, but it wasn’t made to stand up to subzero temperatures.
“Rip says if we’re going to go at all, we should go soon,” she shouted over the steadily rising roar from the HC-130’s three working Rolls-Royce turboprops. Ingalls was busy running a slew of checks, closely monitoring his gauges and displays for the slightest sign of any more engine trouble. “We can’t tell how long this break in the storm’s really going to last.” She waved a hand at the runway, where little swirls of snow crystals were dancing across the surface. “If the wind picks up even another ten knots, there’s no way we could drop you safely. We’d have to abort the mission.”
Flynn nodded grimly. “And that’s not an option.”
“I sure wish it was, Nick,” Van Horn told him, sounding even more worried. “As it is, JBER’s on the radio every five minutes, asking for a status update.” With an obvious effort, she forced herself to appear more confident. “I’ve gotta say, though, this ‘Hey, sorry, Skater, but I have to make a parachute jump into the wilderness’ deal is kind of a sleazy way to duck out on that next gourmet meal you promised me.”
He couldn’t stop a short, sharp laugh. “Yeah, well, that did take some serious organizing. I had to pull strings all the way to Moscow and the Pentagon to set up this stunt.”
Van Horn reached up and thwacked him gently in the forehead. “Idiot. Most guys would just have said they’d lost my phone number.”
“Oh, crap,” Flynn said in mock horror. “That would have been smarter. And much, much easier to arrange.” Then he sobered up again. “Is everything else set?”
She nodded. “Everybody else is aboard and strapped in. Sergeant Wahl’s got the anchor cables rigged for your parachutes. He says the pallet with your snow machines and sleds and extra gear is ready to drop, too. Or, in his words, as ready as he can make it with a bunch of amateurs for helpers.”
Flynn glanced at his watch one last time. He sighed. “Okay, then. I guess that’s it. But it sure sucks to have to go without my NCO or my radioman.”
“Uh, Nick?” Van Horn said suddenly, turning him back around to face the road from Kaktovik. She pointed at a figure trotting toward them from out of the darkness. “Isn’t that Sergeant Takirak?”
His eyes widened in relief. “Yeah, it is.” Without thinking, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Tell Major Ingalls we’re go for takeoff as soon as Andy’s had time to get into his parachute harness and check over his weapons and equipment.”
With a wry glint in her eye, Van Horn nodded and hurried away.
Flynn moved out to meet Takirak. The other man had a jagged cut across his forehead, and he was pale and drawn.
“Jesus Christ, Andy!” Flynn exclaimed. “What happened to you? And where’s M-Squared?”
“Mitchell happened to me,” the National Guard sergeant said angrily. “I found him okay, but when I briefed him on the mission, that son of a bitch said he wouldn’t go. He said it was nuts and he hadn’t signed up to kill himself.”
Flynn frowned. It figured that Mitchell would be the one man to react so strongly. The red-headed airman probably had a more vivid imagination than anyone else on the team—certainly vivid enough to see all the ways this night drop and planned trek through the wilderness could go very badly wrong. “Then what?”
“I told him I didn’t give a crap about what he thought,” Takirak said tightly. “And that he was going whether he liked it or not. And that’s when the bastard cold-cocked me with a loose board and took off.” He reached up, gingerly felt the cut on his forehead, and winced. “By the time I got back to my feet, Mitchell was long gone.” He looked embarrassed. “I’m really sorry I let him jump me like that, Captain. I never saw it coming.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Andy,” Flynn assured him. He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have expected M-Squared to pull something like that, either.” For one thing, assault and desertion seemed wildly out of character for the usually happy-go-lucky young airman. Then again, he thought somberly, every man has his own breaking point.
“Let me go back into town and dig the son of a bitch out,” Takirak pleaded. “There aren’t many places he can hide.”
Flynn shook his head. “Not happening. We don’t have time for a manhunt, even if I wanted to drag Mitchell along under arrest.” He pointed at the big Super Hercules with its six-bladed propellers already spinning. “See?”
“Yes, sir,” Takirak agreed flatly. “I see.” He grimaced. “About Mitchell’s radio, Captain, the PRC-162?”
Flynn nodded. “That’s a problem. With the battery, the darned thing adds another thirteen pounds to our load. I hate to dump it on one of the other men, especially since we’re all going to be toting extra weight. But we sure as shit are going to need communications, so—”
“I’ll carry it, sir,” Takirak said gruffly. “I took the radio operator’s course a while back, and, anyway, it’s my fault that we’re down a man. So if anyone’s going to haul the extra weight, it should be me.”
Flynn nodded, understanding the older man’s need to prove himself. Letting himself get jumped by a junior enlisted man was the first crack in Takirak’s hard-won aura of invincibility. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time, right at the start of a highly risky mission. “Okay, Andy,” he said briskly. “You’ve got the radio.”
Aboard the Converted SSBN BS-64 Podmoskovye, in the Beaufort Sea
That Same Time
“Come up slowly to one hundred meters,” Captain First Rank Mikhail Nakhimov ordered quietly.
“Coming up to one hundred meters, aye, sir,” his diving officer intoned. He pushed controls. With a faint hiss, compressed air pushed water out of Podmoskovye’s ballast tanks. Gently, with constant adjustments to maintain an even trim, the eighteen-thousand-ton nuclear submarine edged upward toward the ice-covered surface.
“Holding at one hundred meters,” the diving officer reported at last.
Nakhimov nodded. Now came the hard part. Or rather, the dangerous part. Side-scan sonar, temperature, and pressure detectors all strongly suggested they had found a comparatively thin section of the polar ice cap—one where the ice was somewhere between one and two meters thick. But even the thinnest-seeming stretch of ice could hold hidden hazards, jagged-edged ridges, or stalactites pushed down by pressure from above . . . massive spears of ice that could shear open a submarine’s pressure hull on impact. “Activate our video cameras and turn on all the outer lights,” he said.
More officers around the control room obeyed. Screens brightened, showing a murky, half-lit view of the underside of the ice cap above. Nakhimov ran his gaze over each screen, closely studying the images they showed. He glanced at his executive officer. “Well, Maxim? What do you think?”
“It looks good,” the other man replied. He tapped one of the screens. “There are some pressure ridges off our starboard bow, but they’re well away from us.” He glanced at the diving officer. “If Senior Lieutenant Yalinsky can take us up straight, instead of weaving like a drunken whore, we shouldn’t have any trouble.”
Anatoly Yalinsky smiled self-consciously. “I should be able to manage that, sir.”
Nakhimov nodded. “Very well.” He reached out and gripped the railing around the plot table. Other officers and sailors around the control room did the same with other holds. “Sail planes to vertical,” he ordered. On camera, they saw the huge, winglike hydroplanes mounted on Podmoskovye’s sail swivel upward and lock in a vertical position. He signaled Yalinsky with a nod. “Surface, but like a genteel lady,” he ordered. “Not like Maxim’s drunken whore.” That drew the laughs he’d hoped for.
More air hissed into their ballast tanks, giving the submarine positive buoyancy. Gradually, it rose, covering the remaining distance between the top of the sail and the underside of the ice cap in about twenty seconds. There was a sudden, sharp little jolt. Podmoskovye stopped dead, now pinned against the ice above her. “Increase buoyancy,” Nak
himov said calmly.
Still more air flooded the tanks, expelling water. Steadily, the pressure against the ice layer built up, until, with a sudden craacckk that reverberated through the hull, it gave way. Instantly, Podmoskovye bobbed through the shattered ice like a cork, bouncing high into the open air. Yalinsky sprang into action, opening valves to allow more water back into her ballast tanks until she rode evenly, at rest in the center of a raised mound of broken blocks of meter-thick ice.
At Nakhimov’s next orders, more sailors and officers went to work, climbing out through a hatch at the top of the sail and then slithering down onto the ice-sheathed hull. Quickly, they started clearing away the blocks of ice covering another, larger hatch farther back along the submarine’s 166-meter-long hull. Once it was clear, sailors began hauling thick hoses up through the hatch and out onto the ice cap. These hoses were connected to the aviation fuel bladders and pumps occupying Podmoskovye’s minisub hangar.
“Send a signal to Saint Petersburg,” Nakhimov ordered, turning away from the edge of the sail with a satisfied smile. “Inform Fleet Headquarters that we are on station one hundred and sixty kilometers from the American coast, and ready to assist in flight operations.”
Thirty-Two
Totem One, over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
A Short Time Later
Major Jack “Ripper” Ingalls looked out through the HC-130J’s cockpit windows. Through breaks in the clouds scudding southward, he caught glimpses of a vast sea of rugged, snow-capped peaks spreading out ahead of them as far as the eye could see. Pale light from the nearly full moon low in the east created an eerie patchwork of gleaming white snowfields and impenetrable shadow. The Super Hercules was at seven thousand feet, high enough to clear the tallest mountains on their flight path, but not by much.
Beside him, Laura Van Horn had her head down while she keenly studied their navigation display. After taking off from Barter Island, they’d made a slow, climbing turn over the coastal plain, babying the aircraft since their left inboard engine was still out of action. Now they were headed due south, taking the most direct possible route toward the drop zone for Nick Flynn’s team. “We’re ten minutes out, Rip,” she said. “Time to start our descent.”
