Arctic Gold

9

Ice Station Bear Arctic Ice Cap 82° 24' N, 179° 45' E 0125 hours, GMT-12

EIGHTY-FIVE MILES FROM THE Lebedev and twelve time zones away from London, another storm was coming in. Dr. Chris Tomlinson could see it in the dark band of clouds just beginning to shroud the southwestern horizon in shadow, could feel it in the icy bite of the freshening wind. He finished wiping the rime ice from the anemometer high in the met tower and awkwardly clambered back down the narrow ladder. It was a thrice-daily chore shared by the odd mix of personnel here at the ice station. The anemometer and other weather instruments were mounted on the fifteen-foot tower to keep them clear of wind and spray at ice level, but they still tended to accumulate a thin layer of ice under the incessant spring wind.

The sun hung just above the southeastern horizon, wan and pale and as seemingly devoid of warmth as a silvery full moon.

In a more civilized clime, 0130 was the middle of the frigging night. Late in May at these latitudes, a month before the summer solstice, the sun never set but circled the horizon slowly clockwise with the turning of the Earth. With no real day or night, the actual time scarcely mattered, so the team ran on Eastern time. The National Climatic Data Center was in Asheville, North Carolina, and it was easier to coordinate work and communications schedules with everyone on the same clock.

Tomlinson carefully stepped off the ladder, his thick boots crunching lightly on the ice. Lieutenant Phil Segal was waiting for him at the bottom-his safety buddy, present just in case. Personnel were encouraged to go about in pairs or teams when they left the shelter of the Quonset hut that served as the small base’s living quarters. Tomlinson had seen for himself how fast the wind could kick up sometimes, and when it mixed with fog or blowing snow, whiteout conditions could set in so fast that someone outside could become hopelessly lost just a few short feet from safety.

“Looks like we’re fixing to have a blow,” Segal said, looking up at the anemometer, now wildly and freely spinning in the breeze.

Tomlinson looked up at the instrument. “Ah. Thirty knots. Hardly worth the notation in the log.”

“Tell you what, though,” the NOAA officer said with a nasty chuckle. “Next time we send the tree huggers out here, right? Let them enjoy some of this here global warming first hand!”

Tomlinson laughed, but without much feeling. Like the other official personnel stationed here, he had little patience with their… guests, the five kids from Greenworld. What the bloody hell did they think they were trying to prove up here?

Kids? He snorted. Hardly. The youngest was in her mid-twenties, the oldest thirty-something. But the ten regular station personnel, three NOAA officers and seven scientists with the National Climatic Data Center, were here with a genuine purpose. The Greenworld bunch was up here grandstanding, nothing more. They claimed to be filming a documentary for PBS, but during the past week they’d done more grousing and bellyaching than camera work.

The two men trudged across the ice toward Bear One, the main hut. All told, there were four main structures in the camp and several smaller sheds and supply buildings, all of them flown up here slung beneath the belly of CH-47 helicopters and assembled on the ice. The largest, dubbed Bear One, was the center of the tiny, isolated community’s life and warmth. Near the building’s door, an American flag, already ragged in the constant wind, fluttered from a piece of pipe raised as an impromptu flagpole.

Officially, the place was the NOAA Arctic Meteorological Station Bravo, but the men and women currently living here called it Ice Station Bear… a tribute, in part, to a pair of old Alistair MacLean thrillers with similar names, plus just a bit of gallows humor drawn from the latest spate of international one-upmanship with the Russians. Wrangel Island was just 760 miles distant, directly due south, and Mys Shmidta, the nearest Russian military base and staging area on the Siberian mainland, about 150 miles beyond that.

The Russian specter had been looming quite large in the tiny community’s thoughts lately. At least every other day, jet aircraft, military aircraft out of Mys Shmidta, had overflown the station, flying low enough to rattle the hut’s walls. Sometimes, the already-chancy radio communications with Asheville were blotted out by what Commander Greg Larson thought was Russian jamming.

And, of course, for the past week they’d been repeatedly warned that they were trespassing and must leave Russian territory at once.

What a crock, Tomlinson thought. The Russians were trying to intimidate them into leaving. He wondered what the hell it was they were hiding eighty-some miles over the northern horizon and if Yeats and his people had managed to get a good look.

Three members of the NOAA expedition had left yesterday, taking three of the snowmobiles east to Remote One, an unmanned weather station seventy miles across the ice. Theoretically, they were checking the instrumentation and taking some ice-thickness readings.

The thing was, everyone in the expedition knew that Yeats and McMillan were spooks for the CIA, though that particular tidbit had not been shared with the Greenworld visitors. They also knew that Yeats, McMillan, and Haines-a genuine climatologist but also an expert on traveling over the Arctic ice-had gone to Remote One more to snoop on the nearby Russian base than to check instrument packages.

Currently, the surest bets making the rounds among the scientists were that the Russians were prospecting for oil. Everyone knew they wanted to claim half the Arctic Ocean as their own in order to get at the oil and natural gas beneath the sea floor.

Yeats, McMillan, and Haines should have been back by now. There’d been a brief message five hours ago-and not a word since.

Tomlinson suppressed a shudder. Something was wrong. He could feel it. They were going to have to send another team out to learn what had happened to the first. He wished they could send the Greenworld kids.

We don’t need this shit, he thought, bitter. Missing people, hostile Russians… and we have to babysit, too.

He wondered if the ecology nuts had come here because the Russians wouldn’t let them go to their base instead.

Ecology nuts. Tomlinson had little respect for people who made sweeping and hyper-dramatic claims without solid scientific evidence backing them up. A number of high-profile organizations-organizations such as Greenpeace and Greenworld and the Sierra Club-wanted to keep this frozen wilderness pristine and the petroleum resources below the ice untapped. Tree huggers, as Tomlinson and his associates thought of the five unwanted visitors to the base, though there wasn’t a single tree for them to hug within the better part of a thousand miles. Their agenda didn’t have a chance, no matter how many polar bears they’d been able to film out on the ice. You couldn’t stop progress… or the power of the almighty dollar.

What did the Greenworlders think they could accomplish by finagling a visit to Ice Station Bear?

He knew one thing. They wouldn’t have been here at all if one of them hadn’t been the daughter of a New England congressman. Raymond C. Cabot had been pulling strings at NOAA and the Department of Commerce for a month, getting permission for Lynnley Cabot and her four friends to take this little junket into the frozen north. Tomlinson wondered if Cabot was just a doting father who couldn’t say no, or if he saw a way of making political capital. Cabot was a Democrat and liked thumping the environmentalist bible loudly and often. Maybe he thought a docudrama of his darling daughter in a parka would help him with his next campaign.

Tomlinson followed Segal through the door into the hut, letting the wind bang it hard behind him. The Quonset hut’s interior was surprisingly cramped, given the exterior size of the thing. Half was partitioned off into sleeping quarters, with the women’s area sequestered off behind a curtain at the back. Another curtain hid the chemical toilet and the tiny portable shower stall; most of the walls and available free space was occupied by boxes-food and scientific instruments. The opposite end was devoted to the radio set, two computer workstations, and the meteorology instrumentation. Clothing hung drying from various overhead hooks and hangers, creating a cluttered, humid forest of textiles. Social life inside the community was defined by the space around the stove and heater. Most of the people were there, at the moment, looking up at the sudden explosion of cold and wind from outside.

“Hey, we thought you were the Russians,” Tom McCauley said. He was a heavyset North Dakotan with a twisted sense of humor, who’d first used his degree in meteorology to get a job as a TV weatherman, but who later moved to Asheville to take a job with the National Climatic Data Center.

“Nyet, tovarisch,” Segal said, grinning as he threw back the hood of his parka. “Ya nyeh Ruskii.”

“Too bad,” Fred Masters said. He was playing cards with two other climatologists and slapped a card down on the table. “We were hoping you would save us from our Greenpeace friends, here.”

“That’s Greenworld,” Lynnley Cabot said, sounding disgusted. “Jackass.”

“Sorry, sweetie,” Masters replied, picking up another card. “From here I can’t tell the difference.”

“Ah, it’s easy, Fred,” Susan Fritcherson said, picking up the discarded card. “Greenpeace wants to save the whales. Greenworld wants the whales to inherit the Earth.”

“They’d do a better job running the world than we have,” Ken Richardson, the ostensible leader of the Greenworld group, put in.

“Pipe down, all of you,” Commander Greg Larson said. He was the senior NOAA officer and the expedition team leader. “I’ve told you yahoos before… we don’t have the room for that kind of nonsense. Or the patience.”

The bickering subsided, as it had to. The Greenworlders had been told in no uncertain terms that this base was under NOAA’s jurisdiction and therefore under military jurisdiction. They would obey the regulations and the orders given by the NOAA officers… or they could start walking the 650 miles across ice and open water to Point Barrow.

NOAA was a scientific agency under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Most of its employees were civilian scientists and administrators, but about four hundred of its personnel made up the NOAA Corps, one of America’s seven uniformed services. All were commissioned officers, wearing uniforms similar to those of the U.S. Navy.

Tomlinson stripped off his parka, boots, and snow pants, hung them on a wall hook, then squeezed into the tiny galley area to pour himself a cup of coffee. That was one good thing about this place; there was always a large pot more or less fresh brewed, and if your standards weren’t too high, it was pretty good. He’d only been outside for ten minutes, but there was ice laced through his mustache and beard.

“You get through to the Center yet, Bill?” he asked the man currently at the radio. Lieutenant Bill Walters was the third NOAA officer on the team, a communications specialist.

“Nah,” Walters said, pulling the headset off his head and tossing it on the desk. “Our Russki friends are being too noisy right now. And the solar interference is worse than yesterday, too.”

“Cold out there, Chris?” Masters asked.

“Not too bad. About minus two Celsius. But it’s going to get colder. Another squall’s coming in.”

“Is it going to be… bad?” Jenny Cicero, another member of the Greenworld delegation, asked. She sounded scared. When a full gale was blowing outside, the Quonset hut walls shook and pounded as though giants were plying it with jackhammers. Such a storm had hit a few hours after the Greenworlders had arrived last week, and Tomlinson had thought they were going to have to ship Cicero back to Point Barrow in a straightjacket.

Welcome to the Arctic, kids, he thought.

“Nah,” Fritcherson told her. “Twenty below… wind at fifty knots. Heavy snow and icing. Piece of cake.”

“Is Yeats going to get his people back here before it hits?” Larson asked. “That’s what I want to know.”

“Don’t know, sir,” Walters said. “They have a satcom with them, but…”

“Maybe we should take a couple of snowmobiles out to look for them,” Tomlinson suggested.

“Not yet,” Larson replied. “I don’t want more people running around out there and maybe getting lost in a whiteout.” He sounded worried.

“They have GPS,” Fritcherson pointed out. “Even if they can’t get through the radio interference, they can navigate by satellite.”

“Keep trying to raise them on the satcom,” Larson told Walters.

“Yes, sir. But our regular frequencies are full of garbage.” He listened for a moment. “I think the Russians may be holding some kind of military maneuvers out there.”

“Nothing to do with us,” Larson said. “Keep at it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Larson looked around the crowded room. “Where’s Benford?”

“Sacked out, Skipper,” McCauley told him, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the curtained-off bunks. “Said he was wiped.”

Larson scowled but said nothing. Tomlinson could guess what was going through his mind, however. The five Greenworlders were very unwelcome guests. They ate the expedition’s food, put a strain on the sanitary facilities, took up valuable space both with their bodies and with their baggage, and brought a nasty air of politics and confrontation into the tiny and tight-knit world of the NOAA climate research expedition, all without bringing a single useful skill to the camp. Oh, there was make-work enough-cleaning, cooking, stowing or unpacking gear, even taking turns cleaning the ice off the outside sensors-but it simply wasn’t enough compared with what they took. In Arctic exploration, no less than if this had been a scientific expedition to Mars, every person had to pull his or her weight. There was no room for freeloaders.

Tomlinson wondered what the Connecticut congressman had paid in the way of a contribution to the Climatic Data Center to get them to foist these five on the expedition. They were supposed to be filming some sort of documentary, and for the first few days they’d done nothing but get in the way with their cameras and sound equipment and inane questions. Lately, though, they’d pretty much kept to themselves.

The trouble was, space was at such a premium in Bear One that they still got in the way.

Benford in particular was a monumental pain in the ass. The guy started arguments with the team personnel, had to be chivvied to perform even minimal chores, and maintained an all-round sour and unpleasant attitude that already had affected the station’s morale.

Well, it wouldn’t last forever. The freeloaders had been here a week and were scheduled to be here for another two weeks more, until the next scheduled supply flight up from Barrow. When the tree huggers were gone, the ice station was going to feel a lot roomier.

Tomlinson had to squeeze past three of them, Cabot, Cicero, and Steven Moore, to reach an empty chair by the heater.

Yeah, he couldn’t wait for them to be gone.

Harry Benford lay in his narrow bunk, face to the wall and his privacy curtain pulled across the open side, but he wasn’t sleeping. He’d heard the bickering a moment ago. Good. Keep up the pressure…

In his hand, pressed up against his ear, was what looked like a transistor radio, the size of a pack of cigarettes. It tuned to only a single channel, however, one reserved for military transmissions.

The static was terrible, reception lousy, and atmospherics squealed and wailed as he listened, but twice a day at the same times he always sought the privacy of his bunk, the toilet, or outside in order to listen for five minutes.

And today, finally, the signal he’d been listening for came through.

He’d been wondering if it would ever come. There wasn’t much to it, a man’s voice repeating the same word over and over: “Rodina… Rodina… Rodina…”

Quietly Benford turned off the receiver and slipped it under his mattress.

It was time for the sleeper to awake and carry out his mission.

Offices of the National Security Council The White House, Washington, D.C. 1638 hours EDT

“The President,” George Francis Wehrum said in a cautiously neutral tone, “is furious. I should tell you that Dr. Bing is recommending a complete restructuring of the intelligence hierarchy.”

Rubens kept his face impassive. It was, actually, no worse than he’d been expecting, especially after he’d been kept waiting for over an hour before being ushered into the Presence. “With respect, Mr. Wehrum,” Rubens said carefully, “this is scarcely the time for recriminations, for petty politics, or for… personal vendettas. The situation is serious.”

“We know that. That’s why Dr. Bing considers it necessary to take certain steps.”

“By refusing to let me do my job?”

“There is some question at this point if you are the best man for the job. It may be time to restructure your agency to some extent.” He shrugged and almost managed to look embarrassed. “You must know that this has been coming for some time.”

Rubens took a deep breath. “Mr. Wehrum, this is not about turf wars between the NSA and the CIA. One of my best field agents is dead. We believe the Russian mob had a hand in it, though we don’t yet know why. I intend to find out.”

Wehrum dismissively waved a hand. “I’m not talking about that. When you conduct covert operations of the sort your Desk Three so enjoys, you will suffer casualties. You know that. I am referring to the loss of a three-hundred-and-thirty-nine-million-dollar aircraft and its highly trained Air Force pilot. That F-22 was over Russian territorial waters, where you sent it. Dr. Bing intends to conduct a full investigation into the reasons you made that decision, and its consequences.”

Rubens sighed. This was getting him nowhere. “May I see Dr. Bing?”

“Dr. Bing is in a closed session with the President and with the DNI and the D/CIA.”

That stung. “I should be there.”

“You should not. The DNI will inform you when-if-it is necessary for your department to have administrative access to POTUS.”

DNI-the Director of National Intelligence. Nominally the head of all U.S. intelligence agencies, James Fenton was known to favor a sharp streamlining and redefining of American intelligence. “D/CIA” referred to the Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the CIA, Roger Smallbourn. Smallbourn was a political hack, but one with aspirations identical to Fenton’s; his Deputy Director of Operations, Debra Collins, had been trying to take Desk Three out of the NSA’s organizational chart and fold it into the CIA since its inception. Within the tangled world of the inside-the-Beltway jungle of D.C., wars were won or lost, careers saved or lost, over direct access to POTUS, government slang for the President of the United States.

Rubens grimaced. “If they’re discussing the future of the NSA or Desk Three-”

“Actually, they’re discussing the Russian ice-grab,” Wehrum said. He sounded smug, with a touch of amusement to his voice and the way he shrugged. “It has nothing to do with you. Nothing whatsoever.”

Rubens scowled at the other man for a moment. That last bit of information-about the Russian crisis-had been both purely gratuitous and utterly vicious. Wehrum had no business mentioning the President’s agenda, but he’d done so, it seemed clear, solely to let Rubens know that he was in the doghouse at the moment.

Wehrum was Bing’s senior aide within the National Security Council and, therefore, an extremely powerful man. The NSC, currently consisting of about one hundred staffers working out of one of the concrete-walled lower levels of the White House basement, was responsible for hashing out defense and foreign policy issues before they reached the President’s desk. The National Security Advisor-a title generally abbreviated as “ANSA,” for “Advisor on National Security Affairs,” in order to distinguish it from the acronym for the National Security Agency-briefed the President on all potential international problems and, during times of crisis, ran the White House Situation Room. Where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was, by law, the President’s chief advisor on military matters, the ANSA was responsible for a whole range of diplomatic, economic, and intelligence issues as well as military ones.

By mentioning the DNI, Wehrum was not so subtly reminding Rubens that the Director of National Intelligence was the director of all U.S. intelligence agencies. And by mentioning the D/CIA, Wehrum was reminding him that the CIA felt that it had the right to manage the lion’s share of American intelligence and that the NSA should be restricted to its historic purview of SIGINT.

Put another way, Washington functioned on funding and on size. The NSA was the largest of America’s intelligence agencies and received the biggest chunk of the funding pie. The CIA had been looking for ways to cut into that pie slice for a long time.

Rubens was close to making a bitter retort, but he clamped down on the surge of anger. Damn it, he could feel his blood pressure rising, a red heat climbing behind his eyes.

Within Washington, the man who determined where the paper went and, even more, who decided who got to talk face-to-face with policy-makers such as the President or the ANSA was the man who ruled, who controlled the real power within the government. The former ANSA, George Haddad, had been a close personal friend of Rubens’, a mentor and a confidant. His death had been devastating personally for Rubens.

It had also profoundly affected Rubens’ career and possibly the future of Desk Three as well. He was used to having direct personal access to the President; now, though, Rubens could feel himself being shouldered aside, ignored, sidelined… and possibly even reduced to the role of official scapegoat.

But venting his anger here and now would get him nowhere. If Rubens had learned one thing in his years of public service, it was that patience was almost as valuable in this town as face time with the President.

So Rubens forced himself to relax. A longtime practitioner of Hatha Yoga, he let his mind momentarily settle into a place of calm, watching as he drew in a deep breath from the belly. Through breath control alone, Pranayama, it was possible to control the blood pressure… and the deep-seated fury within.

He released the breath and, with it, the rising knot of anger.

“Very well,” he said after a moment. He opened his eyes to find Wehrum staring at him curiously. “Please inform Dr. Bing that I do wish to see her at her earliest convenience. Shall I give you my report on Operation Magpie?”

Wehrum shrugged again. “You can send it as an e-mail attachment. I’ll see that it gets to the proper desks.”

Another slap, a means of telling him quite distinctly that his report wasn’t important enough to warrant discussion or close consideration.

“I also wish to discuss future operational plans.” That was something that did have to go through Bing, at the very least.

“Dr. Bing has instructed me to inform you,” Wehrum said, “that all Desk Three operations should be put on hold for the time being. It is possible that Operation Magpie will be detailed to another agency.” He hesitated. “Why ‘Magpie,’ anyway?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why’d you name the operation Magpie?”

“Our Russian ops currently share a bird theme,” Rubens said. “Magpie, Blue Jay. We’ve found a connection between those two, by the way, and we think it’s important.”

“Oh?”

“‘Augurs and understood relations have,’” Rubens quoted, “‘(by magotpies and choughs and rooks) brought forth the secret’st man of blood.’”

Wehrum smirked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Macbeth,” Rubens said. “Act three, scene four. Magotpies are what we call magpies today. The King was referring to things in nature revealing a man’s bloody secrets.”

“If you say so. In any case, I suggest you start making whatever arrangements you need to make to bring your ‘magotpies’ home.”

Rubens considered this. “We’re doing so now. There are still some loose ends to tidy up in St. Petersburg, however.”

Again, a dismissive wave. “Whatever. I don’t need to know the details. But you should be prepared to hand the operation in all respects over to Debra Collins. I suspect that’s where this is going. I can’t imagine them allowing your Desk Three to continue operating while an investigation is under way. What other irons do you have in the fire?”

“Several. Blue Jay is investigating the Russian mafia, which appears to be making a serious effort to take control of Russian petroleum resources. And Sunny Weather involves the protection of a scientist at a symposium in England.” He decided not to add that there was now a strong link between the Russian ops and the attempt to kill Spencer in London. “That’s the one where we just lost an agent.”

“Not my concern.” Wehrum sniffed. “If I were you, I would simply get my house in order and await further instructions. Someone on the DNI’s staff will, no doubt, be in touch with you on the details soon.”

Wehrum reached for a file lying in his in-box and flipped it open, effectively ending the interview.

A most unsatisfactory interview, from all perspectives. Rubens was furious as he left Wehrum’s office. There’d been nothing in this meeting that could not have been handled more efficiently by e-mail or phone.

As Rubens pulled out of the secure underground parking lot and turned left on Fifteenth Street, he was considering his options. Clearly, Bing, Smallbourn, and Collins were going to use the F-22 shoot-down as a reason to remove Desk Three from the aegis of the NSA and, quite likely, to demand Rubens’ resignation as well.

If that was the way it had to be, so be it. Rubens disliked Washington inner-circle politics, hated them with a white-hot passion, in fact, that frequently had him wondering if retaining his position as the NSA’s Deputy Director was even worth it. Only two things had kept him at this damned job for as long as he’d been here-his loyalty to the agents working for him and his rock-solid belief that Desk Three was making a difference in a very dangerous, very twisted world.

Whatever happened, he was not going to abandon his people.

First things first. Dean was on the way to London and would have to take over the investigation of Karr’s death. And Magpie needed to be pulled out of Russia.

But something was nagging Rubens, something sinister. What was the connection, through Sergei Braslov, between a scientist working on global warming and the Russian mafia? Why did they want Spencer dead? And what was their link with Greenworld?

Rubens was determined to follow those questions through for as long as they let him.

And to hell with what anyone in Washington thinks.