Arctic Storm Rising

Eight

With his face and eyes protected from subzero temperatures by a thermal mask and ski goggles, Captain Nick Flynn looked down and saw an expanse of tundra rushing up at him. Although the gray light filtering through a layer of thick clouds made it difficult to judge distances with any precision, that ground sure looked like it was getting closer fast. Really fast. He released his attached weapons case and rucksack so that they fell away into the freezing air and swung loose below his feet, still connected to him by a long strap. Then he forced himself to relax, bent his knees slightly, tucked his chin in, and gripped the risers.

A small puff of white billowed up when his equipment packs hit the ground. Thousand-one, thousand-two, he counted silently.

Thump.

His boots thudded into the snow. Instantly he let himself buckle and rolled sideways to absorb the landing shock. At that same moment, a gust of wind caught his collapsing parachute canopy and snapped it back open wide. Dragged behind the chute, he slid across the tundra in a glittering spray of fine ice crystals and powder snow.

Great, Flynn thought with a mental grin. Now he got an impromptu sleigh ride across the frozen ground. Unbidden, that old song “Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go” began playing in his head. But his grandmother’s house was about three thousand miles south of here, and there wasn’t any snow in Central Texas, especially not in October. Hurriedly, he hit one of the two release assemblies on his harness to spill air out of the parachute. That brought his wind-driven skid to a halt.

Overhead, the C-130 turboprop he’d just jumped from was already a diminishing dot in the distance, with the roar of its four engines fading fast. And across the wide-open, white landscape, eleven more men came drifting down out of the cloud-covered sky. One by one, they thumped to the ground, raising little spurts of snow of their own. Counting them off, he breathed out in relief. Although he’d been the first one out of the plane, everyone else in his small unit had followed him off the aircraft’s rear ramp.

Having someone refuse a jump wasn’t usual, but it could happen, and Flynn knew he hadn’t yet gotten to know these men well enough to judge the odds of anyone pulling that kind of boneheaded stunt at the last second. As it was, he’d had to practically beg to get permission for his unit to participate in this practice airborne drop and field exercise. Only the fact that all of them, whether Army, National Guard, or Air Force, had already earned their jump wings earlier in their military service made it even thinkable. But having an aircraft head back to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson with one of his stray sheep still aboard would have given the Pentagon and CIA assholes still gunning for him even more ammunition.

Getting back to his knees, Flynn reeled in his fluttering canopy arm over arm. Quickly, he bundled up the material before stuffing it into a bag clipped to his parachute harness. It took seconds more to struggle out of the harness itself and retrieve his weapons case and rucksack. Pulling out a pair of snowshoes and strapping them on took even more time. Finished at last, he stood up with a grunt and heaved the heavy rucksack onto his back. As a final measure, he slung his M4 carbine over the white camouflage smock he wore on top of his parka.

He brushed snow off his goggles and mask and scanned his wider surroundings. Right before they jumped, the C-130’s crewmen had rolled a pair of large cargo pallets out the open rear ramp. The pallets were loaded with a couple of snowmobiles and towable sleds, plus additional supplies of food, fuel, and ammunition. They’d come down under multiple parachutes, and it looked as though they’d landed intact about three hundred yards from his position.

By now, several members of Flynn’s team already had their own gear on. In ones and twos, they headed toward the equipment pallets — crunching awkwardly through ankle-deep snow. Others were still wrestling with balky parachutes or fitting themselves out with cross-country skis or snowshoes.

It didn’t surprise Flynn to see that Sergeant Andy Takirak was the first man to reach their heavier gear. Despite being older than anyone else in the unit by at least fifteen years, the veteran National Guardsman was one of the most physically fit. And his decades of experience in this kind of terrain and harsh climate showed. Compared to everyone else, he moved over the frozen tundra with surprising speed and grace.

By the time Flynn reached the first pallet himself, Takirak had already stripped off its protective tarpaulin. “How’s everything look?” he asked.

The noncom gave him a thumbs-up. “Good, sir,” he confirmed. “There’s no damage to this snow machine or sled that I can see.”

Flynn nodded. Alaskans always referred to snowmobiles as “snow machines,” since they used them more for work than recreation. He reminded himself to start doing the same. Like Texans, longtime Alaska residents had their own lingo. And if he didn’t want to stand out all the time as what they called a cheechako, a clueless tourist, he needed to remember to use local words and phrases when possible. “After all, when in Nome—” he murmured, privately enjoying the horrible pun.

“Sir?” Takirak asked, sounding puzzled.

“Never mind me, Andy,” Flynn said, glad that his mask hid his reddening face. “Just talking to myself.”

“Might want to go easy on that right now,” the older man said with a faint suggestion of amusement of his own. “Yakking to the walls will come natural enough to all of us by the time the serious winter sets in.”

As more soldiers and airmen arrived, Takirak put them to work offloading the small two-man vehicles, sleds, fuel cans, ammunition boxes, and other supplies and prepping them for use. There was less grousing than usual. Some of that was probably due to the usual adrenaline rush conferred by surviving a jump out of a perfectly good airplane. A bit more might be owed to the vast stretch of empty country in which they now found themselves. As far as the eye could see in all directions, they were the only living human beings. There were no trees or signs of other vegetation. Effectively, their little band was all on its own in a flat, almost featureless plain of snow and ice, broken only by a range of low, rocky hills halfway to the northern horizon. Their voices were instinctively hushed, as though they were awed visitors wandering around inside the echoing interior of a huge cathedral.

In fact, it wasn’t until they were almost finished emptying the two pallets that Senior Airman Mark Mitchell — M-Squared to his friends — finally got up enough nerve to ask the question that had to be on everyone else’s mind. “Say, sir? Uh, where’s everybody else? Did those Herky Bird pilots screw up their navigation and drop us in the wrong place?”

Flynn put down the boxes of MREs he’d carried over to one of the sleds and turned his head to meet the red-haired airman’s mildly worried gaze. Mitchell had earned his jump wings during a stab at the Air Force’s pararescue course. He’d been bounced for what his personnel file dryly called “attitude adjustment issues.” Based on Flynn’s personal observation over the past several days, that probably meant the airman had pulled one prank too many on his instructors. After a succession of other scrapes in various units, he’d been “volunteered” to serve as the new Joint Force team’s communications specialist. In the field, that meant carting around the team’s AN/PRC-162 manpack radio and sticking close to his new commander’s side at all times.

Mitchell’s curiosity and concern were natural. The training and readiness exercise they’d piggybacked onto involved four other C-130s carrying more than three hundred paratroopers belonging to the Army’s Fourth Brigade Combat Team (Airborne). By rights, this snow-covered plain should be filled with other soldiers assembling into platoons and sorting out their own gear.

“We’re on the right drop zone,” Flynn assured the airman, raising his voice slightly so that everyone could hear him. “The rest of the troops are jumping onto a DZ closer to Deadhorse. Their COs have their own training exercise plans for their units. But I’ve got something different in mind for us.”

Another soldier, Private First Class Cole Hynes, pushed forward. Short and square shouldered, Hynes had a temper that had cost him his sergeant’s stripes a few months back. Apart from his pugnacity, his soldier skills were first-rate. On the team’s improvised firing range at Kaktovik, he’d proved able to rapidly put rounds on target at six hundred yards with their M249 Para light machine gun. “Just how far from Deadhorse are we, sir?” he asked with a frown, eyeing the miles and miles of untouched snow in all directions.

It was time to pull the pin on his unwelcome surprise, Flynn realized. Except for Takirak, he’d kept the details of this planned field exercise close to his chest. He’d done so precisely because he didn’t want any of his troops to duck out before climbing aboard the C-130 by “accidentally on purpose” twisting an ankle or coming down with some mystery illness. The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés had motivated his men to conquer or die by burning the ships that had carried them to Mexico. His task today was considerably simpler, which was probably just as well because it would be damned hard to set anything ablaze on this frozen, treeless plain. Instead of defeating a hostile empire whose fighting forces outnumbered his by a hundred to one, all he wanted to accomplish was toughen up his men physically and teach them to make the best use of their winter gear, snowshoes, and skis before the harsh Arctic winter fully set in and made this type of training too hazardous.

“We’re roughly fifty-nine miles from the airport at Deadhorse,” he announced calmly. “That’s as the crow flies.” He paused to make sure they were all focused on him. “Or, in our case, as the man marches.” He checked his watch. “In approximately seventy-two hours, a plane will land there to ferry us back to Kaktovik. It will take off again sixty minutes later, whether we’re on board or not. So that’s how long we’ve got to finish this little jaunt.”

Hynes, Mitchell, and the others stared at him in consternation. “You’re shitting me,” someone muttered from the back of the little knot of soldiers.

“Nope,” Flynn assured him. He glanced at Takirak. “I’m dead serious, aren’t I, Sergeant?”

The noncom nodded stoically. “Yes, sir.” A dry smile darted across his weathered face and then disappeared. “Only fifty-nine miles in three days? With clear weather in the forecast?” He shook his head. “Heck, that’s practically a stroll in the park.”

“Yeah, but it’s a pretty fricking cold park, Sarge,” Mitchell pointed out.

“Which is why you’re wearing all of that fancy winter gear provided by Uncle Sam, courtesy of the generous taxpayers of these United States,” Takirak reminded him. He looked around the circle of dubious faces. “So quit your bitching and get organized, ladies. I want both pallets unloaded and all of this extra gear stowed on the sleds in ten minutes. Because whether you’re happy about it or not, we’re hiking north to Deadhorse. So there’s no sense in wasting more daylight.” He glanced at Flynn. “With your permission, sir?”

“Carry on, Sergeant,” Flynn agreed. He stepped back out of the way as the knot of soldiers and airmen broke up and went to work again. Thank God for an experienced NCO, he thought for what had to be the hundredth time over just the past week. Loner himself or not, the National Guard sergeant had the right touch when it came to handling what was still more a prickly bunch of individuals than a solid military unit.

In the end, it took closer to fifteen minutes to organize the march column to Takirak’s satisfaction, but at last they moved out north across the tundra — tromping steadily toward the low hills along the northern horizon. The noncom and another man were a few hundred yards out in front as scouts. Bringing up the rear, two more men drove the snow machines and towed sleds piled high with their extra supplies, puttering along at very low throttle to keep pace with the soldiers on foot ahead of them.

At the head of the central column, Flynn settled his rucksack across his back and started off. Mitchell came next, bowed slightly under the weight of his own gear and their radio. “Man, I thought I was joining the Air Force, not the fucking Foreign Legion,” he heard the communications specialist grumble under his breath. “All this ‘march or die’ shit is gonna get old real fast.”

Flynn looked back over his shoulder with a grin. “It’s not actually ‘march or die,’ Airman Mitchell.”

“No, sir?” the radioman asked.

“Nope,” Flynn continued. “Not enough sand, for a start.”

“Hell of a lot of snow, though, sir,” Mitchell pointed out.

Flynn nodded. His grin widened. “That’s why it’s more like ‘march or freeze your ass off.’”

Mitchell snorted. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re kinda mean, sir?”

“All the time, ever since I was a kid,” Flynn said, still smiling. “And that was just my mother.”

Flynn concentrated on putting one snowshoed foot in front of the other. After three days and nearly sixty miles of marching north across this frozen landscape, the rhythm had become second nature to him. His breath puffed out in a little cloud of steam that drifted away on the icy breeze. He looked back at his men. Though their shoulders were bowed down under the weight of their rucksacks, they were all in position in the column and moving easily, almost gracefully, through the snow.

The first day’s march had been the roughest on all of them, except for Andy Takirak. Within the first few miles, every step had been painful and every breath an agony as they sucked in bone-dry air chilled to just above zero. By the time they made camp, his little band of soldiers and airmen were too tired even to bitch about the situation he’d dropped them in. Only the National Guard sergeant had seemed disgustingly cheerful when he prodded them awake the following morning, hours before sunrise. Everyone else had been wrapped in misery, all too aware of aching feet, calves, and shoulders.

That had changed sometime during the second day’s even longer hike. One moment, Flynn felt like all he could do was focus on taking the next painful step — slogging along in an endless procession of discomfort where sheer willpower was the only thing keeping him moving. Then, suddenly, he’d felt his head come up and his shoulders go back. His breathing had eased, too. Oh, his feet and back still hurt… but it no longer mattered. Or at least not as much. A quick check of the march column had showed that the rest of his team was experiencing something similar. Even their usual crappy jokes and banter had started to bounce back and forth again.

“They’re over the hump,” Takirak had said matter-of-factly during their next rest break.

Flynn had nodded, understanding what the older man meant. The “hump” was that almost indefinable psychological moment when you realized that what had seemed impossibly difficult was doable after all. There was a hump somewhere in every challenging situation, and if you managed to get past it you learned a lot about yourself… and the others who’d been there with you.

Like all good things, that brief moment of elation had faded again under the strain of marching so far and so fast. But it lingered inside every man as a source of confidence and renewed strength. They knew now that they were going to make it — that they’d reach Deadhorse on time if they just refused to give up.

A droning roar off to the east brought Flynn’s head up again. There, coming in low, on its final approach to the airport, was an Alaska Air National Guard C-130J turboprop. He glanced at his watch.

From behind him, Mitchell asked, “Is that our ride, sir?”

Flynn nodded, feeling a grin starting to spread on his face. “That it is, Airman. And right on time.” He moved off to the side of the column of marching men and raised his voice. “Well done, guys! You did it.”

Answering smiles spread along the line of weary, unshaven faces. Bringing up the rear, with his light machine gun draped over his shoulder, Hynes pulled down his thermal mask. “Hey, Captain,” he asked. “Is that it? Aren’t you going to make some long, inspiring speech?”

Flynn shook his head. “Hell no, PFC.” He nodded toward the runway, now visible just a few hundred yards ahead of them. The Super Hercules had landed and was taxiing down the strip. “Hear those propellers?”

“Yeah?” Hynes said curiously.

“Well, that’s my speech,” Flynn told him with a laugh. “Know what they sound like to me?”

“Victory?”

“Yep,” Flynn agreed. “Victory… and hot food, showers, and clean sheets.”

That drew whoops and cheers. Hynes and the others grinned even wider. “Roger that, sir!”