Arctic Storm Rising

Thirty-One

Captain Nick Flynn unzipped his parka and stripped off his thick gloves as he sat down at the dining area table set aside for his unit’s computers and other electronic gear. He’d just been called in from a duty shift outside the radar station, freezing his ass off on outpost duty. Apparently, an encrypted message had just arrived over their link to Alaskan Command — one that only he could read.

After blowing on his hands to restore some semblance of feeling, he entered the necessary codes. Lines of text and embedded maps and images appeared on the screen. It was a task order assigning them a new mission. But any faint hope that he could stand his unit down for some much-needed rest vanished the moment he read the message header. Good news did not carry the immediate precedence designator. That was almost always reserved for situations involving serious military matters.

His mouth tightened as he read further. What the brass wanted them to do now went way beyond ordinary crazy. In fact, it was off-the-charts lunacy. Stripping out all the happy talk about achieving vitally important national security objectives, the operations staff officers cozily forted up at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson expected Flynn and his men to parachute deep into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Then, assuming they survived this hazardous nighttime drop, they were supposed to begin an immediate search-and-rescue operation — hunting for combat aircraft, two American F-22s, a big Russian Tu-142 recon plane, and two more Su-35 fighters, which had crashed somewhere among those jagged peaks and rocky valleys during an air intercept that had gone horribly wrong.

He shook his head angrily. There was no way in hell he would ask his soldiers and airmen to commit suicide chasing some staff weenie’s whim, not without pushing back as hard as he dared first. Without waiting to start second-guessing himself, Flynn stabbed the screen icon that would open a direct, secure video connection to Anchorage.

There was a moment’s delay while his signal was uplinked through a satellite and stabilized, and then a new window opened on-screen. A senior Army noncom looked back out of it at Flynn. “Yes, sir?” the NCO asked.

“This is Captain Flynn at Barter Island. I need to talk to—”

“Wait one, sir,” the other man interrupted. “I’m switching you to General Rosenthal, now.”

Flynn felt his eyebrows go up. Lieutenant General David Rosenthal was the top dog, the overall commander for every airman, soldier, sailor, and member of the Space Force based in Alaska. And despite that, he’d apparently just been sitting around anticipating this video call from a junior officer posted to the back end of nowhere? This deal looked worse and worse.

Rosenthal’s lean, squared-jawed visage flickered onto the screen. “Good afternoon, Captain. I assume you’ve got some questions about your orders?”

Flynn stiffened. “Not exactly questions, sir.”

The general smiled dryly. “More like a protest, then. As in, what kind of stupid SOB dreamed up this nightmare and dumped it in your undeserving lap?”

Despite his anger, Flynn felt an answering ironic grin flit across his own face. “Not exactly in those words, sir. But I guess that’s basically the gist of it.” He leaned a little closer to the screen. “Look, General, between the crappy weather and the prevailing winter darkness, asking my guys to make a parachute drop into those mountains goes way beyond the call of duty. Risk is one thing. They all signed on the dotted line when they enlisted. But this is more like a kamikaze run. My troops aren’t even trained for combat search-and-rescue operations.”

Rosenthal nodded grimly. “I’m well aware of that, Captain,” he said. “Unfortunately, the pararescue team we dispatched first was ambushed shortly after takeoff. A SAM brought down one of their two helicopters, with heavy casualties.” His gaze hardened. “Which makes your team it, I’m afraid. You and your men are the only airborne-qualified force we’ve got that can reach those crash sites sometime in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Someone shot down one of our helicopters?” Flynn said, staggered by the news. Carrying out a missile attack just outside the largest military base in Alaska represented an almost unthinkable escalation. “Who? The Russians?”

“Probably,” the general said tersely. He shrugged. “Look, son, for what it’s worth, your orders come straight from the top — from the SecDef and the Joint Chiefs. Their assessment is that your mission is of the utmost importance. If we’re going to have any hope of avoiding an all-out war with Russia, we’ve got to learn more about what really happened out there, both to our planes and to theirs. So it’s vital that you find any surviving aircrew and retrieve the flight recorders from every crash site you can reach.”

Flynn frowned. “That’s one hell of a tall order, sir.”

“Yes, it is,” Rosenthal said flatly. “And I don’t like this much more than you do. But there it is.” His chin came up as he looked Flynn straight in the eyes. “Your country is counting on you and your team right now. I know that may sound corny as hell, but it also happens to be true.”

Shit, shit, shit, Flynn thought irritably. He really hated these kinds of appeals to his patriotism, especially since they were practically guaranteed to work on him. Just stick a flea collar around my darned neck and call me Uncle Sam’s Pavlovian dog, he mused in disgust. That was how they got you, he knew, by invoking the danger to a land and a people you loved. And the trouble was, sometimes the danger was real. If the Russians were suddenly shooting down American planes and helicopters practically at will, it was harder and harder to see how the U.S. could avoid a major armed clash with Moscow.

“There’s one more thing that wasn’t included in the first draft of your orders,” Rosenthal continued. “But it comes straight from the Joint Chiefs, too. Apparently, there’s also a chance that you might run across another aircraft on the ground out there. An intact aircraft. And if you do, you’re to report its presence and location immediately, but you are not, repeat not, to take any further action… not without direct orders from either the SecDef or the JCS.”

“Exactly what kind of intact aircraft are we talking about?” Flynn asked carefully. Inside his mind, a whole new set of alarm bells were now going off. “One of ours? One of the Russians? Or one made by little green men from Mars?”

The general winced. “You now know as much about this as I do, Captain.” His expression was not happy. “I’m pushing hard for more data, especially since it may have some bearing on what happened to our Raptors and the other missing planes. And on why the Russians are being so goddamned aggressive all of a sudden. So far, though, I’m not getting very far.”

If those internal alarm bells got any louder, Flynn judged, he’d be metaphorically deaf real soon. He scowled. “Just for the record, sir, this sort of ‘need to know’ bullshit really pisses me off.”

“You’re not alone in that feeling, son,” Rosenthal said. A hint of frustration crept into his voice, confirming what he said. “And I fully understand your own particular aversion to this level of strict secrecy.”

That was true enough, Flynn realized. No matter how “prettied up” the orders justifying his exile to Barter Island may have been, the Pentagon’s version of the old boys’ network undoubtedly meant Rosenthal knew all about his earlier run-in with the CIA and its Libyan black ops arms smuggling.

“If it’s any consolation, Captain Flynn,” the general continued, “my strong suspicion is that there are a number of people back in Washington right now who are almost equally unhappy that you’re in charge of this mission.”

Flynn shook his head. “Frankly, sir, that’s not much consolation at all.” He sat back with a resigned sigh. “Okay, we’ll do our best.”

“I know you will, Captain,” Rosenthal said. “Now, from what I understand, there’s supposed to be a lull in this blizzard later tonight, but it may not last long. So organize your team and pull together any gear you’ll need fast. We’re putting Major Ingalls and Captain Van Horn and their HC-130J on standby out at the Barter Island airport right now. They’ll be ready to take off as soon as your men are on board.”

Sweating in the station’s steam heat, Flynn strode down the corridor toward Sergeant Andy Takirak’s tiny quarters. He’d thought briefly about stopping by his own room to wriggle out of his parka and the rest of his cold weather gear to get more comfortable, but he’d resisted the temptation. They were already on the clock, without any time to waste. And any layers he took off now were only ones he’d have to squeeze back into before they headed out to the airport.

Behind him, he heard a solid door bang open. Deep voices echoed through the station as the soldiers who’d been on outpost duty came hurrying back into the dining area to get out of the bitter, bone-chilling cold.

“Hey, what are you guys doing back inside?” he heard Cole Hynes ask, sounding annoyed. “You’re not due for another couple of hours.”

“The captain called us back in,” Vucovich told him. “He said we should grab some hot food and stand by for new orders.”

“What new orders?” Hynes demanded.

“Hell if we know,” Sanchez’s bass baritone rumbled. “I was freezing my balls off out there, so I’m sure not planning on bitching.”

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.”

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.”

“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,” Nakhimov 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.”