Arctic Wargame

Chapter Ten

“Damn it, damn it, you evil witch,” Carrie shouted, kicking a snowbank. Their helicopter became airborne, turned into a small black dot, and disappeared behind a heavy gray cloud. “I should have seen it coming, the little bi—” She bit her tongue.

“Don’t worry,” Anna said. “I pressed the beacon’s rescue button before that backstabber took it away. The rescue team should already be on their way.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.” Carrie drew closer to Anna as if she could not hear her words. “Your distress signal went to Trenton, down in Ontario, more than twelve hundred miles away. By the time the Army gets a team ready and fly ‘em up here, we’ll be frozen solid corpses. Damn you, Alisha!”

“Save your energies,” Justin whispered, as he joined them.

“For what?” Carrie asked and spread her arms with an annoyed shrug. Anna’s head sagged, and she stood silent, staring at Justin’s face.

“She left us here, alive. That was her first mistake,” Justin said. “Her second was not taking away our pickaxes.”

“Oh, great, so we’re gonna dig our own graves, right?” Anna blurted out.

“We found a radio,” Justin continued, unfazed by Anna’s cry of despair. “Maybe there’s another radio that works or that we can make it work. Another flare gun or something else we can use to indicate our position and call in help. Maybe there’s something we can use.”

“Something like what? A chopper? An icebreaker? Look at where we are!” Anna shouted, stretching her arms and completing a slow pirouette. “In the middle of nowhere. No, scratch that. In the middle of frozen nowhere.”

“Enough, OK.” Justin walked over and held her by the arms. “We can give up and die or fight and survive. You take your pick. As for me and Carrie, we’ve already made our choice.”

Carrie slammed into the ice with one of the pickaxes while Justin was still speaking. He turned around and grabbed the shovel.

“Fine,” Anna agreed, but her shaky voice showed her desperation. “What do you want me to do?”

“Carrie and I can handle the digging. See if you can climb that cliff, the tall one.” Justin pointed to their left, where the rocks had formed a steep slope, about fifty feet high. “We need to gather our bearings as to our exact location and find the fastest way out.”

“I remember seeing a small inlet with a broken coastline to the east,” Carrie said in between gasps.

“You think we can walk back to Grise Fiord?” Anna asked, as she headed for the rocky ridge.

“No, absolutely not,” Justin replied without looking up, driving the shovel deep into the snow. “Too far away.”

“So, what exactly am I looking for?” Anna shouted, while searching for a suitable ledge on the rock wall where she could plant her hands.

“You’re looking for water,” Justin replied. “Water that’s not covered by ice floes.”

The rugged surface of the cliff was extremely cold and slippery. The snow had turned into a thick layer of ice, covering the rocks in a wax-like film. Anna pushed her body up by digging shallow holes in the ice layer for her gloved hands and the tips of her boots. Already shivering and experiencing the familiar numbness in her extremities, she avoided pressing against the rocks to keep her clothes dry.

Her progress was slow and, at times, uncertain. Her strength was draining out of her body quite rapidly. Every inch she advanced upwards came at a hefty cost. She was losing precious body heat through the tiny droplets of sweat covering her face and her upper torso. She agonized over the chances of a timely rescue, her judgment when volunteering for such an assignment, and the doom looming over them, as she fought her way to the flat top of the cliff. How long did that take? Was it fifteen, twenty minutes?

Justin and Carrie were still busy, burrowing like moles. They had dug out a few piles of frozen snow and ice chunks, each about four feet high, and had uncovered a couple of large wood panels. They were thicker and wider than the other boards they had already found. Those panels formed the wall structure of the depot, probably. Oh, only if they could find something useful.

She looked to the east, squinting hard to discern anything else but the whitish blinding blanket covering her entire field of vision. A few miles to the southeast, she found a small hill, which was partially uncovered by the snow and the ice. It soared a few hundred feet high. A little further to the east, her eyes found a tiny strip of a dark blue color that surfaced out of nowhere, right at the bottom of the hill.

Anna muffled her screams of joy, unsure of whether she really spotted the water or whether the scene was an optical illusion or a trick of her hopeful imagination. Lifting her goggles for a clearer look and squinting so hard her eyes began to water, she double-checked again.

“Yes,” she shouted, “that’s water, clear water.”

A small section of the ocean, without any deadly icebergs or flimsy ice floes, was only a mile away. OK, I found the water, but how is the water going to help us?

Yuliya nodded at the waiter holding a bottle of Lois Latour Bourgogne Rouge. He filled her crystal glass, and she took a quick sip of the pinot noir. She smiled at the great taste and looked at the shadows cast by the black iron sconces on the restaurant’s red brick walls. The hushed voices of the dining patrons and the large white candles on every table added to the unmistakable ambiance of an ecclesiastic location.

In truth, the seven hundred year-old building used to be the Saint Gertrud Monastery during medieval times. Since 1985, the establishment began serving wine no longer as part of the Eucharist, but a la carte and at extravagant prices. Gradually, the Saint Gertrud Monastery became one of the most luxurious rendezvous in Copenhagen.

Tonight, Yuliya had reserved a table for two in the Confession Room and was awaiting the arrival of her diner date when her cellphone rang.

“Good evening, Ms. Novikov. I’m sorry to bother you, but there have been some negative developments,” Alisha spoke slowly on her satellite phone.

“I thought the whole point of hiring you was to avoid any negative developments,” Yuliya replied.

“I have everything under control,” Alisha broke down her reply by separating and stressing each word. “I’m just updating the Command, as I’ve been instructed, on the most recent situation.”

“I’m listening. Go on and update me.”

“The Canadians discovered one of the depots set up by the Siriuspatruljen.”

“What?” Yuliya’s hand trembled. A droplet of red wine trickled down the glass, staining the crispy white tablecloth. “How the hell did that happen?”

“Here’s the condensed version. Some of the locals found and looted all the weapons and began selling them. Soon enough, word got around, and Justin heard about it. He tracked down two of the locals, and a member of his team killed them in a shootout. But one of the looters didn’t die instantly, but was able to cough up the truth and led Justin to the depot, despite my constant stalling tactics. So, I had to come out in the open, and I left three members of the team, Justin included, stranded about one hundred and some miles northeast of Grise Fiord.”

“You left them alive?” Yuliya struggled to keep her voice a quiet hush. She gulped down the contents of her glass. “What about the fourth member?”

“I needed someone to fly me back out of that freezing hellhole. Plus, it would be difficult for me to explain a bullet in their head if it ever came to—”

“Nobody will be asking questions once our plans succeed,” Yuliya interrupted her. She snapped her fingers to call the waiter. The impolite gesture was out of place in the posh restaurant but in sync with her feelings.

“If it does succeed. One depot has been discovered and, who knows, the security of the others may have been compromised. The weapon depots were supposed to have been hidden exceptionally well.”

“Are you having second thoughts?” Yuliya covered her cellphone with her hands and ordered another glass of wine. The waiter disappeared very quietly, in the same manner in which he had materialized at her table.

“No, but I have a few concerns about the implementation of your plan. We need to be even more careful, especially in light of these events.”

“Do you have any actual suggestions?”

“Yes, I do. I will stall the RCMP investigation and the spreading of the news about the casualties in Grise Fiord and the lost members of the recon team. You need to speed up the planned landing. I suggest a change in the landing coordinates. Ellesmere Island is too hot for action. There’s a very high probability of unnecessary exposure.”

“I’ll talk to the boss about it, but you know how much he hates last minute changes.”

“In that case, let’s not call this a change of plans, but an improvement to an already excellent plan. Nanisivik has a good airstrip and very few residents at this time of year. It will be a great place for landing your troops.”

“Nanisivik? Isn’t that on Baffin Island?”

“Yes, but still far away from civilization. Once you control both sides of the Northwest Passage, you’ll practically be invincible.”

“All right, I’ll talk this over with the boss, and I’ll inform you of his decision. Where will you be over the next two hours?”

“I’m going to spend the rest of the day in Arctic Bay. Once I know of the improvements to your plan, I’ll adapt my travels accordingly.”

“OK. Talk to you very soon.”

Yuliya flipped her cellphone shut and looked up. Grigori Smirnov, her boss, entered the Confession Room. Smirnov was widely known as an oil tycoon. Very few people knew he was also a Deputy Director of Operations with the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. He marched with long steps toward her table at the end of the hall, paying extra attention not to disturb the other patrons or the hovering waiters.

“I have some bad news about our Arctic operation,” Yuliya said, “but nothing that can’t be fixed.”

Smirnov frowned. “How bad?”

“One of our depots has been compromised, so we’ll have to make some improvements to our initial plan. I’m afraid our transportation will have to be aerial, since the naval option, seemingly, is no longer on the table.”

Smirnov’s frown covered his entire forehead. He leaned forward and whispered to Yuliya, “Give me everything you have.”

“Distress signal? What distress signal, Constable?” Alisha asked, her sweaty palms as slippery as the tone of her voice.

“One of the geologists in your team, Ms. Anna Worthley, initiated a dire emergency SOS signal this morning at 11:30 a.m.,” Constable John Bylot of the Grise Fiord RCMP detachment said.

Alisha bit her lip.

“The MCC, that is the Mission Control Center in Trenton, received this signal, and they’re preparing a rescue team,” the constable said, “which should be dispatched… hmmm… as soon as the weather conditions improve, hopefully as early as tomorrow morning. Do you know anything about this incident?”

“Oh, yes, Constable Bylot, now that you mentioned the right word, incident, it was an incident. A mistake, I mean. Ms. Worthley accidentally pressed the button on her PLB while unloading her backpack and her personal effects.” She bit her fingernails. C’mon sucker, buy it.

“A mistake you say,” the constable replied. “The signal, according to the Canadian Forces Base in Trenton, came from Cape Combermere. The beacon transmitted for a few seconds and then disappeared.”

“Shit,” Alisha swore under her breath. I should have kept the beacon going, but it would have pinpointed the chopper’s location.

“Yes, we deactivated the beacon, in order to interrupt the signal, since, like I said, it was a big mistake. We didn’t want to bother the rescuers with a false alarm, you see?”

“Well, once the signal is emitted, the rescue team will have to go ahead with their mission.”

“By all means, Constable. I’m not trying to stop anyone from doing their job. I’m just reassuring you and your colleagues that Ms. Worthley is safe and sound.” Alisha stood up from her chair and looked out the small window of her hotel room.

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yes. We gathered our data and completed our trip. Everyone’s doing well.”

“Where are you right now?”

“Arctic Bay. Hunters and Trappers Lodge.”

“May I talk to Mr. Hall?”

You don’t believe me? Alisha reined in her thoughts. She stood up and paced around the room. “Sure. As soon as he returns.”

“Where did he go?”

“I think he went out with his friend, Kiawak,” she said, staring at the bathroom door.

“Oh, yeah, Kiawak,” John let out a quiet laugh. “He’s got a couple of friends there, even a girlfriend I hear, although he’ll never admit it.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. So, they’ll be out for a while, I guess.”

“They said something about coming back in the evening. But you can try Justin’s cellphone, if you want.” Alisha tapped the side of the table, where she had locked all personal belongings of her team members in two of the upper drawers.

“I may do that. I’ll contact the Trenton Base and see if I can get the rescue mission cancelled, especially since they haven’t dispatched it yet.”

“OK, thanks,” Alisha said.

“On another issue, my partner, Heidi, told me Kiawak is requesting that we wait for a while before we release the news about the deaths of Nuqatlak and Levinia. Strange, don’t you think?”

“Well, I recall Kiawak talking about potential accomplices that the victims may have had relationships with. Releasing the news may damage further investigations.”

“I understand. I will use ultimate discretion in this case.”

“Thank you. Anything else, Constable?”

“No, that will be all. Thank you for your help, Ms. Gunn.”

“It was a pleasure. If you need anything else, call me.”

“I will. Good bye.”

“Bye.”

Before Alisha even closed her cellphone, a low vibration came from the drawer where she had placed Justin’s phone. “Son of a bitch,” she blurted. “That constable is a real pain in the ass.”

She ignored the ring, which replaced the vibration, and looked outside the double-glazed window at the snowstorm. The walls and the roof of the one-story mobile structure squeaked and groaned under the whip of the blowing snow and the strong wind gusts. So, my friends were able to ask for help by using a distress signal. And they did this under my own freaking nose! Stupid beacon! I wonder what else they’re doing instead of freezing and dying. Stubborn little bastards! I should have shot them in the head.

She cursed her choice and swore that if the weather did not kill them, she was going to make sure she finished her job with her own hands. She walked to the bathroom and kicked open its door. Kiawak lay on the floor, blindfolded and handcuffed to the bathroom radiator. Alisha removed his blindfold and checked his eyes. They were droopy, bloodshot, and narrow because of the injection she had administered to him twice in the last thirty minutes.

A small doze of the sodium-based sedative cocktail impaired the target’s judgment, numbing his senses and instincts. Most importantly, it proved to be a reliable source of harvesting information from unwilling subjects. The substance destroyed all defense mechanisms in the victim’s brain, releasing every true fact and detail stored in their memory.

“Kiawak, Kiawak,” Alisha whispered next to his ear.

“Hhhh,” Kiawak groaned, his head jerking left and right, and his eyes rolling up and down. “What? Who?”

“It’s me, your grandma. How are you, my boy?”

“OK, OK, grandma, but it is cold, a little cold.”

“Your girlfriend called earlier. She wants to see you.”

“Tania? She’s here?”

“No, she wants us to visit her. Can you tell me where she lives?”

“Eh… eh… I don’t know.”

“Please, Kiawak, where does she live?”

“OK, her house is the second from the…”