Man on Ice: Russia vs the USA - in Alaska

SEVEN

‘The mission is completely understood, sir,’ said Yumatov in response to Vitruk’s threatening question. He turned on a television wall screen that showed a helicopter taking off from Little Diomede. ‘This is a live video feed. The pregnant girl is on board and will be here in five minutes, sir. Eight men remain on the island. I need your orders now to send in the others and complete the occupation.’

A jolt of exhilaration ran through Vitruk as his eyes scanned the screen of snow swirling around rotor blades. Lamps flashed on the tail, brightly lighting the luminous red cross on the side of the fuselage. The helicopter turned in the wind to fly fast towards the base. It landed just outside the building and paramedics carried a stretcher off the helicopter. A blast of freezing air filled the room as Yumatov opened outside doors, and paramedics wheeled in the Eskimo girl.

A doctor uncovered her face. Her skin was paper-white and her eyes listless. She breathed lightly through an oxygen mask. A drip hung from a matchstick-thin arm. Two Eskimos, a thin woman and a short stocky man, were with her.

‘How bad is she?’ Vitruk asked.

‘Sir, I was not aware you would be here.’ The doctor glanced at Yumatov then back to Vitruk who asked, ‘Will she live?’

‘Impossible to say.’

‘She needs to live. Take her to the field theater.’ He turned to the two adults. ‘We will do our best to save your daughter’s life.’

‘We are family,’ said the woman. ‘She is not our daughter.’

‘Go with the medical staff. We will see you have everything you need.’

Paramedics pushed the gurney through double doors leading to the field hospital, then through heavy drapes which hung in front to help stave off the icy draught. Once the medics were gone, Vitruk said, ‘Send them in, Colonel. It’s a go.’

Within minutes, buffeted by blistering snow, a second M-8 helicopter landed on the American island. Spetsnaz special-forces troops spread out and took positions in the south of the village. Vitruk and Yumatov moved from the entrance hall into the cramped command and control center. Two walls were taken up with screens of visual feeds. Vitruk had set up a secure conferencing room deep underground in the base’s old nuclear bunker and shared a narrow workbench with Yumatov. Next to them was a chair for the Spetsnaz commander.

The confined space meant Vitruk was working cheek-by-jowl with his men, unheard of for such a senior military commander. But this was not a task that could be done from his Khabarovsk headquarters two thousand miles away. When it was over, the men could tell their children and grandchildren that they had served with Admiral Alexander Vitruk during those days when, together, after centuries and injustice and humiliation, they had restored pride and strength to the Motherland.

Yumatov pulled up a map of the island on his computer and pointed out where they would set up the gun and surveillance posts. Vitruk looked back at the wall screen where soldiers were jumping down from the third helicopter. They rigged up more video feeds from the village. There was a camera on the helipad, three along the shoreline, several going up the hill, and even one in the water-treatment plant and another on the generator.

‘We need a position at the top of the island,’ said Vitruk. ‘Can we get a helicopter up there?’

‘Negative, sir. The wind,’ said Yumatov. ‘Perhaps in a couple of hours.’

‘Send a foot platoon up. We need to get a visual on their mainland.’ The closest American long-range radar station was at Tin City twenty miles away with an airstrip next door at the settlement of Wales. Vitruk watched soldiers moving along the narrow ice-covered walkways layered up the hillside, going from house to house and taking people down to the school. Villagers were ushered in, stragglers rounded up. He couldn’t detect any resistance.

‘You need to see the first landing, sir,’ said Yumatov. He played back the footage. Vitruk studied the images, the splaying of lights, clumps of mist, snow, and litter skidding with the downdraught. Then a man appeared, confident, excited, welcoming, using his flashlight intricately to direct the pilot’s descent. Yumatov froze the image as the helicopter’s flood lamp lit the man’s face, alert, young, concentrating, his movements professional, trained, familiar with the environment, with a military aircraft, as if he did this every day.

‘Do we know who he is?’ asked Vitruk.

‘We’re checking, sir. But he doesn’t look like a civilian.’

‘Bring that old Eskimo couple back in here,’ Vitruk ordered.

Yumatov radioed the instructions. The plastic drapes rose, fell, rattling like a drum roll, and the couple came back in. Vitruk examined them more closely. The man was broad and clear-eyed, his hands calloused from work. The woman carried herself with confidence. She had fashion sense, too, with hair cropped short and a pendant around her neck that looked like a piece of carved ivory from a walrus tusk. They weren’t afraid.

‘How is she?’ he asked, his tone soft and reassuring.

‘The doctor is still working,’ said the woman.

Vitruk stood up. ‘I am Admiral Alexander Vitruk.’ He offered his hand.

‘Henry Ahkvaluk. She is my wife, Joan.’ His handshake was quick and weak. But Eskimos did not measure a man by the strength of his handshake. Not a flicker of expression crossed either of their faces. Vitruk knew the type. They were the ones his alcoholic father had admired. In his sober moments, he had explained to Vitruk how Eskimos lived as one with the environment, how they read the flights of birds, the currents and marine life, and shared their wives to ensure safety for women and children. Vitruk would have preferred that Henry and Joan had been doped out of their heads, not knowing or caring where they were.

‘Who was the man on the helipad with the flashlight?’ Vitruk asked.

Henry shrugged. Joan stayed quiet. They knew.

‘Help me,’ he asked again. ‘You were with him and the patient. This man guided in the helicopter. We saw him with you when you carried Akna down the hill to the school.’

They stood together, gutsy and silent. Henry Ahkvaluk’s eyes squinted from a life dealing with light reflected on snow. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘One of the villagers. I don’t know who.’

Vitruk let the lie hang, then spoke to the soldiers escorting them. ‘Take them back. Don’t harm them,’ he said, loud enough for everyone to know that physical harm could be an option. When they were gone, Yumatov said, ‘A few minutes, sir. We should get something from facial recognition.’

‘I want to know everything about that man.’ Vitruk flipped the still image onto his laptop screen — a determined figure, wind-whipped but defying the gales, flashing an emergency SOS message. It was a defining image, a lone man in cruel surroundings appealing for help.