Man on Ice: Russia vs the USA - in Alaska

TEN

Rake wore the uniform of the dead Russian.

The surviving soldier was Sergeant Matvey Golov of the 83rd Airborne Brigade based in Ussuriysk, north of Vladivostok. Disarmed and with his helmet removed, Golov came across as a squat imposing figure, the surface of his shaved skull rutted like a bad road, his eyebrows thick and his eyes drawn in.

Golov said his unit had left for this mission two days ago. He had family in New York, and didn’t plan to become an enemy of the United States. Rake interrogated him quickly and neither believed nor trusted him. However, Golov could have killed him and hadn’t, and he would now be Rake’s ticket out.

‘If you cross me I will cripple you and leave you for your colleagues to finish you off as a traitor to Russia,’ Rake told him. Golov didn’t respond.

To get across the ice to the mainland, Rake would need more weapons. Russian small arms were not enough. The closest would be in the sealed and abandoned Alaska Army National Guard observation post that stood among civilian homes in the middle of the village. That’s if they hadn’t been cleared out. No military had been posted to Little Diomede since the 1990s when the post was closed. Weapons and communication equipment were inside, logged, stored, and long forgotten within the army bureaucracy. But Rake had no idea what condition they would be in. More weapons might be further along in a wooden cache underneath the church where they kept seal, walrus, and other meat over the winter months. Don Ondola had hidden them there, and Rake doubted they had been touched since Alaska State Troopers took Ondola away for murdering Akna’s mother. Ondola was a rough man, selfish, drug-crazed, and violent. But he knew how to keep a weapon functioning against the wet and the cold.

Rake flipped the magazine out of Golov’s Vityaz automatic, ejected the 9mm rounds, and handed the weapon to Golov. Other Russian troops must not see him unarmed. Rake did the same with the Makarov pistol. He took Golov’s phone and asked how it worked. The Russian explained that men on each post would be setting up their own Wi-Fi hotspot that only they could use.

They carried the body into the school kitchen and slid it down the rubbish chute where it landed with a thud on the trash of the past days.

Helmets on and faces covered, Golov led the way out of the school. Two soldiers guarded the entrance. There was a short conversation, which Rake had anticipated. Where was the American Eskimo? Golov pointed back inside. Change of plan. The American was staying in the school. They were off to search his house.

They walked on. Troops were positioned between the school and the helipad. They were on the roof of the old wooden building containing the clinic and launderette and along tiers of walkways that linked the small homes. On the top of the circular concrete water-treatment plant, they were positioning a heavy machine gun. Another machine gun had been set up by the cemetery that overlooked the village. More dangerously, troops were walking up the hillside toward the snow-covered plateau. From there they would have a view to the mainland to see anyone crossing in either direction.

That high watchpoint might make it impossible for Rake to escape the island. It rarely got completely light, rarely dark either because of moonlight. In this second half of the month, the moon hung in the sky, blending with the ice and sun that hovered around the horizon. Rake also had no idea of the thickness of the ice. Someone had gone through it near Wales, which was the closest landfall and where he might go. When he was a child, they used to clear a runway on the ice for a plane to land. Now winter was too warm and the ice too thin.

Rake led Golov up wooden steps to a landing with a bench and space for people to hang out. Two Russian sentries leant on railings, their gaze fixed to where Russian helicopters, red and blue lights blinking, hovered in the sky just behind the border. On the island’s helipad, the blades of an M-8 transport helicopter rotated slowly while soldiers unloaded equipment. Rake saw a Kord 12.7mm heavy machine gun, powerful enough to send a wall of lead against an approaching helicopter. He counted three Igna hand-held surface-to-air missile launchers.

By now the long-range radar at Tin City would have picked up what was going on, but not the detail. He needed to get word out that Russia was seriously reinforcing its hold on the island with hostages in the school.

The walkway sloped up. They passed Henry and Joan’s house. On the ledge outside sat the skull of the polar bear that Henry had shot with Rake all those years ago. On the rocks in front, the skin of a gray seal stretched between wooden poles. Nearby, its meat hung drying on a line of red nylon rope.

Midway up, they came to the dark-green hut that used to be the army post. The Russians were already there. Tape was spread across its small windows. The door had been broken down and they had put a searchlight in the small watchtower and a machine gun on the roof. Whatever weapons were in there were now off limits. A soldier stood outside. The pinpoint glow of a cigarette shone through his mist of breath.

The soldier spoke to Golov, who replied, not just an acknowledgment, but a longer sentence that Rake couldn’t hear because of the wind. The Russian pointed inside the guardhouse, then across the water to the waiting helicopters. Rake shifted his fingers around his weapon. Above them the search lamp went on and off. They were testing it.

Rake turned away, and brought out from his pocket the phone Carrie had given him. There was no signal. But the screen showed a link to the personal hotspot from inside the guardhouse. He drew off his glove to work the keypad and find the three numbers Carrie had given him. The first was her sister Angela with a Brooklyn 718 prefix. Next came a +41 22 code, which was Geneva, someone called Jenny who worked at one of the international aid agencies. Then there was a listing for SL, +1 202 — Washington, the ambassador, Carrie’s first choice.

Russian and American signals intelligence would pick up any phone message that went out. It was late evening in Washington and the middle of the night in Europe. The chances were that SL was asleep. Rake wrote the message clear and short. His finger was sliding down to send when two F-22 fighters screamed overhead from south to north along the border. Seconds later two more flew fast and low from north to south. They looped back towards the mainland. The noise faded, and he heard a child’s voice. ‘Bang, Bang. I’m a Russian and you’re dead, Uncle Rake.’

Timo, Akna’s seven-year-old brother, appeared from nowhere and wrapped his arms around Rake’s legs. He must have slipped away as the soldiers were searching homes. Timo wore a green down jacket, but wasn’t dressed to be in the cold for any length of time. His teeth chattered.

The Russian soldier shifted from watching the aircraft to the little boy.

‘Why are you dressed like a Russian?’ Timo asked loudly. The soldier glanced at Golov, then back to Rake.

The sky erupted with engine noise again. American helicopters from the Alaskan mainland — four Black Hawks and four Apaches — came around from both the north and south edges of the island. Their searchlights swept the village and the hillside. They spread out in a two-tiered line, Black Hawks below, Apaches above, right on the border, flood lamps facing down the Russian aircrews on the other side. The F-22s returned in a deafening roar. Then the American helicopters shut off all their lights and hung ghost-like in the sky. No shots were fired, no missiles unleashed. It was a ‘don’t mess with us’ test of Russian resolve. Did Moscow want it the easy way or the hard way?

The Russian guard raised his weapon. Rake pressed the Washington number, sending the message just as Golov ripped the phone from his hand.