Man on Ice: Russia vs the USA - in Alaska

THIRTY-SEVEN

Stephanie paced the dining room in the British Embassy, back and forth between the mantelpiece and the long table that was splashed with mid-morning winter light. Maps and charts lay among laptops, tablets, and part-drunk cups of coffee. Harry leant against the wall in a far corner, working contacts on the phone with a second line open to the Situation Room watch commander.

She had repeatedly rung Carrie’s phone and got no reply. She kept asking herself what it might mean and dealt with that by protecting herself in diplomat thought: Don’t speculate. Just keep working. She dialed Carrie, then Grizlov, alternately, one after the other, aware that minutes were ticking down to Swain’s deadline to take out the Russian base. She understood his reasoning. She hated that she was part of it and that Carrie was there. Stephanie owed her big time for standing in as a bar-room therapist that night they hit the town in Moscow when Harry was being such a shit. She knew that diplomats at the American and British embassies in Moscow were burning contacts to get to Grizlov or anyone who could make sense of what was happening. But they had all gone to ground.

Then Grizlov picked up, his voice filled with tension. ‘Hold, Steph. Stay on the line.’ A click. Emptiness. She mimed to Harry that she had Grizlov. But he was already looking her way, must have heard from the Situation Room. Grizlov was back, no charm, no introduction, taut to breaking. ‘Vitruk’s on his own, Steph.’

The finality of his tone brought goose bumps to Stephanie’s neck. ‘Can you stop him?’

‘I need time. If you strike, we have to strike back.’

‘We don’t have time, Serg. You’ve got to—’

Grizlov ended the call with a terse ‘I’ll get back to you.’ Prusak was immediately on the line. ‘Voice analysis is coming up as genuine.’

Genuine what, she thought angrily. Her palms were sweating. She was shaking all over. All the fucking gadgetry in the world and they still couldn’t stop blowing each other up. She kept herself measured and said, ‘The President must stand down the strike, Matt. We’ve talked to one of the good guys.’

‘Yes. I’ll ask him, Steph. Well done.’

Bob Holland checked himself in a long mirror and smoothed down his dark pinstripe suit to rid it of creases caused by his thermal underwear. Outside the temperature was below freezing. Wind-chill on the podium would send it lower. Holland could not be seen wearing an overcoat for his inauguration.

There was knock on the door which opened with his six-year-old son Casper scuttling around the legs of CIA director Frank Ciszewski. Holland’s wife, Nancy, picked Casper up, carried him out, and shut the door.

‘Ambassador Lucas made contact with Sergey Grizlov. He described Admiral Vitruk as being on his own. He has asked for time to resolve,’ Ciszewski said, handing Holland a thin folder. ‘The President has delayed the strike on the Big Diomede base. But we have these. They show a mobile missile launcher moving out of the Toksong site in North Korea, sir.’

Holland examined a collection of grainy photographs. ‘When was this taken and where is it now?’

‘Just over an hour ago. We know the broad area, but not enough to target it.’

The image showed the snub nose of a huge missile emerging from a cluster of trees. Much of the photograph showed cloud cover, but Holland could make out the edge of the trailer and a set of front wheels.

‘When could it launch?’

‘Any time.’

‘Range?’

‘Los Angeles and the West Coast are its outer range, flight time about half an hour. We cannot guarantee a successful intercept. The missile is designed to avoid our infrared detection satellites and tracking systems. It could carry six nuclear warheads, each on an independent re-entry vehicle. The likelihood is just one, but we have to factor for all six.’

Holland’s Senate job had not been one of making impossible choices. In less than an hour, he would have to make one. ‘What would you do, Frank?’ he asked the CIA director.

Ciszewski’s avuncular face stiffened. ‘I can give you our intelligence, but I cannot make your decision.’ He was not unfriendly, but he was adamant.

‘What’s Swain doing?’ said Holland.

‘Like you, sir, he’s getting dressed while trying to end this thing. His view is that any pre-emptive action without knowing the exact location could blow back badly on us.’

Holland checked his watch. ‘I need you in on a conversation with the Joint Chiefs.’

‘We can schedule for 13.15.’

‘No, now, before the ceremony. I don’t intend there to be a mushroom cloud over Los Angeles because I was too busy fixing my tie pin.’ Holland dropped the satellite pictures onto a small table by the mirror.

‘I’ll fix the meeting, sir,’ said Ciszewski.

‘At 12.01 all of our assets must be ready. We go before I finish my speech.’

Henry’s firm grip took Rake’s arm as he jumped the narrow channel onto the island. He looked back and saw Tuuq’s wrist caught on the edge of ice, his body visible in the water. Ondola lay on his back, staring upwards. Rake couldn’t tell if he was waiting to die or already dead. The gunfire might have alerted those left at the base. But the wind was blowing off the island and they may have heard nothing. Rake hoisted a pack onto his shoulders and set off up the hill with Henry and Joan following.

The hillside was steep, the ground firm with a track between the rocks. Soon they sighted the base, protected by high granite cliffs with a narrow opening that gave access to the sea. There were no walls, no razor-wire fence, no watchtowers even. The geology of the island and the environment gave defense enough. Soldiers in watchtowers along the top usually kept vigil, but now the watchtowers were empty, the guards gone.

Rake crawled forward to the edge of the rock and used his night-vision binoculars to examine the base. It appeared through light fog as an example of the faded Soviet dream at the edge of the empire, a series of drab low-rise buildings with no style, no grandeur.

The buildings formed a ring around a central helipad with a second landing spot about a hundred yards to the east right on the shoreline. A helicopter was parked in the open near a hangar. An engineer worked, alone up a ladder near the tail where a panel hung open.

Three jeeps were visible, one by the hangar, another to the left of the main building. Two overhead lamps protruded from either side of the door, but they were unlit. A light shone inside. He counted three snowmobiles by a ramp to the sea. He saw no dogs. That didn’t mean they weren’t there. They would be trained for air-scent because of the way water neutralized a dog’s smell. With the wind blowing due south hard against them, it was unlikely a dog, however well trained, would pick up anything.

There were no signs that Vitruk or Carrie were even still on base, nor that they had left. Once Carrie was safe, he didn’t mind what happened. They could never pick up as before, a couple filled with dreams and infallibility. Carrie would return to her hospital or head out to some difficult place. He would go back to his unit to be posted to the latest shit-hole foreign politicians had created for native people. His worst prospect was ending up wounded and captured, paraded in front of the television cameras, then sent to the cold danger of a Russian prison cell.

Fog slid across the landscape. By keeping close to the black granite of the hillside, Rake was confident that they could get down to the base unseen in a few minutes. A wall of snow had built up at the bottom right on the edge of the helipad’s concrete. Once there, fog and darkness would give them cover. To get further, they would probably have to shoot the helicopter engineer which meant more killing. Walking in with a white flag wouldn’t do the business. He put Stephanie’s number into two of the Russian phones and handed them to Joan and Henry.

They followed a narrow track with Rake using night vision to detect sensors and trip wires. There were none. When the slope levelled, they took cover behind the pile of snow. Henry drew a rifle from a rucksack. With the storm gone, the wind was quiet which would help the shot. The engineer climbed down the ladder and vanished inside the hangar. Henry set up his weapon with a field of fire that would cover Rake and Joan as they went in. Rake wanted Joan to stay back, but she refused point blank. She was responsible for Akna and Iyaroak just as Rake was for Carrie.

The way the moonlight reflected off the snow gave no cover across the helipad. The distance to the main door was less than a hundred feet, an eight-second run. They would go one at a time, Rake first, then Joan as soon as he was outside the door and gave the all-clear. Twenty seconds at most, then inside to the unknown, the best they could plan for. If the engineer reappeared, Henry would kill him.

Rake left cover and ran.