The Arctic Event

Chapter Twenty

The USS Alex Haley

Jon Smith stared up drowsily at the springs of the overhead bunk, the lilting folk rock of Al Stewart’s “Sand in Your Shoes” flowing from the iPOD’s earphones. With tomorrow’s mission launch looming, sleep had been hard to come by. Now, finally, after an hour of assiduous courting, it was almost within reach.

The urgent knock at the cabin door snapped him back to full wakefulness. He sat up, tearing off the headset. “Yes?”

Valentina Metrace’s voice issued through the glowing louvers in the door. “We’ve trouble on Wednesday Island, Jon. It looks serious.”

He rolled out of the bunk and hit the light switch. “Right. We’re coming.”

Smyslov had already swung down from the upper birth and was hastily dressing. Smith pulled on a set of cold-weather BDUs and his boots, and in a few moments the two men were climbing the ladder to the radio room.

Apparently the mission launch wasn’t going to wait for tomorrow.

Beyond the rumble and susurrus of the ship’s routine internal white noise, an intermittent rasping and squealing reverberated through the Haley’s frames as chunks of growler ice brushed past the hull. There was also an occasional jolting shudder beyond the beat of the propellers as the cutter’s bow sheered into a thin pan of frozen seawater-sounds and sensations that had been occurring with growing frequency.

For the past three days the Alex Haley had been chewing her way deeper into the thickening pack ice of the Queen Elizabeth Archipelago, keeping to the open-water leads when she could, battering through the floating drift when possible, and sidestepping the looming bergs and bleak, cliff-cragged islands when necessary.

Captain Jorganson had put all his arctic seaman’s savvy into gaining ground toward their objective, but their rate of advance had slowed for every mile northward gained. The leads had been growing narrower and the berg clusters denser. Twice during the past forty-eight hours, Randi had launched in the Long Ranger, carrying one of the Haley’s officers on an ice survey flight, hunting for cracks in the pack for the cutter to wriggle through.

Winter was winning.

The cutter’s small radio room was already crowded by the time Smith and Smyslov squeezed their way in amid the gray steel equipment chassis. The duty operator sat hunched in front of the powerful sideband transceiver, nursing the frequency and squelch dials while Captain Jorganson leaned over his shoulder. Randi Russell and Valentina Metrace were both present as well, showing signs of their own hasty awakening. Professor Metrace hadn’t taken the time to pin up her hair, and a detached fragment of Smith’s awareness noted that her glossy black ponytail flowed almost to the small of her back. That was one question answered.

Dr. Trowbridge had been shouldered back into an odd corner of the compartment. As did everyone else, he looked worried, but also incensed, as if this cause for concern were something that should not be happening to him.

“What do we have?” Smith demanded.

“We’re not exactly sure,” Jorganson replied. “Two members of a science party apparently turned up missing shortly before nightfall. The expedition leader advised us a search was being organized but that he was not yet declaring an emergency. Then the station was knocked completely off the air for about five hours.”

“Did something happen to their communications gear?”

“In a manner of speaking, Colonel.” Jorganson glanced toward the overhead. “If it weren’t for the cloud cover, we’d be seeing a magnificent aurora borealis tonight. A solar flare is making a hash out of everything. Even the satellite phones are going down.”

“And?”

“And when we reacquired, the science station’s radio guard was calling mayday,” the Coast Guardsman continued. “The search party has not returned, nor has she been able to contact them.”

“She?”

“It’s the female grad student, Kayla Brown. Apparently she’s the only one left.”

The radioman pressed his headset closer and spoke into his lip mike. “KGWI, this is CGAH. We read you. I say again, we read you. Stand by.” The enlisted operator looked up. “We’ve got another hole opening, Captain. We got her again.”

“Put it on the speaker,” Jorganson commanded.

“Aye aye.”

Interference roared and crashed from the overhead, a thin, lonely woman’s voice sounding through it.

“Haley, Haley, this is Wednesday Island Station. They still haven’t come back! None of them! Something’s got to be wrong. When can we get help? Over.”

Captain Jorganson lifted the console hand mike from its clip. “This is the captain of the Haley, Miss Brown. We understand your situation and we are coming to your assistance with all possible speed.”

Jorganson lifted his thumb from the mike trigger. “The problem is that it might take us several days to work the ship through this last hundred miles of pack to Wednesday. We might never make it at all, given the way the freeze-up is coming on. We’ll have to rely on your helicopter to render any kind of immediate assistance, Colonel.”

Smith, in turn, looked to his pilot. “Randi, could we launch now?”

Randi Russell bit her lower lip, projecting and assessing. “We’re just barely coming into fly-and-return range of Wednesday,” she said after a few seconds. “But we have extremely low air temperatures and potential icing conditions, and the radios are bad. I’ve got to say it’s very marginal out there. I don’t like it, but we’ve got to wait for daylight.”

Smith accepted her judgment without question. “Can I have the mike, Captain?”

Jorganson handed it over.

“Ms. Brown, my name is Colonel Jon Smith. I’m the leader of the team being sent to investigate the downed bomber. We should be able to get to you shortly after first light tomorrow morning. I’m afraid you’re going to have to ride it out until then. Can you give us more on your situation? Over.”

“I’m here in camp and I’m fine,” she replied. “It’s everybody else who must be in trouble-bad trouble, or Dr. Creston would have sent some kind of word back and…and I can’t do anything! Over!”

“At the moment, you’re doing everything that can be done, Ms. Brown. We’ll take care of the rest when we get there. Now, I need for you to answer some questions. Over.”

“Go ahead, Colonel…Uh, over.”

“Have you or the other members of your party seen any indication of anyone else on the island? Lights, smoke, footprints, anything like that?”

The responding voice sounded startled. “Anyone else? No way! Other than you guys there’s nobody around for a thousand miles!”

“Are you certain, Ms. Brown? There’s been no sign of anybody at all?”

“What’s he talking about?” Dr. Trowbridge blurted from his corner of the radio room. “If he’s trying to blame the Inuit-”

“Hush,” Valentina Metrace snapped.

“No,” the staticky voice replied. “Nobody’s mentioned anything. Over.”

“Have you seen anything else out of the ordinary?” Smith probed. “A plane? A ship? Anything?”

“No. We see the contrail of an airliner going over the Pole now and again, but we haven’t seen anything else all summer. Why? Over.”

Trowbridge tried to crowd closer to the radio. “I’d like to know the same thing, Colonel. What is the meaning of…”

Damn it, he didn’t have time for asides! The last rags of his mission cover were shredding away, and it was time to make the transition from totally clandestine to merely covert. Smith aimed a finger at Trowbridge, then jerked his thumb toward the radio room door. “Captain, get him out of here.”

Stunned, Trowbridge gobbled for breath. “What! You have no right to-”

“Yes, he does,” Captain Jorganson said quietly. “Please leave the radio room, Doctor. I hope it won’t be necessary to have you escorted out.”

Trowbridge was a man accustomed to debate. He started to formulate his first wave of verbal protest, but the cold gazes encircling him strangled his self-righteousness. Once more he sensed that he was out of his depth. Contenting himself with a muttered “This is not acceptable,” he sidled his way to the radio shack entry.

Smith returned his attention to the radio. “Ms. Brown, this is Colonel Smith back. I have one more question. You won’t be getting anyone in trouble over the answer, but it’s very important we get a straight answer. Have any of the members of your expedition visited the crash site? Anyone at all, for any reason? Over.”

“No!…At least not that I know of. Dr. Creston wouldn’t allow it. Why? Does that old plane have something to do with my friends disappearing? Over.”

Smith hesitated over his reply. “We’re not sure, Ms. Brown. Please stand by.”

“What about it, Jon?” Randi asked, her voice soft. “Could the containment vessel have failed on the bomber? Could it be the anthrax?”

Smith braced a hand against the console and vehemently shook his head. “No! It doesn’t work like that! Anthrax just doesn’t mow people down without an incubation period and a progressive symptomology.”

Abruptly he straightened and turned to face Smyslov. “Gregori, for the sake of this girl and for the people on that island, now is the time to come to Jesus! Was there anything else aboard that bomber other than the anthrax?”

Smyslov felt those chill steel blue eyes drilling into him. “Jon, I swear to you, as far as I know, the only biowar munition carried aboard the Misha 124 was the anthrax. If there was anything else, I was not briefed about it!”

Smyslov was grateful that he could fall back behind that partial shield of truth, for he suspected that he did know what was happening on Wednesday.

Those damn Spetsnaz! Could it be they had failed to stay out of sight? What if some member of the expedition had the bad luck to stumble over their encampment? If the platoon leader was some kind of bloody-minded cowboy, he might view that as justification to “sterilize” the expedition in the name of security.

Unfortunately, a bloody-minded cowboy would be exactly the kind of commander the Federation High Command would send on a job like this!

They hadn’t even set foot on the island yet, and things were already spinning out of control! If the science expedition had been wiped out, then it would follow that Smith’s team would be eliminated as well. His team! People he liked and respected.

Madness!

“What’s your assessment of the situation, Major?” Smith asked, his voice emotionless.

Smyslov shoved emotion aside as well. “We must assume that some hostile force has succeeded in landing on Wednesday, presumably the same group that attempted to prevent us from reaching the island. We must also assume that they assume the anthrax store is still aboard the Misha 124 and they are intent on capturing it.”

Smith studied the Russian for a further moment before answering. “That’s likely a fair call.” He widened his attention to include the others in the radio shack. “Now, what are we going to do about it?”

“It seems to me that the most immediate problem is, what do we do about her?” Captain Jorganson nodded toward the radio.

It was an excellent point. What do you do about one frightened young woman alone in the dark and as isolated as anyone on the planet could be?

Smith keyed the mike again. “Ms. Brown, a twelve-gauge shotgun is listed as part of your camp equipment. What’s happened to it? Over.”

“The bear gun? The search party took it with them. Why? Over.”

“Are there any other weapons in camp? Over.”

“No. Why?

“We’re…assessing the situation, Ms. Brown. Stand by.”

Smith lifted the mike key and waited for someone, anyone, to say something.

“Get her out of there, Jon!” Randi blurted. “Tell her to grab a sleeping bag and get out! Tell her what’s going on and tell her to hide somewhere until we can get to her!”

“No,” Valentina cut in sharply. “Tell her to stay put beside that radio.”

“Those buildings are meant to keep out weather, not people!” Randi protested. “If we have hostiles on that island and they come for her…”

“If we have hostiles on that island, Miss Russell, then they’ve got her whenever they want her.” The historian’s reply was as bleak and gray as her eyes. “It’s a safe assumption they have the science station covered by now. If they see her trying to run for it, she won’t make it ten yards. But if we keep her by the radio, she might serve as an intelligence source. There’s a chance she can get off a call when they come for her. She might be able to give us some idea of what we’re facing.”

“So you’re considering her expendable,” Randi said bitterly.

Valentina shook her head. “No,” she replied softly. “I consider Ms. Brown already expended.”

Randi fell silent.

Throughout this last exchange, Smith had been studying the Russian member of his team from the corner of his eye. “How about you, Major? Anything more to add?”

Smyslov fumbled a Chesterfield from a crumpled pack and flicked fire from his butane lighter. “No, Colonel,” he said, hissing out his first jet of smoke. “I have no suggestions.”

“CGAH, this is KGWI,” the static-riven voice called plaintively from out in the dark. “I am still standing by.”

Smith keyed the radio mike. “Ms. Brown, this is Colonel Smith again. As I said, we’ll be joining you shortly after first light tomorrow morning. We’d like for you to stand by the radio until we can get there. We’ll be guarding this frequency continuously, and we’ll be making check calls every fifteen minutes through the night. If you hear from the other members of your expedition, or if you hear or see anything unusual, you are to call us immediately. I say again, call us immediately. Do you understand? Over.”

“Yes, Colonel. I understand…Colonel, there’s something more going on, isn’t there? They aren’t just lost, are they?”

What could he tell her that could provide the least little bit of help or comfort? “We’ll explain everything when we get there, Ms. Brown. We’ll find your people and we’ll get this sorted out. You aren’t alone. We will get to you. This is CGAH, standing by.”

“Understood.” The voice at the other end of the circuit tried to sound brave. “This is KGWI, standing by.”

Smith passed the hand mike back to the radioman. “Sit on that frequency, sailor. You heard me say check calls every fifteen minutes. If anyone so much as pops a mike button, I want to know about it.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the Coast Guardsman replied, resettling his headset.

“Captain Jorganson, we need every mile you can gain toward Wednesday Island before first light.”

“You’ll get it, Colonel,” the Haley’s skipper replied. “I’ll be on the bridge if you need me.”

“I’ll be in the hangar bay preflighting the helicopter,” Randi said shortly, starting for the radio room door.

“I will assist you, Randi,” Smyslov said, following her out.

Smith gave a minute, self-derisive shake of his head. To hell with it! It was inevitable that he would end up a son of a bitch in Randi Russell’s eyes.

“Val, we’re going to break cover, and I’m pushing the job of explaining the situation to Dr. Trowbridge onto you. I’ve got to get on with the director. He’s going to need an update.”

“Don’t worry about my fellow academic. I can take care of him.” The tall brunette regarded Smith and smiled, without humor but with empathy. “Driving the bloody train isn’t the easiest of jobs, is it, Colonel?”

Smith forced the last hint of expression from his face. “I’ve been told it’s good for me, Professor.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Washington, DC

It was an ordered and lonely upper-middle-class man’s bedroom in an unobtrusive town house in a quietly respectable Washington suburb. Totally unexceptional save for the bank of color-coded telephones on the Danish modern bedside table.

The piercing squall of the gray agency phone blasted Fred Klein awake, the integral lighting circuit kicking on the golden-shaded bedside lamp at the first ring. Klein had the phone in hand before he was technically awake.

“Klein here.”

The voice at the other end of the line was hollow with distance and laced with static. “This is Jon Smith, sir, aboard the Haley. We have a situation.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Klein listened without speaking as Smith brought him up to speed in a few terse sentences.

“From what I can see, sir, somebody else has gotten there first and is moving to secure the Misha’s payload.”

“If they have, they must have come in by air or by submarine, and they are very good at maintaining a low profile,” Klein replied. “The last NSA reconsat pass over the Queen Elizabeth Archipelago indicates there are no other surface ships within five hundred miles of Wednesday and no visible activity on the island itself.”

“Understood, sir. The second possibility is that we are seeing some aspect of the Russians ‘alternative agenda’ coming into play.”

“Do you have any idea what it could be yet?” Klein questioned. “We’re not showing anything from this end.”

“I’m not sure, sir, but I’m getting odd vibes off Major Smyslov,” Smith replied. “I suspect he’s either lying about something or he’s not giving us the full story.”

“Do you consider Smyslov a mission risk, Jon?”

There was a space of dead air. “Potentially, yes. However I’m also keeping him with the team. He seems like a good officer and decent guy, and to date he has been an asset. He also seems to be giving off mixed signals. If we do have an alternate game plan in play, I don’t think he’s happy about it. Properly managed, he may continue to be an asset.”

“Watch your back with him, Jon. The decent guys are the ones who can kill you the easiest.”

“Understood, sir. I am taking appropriate precautions.”

Klein rubbed the last of the sleep grit from his eyes and fumbled for his glasses on the lamp table. “What are your intentions at this time?”

“To continue the operation as projected, sir. We will be landing on Wednesday at first light tomorrow.”

“Under the circumstances, do you consider that prudent, Jon? We’ve currently got that arctic ranger platoon and a RAID biowar containment team standing by at Eielson Air Force Base, along with a couple of Air Commando Ospreys and an MC-130 tanker to lift them in with. We can commit them in support.”

“No, sir, not at this time.” The reply was decisive. “I’m not ready for them. If the intent of this mission is to prevent an international incident, we can’t go completely overt yet. We don’t know enough to make the call.

“Maybe the anthrax is still aboard the Misha 124 or maybe it isn’t,” Smith continued. “Maybe we have hostiles on Wednesday or maybe the search party is just stuck on a glacier with a busted radio waiting for daylight to extract themselves. We don’t know. But there is one thing we can say for certain. If we go in with foot, horse, and artillery now, the operation will be blown beyond all recall. Any potential for controlling the situation will be gone. It will become almost impossible to keep this from going public.”

In spite of himself Klein chuckled dryly. “I’m supposed to be making that speech, Jon. But what happens if you land on Wednesday and we do have hostiles present, and in force?”

“Well, sir, we’ll drop off the scope and then you’ll know for certain.” Klein could see the faint, wry smile that would go with the words. “Mission accomplished.”

“Carry on, Jon, and good luck.”

“We’ll keep you advised, sir.”

The link broke. Klein returned the gray phone to its cradle and picked up the yellow one next to it, the direct link to the armed men in the small security and communications center in the town house basement.

“Please have my car and the launch standing by. I will be moving to headquarters. Then give me five minutes and put me through to the National Command Authority.”

The director of Covert One rose and started to dress.