The Arctic Event

Chapter Fifty

Wednesday Island Station

“Jon, look!” Randi exclaimed, pointing. “They didn’t torch the copter!”

From their position atop the antenna knoll they could look down on the ruins of the science station. All three of the prefab huts were in flames, but beyond the camp, at the helipad site, the Long Ranger sat apparently intact under its protective shroud of snow-covered tarpaulins.

Smith kicked free of his snowshoes and unslung the SR-25. “If they didn’t wreck it some other way we may still be in business. Let’s go, but keep your eyes open for any stay-behinds.”

Weapons readied, they dropped down off the hill to the station area. The low-lying smoke stank of burning plastic and hot metal, and there was a faint tinge of roasting pork to it that all three recognized but none commented on.

It took only a few moments of wary inspection to prove that the station’s ruins were deserted. “They’ve pulled out,” Randi commented, lowering Valentina’s rifle, “bag and baggage.”

“They must have bolted when they heard the firefight. They realized more was going down around here than they’d figured.” Smith looked across at her. “How about it, Randi? What are the chances they’re aborting?”

She shook her head. “I think the guy running this show, Kretek, would be willing to risk everything at this point but the anthrax. I think he’s operating in bull-in-the-china-shop mode now. He’s going for it.”

“Then so do we. Let’s look at the copter.”

They had to circle wide around the blazing lab hut. As they did so Smith almost tripped over a form half-buried in the snow.

“Ah, hell!”

It was the body of Professor Trowbridge, casually kicked aside out of the camp walkways and frozen solid in an undignified sprawl. Smith was glad the previous night’s snowfall had encrusted the dead man’s face so that he didn’t have to look down into Trowbridge’s accusing eyes.

“I’m sorry, Jon,” Randi spoke quietly, coming to stand beside him. “I kind of made a hash of things here.”

“It’s not your fault. I set up the situation. I let him come with us.”

The final lesson, Sarge. When you command, you don’t just live with your decisions for today, but forever.

“He asked to come, Jon,” she said, looking at the still form, “and it was his call to make. None of us knew what was waiting for us here.”

“I guess that’s true enough.” He glanced at her, a grim half-smile crossing his face. “Does it make you feel any better?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

They moved on.

When they reached the helipad, they found only a single set of tracks leading up to the Long Ranger through the fresh snow. They also found an ugly brick-sized package strapped around one landing gear strut with electrician’s tape. Smith and Smyslov froze when they saw it, but Randi dropped to her knees beside the float, intently examining the charge. “It’s plastique,” she reported after a moment, “and it hasn’t been fused. Let me have a knife, please.”

Smith passed her his bayonet. “They were probably interrupted by the firefight.”

She carefully cut through the tape binding the charge to the helicopter. Standing, she pitched the explosives as far beyond the wind berm as she could. “It stands to reason that if they were going to blow up the Ranger they wouldn’t bother with sabotaging it as well.”

“That’ll be for you and the major to check out.” Smith looked back toward the burning camp. Where in the hell was Val? After she finished her decoy run she was supposed to rejoin. “How long will it take for you to get this ship airworthy?”

Randi frowned and brushed back her parka hood. “It’s been sitting out here cold-soaking for two days. The book says at least two hours for warm-up, prep, and preflight in this kind of environment.”

“The book doesn’t exist on this island.”

“Right. I’ll see what I can do. Major, help me get the tarps and engine covers off.”

Smith twisted the handle on the Long Ranger’s side hatch. Sliding it open, he peered inside the cabin. Everything looked intact and as they had left it, including the big aluminum case of lab equipment they had left strapped to the deck. A fat lot of good that had done them.

He unslung his pack and swung it into the cabin, laying Valentina’s model 70 beside it. The sight of the rifle reminded him again of the weapon’s owner.

She’d been so sure she could pull off an escape and evasion on her own. What if she’d been wrong? Smith felt his guts knot. He didn’t want her to become another of those failed things he’d have to live with.

“Colonel, look!” Smyslov threw aside one of the engine covers and pointed. A small figure had appeared beyond the burning huts, coming around the knoll and running-no, staggering-along the shoreline trail. Smith caught up his own rifle and ran to meet her, Smyslov following a few steps behind.

They intercepted her just short of the huts. “Are you all right?” Smith demanded as Valentina half-collapsed in the curve of his arm.

“Fine,” she gulped and wheezed, bracing her hands against her knees. “Just winded…but we have…complications, Jon…Complications.”

“What’s happening?”

She forced herself erect, still panting from her sprint. “Our arranged mutual ambush worked magnificently…almost a draw. I hung back to tidy up and maybe acquire a spare weapon or two…but I was…interrupted…and had to take off.”

“By?”

“The other section of the Spetsnaz force. There were only six taken out in the firefight with the smugglers. Four more are coming in behind me, and I strongly suspect they are not pleased with current events.”

“Did they spot you?” Smith demanded.

“Not sure. Maybe.”

“How long do we have?”

“They stopped to check their dead. I think we’ve got about ten minutes.”

“Christ! Now they show up!” Smith paused to rub his aching eyes, wondering if he’d ever not be tired again. “All right. Major, you and Randi have got to get that helicopter ready to fly. Val, your rifle’s back at the Ranger. I want you to cover the helipad approaches from there. I’ll stay here and put the trail under fire.”

Valentina swiped a sweat-damp lock of hair back from her brow. “Jon, these fellows likely know the old German infantry trick of maintaining the unit firebase. The survivors will swap out their assault rifles for the squad automatic weapons taken from their dead. They may have lost seventy percent of their platoon manpower, but they’ll still possess eighty percent of their firepower.”

“That’s why I’d like that helicopter ready before they get here.”

“Jon, we are talking about three bloody machine guns!”

“That’s a given, Val. Get going!”

“Colonel,” Smyslov said slowly. “May I suggest an alternative?”

“I’ll be happy to consider one, Major.”

“Let me go out to meet them. Let me order them to stand down.”

Smith’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said you didn’t have the authority for that.”

“I don’t, but I can try. Maybe I can reason with them”-Smyslov shrugged and gave his wry grin-“or maybe just bullshit them. Even if I fail, maybe I can buy you and the ladies enough time to get out of here.”

“Those Spetsnaz might not be too pleased with you at the moment, either, Major.”

The Russian’s face went sober again. “I suspect my entire government is not too pleased with me at the moment, Colonel, but we must stop Kretek from getting that anthrax. And maybe, this way, no more Russian soldiers will have to die.”

Smith hesitated. Now was no time to stop trusting. “Val, you help Randi with the helicopter. I’ll fall back and join you when you start engines. If I do not rejoin by the time you’re ready to take off, take off anyway. That’s an order! Your absolute priority will be to report the situation here on Wednesday Island. After that, act as you see fit. Go!”

She gave him a beseeching look but strangled down her protest. Obediently she dashed off toward the helipad.

Smith turned back to Smyslov. “Good luck, Major. I hope you’re a silver-tongued devil today.”

“I shall try to be, sir.” He drew Smith’s sidearm from his pocket and handed it back. “If I am not, you may have more use for this than I.”

Smyslov took a step back and came to attention, his European-style heel click muffled by the snow as his hand whipped up in a precise salute. “Colonel Smith, may I say it has been a privilege serving under your command.”

Smith’s rigid fingertips touched his brow in the response. “Anytime, anywhere, Major. The privilege has been mine.”

Randi fought back a momentary surge of dizziness as she leaned into the engine compartment. The mental haze of the previous night threatened a return, and she fought to stay focused on tightening the knobs of the battery reconnects.

On the voyage north she had come to know this Long Ranger intimately, and she knew that it had been “polarized” by its leasing company to the best extent possible. All the gaskets and seals were cold-resistant plastics and composites. The lubricants were arctic environment multiviscosity synthetics. The fuel had been heavily laced with an antijelling agent, and the batteries were all ultraheavy-duty, deep-charge gel packs, the best on the market.

But it wasn’t enough.

The little aircraft’s power train and controls should be warmed inside a heating tent for several hours to bring them back up to a decent operating temperature, and the batteries freshened by a quick charger.

But the tent, heaters, and charger were burning in the supply hut, and there would have been no time for them anyway.

She took a final checking look around the interior of the battery compartment, then slammed the outside door, forcing herself to take deliberate care with each of the dzus fasteners.

Light running footsteps came around from the far side of the helicopter, and Valentina Metrace appeared.

“What’s happening?” Randi demanded.

“The last batch of Spetsnaz are coming in. Maybe five minutes. Gregori’s gone out to chat them up, but I don’t think it’s going to work. Jon’s gone all self-sacrificial on us and is preparing to do his Horatio-at-the-bridge number. We are under orders to get this ridiculous contrivance running now!”

The sickness welling up within Randi didn’t all have to do with her recent bout of exposure. She swallowed the mouthful of chill saliva and forced her mind back to clarity. “Okay, do a walk-around. Drag those tarps farther way and make sure there are no foreign objects near us that could get sucked into the intakes.”

“Right.” There was no time for either of them to be fearful or concerned, or at least to admit to it.

Randi ran around to the pilot’s door and hauled herself up into the cockpit, the frozen leather of the seat biting into her thighs. She propped the preflight checklist against the windscreen; she didn’t dare to trust her memory. Then she hit the main switches. Behind the frost-hazed glass lenses, instrument needles stirred and lifted sluggishly.

There would be three crises to surmount. First, there must be enough power left in the batteries to force the cold engines to crank up and start. The second would come at the moment of ignition, when the frozen, brittle components of the propulsion train would either spin up to speed or fracture and explode.

The third and final crisis would occur after liftoff, when the helicopter’s flight controls would either work or fail, throwing them out of the sky.

And they would have only one chance at each.

Lieutenant Pavel Tomashenko moved with the steady, ground-devouring trot of the Zulu warrior or Special Forces soldier, his AK-74 cradled across his chest. His eyes scanned ahead, like an automated radar tracking system seeking for the next ambush. The rest of his mentality was lost in rage.

Even he was willing to admit to his failure as an officer and soldier. Again he had allowed his men to walk into a trap. The bulk of his command had been wiped out, and he had not even been near the fight. He was finished. He could expect nothing but disgrace and a court-martial. Better by far at least to die with his jaws locked in the throat of the enemies who had shamed him.

Burdened by the heavy RPK squad automatic weapons and their loads of ammunition, the two men of the demolitions team and the platoon radioman trotted behind him, stolidly unquestioning. They were Spetsnaz.

Ahead, Tomashenko saw the smoke of burning buildings rising from the area of the science station. He did not know what might be happening there. Nor did he know the identities of the strange body of armed men who had wiped out and been almost wiped out by his own advance scouting force. Nor did he know where they had come from. But through his binoculars Tomashenko had seen the last enemy survivor fleeing in this direction.

As they rounded the hill with the radio mast at its top, Tomashenko slowed their advance to a stalking walk, dispersing his remaining men with silent curt gestures. The science station’s huts were blazing, thick streamers of dark smoke smearing into the chill blue of the sky.

And from the base of the smoke plumes a man walked in their direction, his hands lifted shoulder high.

Tomashenko lifted his own hand, halting the advance. Shifting the strap of his assault rifle so it rode leveled at his waist, the Spetsnaz commander waited, his hand curled around the AK’s trigger group. To the right and left, his troopers went prone, hunching into the snow, their bipodded weapons aimed.

The man with the lifted hands met them about a hundred yards out from the burning station. The hood of his parka was thrown back, and blond hair could be seen. Tomashenko recognized him from the photographs he had been shown. It was Smyslov, the Air Force officer who supposedly was subverting the operations of the American intelligence group from within. The man who should have been dead by now. Tomashenko’s eyes glittered as they narrowed.

Smyslov came within ten feet and dropped his hands. “I am Major Gregori Smyslov of the Russian Federation Air Force,” he stated crisply. “You will have been briefed about my presence. And you are?”

“Lieutenant Pavel Tomashenko of the Naval Infantry Special Forces. I was briefed about you, Major. I am pleased you have escaped.”

“It is not a matter of escape, Lieutenant,” the Air Force officer replied. “The parameters of this mission have changed, and your original orders concerning the American intelligence party are no longer relevant.”

“I have received no instructions from my superiors concerning this.”

“Our superiors are not aware of the true situation here. As the senior officer present I am changing your orders on my own authority, Lieutenant. You will break off this operation immediately. I will accompany you back to your submarine, where I will make my report and see that your orders are updated.”

“Major, my orders concerning the American intelligence team came from the highest possible national authority. As you should be aware, they have placed critical state secrets at risk. They are to be stopped at all costs.”

“And I said, those orders are no longer relevant, Lieutenant!” Smyslov took another step forward. “You will not, I repeat, not interfere further with the Americans. You and your men will return to the submarine.”

Tomashenko’s voice cracked. “They’ve killed my men!”

“The incident at the crash site was…regrettable,” Smyslove replied, continuing his advance. “As for the fight that has just occurred, you may rest assured that your men fell honorably in battle with the enemies, the true enemies, of Russia.”

“I have some question as to just who our true enemies are, Major.” Tomashenko spat out Smyslov’s rank.

“As you should, Lieutenant.” Smyslov’s green eyes bored into his. “Now, stand down your men and I will tell you.”

“No, Major. I will obey my standing orders and deal with the Americans! Then I will communicate with my superiors about a number of things, including treason!”

“I’m sure it will be a very interesting discussion, Lieutenant. But for now you will obey my orders and stand down!” Smyslov extended his hand to straight-arm the Spetsnaz trooper. Tomashenko’s finger, already curled around the trigger of his slung assault rifle, tightened. The AK-74 crashed out a single shot.

Major Gregori Smyslov buckled and fell unmoving to the snow of Wednesday Island.

The Spetsnaz officer had no more than a second or two to look down in triumph at the body of the fallen man. Then the numbing shock arrived a moment before the sound of the second, distant gunshot. Tomashenko looked down to find a palm-sized spray of scarlet in the center of his chest. Oddly enough, his last sensation before the blackness took him was one of great relief. He would never have to answer for failing the Motherland.

A hundred yards away, kneeling in the trail rut beside the bunkhouse, Jon Smith lowered the smoking SR-25 and swore in bitter futility at governments, secrets, and lies. Then he threw himself flat as a bullet stream kicked up a line of snow jets beside the trail.

More slugs snapped low over his head as a second squad automatic opened up, raking his position. Dragging his rifle behind him, he hunched backward down the trail a few yards, pressing low in the meager shelter of the compacted snow. Coming up onto his knees again, he spotted the movement of a Spetsnaz trooper crawling toward the station. Smith squeezed off two hasty shots before the covering gunners shifted fire to his new position.

Smith recognized a losing scenario when he saw one. The battery of light machine guns he faced could simply throw too much lead too fast. By using alternating overwatch fire, the Russians could keep him pinned while they worked around to a kill position on his flanks. It was only a matter of time.

Gregori Smyslov had traded his life for a few precious minutes of that commodity. Now it was his turn. He had to keep fire off the helicopter. He had to protract his death long enough to give Val and Randi their chance.

The two women heard the sudden hammer crash of gunfire beyond the station.

“Randi?”

“Get in!”

As Valentina threw herself on the deck behind the pilots’ seats, Randi ran a final eye over the cockpit instrumentation. She didn’t like what she saw, especially the battery rates. But nothing was going to get any better. She set her throttle position and energized the starter.

Overhead, in the power pack, the turbines sluggishly started their spin-up against the drag and inertia of cold metal. Slowly a rotor blade swung past, too slowly. Randi willed the tachometer needles upward into the green ignition zone. The battery amperage flickered ominously as the drain grew.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” She got off the starter before the final dregs of battery power bled away.

Valentina thrust her head and shoulders over the pilot’s seat. “Miss Russell, as the saying goes, failure is not an option here!”

“I know, damn it! Let me think!”

There had to be something! But it wouldn’t be anything in the book. The book said it was impossible to get airborne under these circumstances. The book said they were all going to die on the ground. It would have to be something else. An anecdote read once about a peculiarity of the Bell Ranger family of helicopters. What had it been? What had it been?

“Spin the tail rotor!” Randi screeched.

“What?”

“Spin the tail rotor by hand while I crank it! It’s connected through a direct driveshaft to the transmission. It’ll take some of the load off the starter motor!”

“What the bloody ever!” Valentina called back, scrambling out of the open side hatch.

In the cockpit sideview mirror Randi watched as Valentina positioned herself at the end of the fuselage boom, hands braced on the small, vertically mounted blade of the tail rotor.

“Ready!” the historian called.

“Right! Cranking now!”

Once more the starter whined. As the tail rotor began to spin, Valentina shoved down on it with all her weight, kicking it around. Shifting her grip, she repeated the move again and again. As the RPMs climbed she began to ride the blades single-handed, adding her strength to the electric starter.

In the cockpit Randi watched the tachometers as Valentina’s efforts were magnified by the transmission gearing. The needle edged upward, not quite to ignition range. Not quite. Not quite. The ammeter needles began to quiver.

“Get clear!” she screamed. “Get clear!” That was as good as it was going to get.

Randi saw Valentina throw herself backward and out of the way, and she shoved the starter switch into the ignition detente. Flame flickered in the engine throats. A soft, rising vacuum cleaner moan supplanted the starter whine, and the engine temperature gauges snapped to attention.

“Yes!” Randi twisted the throttle grip on the collective, and the turbines screamed in response, the main rotor blurring into its thudding beat, the Long Ranger coming to life.

Laughing, Valentina scrambled back into the cabin. Throwing her arms around the pilot’s seat, she administered a gleeful hug.

“What were Jon’s orders?” Randi yelled over her shoulder.

“Oh, he said a lot of things! Let’s go fetch him!”

Smith felt the contrast of the heat beating on his back, and the cold beneath his belly. He’d gone prone beside the flaming frame of the bunk hut, using the swirling smoke for cover. Two of the surviving Spetsnaz were still out ahead of him somewhere, firing short, economical bursts. The third was off to his right at about two o’clock and still working steadily around to an enfilade position. Soon the third man would be in position to lay down suppressive fire, and the first two men could start working in.

Rolling onto his side, Smith squeezed off half a dozen rounds offhand toward the third man, emptying the magazine and driving the Russian to ground momentarily. Snaking back a couple of yards, he found another shallow depression in the snow and reloaded.

This was getting nasty. In another minute he was going to have to fall back to the lab hut, and the smoke cover would start working in favor of the Spetsnaz.

In an action movie this would be an excellent time for the relief force to come thundering over the horizon. But Smith didn’t believe in Hollywood anymore. Incrementally he lifted his head and peered around, judging his terrain. No, on second thought, he wouldn’t fall back any farther. If the Russians reached the first hut, they’d have a line of sight and fire on the helipad. He’d make his stand here.

It was interesting, he noted, how abstractly a person could decide on his dying ground. The scientist and diagnostician within him said it was due merely to the numbing effect of shock and emotional overload. Psychologically, he was not actually comprehending the concept of his own death.

The romantic and the soldier counterpointed that one man’s life really wasn’t that important in the greater scheme of the world, and if it could be expended in the saving of things and people one cared about, the spending was not so bitter.

Behind him he heard the rising metallic whistle of a helicopter’s engines. Good girl, Randi, you always manage. That bastard out at two o’clock would have the best angle of fire on a departing copter, so Smith nestled his cheek against the chill stock of the SR-25. Laying the sighting crosshairs on the knob of snow the Russian was crouching behind, he started knocking chunks off it.

The whine of the turbines intermixed with the drone of lifting rotors. That was it. His people were out of it and clear.

And then Smith realized the drone wasn’t drawing away; it was coming closer. He twisted around and bellowed an incoherent curse.

Hovering in ground effect at a mere ten feet altitude, the Long Ranger was sidling in over the station, snow and smoke swirling in the lift wash. A slender gun barrel protruded from the open side hatch, the venomous crack of Valentina’s Winchester echoing as she put fire in on the Spetsnaz positions.

To rage, hesitate, or even think would see them all dead. One end of the laboratory building was not yet fully involved; its roof not yet burning. Scrambling to his feet, Smith backed toward the lab hut, emptying the SR-25’s magazine, not hoping to hit, but just to keep hostile heads down for a few critical seconds.

The bolt slammed on an empty chamber, and he turned and sprinted the last few yards. He threw his rifle at the rooftop, swearing again as it rebounded and skidded off. There was no time to fool with it. He vaulted for the roof edge, straight-arming himself onto the unburned section. It proved to be not nearly as stable as it had looked, and flame licked at him.

Randi had him spotted, and the Long Ranger moved in, easing past the wind turbine tower, the starboard pontoon pushing closer through the smoke.

Wind-whipped embers seared Smith’s face and charred his clothing. He sprang again, throwing his arms over the top of the float, the helicopter bobbling wildly as his weight came aboard. Squad automatic fire tore into the compressed foam beside him. “Go! Go! G-” His yell strangled off as Valentina grabbed the hood of his parka, heaving furiously to drag him in through the hatch.

Centrifugal force swung his legs out as Randi pivoted the Long Ranger around its rotor mast, putting its tail to the enemy. The nose dipped as she firewalled the throttles, powering away from the firefight.

Smith got a leg up on the float and lunged into the helicopter’s cabin, collapsing on the deck. Valentina collapsed next to him, glaring.

“Don’t start about us coming back for you, Jon!” she yelled over the growing wind roar. “Just don’t even bloody start!”

The last two members of the Spetsnaz platoon, the radio operator and the junior demolitions man, watched the small orange helicopter buzz away over the central ridge. The senior demo man had died spectacularly in the last moments of the fight. Standing to fire at the aircraft, his head had exploded like a bursting balloon, struck by a bullet traveling at some ungodly velocity.

There was nothing to be done for him, and the pair of survivors were unsure of what they could do for themselves. At the moment they were among the most helpless of men: Russian soldiers without an officer to give them orders. They exchanged a few quiet words in their native Yakut tongue; then they started to trudge back toward the dead body of Lieutenant Tomashenko and the stranger he had shot down.

The stone- and snow-streaked flanks of the central ridge wheeled past below the Long Ranger. Randi’s hands hurt, but she could cope with it. Far more importantly, in the face of the cold start and the gunfire, all the instrument gauges were where they were supposed to be.

“How does it look?” Smith said, pulling himself up between the pilot seats.

“It looks like Bell builds a pretty good helicopter. Where do you want me to head, Jon?”

“The Misha crash site, as fast as you can get us there.”

“We’re on the way. What are we going to do when we get there?”

There was no sense in not telling her the truth. “I have no idea, Randi. We’re going to have to see what we’ve got and how it plays.”

Valentina pulled herself up beside him. “What happened to Gregori?”

Smith hated the sound of his own voice, cold and flat. “His own people shot him.”

“God, and I wanted to kill him myself once.” Valentina rested her forehead on the back of the pilot’s seat. When she straightened her voice had gone cold as well. “Once we’ve sorted out that lot at the crash site, I’d like to go back there and tidy up a few things.”

“You don’t have to. The issue has been dealt with.”

The Long Ranger swept around West Peak, and the jagged slopes fell away to the dirty gray white of the glacier.

“Stay high, Randi. We may have guns down there.”

“Understood. It should be right over on the far side of the saddleback, shouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, we should be over it in another second.”

And then they were.

“You bastards!” Valentina screamed in helpless rage, smashing her fists down on the cabin deck. “You filthy, stinking bastards!”

The scattered ruins of the Misha 124 lay on the ice below. The entire forward fuselage of the ancient bomber had been ripped open, first by shaped explosive charges and then by the enormous lift and leverage of Kretek’s flying crane. Chunks of aircraft skin and bulkheading lay scattered like discarded Christmas wrappings, and they could look down into the TU-4’s forward bomb bay.

The bioagent reservoir was gone, lifted out of the wreck like an egg out of a crumpled aluminum nest.

Randi let the Long Ranger slip into a hover over the crash site. “Oh, God, he’s got it!” she exclaimed, her voice despairing.

Two metric tons of weaponized anthrax. Half a continent’s worth of death in the hands of a man who cared less than nothing for human life.

Smith looked away from the crash site and toward the south, toward the threatened world, and in the distance he caught the faint repetitive flicker of rotors in the sunlight.