Ice Hunt Read online

  The wide lake of the polynya had turned into a roiling and hellish pool. Fires burned onshore. The edges of the lake were shattered. Steam flowed into the snowy blizzard, masking and shrouding the bulk of the sinking submarine. It foundered in the lake, vertical in the water, only its nose visible—and even this was sinking rapidly.

  Kanter spotted a pair of Russian sailors bob up in the lake, struggling to keep their heads above water. They wore orange float suits. Evacuees, attempting to escape. It did them no good. A depth charge landed a yard from them. It blew, casting their shattered and broken forms through the air to smash against both ice and their own boat.

  There would be no escape.

  Farther out, the Sikorsky helibus circled the hovering Seahawk. It had dropped the remaining team members and awaited further orders. Somewhere Delta One was organizing ground forces to retake the U.S. research base.

  But Kanter’s attention remained on the polynya.

  The majesty of the attack was breathtaking, a symphony of ice, fire, water, and smoke. He felt each explosion down to his bones, becoming a physical part of the attack himself.

  Kanter had never been prouder than at this moment.

  Then he spotted movement on the flank of the dying sub.

  3:06 P.M.

  ABOARD THE DRAKON

  Mikovsky was strapped in a seat, as were most of the key bridge crew, trying to keep some semblance of order. Their boat was dead: compartments crushed, flooding everywhere, engines almost gone. Smoke choked through the bridge, making it difficult to think, to see. The explosions deafened them. The bridge crew wore emergency air-breathing masks, but such meager safety devices would not save them—only allow them one last act of revenge.

  “Message relayed through digital shortwave!” the radioman yelled from the neighboring communication shack, half his face burned by an electrical fire he had managed to put out. His words sounded as if they came from down a long tunnel, hollow and whispery.

  Mikovsky glanced to his weapons officer. He got the nod he wanted. They could not carry on proper protocol, but communication was still intact. His weapons officer confirmed the fire control solution and target fix—one unlike any calculated before.

  Their vessel might be doomed, but they weren’t dead.

  The Drakon carried a full complement of two-hundred-knot Shkval torpedoes, SS-N-16 antisubmarine missiles, and one pair of UGST rocket torpedoes. This last pair were the latest in Russian design, powered by a liquid monopropellant with its own oxidizer. They were mounted in special flank tubes that deployed by pushing out from the sides of the boat. It had been an accident in such a deployment that had led to the Kursk tragedy back in 2000, a mishandling that led to the loss of all aboard.

  There was no mishandling today.

  He got the nod that the starboard UGST rocket tube was flooded and ready, target locked. All that remained was one word from him.

  The last word he would ever speak.

  “Fire!”

  3:07 P.M.

  USS POLAR SENTINEL

  “I’m reading a weapons launch!” the sonar chief yelled, jerking to his feet. “Torpedo in the water!”

  Perry started toward the man. “Target?”

  The Polar Sentinel was in full retreat from the hot zone. The bombardment of depth charges threatened his own boat. The cap of ice overhead trapped the concussive waves from the explosions, radiating them outward under the ice. Like dropping a cherry bomb down a toilet.

  But as the Sentinel fled, Perry kept tabs on the Russian sub. He was taking no chances.

  “Target does not appear to be us,” the sonar chief said.

  “Then who?”

  3:07 P.M.

  OUTSIDE OMEGA DRIFT STATION

  Frantic, Master Sergeant Kanter tried to raise Delta One. He needed to get the warning out.

  “Delta One, here.”

  Kanter still wore his subvocal microphone—where the barest whisper could be heard—but now he yelled. “Sir, you have to tell the Seahawk—”

  He was too late. From his vantage on top of the ice ridge, Kanter saw a blast of fire ignite below the churning waterline of the foundering submarine. From the flank side of its drowned bulk, a lance of gray metal burst out of the water, leaping into the air.

  The missile rocketed skyward, aimed dead center on the Seahawk helicopter hovering overhead. It was impossible for the craft to get out of the way in time.

  “Christ!” Delta One screamed in his ear, spotting the danger.

  The torpedo struck the helicopter. It seemed for a moment to spear completely through the Seahawk, an arrow piercing its target.

  Kanter held his breath.

  Then the rotors slammed into the thrusted tip of the torpedo rocket. The blast—accentuated by the two remaining depth-charge drums still attached to the helicopter’s undercarriage—shattered outward in a ball of metal and flame.

  Kanter dove behind his ridgeline, seeking shelter from the rain of oil and steel, covering his head. Through the noise of the explosion, he heard the telltale whup-whup of another chopper.

  He glanced back over a shoulder.

  The remaining helicopter, the Sikorsky helibus, raced overhead. Kanter saw it pelted with flaming debris, cutting right through the craft. A section of the Seahawk’s broken rotor flipped end over end and crashed into the forward crew cabin. The helibus lurched over on its side, its blades chopping vertically at the air.

  Kanter struggled to his feet, but the slick ice and blowing winds betrayed him. He fell. He fought again, fingers digging at the sharp ice. The toes of his boots fought for purchase.

  He snapped a look up. The helibus plummeted toward him, spinning toward the crash, whipping around and around.

  It was impossible to get out of the way in time.

  Kanter simply rolled to his back. Staring skyward, he faced his death. “Shit…” He had nothing more profound to say and that bothered him more than anything.

  3:14 P.M.

  USS POLAR SENTINEL

  Perry listened as stations reported their status.

  He hardly heard, his mind still on what had just happened.

  Moments ago, the Drakon had sunk away and rolled into the deep ocean trench below, fading beyond crush depth. Perry had listened himself to the final bubbling as the Russian submarine gasped its last breath and was gone.

  But it had not died alone.

  Float ice is a great drum, transmitting sound to the waters below. Perry had heard it all happen. Then a helicopter had jammed into the cap, shattering through it. It had been visible through the periscope. The wreckage hung for a stretch, lit by the fires of its own oil and fuel. Then the surrounding ice melted from the heat of the conflagration and released its hold. The twisted wreckage sank into the sea, chasing the Drakon down into the depths.

  Now all had gone dead quiet.

  Perry kept his own boat running silent, patrolling the waters.

  What the hell was going on? Cut off from the world, he was unsure what to do next. Should they surface and attempt to contact those who’d taken out the Russians? Was it indeed a Delta Force team or could it be a third combatant? And what about the Russian ice station? Was it still commandeered by a team of Russian ground forces?

  “Sir?” Lieutenant Liang was staring at him. “Do we prepare to surface?”

  That was the most logical next step—but Perry held off.

  A submarine was at its most effective when no one knew it was there, and he wasn’t ready to give up that advantage. He slowly shook his head. “Not yet, Lieutenant, not yet…”

  3:22 P.M.

  PACIFIC SUBMARINE COMMAND

  PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

  Admiral Kent Reynolds strode through the foot-thick steel blast doors of the command’s flag plot room. Already in the cavernous room were his handpicked team, experts in their fields called in last night, most buzzed from their beds and set to work here.

  The heavy door shut behind him, the locks engaging.

&nbs
p; In the center of the room stretched a long conference table, constructed of polished native koa wood, a true Hawaiian treasure in rich, dark hues—not that any of the table’s handsome surface could be seen through the piles of loose papers, books, folders, charts, and laptop computers.

  Around the table, his team of communication, intelligence, and Russian experts worked singly and in small groups. Their voices were hushed, keeping private their conversations from one another. Even here, secrets were shared reluctantly among the factions gathered.

  A tall, gangly fellow stepped away from one of the backlit wall maps. He wore an Armani suit minus the jacket, shirtsleeves rolled up. It was Charles Landley of NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office. A good family friend, he was married to one of Reynolds’s nieces. He had been poring over a chart of the Arctic region, a map looking directly down upon the North Pole.

  He turned now, wearing a tired expression, no welcoming smile. “Admiral Reynolds, thank you for coming so quickly.”

  “What is it, Charlie?”

  Five minutes ago, Admiral Reynolds had been interrupted from a conference call with COMSUBLANT, his counterpart on the Atlantic coast, but Charles Landley wouldn’t have summoned him away unless it was urgent.

  “SOSUS has picked up a series of explosions.”

  “Where?” SOSUS was an ocean-based listening system of linked hydrophones. It could pick up a whale’s fart anywhere in the seven seas.

  Charlie stepped to the wall and tapped a spot on the map. “We believe with eighty-five percent probability that it was at the coordinates of the Omega Drift Station.”

  Admiral Reynolds had to take a deep breath. Fear for his daughter, Amanda, always present these last hours, flared to an ache behind his sternum. “Analysis?”

  “We believe it was a series of depth charges. We also detected signature bubbling of an imploding submarine.” Charlie lifted one eyebrow. “Prior to these strong detects, we also picked up what sounded like helicopter bell beats…but they were too weak to say for certain.”

  “A strike team?”

  Charlie nodded. “That is what current intel believes. Without pictures from the Big Bird recon satellite, we’re blind to what’s going on.”

  “How long until the spy platform is clear of the solar storm?”

  “At least another two hours. In fact, I believe that is why the Russians dragged their feet for two weeks after being leaked news of the Arctic discovery. They were waiting for this blackout window to open so they could proceed free of spying eyes.”

  “And the strike team that sank the sub?”

  “We’re still working on that data. It could be either a second Russian assault team—in which case, it was the Polar Sentinel that was sunk. Or it’s our Delta Force team, and the Drakon has been scuttled.”

  Admiral Reynolds allowed himself a moment of hope. “It has to be the Delta Force team. The word I’ve gleaned from Special Forces is that the Delta teams were deployed in advance of the Russian attack.”

  Charlie stared at him, eyes pinched, pained. The admiral braced himself for his friend’s next words. Something was wrong.

  “I’ve learned something else.” These words were spoken in hushed tones.

  Admiral Reynolds’s gaze flicked to the team gathering and collating data. Charlie had not shared whatever he had discovered with these others. The admiral sensed the next bit of news was the true reason he had been so urgently summoned. The throbbing behind his ribs grew more lancing.

  Charlie led him over to a side table under one of the maps. A titanium laptop rested atop it, floating the NRO icon over its flat-screen monitor. Charlie booted the laptop and typed in his security code. Once it was up and running, he opened a file that required him to place his thumb over a glowing print-reader to open.

  Stepping away, Charlie waved him forward.

  Admiral Reynolds leaned toward the screen. It was a Pentagon memo stamped top secret. It was dated over a week ago. The heading was in bold type: GRENDEL OP.

  Charlie shouldn’t have been able to access this file, but NRO moved within its own channels. Its organization had its fingers and eyes everywhere. His friend deliberately concentrated on the wall map of Asia. It had nothing to do with the current situation, but he kept his attention focused there anyway.

  Slipping a pair of reading glasses from a pocket, Admiral Reynolds leaned closer and read the message. It was three pages. The first section detailed what was known about the history of the Russian ice station. As he read, Admiral Reynolds found his vision blurring, as if his body were physically trying to deny what it was seeing. But there could be no doubt. The dates, the names, were all there.

  His gaze settled on the words human experimentation. It took him back to his father’s war stories, of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, of the atrocities committed within those dark halls.

  How could they…?

  Sickened, he continued to read. The last part of the report detailed the U.S. military’s response: the purpose, the objectives, the endgame scenarios. He read what was hidden at the ice station and the ultimate mission statement of Grendel ops.

  Charlie reached a hand to his shoulder as he straightened, steadying him, knowing he would need it. “I thought you deserved to know.”

  Admiral Reynolds suddenly found it hard to breathe. Amanda…The pain behind his sternum stabbed outward, lancing down his left arm. Bands of steel wrapped around his chest and squeezed.

  “Admiral…?”

  The hand tightened on his shoulder, catching him as his legs weakened. Through a haze, he noted others in the room slowly turning their way.

  Somehow he was on the floor, on his knees.

  “Get help!” Charlie shouted, half cradling him.

  Admiral Reynolds reached up and clutched at Charlie’s arm. “I…I need to reach Captain Perry.”

  Charlie stared down at him, his eyes bright with worry and sorrow. “It’s too late.”

  13

  Run of the Station

  APRIL 9, 3:23 P.M.

  ICE STATION GRENDEL

  Matt shivered as he leaned over the station schematics. The map was unfolded and spread on the floor of the cramped cubbyhole, another of the old service rooms carved out of the ice. He knelt on one side of the paper, flanked by Craig and Amanda. On the far side crouched Washburn, Greer, and Lieutenant Commander Bratt.

  Off to the side, the group of biologists kept to themselves. Dr. Ogden stood, leaning on one wall, eyes glazed. His lips moved silently as if he were talking to himself, going over something in his head. His three grad students—Magdalene, Antony, and Zane—huddled together, wearing matching expressions of misery and fear.

  A full half hour had passed since the fiery death of Petty Officer Pearlson. Racing on pure adrenaline, the remaining group had fled here to one of the service sheds on Level Three.

  Since then, they had weighed several different strategies: from staying put and holing up, to dividing their numbers and fleeing throughout the warren of service passages to lessen the risk of the entire group’s capture, even to trying to escape to the surface and make for the parked Sno-Cats and Ski-Doos. But as the pros and cons of each were discussed, one fact became clear. In each scenario, they would have a better chance of survival if they had additional firepower.

  So before any decision about where to go next was made, they needed to reach the armory. Washburn had inventoried the WWII weapons locker. It held several boxes of Russian grenades, a trio of German-made flamethrowers, and a wall of oiled and sealskin-wrapped Russian rifles.

  “They still work,” Washburn said. “I test fired a pair last week. The ammunition is boxed in straw-filled crates. Here and here.” She jabbed the end of her steel meat hook at two corners of the armory marked on the map.

  Matt leaned closer, studying the layout. He had to shift the weight on his knees. Having lost his pants to Little Willy, he was left with only his long underwear. And kneeling on the ice was testing the limits of the garmen
t’s thermal capability.

  Washburn continued: “We should be able to get in and out in under a minute. The problem is getting there.”

  Bratt nodded. Greer had returned a moment ago from scouting the service tunnel that led back to the station base. On this floor, the service hatch opened into the generator room and battery compartment. Unfortunately, the armory lay on the far side of the level, clear across the open central space.

  Matt squinted, trying to force his brain to thaw and think. There has to be a way…Along with the others, he pored over the map.

  The generator room had a side door that led to a neighboring electrical room, but from there, they would have to cross the open central space. Without a doubt, it would be guarded. And with the pilfered medical supplies as their only weapons, they would be hard-pressed to subdue the guards without rousing the rest of the base.

  Matt sat back, lifting his knees from the ice and rubbing them. “And there’s no other access into this level? We have to enter through the generator and electrical rooms.”

  Bratt shrugged. “As far as we know. We have only these plans to go by.”

  Craig spoke up. “Well, the obvious distraction would be to switch off the generators, black out the station, and make a run for the armory.”

  Greer shook his head. “We have to assume that the Russians know where the main generators are. If we knock out the power grid, they’ll be swarming right where we don’t want them.” He tapped the map. “Level Three.”

  Amanda had been studying the lieutenant as he spoke, reading his lips. “Besides,” she added, “even if we turn off the generators, the batteries will retain enough power to keep most of the lights on. They’ve been charging since the generators were first overhauled by the material sciences team.”

  Matt considered all sides of the discussion. “What if we leave the generators running”—he rested his finger on the designated room, then shifted it to the neighboring electrical suite—“but cut only the circuits to the top level of the station? If Lieutenant Greer is correct, such a blackout would draw the Russians’ attention to that level, away from us.”