Ice Hunt Read online

  “Matt!” Jenny called out the side window. “Get in!”

  The Cessna now glided no more than thirty feet above the river. A figure dressed in a white parka leaned out an open side door. The length of a black grenade launcher was balanced on his shoulder. They were coming in fast, going for a point-blank shot. There was no way the Otter could accelerate out of the way in time.

  Their only chance was for Matt to get them to blow this shot, make them come around again, buying them time to get airborne themselves.

  Biting his lower lip, he eyed through the sights and focused on the man with the launcher. He would swear the guy stared right back at him. Matt squeezed the trigger.

  The crack of the rifle made him blink. The man on the Cessna ducked under one of the plane’s struts. Matt had missed, glancing only the wing, but the close call had rattled the man.

  Unfortunately, that was not enough. The grenade launcher quickly swung back into position. The Cessna was now only seventy yards away and coming in savage and low.

  He readied the Winchester.

  “Matt!” Jenny yelled. “Now!”

  He glanced over. Jenny’s father held open the plane’s door. The man beckoned to him. “We’re still tethered to the dock!” he bellowed, pointing to the rope.

  Matt swore under his breath and ran to the plane, clutching the rifle in one hand. With his free hand, he tugged off the plane’s rope tether and hopped onto the nearest pontoon.

  At his heels, Bane leaped into the cabin in one graceful bound. From their years together, the dog was familiar with this mode of travel.

  “Go,” Matt yelled through the open door.

  The Otter’s engine roared. The twin props, one on each wing, chewed up the air. The plane swiveled away from the docks.

  Jenny’s father reached to help Matt inside as he balanced on the float. “No, John,” Matt said, and met the elder Inuit’s eyes. He flipped the rope tether around his own waist, then tossed the end to Jenny’s father. “Tie me in!”

  John’s brows crinkled.

  “Belay me!” Matt explained, pointing to a steel stanchion by the door.

  The elder’s eyes widened with understanding. He wrapped the rope loosely around the support. In the past, the pair had done some glacier climbing together.

  As the Otter began to accelerate along the river, Matt worked down the port-side pontoon, leaning against the rope like a rappeller, using the loop as a brace. Jenny’s father fed the rope, keeping the line taut through the stanchion.

  Matt clambered out from under the wing’s shadow.

  The Cessna chased thirty yards behind their plane’s tail, almost directly overhead, closing swiftly down on them. The Otter would not escape in time.

  Matt raised his rifle and leaned far out, held only by the rope’s loop, legs braced wide on the pontoon. Ignoring the commando with the grenade launcher, he aimed for the cockpit window.

  As he pulled the trigger, a matching flash of fire exploded from the launcher. Matt cried out. He was too late.

  But then the Cessna bobbled in the air: dropping suddenly, tilting on one wing.

  With a gut-punching whoosh, a geyser of water and rock jetted high over the far side of the Twin Otter.

  Matt craned around, twisting in his rope, as they passed the spot. Debris rained down into the river and shoreline.

  The grenade had missed. The launcher’s aim must’ve been jolted just as he fired.

  The Cessna, unable to stop its momentum, roared past overhead, now chased by the Otter on the river. The other plane managed to steady its flight, but Matt had spotted the spiderweb of cracks on the cockpit window.

  His aim had been true.

  He danced back up the pontoon, the river racing past his heels. The winds buffeted against him as John reeled him back to the door. Matt reached the opening just as the pontoons lifted free of the water. The rattle under his soles ceased in one heartbeat.

  As the plane tilted, Matt lost his balance, falling backward. His arms flailed. He dropped the rifle as he snatched for a handhold. The Winchester tumbled into the river below.

  Then a hand grabbed his belt.

  He stared into his former father-in-law’s black eyes. The Inuit, secure and snugged in his seat belt, held him tight. They matched gazes as the winds howled past the plane. Then something broke in the older man’s face, and he yanked Matt inside.

  He fell into the cabin and twisted to close the door. Bane nosed him from the third row of seats, tongue lolling as he greeted him. Matt roughed him away and slammed the door.

  Jenny called from the front, “They’re coming back around!”

  Matt hauled himself up and crawled toward the copilot’s seat. Ahead, the Cessna banked sharply on a wingtip.

  As Matt settled to the seat, he noticed his empty hands. He silently cursed himself for losing the rifle. “Do you have another gun?”

  Jenny spoke as she worked the throttle. The plane fought for height. “I have my Browning, and there’s my service shotgun bolted to the rear cabin wall. But you’ll never hit anything in the air.”

  He sighed. She was right. Neither weapon was accurate at long range, especially in these winds.

  Jenny climbed the plane. “Our only chance is to make for Prudhoe Bay.”

  Matt understood. It was the closest military base. Whatever was going on was beyond their ability to handle. But Prudhoe was four hundred miles away.

  Jenny stared at the Cessna diving toward them. “This is going to get ugly.”

  2:25 P.M.

  UNDER THE POLAR ICE CAP

  “Message for you, Admiral.”

  Viktor Petkov ignored the young lieutenant at the stateroom door and continued to read the passage from the book on his desk: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He had often found this book by the dead Russian writer a comfort. In moments when his own soul was tested, he could relate to Ivan Karamasov’s struggle with himself and his spirituality.

  But it had never been a struggle for Viktor’s father. He had always been Russian Orthodox, most devoutly so. Even after the rise of Stalin, when it became untenable to practice one’s faith, his father had not abandoned his beliefs. It may have been for this reason, more than any other, that one of the most decorated scientists of the time had been exiled—stolen away from his family at gunpoint—and sent to an isolated ice station out in the Arctic Ocean.

  Viktor finished reading the section titled “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor,” where Ivan dramatically repudiates God. It stirred him. Ivan’s anger spoke to his own heart, his own frustration. Like Ivan, Viktor’s own father had been murdered—not by the hands of one of his sons, as in the novel, but by treachery nonetheless.

  And the misery had not ended there. After the base’s disappearance in 1948, his mother had slipped into a black depression that lasted a full decade and ended one morning within the noose of a knotted bedsheet. Viktor had been eighteen years old when he walked in and discovered his mother hanging from a rafter in their apartment.

  Without any other relatives, he had been recruited into the Russian military. It became his new family. Seeking answers to or some type of resolution for the fate of his father, Viktor’s interest in the Arctic grew. This obsession and a deep-seated fury guided his career, leading to his ruthless rise within the Russian submarine forces and eventually into the command staff of the Severomorsk Naval Complex.

  Despite this success, he never forgot how his father was torn from his family. He could still picture his mother hanging from her handmade noose, her toes just brushing the bare plank floors.

  “Sir?” The lieutenant’s feet shifted on the deck plating, drawing him back to the present. His voice stuttered, clearly fearful of disturbing Beliy Prizrak, the White Ghost. “We…we’ve a coded message marked urgent and for your eyes only.”

  Viktor closed the book and ran a finger along the leather-bound cover. He then held out a hand to the lieutenant. He had been expecting the message. The Drakon had risen to
periscope depth half an hour ago and raised its communication array through a crack in the ice, sending out reports and receiving incoming messages.

  The man gratefully held out a metal binder. Viktor signed for it and accepted it.

  “That’ll be all, Lieutenant. If I need to send out a reply, I’ll ring the bridge.”

  “Yes, sir.” The man turned sharply on a heel and left.

  Viktor opened the binder. Stamped across the top was PERSONAL FOR THE FLEET COMMANDER. The rest was encrypted. He sighed and began the decryption. It was from Colonel General Yergen Chenko, directorate of the FSB, the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, what the Americans called the Federal Security Service, one of the successors of the old KGB. New name, same game, he thought sourly. The message came from their headquarters in Lubyanka.

  URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT

  FM

  FEDERAL’NAYA SLUZHBA BEZOPASNOSTI (FSB)

  TO

  DRAKON

  //BT//

  REF

  LUBYANKA 76-453A DATED 8 APR

  SUBJ

  DEPLOYMENT/RENDEZVOUS COORDINATES

  TOP SECRET TOP SECRET TOP SECRET

  PERSONAL FOR FLEET COMMANDER

  RMKS/

  (1) NEW INTELLIGENCE HAS CONFIRMED US COUNTERINTELLIGENCE OPERATION IS UNDER WAY. US DELTA FORCE MOBILIZED. OPERATION CONTROLLER IDENTIFIED AND CONFIRMED. COUNTERMEASURES HAVE BEEN ACCELERATED AND COORDINATED WITH LEOPARD OPS.

  (2) OMEGA DRIFT STATION HAS BEEN APPROVED AS TARGET ONE. COORDINATE ALPHA FOUR TWO DECIMAL SIX TACK THREE ONE DECIMAL TWO, CHART Z-SUBONE.

  (3) DRAKON ORDERED TO RUN SILENT FROM HERE UNTIL MOLNIYA GO-CODE IS TRANSMITTED.

  (4) DEPLOYMENT GO-CODE SET FOR 0800.

  (5) INTELLIGENCE UPDATE WILL BE RELAYED ALONG WITH GO-CODE.

  (6) COL. GEN. Y. CHENKO SENDS.

  BT

  NNNN

  Viktor frowned as he finished decrypting the message.

  What had been stated in the missive was plain enough and no surprise. The target and time of attack were established and confirmed: Omega Drift station, tomorrow morning. And clearly Washington was now aware of the stakes surrounding the old ice base.

  But as usual with Chenko, there were layers of information hidden between the lines of his encryption.

  U.S. Delta Forces mobilized.

  It was a simple statement that left as much unspoken as was written. The United States Delta Force was one of the most covert groups of the U.S. Special Forces and, when deployed, operated with immunity from the law. Once out in the field, a Delta Force team functioned with nearly complete autonomy, overseen only by an “operational controller,” who could be either a high-ranking military official or someone in significant power in government.

  By the deployment of U.S. Delta Forces, the rules of the coming engagement were clear to both sides. The war about to be waged would never be played out in the press. This was a covert war. No matter the outcome, the greater world would never know what happened out here. Both sides understood this and had silently agreed to it by their actions.

  Out on the polar ice cap, there was a vital treasure to be won, but also a secret to be buried. Both governments intended to be the victor.

  Pity those who came between them.

  Such covert conflicts were not new. Despite the outward appearance of cooperation between the United States and Russia, the politics behind closed doors was as rabid and retaliatory as ever. In today’s new world, one clasped hands in greeting while palming a dagger in the other.

  Viktor knew this game only too well. He was an expert at its stratagems and deceptions. Otherwise he wouldn’t be where he was today.

  He closed the metal binder and stood up. He crossed to the six titanium cases resting on the floor. Each was half a meter square. Stamped on the top were a set of Cyrillic letters, the initials for the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, located in St. Petersburg, Russia. No one, not even Moscow, knew what was in these crates.

  Vikor’s gaze narrowed and settled on the symbol emblazoned below the institute’s initials, a trifoil icon known throughout the world.

  Nuclear danger…

  Viktor touched the symbol.

  Here was a game he intended to win.

  4

  Airborne

  APRIL 8, 2:42 P.M.

  EN ROUTE OVER BROOKS RANGE

  Jennifer Aratuk checked her airspeed and heading. She tried her best to ignore the Cessna banking through the skies toward her. It was difficult with Matt leaning forward in his seat, his nose all but pressed against the cockpit glass.

  “They’re coming around!” he yelled.

  No kidding. She put the plane over on a wingtip and spun the Twin Otter away. As they turned, she saw her home below. The blasted storehouse still smoked and her dogs ran in circles, soundlessly barking. Her heart went out to her friends. They would have to fend for themselves until she could return or send someone to take care of them.

  First, though, she and the others had to survive.

  As she skimmed the Otter over the snow-tipped tops of trees, it sounded for a moment like the plane had run through a spate of hail. A pinging rattle vibrated through the cabin.

  Bane barked from the row of backseats.

  “They’re shooting at us!” Craig cried, buckled beside her father.

  Jenny checked her right wing. Holes peppered its surface. Damn them! She pulled back hard on the throttle, driving the nose of the plane up. The agile plane shot skyward, gaining height rapidly.

  Beside her, Matt grabbed his chair arms to hold himself in place.

  “Buckle in,” she griped at him.

  He hurriedly snapped his seat belt in place while he craned his neck around to search the skies for the Cessna. The other plane was pulling out of its dive and chasing after them.

  “Hang on!” she warned as they crossed the top of the valley rise. She couldn’t let the other plane get above them again, but she also knew her craft was not as fast at the Cessna behind her. It would take some artful flying.

  She dropped her flaps and pushed the wheel in, shoving the nose of the plane down into the neighboring valley. Its sides were steep, more a gorge than valley. The plane dropped sickeningly. She used gravity to increase her speed. The Twin Otter swooped down, slicing toward the wide river that carved through the center of the canyon. She followed it downstream.

  The Cessna appeared behind her. It stayed high, arcing over the river valley. It again tried to get above her.

  Jenny banked tightly and followed the river’s course as it wound through the gorge. “Come on, baby,” she whispered to her craft. She had flown the Otter since joining the sheriff’s department. It had gotten her out of many a jam.

  “They’re diving on us again!” Matt said.

  “I hear you.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  She glanced to him, but he was staring out the window.

  The plane sped over the river, arcing around a sharp bend where the river chattered over the series of rapids. Close…She stared ahead. A thick mist wafted over the river ahead, obscuring the way.

  “Jen…?” Matt was now staring ahead.

  “I know.” She brought the plane lower. The floats now glided three feet above the churn of boulders and frothing water. A rumble echoed into the cabin.

  Then a new noise intruded. It sounded like firecrackers going off. A spray of bullets chewed across the rocky bank of the river and splattered into the water, slicing toward them. The Cessna flew overhead, slightly behind them.

  “Machine gun,” Matt mumbled.

  A slug ricocheted off a boulder in the river and struck the plane’s side window. Cracks spiderwebbed over its surface.

  Craig gasped, ducking away.

  Jenny ground her teeth. She had no choice but to stay her course. She had committed to this. The walls of the gorge had grown into cliffs and drawn inward on either side like vise grips.

  Bullets again struck the wing, tugging
the plane down on that side. Jenny fought her controls. The float on the same side hit the water, but bounced back. A single slug pinged through the cabin.

  Then they were into the thick mists.

  A sigh burst from Jenny. The world vanished around them, and a roar filled the cabin, drowning out the engines. The windshield ran with droplets. She didn’t bother with the wipers. She was momentarily blind. It didn’t matter.

  She shoved the wheel forward, nosing the plane in a stomach-dropping dive.

  Craig cried out, thinking they were crashing.

  He needn’t have worried. Their airspeed rocketed up as they plunged almost straight down, following the waterfall as the river tumbled over a two-hundred-foot drop. The mists parted and the ground came hurtling up toward them.

  Jenny again put the plane over on a wing and shot away to the right, following the cliff face on her left.

  Matt stared at the monstrous wall. Craig gaped, white-knuckled in his seat. “The Continental Divide,” Matt said, turning to Craig. “If you’re visiting the Brooks Range, it’s something you really don’t want to miss.”

  Jenny eyed the cliff face. The Continental Divide split the country into its watersheds, driving up from the Rocky Mountains in the south, through Canada, and down along the Brooks Range, ending eventually at the Seward Peninsula. In the Brooks Range, it split the flows between those that traveled north and east into the Arctic Ocean and those that drained south and west into the Bering Sea.

  Right now, she prayed it split the course of her plane from her pursuers. She spotted the Cessna as it shot high over the falls, aiming straight out. A grim smile tightened her lips. By the time they spotted her and circled, she would have a significant lead.

  But was it enough?

  The Cessna was now a speck behind them, but she noted it swinging around.

  Jenny made a course correction, aiming away from the cliff face and toward a wide valley that sloped out of the mountain range toward the lower foothills. It was the Alatna Valley. They were soon over the river that drained south out of the mountains. She continued straight ahead, leaving the Alatna River behind.