Keith Douglass
Arctic Fire
CHAPTER 1
Russian Colonel Kamir Rogov braced himself against the icy side of the Kilo diesel submarine’s conning tower. Five hundred meters away, the snow and ice-covered island loomed forbiddingly. Forty-knot winds kicked up loose snow, at times reducing visibility to less than the distance of the island.
Even as he felt the cold cut through the wool scarf wrapped around his face, he welcomed the chance to escape the cold, dark confines of the submarine. After three weeks underway, submerged most of the time, the stench of cooking, diesel fuel, and too many humans packed in too small a space had grown almost unbearable.
“Almost ready, Comrade Colonel,” the submarine’s skipper said.
Rogov acknowledged the report with a sharp nod of his head and glanced down at the yellow inflatable raft slamming into the submarine’s side. The weather was barely within minimum standards for attempting to launch the raft from the submarine, but there was no help for that. Nothing could be permitted to delay this mission — nothing.
A young sailor poked his head out from the small igloo-shaped craft, which had a superstructure of domed plastic to provide some protection from the wind. The sailor looked pale and queasy after only five minutes inside the bobbing boat. He waved to attract his captain’s attention, then nodded, making a thumbs-up gesture. The captain turned back to Rogov. “Now, sir?”
“Da.” Rogov turned and looked down the open hatchway behind him. He made a come-along motion with his hand. The Spetsnaz commander smiled up at him, an unholy look of glee under the circumstances, and started up the ladder. The four other Russian Special Forces soldiers were crowded around the base of the ladder, chivying for their turn to escape the metal hull.
Russian Spetsnaz, trained and groomed for offensive operations anywhere in the world. This cadre was a select group, each member chosen not only for his technical skills and aggressiveness, but because of one other important characteristic — his Cossack blood.
Did the Russians even suspect? Rogov wondered. No, they couldn’t — wouldn’t. It would not occur to them that there could be loyalties stronger than to Mother Russia at work within the military, especially not in the prestigious Spetsnaz ranks. But the Cossacks had preserved their ancient warrior ways, remembering their heritage from Ukraine and gentler climates even during the centuries of their forced resettlement to frigid Mongolia. While their Russian masters grudgingly treasured those racial characteristics that had earned the Cossacks their fearsome reputation for savagery, filling the ranks of their hardened shock troops with Members of the tribe, they never fully accepted the COSSaCks. Nor returned the land stolen from them so long ago.
No matter, Rogov decided. If this mission succeeded there would be no turning back. The Cossacks would earn — take by force, if necessary — their rightful place as masters of their continent.
Clad in heavy parkas and winter gear, carrying bulky packs on their backs, the Spetsnaz Cossacks barely made it through the narrow hatch. The conning tower was crowded now, and reeked of the submarine’s stench.
“Your men are ready?” Rogov asked.
The Spetsnaz commander took in a deep breath of the fresh air, his smile deepening. “Spetsnaz is always ready, COmrade.” He looked out at the distant island, then down at the bobbing raft. “A challenge — our specialty.”
“Then no more delays. Let’s get underway.”
The submarine captain motioned to the young sailor. The man clambered out carefully, reaching for the steel-runged ladder attached to the side of the submarine. As his one hand closed over the first ice-covered rung, a wave slammed into the submarine, rolling it away from the man.
With his balance already committed to the move, he didn’t have a chance, He teetered for a second on the edge of the raft, leaned forward, and almost caught himself on the rope that ran through on steel loops outside of the raft. His hand closed on it briefly.
The submarine captain slapped the man standing next to him on the back and shouted to be heard over the rising wind. The lookout nodded and started down the ladder to assist his shipmate.
Before he’d moved down two rungs, hypothermia claimed the other sailor’s consciousness. His hand clenched on the ice-coated rope, then relaxed. A wave washed over his head, and the suction from the submarine’s seawater intake valves pulled him away from the raft.
The lookout stopped two rungs down and looked back up to his captain, stricken. The captain motioned him to return to the conning tower. Trying to retrieve the dead sailor’s body would be an impossible task in the freezing waters of the North Pacific.
Rogov turned to the Spetsnaz commander, “A reminder.”
“We know our job.” The Spetsnaz reached for the first steel rung and pulled himself over the side of the submarine. He paused, his head just above the level of the conning tower. “Be careful, Comrade Colonel. There are things here more dangerous than the ocean.”
Rogov grunted. “Such as!”
“Me.” The Spetsnaz commander took one hand off the ladder to motion to his companions. “And them.”
Rogov impaled him with a look colder than the frigid air swirling about them. “There are some things more powerful than muscle and bone,” he said softly. “You would be wise not to forget that.”
The Spetsnaz commander shrugged, then started down the ladder. As he entered the small raft, he looked back up at Rogov, “But where we’re going, Comrade Colonel,” he continued, pointing at the barren island behind him, “I think you’ll find that that’s what matters.”
Lieutenant Curt “Bird Dog” Robinson scowled at the ocean, the sky, and the clear hard plastic aircraft canopy Overhead. From this altitude, he should have been able to see a fair stretch of the Aleutians stretched out beneath him. The island chain, formed from volcanic activity eons ago as the tectonic plates of the earth shifted in their Slow Orbits, jutted up from the Pacific ocean, Stretching from the southwestern tip of Alaska to the eastern edge of Russia. Earlier today, during a rare moment when the weather had cleared, he’d been able to see most of the United States’ westernmost territory.
But not now. He felt the aircraft rock under his butt, and compensated for the turbulence automatically. The F-14 Tomcat responded smoothly to his touch, the low growl of its engines almost a satisfied purr. Despite his foul mood, Bird Dog smiled with the sheer pleasure of feeling 61,000 pounds of aircraft respond like an extension of his own body. The marriage between a fighter pilot and his aircraft was the closest thing to heaven he’d ever experienced with his clothes on. And, he had to admit, it lasted a lot longer than most anything else that came close. At least in a Tomcat you could always refuel and stay airborne.
Not that he was all that certain he wanted to right now. Fifteen minutes earlier, one of the infamous williwaws had blown in. The wild northern storms, born of the interaction between the relatively warm Japanese current and the frigid arctic waters it flowed into, generated fearsome brutal winds capable of reaching a hundred knots in minutes. The battle between the two masses of water also generated the thick, impenetrable fog already curling up the sides of the rocky islands. Now, only the highest cliffs peeked out of the white blankness below him.
The lousy weather wasn’t the only reason for his foul mood. Even if he did prefer flying to almost anything else, there were some limits to his obsession. “Damn, Gator, why the hell did we get stuck pulling Alert Five on Christmas Day?” Bird Dog asked for the third time.