“No, it certainly doesn’t,” Eel said slowly. “And I don’t think even an F-14 jock could get the two confused.”
“Well, if that’s not what they reported, where the hell is the Greenpeace ship?” the pilot demanded. “I tell you, slamming into the deck that many times a day just rattles their brains. Ain’t a damned one of them that’s got a bit of sense.”
“Let’s go back to your first question,” Eel suggested. “Where the hell is the Greenpeace ship? We know she’s out here — too many people besides that Tomcat jock have seen it.”
“Oh, it’s out here, all right; I don’t doubt that,” the pilot answered. “But we try to work these things out so the carrier turns over some decent locating data to us. Some hotshot just made a bad report, and now we’re going to have to research the whole area. And it’s not like they’ll get tasked to do that themselves — nothin on the carrier’s got long enough legs to pull the shifts that we pull.”
“The S-3 might-” the technician started.
The pilot cut him off with a sharp laugh. “Yeah, like we can get them to agree to do surface surveillance,” he said angrily. “If it doesn’t involve dropping sonobuoys, they try to snivel out of the mission. People, we’re gettin’ screwed on this one.”
Ten minutes later, after completing a detailed report on the superstructure of the tanker as well as a close scrutiny of the flag flying from her stern, the P-3 climbed back up to altitude.
“The island?” Eel suggested again.
“Give me a fly-to point,” the pilot replied.
Eel busied himself on his console, laying in course and speed vectors to take them directly over the last island in the desolate Aleutian chain. Finally satisfied with his plan, he punched the button that would pop it up on the pilot’s fly-to display.
“Got it,” the pilot announced. The P-3 immediately leaned into a sharp right-hand turn. “Looks like about twenty minutes from here.”
Eel flipped the communications switch over to the circuit occupied only by himself and the enlisted technician. “What you thinking?” he said quietly. “Me, I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Me neither, sir,” the technician said uneasily. “Too many ghosts. That same F-14 jock reported a disappearing radar contact right before his Greenpeace locating data. Me, I’d want to check that out a lot more carefully.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. Especially with these EW — electronic warfare — signals that keep cropping up. Too many unexplained oddities in this tactical world.”
“I’m staying heads up on the ESM gear, sir,” the technician replied. “And the frequency they reported is well within our capabilities. If somebody’s talking down there, we’ll know it.”
“They landed, cleaned the fish they’d caught, ate, then left,” the commando reported.
“And your men weren’t seen?” Rogov demanded.
The Spetsnaz officer shook his head. “There was no sign of it. The men were well hidden in the cliffs, and the natives left immediately after they’d eaten.”
“Then why did they come ashore at all?”
The commando shrugged. “Who knows why these people do anything? Maybe their gods told them to; maybe one of them had to take a crap. All I can tell you is that they came, they left. I’ve left two men on watch there, but we won’t be able to keep that up forever. The hike across the cliffs takes too long.”
“Keep me advised.”
Rogov stared up at the clear sky, which was already starting to darken as the short day ended. At this latitude, there were no more than a few hours of daylight out of every twenty-four. Dismal living conditions, especially when the frequent winter storms obscured even those few hours of sunlight. He shook his head, marveling at the strength of his ancestors who survived the long march across this land bridge to enter the North American continent.
He snugged the cold weather parka more closely around his face and readjusted the wool scarf covering his mouth and nose. After only a few hours ashore, his goggles were already slightly pitted from the blowing ice crystals. A thin tracery of ice had taken hold around the edge of one lens. He considered taking the goggles off long enough to clean them, but the memory of the sharp cold that had bitten into his face last time he tried that dissuaded him.
The Spetsnaz commander had been absolutely insistent on the importance of maintaining an outside watch, and rightly so. Rogov was tempted to remove himself from the watch rotation, but in the end decided that he would take his turn in order to assert his equal standing among the small band of trained killers he commanded. He shook his head as he turned around, scanning the horizon and air above him. Two days ago, he hadn’t known he’d be worried about that.
Living under Aflu conditions was already proving more harshly draining than he ever dreamed possible. Subsisting on field rations, trying to catch a few shivering hours of sleep in the dank cave, and pushing the men to complete the foundations for the weapons systems had taken more out of him than he thought possible. Was it possible, he wondered, that he’d been a fool to insist on supervising this mission personally? At forty-eight years of age, he was a good fifteen years older than the most senior Spetsnaz here. How significant that was hadn’t shown up until he’d come ashore.
Somehow, the Spetsnaz seemed to thrive under the hostile, alien conditions. The danger, cold, and deprivation just seemed to bring a gleefully unholy look to their eyes. Nothing bothered them, not even the small section of ice cave crumbling in on them last night, almost landing on Rogov. He’d cried out, he remembered, when the first slabs of ice had hit his sleeping bag. The disdain in the other men’s eyes had been evident.
Off on the horizon, the thin traces of color were already deepening, evidence of the approaching dark. A flicker of movement caught his eye. He squinted. Had he seen something or was it just — no, there it was again, barely visible against the gloom.
He raised the radio to his lips, then paused. If it were a military aircraft, he ran the risk of its detecting the radio transmission. Better to be safe, he decided, and tucked the radio back into the oversize pocket on his parka. He turned and moved quickly toward the entrance to the ice cave.
The Spetsnaz were assembled and standing together as he entered the cavern. That was another spooky thing about them — their instantaneous reaction to any change in their surroundings. Between the time the first icy draft from outside had penetrated the cave and the time that Rogov had stepped across the threshold, they’d all piled out of their sleeping bags and grabbed their weapons. Now, looking at them, he could not tell that seconds earlier they had all been asleep.
“An aircraft,” he said. “The radio — it occurs to me that maintaining tactical communications with it is a dangerous idea.”
The Spetsnaz commander nodded. “As we discussed. However, I recall you were not quite so ready to listen to that suggestion earlier.”
“Assemble your team,” Rogov ordered unnecessarily, ignoring the intended rebuke. “I do not like the thought that the aircraft is headed directly for us.”
The Spetsnaz commander spread his hands out, palms up, as if to say, what preparations? Clearly, the men around him were already ready for action.
“Then take your posts,” Rogov snapped, annoyed — and, he admitted to himself, the tiniest bit afraid — that they’d readied themselves so quickly. But then, that was to be expected, wasn’t it? These were, after all, the finest unconventional warfare experts in the world.
The men slipped out of the ice cave quietly, each one heading directly for a previously scouted position. They would be, Rogov knew, even now snuggling down into the concealment they had either discovered or created. The odds of their being detected by the overflying aircraft were zero.