“Already thinking about it,” Bird Dog answered cheerfully. “Don’t worry, we’ll go through those clouds so fast you’ll never even know we were there.”
“And that worries me almost as much,” Gator muttered darkly.
The Tomcat’s nose dropped through fifty degrees, picking up airspeed as it did so. The dark night sky, speckled with stars and thin ribbons of the aurora borealis streaking across it, suddenly disappeared. As Bird Dog dove through the cloud layer, a dark nothingness surrounded the cockpit, pressing in on the two aviators. Gator fiddled nervously with the gain control on the radar, and could almost feel the icy crystals trying to creep through some small gap in the canopy and collect on the wings.
Five seconds later, they broke out of it. In the utter darkness of arctic night, it was more of a feeling of being free of the clouds than an actual change in visibility. With their regular navigational lights off, the F-14 was virtually invisible.
“Well, at least they can hear us,” Bird Dog said. “We’re at three thousand feet.”
“The tallest of those cliffs is at two thousand,” Gator reminded him. “Screaming through on the radar. Come left ten degrees to avoid them.”
“Roger.” Bird Dog made the course correction snappily, reveling in the quick response of the Tomcat. “Just testing the flight surfaces,” he said hastily. “That would be the first sign, some sluggishness in how she handles on the turns.”
“Yeah, right.” Gator tried to remember if Bird Dog had ever avoided making a sharp turn when a gradual one would do. He bent over his radar, carefully watching the quickly approaching cliffs. It never hurt to be too careful. Sure, the altimeter said they were at least three thousand feet, but altimeters had been known to malfunction, so he kept his eyes glued to the highest peaks.
If it hadn’t been for his paranoia, he might have missed the first sign. As it was, the short, quick blip on the highly capable look-down radar sent a jolt of alarm screaming up his back. The message transmitted itself to his mind and mouth before he had time to consciously process it. “Break right! Altitude — now!” he snapped, tactical reflexes taking over for considered thought.
Bird Dog obeyed instantly, wrenching the aircraft through a tight turn, slamming the throttles forward, and immediately climbing for altitude. “What-“
“Missile inbound,” Gator said sharply, his eyes now locked on the small, glowing blip on his radar screen. “At least that’s what it looks like. We already know they have Stingers — I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Holy shit,” Bird Dog breathed. “You mean-“
“Get us the fuck out of here, Bird Dog,” Gator snarled, his temper barely under control. “You want to discuss the finer points of Stinger weaponry, let’s do it at thirty thousand feet. Right now, I’m a little busy back here.” The RIO’s hands flew over the controls, ejecting flares and chaff into the wake behind them.
“And if they had any doubts about where we were, we just fixed that,” Bird Dog said unhappily. “We just lit up that night sky like it was mid-June.”
White Wolf gasped as the night exploded into fiery brilliance. The sun — no, five suns — no, wait. He shut his eyes as the light bombarded his painfully dilated pupils. Not suns at all, not some relic from an old legend, but flares.
The Americans. Pride and vindication coursed through his soul as his prediction of American aid proved to be true. It had to be them. The intruders would have shunned the light, and would not have left their patrols out wandering randomly had more forces been expected.
He focused on the man patrolling, now halfway between the western edge of the island and the cliff. He stood still, his head thrown back as he stared at the flares, his night vision completely destroyed. White Wolf debated with himself for just a moment, then concluded his southern counterpart would arrive at the same decision. “Shut your eyes,” he said sharply, quietly. His men obeyed instantly. A few of them ducked their faces down in the crook of their elbows, understanding what White Wolf was trying to accomplish.
The flares would last no longer than five minutes, not nearly enough time for the patrol to reach their location. In addition, any man that exited the ice cavern would immediately be blinded as well. The Inuits, on the other hand, by shielding their faces, were preserving their night vision. The moment the flares went out, they would be well prepared to attack immediately, and could take advantage of the element of surprise.
But for the plan to work, one man had to watch and see when the flares disappeared. He sighed, resigning himself to being left out of the fight. Younger bodies, faster feet would do the fighting this time. He watched the man, keeping the flares in sight in his peripheral vision. He waited.
Tomcat 201
“It fell off,” Gator reported, studying his radar screen. “if you know they’re coming, if you catch them in time, those suckers aren’t too bad to outrun. Nothing like a Sidewinder or Sparrow.”
“But just as bad if it gets us.” Bird Dog leveled off at eight thousand feet, just above the tops of the clouds. In the background, he could hear TAO on Jefferson demanding an explanation. Not only had Bird Dog left his assigned altitude, but the erratic movements and changes in altitude had caused alarm on board the carrier.
“You tell ‘em what happened,” Bird Dog said, his eyes still glued downward. “I have a feeling there’s something else I’m supposed to see, and I’m not getting it.”
“Now,” White Wolf whispered urgently. The seven men around him sprang up as the last light from the flares faded. Opening their eyes, the landscape around them came into sharp focus.
To his left, White Wolf could see men pouring out of the ice cavern and fanning across the landscape. White Wolf’s second in command took charge, leading the attack with several silent, deadly arrows into the throats of the men nearest to him. They fell, unnoticed by their comrades ahead of them.
Moments later, the inevitable happened. The man in the lead glanced back, noticed two men lying in the snow, and sounded the alarm. As he did so, the Inuits rose up from concealment and charged down the slope, firing their more modern weapons.
Two Inuit warriors fell, and rolled in crumpled balls along the rough ice. Brief anguish tore at White Wolf, to be replaced almost instantly by a sinking feeling. Instead of being blinded by the light, the men seemed to be as capable of functioning immediately after the flares went out as his men were. Spread out in a long line, armed with shotguns that had seen better days, the Inuits were no match for the Russian Spetsnaz. Kalishnikovs barked, and three more men fell.
The remaining two Inuits cast an uncertain look back up at the cliffs, then decided that retreat was the better part of valor. They turned their backs on the Russians and scrambled for the rocks, moving as fast as possible in that landscape. White Wolf watched them approach, anguish and hope warring in his heart. Ten more feet and they could — another man fell, rolled in the snow, and fetched up against the boulder that had been his destination. The remaining lone figure streaked across the landscape, finally reaching the safety of the rocks. From forty feet away, White Wolf could see the man crouch behind a hefty outcropping, his heaving chest detectable even under the heavy garments.
Looking to the south, White Wolf could see the bright spatter of gunfire marking the darkness, evidence of the southern battle mirroring his own. In the sudden light of one spate of weapon fire, he finally got a close look at the face of the Spetsnaz commando. Instead of seeing broad, Slavic features so like his own, he saw an insect face, complete with protruding eyeballs and jet-black shiny carapace. For the briefest second, old legends about giant insects flashed through his mind. Then he realized what he was seeing.