His grandfather had been right about the war coming, but he hadn’t been there to see it end. He had died of an undiagnosed heart problem visiting an air defense unit outside Tbilisi; but he had seen his grandson decorated and Bondarev remembered clearly his words as he pinned on the medal. He had held him by the shoulders and then tapped the medal. “Each one of these is forged with the tears of mothers who have lost sons and daughters,” his grandfather had said. “Remember that, every time you wear it.”
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” Arsharvin said, punching his shoulder and bringing him back to the present. Bondarev had just told Arsharvin it was his professional military opinion that Operation LOSOS was going to be just like Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. A fantastic military victory that would guarantee their ultimate defeat. “Saint Lawrence is not Pearl Harbor,” Arsharvin was insisting. “The US will react to our move on Saint Lawrence, yes. That is the intention — to create a provocation they simply cannot ignore. We will incur losses, inevitably. In fact, we are counting on it. In the face of continued US military aggression, we will move on Alaska and declare our intention to secure the west of Alaska as neutral territory, a bulwark between a militant USA and a peaceful Russia. Traditional US lapdogs like the UK, Australia, South Korea and Japan may react, but they are too weak and too far away to offer anything but political support. Our diplomats assure us Europe will not mobilize — there is little love left for the USA in Europe.”
“Europe will respond when American ballistic missiles start to fly,” Bondarev said. “I guarantee you that.”
Arsharvin took another glass, “It won’t come to that. If we move with overwhelming conventional force, take Nome quickly, the US will find itself in a hostage negotiation, not a war.”
“They would hesitate to use their nuclear weapons against targets on US soil, I agree,” Bondarev allowed. “But sub-launched tactical nukes on our Far East airfields and ports would be my response. The battle for Alaska would be over before it started.”
“And how would we respond to an attack like that?” Arsharvin asked.
“Massively, and irrationally,” Bondarev sighed. “The sky would rain ballistic missiles. We would be looking at the end of all civilization.”
“Yes. Or no. Say the self-absorbed US President and the weak-kneed liberals in the US Congress hesitate. The US does not need Nome, they do not care about Nome. America has twelve percent unemployment, its factories are rusting ruins, climate change has turned its farms from San Francisco to Kansas City into dust bowls, it relies on Chinese loans to fund a military on the edge of collapse. They will fight, yes, but not with nuclear weapons.”
“You’ve been listening to your own propaganda for too long. And what makes you think we can even win a conventional war?” Bondarev asked.
“Nothing, but what a glorious cause!” Arsharvin yelled, raising an arm in the air. “Let us toast to it! Victory over the main enemy, and a new age of prosperity for Mother Russia!”
Bondarev lifted his glass, but put it down again without draining it. He needed a clear head for tomorrow. He was about to send four thousand men and women to war.
SNOWFLAKES IN THE BREEZE
Seventeen-year-old Perri Tungyan would rather have been fishing. His father and brother had taken their boat out earlier that morning to try out the new echo locator that had finally arrived from Nome. They already had the best boat in Gambell; the 16 footer was swift, with a twin-screw outboard engine that meant it could fly through the tight spaces between floes in pursuit of seal or whale. But the deep sea echolocator, that was the key to them finding new depressions, valleys and rock formations that might be hiding a nice big halibut.
It had been three years since Perri’s brother pulled in a 180lb fish and their father made him throw it back in because anything over 70lb was a female, he said. Since then, the biggest they’d landed was about 40 inches or 30lbs. Still a good sized fish, but nothing like that monster from three years ago.
He looked out from the shed in which he was sheltering from the wind, at the sea beyond the runway at Gambell Airport. He should be out there on the water. Instead he was stuck here, waiting to unload the weekly grocery flight from America. He didn’t do it for the money, the money was peanuts and there was nothing to spend it on here except cigarettes and liquor. He did it for the loot. A dropped case of canned peaches here, a missing box of chocolate there. Was it Perri’s fault internet orders had a habit of getting screwed up? He kept his pilfering at a low level though, so no one got too upset at him. Didn’t dip into the cargo every flight, just when he saw a choice shipment; little luxuries his family would never see otherwise.
He clapped cold hands against his chest. He knew there wasn’t much chance of getting fired anyway, not when he was the only one stupid enough to waste a great fishing day like this hanging around Gambell’s deserted airstrip. This wasn’t Savoonga; there was no control tower here, no baggage handlers, no gate agents or ticket offices. Just the long dirt strip sticking out into the Bering Sea with water glittering on both sides, and Perri, his four-wheeler and his sled.
When his older brother had worked here, there had at least been an aircraft maintenance engineer hanging around too, to refuel the light planes coming in, restock them with food or water, or attend to any mechanical issues. Pilots brought gossip with them, from Nome, Fairbanks, Anchorage. It had made America seem closer then. Now all the flights were automated, pilotless Amazon freight drones. They landed, he unloaded, plugged them into the grid with a cable that held itself on magnetically and when they were recharged they just took off by themselves as long as he’d shut the cargo bay door properly — he didn’t even need to be there. More reliable, sure (no drunken bush pilots to deal with), but so damn boring.
He looked at the time on his phone and walked over to his all-terrain ATV bike. The electric engine purred to life on the second press of the starter and he left it ticking over while he checked the connector to the big sled hooked up behind it. All good. He checked the snow plow at the front was also pulled up — it had a habit of dropping into the dirt and sending him head over heels over the handlebars, stupid thing. He should just unbolt it. It was a long time since there was snow on the runway at Gambell this time of year. The last thing he checked was that his rifle was tied securely to the grill at the back of the sled. It had been seven years since any polar bears had been seen on Saint Lawrence, but he didn’t want to be that guy who finally saw one again and wasn’t armed with anything except a mobile phone to take a photo of it. Plus if the drone didn’t show up, he could always set out a few cans along the runway and practice his distance shooting. There were markers every fifty yards along the airstrip so he could measure the distance pretty accurately. His best shot ever was with the rifle he was carrying now, his father’s Winchester XPR .300. A one hundred and fifty-yard headshot on a reindeer stag, in a slight crosswind too. Throwing his leg over the saddle, he gunned the bike out of the old hangar and onto the spit holding the runway.
The drones were either on time, or they didn’t turn up at all, there was nothing in between. The weather over Alaska meant they might get canceled, but no one bothered to tell Gambell about it, so Perri had to go out there every time and just look up at the sky for the tell-tale small dot to appear high in the sky or drop out of the cloud base and fog. He pulled up halfway down the runway, and shaded his eyes against the sun. Great visibility today, he should be able to see it coming a ways off. You could always see them before you heard them — their small electric twin turbofan engines were almost silent.