“And why the hell would you want that? She’s a number cruncher. No offense, my dear.” He turned to Leopov and fixed her with an apologetic smile. “But I don’t want to be responsible for getting you killed. And I really don’t want you to be responsible for getting any of my men killed.”
“She has local knowledge, no one knows the area better, and she speaks Russian with a perfect accent. Utilize all of the assets at your disposal, Commander.”
“Whatever you say,” the man beside her said.
He didn’t take well to receiving orders from civilians.
THREE
Fog hung over the sea and ice like a white blanket, drifting on unseen breezes that offered the briefest glimpses of the nothingness that lay beneath and beyond.
Dane Maddock wasn’t sure that he liked the look of it. They were still some distance from the island and already the ice floes were getting denser, the sheer weight of ice around them claustrophobic. The waters encircling Wrangel Island were Russian territory. They were already deep inside their jurisdiction. If word leaked of their presence here it would be considered a military incursion — an act of hostility. Given the gradual thaw in frosty relations between the two superpowers, that would be a disaster of epic proportions. He really didn’t want to be the guy who broke Glasnost or Perestroika, whichever one it was that meant we were all getting along just fine now thank you very much.
He had been briefed on the fly about the intricacies of the situation: the island and the surrounding sea for twelve nautical miles were protected under international law and the Russians were quite happy using that as a reason for keeping ships at a distance. The gambit, not really the most convincing one Maddock had heard, basically came down to luck. The entire plan hinged on speed and the hope that the Red Army weren’t paying too much attention to the seas because of other more pressing problems.
In and out, that was the plan. In and out.
Looking at the infinite ice, it was no surprise that a ship, even a nuclear submarine, could get itself locked in this frozen waste. It was bleak. The cold ate at his face, riming his stubble. The ice was thick, too. Cracks in the great plates showed that. Thick enough, surely, that even an ice breaker could get itself caught in the shifting sheets of ice. That would leave them at the mercy of the Russians. He didn’t want to think about what that would mean for the team. Seeing out the rest of his life in a gulag didn’t seem like a great career move. But, if the top brass were right and the island was being used for something the Russians didn’t want the rest of the world to know about, it was a guarantee that’s where the boys would end up.
“At least she’s traveling light,” Willis Sanders observed. The tall, broad-shouldered African-American wasn’t looking out to sea.
“Not sure if I want to know whether you’re talking about the ship or the Lieutenant,” Maddock said, seeing Leopov leaning against the guard rail on the other side of the deck. There was something about a woman in uniform. She had, as Bones had so aptly phrased it, a body like a country road; loads of curves a guy would like to stop off and have a picnic on. Fitting in the Lieutenant’s case. She was, however, obviously out of her depth and not happy to be bobbing about on the waves, crashing into the ice with suicidal abandon. Her eyes, so sparkling when they’d first met, now brimmed with dark concern, and her engaging smile was nowhere to be seen. It was understandable; to ignore, or even relish an environment like this took a special kind of madness like the one that afflicted the sailors she had hitched a ride with.
The helicopter had managed to reach the ship before the fog swallowed it completely. He wasn’t sure why the woman was being forced upon them, but as long as she didn’t get in the way of the mission, fine. She was obviously considered an asset by mission control. He was hardly going to call them idiots to their faces — not even over the safety of the ship-to-shore radio.
Their commander, Hartford “Maxie” Maxwell had only stayed on board for a couple of minutes, preferring to give his briefing face-to-face. That was his style. Look into the men’s eyes. Don’t ask them to do something you’re not prepared to do yourself. He was a good man like that. That kind of leadership inspired faith. But until he’d actually laid down the mission brief, less than eighteen hours ago, they hadn’t been remotely sure what was expected of them here, which was far from ideal.
Now that he did know, he liked it even less.
He didn’t find the prospect of diving into these icy waters remotely appealing.
“The woman, of course. Come on, Maddock. It ain’t like I’m a complicated man.” Willis grinned broadly. “I ain’t seen much gear shipped on board for her, so I figure she ain’t equipped for combat even if she is front-loaded.”
“Maxie says she’s here for her language skills.” Maddock shrugged. “She speaks Russian with native fluency.”
Willis tilted his head and frowned. “Might be an asset if we stop around long enough to talk to anyone, I guess.”
Maddock nodded. “I got the feeling there was some resistance to her coming along.”
“Let me guess, it was her name right? Ignorance raises its ugly head again. If you’ve got the wrong kind of name, or the wrong accent you must be trouble.”
“Or the wrong color skin?” Maddock raised an eyebrow.
“You know that’s right. I keep telling you, Maddock. It pays to listen to me. I am wise beyond my years.” Willis grinned, displaying straight, white teeth.
The ship jolted as it struck heavy ice, rising up before crashing back down in a huge sea-sickening lurch as both moved slowly through the water. The ship was designed for ramming a passage through sheets of polar ice. That didn’t stop Maddock from feeling unnerved at the way the sound rang through the metal of the hull, growing louder instead of quieter as the hollow hull amplified it through some weird trick of acoustics. It sounded as if the metal was being torn apart down there. That made it hard not to imagine the ocean spilling in to fill the void and pulling the ship relentlessly under.
A nervous silence engulfed the deck as they waited for the next impact.
Maddock hadn’t even noticed he was holding his breath until he let out a long slow sigh. They were still afloat. It was as if the ship held its breath too. It continue to drift and push against the ice, but now it did so in near silence. They’d cut the engines. The ship drifted only under its own momentum.
“Yo, Maddock. The captain says this is as close as he can get us,” a voice called through the fog from somewhere further back on the deck.
“Bones?”
“You expecting someone else?” The hulking figure of Uriah “Bones” Bonebrake emerged from the mist. The Cherokee bore the deeply ingrained frown of a man who didn’t enjoy the cold. Maddock could not blame him. Shame Russian submarines never ran aground in the Florida Keys or just off the coast of Hawaii.
“Where the hell are we?” Bones scowled at the horizon.
“Still a mile from the island itself, but the ice is packed so tightly that we’re not going to be able to get much closer. By the time the ship comes to a halt we’ll have pushed into solid ice.”
“And?” Willis asked.
“End of the road. We walk from there.” Maddock grimaced.
“Walk? Are you freaking kidding me?” Bones grumbled.
“I guess you could run if you really wanted to, but I’m thinking it’ll be kind of slippery down there.”
They had been prepared for this moment, of course. Their heavy polar clothing insulated them from the worst of the staggering cold, but the wind chill was the worst of it by far, easily ten degrees below anything remotely tolerable. Maddock was glad of the three day beard he’d managed to grow on the ship. It at least some kept some of the chill from his face, though it felt as if his lips shrank and tightened with every breath he took.