‘To the village, yes. She cannot get around to the Americans on the east side.’
‘Eat with us while we have cover,’ said Rake.
Ondola shook his head. ‘Henry won’t—’
‘I’ll handle Henry.’ Rake took his arm. ‘You need energy.’
Like pushing into a tidal surge, Rake led them against the weather, noise drowning out everything. He sensed rather than saw Henry until he blocked their path, stopping only inches away. ‘Keep him away, Rake. I swear by God—’
‘We need him.’
‘We don’t.’
‘He’s sick in the head, Henry. He needs help.’
‘He murdered—’
‘Out here, Eskimo does not harm Eskimo, whatever the past,’ shouted Rake. ‘We will feed him, and when it’s over I will return him to the prison. You have my word.’
‘Or I’ll kill him.’
‘If it comes to that, I’ll kill him to save your hide.’
Once behind the ice wall, the clatter of flying hail fell silent. The wind dropped, and they ate fast and hungrily and were done in minutes. Henry drew a plan of the base in the snow, explaining the hangars, the main building with the control room, and the field hospital tagged onto the back. ‘If Carrie is still there, she’ll be in the field hospital here, or in the room directly on the right inside the main door. This long room that runs into the hospital is the control center.’
‘Vitruk’s quarters?’ asked Rake.
‘None. It’s too small, too crowded.’
‘What about the bunker?’ said Ondola. ‘Deep, down a long staircase, where they kept Uncle Anik when he was arrested in 1988.’
‘I didn’t see it,’ said Henry.
Anik, an obsessive hunter, had followed a herd of walrus into Russian waters. The cold war was full on, and he spent a month deep in an airless Soviet bunker on Big Diomede. Or so legend had it.
‘So how do we get in?’ asked Rake.
Henry drew the pier and gun positions along the coastline. Ondola added the ice wall.
‘Can we do it from there?’ asked Rake. ‘We use the ice wall as cover?’
Henry and Ondola shook their heads. ‘This whole side is exposed,’ said Henry.
‘Then we go here.’ Rake used a spike of ice to show the spot on Henry’s map where a cove would be. It was a third of a mile from the base. When growing up, they had played at trying to cross to Big Diomede undetected. This was the only place where intrusive rock formations blocked the lines of sight from the ridge watch towers. ‘Has anyone been caught here?’ Rake asked.
Henry forgot his animosity for a moment as he looked at Ondola. Both men shrugged as if to say neither knew, which meant no one had. If they made it onto the tiny rock beach, they would be clear.
‘Then the Russians might not have it covered.’ Rake pointed to other landing spots to the south. ‘Here, here, and here people have been intercepted, and this is where Anik was caught. I reckon if the weather stays bad we have a chance of getting in undetected.’
‘I’ll be a decoy,’ said Joan. ‘Go to one of those places with a white flag. They won’t shoot.’
Rake didn’t like it. After Ondola’s killing of the two snipers, the soldiers would be nervous and trigger-happy. ‘It’s too dangerous. Joan, you come with us as—’
Rake was about to say more when they heard a dog’s howl. A quiet wind carried it towards them from the direction of the Russian base. At first it was soft, undulating, almost singing, but it became loud, a throbbing cry, piercing, cutting through the air. It stopped abruptly and Rake’s radio sprang to life. ‘Watch the sky, yellow Yankee coward. It’s my orders to cut my brother until he dies.’
To the west, over the coastline of Big Diomede, a trail of glowing yellow sparks climbed into the sky. For a moment, Rake thought it was machine-gun tracer. But the trajectory was wrong and it kept climbing until, like a firework, it burst into a shower of green stars that lit up a large area beneath, before streaming away, extinguished by the wind.
THIRTY-SIX
Through the night’s blackness Rake found the cove that would lead them onto Big Diomede. He recognized it by rock formations that jutted out like a hanging roof from the cliffside making a canopy over the beach. Underneath, protection from the weather had created a fast running channel of water about four-feet wide between sea ice and the frozen shingle of the beach. They needed to jump the water to get onto the island.
Outside the canopy, wind and cloud cut visibility to inches. There were no stars, no moon, no lights from the Russian base or from the village on Little Diomede. Ice leading to the channel was flat, scoured by months of battering by hailstones that stuck like barnacles to the surface. Spotting weak patches was near impossible.
They had kept watch for Tuuq and got this far. In this weather, they might not see him until they collided. Or he could already be on the island, even on the base. For sure, Tuuq was still out there. Ondola stayed well behind, keeping vigilant watch. Henry moved forward, testing with a pole, until he reached the edge. He locked grip with his boot, braced himself, and jumped across. Rake pushed the sled to the channel. He unstrapped the rucksacks and one by one threw them across to Henry. Rake moved back, and Joan stepped past him to the same spot from where Henry had jumped. Henry held out his arms to bring her in.
Suddenly, the sound of fracturing ice cut through the air. The surface cracked into a hairline fissure. Joan stayed stock-still. She knew the dangers. Any sudden thrust to jump would break the ice completely. The fissure widened. She shifted weight. More ice broke. Her foot caught in the crack and she stumbled, struggling to stay up. Rake moved towards her, gliding more than running, keeping his steps light and fast. He lifted Joan in time to keep her feet clear of the water. Her voice rasped on fast shallow breaths, telling him she was all right. He carried her back and lowered her down. She steadied herself, pointing to an area to the right that might be safe. Rake let her make the judgement. They had all been raised around rotten ice, taught how it could kill. Foot by foot, prodding around her, Joan tested the strength until she was confident enough to jump. Henry caught her as she landed. A few yards to the left, Rake identified a fresh safe patch for himself.
As if from nowhere a break appeared in the scudding clouds and moonlight bathed the landscape. The wind dropped. It might only last seconds, but Rake signaled for everyone to stay still. He could see a light from the base. It was close, about three hundred meters. The plan was that Joan would stay outside the fence with a radio and a Russian phone. Rake would secure Carrie, which probably meant killing Vitruk. Only then he would report back and get orders. Henry would deal with Akna and the baby.
Henry edged forward to help Rake cross the open channel. Rake locked his boot; the ice was a clear blue and he was certain it would hold. He was coiling himself for the jump when a formidable hold took him around the neck and threw him down hard. Hands gripped like a steel vice, pressing on his windpipe with enormous power. Green eyes bore down, vicious and cruel, the face that threatened him all those years back ago on the sled in Uelen, not the soldier with whom he had trained, but his half-blood brother with a dark empty hole of hatred inside him.
‘Bye bye, Yankee coward,’ Tuuq whispered, his breath on Rake’s face. Rake was pinned. Tuuq’s fingers closed tighter, draining him of strength. Tuuq’s expression was primordial, without conscience, a hunter whose quest was not food or skins. He could have shot Rake, but he needed to do it by hand. Nikita Tuuq killed in order to kill. Nothing else.
Rake’s sight blurred, his thinking muddled. Tuuq’s face became his. He became the Russian soldier who pleaded with him there didn’t have to be a kill. Rake gave no mercy. Nor would Tuuq. Across the channel, Henry had his weapon raised, but with no clear shot. Where was Don Ondola? He must be dead, killed by Tuuq on his way in. A few yards away, snow lay in a broken jumbled heap where Tuuq had been hiding, covering himself, and Rake had missed it.