“Why us? There must be more appropriate units available.”
“Because these two are wanted by someone else, the Russian military, and they want them bad. There’s a man and a woman. They want the man most of all; he’s a Danish scientist that we can’t allow Ivan to get his hands on. The woman is a Mossad agent; she got him away from the Russians in Copenhagen. They fled to Norway and the Norwegians flew them to Svalbard. The Russian VDV landed and the two escaped by a light aircraft.”
“So, it won’t just be a rescue. The VDV will be after them too?”
The Colonel nodded.
“It’ll be us two against however many VDV they can get there?”
“That’s about it. I’m told that more SEALS will be on the way, but you’re the closest and the first.”
Whitt shook his head.
“Great, what’s the good news?”
LaPaz grinned. “We’re not sure exactly where they are.”
Whitt rolled his eyes.
“We’ll fly you to Thule AFB Northern Greenland; from there we’ll fly you to the prime spot then you and Operator Ford can jump in. See the Quartermaster, you can have whatever we’ve got.”
Thule AFB was mostly dark as the 737 approached. Lights around the base and along its taxiways lit up the snowy landscape. They touched down and taxied to the runway’s edge. A truck waited for them.
Inside, the two were provided with spare food and new, better radio sets. After a stopover, they were driven out to the de Havilland Twin Otter. It was a twin turboprop, high winged aircraft and would fly them to the drop zone.
The two SEALs pushed their gear on board and climbed in. The engines started, the aircraft taxied to the runway, then started the take-off roll and soon lifted off. It gained altitude, turned to the right then flew to the north east.
Over an hour later, the first officer, who doubled as loadmaster, left his seat and came into the main cabin. He raised his voice. “Ten miles to run, time to suit and chute. Altitude 2,500 feet.”
The two men put on their hoods, helmets and parachutes.
“We have an Epurb contact. It’s intermittent, so approximate. I’ll call your jump point; when you’re down then head east.”
Whitt nodded.
“Two miles to run, ready to go.”
The first officer opened the cabin door and the cold air blew a fearsome chill inside. A minute later came the call.
“Ready, ready.”
He slapped Whitt on his helmet and pointed to the door. One after the other, both men leapt from the aircraft.
Whitt counted down then pulled his release, and the chute deployed. It was dark and cold during the descent. He saw the ground by the faint moonlight, landed and rolled to a stop.
Within a minute of landing came a shout.
“Sir, sir.”
“Over here.”
Ford appeared through the dark mist, and they donned their skis. Whitt checked his compass and the two pushed off towards the east.
“Let’s split up and go wide, say 200 yards, and shout for them.” The two parted.
“Nils, Nils,” shouted Whitt. He heard Ford doing the same off to his left. About 20 minutes later he heard a woman’s voice. The shrill call carried better against background noise.
“Here, here,” she said. Out of the dark mist, he saw two figures, a man and a woman.
“Nils and Marjan?”
“Yes. It’s us, we’re here. Thank God to see you,” she said.
“Platoon Chief Whitt, Navy SEALs. Operator Ford will be here soon. We’ll contact our ops, they’ll get us out.” Ford appeared soon after. “Hi, we’re here for you. I’ve got some dry fruit energy bars. Here, take some.”
Ford also took out one of the new radio sets from Thule. He set it up to transmit.
“Northern star, northern star. This is Thor’s hammer, Thor’s hammer. We have the subjects. Over. Northern star, northern star. This is Thor’s hammer, Thor’s hammer. We have the subjects. Over.”
There was no reply.
“We’ll head west, Ford.” The four of them skiied off and Ford tried again 20 minutes later, but no reply. On the fourth attempt, the set crackled into life.
“Thor’s hammer, this is Northern star. Over.”
“Copy Northern star. Over.”
“We are detecting a flight towards your location. Suspect hostiles, over.”
“Copy Northern star. Request flight’s origin over.”
“Thor’s hammer. Flight is from Russia, northern region, expected in your area in 50 minutes. We have friendlies heading your way: ETA, two hours thirty.”
“Copy Northern star. Over.”
Whitt looked at Ford and shrugged.
Marjan skiied over. “What’s wrong?”
“Russians on the way. Probably VDV. Friendlies arriving too, but one and a half hours later. We’ll just have to keep going.”
Whitt knew this was a real pain in the butt. They’d have to avoid the Russians for one and a half to two hours. He knew they’d arrive in much greater numbers too. If they were detected, then it would be near certain that they’d be captured.
The boat made way through a grey choppy sea in the darkness. She was at periscope depth with her photonic mast raised above the waves.
In the control room, Lieutenant Commander Lemineux, the boat’s Communications Officer, handed Nathan a communications slip.
PRIORITY RED
R 231347Z MAR 96 ZY12
COMSUBPAC PEARL HARBOR HAWAII//N1//
TO STONEWALL JACKSON
PACFLT// ID S072RQ81//
NAVAL OPS/02
MSGID/PACOPS 6722/COMSUBPAC ACTUAL//
MSG BEGINS://
COMMUNICATIONS BROADCAST FOR YOU AND LIEUTENANT COMMANDER KAMINSKI. VIEW IN PRIVATE.
MSG END://
Nathan looked to his XO and beckoned to her with his forefinger, nodding aft.
“Nikki, come on into my cabin.”
She followed him into his cabin aft of the control room.
“Nathan, is this wise?” she smiled cheekily. “The crew will talk.”
He ignored her remark. “We have a comms broadcast for the both of us.” He switched on his workstation and selected the link.
The USN logo faded and an image of Admiral Kamov, the CNO, appeared.
“Blake, Kaminski. A Danish scientist, Nils Sondergaard, and a Mossad officer, Marjan Ghazaryan, are alone on the icecap; their expected position is indicated at the end of this broadcast. NATO needs to rescue them as the Russians are after the Dane too. This is a Black Op, code 14 — 3.”
“Sir, what is it? Why is it a code 14-3?” asked Nikki.
Kamov leaned forward, his expression grim.
“Sondergaard has information that we can’t afford the Russians to obtain. Whoever exploits the discovery he’s made will be at a significant advantage. He’s had an idea. It’s not just any idea, it’s occurred in the mind of Nils Sondergaard, Engineer, and only he in truth knows what it is.
“The Russians can’t be allowed to obtain it. Nathan, in extreme circumstances, if the Russians are going to capture Sondergaard, you are authorised to terminate him. A flight of enemy troops is expected to arrive in their area soon. SEALs are flying into a drop zone there too, but they’ll arrive two hours later. You are ordered to Reykjavik to pick up more SEALs. That will complete SEAL Force North. You will then proceed to the area. Land our reinforcements and extract the two civilians. The Russians are mobilizing and putting everything into this. Be ready for anything.”
Admiral Kamov paused. “Blake, take the USS Stonewall Jackson and get our man. Get Nils Sondergaard’s ass out of there. Communication ends.”