At Reykjansbaer pier, close to Reykjavik airport, six men and their equipment boarded the USS Stonewall Jackson. They were allocated bunks and their leader stopped a passing crewman.
“I need to see the Captain.”
“Just a moment, sir.”
The crewman walked off and entered the control room. “Sir, the grunts want to see you.”
“I’ll be there. XO, take the boat to sea, submerge and head north.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Nikki.
A few minutes later, Nathan entered the SEAL’s bunk room. A man in his early 30s turned to him.
“Sir, I’m Lieutenant Rice, SEAL team 4, this is Platoon Chief Konerko.”
Rice had a mixed-race Middle Eastern look and Konerko was of European descent. Both wore cropped Marine Corps style hair and looked like a pair of no-nonsense hard men.
“Commander Nathan Blake, welcome aboard the USS Stonewall Jackson. We’ll have you in theatre as soon as we can. The Galley is aft, wander around freely, but if a crewman asks you to do something, take notice and do it. If you need something, see Chief of the Boat. The COB’s name is Seamus Cox. Most of the crew know him as Dick, but not a Dick. He eats men like you for breakfast.”
The SEAL commander nodded. “Will do, sir. We’re in your domain here.”
Nathan left and returned to the control room, where he watched Nikki pull away from the pier and off to the north. She submerged the boat but remained at periscope depth for now.
“Planesman, bearing 300 degrees, speed nine knots.” She was on a heading to avoid the Snaefellsjokull peninsular.
“XO, let’s take a good look at the chart of northern Greenland. We’ll probably need to find a Polynya.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll contact the National Ice Center for a FLAP analysis.”
This is a Fractures, Leads and Polynyas analysis. A zone of Fracture is a crack in the ice and a Lead is one large enough to accommodate a submarine. These are often home to a Polynya, a Russian word: it’s a small ice-free zone.
“Their expected position is 230 miles east of Ellesmere Island. It’s a 43-hour transit to there, sir.”
“I know. Both sets of troops will have been there searching for long hours when we arrive.” Nathan frowned. “We’ll just have to surface as close as we can to their position, let our men out upstairs, locate the civilians, get them to our position and submerge.”
Nikki grinned. “You make that sound easy, sir. I think Ivan will be pulling every dirty trick in the book to stop us.” Nikki put her hand on Nathan’s lower arm. “Nathan, Kamov gave you permission to ‘terminate’ the Dane.”
“Nils Sondergaard.”
“Yes, Sondergaard,” she said. “The Russian commander is likely to have been given a similar order. He’ll have been told it’s better to kill him than have us rescue him.”
“Yes, Nikki. I’d thought that myself. I’m afraid I don’t rate his chances of coming out of this alive very highly.”
6
It was hard going skiing across the icecap. In places the snow was deep; in others, it was thinly covered. Marjan reasoned it was due to exposed areas and strengthening winds. Snow was driven off in blown powder tendrils.
They pushed on ever further west. She knew they’d never get to CFB Alert on their own, but they had to press on. It would give Nils hope, she figured, give him something to fight for. Push, swish, push, swish, on and on they headed over the icecap.
“Marjan, Marjan. Look,” said Nils excitedly. She turned to him, and he pointed upwards.
There, high in the sky, was a parachute flare. It fell, trailing smoke, with the canopy visible above.
“That was quick. There’s a distress flare in the pack we got from the aircraft. I saw it.”
Nils took his mitts off and rummaged about in the bag. He took it out, and by his light he saw that one end was orange day smoke, the other was a flare. He held up the flare and pulled. The flare shot up in the air, a flaming glow.
“I think it came from the north.” Marjan looked at the landscape, searching for the approaching rescuers.
It’s probably the Norwegians, she thought, but could be the Danish armed forces, they’re responsible for Greenland’s defence, or the Americans from Thule airbase. They couldn’t be far away now, she reasoned.
Whitt and Ford skiied to their position from their forward recon position.
“Who sent the flare up?”
“I did,” said Nils. “So they could find us.”
“You idiot. Who are they? They could be anybody.”
Whitt took out a pair of binoculars and scanned the direction he reasoned they’d be in.
Marjan stared too, looking into the dark ice field. There, finally, she saw them. She had a torch and took it from her zipped chest pocket but didn’t switch it on. There were four, six, no eight men. Skiing to their left.
“There they are. Shit, take cover.” Whitt had spotted them too.
“Shit. Nils, come on.” She dragged him over to where she knew there’d be deep snow. “Gouge out a snow hole now, quick.”
“What?”
“Just do it, Nils.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the SEALs doing the same. They scraped out a shallow snow hole and dived in, and Marjan dragged the loose snow over the pair of them. They were laid together only just covered by snow. She could hear the men’s voices now, maybe 50 yards away.
“Marjan, what’s going on? They’re here to rescue us.”
Her voice was a whisper. “Shut up. They’re Russian Paratroopers. They’re all carrying AK12s.”
“What’s that?”
“New Russian assault rifles. It can’t be anybody else. Now shut up and hope they miss us.”
Marjan heard them pass by some 30 yards away. They were speaking Russian, but the voices faded as they moved further on.
“Nils, I looked out and I think there were ten of them. They were heading north of our track. I think we should press on.” They got up and all four pressed on the way they were heading. Marjan was especially careful; she didn’t really settle as they were still out there.
Whitt turned to them. “Why did you fire the flare, dumb ass? You should have waited until we got there.”
Lieutenant Suvorov of the 83rd VDV Air Assault Brigade knew it would be difficult out here on the icecap. They’d so little to go on. He got the impression that they’d been sent so some officer could say, “Yes, we’re doing something.” They were doing an ass-covering exercise.
“Sir, listen,” said Sergeant Komarov.
He stopped and listened, but there was nothing. Then he heard it, the faint sound of aircraft engines. It wasn’t a jet, and was low. A minute or so later, he saw it. He recognised the four engines, the rear fuselage angled up and large vertical tail. It was an C-130 Hercules transport. It started to turn to the right; it must be looking to drop troops.
“Sergeant, get a man here with a Willow.”
“Sir.”
A soldier turned up with a Manpads, a man portable air defence system, the Willow or in NATO speak SA-25. It had three seekers: ultraviolet, near infrared and infrared.
“Soldier, you have release authority. Shoot it down.”
He switched it on, and the battery warmed the unit up. He set it over his shoulder and took aim. Through the sight, he saw a sensor flashing; he was in range for a hit.
The man pulled the trigger; the missile blew out of the tube and about six yards away the rocket motor lit. The missile sped off towards the C-130 and exploded in the port inboard engine.
The engine was blown off and the fuel in the wing tanks ignited. The aircraft’s left wing broke away and the Hercules tumbled flaming to the ground. It exploded on contact. The orange glow was visible over the snow-strewn landscape.