The A ganger nearest to the site closed the valve, stopping the hissing roar and opened two by-pass valves.
“Done. Air rerouted to B two. Pressure good. Skipper won’t be happy; we’re at silent running. Bastard.”
In the control room Nathan and Nikki looked up, they could hear the escaping air from back aft. As Nathan reached for the communication point and selected engineering, it stopped. The boat was silent once more. The comms light flashed. Nathan activated it.
“Chief Engineer. Air feed to buoyancy two burst. We’ve by-passed. All’s well, sir.”
“Ok, Chief.”
He leaned over and whispered in Nikki’s ear. “The damn Russians will have heard that one. Shit.”
Nathan thought through his options: stay put and hope, or get out of there. Getting out and away would give the game away and his job was to deploy the SEALs.
Launch a Pointer and try to lure the Russians away? Possible but that was full of imponderables. He came to his decision; it wasn’t perfect, but what was? He looked around the room, held his finger over his lips and pointed to the deck. We stay here and stay quiet.
“Sir, Sonar. We had a transient, close, but it’s now ceased.”
Volodin turned to her. “Was it a definite contact?”
Chief Petty Officer Natalia Korobkina assessed quickly what she’d just heard. “I can’t say for certain, sir. There are biologics out there and with the icecap overhead the sound is confined, and you hear echoes. The best I can say is it could be. It’s a strong possibility, but not a certainty. Sorry, sir.”
Volodin patted her on the shoulder. “That’s ok, I like honesty. Pilot, all stop. Weapons Officer, flood tube one, get a Type 53 Fizik ready. Work with Korobkina to derive a firing solution on this Ghost or whatever it is.” Volodin knew that the contact could be a shoal of squid with a hard on, but they must be ready.
“Sir, tube one flooded, type 53 ready, outer doors closed. Submarine target designated podvodnaya tsel one, no data yet.”
That was it, knew Captain Volodin; the enemy would be a NATO boat, probably American, but could be British or French. Under the ice, all he could do was wait and listen in the control room’s pale red glow.
The Krasnoyarsk, 13,800 tons of the Motherland’s finest, lurked below the USS Stonewall Jackson.
The dark whiteout of the icecap spread out for as far as Platoon Chief Whitt could see. It was dark, but the moon behind the clouds bathed the scene in a pale wash. They’d been skiing for several hours now; he knew it was nearly time for a stop and a sleep.
“Marjan.” She pulled up and stood straight on her skis. He knew this young Israeli woman was taking to this Arctic wilderness. God only knows why, Whitt thought.
“Yes, sir.”
He ignored her remark. “We need to rest up for the night. Find us a spot to build a snow hole.”
“Ok, you got it.”
Within ten minutes she had a spot; it was a ridge with a hollow in the lee of the wind where lots of snow had piled up.
“Here, sir, this is good.”
“Ok, here it is.”
They set to work building the shelter.
Whitt took Ford to one side.
“I don’t like having Ivan out there hunting us.”
“Me neither.” Ford turned his back on the howling wind, as snow whipped by. “She said there were ten of them; they outnumber us.”
“There’ll be more than that. The VDV usually operates in two or three sections. About two platoons of men. They won’t fly whatever it was out here to drop a stick of ten paratroopers. They’ll be more of them.”
“Yeah, could be.”
Whitt pulled his hood down against the biting wind. “I think it’s time for a bit of quiet attrition; even the number up a bit.”
“Sounds ok with me,” said Ford. He could hear the smile behind the operator’s face mask.
“Give me your handset.”
Ford handed over his hand-held communications device.
“Marjan.”
She looked up from digging the snow hole.
“Here’s a comms device; it’s set to the channel we’ll be on. To talk, just press…”
“I know how to use it; we had similar in the IDF.”
Whitt raised his eyebrows. “You were in the IDF?”
“Yes, for two years, and then you go part time for longer.”
“Me and Ford are going out for a walk. We’ll need this to find you when we get back.”
“Nice night for a walk. Do you want me to come along?” She knew roughly what they were up to.
“No, you stay and look after Nils. Our call sign will be Rubber Duck. If you need to use a torch, be brief.”
“Ok, I’ll be Momma Duck. Good luck, sir.”
“Thanks.” Whitt took out his own comms device, accessed the GPS section and typed in Momma and saved it. That was all he needed, in theory, but he’d seen such things fail so he’d assume it wouldn’t work.
He turned and skiied over to Ford.
“I don’t know where they are, but I’ve a feeling from last contact they’re probably southeast of here.”
“Ok, good enough. Let’s go.” Whitt took a mental note of the bearing that they’d need to get back to their two charges afterwards.
The two of them skiied off into the dark whiteout, and soon they were alone pushing on through the blown snow.
“Ok, Ford,” said Whitt, pulling up, “we must be a couple of miles from those two back in camp. Let’s do it here.”
Ford took out a parachute flare from his backpack, pointed it upwards and pulled the firing cord. The flare rushed up high into the air and slowly descended, its burning light illuminated the canopy and trailed smoke.
“That should tempt Ivan. He’ll be coming for his prize. Keep an eye on the east north west arc and I’ll do the south side.”
Both men took out binoculars with thermal sensors. Their eyes were adjusted to the semi darkness, but the wind blew with a cold biting chill. The two SEALs scanned the horizon, to and fro across the icy landscape.
The dark sky loomed above like the black owl of death, poised above pale grey-white desolation. After 30 minutes, Ford spotted movement on the horizon. He watched for long seconds, wanting to be sure.
“Look, movement northwest, men skiing, about eight or ten coming this way.”
Whitt looked too. “That’s them. Let’s go east and get out of the way, find some shelter.”
They skiied off, and 300 yards later found an ice ridge. They took cover and watched. The Russians skiied south and were now level with them, taking loping strides with AK12s slung over their backs.
“Ok, Ford. This is it, forward.”
The two stood and skiied off to a position that would take them just behind the VDV troops. The Russians pulled up.
“Get down.” The two of them laid down and watched.
One of the Russians was looking through binoculars, searching for the Dane and his escort. They moved on to search further south, their skis pushed and swished left, right, left right.
Whitt and Ford got up and skiied off to a position to the rear of the Russians, then moved up towards the rearmost Russian troops.
Whitt got closer, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Ford doing the same. He could hear the Russian panting now and see his breath. This was it.
Whitt pushed on harder and then, right behind the Russian, he pulled out his Ontario Mk3 knife, pulled the man’s head backwards closed his thumb over his mouth and slit his throat. The man struggled for a few moments and then went down at the knees.
He left the man on the ice, blood spreading across the snow and looked to Ford; he’d dropped a man too. Whitt nodded forward to the skiing troops and set off after another. Then it was hear his panting, see his breath, roughly pull his head back and slit the throat, his man went down.