“Lima November Whisky Victor Tango, departing to the west, rolling.”
As the speed built up, he felt the rudder authority build. Keep on the centre line, watch the airspeed climb. He let it pass ten knots over the 80 knot flying speed and eased back on the yoke. The aircraft climbed away, and he glanced down and saw the runway recede. Gear up, fuel on correct tank, flaps up.
The Russians hadn’t fired at them; maybe no one had told them to. Nils grinned, pulled back from full revs and turned left. Get some altitude, head west and worry about exactly where we’re going once we’re on the way. He forgot about the Russians; pilots don’t care about what’s behind them, and they were behind now.
“Marjan, you were an Officer in the IDF. Get a chart and give me a heading.”
She took out whatever charts were available from the rack to the rear and plotted a course. She compared this with the GPS on the largest scale and got a heading from their current position to the destination. The two matched within a few degrees.
“Ok, Nils, we’re going for CFB Alert. Heading 282 degrees.”
He pulled the heading to 282. “On 282.”
She set the ICOM radio to 8.33kHz, the open distress channel. After 100 miles she broadcast on the set.
“Lima November Whisky Victor Tango our position is…” She read off the current lat and long. “Our heading is CFB Alert, please broadcast on our details, over.”
Marjan repeated the transmission every 100 miles. At 300 miles from Svalbard, Nils saw the northeast coast of Greenland to their left on the GPS display.
Another 100 miles, she repeated the transmission.
“Lima November Whisky Victor Tango our position is…” she read off the current lat and long. “Our heading is CFB Alert, speed 90 knots, please broadcast on our details, over.”
“Copy Lima November Whisky Victor Tango. We are Gnorth, a ground call sign. We receive your message and will rebroadcast. Over.”
Marjan smiled. “Thank you Gnorth, ID please?”
“Lima November Whisky Victor Tango, we are a geographical survey location, we are from the French Arctic survey. Are you in distress? Over.”
“Negative Gnorth, pass on our location and destination please. We have onboard one Israeli citizen and one Danish citizen, Nils Sondergaard, over.”
“Will comply, over.”
She turned to Nils. “At least our position and course are known.”
Fifty minutes later, and still hundreds of miles from CFB Alert, the engine spluttered. It kicked into life again and then died. They heard only the wind noise now. Nils set up what he hoped was the best glide slope. The batteries were still fully charged.
“Lima November Whisky Victor Tango our position is…” She read off the current lat and long. “Engine failure, we are going down. Repeat.” She broadcast again, but with no reply. The cloud mercifully cleared and with a moon out they saw as best they could their location. An eerie white landscape stretched out flat in all directions.
“I’ll do my best, but expect a rough landing.”
Nils could tell they were descending, but their altitude was a problem. It was hard to gauge the altitude until late on.
“Here we are, brace yourself.”
The aircraft touched down and rebounded, then came down again and rebounded. It came down again and this time stayed down. The snow rushed by, then started to slow. Eventually, the Piper came to a stop with the nose in and its tail high.
“There’s the good news,” said Nils.
“What good news?”
“We survived.”
She shook her head. “Yeah, there is that.”
The two of them put on their warm hoods and snow goggles. They pushed open the port door and took out the rifles and skis. There was an emergency supplies kit, so she placed it in a pack. At the rear of the cabin, she removed a cylindrical object from its mount and placed it in the pack. She then strapped the pack to her back.
“What’s that thing?”
“It’s an EPURB, a location beacon.”
“What now?” asked Nils. “Wait by the aircraft?”
“No, we press on,” Marjan replied. She took out a handheld compass and pointed in the direction of CFB Alert.
“Let’s hope the French passed on our location.”
The two of them pushed off, with Marjan in the lead. She knew that their survival was now in the balance. Was their position, course and speed rebroadcast on? They’d live or die, depending on that.
Two figures in the white Arctic vast pressed on, their skis and ski poles pushed them slowly, rhythmically towards the west.
Their only thoughts were of survival.
5
The Dacha lay off the road in snow covered forest land. Viktoria Shaykhlislamova, head of the SVR, and General Vladimir Yegorov sat on the couch in the Dacha. Denisov, a senior member of the inner state cadre, gave the pair of them a hard stare.
“You will have seen this communication picked up by the Spetssvyaz?”
“Yes, sir. I passed it on to your office,” said Shaykhlislamova.
“Yegorov?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How the fuck has this bastard got to some frozen shit hole off northern Greenland? Yegorov, you had the VDV on Svalbard. How did the beer-swilling, bacon-eating Danish idiot get there?”
“The local commander reported a small aircraft taking off. It must have been him.”
Denisov glared at him. “And they didn’t try to shoot it down?”
“Sir, they had no man portable air defence systems.”
“So, they’d no missiles.” Denisov slapped the coffee table. “They had fucking guns didn’t they?”
“Yes, sir,” said the General sheepishly.
Shaykhlislamova perked up. “He must be with the Mossad agent, we don’t have her name. They did crash according to the signal intercepts, and they did report their position to a French Arctic survey team. That was rebroadcast via satellite. So, we have a rough idea of where they are.”
“The Americans will no doubt have the same info as us,” scowled Denisov. “We must get him soon. It’s as cold up there as a reindeer’s asshole; they can’t last long. Yegorov, get whoever you need out there, mobilise whoever or whatever you need. Catch them and figure out a way to get them here.”
“Sir, we will.”
The big blue Toyota 4x4 pulled up at the main gate. Two soldiers in white combat gear got out and one of the two soldiers showed his pass to the gate. “Petty Officer Whitt, Navy SEALs. See that the truck driver is paid, he got us here El Rapido.”
“Will do, you’ll find ops over there to this side of the apron.”
The two SEALs were on an Arctic exercise with the Canadian forces when they’d been recalled. The message was, “Get here as soon as you can.”
They’d flagged down a passing truck and given the driver no option; he’d seen the two M4 carbines and told them to get in.
The two men walked over to base ops and entered.
“We’re here to see Colonel LaPaz. It’s Petty Officer Whitt and Operator Ford, USN.”
They were led into an office down the corridor. The Colonel stood and shook their hands.
“Petty Officer Whitt, Operator Ford, I’m LaPaz. I’ll get you fixed up with food and a coffee. You’ll be needing that after several days in the bush.”
“Sir.”
The two SEALs ate the food with a hungry passion.
The Air Force Colonel sat at their table. “Ok, let’s get down to business, Petty Officer Whitt,” said LaPaz.
“This came down from Admiral Kamov himself. You’re needed on an immediate rescue mission in the Arctic. North of Greenland on the icecap, a small aircraft has crashed with two aboard. We need to effect a rescue now.”