Man on Ice

by Humphrey Hawksley

  Vitruk barked an order. Orange flames from an exploding cartridge leapt from the breach of the rifle.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Big Diomede, Chukotka, the Russian Far East

  To Vitruk, the way the night-vision lenses conflated the image looked as if his soldier had fired a second shot from the pier.

  That wasn’t the case.

  The soldier was killed by a shot that came from out of the ice.

  There was no convulsion, no arterial blood. The bullet came in at the top of the neck and severed the spinal cord. The body slumped instantly and lost life. Only a handful of men in the world could make such a shot. Vitruk had seen it only once before. He moved back just before another bullet struck the ground exactly where he had been standing. The second sniper looked up to sight the target. He was shot in the face.

  ‘Take her in,’ ordered Vitruk. Carrie was dragged to cover between the two buildings. Vitruk stayed exposed, moving back and forth so quickly that no marksman would get a shot. He looked for human movement and saw none.

  A soldier ran up to him. Coming to a standstill, clicking his heels, he handed him a note. ‘Sir, urgent—’ He was about to salute when Vitruk hurled his body weight against him, throwing them both to the ground. A shot smashed into the wall behind them and, through a tiny flash, he thought saw the location of the trigger.

  ‘Floodlamps,’ he shouted. The wall of ice lit up like castle ramparts. Vitruk signaled toward the roofs of the two buildings. ‘Field of fire along the top.’

  Each building had a 76mm anti-aircraft unit and two Kord 12.7mm heavy machine guns. There was a deafening roar of large-caliber gunfire. Snow chunks broke away like exploding masonry. Ice spun into the air. Mist mixed with gun smoke as layer after layer was peeled off. No one caught in that onslaught of lead could survive.

  ‘Hold fire.’

  Through binoculars he saw the marksman.

  ‘The ridge.’

  Two bursts of machine-gun fire slammed into the target. Vitruk swept the wider area through his night vision. There was no Joan Ahkvaluk out there; no husband. They would be next. But he had the sniper. He checked the mutilated top of the ice wall again and didn’t expect what he saw. He looked with his naked eye, patch by bullet-torn patch, to make sure he was missing nothing. He checked again through the binoculars. A shape lay flat and skewed from the gunfire. But this wasn’t a gunman. It was the skin of a wild animal, blended in with the ice. Staring directly at him like a calling card was the black skull of a dead polar bear. The killer had gone.

  A heat of fury ran through him. He knew only one man who could have achieved what this marksman had, and he was Nikita Tuuq. Yet this was someone as good, probably better. Both were out there, which meant that Tuuq was compromised. Vitruk pushed himself to his feet and banged his gloved hands together. Should he summon back Tuuq, who would have gone to ground? His phone and radio would be off. They had a system of emergency flares. Red for recall. Orange for standby. Green for proceed to the kill.

  Vitruk shared his soldiers’ own anger. So many hours into the operation and he had achieved little except the death of his men. Another two comrades were dead. Just over an hour ago, three more had died, two on the ice and one in hospital. The helicopter shot down, the six men on the top of the American island. It was a stream of catastrophe, the reality of war.

  ‘Sir—’ The soldier he had saved clambered up next to him. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Vitruk read the note. It was from the Kremlin.

  ‘They want you now, sir. In the communications room.’

  Vitruk gave orders to check the ice wall, but to leave the bodies where they were. He would examine the trajectory of the two lethal shots which had avoided the soldiers’ Kevlar vests. He walked back inside the main building and, without taking off his coat, headed down steep spiral stairs into the old nuclear bunker sixty meters beneath the ground. It was a high-ceilinged chamber hewn out of the granite, the sides cylindrically curved like the hull of a ship and sealed with reinforced lead and concrete to protect hundreds of troops. Moisture dripped because of the outdated ventilation. The door to the communications room was open. He pulled out a chair and opened a bottle of water. A technician left, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Alexander, are you there?’ Lagutov’s voice was hesitant and tired.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Vitruk pulled off his coat.

  ‘Holland called President Lo in Beijing and Lo called me. He is worried. I am worried. If we do not resolve all this before the inauguration there may be a war of such strength as the world has never known before.’

  ‘What did Holland want?’

  ‘For China to condemn Russia. Lo cut him off. But he is nervous about his economy.’

  ‘We need to hold firm,’ said Vitruk. ‘Not even Holland would risk taking on both China and Russia.’

  ‘But will China hold its course?’

  ‘The Chinese do not like direct confrontation. Leave it with me, sir, and I promise we will win.’

  ‘You mean I should trust you as my successor.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And sacrifice me as a renegade, should I fail.’

  ‘Which you will not.’

  Vitruk had not told Lagutov about the deal he had made with General Bu Zishan, commander of the neighboring Shenyang Military Region when, a year earlier, he had hosted General Bu and an official from the North Korean People’s Workers’ Party to an extravagant banquet at his headquarters in Khabarovsk. He had won agreement from both men in exchange for promises to transfer Russian missile technology. Nine months later, he had covertly sent to North Korea two dismantled long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Topol-M – ‘topol’ meant ‘poplar,’ the tall evergreen tree. A Russian team assembled them in the massive underground facility at Toksong where North Korean engineers rebuilt the launch pad to fit, then left. The Topol-M was generations ahead of North Korea’s own missile design, which was basic and untested. The Topol’s speed of 15,000 miles an hour meant it could avoid detection to penetrate America’s anti-ballistic-missile shield. To launch, they only needed to arm and fuel it.

  Lagutov would have known that Vitruk had plans to ratchet things up. He might even be aware of the North Korea operation. But, so far, he had not asked. Lagutov was half urbane courtier, half brutal apparatchik, but his soul lay in the warmth of an academic library where decisions and their impact were safely embedded in the pages of history books.

  ‘I am tired, Alexander, and you are full of energy,’ he said. ‘Your television interview was inspiring. Russia needs you in Moscow.’

  This was Lagutov, offering Vitruk the mantle on condition that he won. His return to Moscow would need a dramatic entrance, an arrival at the Kremlin from a far-flung part of Russia’s newly expanded empire.

  Vitruk calculated distances and obstacles. Alverov and his team had successfully crossed the border and were now at the Toksong site. One missile would be fueled and prepared for launch from a silo. The other would be taken in a trailer and hidden above ground. It was on a robust carrier that could handle off-road terrain and, like a nuclear-armed submarine, would be near impossible to find. If they began fueling now, there could be a launch before the inauguration with the hidden missile still at large as President Holland took office.

  ‘Leave China to me, Viktor,’ said Vitruk, deliberately using the Russian President’s first name.

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ asked Lagutov.

  ‘It is necessary.’

  Vitruk waited for the secure line to clear, then put a call through to General Bu in China’s Shenyang Military Region.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Big Diomede, Chukotka, the Russian Far East

  Carrie shut the door of the small en-suite shower. There was no bolt, but the door to the main room was locked, the same one where she had been taken when she arrived. Food remained on warmers, the coffee stewed and tepid. The shower water ran ice cold, then jumped to steaming hot. Carrie peeled off her damp clothes and felt col
d sweat on her back. Sweating under thermal clothing was dangerous. Outside, once human movement stopped, sweat froze on the skin, sealing it. She needed to wash it off before going out again. The shower temperature settled and she stepped under.

  Head tilted back, water running down her face and soaking through her hair, she processed what had happened, absorbed images so they didn’t lash back at her and skew her judgement. The way a helicopter burnt; how a young man died; how she clung to her medical bag, always hunting out the injured; pushing Rake from her mind, admiring and despising his skill at killing all at the same time. There was madness in the human mind. If she hated this life so much, why did she seek it out? Except, on Little Diomede she hadn’t hunted for war. It had found her.

  The bathroom door opened to a rush of cooler air.

  ‘Finish up,’ said Vitruk from outside. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  A cloud of steam covered her. ‘Give me a moment,’ she said, keeping hidden her anger that he was trying to exploit the vulnerability of her nakedness. She was a doctor. She knew the human body better than he. She pulled a towel from the rack, dried quickly, and dressed.

  ‘You OK, Admiral?’ she said, stepping out. ‘Are you finished with fucking things up? You need to rehydrate, check for frostbite—’

  ‘I was raised in these parts. You don’t need to tell me.’

  If he wanted to play the psychological intimidation game, bring it on. ‘Sure as hell a lot’s going wrong for you. Two helicopters, thirteen men, and you’re holding women and children hostage in a school. I can’t see any hero fighting for his country here.’

  Vitruk lifted the lid off a stainless-steel food container releasing a sweet, poignant smell of beetroot and beef. ‘Just borscht, and in here it looks like potatoes and seal meat,’ he said. ‘We’ll eat.’

  He ladled food onto a plate, handed it to Carrie. She took it. No point in not doing so. The human body needs nutrition, water, and sleep. Vitruk helped himself, taking a seat on the other side of the table. Carrie kept her eyes on her meal. The food, bland and over-salted, warmed her. Vitruk pushed a phone toward her. ‘You need to call Ambassador Lucas. She is working with President Swain in the White House. Tell her your fiancé must be ordered in. He must stop, or more of us will be killed.’

  Carrie didn’t touch the phone. She kept eating, taking time to chew and swallow. Vitruk kept his gaze on her, waiting. Carrie said, ‘Do I tell her where I am, who I’m with, describe the layout of this base that you said was so dangerous to know?’ She wiped her lips clean with a brittle white paper serviette and looked straight back at him. ‘Or do I tell her it’s all over and you are taking your men off Little Diomede, and everyone can go home?’

  ‘You tell her to stand down Captain Ozenna.’

  Carrie forked her food. ‘You’ve got the number; you talk to her.’

  Vitruk leaned forward. ‘You know Stephanie Lucas.’

  ‘Not that well.’

  ‘Enough to call her and say she needs to order your fiancé to surrender.’

  ‘She can’t. She’s British.’

  ‘She’s in the White House. It can be done.’

  Carrie took another mouthful and washed it down with bottled water. Vitruk waited, his stare intrusive, threatening. ‘Even if he’s ordered to, he won’t surrender,’ she said.

  Vitruk picked up a remote, turned on a television screen on the wall, and flipped it to what looked like a military surveillance feed. ‘There are eight hundred American troops on the north side of the island. Work with me, Dr Walker. Please. These men are like sitting ducks and I can call an airstrike on them at any time.’

  ‘Why would you do that? Lose more men and helicopters?’ Carrie kept eating. She knew Vitruk would ratchet things up and she tried to keep her expression casual. ‘I will not be part of bringing Rake in because, like you say, he is my fiancé, and if I were in your shoes, I would kill him for what he’s done.’

  ‘When I kill him, I will be doing you a favor. No woman should be with a man like that.’

  ‘Why? Is that what your wife said about you?’ It came out fast, straight and blunt, and Carrie wasn’t even sure if she gave it a moment’s thought that she was comparing Rake to Vitruk. She bit her lower lip as her hard-assed expression weakened for a second, enough for Vitruk to notice. His face went dark as wood. Elbows on the table, he rested his chin on his hands. He smiled, not triumphant, not false either. It smiled of regret, and his voice softened. ‘My daughter was like you, sharp, unafraid. Pretty, confident. Larisa would be your age, now, if she had lived.’

  He paused, seeking Carrie’s curiosity to hear more, a trap she would not fall into. A father grieving the loss of a daughter did not diminish Vitruk as the monster who had ordered his men to shoot Joan. She stayed quiet.

  ‘Larisa died in a snowmobile accident,’ he said. ‘Slammed into a tree because I was drunk.’

  ‘You don’t get daughters back by killing people. Go see a therapist.’ Carrie kept her expression closed.

  His eyes trembled and he gripped his fingers together. ‘I know the mind of a man like Rake Ozenna. It is about war, hunting and killing. He will not be a good father to your children. Whatever dreams you and he have will come to nothing.’

  Carrie forked the last food around her plate. Was he playing her or, in this strange place and moment, was he unloading the mess of his own mind? One thing her job had taught her was that some form of humanity lay inside the worst of people. But none of that solved the situation right now, so she said flatly, ‘Looks like you and I are negotiating again. I’ll treat the wounded, Admiral, but I’m not making that call.’

  Like lightning, Vitruk switched to anger. ‘Damn you, woman!’ He banged the table with his fist. Coffee spilt. ‘You have no idea what is at stake.’

  Carrie pulled a paper napkin from the holder to soak it up. ‘You’re right, I don’t. But I do know that if you order your troops off Little Diomede and—’

  ‘Grow up!’ Vitruk’s tone was hard, but measured again. ‘I saved your life out there. If you don’t make the call, give me one reason to keep needing you.’ His eyes were powerfully aggressive as if to expel any doubt about his intentions. Carrie had to stop herself from shaking. She was about to reply, but found her throat constricting. Whatever she said would have come out limp, hesitant, and pleading. There was something else, something more than Rake. Vitruk only wanted to use Carrie now as a direct line to the White House, and she had lost count of the injured and dying she had treated because they had challenged power against which they could never win. Vitruk had the guns. He might be merciless, but he was not stupid, and she had revealed her self-doubt. He checked the phone, punched on the dial, slid it across to her, and said, ‘Stop being a stubborn, high-minded, destructively moral bitch and ring your friend.’

  As soon as she hesitated, both she and Vitruk knew she would make the call.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The White House, Washington, DC

  The vibration from the incoming call woke Stephanie from a short deep sleep on the couch in Prusak’s office. She fumbled with her phone, working out where she was. Prusak was by her side. He put in an earpiece for the line intercept and checked his tablet. ‘From the Russian base,’ he said.

  Stephanie pressed the answer button.

  ‘Steph. It’s Carrie.’ The tone was calm and professional.

  Stephanie gripped the phone harder than she should. ‘Carrie! Good God! Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m at the Russian military base on Big Diomede with Admiral Vitruk who instructed me to make this call,’ Carrie said like a doctor delivering a bad diagnosis.

  ‘The helicopter … the crash …’ Stephanie stumbled on her words. ‘Are you hurt?’ Phone pressed to her ear, she swung her legs off the couch to sit upright.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Carrie’s short precise answer shook Stephanie into doing the same. Vitruk was bound to be listening. This was not a time to show emotion. ‘Are you captive?’ she said.

/>   ‘Correct.’

  ‘Is Captain Ozenna with you?’

  ‘He is not.’

  Stephanie shot a look at Prusak who shrugged as if to say that not even the NSA with all its gadgets had located Ozenna. He patted his hand in the air: Stephanie should hold back and let Carrie talk. An echo peppered with shots of static hung for a few seconds until Carrie said, ‘The Admiral has some requests. He needs a guarantee that the marine units on the northern side of Little Diomede will remain on standby. He wants Captain Ozenna and the civilian Eskimos who are at large with weapons between the two islands to give themselves up. Once that is done he is sure that a solution can be found without further confrontation. He warns, however, that any attack on Big Diomede island will be considered as an attack on Moscow and there will be consequences.’

  Prusak mouthed that Stephanie should speak to Vitruk directly. ‘Thank you, Carrie,’ she said. ‘That is very clear. I need to speak directly to Admiral Vitruk.’

  She heard Carrie talking in a low voice. When the line picked up again, it was Vitruk. ‘Hello, Madam Ambassador. I trust my requests are clear to you. They are small and I insist they are carried out.’ He spoke with an East Coast drawl, peppered with diplomatic charm, the type Stephanie had handled for years.

  ‘Your first responsibility, Admiral, is the safety of civilians, including Dr Walker.’

  ‘Civilian safety is in your hands, not mine. Since we rescued the pregnant teenager, Russia has saved lives. America has taken them.’

  Prusak pointed towards the Oval Office. ‘All right, Admiral. I’ll take your wish list to the President. You have my word on that.’

  ‘Dr Walker is sitting with me,’ said Vitruk. ‘Please be quick. We are at a most critical stage.’

  Prusak circled his finger in the air for her to keep the conversation going.

  ‘Critical stage? What do you mean? We are talking about winding things—’

  There came static, clicking, then silence. Stephanie turned the phone round and round in her hand. His reference to a critical stage must mean the missile, nothing to do with Ozenna, except Ozenna could be the only obstacle that now lay between Vitruk and success. A few hours back Vitruk would have thought he had a whole army to take Ozenna out. So far, he had failed.