“We have activity off the coastline. Agent Troy says the Northern Lion is just sitting there.”
He gestured to the PRR and turned away. “Don’t count on it. McGill’s in Deep Six by now,” he said, walking to communications hut. “Connect with him.” A hand on his arm, and he turned. Olivia looked worried and he told her about the icebreaker.
“The one with Noble is here? Right here?”
He glanced. Scientists moved closer. “Let’s not cause a panic.” He swept his arm around her, guiding her with him. In the comm center, it was even colder and he ached for coffee and instead stood to the right of Ross. “Bring up the dossiers, will you?”
Ross typed wildly. He was good at searching data, and finally, useful. The guy had come off a year tour at a listening post in East Asia. Sort of explained his lack of social skills. With the Northern Lion off the coast, Sebastian canceled his leave. His butt remained parked right here, watching any and all movement. Sebastian stared at the pictures on the screen, the personal stats beside it.
“Knife guy,” she said, then leaned in to read. “Dimitri Kolbash and Lizveta Nevolin.” Olivia inhaled, looked at him. “As in Gregor Nevolin?”
He nodded. “His daughter, and McGill already confirmed the lady has a money trail in the millions and no means to earn it.” He’d let the CIA learn who was backing the woman, but her shopping list said she was prepared for any contingency.
“She’s taking up her father’s search for the relic,” Olivia said with certainty. “She has the Aramina log. She knows something is here, or that we are.”
“I think that’s secondary to looking for her father’s sub.” He told her the latest scenario of Moscow cutting off communications from the downed submarine and letting them rot under the ice.
Olivia looked stricken, her hand on her throat. “Those commie bastards,” she said, looking at the screen. Radar fanned out, illuminating the dig, but nothing near it. “Nevolin’s opening a wound. Wide. I can’t say as I blame her.”
Nor could he. But that didn’t have a damn thing to do with killing innocents and kidnapping his friend and for that, he’d show no mercy. “We’re looking for a hot spot under the ice.”
“Hot as in heat?”
He shook his head and knew she was thinking of the bolts loosening in the ice. “Radiating. The sub was nuclear powered. I doubt the Trident would be in operation, but that depends on what really sent her down. The last transmissions put the sub in this area and Mills’s sonar could map exactly where it was located.”
“You still think this was all a shell game?”
“It’s playing out that way. In Chechnya, they killed witnesses before we arrived, but the explosion would have been seen for miles. Not to erase the trail, but to bring attention. She’s uses Russian mafia to do the work, then wipes the trail. She’s equipped to the nines, with enough to have a rigid inflatable boat aboard.” He remembered the hoist and pulley system at the stern. “I bet she has a sub under those tarps and she’s going under the ice.”
Olivia eyes went wide. “That’s insane.” She looked at the picture of the thin blonde. “The depths at those temperatures would require a specific oxygen mix and you risk dementia.”
“She’d have to use a dry suit,” Sebastian said. “And even if there wasn’t any water inside the sub, the air would be toxic with nearly a hundred bodies aboard.”
“The bitch is off her rocker,” Olivia said. “She’ll do anything to win.”
He knew she meant kill Noble if he didn’t do what she wanted.
Ross said, “In the last eighteen months, there’s been a lot of ships passing by. None of them stopped except one. The Northern Lion sailed as far as Danmarkshavn, then turned back. That was three months ago. Can’t tell more than that. Everything goes out of range up here.”
It was continuously daylight through the summer months, dusk coming yet never quite reaching darkness. He was glad he lived by military time or he’d never know when to sleep.
“Separate Mills from it and it’s all about exposing this sub.” Price was in this to her eyeballs, and he knew she’d used it against Moscow. He glanced at the pictures still wet from printing. Price having dinner with Viva’s unofficial godfather Vlad. She looked like she was holding back a barf jag, but she’d done a bang-up job of muddying the waters for the United States. “The Northern Lion isn’t going anywhere. It’s sitting exactly within the legal limit of international waters.” He met her gaze. “You need to do whatever it is you do to start getting your artifacts off the ice. Any unnecessary personnel, I want them to leave with it.”
She agreed. “All but Zhu is almost prepped to go. The Viking’s ready to lift. We’ll keep everything we can encased in ice for transport to the university.” She looked thoughtful, then said, “Transport by sleds and Sno-Cats over the ridge; after that, it has to be flown. It’s not a smooth ride.”
“You pick a place big enough to land, Sam and Viva will be there.” He glanced at his watch. They should be at the house with Safia. Riley was on the top of the dome with a Marine. He radioed Max and warned him of Kolbash and Nevolin.
Deep Six
Satellite Intelligence
“Vibration occurred at 1445 hours. Must surface.”
Under orders not break cover, Mitch realized, rewinding the Trident’s hail recording and playing it again. He watched the counter. Two hours later, there was another hail this time, Mayday. Static then, ice crev—prope—crush—. Obvious, he thought and it was the fifth hail, weaker each time. The Bowman responded to the third one in four hours. They hadn’t had much time then, and it would have been a miracle if the Bowman could have reached the Trident in time. Sinking on her maiden voyage had to be a massive blow to Moscow, and stupid for not testing its crush depth in open water. Machines had their limits. David Lorimer was jumping military satellites to use their thermal imaging for a hot spot. Not easy in the North Atlantic ice cap.
Mitch flicked on the recording of Lania Price’s confession. He debated the truth of most of it, yet understood the bombs dropped in Chechnya were because he asked the right questions and got too close to the factory. The People’s Trident sailed capable for World War Three, and when it failed, they let the military rot and branded the captain for it. Bastards. The inhuman right of Molenko and Golubev to make that decision to save themselves was an abomination. But deep in his frustration of fighting terrorists, Mitch understood whoever was opening this wound had a right to do it.
Where’s that leave us now, he thought, rubbing his forehead. His brain was smoking, and he wondered what the kidnapping of Noble Sheppard had to do with all this. Snatching a scholar just didn’t figure in and Sheppard’s phone hadn’t been used again. But if Fontenòt was on Greenland, near where the sub was supposed to have gone down, then he needed to know all about Sheppard. Gerardo was searching because he kept getting slapped down. It made little sense with his clearance, but he figured there was some politics making them wait. He looked up when the elevator opened. His brows shot high as General McGill stepped out.
He jumped to attention. “Sir. This is a surprise.”
“At ease, Major.”
Mitch met his gaze. He didn’t look happy, nor did Gerardo as he followed him. McGill wore more stars than the last time he saw him, and Mitch figured he’d be commandant of the Marine Corps soon. He called to David and the satellite expert spun in his chair, then leapt to his feet.
“General.” He threw him a huge grin. “Long time, sir. I thought you retired?”
“Christ, why is everyone ready to shuffle me off to the old vets’ home?”
“If they did, you’d stage a coup.” They laughed and shook hands. McGill’s stern expression softened for a second. Until it landed on him. Okay, his ass was in the sling again.
“You owe my men a big favor, Major, and I’ve come to collect.”
“Sir?”
“Dragon One. They’re working for me.” He offered his NSA deputy director credentials.
Shit.
Oh, shit. Did he slam down NSA?
Mitch looked at Gerardo, but the man didn’t offer a thing.
“So why don’t we see what you’ve turned up since you shut my boys down?” McGill spared a dry glance at Gerardo. “You’re tracking a phone number used during Mills’s and the major’s rescue in Chechnya.”
Mitch felt that dig like a knife. Dragon One was McGill’s sacred six and offering that he was under orders to close them down wouldn’t make his case. From the looks of the brass, McGill had exercised rank. “Yes sir. It hasn’t been used.”
“I have pictures to go with it.”
“Sir?” McGill handed David a flash drive and the tech went to his console and brought it up. Four photos popped on the screen, then four more.
“That’s your caller.” He pointed upper left. “Dimitri Kolbash, former Spetsnaz. We believe he kidnapped Noble Sheppard in Surrey. Chertsey police say that phone was used outside Sheppard’s hotel. He is partnered, we believe, with the woman, Lizeveta Nevolin, daughter of the Red Navy submarine commander Gregor Nevolin.”
McGill went on to fill in some empty spaces and add a few. A dig on the Arctic Circle, a legend, a diary, and an ancient relic this secret unit considered a threat. Oh for crissake. Like a philosopher’s stone. He felt a smirk coming and kept his face bland. Not hard, his bruises had turned an interesting shade of canary yellow—but if this relic hunt gave him intel on Chechnya and the bastards who’d left him to die, he’d believe in aliens.
“Nevolin is educated in everything she needs right now,” McGill said. “Submarines, arctic navigation, the legend. I think she’s hunting for the trapped sub to expose it, and from the money trail behind her, she’s been planning this a long time.” He dropped a folder on his console and flipped it open. “D-1 encountered them in Ireland and they have backup and men to expend. Fontenòt has tracked them to Svalbard, and saw Mills’s sonar moved aboard by Kolbash.”
He gave Mitch pictures to prove it and he thought, Fontenòt was right, all for the sonar.
“The Northern Lion left Svalbard ten hours ago. We believe Doctor Sheppard is aboard.” He looked directly at Mitch. “I don’t give a damn about Price or Moscow covering it up, but my people are on the Arctic Circle, and now so is this bitch. Where’s the goddamn sub?”
“Greenland,” David said. “I’m trisecting the coordinates of the Bowman, Atlantic listening post, and the Trident’s hail.”
“Get specific, go thermal. Find a hot spot, because if this thing is underwater and its reactor wasn’t the reason, it’s possible the boat is operational. Nevolin is extremely well funded and you can bet she’s going to bring this crime to light, and do it with those missiles. She’s a woman on a rampage. It’s going to get ugly.”
Brønlundfjord, Greenland
On the eightieth parallel with binoculars, Max thought. Madness.
The fjord was a massive inlet, a tongue on the edge of the world and frozen solid. Ice blocked the water flow from the Greenland Sea, but farther inland, it was jagged mountains dusted in green. Fifty miles south people were in shirtsleeves. Max wasn’t having any of that shit and decided he was not made of the sterner stuff. The two Marines, Recker and Lewis, were from Wisconsin and just brimming with it. Max didn’t mind being the weenie of the bunch. His Florida blood was in shock over the temperatures.
“Lewis, take point, let’s move out a bit.”
He adjusted the lens on the dig site across the frozen water, barely discernible. Snow drifted smoothly onto the dome, sweeping it into the glacier. Lewis kicked in the snowmobile and shot across the ice. “No hot wheeling. Soft ice.”
“Roger that, sir.” Lewis was beyond the ridge, nearer to shore.
You got to be nuts to be chopping into the ice, he thought, but for morale’s sake, kept that to himself. The vibrations Olivia couldn’t pinpoint were trouble waiting to happen. You don’t mess with the powers of the earth when there’s nowhere to run like hell, he thought, then wondered if Sebastian was ready to bail. After Sebastian saved his life in Kuwait, and they were sharing a beer and first aid, he’d told him about Olivia and their marriage—once—then never mentioned her again. Max understood Olivia was the man’s Achilles’ heel. Living with her now had to be torture because even Max could see that after all this time they still loved each other.
He felt more than heard a rumbling and he pulled his hood back from his ear, listening. “Motor, two of them,” he said and scanned the horizon. It was another minute before the Sirius patrol showed up on a pair of souped-up Ski-Doos, moving wicked fast. The drivers looked almost space age with streamlined helmets that reached past their necks, and not an inch of skin exposed. He radioed Sebastian. “Denmark army is paying us a visit. I’ll make nice.” He waved.
The soldiers were aware of the excavation and its detail, and they’d radioed them before leaving the dig. When it came down to it, Danish authority ruled. They had to have permits to be this far north on Peary Land, the world’s largest national park. Nothing about it said camping and hot dogs, and only the skilled and experienced could survive up here. Some dangerous land, he thought as the snowmobile veered and slowed to a stop. One man remained behind as the other approached.
The Dane pushed his windshield up, but kept the helmet on. “You are Renfield? With the American archaeologists?”
Max reared a bit. “Yes, I am,” he said in Danish.
He felt Recker staring at him and glanced. “Speak up, Marine.”
“I know him.” Recker smiled at the Danish soldier and stuck out his hand. “You almost arrested me two months ago out here. I was on patrol.”
The Dane shook hands, smiling. “I am Gunderson. We’ve come to warn you, no farther. Summer is over, but ice still soft.”
“We know, but thanks for the warning,” he said. The ice was deceptive and while it would freeze back up quickly at night, the dig was on the tip of the inlet, what Greenlanders called a Ghost Island. Geology said there was land beneath the ice, but out on the edge, the ice ruled. Several islands were discovered in the seventies, never to be seen again. About a half a mile away, the water was chunked with ice and so cold life expectancy in it was under a minute.
“This is good,” the soldier said, pointing to the ropes securing them to their snowmobiles. If the ice cracked, it was their only anchor. They weren’t on anything you’d call a road, only the last path taken on the glacier. Supplies were routed through this area, kept surprisingly busy with geologists and climatologists collecting data. North was snow and ice dotted with bits of bedrock. South, the land rose in dimples and mossy green mounds, the wind sweeping snow into peaks. Fifty miles away was a village.
And hot coffee, he thought.
“If you travel on the ice, radio us, yah.” He gave their frequency. “Stay two by two.”
In pairs, he guessed, then shook hands with the soldier, and waved to his buddy who was watching the terrain as if terrorists would parachute down. Very Sirius soldiers. Max walked back to his snowmobile, then climbed on. Recker mimicked him. He rolled in the rope, stuffing it under a Velcro strap, but didn’t unclip. He turned over the engine, then headed onto the ice. The soldiers were flying east across the snow, deeper into Perry Land.
After a couple hundred feet, Max stopped and swung the binoculars into position. He narrowed the focus. It was shades of white till he moved left.
“Fox leader, I’ve got people on the ice,” came over the radio.
“I see them, Fox one.” White camouflage wasn’t easy to spot, but the machinery, he couldn’t miss. It was huge risk to be on the edge of the ice and he counted ten people with Ski-Doos. He zeroed in on the weaponry. “Back off and return to base immediately. Stay covert.”
“Roger that. They’re awful busy out there, sir,” Lewis said over the PRR. “Negative ID on anyone.”
Not bundled in cold-weather gear, he thought, then said, “I better see your ugly mug in two minutes, Lewis.” He changed the frequency and radioed Sebastian. “Coonass, we got co
mpany on the ice, and they’re packing. Looks like they’re digging, too.”
“Copy that. We need to get personnel off the dig.”
Civilians and weapons didn’t mix and even from here, he saw handguns and counted four assault rifles. What the hell were they expecting, a polar bear stampede? “No chance of a rescue assault on the Northern Lion?” Recker brightened at the prospect.
“Negative, too dangerous on the ice or that water. We have a storm front coming.”
He looked to the sky, then behind himself. The cold front was a gray blanket heading this way. “Roger that.” It was killing Sebastian to know that Noble was this close and he couldn’t reach him, but a struggle in arctic waters was just unwise unless they had the supreme advantage. And they didn’t.
He turned the snowmobile back toward the dig, keeping the motor low. Recker was behind him and they paused for Lewis to catch up. Max radioed the Sirius soldiers, warning them.
He’d bet one of Olivia’s cappuccinos that was the little Russian psychopath, Nevolin.
Veta eyed the giant boring machine and the hole it cut into the ice with a thousand blades spinning at once. She was concerned about its weight on the ice, but the cut was clean, shooting a soft spray of shaved ice in four directions and creating a rainbow. She felt a little childlike for a moment, watching it turn crystal pink. The grinding noise drew her back and she found Dimitri staring at her. She smiled. He did not return it and she crossed to him.
“Share your opinion, comrade.”
He stared ahead. “The decision is yours, commander.”
She eyed him, not liking what she was seeing in him. Why was he doubting her now? “Continue.”
“Wounding the old man?” He shook his head.
So there it lies, she thought. “He was uncooperative. He would have lied, and written lies. He’s obeying now.” She waved, cutting off the discussion. Sheppard made her uncomfortable and she knew the lilt in his voice reminded her too much of her father. “The star coordinates are near here. The captain wrote of seeing a ship trapped somewhere.” Like her father’s boat, she thought, looking inland. A crest in the drift prevented seeing a portion of land, but the rocky mountains rising behind were bright in the sun. Few lived this far north and certainly not on the ice fjord. A phantom island, she’d read somewhere, and she thought it oddly appropriate. For this small piece, there were many spirits under the ice.
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