“A very tight, very dangerously written nondisclosure agreement that swears you to silence, quite literally on pain of death. And please take it seriously. You fuck up, and I’m spending the rest of my life in jail as well.”
“More paperwork,” Anika said.
“I take it you haven’t spent that much time in the military?” Forsythe asked.
“I’m not shocked,” Anika said. “UN Polar Guard was not any different. I’m just … never mind.”
After she pressed her thumb on the pad, Forsythe slid it away. “Good. I’m assured by experts who’ve looked this plan over on the way here that the fallout will be minimal here on the ground. The citizens here are in no more danger than observers at many bomb sites last century, and most of the cloud is over the water, and not Thule. So I had Mister Prudence Jones sign this earlier, and Violet Skaegard signed it in the hallway. Time is not on our side, so let’s get started.”
* * *
Within the hour Forsythe was shaking hands with clean-cut men in off-duty wear standing on the dock. Some of them were still pulling on newly purchased Thule cold weather gear as they stuffed their old gear into plastic buckets that were then tossed back into the small dinghy tied up to the dock.
Any personal effects that made the men identifiable were also sent home.
“Forsythe said these were volunteers,” Roo commented, looking on as the SEALs checked over their weapons. “But this is a full SEAL platoon. I doubt any of these sixteen were capable of saying ‘no’ when asked.”
“Isn’t a platoon larger than sixteen men?” Anika asked.
“Not these guys, no,” Roo said. “Sixteen should be enough against Gaia Security. Any more: we lose the element of surprise.”
“Okay. I see.”
“Maybe.” Roo turned back to a small case full of weaponry he’d wrangled. They were all snugged nicely away against foam inserts. Anika figured that meant Roo was going to be joining this attack. “You should go talk to Vy.”
Anika took a deep breath, ready to harass him for telling her what to do. Then she realized she didn’t even know where Vy was, and had been caught up in mentally preparing herself. “Where is she?”
“Inside that pickup.” He pointed. Roo had hunted down three winterized Indian Tata pickup trucks converted into ice plow trucks. They’d lined the doors and bed with extra bulletproof vests, and the three trucks would be their lightly armored, rapid transportation in.
“Thank you.”
She found Vy sitting in the passenger’s side of the indicated truck cab. She had wrapped her arms around her knees and was staring out of the windshield at nothing in particular.
“You know what I fucking hate about the polar circle?” she asked, shivering from the gust of cold air as Anika crawled in next to her and shut the door.
“What?”
“That.” She waved her hand at the windshield.
Anika looked out through the frost rimming it at the buildings. “What are you pointing at, Vy?”
“The light. Always the light. It feels like I’ve been up for three months, and never got to go to bed. And when the winter comes, it’ll feel like I’m living in a twilight dream. It eats away your insides and leaves you wondering if it’s seeping into your decisions. I’m sick of it.”
Anika leaned against her, snuggling in closer. “I don’t like it either. It feels unnatural. But then again, who am I to say what is unnatural. I can’t even wrap my head around seasons. Whenever I was outside Africa, away from the equator, the idea that the world could grow cold felt … alien. Like I’d flown to another planet and was out of my place.”
Vy leaned her head on Anika’s shoulder. “Between that and the cold, that was why I bought into The Greenhouse. Baffin’s little piece of tropical paradise in the middle of the grim. I know it can be beautiful out here: the blue water; clean, stark ice; the purifying wind. Jim Kusugak told me he spent some time in New York and couldn’t stand it. No open vistas, too warm, too fetid, he said. I think some people just imprint on where they grow up, and I’m one of them. It’s not the cold, it’s the light. The constant, fucking light. And it doesn’t needle at me until I get stressed, and then it’s always there, burrowing back behind my eyeballs.”
Anika hugged her closer. “Someone should find that boat Paige told us about and get it ready. We’re going to have to leave really quickly once we set the missile to fire. And we want to disappear after this. We should disappear somewhere that isn’t the North. Ask Roo for help—maybe he can help us escape to the Caribbean?”
“Or a nice, mid-sized little city somewhere on the California coast? With its own municipal nuclear power station and a water desalinizer. Normal day and night cycles, and t-shirt weather all year round,” Vy sighed. “I’d been saving up for that.”
“It sounds beautiful,” Anika said wistfully.
Vy grabbed her cheek to turn Anika to face her. “There’s no fucking way I’m sitting on that ice queen’s boat and waiting for you and Roo to risk your damn lives without me. Don’t disappear on me again.”
“Okay,” Anika said. They pressed their foreheads together. “I promise. I promise I won’t ask why either.” It was time to just accept that Vy was there. That she wanted to be there. Anika didn’t need to sabotage this by second-guessing. She didn’t need to wonder why Vy wanted this, or what it was she had to offer.
She’d pushed enough people away with that before. Excuses about the job. Believing that she couldn’t possibly be everything someone else thought she was.
But for now, Vy was the second leg that helped her stand up that much straighter. It felt good. Like here in this small cab, they were a team, with the outside world something they faced together.
And she liked that.
Someone knocked on the window and Vy looked up. “The very nice Marine outside looks like he’d like to talk to us,” she said.
“SEAL,” Anika said.
“Whatever.”
It was time to go over the plans with Commander Tyrone Gallo one more time. If there was anything Anika was learning about the SEALs over the last half day, it was that they believed in preparation.
Meanwhile, reports trickled in of two more ships destroyed by the mirror swarm for pushing too close to Thule. The G-35 navies were standing clear, but a standoff like this wasn’t going to last forever.
40
The first pickup rolled down the road toward the building, shoving snow out of the way as it went. The spray of ice and flakes thrown up clumsily ahead of it shielded three SEALs running up the street, then ducking behind nearby buildings.
Fifteen minutes later the first truck was parked on the far side of the building.
The three men reported in a few moments later, and Anika watched as Commander Gallo pushed pins into the most recent satellite printout of the surrounding area and updated her. “Lookouts have been disabled,” he said. Then he asked, “Is the weapon still in position?”
After listening, he looked back at Anika. “They can see the missile in the upper floor from their positions. Time to go. Let’s roll!”
They took off down the ice street.
As planned, one street over, the other pickup truck would be speeding down it. Up ahead, coming down the street at them, the third would now join in as well.
There were four teams, the commander had explained: the small sniper team of three up on the roofs, giving them eyes and cover fire, much like the volunteers had given Gaia earlier; two teams of four each would take the stairs, while a third would hang back to provide support.
Although armed, Vy, Anika, and Roo were, as Gallo said several times, to stay the fuck in the trucks. Vy was in the bed of this one, her back against the rear window.
Fair enough, Anika thought, as one of the SEALs gunned the pickup along. These guys moved with oiled precision and every other trained-to-the-nth-degree, band-of-brothers type of cliché you could think of. She’d unleashed them like dogs on Gaia. Let them do their thing, she thought.
&n
bsp; But she still cradled an assault rifle. Another Diemaco C11. Familiar, sturdy. Known to her. Along with a few extra clips she slipped under her waistband.
Just in case.
She also found yet another pistol to tuck into the back of her jeans, under the jacket. It made her feel better.
The three trucks slid to a halt and everyone leapt out. The SEALs moved quickly, each member sweeping a zone around him with a rifle, ready for an attack from any quarter.
For a split moment, as Anika watched them ghost their way through the pylons under the buildings, she felt a slight twinge of déjà vu. Roo took the wheel from the commander—who’d slipped on out—put it in reverse and backed them around underneath a nearby building, out of easy range.
The sense of déjà vu disappeared in a gut-punching series of explosions. They both turned around to look out the back of the truck. Vy had crouched lower, and she turned to look at them through the glass. “What was that?”
“Mines,” Roo said. “Shit.”
Anika couldn’t see any SEALs—they’d found cover as the firefight suddenly ripped the streets open. Bullets cracked into the street surface, throwing up sprays of chipped ice with every single shot.
And the fizz-schwish of an RPG filled the air. Orange flames exploded underneath a nearby building. A pylon splintered, and the entire structure slumped slightly over to its side.
“Get down, Vy!” Anika slouched down, patting the bulletproof vest she’d acquired, just to reassure herself it was still there. Glancing at the rearview mirror she saw that Vy was lying down in the bed of the pickup. Good.
“They’re ready for us,” she said, a cold lump in the back of her throat.
“Very ready,” Roo agreed, as Gaia Security began to pour out the doors of buildings all around. “Looks they’ve moved out the civilians, maybe purchased the surrounding buildings and taken over the whole area. Shit.”
One of the SEALs, fifty feet away, was dragging a body back through the pylons at them. Anika kicked the door open, getting low, Diemaco slung under an armpit, and made her way over. She ducked from pylon to pylon and grabbed the wounded SEAL’s shoulder.
Vy dropped the truck’s tailgate and helped them get the wounded man up. Anika winced as she realized the man’s right leg was hanging more by cloth than by leg.
“You need to get him to the hospital,” she said. “It’s by the harbor.”
“Someone needs to drive,” the SEAL said, ripping a pants leg apart and pulling open a medical kit. “He’s going to bleed out if I leave him.”
Roo tapped Vy on the shoulder. “Get him there, you’ve been in Thule before.”
“There’ll be others who get hurt,” she said, leaping down and getting inside the cab.
“Maybe, but we have other trucks. Go.” Roo slammed the door shut and slapped the window.
Vy looked over at Anika. “I’ll be right back,” she mouthed.
“I know.”
The pickup peeled out, sliding underneath the buildings and dodging pylons, and Roo and Anika got to cover.
Gallo joined them a minute later, slipping in low and shoving his back against the thick concrete pylon they were favoring. “Goddamn it, I told you guys to stay in the trucks.”
“Violet took your guy to the hospital. You’re stuck with us.”
“That was Ricardo that stepped on the mine,” Gallo said. He tapped his earpiece. “Neil says he’s got him stable, but he might lose the leg. They really moved quickly to secure this area, Jones.”
Roo sighed. “They’re more prepared than I could have anticipated. I looked through their files, only a few of them have Special Forces experience.”
“Well, this is a case where the numbers matter as well,” Gallo grunted. “We’ve got fifty or sixty Gaia Security spread through the surrounding buildings, and ten or fifteen in the target building itself.”
The clatter of bullets died. Their side had their positions and wasn’t wasting ammunition. The other side couldn’t see any movement.
In the lull, Gallo continued, his voice level and calm, and almost oddly reassuring. “If I knew for sure I could get Gabriel into that building, I would order my men to cross the roads, risk the mines, and head up those stairs. But I guarantee you we’re all going to die in the crossfire from these occupied buildings. We just don’t have the tools to do this right.”
Anika looked across at the scuffed ice. The house that had been hit by the RPG finished settling one corner onto the ground. They were so close. They were within a couple hundred feet. She crouched over the assault rifle, pulling it close to her. “What tools?” she asked.
“We need air support,” Gallo said. “But the bubble cloud’s in the way, and Thule has filled the air with antiaircraft mites that choke the inlets. Very effective nontraditional air warfare. We could try for missile strikes if we pull back, but that still leaves the mines.…”
“What if I can get you air support?” Anika asked. “Is it still doable?”
“What?”
She was already on the phone Paige had slipped her back in the office before she’d gotten on the submarine. Anika clenched her free hand. Please, please, please still be there, she whispered to herself quietly. Still be in partial control of the cloud.
“Yes?” hissed a strained, brittle voice.
“It’s Anika. We need your help, Paige. I can stop Ivan. But in order to do it, you’ll have to help me destroy the cloud, so that it can be rebuilt somewhere else, controlled by all of us, not just Ivan. You can’t hold him back for very long. What happens next?”
There was a long pause. “What are you doing, Anika?” Paige whispered. Anika could hear her cough wetly through the phone.
Over the occasional burst of gunfire, the crack of nearby bullets as the lull faded away and the Gaia fighters pressed them back, Anika explained.
“Anika!” Roo shouted. “They’re going to push up on us now. Is time to leave.”
Anika shook her head and held a hand up. “Paige. I talked to an officer from the blockade in town. They will attack, and when they do, it will be the blockade, and everyone left in Thule, who pays the price. We detonate this nuke high up, over the water, the shield goes down. We can end this.”
A long moment stretched out so long Anika checked the phone to make sure the call hadn’t been dropped.
Finally Paige coughed and croaked, “The moment he knows you’ve overrun them there, he’ll focus the shield on that building and vaporize you all.”
“Can you hold him back?”
“Not for very long anymore. He’s almost locked me out. You will have to move quickly … if I agree.” Then suddenly Paige’s voice changed sharply. “Wait.”
There was more silence. And then one of the Gaia men shouted. They stopped firing, and several of them leaned back and looked up into the sky.
From their position under the building, behind the safety of a pylon, they couldn’t see what they were pointing at.
A solid beam of light descended and struck an empty square three blocks away. Steam hissed and boiled over, and the façade of a nearby building slumped.
Distant screams reached them.
Paige returned. “He’s trying to destroy the building you’re talking about, and the nuke. He must have just gotten the news that you’re attacking and doesn’t want to risk you getting the nuke.”
“We’re beaten back; he has to know we haven’t taken the building,” Anika protested.
“He won’t take the chance. He’d rather sacrifice them than risk you taking it.” Paige sniffed.
“Paige, you can’t support this,” Anika said.
“I know. I know. Give me the coordinates you want attacked, and then get ready to move. I’ll bake the street. I will not fry my own employees, but I can startle them and make the buildings they’re in intolerably hot but survivable. They’ll be more interested in getting away than in you, I’d bet. That’s the best I can do.”
“Thank you, Paige. Thank you.”
Anika pointed at the phone, and then repeated the situation to Gallo. “Knowing that, are you still in?”
He looked thoughtfully around. “So we’ll have to move the missile. Mr. Jones, is the equipment still up there?”
Roo nodded. “When we initially captured it, they’d knocked out a wall, then put tarp over it to stay warm. The tackle is still there. We can lower it over the side into a pickup and drive like hell to a better location.”
Gallo looked at the phone. “How much time will we have?”
Anika met his eyes. “As much as she can give us.”
Gallo tapped the butt of his gun against the trampled snow underfoot and thought about it for a second. “Let’s do it,” he said, and took a deep breath.
“We’re all on board,” Anika told Paige. “We’re ready when you are.”
“Then here we go,” Paige said, and Anika heard a click.
The world exploded in light.
41
The silvered cloud split, and a focused beam of light struck the street in a twenty-foot-wide swath of fury. It swept southward, mines detonating and throwing their debris into the already violent explosion of steam.
Anika, Roo, and Commander Gallo huddled against the pillar as the hot steam blew past them.
The white-hot beam of light faded, and a strange, creaking silence settled in.
“Okay, I’ll give you ten seconds, and then I hit the houses,” Paige said, her voice so hoarse Anika had to strain to hear it.
“Ten seconds,” she shouted to Gallo.
“Ten,” he repeated. “Go!”
It took five seconds to run through the pylons. Anika was counting down under her breath. She hit four as she slipped and slid out onto the road. The heat had boiled off a strip of the street, turning it instantly to steam. The rest it had merely warmed, leaving them a slippery river to cross.
She spotted scared Gaia Security forces running away underneath other nearby houses out of the corner of her eye.
But at the count of three, bullets started slapping the standing water around her. At two, her legs were soaking wet with still uncomfortably hot water. At one, the world lit up again: a curtain of light that surrounded the three-story house with the missile in it.
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