He pulled a radio from the pocket of his cold-weather gear and pressed the handset button. “Captain Mironov!”
“Mironov here.”
“We have American commandos coming onto the fantail. I recommend you put men with machine guns on the wings of the bridge, and in the main passageways.”
“Commandos? How many?-”
But Golytsin switched off the radio. Let the command staff figure this one out.
The prisoners. They were here to free the men and women from the American research station-a hostage rescue.
He needed to get down there, get down there fast.
Fantail CFS Akademik Petr Lebedev Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1028 hours, GMT-12
With his grenade launcher in hand, Dean moved aft onto the Lebedev’s fantail. Long lengths of metal pipes or tubes were stacked along the fantail, evidently drilling sections waiting to be lowered to the GK-1 somewhere below. The A-frame gantry loomed overhead, one pipe section still secured to the arm by a heavy wire rope.
A football field’s length away off the port side, the Ohio had emerged from the ice, her black island standing above a tumble of ice blocks shouldered aside as she’d surfaced. A number of Russian sailors had gathered along the port side of the Lebedev to stare at the risen apparition. Now, though, SEALs moved down the deck, weapons held against their shoulders as they moved. Two Russians, both of them naval infantry judging from their uniforms, lay dead on the deck. The rest, unarmed, were fleeing, scattering forward along the deck or ducking back into doorways.
One of the key tactical considerations for this op, Dean knew, was just how many armed troops were on board what was ostensibly a civilian research vessel. According to her published specs, the Lebedev was supposed to carry 128 men. Most of those would be ordinary sailors, even merchant seamen, with little or no knowledge of weapons. A few would be Russian naval infantry; some might even be Spetsnaz-Russian Special forces-depending on how important this expedition was to the Russian government and military. But the chances were good that only a few-fifteen? Twenty?-would have military weapons or training.
Standing orders would be to engage enemy forces capable of resisting but to minimize other casualties. Still, there were only fifteen Navy SEALs on board the Lebedev now and one former-Marine-turned-spook. They had to seize the initiative and hold it; if they let the enemy recover their breath and their wits, the SEALs could find themselves up against some very serious opposition indeed.
Dean might not be a SEAL, but he should be able to help with that. Kneeling on the afterdeck in the shadow of the huge A-frame crane, Dean pulled the UAV control board out of its watertight plastic case. The device was the size of a large paperback that unfolded flat at the press of two buttons, with a built-in swing-up screen, a small keypad, and a two-inch-high joystick that popped up when he unfolded the panel. He switched the device on and made sure he had a clear signal from the Sky-HUNTIR, then set the unit on the deck and picked up the MGL-140.
Taylor appeared on the fantail next to Dean, a gray apparition, still dripping, an H &K in his hands. “Well? How about that special spook stuff, Marine? You said you’d have something to show us.”
Dean was already training the six-shot grenade launcher on the dazzlingly blue zenith of the sky. “Taking care of that now, sir,” he said, and he squeezed the trigger.
The MGL-140 grenade launcher gave a sharp cough as it sent a 40mm round streaking into the sky. Dean set the weapon down and quickly picked up the controller, his thumb on the joystick. Seven hundred feet overhead, the grenade Dean had fired came apart as it reached the top of its trajectory, the expended propellant cartridge falling away to expose a small, battery-driven pusher-prop and an unfolding ram-air parafoil the size of an unfolded newspaper.
One of the rounds originally developed for the MGL-140 was called HUNTIR, a somewhat tortured acronym standing for High-altitude Unit Navigated Tactical Imaging Round. Fired by a Marine on the ground, the HUNTIR flew into the sky, deployed a small parachute, and drifted back to earth like a flare… but instead of burning magnesium, it carried an onboard CMOS camera aimed at the ground, transmitting whatever it saw in real time. It gave ground forces a badly needed tactical advantage in places like Iraq, where you never knew what was waiting for you behind that wall up ahead, on the next city block, or on the other side of the next hill.
The problem with HUNTIR, though, was that it only transmitted for about eight seconds, and if you didn’t place the round perfectly above the right piece of real estate, you might miss seeing what you needed to see. The National Security Agency, looking for new and innovative ways to gather useful data on the battlefield and during covert insertions, had married the HUNTIR with a self-powered UAV. The result was Sky-HUNTIR, a long-bodied 40mm round that deployed an engine and a parafoil wing at the top of its trajectory. The battery on board would keep the device aloft for up to ten minutes, and an operator on the ground-or, in this case, on the fantail of a ship-could remotely fly the UAV to exactly the right point for useful snooping, or let the onboard computer chip steer the vehicle on a preset search course.
The Sky-HUNTIR was already sending back black-and-white images, though so far they showed nothing but a wildly tilted horizon. Nudging the joystick, Dean brought the flier around in a broad turn, angling the camera in its nose to look back at the ship.
“That’s the IR view?” Taylor asked, looking over his shoulder.
“IR overlaid on visible,” Dean replied. He pointed at the screen. “We’re getting some thermal imaging through the superstructure. Looks like the hostages may still be gathered here.”
Large numbers of human bodies radiated heat-quite a bit of it. The ceilings and walls of the Lebedev’s superstructure were relatively thin and not well insulated; on the screen, numerous dark blobs of fuzz marked man-sized heat sources, some moving, some clustered together in one place.
Dean tapped on the small keyboard, bringing up a schematic of the Lebedev’s upper decks, then had the computer drop the recorded heat sources onto the deck plans.
“Team three!” Taylor snapped. “Hostages are at prime target area. Execute!”
Nearby, the four SEALs of fire team three moved closed on the large watertight door at the aft end of the Lebedev’s superstructure from either side.
20
Aft Stores Locker CFS Akademik Petr Lebedev Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1030 hours, GMT-12
FEODOR GOLYTSIN REACHED the long passageway on the main deck outside the machine shops and stores lockers. This was the aft end of the Lebedev’s above-hull superstructure, a long block of large compartments used to support the mechanical aspects of at-sea drilling and bottom sampling.
The aft stores locker had been filled with crates of food at the beginning of the expedition but was nearly empty now. Days before, Golytsin had given orders that the compartment be carefully searched for anything that might become an improvised weapon. Then mattresses had been moved into the compartment, which had sinks and a toilet. The American “guests” could be housed temporarily there, at least until arrangements could be made to put them on board a helicopter, and they could be flown back to Mys Shmidta. A naval infantry guard stood outside the door, gripping his AKM tightly and looking nervous at the growing sounds of battle outside.
“Stand aside,” Golytsin ordered. “Open it.”
The guard undogged the hatch and stepped back. Golytsin stepped inside, exercising caution in case the prisoners had prepared an ambush inside. The prisoners, however, were gathered along the far bulkhead, slumped on mattresses or the bare deck.
“What the hell is going on?” one of the men demanded.
“Some of your countrymen have decided to launch a hostage rescue, Lieutenant Segal,” he said. During the past days, he’d closely questioned all thirteen of the prisoners, and now he knew them all by name. He raised his PM and pointed it at one of the women. “Miss McMillan, you will come with me.”
“Now wait just a damn
ed minute!” Tom McCauley yelled, coming to his feet, fists clenched. Fred Masters got up as well… and then all of the prisoners were on their feet.
“Stay put, Kathy!” Randy Haines ordered.
“What the hell are you trying to pull?” Steven Moore demanded. “She stays with us, you Russian bastard!”
Golytsin smiled. Moore was one of the Greenpeace moviemakers. It was interesting to see how the two groups had forgotten differences and come together since coming on board the Lebedev.
Golytsin brandished the pistol. “I promise nothing will happen to her,” he said. “But if the rest of you don’t sit down and do exactly as you’re told, several of you will be dead!”
“It’s okay, boys,” the woman said. She crossed the deck to stand in front of Golytsin. She still wore the T-shirt she’d had on when she came on board; someone had found her a pair of BDU trousers, however, which were baggy on her. “So what am I, Feodor, your personal bargaining chip?”
“Something like that.” He grabbed her upper arm and steered her toward the door. “I suggest the rest of you lie down, cover your heads under those mattresses, and don’t move around. Hostage rescues can be… very hazardous for the hostages.”
He led the woman out into the passageway.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“Somewhere safer than this ship,” he told her. He pointed with the PM. “That way.”
During the past week, he’d been quite impressed with Kathy McMillan. Threats of torture, of gang rape, of being abandoned on the ice or dropped into freezing water, none of those had shaken her resolve to tell Golytsin absolutely nothing.
Golytsin considered himself to be an ethical and moral man. He disliked violence, disliked bully tactics, and had never intended to actually carry out any of those threats on the woman. But she didn’t know that, and he’d been impressed by her stolid, almost Russian willingness to confront and endure whatever the future might hold for her.
Still, her silence, and that of one of her companions, Randy Haines, had confirmed for Golytsin that both of them were American intelligence agents, probably CIA. The third man the Dekabrist had plucked off the ice, Dennis Yeats, Golytsin was pretty sure was just another NOAA scientist. Haines was almost certainly CIA, but he was also a big man, with powerful arms, and Golytsin didn’t trust his own ability to keep control of someone that physically strong.
Those commandos outside could have the rest of the prisoners. McMillan, Golytsn had decided, was more valuable than the lot of them combined.
“Faster!” he urged as they hurried down the passageway.
Fantail CFS Akademik Petr Lebedev Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1031 hours, GMT-12
The SEALs reached the watertight door leading into the Lebedev’s superstructure and tried pulling the grab handle. “It’s locked!” one yelled.
“Blow it open!” Taylor called back.
One of the SEALs reached into a waterproof pouch, producing a strip of cutting charge. But it would take precious seconds to affix the charge and blow the door off of its dogs and hinges.
“Have your men step clear,” Dean said. He put the Sky-HUNTIR on an automatic search orbit above the ship and set the controller on the deck, retrieving the MGL-140. “And I mean way clear. We can kick the door in with this baby.”
Taylor nodded, clapping Dean’s shoulder with a gloved hand. “Do it.”
At Taylor’s direction, the SEALs stepped well back from the door, taking cover around the corners of the superstructure. Dean brought the MGL-140 to his shoulder and sighted on the center of the door.
The MGL-140 had been developed to meet a number of design challenges posed by earlier grenade launchers, like the well-known M-203. Besides being able to launch a tactical battlefield camera, the MGL-140 could also utilize a variety of new munition types, in addition to the large and varied family of 40mm grenades already in the military arsenal.
Among these was the MEI Hellhound round, an impact-detonation grenade with twice the lethal radius of the conventional M433 high-explosive grenade and far more hitting power. The joke was that the “hound” in the round’s name stood for “High-Order Unbelievably Nasty Destruction,” a rather too-cute acronym, which Dean was inclined to doubt came from real life, but which certainly told the story. Officially, the round was called “hyper-lethal/enhanced blast.” The round was the reason the MGL-140’s unofficial nickname was Master Blaster.
“Knock-knock,” Dean said, and he squeezed the trigger.
The grenade streaked across the open fantail deck and slammed into the steel door dead-center. The explosion engulfed the door; the concussion rang shrill in Dean’s ears and slapped against his face and combat vest with a palpable, startling blow. Pieces of the door frame clinked and rattled across the deck as smoke billowed across the fantail. As the smoke cleared, Dean could see that the watertight door had been punched off its dogs and slammed back into the passageway beyond.
“Go!” Taylor yelled. “Go! Go! Go!”
The SEALs dashed up to either side of the opening. One tossed a canister through into the swirling smoke, and a few seconds later a string of thunderous explosions and bright, strobing flashes erupted from inside. The flash-bang was designed to incapacitate anyone waiting on the other side, blinding, deafening, and stunning them with a series of sharp detonations. Dean suspected that if any bad guys had been on the other side of that door, they weren’t going to be affected much by a flash-bang grenade now, not after the Hellhound had come knocking.
The four SEALs of fire team three clambered over the smashed-in door, following close on the heels of the last of the flash-bang detonations.
“Good shot,” Taylor told him. He sounded relaxed, almost chatty. “You know, I trained with the 140 at China Lake for a while. Damned impressive weapon.”
Dean placed the launcher on the deck and retrieved the UAV controller. “It’s all about force multipliers, sir,” he said. Reasserting control over the UAV still circling high above the ship, Dean put the device into a shallow dive, bringing it down closer to the ice-girded Lebedev. As he turned the UAV to fly parallel to the ship, from stern to bow, he saw something on the screen, something worrisome.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “We’ve got trouble.”
“What?”
Dean enlarged the window on his monitor and zoomed in close. From either side of the bridge at the forward end of the Lebedev’s superstructure, open wings extended out over the port and starboard companionways. On the screen, two men in uniform could be seen wrestling something long and heavy out onto the starboard wing.
“What the hell?” Taylor said.
“PK,” Dean told him. “Russian machine gun. If they get that thing set up there, they’ll be able to sweep the entire starboard companionway.”
“Fire team two!” Taylor called over the radio. “Be advised there’s a Russian MG being set up on the starboard bridge wing. Watch yourselves!” Team two had been working its way up the starboard companionway toward the bow.
“Copy,” a voice came back. “We’ve got… shit! Shit!”
The sharp rattle of automatic fire sounded from somewhere forward. On the screen, Dean could see the two Russians on the bridge wing standing behind the PK, which had been dropped into a vehicle mount on the aft wing railing. They were firing sharp, short, controlled bursts down onto the companionway.
Tilting the UAV around, Dean was able to spot two SEALs, crouched on the companionway deck behind an open watertight door. They were using the door as cover, but if they moved, either to fall back or to go around the door to enter the superstructure, the machine gunners above would have them in a clear and deadly line of fire.
“One-one, this is Two-one,” a voice called. “Andrews is hit. It’s not bad, but we’re pinned down, can’t move!”
That PK machine gun had just sucked the vital initiative from the SEAL assault.
Dean put the UAV back onto automatic. “I can get that machine gun,” he said, pick
ing up the MGL-140 again.
“Do it,” Taylor said.
Dean stood up and started forward.
“Where are you going?” Taylor asked.
Dan pointed. “Up there. I need a clear shot.”
A ladder led up the aft end of the superstructure to an upper deck, where the Lebedev’s single smokestack rose clear of the structure. Forward of that was a drill rig, with another ladder leading up.
“Don’t get yourself lost, Marine,” Taylor warned him. “When we sound recall, we’re gonna have to get the hell out of Dodge fast.”
“I’ll be there,” Dean said. And he started up the first ladder.
Main Starboard Passageway, Main Deck CFS Akademik Petr Lebedev Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1032 hours, GMT-12
Golytsin urged the American woman ahead of him at a ragged jog. He’d ordered her to turn right when the passageway came to a T intersection, leading her around and past the internal housing for the ship’s smokestack, then forward up the starboard side of the ship. Seconds after they made that turn, an ear-wracking boom had echoed down the passageway, followed moments later by something that sounded like Chinese fireworks, only much louder.
The enemy commandos were storming the Lebedev’s interior.
No matter. His destination was not much farther ahead.
“Look, Feodor,” the woman said. She sounded exasperated… and tired. “Give it up! Let me and the rest go and no one needs to get killed.”
“People have already been killed, Miss McMillan,” he replied, his voice cold. “But it’s in a good cause.”
“What good cause? Oil?”
“Money,” Golytsin told her. “Money, and something much more precious.”
“What’s that?”
“Survival.”
“I’d think you would want to survive the next ten minutes.”
“Miss McMillan, you really have no idea what the people I work for are like.”
“And who would that be?” she snapped. “The Organizatsiya?”
That observation alone confirmed for Golytsin that the woman was with American intelligence.
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