V Plague (Book 11): Merciless

by Dirk Patton

  Five minutes later, I looked down at the Russian pilot’s corpse. It had ruptured on impact with the frozen, rocky soil. Body fluids that had leaked out of the flight suit were already freezing. The knife had been jarred loose and I found it ten feet from the body.

  5

  “He’s where?” Admiral Packard asked the Lieutenant running the tactical operations console in Pearl Harbor’s Combat Information Center or CIC.

  “Ellesmere Island, sir. It’s Canadian territory. Well above the Arctic Circle. But we don’t know if it’s him or a Russian.”

  “The last I was told, his plane was on course for Baffin Bay and a flyover of Greenland.”

  Packard didn’t sound happy, and the Lieutenant wasn’t at all excited about delivering unexpected news.

  “This island borders Baffin Bay, sir. It’s separated from Greenland by a narrow channel, just under 20 miles wide,” the young officer said in a rush.

  “Slow down, Lieutenant. Tell me what happened.”

  “Yes, sir. We intercepted the Russian plane over Baffin Bay. Ordered it to turn around. They refused. The Spetsnaz on board held a weapon to the Major’s head and ordered our pilots to back off. They didn’t. One of them came in over the top of the transport and positioned himself directly in front of the cockpit, then went to full afterburner.

  “Half of the windscreen was compromised by the jet blast and the Russian pilots began evasive maneuvers. We pursued, but couldn’t maintain visual contact in the clouds. One of our pilots reported a small explosion and fire that he believed was one of the plane’s engines. Not long after, the aircraft exploded.

  “The flight dropped below cloud cover and an emergency strobe was spotted on the ground. They captured a shot of the survivor with one of the F-18’s gun cameras, but the quality is too poor for identification. We’re trying to enhance it now, but those cameras aren’t made for high resolution imaging.”

  “What do we have in the area?” Packard asked.

  The officer spun his chair around and began working his console. Packard moved closer, peering over the man’s shoulder as he worked.

  “The closest carrier is the Lincoln, in the North Atlantic, but it’s several days away, sir. But, we do have a sub patrolling the Arctic Ocean. Right here,” the Lieutenant clicked a mouse and a large circle was drawn over an immense, empty stretch of water. “The Seawolf, sir. This is their patrol sector.”

  Packard leaned closer, noting for the first time the large island with a blue dot marking the location of the downed man. Hopefully, it was Major Chase and not one of the Russians. There was only one way to find out.

  “Get a flash traffic alert to Seawolf. They should be able to get close enough to launch a RIB.”

  “What if it’s a Russian and not the Major when they get there, sir?”

  “Russians are used to cold weather. He’ll be…” Packard paused, rethinking the order he was about to issue. “Scratch that, Lieutenant. If the survivor is Russian, tell them to leave him a week’s worth of supplies and we’ll get a message to their Navy so they can go get their man.”

  “Aye, aye sir,” the Lieutenant tried to suppress his surprise.

  “What about Admiral Chirkov’s plane?”

  “No update, sir.”

  The Admiral hadn’t really expected anything to have changed. The Russians had detected the inbound American fighters and changed course to head over Siberia. There, they were met by a large escort flight of Mig fighters. Packard had turned the pursuing planes around before they violated Russian airspace.

  As much as he had wanted to pursue and engage the Russian Admiral, he was trying to deescalate tensions. It was only by the skin of their teeth that they had gotten the Thor System operational, and without it, he’d be handing the keys to the fleet over to Chirkov.

  “Let me know as soon as you hear back from Seawolf,” Packard said, turning and striding across the large room.

  The Admiral paused behind an operator busily working a console. The man was tracking the large herds of infected still occupying sections of North America.

  Packard rocked slightly on his heels, thinking about the infected. The Navy had finally succeeded in identifying and tracking the satellites the Russians were using to control their movements. His initial impulse had been to destroy them, but had decided to not play that card yet.

  There weren’t any infected in Hawaii, and the survivors who had evacuated to the Bahamas had cleared all of them off the island. At the moment, he didn’t see any reason to worry about massive herds being moved around North America. There were no civilians remaining on the continent to be threatened, and only a handful of military.

  He moved deeper into the room, angling for a station occupied by Jessica Simmons. She had been moved out of the Cyber Warfare center as a result of the loss of her security clearance and reduction in rank. She now occupied a console in the CIC, doing the same job. It didn’t make sense, but it was how the military works.

  “Seaman,” Packard greeted her as he walked up.

  “Sir!” Jessica looked up and beamed at the man.

  “You’ve heard about the Major? He’s on…”

  “Ellesmere Island,” Jessica interrupted. “Yes, sir. I know. I’m keeping an eye on him. Well, at least I hope it’s him. The area is socked in and all I’ve got is thermal.”

  “I don’t know whether to be impressed or annoyed, Seaman,” Packard grinned.

  “Just doing my job, sir,” Jessica smiled. “And if you haven’t been briefed, Captain Blanchard has successfully captured the Major’s wife.”

  “Heard a few minutes ago,” he said. “Is he still planning to link up with the evacuees from Seattle?”

  “Yes, sir. The SEALs have just departed the research facility and are heading east. Over the mountains. They’re going to link up with Igor, the Russian Spetsnaz, on the way, then rendezvous with the Colonel in Boise.”

  Both of them turned when a beeping began sounding from Jessica’s console. She glanced at the screen and hit a couple of buttons.

  “Uh oh,” she said.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Russian helicopter just tripped a boundary fence I set up on the surveillance. It’s headed for Ellesmere Island.”

  “What? How? Where did it come from?” Packard asked, not at all happy that the Russians must have a ship in the area but no one else had noticed.

  “One moment, sir.”

  Jessica’s fingers flew across her keyboard. Views on her monitor rapidly changed, then cycled through several spectrums of light. She zoomed on a large blob, only a few hundred miles off the northern coast of Greenland.

  “Ship, sir,” she pointed.

  “Best guess?” Packard asked.

  “I saw something about the Russians running some of their new helicopter carriers out of Murmansk. That’s not that far away. Whatever the ship is, that aircraft is definitely a helo. Too low and slow for anything else that could be launched at sea.”

  Jessica tapped the screen with a fingernail where a bright red blob was moving on a direct course for Ellesmere Island.

  “Show me the Major. Or who we think might be him.”

  Packard waived his aide over while Jessica adjusted the view. In moments, the man was standing next to the Admiral.

  “See that helo inbound to where we think Major Chase is? See if we’ve got any assets that can intercept it before it arrives.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man snapped, turning and dashing away.

  “Right here, sir,” Jessica said when she had tightened the view in on a single, red blob lost in an expanse of cold blue. “If it’s him, he got lucky.”

  “What do you mean?” Packard asked as she worked the keyboard.

  As Jessica worked, a new layer was overlaid on the view. It was a shot of the large island taken without clouds obscuring the terrain.

  “He came down here, about three miles from the Nares Strait, which separates the island from Greenland. Five miles either north or
south and he’d be on a glacier. Three miles farther east and he’d have come down in the water.”

  Packard stood staring at the monitor for a long beat. His aide returned while he was surveying the image.

  “Sir, the flight of F-18s departed the area after determining there was a survivor on the ground. They are inbound to Alaska, and we can’t turn them around until they refuel. Their tanker has developed engine problems and had to head for Alaska. It’s flying slow and they’ll catch up, but it will be over six hours before they’re back at the target location.”

  “Sir. Look at this,” Jessica said.

  Packard turned back to her monitor and leaned in. Something was on the extreme northeastern point of the island, about twenty miles from the red blob representing the survivor. Not visible due to the cloud cover, what she had found was clear to see on the overlaid image.

  “Are those buildings?” The Admiral asked.

  “Yes, sir. And this is a runway scraped into the ice,” Jessica said excitedly.

  “Weather station?”

  Jessica opened a couple of new windows on her terminal and began searching. She quickly found what she was looking for.

  “Canadian Military, sir! It’s named Station Alert! Hold on,” she said, manipulating the image. “And those buildings are warm, sir! Maybe they’re automatic, but I’ll bet there’re people in there!”

  “Commander, find out everything you can about this station. See if we have any way to contact them. And have the Lincoln launch a fixed wing aircraft. They can put down on that runway. They should have some SEALs on board. If so, I want them on that aircraft!”

  6

  After finding the knife, I tried to wipe it clean on the dead Russian’s uniform, but the blood was already frozen to the steel blade. The wind felt like it was picking up and my hands were numb, barely able to function.

  I was still dressed warmly from being in the winter weather in Idaho, but was nowhere near prepared to be in what I was certain was a polar environment. It only made sense, as that was the quickest route to Russia. Up and over Canada, following the northern curve of the Earth to come down to Moscow. It was just a guess, but I suspected I was in Greenland.

  It took some effort, but I finally relieved the dead pilot of his flight jacket, but dismissed the flight suit. It had been soaked when the corpse had ruptured and was now a solid mass of ice.

  Shivering, I quickly shed the parachute pack and pulled on the dead Russian’s jacket. Dragging out the white canopy, I worked on it with my knife then covered my body as best I could. The added layers immediately helped, providing more protection from the wind. Needing to cover my exposed skin, I used the knife to cut large squares out of the fabric. I wrapped several layers around each hand, then a double fold to cover my face and head, only my eyes exposed.

  Better armored against the cold, I took the time to search the jacket. I was hoping to find a weapon. Few, if any, American pilots don’t have some sort of firearm on them in case they have to eject into an isolated area. Even a small pistol can, and does, make the difference between life and death when you’re in the middle of nowhere. But I didn’t find anything.

  Sitting there with my back hunched against the wind, I thought about the situation I was in. Greenland, if I was right about my location, was sparsely populated at best. As far as I knew, what people there were lived in the warmer climes at the southern end of the island. While I didn’t know where I’d come down, I suspected I was fairly far north. About as far from civilization as one can be.

  I laughed at myself for thinking about civilization. The world was dead. Even if there was a town nearby, there wouldn’t be anyone that wasn’t infected. But that was OK. I didn’t need people. I needed shelter from the weather until the Navy could arrive and scoop me up.

  The F-18 pilot had definitely seen me. Yes, I was assuming it was one of the Navy jets. There was no way he could have identified me, though, and perhaps he even thought I was one of the Russians. But I didn’t think that would stop Admiral Packard from launching a rescue operation. The only question was how long would it take them to get here. Hours? No, probably more like a day or two.

  At least that’s what I had to expect and plan for. Had to survive until they showed up. That was going to be problematic. Even with the added layers to battle the Arctic winds, I wasn’t going to survive in this environment for days. I needed shelter, and warmth. Food and water would be nice too, but that was probably asking for too many luxuries. I’d settle for a nice cave and enough wood to light a fire.

  Standing, I stayed in place and turned a slow circle. The Russian night vision goggles weren’t up to the standard of American units, but they were sufficient to allow me to see the shit sandwich I’d landed in. Completely barren, gently rolling terrain. Frozen dirt and rocks. No trees. No bushes. Not even some stunted grass to burn.

  I also failed to see anything that looked like a bluff or hill large enough to shelter behind. Everything was rounded over, like the wind was always blowing and had smoothed and polished the surface over the millennia. Well, as an old Master Sergeant I’d known used to say, “sometimes a new pile of shit is better than an old pile of shit”. Since I definitely didn’t like the looks of the pile I was in, it was time to move.

  Not wanting to exert the energy to battle the wind, I started walking in the direction it was blowing. As I moved, it pushed on my back and tore at me. It found even the tiniest of gaps in my clothing, slipping in as it fought to sap my body heat. I was having to constantly adjust the strips of canopy that were protecting my hands and face.

  I’d only gone a few yards when I stopped and stamped my feet. I couldn’t feel them. Going back to work with the knife, I hacked off more of the fabric. When I was done, I removed my boots and added several layers over my socks, then pulled them back on. It wasn’t comfortable, by any means, but if my feet froze I wouldn’t be able to walk and find shelter.

  I trudged across the frozen ground, trying to force myself to stay alert and watch to the sides. It was damn hard. Shivering, all my body wanted to do was curl in on itself to conserve heat. My head wanted to drop to my chest, and frequently did. Then I’d realize I was only staring at the ground directly in front of my feet and I’d have to stop and turn a circle to see what I’d missed.

  With no landmarks for reference, I lost track of time and was surprised when I reached a rocky shoreline. I’d thought I had been gently descending for some time, but was still surprised when the land suddenly ended at a steel grey ocean. Well, I assumed it would be steel grey if I was looking at it in the daylight, without night vision goggles. And there would probably be lots of whitecaps as the wind was howling.

  Standing a few feet from the water’s edge, I made another circle. Slowly. Taking the time to carefully examine every terrain feature within range. To my right, the land was flat, gently sloping to the beach. Turning to the left, I smiled when I saw a low bluff that ran from the water up to a low hill.

  It wasn’t much, but I knew that at the base, much of the wind would be blocked. Walking gingerly on the large, round rocks that covered the beach, I headed for shelter. The ground slowly rose on my left as I moved, and soon I was completely screened. The sudden absence of the wind was a physical relief.

  I was no longer fighting against the force trying to push me over and send me tumbling across the ground. And even though the air temperature didn’t go up, the lack of the frigid wind made me feel warmer. About fifty yards along the base of the bluff, I came to a stop. The strobe. It was the only way any rescuers could hope to find me.

  Muttering a curse, I reversed course and slowly walked back into the full force of the gale. Turning, I trudged to the top of the bluff, not stopping until I reached the highest point. Removing the pack, I fumbled with numb fingers until the strobe was detached. Using the knife, I cut one of the parachute lines free of the canopy and used them to strap it to a large, flat rock. I took a minute to place it so it was higher than the surrounding
terrain, then headed back to the beach.

  In the shelter of the bluff, I looked around for a place to settle in and wait. I was standing on a carpet of cantaloupe sized rocks that had been worn smooth by the waves. The beach beneath them was a narrow strip that separated the base of the hill from the water by no more than twenty yards. Stepping up to the face of the bluff, I used the blade to stab into the exposed soil.

  It was frozen hard, and full of rocks. The knife tip only penetrated an inch at the most before coming to a stop. I tried a couple of other locations, hoping I’d be able to scoop out a shallow cave, and found the same thing. Well, at least I was out of the wind. Putting my back against the vertical wall, I slowly sank down until I was sitting on the upper half of a large boulder.

  Sitting there, staring at the storm tossed ocean, another thought occurred to me. Was it low tide? Was the level of the water already rising? Would my refuge soon be submerged? I had no way of knowing without keeping an eye on the surf.

  Casting about, I looked for something I could use to mark the highest spot it was currently reaching. But there was nothing other than rocks as far as I could see. Stiffly standing, I walked to the point where the ocean crashed onto the small beach. Bending, I gathered several rocks and stacked them into a short tower. In the process, a larger wave slammed against the ground and soaked my legs from the knees down.

  Saying a few choice words, I retreated to the base of the bluff and took my seat on the boulder again. I could feel the cold stone even through the multiple layers covering my ass. But I didn’t have time to worry about that. Once I was back in shelter, the faint sound of rotor blades reached my ears.

  Standing, I turned my head from side to side and tilted it, trying to locate the source of the sound. I couldn’t decide on a direction, but with renewed hope, I headed for the top of the bluff where I’d set up the strobe. Halfway there, the wind swirled and clearly brought the sound of the helicopter to me for a few seconds.