“Not much better than a Coke bottle,” he grumbled.
“I told you to go before we left home,” Gator said solemnly, in a tone he normally reserved for his three-year-old daughter. He gave a short bark of laughter. “That’s what I always say when we drive up to the gas station in the car.”
“Funny guy.” Bird Dog touched the relief tube again, and wondered if he could manage to wait.
Kilo 31
Rogov waited until the last Spetsnaz commando entered the raft before reaching out for the ladder himself.
“Comrade Colonel, do you really think it’s such a good idea?” the submarine captain began.
Rogov cut him off. “You don’t need to think. I’m going ashore with the detachment to survey the site,” the Cossack snapped. “Your orders, Captain, are to deliver me here, and to maintain radio contact should I need assistance. I will return to this ship in six hours, and you are to be here waiting for me. Are we clear on that?”
The submarine captain nodded, relieved that the colonel would be leaving. The Mongolian Cossack’s cold, menacing presence had become almost unbearable in the close confines of the submarine. If only he didn’t look so different, he thought, he might be almost tolerable. But the slanting, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and ruddy brown-red color marked Colonel Rogov as a descendant of the barbarian hordes that swept across so much of the continent during earlier centuries. If the stories told about the Cossacks were true, then the blood of merciless conquerors and masters of torture ran through Rogov’s veins. He studied the massive man descending the ladder below him, noting how much he looked like the Spetsnaz. It was some quality of the way they moved, smoothly yet gracelessly, power imbuing every motion. It was a clear, cold menace that every man of European descent recognized — and feared.
He shook his head, dispelling the beginnings of a shudder. What mattered was not the man’s bloodlines, but the mission he was on now. While he had no need to know the details, the little he had learned made his blood run cold.
As Rogov stepped onto the raft, the submarine captain saluted, then cast off the last line holding the small craft moored to the submarine. He looked up and stared back out at the island. Despite his misgivings about Rogov, he would not willingly have sent any man out onto the bleak, barren island so close to them. Especially not in this weather.
He watched the raft pull away, the steady thrum of its outboard motor echoing eerily in the fog. Godspeed, he said silently, as he felt the weight left off his shoulders. He turned back to his submarine, and descended down into the command center. The sooner they were submerged and back below the surface of the sea, the safer the submarine would be from any prying eyes.
Tomcat 201
Bird Dog eased the Tomcat forward slowly, concentrating on the plastic basket streaming aft of the KA-6 tanker. Landing on a carrier deck at night was by far the most stressful part of carrier aviation, but refueling ran a close second. He resisted a temptation to look down at the icy water.
“Looking good, Bird Dog,” Gator said encouragingly. “A few more inches, a few more inches there, you’ve got it.”
Bird Dog felt the Tomcat shudder as the retractable refueling probe located on the right side of the fuselage near the front seat slid home.
“Good connection. How much ya want, Bird Dog?” the KA-6 pilot asked.
“Let’s get her topped off,” Bird Dog said. “Going to take a run out west to check up on one of Gator’s ghosts.”
“Roger — commencing transfer now.”
The Tomcat and the KA-6 flew like a strangely mated pair of bumblebees for six minutes, the KA-6 pouring fuel into the Tomcat. When both wing tanks were topped up, Bird Dog said, “That’ll do it.”
“Roger. Have fun chasin’ ghosts.”
“Maybe it’s Santa Claus on his way home,” Bird Dog answered.
“Sounds good to me. You been a good Bird Dog all cruise?” the other pilot asked.
“Good enough.”
“What are you gonna ask him for?”
“The only thing that comes to mind right now is a nice warm land-based urinal, but I’ll give it some thought on the way out there.” Bird Dog heard the other pilot chuckle in response.
Bird Dog eased back on the power slowly, carefully disengaging from the KA-6. As soon as an adequate degree of separation had been achieved, he rolled the Tomcat gracefully to starboard and headed out to the west.
Aflu Island
As the raft bumped up against the island’s southern shore, the Spetsnaz in the forward part of the boat leaped out, skidded on the ice, and then tugged on the mooring line. The bow of the small craft slipped up out of the Water and onto the ice. The rest of the Spetsnaz piled out quickly, moving easily even after twenty minutes of sitting on the cold, hard boards that ringed the interior of the raft. Rogov followed more Slowly, trying to conceal the stiffness already setting into his muscles.
He stepped out onto the ice, felt it shiver slightly under the weight of the men on it. Two Spetsnaz were hauling the boat completely out of the water. Rogov walked cautiously to the edge and peered down.
No gradual sloping of land into sea as there would be on a continent, he thought. Just a sheer, dark plunge into the depths. He could see the ice go straight down for perhaps six feet, and then it was lost in the inky blackness of the Pacific Ocean. He stepped away from the edge, suddenly conscious of how very tenuously a layer of solidified water overlay the volcanic base of the island, separating them from its more liquid counterpart. A few degrees warmer, and half of the island would melt back into its original state.
“Sir, come on,” the Spetsnaz leader insisted. He grabbed Rogov’s arm just above the elbow and pulled the colonel away from the edge of the ice. “The camp’s just up ahead. This cold — it’s deceptive, Comrade Colonel. You don’t know you’re freezing to death until it’s too late.”
Rogov ignored the man for a moment, long enough to make a point. Then he turned and followed the five figures, almost invisible against the island in their white Arctic suits. It was easier to track the yellow raft they hauled behind them than to focus on the commandos directly. His feet crunched a small layer of fresh snow that skittered across the hard-packed ice. Ice crystals stung his eyes, driven at him by the winds now reaching gale force. He reached into one pocket of his parka with a glove-covered hand and withdrew a set of goggles. If the Spetsnaz commander hadn’t suggested he put them on earlier, he would have, but it was imperative that he show no sign of weakness in front of these men. If they knew what was planned … he let his thoughts slide away from that and focused on the island of yellow ahead of him.
Ten minutes later, they reached a towering mass of ice, A wooden frame was set into it, a blank wall of timber hauled at impossible-to-estimate cost to this deserted spot. A steel door was centered in the dark wood wall.
He saw the Spetsnaz commander watching him carefully. He strode forward, put one gloved hand on the wooden bar set crosswise in the two U-shaped supports, and lifted it out. The door unbarred, he tugged it open. The interior of the structure was pitch-black.
Rogov turned to the Spetsnaz commander. “Get some light in there.”
The man nodded, looking faintly disappointed, as though he had expected Rogov to show some signs of fear now that they were alone on the forsaken island. He motioned sharply to one of his subordinates, who produced a flashlight. “We’ll get this generator started immediately, Comrade Colonel. The batteries are probably completely drained, especially in this weather. We need to run the generator for three hours a day to keep the batteries charged. Unless we make some extraordinary energy expenditures, that will be enough to keep the life support functioning.”
Rogov stepped inside the structure, following the man with the flashlight. He gazed upward. A thick continuous sheet of heavy plastic was bolted to the overhead, a thin layer of insulation between the occupants of the cavern and the massive mountain of ice overhead. “Ingenious,” he murmured. He’d studied the
pictures, the mission briefings, but the actuality of this impressive engineering accomplishment could hardly be conveyed in the dry technical words of the science teams who had been there before them. The world’s best insulation against cold — ice.
The Spetsnaz commander said, “It warms up some once we get the heater started, but not very much. We can’t risk too high a temperature. The plastic keeps the overhead from dripping on us, but if too much of it melts, it will cool down on the deck and start refreezing around our feet.”
“Comfort is the least of our concerns while we’re here,” Rogov said. “There are supplies for how many days stored here?”
“Two weeks.” For the first time, the Spetsnaz commander looked at him uncertainly. “Will it be much longer than that, do you think?”
“When you need to know, Comrade Commander, I will tell you,” Rogov snapped. “I suggest you concentrate on getting this camp fully operational as quickly as possible. Perhaps the memory of two weeks of rations will add speed to your preparations.”
The Spetsnaz commander barked orders to his compatriots, his air of braggadocio considerably diminished at the thought of being stranded in the camp with no rations. Rogov smiled to himself, pleased. How long they would be here would depend on the Americans. And it was Rogov’s job to ensure that the United States found very little to interest them on this westernmost Aleutian island.
At least, not right away.
CHAPTER 2
Sunday, 25 December
1615 Local
Aleutian Islands
Rear Admiral Matthew Magruder forced himself to relax the tight grip he had on the seat’s armrest. The worn upholstery on the C-130 transport plane was testimony to the years that it had been in service in the United States Navy.
How many times had it made this trip? he wondered. Five hundred? Two thousand? He glanced around the cabin, trying to distract himself from the tricky approach onto the Adak Island airfield, wondering how many other admirals and other dignitaries had made this same flight during the last five decades. Not many in recent years, he would be willing to bet. And this would be one of the last ones, since he was en route to Adak to preside over the decommissioning of the last P-3C Orion squadron assigned there.
He looked down and saw his fingers had curled around the armrest again. The nubby, well-worn fabric was rough and slightly oily under his hands. He grimaced and shook his head. Like most naval aviators, Rear Admiral Magruder despised being a passenger. An F-14 Tomcat pilot himself, he found it particularly unsettling to be strapped into a seat thirty feet away from primary flight controls. He felt the plane shift slightly, and his left foot pressed down automatically, trying to compensate for the aircraft’s slight wobble.
“Please remain in your seats,” a terse voice said over the speaker. “We’re getting some strong crosswinds. Normal for this part of the Aleutian Islands, but it makes for a tricky landing.” A slight chuckle echoed in the speaker. “Don’t worry, folks, I’ve done this about eight hundred times myself.” The speaker went dead with a sharp pop.
Eight hundred times, Magruder thought, and tried to relax. I had that many traps on an aircraft carrier by the time I was a lieutenant commander. Now, with over three thousand arrested carrier landings, Magruder was one of the most experienced pilots in the Navy. He would have gladly foregone the promotions that went along with that.
Three months ago, he’d been commanding the carrier battle group on board USS Thomas Jefferson, responsible for the safety and well-being of over five thousand crew members and aviators, as well as close to one billion dollars in equipment. Jefferson had been on the pointy end of the spear, intervening in a conflict between China and the southeastern Asian nations over the oil-rich seafloor around the Spratly Islands.
And this is my reward. His uncle, Vice Admiral Thomas Magruder, had warned him at his change of command that he was up for an exciting new assignment. Tombstone had spent two months at the Naval War College for a quick refresher in intelligence and satellite capabilities, along with an update on Special Forces capabilities. It had been difficult to put the information in context, since his ultimate duty station was still classified top secret.
Alaska. When the word had finally come, learning that he was to be commander of Alaskan forces with sole operational responsibility for everything from Alaska across the Pacific Ocean, it had been a letdown.
They might as well have told me I ought to go ahead and retire. ALASKCOM might have been a big deal back during the days of the Cold War, when Russian submarines routinely plied the straights between the Aleutian Islands, but it was a backwater post these days. The Soviet forces lay rusting and decaying alongside their piers, with the exception of some long-range ballistic missile submarines that still deployed under the ice cap. The SOSUS station and most of the P-3 squadrons that had been stationed at Adak during the Cold War had either been decommissioned or pulled back to CONUS — the continental U.S. The Aleutian Islands, along with the frigid Bering Sea to the north of it, were a tactical wasteland.
Still, his uncle had promised him that it would be a good deal more exciting than he thought. He sighed, staring out the window at the thick white clouds now racing past the double-paned plastic. Surely his uncle had something in mind besides a touchy landing in strong crosswinds on a remote island.
Not only was this assignment operationally uninteresting, but it also put a crimp in his personal life. During his time on Jefferson, he’d finally broken off his long-term engagement to ACN reporter Pamela Drake. It had been partly due to the realization that neither one was willing to give and take enough with their career priorities to make it work. Additionally, Pamela had been increasingly uncomfortable with the more dangerous aspects of his chosen career. It was all right for her to go flitting off to the most dangerous combat areas of the world to report her stories, but the idea of Tombstone launching off the carrier to take on adversary air over the Spratly Islands was more than she could take. They’d ended it just as Tombstone was realizing his attraction to one of the hottest female aviators in the Navy.
He felt his mouth curl up in a smile, an expression that would have surprised most of the officers who’d worked with him in the last twenty years. Lieutenant Commander Joyce Flynn, “Tomboy” to the rest of the squadron. The name suited her, although it didn’t adequately describe the more delicious aspects of the petite, redheaded female naval flight officer. While they had both been assigned to the Jefferson, a relationship had been impossible. Tombstone had been in command of Carrier Battle Group 14, while Tomboy was a RIO (radar intercept officer) in VF-95, a Tomcat squadron on board. Faced with the possibility that his tactical decisions would put her in danger, and knowing the Navy’s strict policy against fraternization, they had finally come to an agreement to put everything on hold until they’d both transferred off the ship. The possibility of Washington, D.C., tours for both of them had been exciting. But now Tombstone took a deep breath. A lousy operational assignment and separation from Tomboy seemed to be in his future. Last month, Tomboy had received notification that she had been selected for the test pilot program in Patuxent, Maryland. Pax River — the big brass ring for every naval aviator, flying the latest in tactical and surveillance aircraft, getting to see the future of naval aviation up close and personal. As much as it hurt, he knew he couldn’t have asked Tomboy to pass up that opportunity. He wouldn’t have himself, had it been offered.
Knowing it was the right thing to do didn’t make it any easier, though. They’d carved out two weeks together, and spent them in Puerto Vallarta, on the Pacific coast of southern Mexico. He smirked, thinking about the comments his colleagues had made when he’d come back from vacation with hardly a sunburn. If they only knew how much of their lovemaking had been at Tomboy’s instigation!
The speaker crackled to life again. “If you look out the port window, you might be able to see that we’ve got company,” the pilot’s voice said, a determined casualness masking what must be mounting tens
ion in the cockpit. “It doesn’t happen often anymore, but the Soviets — excuse me, the Russians — still decide to send their Bears out to play with us from time to time. One joined on us about twenty miles back. He’s edging in a little closer than I’d like under the circumstances, but there’s not a whole helluva lot we can do about it right now. I’ll keep you posted.”
Tombstone craned his neck and stared out into the thick cotton-candy cloud cover. Slightly behind the C-130, he could make out an occasional silvery flash of light, behind them and above them. The Bear, solidly in place behind the C-130 in a perfect killing position.
Why would a Russian Bear aircraft find tracking a C-130 transport down to an almost deserted naval base of such critical interest? Tombstone felt his gut tighten and the hair on the back of his neck stand up, his instinctive reaction to the possibility of airborne danger. Something wasn’t right. What, he couldn’t say just yet, but every tactical instinct in his body was screaming warnings.
Most variants of the long-range turboprop aircraft were reconnaissance aircraft, configured for antisubmarine warfare (ASW) or electronic surveillance, with their only offensive weaponry three pairs of 23mm NR-23 guns in remotely activated dorsal and ventral turrets. While the guns were generally thought to be primarily for defense, even those weapons could pose a deadly danger to the unarmed aircraft he was in. Additionally, and far more worrisome, both the Bear-H and — G versions carried long-range air-to-surface cruise missiles.
He unbuckled his seat belt, raised one hand at the flight engineer who stood up to order him back to his seat, and went forward. He identified himself through the closed door, and stepped into the small cockpit.
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