Stephen Coonts' Deep Black: Arctic Gold

by Arctic Gold (epub)

  “Excuse me, sir,” Payne told him, interrupting a diatribe by Sir James. “We have a situation. If you would come with us . . .”

  “I beg your pardon, young man,” Sir James said. He was furious, his face bright red. “We are having a private discussion!”

  “You can discuss things with the mob, sir,” Karr told him. “They’re on their way up!”

  “Eh?” Sir James stopped, listened, then scowled. “My word. What is that ungodly racket?”

  “We have them on the eighth floor,” Rockman said. “They just pushed past a couple of security guards like they weren’t even there. More of them are coming in through the main doors now, too. Looks like this thing was planned.”

  “We may not have time to reach the green room,” Karr told the FBI agents. “Come on. Over here.”

  Delgado was holding his earphone in place, talking rapidly to Rogers over a needle mike beside his mouth. Karr heard him say, “Get the hell back here!”

  Karr led them back from the glass doors, putting a number of confusedly milling delegates between them and the oncoming mob. Moments later, the doors swung open and a large number of activists spilled out onto the sightseeing platform.

  Most, Karr saw, were young people—teenagers or twenty-somethings. They had the somewhat trendy-shabby look of protestors everywhere, wearing jeans, sandals, T-shirts, and, among the males, at any rate, lots of facial hair. Many were chanting: “USA! CO2 USA! CO2!” Karr saw signs and waving banners, clenched fists and raw emotion.

  Security guards and London bobbies burst through the door after them, but there were too many protestors scattering across and around the encircling promenade. Five protestors emerged from the tenth-floor lobby of the GLA carrying a cumbersome sixty-foot-long bundle, bright green and tightly rolled up. They hauled it to the safety railing at the edge of the promenade, which canted sharply inward over the walkway, and began muscling their burden over the side. Others formed a barrier between the five and the police, who in short order were surrounded by a mob of chanting, shouting protestors.

  Delegates to the symposium were scattering everywhere, running protestors among them. The situation was completely chaotic, completely out of control. Tightly wedged in around Dr. Spencer, Karr and the two FBI agents backed their charge away from the confrontation.

  The five protestors had everyone’s attention now. They’d anchored their heavy bundle to the top railing of the safety fence around the promenade, locking it in place with chains and padlocks sewn into the heavy material. When they released the bundle, it tumbled out over the slanted railing, then down the side of the building with a sharp crack, an enormous green banner hanging from the building’s top floor.

  From this angle, Karr couldn’t see what was on the banner, but he could guess . . . something about a green world and no global warming, perhaps. The protestors now were ganging up on the police and security guards. People were screaming and running.

  “Hold it!” Delgado yelled. He had his sidearm out and had pivoted to aim it back in the other direction, behind Karr. “Drop it! Drop it!”

  Karr spun. Several protestors had come all the way around the promenade, circling it clockwise as Spencer and his guards backed around counterclockwise. One of the protestors, oddly on this brilliant late-spring morning, was wearing a heavy overcoat. That was damned strange. . . .

  With a sense of dawning horror, Karr saw the man pulling something out from under the coat . . . a weapon . . . an Uzi submachine gun . . . raising it to his shoulder. . . .

  Spencer was between Karr and the gunman . . . no, the gunmen. Another activist nearby had a pistol in his hand, was aiming it at Spencer.

  Karr lunged, plowing into Spencer from behind and the side with his shoulder, a football block that sent the American scientist sprawling. Karr hit the deck of the promenade, his Beretta out of its shoulder holster and gripped two-handed as he slid over smooth concrete.

  The man with the Uzi was the greater danger in terms of sheer firepower; the man with the pistol was already drawing a bead on Spencer. In an instant’s instinctive decision, Karr swung his Beretta to aim at the one with the pistol, squeezing the trigger in a fast double tap.

  The gunman fired in the same instant. Karr felt the sting of concrete chips slashing his cheek. The activist with the coat and the Uzi opened up on full-auto, sending a stream of slugs slamming into Delgado, then sweeping the chattering weapon around, trying to hit Spencer.

  Spent brass cartridges tumbled and flashed in the sunlight. Delgado was falling; Payne was aiming his weapon in a stiff Weaver stance, firing into a third gunman, no, a gun woman. . . .

  Karr shifted aim as he got his feet underneath him, throwing himself between Spencer and the attackers, firing into the guy with the submachine gun as he moved. As he came to his feet, however, he felt something like a hammer slam into his side . . . then again, hard against his chest.

  Part of him knew he was hit, though there was no pain . . . not yet. He kept squeezing the trigger as he fell and turned, sending round after round into the gunman, slamming against the railing, dropping to one knee.

  Two more hammer blows . . . and a terribly wet crunch against his throat. Karr felt himself falling, the Beretta gone, spinning off into space. Damn it, he couldn’t breathe!

  He tasted blood, salty and hot.

  Tommy Karr collapsed as the darkness descended, engulfing him. . . .

  The Art Room

  NSA Headquarters

  Fort Meade, Maryland

  1035 hours EDT

  “Jesus!” Rockman stared at the big display screen, which currently was showing a number of TV monitors. On one, the earnest, too-perfect makeup of a BBC anchorwoman stared from the screen as she mouthed unheard words into her microphone. Another screen showed the view of another camera, aimed up at the green banner unfurling ten stories above the Thames. The banner, so huge it could easily be read from the ground, showed the Greenworld logo, together with the words “Save Our World!”

  But Rockman and the other runners in the Art Room were staring at one of the other monitors, this one tapping into a security camera mounted in the ceiling of the overhang above the outside sightseeing promenade around London’s Living Room. The scene was one of incredible confusion, of an enormous, surging crowd struggling hand to hand with the police. Gunfire had panicked the mob, sending it scattering across the observation deck.

  But in the background . . .

  “My God!” Sarah Cassidy shouted. “They shot him! They shot him!”

  Jeff Rockman couldn’t believe what he thought he’d just seen . . . Tommy Karr catching a full-auto blast from the gunman’s Uzi, exchanging fire, then falling backward against the guardrail before crumpling to the concrete deck.

  Spencer was on his hands and knees, looking dazed but apparently unhurt. Karr had thrown himself between the gunmen and the scientist, had probably saved Spencer’s life. One of the FBI men was down; another was on one knee, his pistol locked in a two-handed grip and swinging wildly back and forth as he looked for another target, another threat. He was screaming into the needle mike at his mouth, calling for backup.

  The third FBI agent entered the picture from behind the foreground a moment later, weapon drawn. And Evans, the GCHQ agent, was there as well, also armed.

  But too little, too late. All three tangos—in his mind, Rockman had immediately reverted to the code term meaning “terrorists”—all three, two men and a woman, were down. The woman appeared to be wounded, was trying to get up. Evans pushed her down again as Rogers kicked her handgun away. More backup arrived, London bobbies and several in plainclothes . . . MI5.

  Payne was checking the motionless form of Delgado.

  “Call Rubens,” Rockman said.

  “He’s . . . he’s in a briefing,” Ron Jordan said, his voice shaking. “He can’t be—”

  “Call Rubens!”

  Desk Three had lost agents before. The NSA had lost agents and operators many times since its creati
on in the late 1940s. But the loss of another agent was never easy.

  The loss of a friend was much worse.

  More London Center

  Near the GLA Building

  1435 hours GMT

  Directly adjacent to the black, leaning egg shape of the GLA, some fifty meters to the southwest across the tree-lined pavement of a park known locally as Potter’s Field, loomed a brand-new office building, the More London Center, housing a bank, an insurance firm, and a number of government offices that had not fitted in with London City Hall or the Greater London Authority. Hours ago, Sergei Braslov had used a back stairwell and a stolen passkey to gain entrance to a maintenance door leading out onto the roof. Twelve stories up, the roof let him look down onto the outside promenade at the tenth floor of the GLA building. By climbing a ladder up onto the top of the small rooftop structure housing the building’s air-conditioning system, he gained a bit more elevation . . . and a perfect shot.

  Braslov carried with him a black, leather camera bag, as well as various ID proving him to be a cameraman with the BBC. If anyone happened to be on the More London Center’s roof, Braslov could flash the ID and claim he was looking for a good vantage point overlooking the fast-developing riot below. Inside the bag, however, was not a minicam, but a high-powered rifle broken down into four pieces, a weapon originally designed for use by the Soviet Spetsnaz, the Russian equivalent of the American Special Forces. It was a matter of two minutes’ work to snap or screw the pieces together, chamber a round, and peer through the telescopic sight into the crowd on the GLA building’s promenade deck.

  At a range of just under fifty meters, he could hardly miss.

  He’d not fired the weapon, however . . . and didn’t plan to do so if he could possibly help it. Mallet, Berger, and Fischer, simpleton dupes, the lot of them, had done exactly as he’d coached them over long, patient hours during the past week, finding Spencer, rushing in as close as possible, and only then pulling out their weapons and opening fire. Braslov was ready with the sniper’s rifle if necessary, if none of the three succeeded in hitting anything, but at point-blank range, they were almost certain to hit someone.

  That they appeared to have missed Spencer mattered not at all. They’d killed one, perhaps two of Spencer’s bodyguards.

  It would be enough.

  There was one final task Braslov had set for himself, however. None of the three, after his coaching, had expected the bodyguards to be armed, and, as a result, all three of the Greenworld attackers were now down. Two were almost certainly dead, but the third, the woman, was still moving, a puddle of blood spreading on the concrete beneath her and soaking through her T-shirt. He shifted his aim until the crosshair reticules in his scope centered on her head. A squeeze of the trigger and the only person on the GLA observation deck who knew exactly what had happened would be dead.

  It was a difficult shot, however. The surviving bodyguards and several GLA security personnel were clustered around her, and she was partially blocked from his view by the back-slanting safety railing at the edge of the deck.

  No, he decided. Too risky. Shooting the woman would alert the security forces that a fourth shooter was in the game. They might even spot him and call in support before he could get clear of the building.

  Fischer was done for, shot in the stomach and chest several times. Even if she survived, she didn’t know enough to be a threat to Braslov, or to the Organizatsiya.

  Moments later, paramedics arrived, and they began strapping Fischer onto a gurney. The window of opportunity was past.

  Thoughtful, Braslov disassembled the rifle and stowed the pieces back in the camera bag. Only then did he pull out a satellite phone and punch in a number, opening an encrypted line.

  “Rodina,” he said. Motherland. Mother Russia.

  “We’re watching BBC Two. Excellent work.”

  “One of our agents still lives. I cannot get a clear shot, however.”

  “She knows nothing. We don’t want to reveal your presence. That might tell the opposition too much.”

  “That was my thought.” He hesitated. “Perhaps it is time to activate Cold War. The two . . . incidents should take place close together, for maximum effect.”

  “We agree. A ticket and new identity papers are waiting for you at the embassy. You fly out tonight.”

  “Good. Until tonight, then.”

  Utter pandemonium reigned throughout the GLA building and in the surrounding parks and waterfront. It was simplicity itself to walk down the stairwell and let himself out onto Potter’s Field. Terror-stricken people continued to flee the area, spilling out of the GLA building and into the surrounding park. Police were arriving now, many in heavy combat gear, but no one took notice of the lone cameraman with a BBC ID badge clipped to his shirt.

  He looked up at the enormous green banner for a moment, hanging ten stories above his head, smiled, then mingled with the fast-thinning crowd and disappeared.

  8

  Met Remote One

  Arctic Ice Cap

  82° 30' N, 177° 53' E

  1910 hours, GMT–12

  KATHY MCMILLAN PULLED the edges of her hood closer to her face. The temperature was only just below freezing, but the wind was shrill and biting. The windchill, she thought, must be down around zero, Fahrenheit.

  Forty years ago, an American astronaut had described the surface of the moon as a “magnificent desolation.” This, she thought, must have been what he’d felt. The landscape in every direction was utterly flat and almost featureless, save for occasional small upthrusts and pressure ridges, none more than a few feet high, and randomly scattered patches of ice melt. The sky was a searing, featureless blue, the sun a heatless white disk suspended above the southern horizon. In every direction there stretched a barren white icescape, pocked with shallow craters filled with icy water, broken here and there by darker leads.

  Scarcely five hundred miles away, in that direction, lay the North Pole itself.

  Met Remote One was an unmanned meteorological drift station established on the Arctic ice cap three weeks before. There wasn’t a lot there—a slender tower with an anemometer, a surface instrument package for measuring temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, ice thickness, and other data, and a GPS and a dish antenna for measuring ice drift and transmitting the information to Ice Station Bravo, some eighty miles away. The whole setup required minimal maintenance; the three American scientists were essentially employing the met station’s presence as a useful excuse . . . an alibi.

  Somewhere off toward the north, about seven miles away and just barely over the horizon, was Objective Toy Shop, an amusing reference to their proximity to the North Pole and Santa Claus. While the NOAA expedition at Ice Station Bravo was out here on the ice to monitor changes in climate and ice thickness, Yeats and McMillan were here specifically—and secretly—to have an up-close look at the Toy Shop.

  “Hey, Mac! Quit playing tourist and give me a hand, here,” Dennis Yeats said. He and Randy Haines were beside one of the sleds, wrestling with the Unmanned Underwater Vehicle.

  “Sorry.” She tore her attention away from the barren panorama and crunched through soft ice to join the others. She carried an M-16 slung over her shoulder. All three of them were armed—a necessary precaution against the possibility of polar bears. Unslinging the weapon, she stowed it on the supply sled behind Haines’ snowmobile, then joined the others.

  “Did you get through to Bear One?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Haines told her. “And to Asheville. A freakin’ miracle.”

  Communications had been frustratingly intermittent lately. Maybe things were finally starting to break their way.

  The three of them had driven out across the ice in three snowmobiles, each towing a sled with supplies and the special equipment. Yeats’ sled carried the Orca, eight feet long and weighing over a quarter of a ton, while hers carried the cable reel and support gear. The two men had just finished stripping the protective plastic sheet off the c
radled Orca and were readying the sleek black and red device for launch.

  McMillan was the Orca’s technician. Approaching her sled, she first double-checked to see that the ice brakes were solidly set. Then she took several minutes to hook up the guidance wire, stringing the thin length of fiber-optic cable from its spool on her sled across to the receiver on the Orca’s dorsal surface and attaching the other end to a small handheld control unit. The connections made, she switched on the power for a final pre-launch check.

  The readouts on her control panel all showed green and ready.

  “We’re set to go,” she told them. “I’ve got feedback and control. Ready to cut the hole?”

  “We’re on it,” Haines told her.

  One hundred yards from the met station, they’d found a patch of ice melt, a circular depression in the surface filled with milky green water, where the ice was thin enough to have nearly broken through to the ocean beneath. The ice here was about three meters thick; at the center of that depression, it might be as thin as a few centimeters.

  Yeats now trudged toward the edge of the depression, carrying a small, tightly wrapped satchel. Reaching back, he flung the device far out over the water. It hit with a splash, sinking gently about three-quarters of the way toward the depression’s center.

  “Okay!” Yeats called, hurrying back from the depression’s edge. “Let’s blow it!”

  “And three,” Haines said, holding a small transmitter in his gloved hands, “and two . . . and one . . . and fire!”

  A column of water and chunks of ice geysered into the cold air with a solid thud that they felt through the soles of their heavily insulated boots. The water and spray subsided, leaving a large dark spot at the bottom of the depression.

  “Breakthrough!” Haines called.

  “Right,” Yeats said. “Launch the baby.”

  “Watch your feet!” she called. “Don’t get caught in the cable!” McMillan touched a control on her board, and the cradle supporting the Orca at the depression’s edge began rising on powerful hydraulics, tipping the UUV’s tail high, the nose down. In seconds, gravity took over and the Orca eased forward on its rails, slammed hard onto the ice belly down like a huge and ungainly penguin, and swiftly slid into the water. It reached the dark patch, nosed over, and vanished, trailing the slender wire behind it.