Stephen Coonts' Deep Black: Arctic Gold

by Arctic Gold (epub)

  “Deck clear,” said another.

  Dean turned in the water and saw that two more SEALs had used long, telescoping poles taken from racks on the outside hull of the ASDS to raise a pair of boarding ladders up the side, hooking the upper ends of the ladders over the Lebedev’s gunwale. As soon as the narrow chain ladders were in place, the SEALs of teams two and four were on their way up, moving swiftly and with an elegant and death-silent economy of motion.

  “Fire team two, on deck!” a voice called over the radio. “Target! Engaging! . . .”

  “Team four, on deck! Moving aft! . . .”

  The assault on the Lebedev had begun.

  The Art Room

  NSA Headquarters

  Fort Meade, Maryland

  1825 hours EDT

  “There they go,” Rockman said. “Right at the waterline, about three-quarters of the way aft from the bow. See them?”

  Rubens placed his hands on Rockman’s workstation desk and leaned forward, staring into the big screen as if by sheer force of will he could influence the events unfolding there. Yes, he could see them, tiny antlike shapes moving up the huge ship’s rounded side.

  The scene being transmitted to the Art Room was real-time, images picked up by the NIKOS-4 reconnaissance satellite launched into a polar orbit from Vandenberg just two days earlier. The scene showed an oblique view of the Lebedev, looking down on her starboard side from about forty-five degrees above the horizon. Beyond the Lebedev, the Ohio had just surfaced, her conning tower showing as a narrow, black square protruding above the ice. The other two Russian ships were farther off, almost half a mile distant.

  From the wall speaker, bits of radio transmission, captured by the NIKOS satellite and transmitted back to Fort Meade, sounded against the crackle and hiss of background static.

  “Fire team two, on deck! Target! Engaging! . . .”

  “Team four, on deck! Moving aft! . . .”

  Rubens thought he could see one of the antlike figures advance on another, see the second figure crumple to the deck. But the details were lost, and he wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing.

  It was frustrating, really. Desk Three and the Deep Black operation were built on the supremacy of technology, the ability to use sophisticated sensor platforms such as NIKOS to penetrate an enemy’s strongholds and reveal his secrets. Rubens was always mindful of the dictum of one of his favorite authors, a science fiction writer named Arthur C. Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The National Security Agency and the Art Room performed astonishing feats of magic on an almost daily basis.

  And none of that could help now. Up there on the Arctic ice, satellites in geosynchronous orbit, orbiting above the equator in step with Earth’s twenty-four-hour rotation, were simply too close to the horizon to be useful for surveillance. You needed spysats in a low polar orbit to see what was going on down there, and those passed across the entire span of the sky within a minute or so. The image on the screen was already dwindling as NIKOS-4, at an altitude of 120 miles, raced toward the southeastern horizon.

  “Damn it, can’t you zoom in any closer?” he asked Rockman.

  “A little, I think. But we’re pushing the limits of our resolution now. . . .” Rockman entered a set of commands on his keyboard. The view rushed in closer, but still not close enough. He could just make out figures moving on the Lebedev’s deck, but the details tended to blur and fuzz out at the extreme limit of NIKOS-4’s resolution.

  “Here,” Rubens said. Reaching into his coat jacket, he produced a laser pointer and switched it on. He let the red dot dance around a portion of the Lebedev, on her starboard side up near the bow. “Any ideas about what that is?”

  Whatever it was, it had not appeared on any of the ship plans and schematics the Art Room had been able to pull up for the Lebedev or her sister research vessel, the Akademik Sergei Vavilov. It appeared to be a temporary structure hung over the ship’s side, something like an enclosed vertical tunnel or ladder shroud, with what looked like a swim platform at the level of the water, close by the ship’s waterline. Rubens had never seen anything like it.

  “That platform,” Rockman said, thoughtful. “Might be for small craft tying up alongside the ship.”

  Rubens nodded. “Makes sense. Boats must go back and forth between all three ships, and that’s how they get on board.”

  A logical assumption . . . but Rubens was worried. Assumptions based on insufficient data always worried him.

  If the satellite had been directly above the Lebedev, the men and women here in the Art Room would not have been able to read newspaper headlines over someone’s shoulders, as the popular myth had it, but they would have been able to distinguish Navy combat dry suits from Russian parkas, spotted weapons, detected ambushes, and maybe seen clearly the structure hanging over the Lebedev’s starboard bow. But the satellite was too close to the horizon for that now, and in another few seconds it would vanish over the curve of the world.

  Whatever was going to happen now was in the hands of those Navy SEALs, the skipper and crew of the Ohio, and one NSA agent.

  The image on the screen broke into shifting, jumping pixels, then re-formed as empty ice. It was tracking over the edge of the ice pack now. Rubens saw the dark blue of open water, and broad leads where the ice cap had cracked open. As he watched, ice gave way to deep blue, open water, and a patch of brilliant glare where the sun was reflecting off the sea and into space.

  “NIKOS-4 is passing over the horizon, sir,” a technician reported from another station. “We’ve lost transmissions from the Ohio.”

  “How long before the next satellite reaches the AO?” he demanded.

  “That would be NIKOS-1,” Rockman said, consulting his monitor. “Fourteen minutes.”

  Fourteen minutes. An eternity in combat.

  And Rubens was as helpless to affect the outcome as he would be if the boarding action were taking place on the far side of the moon.

  Damn!

  Arctic Ice Cap

  82° 34' N, 177° 26' E

  1026 hours, GMT–12

  Treading water close beside the Lebedev’s waterline, Dean wondered if he was about to make a fool of himself. It had been years since he’d even climbed an obstacle course cargo net, and his recent round of quals had stressed the purely physical—push-ups, timed runs, and target shooting—rather than acrobatic activities like climbing chain ladders.

  “Dean!” Taylor’s voice crackled in his hood. “You’re up next!”

  He swam over to the rubber boat and clung to the side as he pulled off his fins and breathing equipment, dropping them with the rest of the SEAL swim gear in the bottom of the boat. He then sidestroked his way carefully to the nearest ladder, slung his waterproof pack over one shoulder, and, with Taylor steadying the ladder at the bottom, started up. No doubt about it, Dean thought. I’m getting way too old for this.

  With Taylor holding the ladder taut, though, the climb wasn’t as bad as Dean had feared. He was breathing heavily by the time he rolled over the starboard rail and dropped onto the starboard companionway, but he was able to un-sling his satchel and break out the Master Blaster, unfolding the stock and locking the foregrip in place.

  There was a dead man on the companionway deck in front of a door twenty feet away, one of the Lebedev sailors gunned down by silenced shots from one of the first of the SEALs to come aboard. There was no room here for gentlemanly conduct or proper rules of war. SEALs relied on total surprise coupled with a concentrated focus of overwhelming firepower and violence to achieve their aim . . . and a random sailor unexpectedly strolling out onto the starboard side companionway for a smoke couldn’t be allowed to sound the alarm.

  The SEALs, once on board, had split into separate elements and dispersed, moving both fore and aft to secure the Russian vessel’s main deck. “Team four!” sounded over the radio. “Multiple targets, port! Engaging! . . .”

  Dean heard a kind of sharp clicking and recognized
it as shots fired from the sound-suppressed H&K, coming from the other side of the ship’s main deck superstructure. Shouts and screams followed, the sounds of spreading panic.

  Gripping the grenade launcher, Dean hurried aft.

  Golytsin’s Office

  CFS Akademik Petr Lebedev

  Arctic Ice Cap

  82° 34' N, 177° 26' E

  1027 hours, GMT–12

  The ship’s general alarm shrilled from the intercom speaker overhead, bringing Golytsin to his feet. Someone pounded on the door. “Sir! The ship is under attack!”

  Only moments before, the report had come down from the Lebedev’s bridge: an American submarine was surfacing just a hundred meters off the port side. Golytsin had been preparing to go outside to see the spectacle for himself when the alarm had gone off.

  The ship under attack? From the submarine?

  “I’m coming.” He reached into a bottom desk drawer and extracted his sidearm, a PM—Pistole Makarov—still in its holster and slung from a web belt. His parka was on a coat hook by the door.

  Down the main port-side passageway, through a watertight door, and out onto the deck, where a blast of cold and keening wind cut into his face like myriad thrusting needles. A dozen or more of the Lebedev’s crew were already along the port railing, staring out into the glare of the ice. There was the American submarine there, her sail black against the ice. An American flag had been unfurled above the conning tower, so there could be no mistaking the vessel’s nationality. He could even see two tiny human figures in the weather cockpit in front of the flag and more figures on the submarine’s forward deck, putting down a gangplank to the ice.

  Well, well, he thought with grim surprise and something approaching admiration. Perhaps the Americans have grown some balls after all. But, while surprising, the surfacing of that submarine didn’t constitute an attack, as such. . . .

  “Sir!” Lieutenant Alexei Stilchoff gripped his upper arm. “Sir, you should get below! Now!”

  “Alexei! What the devil’s going on?” Golytsin demanded. Stilchoff was the commanding officer of the contingent of naval infantry stationed on board the Lebedev. He was an old hand, a veteran of the Chechnyan War, and not easily flustered or scared.

  Stilchoff pointed aft. “American commandos! They’re already on board!”

  Golytsin looked back along the port-side railing toward the Lebedev’s fantail. Even as Stilchoff turned and pointed, a pair of gray-clad figures appeared around the corner of the superstructure aft, menacing figures with compact submachine guns held rigidly against their shoulders as they moved forward with the deadly grace of predatory cats. Nearby, one of Stilchoff’s men fumbled with the AKM assault rifle slung over his shoulder, dragging back the charging lever and raising the weapon to take aim. At the same moment, Stilchoff grabbed the butt of his holstered PM, trying to drag the pistol free of its holster.

  Before either man could complete the move, however, triplets of bullets slammed into them both, knocking them back a step, sending them crumpling to the deck in untidy sprawls. Golytsin hadn’t even heard the shots as they were fired.

  Golytsin was still standing in the open door leading onto the deck outside. At the instant Stilchoff and the other man were hit, Golytsin jumped backward, pulling the heavy door shut, hearing and feeling the clang of bullets striking it outside. With his right hand, he pulled out his own PM, and stood leaning against the bulkhead for a moment, breathing hard. God, that had been close!

  He chambered a round in his pistol but didn’t even consider trying to engage those two invaders. They would be American commandos from that submarine . . . most likely U.S. Navy SEALs, who were widely regarded even in countries other than the United States as the best, most deadly small-unit fighters in the world. To attempt to face those two men outside in combat was nothing less than suicide.

  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 inst
ead 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!”