Under the Ice

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Under the Ice Page 30

by Richard P. Henrick


  “So sorry that I have to run like this. Lieutenant. Remember now, stay away from those guns. See you in the UN, Comrades!”

  Flooring the accelerator, Kharkov was thrown backward as the snowmobile lurched forward. Yet he quickly regained control and, before turning for the northwestern horizon, whipped past the remaining vehicles and put a bullet directly into each snow cat engine cowling.

  “Damn!” cursed Jack Redmond, as he violently kicked the snow at his feet. Looking on impotently as the Russian disappeared behind a distant ridge, he angrily cried out to his men.

  “Will one of you stop gawking and go see if he’s left us with an operational snow cat

  As several of the men sprinted off to fulfill this request. Cliff Ano walked over to confer with Redmond.

  “So it was the Russians all along,” offered the Inuit.

  “We should have figured that they’d go and try to pull something like this off.”

  “But why all this useless bloodshed?” returned Redmond.

  “And what’s so important about that damn black box anyway? I’m sure Ottawa was eventually going to give it back to the Soviets once we had a chance to check it out. Why not wait until then?”

  The perplexed Inuit could only shake his head.

  Then one of the men screamed out behind him.

  “The snow cats are finished, sir. All five of them have bullet holes right through the engine block.”

  This revelation was accented by the report of a distant gunshot. Each of the commandoes turned to search the northwestern horizon where the Russian admiral had last been seen fleeing with his hostage.

  Seeing this, Akatingwah let out a wail and began sprinting out through the snow to determine her husband’s fate.

  As Cliff Ano ran out to grab her, one of the Rangers called out excitedly.

  “We’ve got more visitors. Lieutenant! This party’s coming in from the northeast on foot!”

  “Pick up your rifles, and form a defensive formation along that snow ridge,” ordered Redmond.

  “If it’s more Russians, this time we’ll teach those Red bastards what the fear of God is all about!”

  After retrieving his binoculars from the storage compartment of his disabled snow cat Redmond took up a position on an elevated hummock and attempted to identify these new intruders.

  “There’s five of them altogether!” he informed his men.

  “But they don’t seem to be carrying Kalashnikovs. Instead, they’re armed with Ml 6’s!”

  Cliff Ano had calmed down the distraught Inuit by this time. He left her in the care of one of his associates, and joined Redmond on the hummock.

  “Lieutenant, I’d like to volunteer to follow that Russian’s trail. I could use the dogsled, and find out what that shot was all about.”

  “Permission granted,” returned Redmond.

  “But if you smell the least bit of trouble, get back here on the double, and we’ll move in with some reinforcements.

  This squad’s been hit hard enough as it is.”

  “Will do. Lieutenant,” answered the Sergeant-Major, as he ran down to his sled and got the dogs moving with a snapping crack of his whip.

  With Ano gone, Jack Redmond called Private Etah to his side.

  “Private, you’ve just been made a corporal. I want you to pick out two of the best marksmen that we’ve got. Position them on this hummock. I’m going to leave you in charge while I go down to find out who these newcomers are.”

  “But isn’t that a risky proposition. Lieutenant?

  Why not wait until they come to us?”

  The grizzled veteran looked the young soldier directly in the eyes and retorted.

  “Now that you’re a corporal, I’m going to share with you leadership rule number one — never question an order from a superior officer. Do you read me, soldier?”

  “Yes, sir!” answered the Inuit.

  “Just be careful, Lieutenant.”

  Touched by the youngster’s concern. Jack Redmond slung his rifle over his shoulder, walked down the hummock, and began to make his way over the adjoining plain. Cliff Ano’s barking team could still be heard in the distance, though the sled itself had long since disappeared behind a sloping ridge.

  With the two sharpshooters providing cover fire from behind, Redmond plodded through a deep snow drift, jumped over a narrow fissure, and without unstrapping his weapon, called out to the rapidly advancing party.

  “Hello out there!”

  This remark was met by a friendly wave, and a deep voice that boomed out in perfect English.

  “Hello to you, whoever you are!”

  Jack increased his pace at this point, and all too soon made the acquaintance of Captain Mathew Colter, commander of the US Navy nuclear attack submarine Defiance, and four of his shipmates.

  There was a look of relief on the Canadian’s face as he explained both his mission and the tragedy that had just taken place on the plain behind them. Yet he was genuinely shocked to learn that the Americans had been sent here for the very same reason that the Arctic Rangers had. And for all their trouble, the Russians had beaten the lot of them!

  Mikhail Kharkov felt like a child again. With an innocent joy, he steered the speedy snowmobile down a sloping grade that led directly to the frozen surface of Lancaster Sound. It had been many years since he had last traveled on such an exhilarating means of transportation. Yet as a native Siberian, he was certainly no stranger to such tracked vehicles.

  Why he could even remember a time when the only expedient way to travel over the snow was by horse-pulled sleighs.

  His father had had a gorgeous team of black stallions, and a hand-tooled sled that he had built himself. As a youngster, it was Mikhail’s duty to harness the team. And he was always available to drive if needed. Many of his fondest memories were of such sleigh rides, sitting bundled in a thick fur blanket, with the crisp Siberian wind in his face and the sound of the sled’s bells twinkling to the hollow clops of the horse’s gallop.

  The arrival of motorized sleds doomed this innocent era. Though much more efficient, such vehicles were loud and belched noxious fumes. They also sped along so rapidly that it was often difficult to even get a glimpse of the passing countryside.

  The snowmobile he currently drove was quick and easy to steer. Its speed was even further enhanced when he got rid of his additional passenger. This he’d done soon after leaving the plain where the black box had been found.

  The Eskimo he had taken hostage was a cowardly, foul-smelling brute. As they sped away from his igloo, he began trembling with fear, and Mikhail was expecting him to break out in tears at any moment.

  What the veteran mariner hadn’t expected was the moment the idiot tried to break out of his grasp.

  This abrupt move caused Mikhail to temporarily lose control of the vehicle, and it went plowing into the face of a snow drift. Mikhail had been thrown right out of his seat by the force of this collision, and as he scrambled to his feet, he spotted the eskimo desperately digging into the overturned vehicle’s storage compartment. There was no doubt in MikhaiFs mind that the savage was after the cockpit voice recorder, and his hand went straight to his bolstered pistol. At the exact moment Mikhail raised his Kalashnikov, the Eskimo turned to face him, and the veteran shot him a single time square in the chest.

  As the native went sprawling to the snow, Mikhail righted the vehicle and after a bit of effort, finally got its motor started. It had been whining away with a vengeance ever since.

  With a bone-jarring jolt, the snowmobile dropped down upon the pack ice. It would be on this frozen medium that he would find his lift back home to the Motherland. While checking the dashboard-mounted compass to make certain his course was correct, Mikhail opened the throttle wide. As the vehicle zoomed over the ice, his thoughts returned to the last time he had killed a man face-to-face.

  It had been during the closing days of the Great War. As the Nazis retreated to make a last stand at Berlin, both the Soviets and
their western allies rushed in to fill the void. Mikhail had been sent to occupy the German port complex at Danzig. Here at the Schichau shipyards, a revolutionary new class of German submarine was being constructed. Known as Type XXI, this vessel represented a last-ditch effort by Admiral Donitz to turn the tide of war. Able to dive deeper for a longer period of time and at a greater speed than any previous class of submarine, the TYpe XXI was an engineering masterpiece. Yet it went into production too late to serve the Nazi cause, and Mikhail’s job was to complete the five hulls that had already been laid down in Danzig.

  It was while touring the partially completed engine room of the boat known as U-3538 that he’d been attacked by a German engineer. The grease-stained Nazi was high on schnapps, and came at Mikhail with wrench in hand. Even though the German was powerfully built, Mikhail was able to take advantage of his drunken state and throw his attacker down to the deck. Without giving the German a second to catch his breath, Mikhail jumped down upon the man’s heaving chest and began strangling the life out of him. With his hands tightly gripped around the Nazi’s neck, Mikhail watched the German die. During the last frantic seconds, their glances directly met, and he actually saw the manner in which death took him.

  That incident had taken place over four decades ago. Yet it was still so fresh in his mind that he could actually smell the scent of fear that exuded from his attacker’s pores.

  And now, forty-five years later, fate had once again put him in a position to directly take another’s life. And once more, he felt strangely stimulated by this godlike power. This was the case even though the Eskimo was nothing but a subhuman. The savage was little more than a beast, and shooting him was like putting an injured horse out of its misery.

  Back in Siberia, such natives were welcomed as an integral part of the Motherland. They were educated and taught a trade, and today their culture flourished like never before. It was on account of them that vast tracts of Siberia were able to be developed, as centers of mining, hydroelectric power, and animal husbandry.

  Their Canadian cousins were in vast contrast. Exploited by their government, they were forced to live like wild beasts, dependent upon the fickle whims of mother nature and an occasional government handout.

  They lived in incredible squalor, as the igloo Kharkov had just visited amply showed, and drowned their sorrows in vast amounts of cheap alcohol.

  Such a waste of humankind was a pity. But the Capitalists only cared about exploiting their ancestral homes for oil and minerals, leaving behind nothing but a legacy of pollution and broken dreams.

  Under the new world order that would shortly come to pass, such imbalances would be corrected.

  The exploited masses would be freed from their chains, as brotherhood and equality became the chants of the day, Unfortunately, there were many who had to be sacrificed along the way so that this Socialistic dream could come true. Premier Alexander Suratov had been one of these unlucky ones, as were the five brave sailors who would not be returning to the Neva with him, and the pathetic Eskimo as well.

  Each of these individuals had been called before his time, to serve as fodder for the great revolution that would soon sweep the world.

  The key to this uprising’s success lay locked away inside the snowmobile’s storage compartment. Here a single cassette tape would soon change mankind’s very destiny. Stored in the cockpit voice recorder’s interior was the certain proof that his colleagues in the Politburo had demanded in exchange for their support. And once this support was given, the reins of power would be his!

  That thought thrilled the white-haired veteran, who was forced to turn his current means of transport hard to the left when a sudden lead of open water showed itself before him. His heart pounded away as the thin ice beneath him cracked in protest.

  Yet the great speed at which he had been traveling kept the ice from fracturing altogether, and he was spared a certain fatal dunking.

  As he zoomed over an elevated ice ridge, the horizon suddenly opened up and he spotted the distinctive silhouette of an immense, lowlying, black-hulled object seemingly entombed in the distant ice. Looking like a lonely beached whale, the Neva beckoned like a long-lost friend, and Mikhail dared to open the throttle full.

  The snowmobile lurched forward in response, and the Admiral of the Fleet knew that it wouldn’t be long before he’d be returning to the Motherland in utter triumph. And one of his first treats to himself would be a visit to his cherished dacha on the shores of Lake Baikal. With the flat, frozen white landscape whipping by him in a blur, he mentally visualized yet another corner of this great planet. Here an ancient wood stood in all its inspiring glory. And unlike the desolate, ice-encrusted wilderness he currently crossed, this forest was a shrine to life itself.

  Surely by now the first real snows had fallen, and the pines would be matted in fluffy shrouds of white. Yet the tumbling brook would still be flowing, the diverse creatures that inhabited its banks now leaving their tracks in the powdery snow.

  How he missed this peaceful, pastoral haven! It was the real source of his vision, and without it, he’d be as empty as the jagged ice fields that presently surrounded him. Thus inspired, Kharkov felt a new sense of urgency as he charted the quickest route back to the Neva.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was noon, and the Arctic sun still lay low in the heavens, as Matt Colter returned to the Defiance. His weary, bone-chilled party included two new faces. One of these individuals had to be carried aboard on a makeshift stretcher, while the other stood erect on the ice-covered deck where he wished his shore-based coworkers a hearty goodbye.

  “I’m leaving the squad in your capable hands, Sergeant-Major. Please try to assure the Inuit woman that her husband appears to be all right.

  That bone necklace he was wearing most likely saved the poor bugger’s life, but it will be up to the pharmacist’s mate to bring him back to consciousness.

  “While I’m gone, have the men start combing that plateau for other debris. And then you’ve got the somber task of holding a proper burial.

  “By the way, in your absence, I made Thomas Etah a corporal. I know he’s young and inexperienced, but he seems to be a quick learner and the men respect him. Give him his fair share of responsibilities, and perhaps he’ll grow into the job like you and I did years ago.”

  “Pardon my asking. Lieutenant, but I still don’t understand why you’ll be sailing with the Americans.

  Isn’t our job over at this point?”

  Cliff Ano’s question brought a firm response from Redmond’s lips.

  “Most definitely not, Sergeant-Major.

  Captain Colter feels there’s a chance he’ll be able to intercept the Soviets before they get out into the open sea. Don’t forget, these waters are still Canadian territory. And though both submarines are technically trespassing here, my official presence sanctions the Defiance’s mission while possibly allowing us to complete ours as well.”

  The boarding party had made their way safely below deck, when a parka-clad seaman approached Jack Redmond from behind.

  “Excuse me, sir. But we’ll be diving soon and the captain requests that all hands clear the deck.”

  After nodding that he understood, Redmond took one last look at Cliff Ano.

  “I’ve got to be going, Sergeant-Major. Give my regards to the lads, and keep those ruffians busy and out of trouble!”

  The last remark was met by a crisp salute. And the last Redmond saw of his subordinate, Ano was positioned behind the runners of the dogsled, spurring the huskies onward with crackling snaps of his whip.

  A narrow steel ladder led Redmond down into an alien subterranean world. He soon found himself in a fairly spacious, elongated compartment. A blast of soothing, warm air engulfed him, and as he gratefully stripped off his fur parka and mittens, he checked out his new environment. The walls were completely lined with flashing consoles and snaking steel tubing. Manning this sophisticated high-tech equipment were a number of young men dres
sed in matching dark blue coveralls. Each of them seemed to give him the briefest of polite stares before industriously returning to their duties.

  He was surprised to find one of these sailors a woman. Also clothed in blue coveralls, she sat before a large monitor screen, busily attacking the keyboard. Her dark hair was tied in a knot, and from what he could see of her face, she looked extremely attractive.

  “Ah, there you are, Lieutenant.” The deep voice came from his left.

  Turning his head, the commando took in the now familiar face and figure of the Defiance’s Captain.

  At this blond-haired officer’s side stood a tall, thin, mustached figure, who had a scarred bit of a pipe between his lips. It was Matt Colter who initiated the introductions.

  “Lieutenant Jack Redmond, I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Commander Al Layman, the ship’s executive officer, or XO as we prefer to call him.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” The XO, gave Redmond a warm, firm handshake.

  “From what the Skipper tells me, you had some trouble with some old adversaries of ours topside. I sincerely regret the loss of your men, and hope that we can help you even the score.”

  “That would be most appreciated,” returned Redmond.

  He liked the way this officer looked him right in the eye and spoke directly.

  “The bridge is secure. Captain,” said a voice from behind.

  “Very well,” retorted the captain as he scanned the control room.

  “Prepare to dive.”

  Taking Redmond by the arm. Matt Colter guided him over to a console covered with dozens of switches and gauges. A dual line of button-sized lights dominated this console, with only the top row currently lit a vibrant green. A slightly built, redheaded sailor watched them approach, and snapped into action the moment the Captain said, “Take us down, Mr. Marshall.”

  With fluid ease, the sailor then hit a variety of switches and buttons, and the compartment was filled with a muted, whining sound. It was Colter who explained what this racket meant.

  “That noise is coming from the ship’s ballast pumps. In order to dive, seawater is drawn into the specially designed tanks that line our hull. As these tanks fill, the Defiance loses its positive buoyancy and we begin to sink beneath the surface. Special trimming tanks are then utilized to adjust the ship’s weight until it has neutral buoyancy and is balanced fore and aft.”

 

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