Black Ice

by Brad Thor

  “What are you doing?” the man asked.

  “I’m letting you go,” said Harvath.

  “No, no, no. Our deal is that you take me to the hospital.”

  “That’s going to be a problem.”

  “What are you talking about? Why?”

  “Considering how many American and allied troops you helped kill, I can’t do that.”

  The Consul General glared at him. “You’re going to leave me here? To freeze to death?”

  Harvath looked up at the looming shape of a polar bear on the horizon—drawn by their scent and the noise. “I think freezing to death is the least of your worries.”

  The Russian seemed to be able to read his mind and frantically dragged himself around the rear wheel of the truck to see what was coming.

  “You can’t do this!”

  “Watch me,” said Harvath.

  “But I cooperated. Isn’t that worth something?”

  Harvath thought about it for a moment. “You did cooperate. And that is worth something.”

  “Thank you,” Nemstov replied, lying on the ground, relieved.

  Picking up one of the dead security agent’s sidearms, Harvath ejected the magazine and said, “The tactics your Chechen fighters introduced in Afghanistan increased Taliban lethality by sixty percent.”

  The Consul General didn’t know how to respond, much less if he even should.

  He watched as his captor removed three rounds from the magazine and then ejected the lone round from the chamber and dropped the unloaded pistol in front of him.

  “That means that, statistically, you reduced Coalition troops to a four-in-ten chance of survival when encountering those Taliban forces,” Harvath continued.

  “You are mistaken. I never—”

  Harvath held up his hand. “Let’s not do that. You know what you did. And I know what you did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Harvath opened his hand and showed the man the four rounds of ammunition he was holding. Then he pulled his arm back and threw the ammunition as far as he could.

  “Those troops never knew when the attack was coming, but they always knew the danger was out there. You now also know the danger is out there,” Harvath said. “So is your ammo. If you can find all of it, I give you about a forty percent chance of survival—just like those troops. Good luck.”

  Closing the tailgate, Harvath stepped around the Russian, who grabbed for Harvath’s pant legs as he got back into the driver’s seat.

  He sat there for a moment, watching as the polar bear moved closer. The beast was even more majestic than it had looked from the air.

  Harvath hit the start button, put the Land Cruiser in gear, and did a wide U-turn around Nemstov. The last he saw of him in his rearview mirror, the Russian was crawling wildly into the brush, dragging his mangled feet behind him, in a desperate search for the ammunition. Coming down the hill was the polar bear.

  While part of him would have liked to have stayed to watch the entire thing, the rain was turning to sleet and Harvath needed to get to the heliport.

  Hitting the gas, he sped back toward the main road, haunted by the feeling that even Pavel and Oleg might have their limits when it came to Svalbard weather.

  If he couldn’t convince them to fly him to Ny-Ålesund, everything would be over.

  CHAPTER 55

  Harvath stopped only once—to remove the vehicle’s diplomatic plates and throw them, along with all of the Russians’ guns, into the sea.

  When he arrived at the heliport and left the Land Cruiser behind one of its outbuildings, the rain, mixed with sleet, was still coming down.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Not good,” Pavel replied. “But still Svalbard weather.”

  “Can you do the flight?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’d be willing to pay,” Harvath offered.

  “Why so important? Tomorrow better weather. We go then.”

  “There’s someone in Ny-Ålesund I need to see. They’ll be gone by the time we get there tomorrow.”

  “Someone for your book?” Oleg asked.

  Harvath smiled at the man. “Yes, someone for my book. Someone important.”

  “Flight is 110 kilometers, but weather will get worse as we fly north,” Pavel pointed out.

  “But we could make it.”

  “Would be pushing, but I think we make it. Problem is might not make it back. Have to stay overnight.”

  “Would that be a problem?” Harvath asked. “I will pay you for your time.”

  “How much moneys?” said Oleg.

  “Five thousand dollars for each of you. Half in U.S. dollars and half in Norwegian kroner.”

  Pavel turned to Oleg and had a heated discussion with him in Russian. From what Harvath could understand, they were arguing over the price.

  Finally, Pavel turned back to him and said, “Your offer is too much,” said Pavel. “Two thousand each is fair price.”

  “And you pay for drinks at Ny-Ålesund,” Oleg added.

  “I can do better than that,” Harvath replied, removing the bottle of premium Russian vodka from his pack and showing it to them. “Do we have a deal?”

  “We have deal,” Pavel agreed, shaking hands and looking at the sky, “only if we go now. Ten more minutes, we not able to get off ground.”

  * * *

  As Pavel and Oleg did their preflight check, Harvath sat inside the helicopter, listening to the rain-sleet mix coming down and feeling gusts of wind rock the enormous bird from side to side on its fat tires.

  He had made it to the heliport by the skin of his teeth. A few minutes later and he might not have been able to convince the Russian pilot and his assistant to take off at all.

  Harvath was flying by the seat of his pants, and it wasn’t lost on him that this was exactly the way the Old Man didn’t like doing operations. Mercer had been right on the money when he had described Carlton’s habit of designing missions from the exfiltration backward. It was a solid, proven means of planning for successful ops.

  But the kind of assignments Harvath often took weren’t as cut-and-dried. The deck always had fifty-two cards, but any number of them could be wild. He was paid to achieve successful outcomes, however. Getting to success—surmounting all of the unforeseen circumstances that popped up along the way—was why he had the reputation that he did.

  Even so, at this moment, he had no idea how he was going to get out of Ny-Ålesund, much less off Svalbard, with the second Black Ice device.

  He could see himself trying to explain to Lawlor, the CIA Director, and the President that he had checked the equipment in at the SAS desk in Longyearbyen but it never showed up on the baggage carousel when he arrived at his final destination in Kirkenes. That was never going to fly. Nor would he ever attempt to do something like that. When he got his hands on that device, he wasn’t going to let it out of his sight until he personally handed it over to the right people.

  Back at the safe house, he knew Nicholas was working on his exfiltration, trying to come up with the perfect plan to get him off the archipelago and back to Norway proper. He only hoped the little man figured out something soon. He didn’t want to remain on Svalbard one second longer than was necessary.

  * * *

  When the preflight check was complete, Pavel, dressed in foul weather gear and an offshore inflatable life jacket, climbed into the cockpit and began bringing the old helo to life.

  As he did, a similarly kitted-out Oleg opened the main hatch and handed Harvath a bunch of gear, including a rifle in a blaze-orange, waterproof, dry-bag scabbard, along with an additional life jacket.

  “Put on,” the Russian instructed.

  Harvath understood why. In addition to large swaths of rough, inhospitable terrain, they would also be flying over miles of ocean. He flashed him a thumbs-up.

  Once the rotors were hot, Pavel gave Oleg the signal to remove the chocks from the tires. After stowing them, Oleg hopped into
the cockpit, put on his headset, and booted up his playlist.

  Pavel applied power to the engines and the helicopter began to lift off. After affixing his offshore life jacket, Harvath removed the key Holidae had given him and hung it around his neck. As he did, he began to hear music through his headset.

  Though he was a die-hard funk fan, Harvath loved classic rock, and Oleg had picked the perfect Norse mythology–inspired song to launch them on their way up to Ny-Ålesund: “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin.

  A hard-core, propulsive jam about ice, midnight sun, war making, and Valhalla. Harvath couldn’t think of a better way to go into battle.

  CHAPTER 56

  78°55'30"N 11°55'20"E

  ARCTIC OCEAN

  SVALBARD ARCHIPELAGO

  Helicopters, it was said, didn’t fly—they merely beat the air into submission. But halfway between continental Norway and the North Pole, it felt as if the air were winning.

  As sleet slammed against the exterior, another sixty-plus-mile-per-hour gust rocked the airframe. The rotors groaned in protest. There was only so much the helo could handle. They were pushing it beyond its limits.

  Scot Harvath didn’t need to see the water to know the slate-gray ocean was roiling with whitecaps. This far above the Arctic Circle, where moisture from the south collided with icy polar winds, massive depressions formed, unleashing nightmare weather.

  If anything went wrong, there would be no rescue. No one back at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, much less anyone at the White House, would acknowledge him or the mission he was on.

  He glanced at the cracked face of his watch, Nemstov’s blood crusted atop its bezel. Just a little further, he thought to himself. We’re almost there.

  Ignoring the pain in his ribs, he reached for his pack and double-checked everything. It was all still in place. Take care of your gear and your gear will take care of you. It was a mantra that had saved his life again and again.

  Under his mountaineering jacket, he felt the cold press of metal against his skin. No one knew if the odd-shaped key hanging from a piece of paracord would even work—not after all this time.

  If it didn’t, all of the danger, all of the risk, would be for nothing and the consequences would be deadly. Failure, however, wasn’t an option.

  That was the world he lived in. He wasn’t interested in easy tasks. In fact, he had always chosen the most difficult, the most perilous assignments.

  It was how he was wired. No matter how bleak the scenario, he would never give up. Success was the only outcome he would entertain.

  But as yet another gale-force blast of frigid air convulsed the helicopter, causing it to swing violently from side to side, he began to have his doubts.

  Moments later, an alarm began shrieking from the cockpit, and Harvath knew they were in trouble.

  Pavel and Oleg, thankfully, were able to regain control. The bird was still swaying, but nowhere near as badly as before. It looked like everything was going to be okay.

  Then there was an earsplitting crack. It sounded as if the helo had been hit by lightning. It was followed by the tail rotor completely shearing off. And as it did, the helicopter began to spiral.

  They were going down.

  CHAPTER 57

  As the helicopter lost altitude, it began to corkscrew even faster. Pavel fought to regain control while Oleg sent out a distress call.

  Fighting against the ever-increasing G’s pinning him to his seat, Harvath craned his neck to try to snatch a look out the window. They appeared to be over land, which was bad. With each spin, however, he saw that they were getting closer and closer to the ocean, which could potentially be even worse.

  “MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY,” Oleg continued, repeating the full call—identifying the aircraft and giving their GPS location and situation. But every time he said, “OVER,” and waited for a response, none came.

  They were spinning faster and faster, drifting farther and farther off course.

  “BRACE FOR IMPACT,” Pavel ordered.

  “BRACE! BRACE! BRACE!” Oleg instructed, saying the word over and over again.

  As Harvath assumed the best crash position he could, he made himself a promise. If they survived, he was never, ever coming back to Svalbard.

  When they finally ran out of air to fall through, they hit and hit hard. It was like crashing into concrete. The rotors as well as the landing gear snapped like twigs.

  As the helicopter rolled to one side, Harvath realized that not only had he survived but they had crashed into the ocean.

  “Pavel?” Harvath called as he unbuckled his harness, threw off his headset, and climbed out of his seat. “Are you okay? Oleg?”

  With the engines dead, it was eerily quiet. Outside, however, the waves and the sleet were pounding the helicopter. And soon enough his ears could detect another sound. Looking down, he saw water flooding in. They were sinking. Fast.

  This was no longer Pavel’s helo. This was Harvath’s ship and he was going to make sure his crew got out and back to shore alive.

  “Pavel!” he barked in his command voice. “Oleg! Time to move! Right now!”

  The cockpit door had slammed shut at some point and was jammed. Bracing his boot against the wall, Harvath pulled with all his strength and popped it open.

  Both Pavel and Oleg were still strapped in. Oleg was conscious but disoriented, bleeding from a gash in his head. Pavel was completely out and one of his legs appeared pinned. There was a rupture in the helo’s nose and the freezing cold water was entering faster in the cockpit than back in the cabin.

  “Oleg, look at me,” said Harvath, grabbing the man under his chin and forcing him to focus. “We need to help Pavel.”

  Oleg looked around, trying to orient himself. Harvath took a second to do the same.

  They weren’t as far out to sea as he had worried that they would be. The coast was reachable. The swim, though, would be bone-chillingly ferocious. Unless…

  “Oleg,” he said. “Is there a life raft?”

  The Russian nodded.

  “Where is it?”

  “Canister. Starboard side. Main cabin.”

  “Excellent,” Harvath replied. “You will help me get Pavel out of his seat and then we will go to shore together. Understood?”

  Again, still somewhat in a fog, the Russian nodded.

  “Good. Stand up.”

  Harvath explained what he wanted him to do. Then, counting to three, he released Pavel’s harness. With a little work, they were able to free his leg, lower him from his chair, and carry him into the cabin.

  While Oleg gathered up what supplies he could, Harvath raced for the canister containing the life raft. His boots were soaked and his feet were already going numb from the cold water.

  Pulling out the canister, he removed the lashing and climbed up toward the hatch. The moment he opened the door, sleet and seawater began pouring inside. It didn’t take long for the rest of him to get soaked as well. Holding the painter, as the rope was called, he pushed the container out, and gave the line a strong tug.

  Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing. Harvath pulled again, harder this time. Then again. And again once more. Finally, something happened. The rope broke and the storm carried the container away.

  Dropping back down into the cabin with a splash, Harvath looked at Oleg. “The raft was defective.”

  “Defective?” the man replied, seemingly unaware of the word’s meaning.

  “Slomannyy,” said Harvath, using the Russian word for broken, and then followed up with another Russian word. “Can you swim? Plavat?”

  Oleg nodded.

  “Good. I will swim with Pavel. I need you to carry anything you can, but especially the rifle. There are many seals onshore, which means there may be polar bears close by. Do you understand?”

  “I must bring rifle,” the man announced.

  “Yes,” said Harvath. “We need to move quickly. Go.”

  They had only minutes left, if that, before the en
ormous helicopter slipped beneath the waves and sank to the seafloor.

  Harvath found his backpack and, using the garbage can liner in the cabin, waterproofed it as best he could.

  Once Oleg said he was ready, they prepared to exit and make the excruciatingly painful, bone-chilling swim to shore.

  Harvath was glad to have had training in cold water, but the worst the temperature ever got in the San Diego Bay was in the 50s. Just based on what he knew about the Arctic and how quickly his feet had gone numb, the water they were in right now had to be in the 30s. If they didn’t move straight and fast like torpedoes, they were going to die before they ever reached the coast.

  Harvath had Oleg climb out first and stand on the sleet-lashed helicopter. Throwing up a rope, he looped the other end around Pavel. Together, with Harvath pushing and Oleg pulling, they managed to get the unconscious Russian out of the aircraft. Then, once Harvath had retrieved their essential gear, he had Oleg jump.

  As soon as the man hit the water, his life jacket automatically inflated. Leaning over the side of the helo, Harvath handed him the rifle.

  Then he carefully lowered Pavel, whose vest also automatically inflated and kept him faceup as the waves threatened to bash him against the side of the helicopter.

  Putting on his pack, Harvath then followed, jumping into the absolutely frigid water and joining the men.

  Once his life jacket inflated, he wrapped the other end of Pavel’s rope around Oleg. This way, he wouldn’t lose either of them.

  “It’s closer than it looks,” he lied, grabbing Pavel by the collar as he began to swim. “The sooner we get to shore, the sooner we get warm.”

  Harvath looked back only once. Just long enough to watch the helicopter slip beneath the surface of the storm-tossed sea and disappear.

  From that moment forward, he never looked back. All he focused on was keeping Oleg motivated and getting to shore.

  It was the most agonizing, most brutal swim of his life.