“Go on.”
“They’re not just trapped in the ice. They’re dying.”
“What?”
“They’re dying,” she said again. “There was some kind of accident. The members of the crew are all falling ill and dying. They need help.”
“They’re on a nuclear sub,” Bones said. “Any kind of accident that has people dying is a game changer. Are you sure about this?”
Leopov nodded. “I’m sure. We should try to help them.”
Maddock shook his head. “That’s not the mission.” He wasn’t sure if he believed that himself. Yes, they had had their orders just as the Russians did. Men were dying out there. It was an Echo II class nuclear sub. It had an onboard reactor. What the hell kind of accident were they talking about?
What was he leading the team into?
EIGHT
“All right, what have we got, Professor?” Maddock asked when the man returned to the shack.
Professor had plugged a headset into the radio they had brought with them, and was listening intently to what he was being told over the wire. He scribbled a series of numbers on the edge of the map he’d spread out on the table, the remnants left behind by the previous occupants still in place beneath it. He nodded a couple of times, despite the fact that no one on the other end could see him. When he had finished writing, he pulled off the headset and looked up.
“We’ve got a rough location. It’s pretty sketchy but they’re trying to pinpoint it by moving the ship to another location. As long as the transmission keeps getting repeated they’ll use it for triangulation. That should get us a little closer.”
“Show me.” Maddock instructed.
Professor worked with a quick efficiency. He marked their position on the map with a simple cross then added another for the approximate position of the ship. He checked the two rows of figures he’d penciled at the side of the map and drew in two lines, one from each of the two crosses until they intersected. “It’s not as accurate as it might be, because we are still fairly close to the ship. But it’s a ballpark. The captain’s going to move her around to the east end of the island and get us another reading. That should help us pinpoint the sub.”
“We don’t have the luxury of time, Professor,” Maddock said. “Pretty sure is going to have to be good enough. We just need to get moving in the right direction. If the ship can improve on the data all well and good, but we will at least be closer to the submarine by then. How far are we talking?”
“Twenty five klicks, but it’s not only a matter of how far.” Professor traced his finger along the line from their current position. “The signal is coming from the other side of the coastal plain and that means crossing the Tsentral’nye Mountain Range. That’s going to be a bear of a hike. And not just because it’s cold out there.”
“I think we all know just how cold it is out there.” Bones shuddered as he spoke. “I’ve dated church girls who weren’t this frigid.”
Professor scowled. “We’ve not come close to cold yet, Bones. We’re talking as low as minus twenty six up there.”
“Chilly,” Bones agreed. “Couldn’t we take the scenic route and go around the mountains then? Save us a few degrees of frostbite?”
“Man, that would, like, double the distance.” Willis scowled and shook his head. “It’s going to be tough enough to cover twenty five klicks in a single day as it is. Fifty? Ain’t no way. We might as well just let the Russkies have the egg.”
“Agreed. We can’t afford to waste that much time, not if we want to get this thing done.” Maddock said. “Every hour we lose increases the risk that they’ll beat us to the punch.”
“It’s already starting to get dark out there.” Bones turned back from the cabin’s grime-dark window. “You’re not seriously suggesting that we try and negotiate a freakin’ iced-up mountain range at night? The cold’s frozen your brain, chief.”
“Realistically, we’re going to be out there at night regardless, whether it’s actual night or not, and not by choice,” said Professor. “At this time of year this place only gets a few hours of daylight, max. By the time we reach the range, even if we set off at dawn, it’ll be getting dark, and then we’d be kicking back with no shelter, freezing our asses off for the fun of it. Think of it this way, rather dark than foggy.”
Maddock wasn’t so sure, but it wasn’t as if they had a whole heck of a lot of choice in the matter. The objective was clear — beat the Russians to Pandora’s Egg. This was what they did. This was why command paid them the very small bucks. He nodded to Professor. “Then we have to get as far as we can tonight, be ready for when the sun comes up to get across those peaks. We’ve got bivouacs, and everything we need for a couple of nights in the open.”
“Then we’d better get ready to ship out.”
Maddock gave Leopov the briefest of glances. This wasn’t the kind of adventure he wanted her tagging along on, if he was honest. He was thinking about her safety primarily. “It’s going to be rough out there, Lieutenant.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said, “Don’t even think about trying to talk me out of it. This isn’t the 1950’s. There’s no weaker sex here.”
“I guess she told you, Maddock.” Bones chuckled and gave Leopov an approving look.
Maddock nodded. There was no point in arguing. He only hoped they weren’t borrowing trouble in bringing Leopov along.
Time would tell.
NINE
The fog had lifted before they cleared the outskirts of the village. Maddock had considered leaving a man behind to maintain the fallback position and assure the team had an exfiltration route if worst came to worst without stretching their resources too thinly. The reality of the situation though, was that they needed to stick together. As a unit the chances of success increased. It wasn’t some dumb hero quest; it was a mission that would demand all of their individual skill sets if they were going to beat the Russians. Besides, breaking up the team would mean trying to coordinate some kind of rendezvous out on the ice, likely with the Russians chasing at least one party, if they were going to get back to the ship. Not ideal.
The clear night sky spread out above them — jewels sparkling on a blanket of black. Moonlight reflected from the ice, setting the world in an ethereal glow. Boots crunched through the virgin surface. A sense of loneliness unlike anything he’d ever experienced pervaded this frozen landscape. It was so cold he barely felt it. He recognized the danger — a sign that his threshold had been broken. It wasn’t about tolerance. It should feel cold. At minus twenty it should feel like hell well and truly had frozen over.
Professor led the way with his GPS device in hand, the map folded and tucked into his pocket of his goose down four-season jacket. There were twenty four satellites up there feeding back info to the Department of Defense HQ and triangulating their global position through the wonders of Star Wars level tech Maddock wasn’t interested in as long as it worked. He was, however, well aware that Korean Airlines Flight 007 had been shot down by the Russians a few years back for mistakenly venturing into their sovereign air space, killing two hundred sixty nine civilians. What they would do confronted with a military incursion didn’t bear thinking about. They couldn’t risk being caught.
The first flew klicks passed relatively painlessly, save for the numbing cold and the burn of the pack straps on their shoulders. That changed when the mountains came into sight. The team lapsed into silence. Only the slow steady crunch of snow and ice underfoot sounded above the howling wind.