As he progressed, he planned each few hundred yards, determining where he would duck if he suddenly heard the telltale sound of that engine. Unless they were lucky, they wouldn’t spot him instantly. There would be time, however short, to run for cover — unless he was directly in their line of sight as they came over the top.
The terrain varied between the hard surface of gravel and dirt and the softness of ground cover that Ryng decided must be tundra. He had never been in such a place before and his knowledge of what the terrain might be was limited to what he had read in books and training manuals. The land provided a cushion in spots, giving slightly as he moved along. It was almost like walking on a mattress.
What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was the water underneath the vegetation. Quite unexpectedly, his foot sank through. Water squished icily around his feet, the ground shaking like jelly. Each step became more difficult, forcing him to head toward a side where the gravelly, hard surface could be seen again. But as he moved toward the solid ground, he found that he was also crossing a more dangerous area. Now his feet broke through with each step, sometimes sinking halfway up his shin before he could pull out of it. He had read about the tundra before and how during the warm weather it could melt down for a few feet. It would become almost impassable at that point. Now Ryng knew exactly why.
And as he struggled for the edge, he heard the ominous sound of rotors again. Looking up to his left, he saw a helo just clearing the ridge above him. As the fuselage came into view outlined against the clear sky he could see the rockets on either side, the machine gun pods suspended farther out. If it kept on the same course, it would pass right in front of him. Should he simply throw himself face down in the quaking tundra, lying out in the open, hoping not to be seen yet realizing what a simple target he provided? Or should he try to run for it, stumbling across the remainder of the bog, trying to get to the shelter of a boulder at the edge?
He decided to run. Struggling against the suction of the bog, adrenaline coursed through his system. He somehow knew that if the helo turned at all in his direction, he would have to dive forward, hoping the unfriendly tundra would somehow cover him, close over him until the helo passed over.
It was like a goddamn dream. No matter where you go, Ryng thought, something always chases you, and no matter how fast you try to move, something drags at your feet so you can’t get away fast enough. It didn’t make any difference to Ryng whether it was thick, oozing silt or a bog in a hidden valley. The result was the same. He couldn’t move fast enough and there was a helicopter searching for him and the people in it wanted him dead and they had more than enough in the way of weapons to make him dead. The thought passed through his mind again that all their commander needed was a body, or even a piece of a body, as evidence, and that made him frantic enough to push beyond normal bodily limits.
The helo remained on the same course long enough for him to make a last desperate plunge out of the bog. He slid nose first behind the boulder, which was large enough to conceal him. If the helo came toward him, he could huddle close enough and crawl around the rock if the craft came down to circle and inspect.
And that’s finally what it did. It came down low enough so that Ryng wasn’t sure whether they saw the prints he’d made or not. Unfortunately, this time there was no colored water to cover his path. In his anxiety to escape the cloying vegetation, he had torn it. Tufts of roots and gnarled vegetation stuck out in every direction. From his vantage point, it was like a well-marked trail. The helo slowed, and perhaps the occupants did see that the ground cover had been disturbed by something. They hovered for a moment, then slowly came over by the boulder, passing on the opposite side, then swinging out and heading back on the side where Ryng had been cowering. Snakelike, he crawled around the base, always placing it between himself and the eyes in the helo.
After another pass over the tundra, the helo skipped up over the peak and disappeared from Ryng’s view.
He waited, somehow sensing they had been disturbed by the change in the ground cover. If he had been in the cockpit, Ryng would have known that they were concerned, that they had seen the torn bog, and that they would report it when they got back to base. But having been on Svalbard for less than a week, the two men in the helo temporarily dismissed the situation — probably a bear. They knew there were bears on the island, but they had no idea that they remained on the other end, preferring the perpetual snow cover or ocean to the barren rock and human population to the south. But when they reported the tracks later, the base commander would know that no bear would have been in that spot, and he would be in the next helo.
LONGYEARBYEN
Back at Longyearbyen Airport, smoke still drifted from the wreckage of the Soviet bombers. Colonel Mikhail Bulgan removed his black beret, unconsciously wiping his forehead as if he were perspiring before he replaced it. He was deep in thought, studying the cartographic map that his own intelligence staff had provided the day they had been airlifted from their Pechenga base to Spitzbergen. Alongside the chart, staring back at him, was a photograph of Bernie Ryng. It was no more than a mug shot, the same type that appears on passports. This one was an I.D. photo from Pentagon files.
There was no doubt in the GRU’s mind that Ryng was the leader of the SEAL team. The exact time he had left the U.S., and how he had gotten to the remote island, were still items they hadn’t determined. But that information wasn’t necessary. That they knew who he was and how he operated was all that Bulgan cared about. The colonel would have given almost anything to have such a man on his side, and he hesitated momentarily at the idea of killing such a talent. On the other hand, men like Ryng were not the kind to change allegiance or to allow capture. Exterminating Ryng was Bulgan’s duty to himself and the Motherland. Though he had no idea of the efficacy of the decoy plan, he knew that Ryng had succeeded where he, Bulgan, had failed. Getting Ryng would be his last act as a Soviet officer — and it would be an act of satisfying revenge.
So it was a matter of finding and doing away with the man. Bulgan knew Ryng would have done the same to him. A large red cross marked their last contact with him — thrashing in the water just off the glacial stream entering the harbor. A few miles past that, the shoreline turned into sheer cliffs. There was no man, especially one on the run and without the necessary resources, who would attempt those.
Bulgan knew what he would do — and he considered himself almost the equal of Ryng. The file indicated that Ryng was no mountain climber. But he was an escape artist if ever there was one. American training included traveling long distances without sustenance, yet Bulgan knew Ryng could find something if it was available. Obviously the man was unarmed, or at least should have been after being thrown from his raft. It was likely that Ryng escaped with only his wits. But the GRU emphasized that unless the man was wounded, he still had an advantage over most other men.
The colonel traced a path on the map with his finger — up a streambed, then left into the hidden valleys that rose in an easy progression toward the final range before the Greenland Sea. Once on the opposite side, the down side, Bulgan knew that Ryng might very well have protection.