When the wind stopped, everyone who wasn’t sick rose to their feet, grabbed their parkas and walked out into the polar dawn. The thick clouds had cleared, blown south. To the southeast, the sun rose over an ice ridge.
Pacino had grabbed a rifle. It occurred to him that with all the people on the ice, a polar bear might find the gathering too interesting to pass up. He checked the magazine, loaded it into the rifle and shouldered the weapon. As he did, he could hear the powerful roar of jet engines. He looked over at U-Boat Dankleff and smiled.
“I hope whoever that is has food onboard,” Pacino said.
“Whoever that is? They’re probably Russians,” Dankleff said dully. “The weather cleared from the south, the Russian side. The Canadian side is probably still socked in.”
“No matter,” Pacino said. “I’d sooner grab a ride with the Russians than stay here, freezing when the diesel heater runs out of fuel, with no food.”
“Except for polar bears.”
“Polar bears who have been avoiding us,” Pacino said. “Look, it’s visible.” He pointed to the huge four-engine jet that flew overhead, making a low altitude pass, perhaps to determine if it could land.
“I can see a flag on its tail,” Dankleff said. “White over blue over red. It’s Russian.”
“You think it can land on ice?” Pacino asked.
“I think we’re about to find out.”
The jet transport flew over again, turned, flew away, then from the far distance to the east, came lower in altitude and sailed in, its large wingspan sprouting flaps, the jet engine noises escalating, quieting, then rising again.
“It’s got skis,” Pacino said. “Definitely landing.”
The jet transport came closer to the ice and then set down, the ice splintering behind it into a huge fog of ice and snow. The jet’s engines roared with reverse thrust as it slowed, until it came to a stop some fifty feet from the shelter.
“Now that’s some precision flying,” Dankleff said.
Pacino nodded. “Well, the Russians live up here in the arctic, so landing on ice is probably what they call a Tuesday.”
The rear ramp door of the jet transport slowly opened. Pacino noticed that the Russian survivors had moved off to the right side, all of them gathered together. He sidestepped to Captain Seagraves and XO Quinnivan.
“Captain, why am I getting a bad feeling about this?” Pacino asked.
“What do we know?” Vice President Michael Pacino said curtly, taking his seat at the end of the table. The Situation Room was crowded to full capacity with admirals, generals, cabinet secretaries and their aides. On the wall opposite the end seat, an aerial view was projected.
“Sir,” Secretary of War Bret Hogshead said crisply, “we were able to get an Apex drone launched out of Alaska and overhead over the north pole. The distance to the loitering position was great, so we may only have twenty or thirty minutes on-station before we run out of fuel. When the fuel goes, the Apex will self-destruct. The image you’re seeing is the ice near the nuclear explosions detected by our seismologists. You can see four sites of open water where we think the explosions were located. At the far east site, we’ve detected an arctic survival shelter. It correlates to the gear that was loaded onto the USS New Jersey.”
Pacino smiled in relief as he saw the video play out on the screen. He could see the black expanse of open water and the large arctic shelter erected north of it. On the ice, there were what looked like a hundred people standing, looking at a huge four-engine jet transport that had landed and taxied to a halt near the shelter.
“So, the rescue forces arrived,” Pacino said.
“Sir, the news isn’t good,” CIA Director Margo Allende said. Pacino looked at her. She was being completely professional. Their relationship had been suspended by his rising to be the acting president. He hoped she understood. When all this was over, he thought, maybe he could make it up to her.
“What do you mean?” Pacino asked.
“Sir, NSA Director Nickerson should explain this,” she said.
National Security Agency commander General Nick Nickerson cleared his throat and looked over at Pacino. “Mr. Vice President, we’ve been hearing a lot of chatter from the Russians as they launched this particular aircraft. It’s a Russian Ilyushin IL-76, a four-engine cargo jet, capable of arctic operations. And search-and-rescue operations. But this particular plane is run by the GRU, the Russian military intelligence organization.”
“What was the ‘chatter’ you intercepted?”
Nickerson cleared his throat again. “Sir, the Russians have been talking about taking the crew of the New Jersey back to Russia as prisoners of war. And prosecuting them as murderers of the lost crewmen of the Belgorod and the deep-diver submarine.”
The room broke out in muffled conversation.
“Quiet, everyone,” Pacino said. “Secretary Hogshead, is the Apex drone armed?”
“Yes, Mr. Vice President,” Hogshead said. “It has two Brimstone missiles.”
“Are we in range?” Pacino asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Vice President, if you attack that jet,” CIA Director Margo Allende said, her hand out, “you’ll be giving away that our intel agencies were able to determine the Russians’ intentions.”
“I don’t care,” Pacino said. “Mr. Secretary,” Pacino said to Hogshead, pointing at him, “fire both missiles at the Il-76. Do it now.”
“That thing,” Lieutenant Dieter U-Boat Dankleff said, pointing to the huge four-engine jet transport, “is the BUFF of airplanes.”
When the rear loading ramp came all the way down, three men in green arctic parkas walked out, the leader with an automatic rifle in his hands. The second carried a heavy machine gun, the third a device that unfolded into a tripod, a large ammo can in his other hand. The second man put the machine gun on the tripod and the third produced a belt of ammunition from the can and latched it to the feeder mechanism of the large gun. He checked it, then aimed the machine gun at the gathered Americans. The leader walked closer to Seagraves, Quinnivan, and Pacino. Pacino lifted his rifle and aimed at the Russian’s chest, a fact the Russian evidently disapproved of, as evidenced by him lifting and aiming his own rifle at Pacino.
“Lower your rifle, young man,” the leader commanded in English, in a hard, gravelly voice with a thick Russian accent. “Or you will find the consequences severe for yourself and your shipmates.”
“The hell I will,” Pacino said, putting his trigger finger into the trigger guard and sighting in at the Russian. For the moment, the Russian commander decided to ignore the threat.
“Who is in command here?” the leader asked, looking at Seagraves and Quinnivan.
“I am,” Seagraves said in his baritone, no-nonsense command voice. “Commander Tim Seagraves, United States Navy.”
The Russian bowed and smiled, but Pacino noticed the smile didn’t reach the man’s hard eyes. “I am Vanya Nika, Colonel, GRU, and I am in command of this rescue mission.”
“Good of you to come,” Quinnivan quipped. “Perhaps you and your men should lower their weapons. We’re not a threat to you.”
“And you are? You sound English,” Nika said.
“English, my white pimpled Irish ass,” Quinnivan said, an edge in his voice. “I’m fookin’ Irish. The name is Jeremiah Seamus Quinnivan, Commander, Royal Navy.”
“Well, then, Commanders Seagraves and Quinnivan, please be so good as to inform your men — and women — that you are now prisoners of the Russian Federation, and under arrest for the very serious crimes of interfering with an official Russian Navy mission. Your crimes include sinking our submarines Belgorod and Losharik and for murdering many members of those submarines’ crews. So, Commander Seagraves, order your man here—“ he pointed to Pacino—“to put his rifle on the ground.”