Scooting over, the airman cupped his mouth with his hands and spoke right into Jack’s ear.
“Premier Alexander Suratov’s plane has gone down somewhere over Baffin Island, sir. And we believe your squad has been called in to be one of the units sent up there to find out what in hell happened to it.”
Shocked by this sobering revelation, Jack Redmond caught the airman’s glance and knew in an instant that this was no joke. Diverting his gaze to the nearby Plexiglas porthole, Redmond absorbed this astounding disclosure, all the while taking in the quickly passing terrain, his encounter with the grizzly all but stripped from his mind.
Chapter Five
Thirty million years ago, an event of cataclysmic proportions tore apart the heart of central Asia. At this time the continent split in half latitudinally, causing the earth’s crust to buckle and creating a voluminous fissure more than a thousand miles long, thirty miles wide, and as much as three miles deep. Over a period of thousands of years, this chasm filled with the runoff from the surrounding mountains and it was in this manner that Siberia’s Lake Baikal was born.
As Admiral Mikhail Kharkov stood on the windswept ledge gazing out to the lake, he attempted to mentally visualize these great physical forces at work.
The white-haired veteran knew that though erosion had filled in a portion of the original fissure, Baikal was still the world’s largest and deepest freshwater body. And as such was home to hundreds of species of plants and wildlife that were indigenous to this portion of the earth only.
Thus, in this very special part of the Motherland, Kharkov had decided to locate his dacha. Though the great responsibilities of his lofty position in the government kept him sequestered in Moscow or visiting naval bases for most of the year, those rare free weekends and cherished vacations sent him packing for the four-hour plane flight that would bring him to his beloved wilderness home.
Unusual though it was, official State business had brought him to the nearby city of Irkutsk only three days ago. At that time he had participated in an unprecedented meeting of the thirteen members of the ruling Politburo. This conference had several purposes.
Because of the growing importance of the vast reaches of Siberia to the Soviet Union’s future economic development, the Party was determined to pay this region the respect it deserved. As a fitting way of reminding their hardworking Siberian comrades that they were not being snubbed by the major power centers that lay west of the Urals, this forum was inaugurated. Here problems unique to the region could be discussed in a relaxed, informal atmosphere.
Since vast tracts of undeveloped land still lay to the north, plans were unveiled that included the establishment of over a dozen new cities. Many of these population centers were to be situated above the Arctic Circle, and would be created to help extract from the earth the copious amounts of oil and mineral wealth that lay buried beneath the permafrost.
It had been their Premier, Alexander Suratov, who had personally chaired this portion of the conference.
Born in the Siberian town of Yakutsk, on the banks of the Lena River, Suratov considered this meeting a second homecoming. In fact, his entire family flew down from Yakutsk to be with this vibrant, popular leader as he opened the meeting with a sumptuous cocktail party, that would be the talk of the town for months to come.
Suratov used this reception to announce to the world his plans to travel to Ottawa, Canada in two days’ time. Here together with the Canadian Prime Minister and the President of the United States, he would be participating in a surprise summit, whose purpose was the signing of an Arctic demilitarization treaty. Of course, Mikhail Kharkov had known about this summit for some time now, and disgustedly shook his head at the mere thought of the tragic series of events that were destined to follow.
Mikhail and his supporters had vainly tried to convince the Premier to cancel this hastily conceived meeting of the three heads of state. But Suratov had turned a deaf ear to their pleas, and now had been forced to pay the ultimate price for his stubborn folly. For the plane carrying Alexander Suratov had never made it to Ottawa at all, but was last seen dropping from the radar screens somewhere over Canada’s Baffin Island.
With a shocked world still waiting for the wreckage of the Flying Kremlin to be found, Mikhail had canceled his plans to fly back to Moscow and had instead returned to his cherished dacha. His wilderness retreat had already done him good, for his previously confused thoughts were now crisply focused. Reaware of his purpose, he had called to his dacha three fellow Politburo members who had also remained in Irkutsk.
This all-important meeting would take place that afternoon, and its outcome could very well determine the future direction the Motherland would next follow. Anxious to see how his vision would be shared, Kharkhov peered skyward when a sharp, staccato cry sounded from the heavens.
At seventy-six years of age, Kharkov still marveled at the wonders of nature as he spotted an immense golden eagle soaring on the thermals less than twenty-five meters above him. The massive bird of prey was in the process of intently scanning the lake bluffs below for food, and for a fleeting second seemed to directly meet the admiral’s admiring gaze. Then with the subtlest of movements of its rudder like tail, the eagle canted hard to the left to resume its perpetual hunt over another section of the bluffs.
Stirred by this encounter, Mikhail gazed down upon that portion of the lake that was visible before him. A single fishing boat could be seen bobbing on the surging, steel blue waters. Having sailed these same seas in just such a sturdy vessel before, he wondered if its crew had been fortunate enough to hook into a school of omul, that native whitefish whose sweet flesh was venerated throughout the Motherland. Or perhaps they were after the giant Baikal sturgeon; a species that was once on the brink of extinction, it had recently made a remarkable comeback. Mikhail had a personal interest in this last species of fish, as a full kilogram of fresh caviar made from its roe currently sat in his refrigerator awaiting his guest’s consumption.
Suddenly aware of the fact that he had only taken the time for a cup of tea for breakfast, Mikhail briefly scanned the eastern horizon. In the far distance, a mass of threatening dark clouds had gathered over the range of snow-clad mountains that formed the shoreline of this portion of the lake. Since the winds were continuing to gust from this direction, the veteran mariner assumed it was only a matter of time before the storm front headed their way. Baikal was notorious for such storms. They often swept across the lake creating turbulent breakers, many as large and as dangerous as those he had encountered on the open seas.
In over five decades of active naval service, Mikhail had weathered many a storm in his time. Once in the Atlantic, they had skirted a hurricane, and the heavy cruiser he had been commanding had almost had its spine broken by the ensuing swells, some of which swept all the way over the elevated bridge. Yet in all his years, never had he been so terrified as when he’d found himself caught up in a sudden storm alone on Lake Baikal in a small sailboat. Just as furious as those of the hurricane, the waves of the lake smashed into his sturdy wooden vessel, carrying off the mast, and half of the small cabin as well. He only kept from being washed overboard by tying himself to the helm, and even then it was a struggle merely to keep from choking to death on the solid walls of water that were being constantly swept his way. From that day onward Mikhail had a new respect for the lake that had conveyed him to the very portals of death yet had spared him to sail its waters again in the future.
A sudden cool gust of wind ruffled his thin white hair, and Mikhail decided it was time to turn for home before the squall was upon him. He followed a narrow earthen footpath that led away from the bluffs and into a section of thick primeval forest. Called taiga by the Siberians, this wood was made up of towering cedars, spruce, birch, and several varieties of larch.