Several minutes passed before he returned. It only took one look at his sullen face to know he would be the bearer of bad news.
“I don’t believe it,” said Sergei with a heavy sigh, “but I just got off the phone with Admiral of the Fleet Kharkov. And not only has he just landed in Murmansk, he wants — immediately — to meet us at the docks, where we’re to have the Neva ready for sea at the next change of tide!”
A moment of constrained silence followed as the navy men wives exchanged disappointed glances while the tragic conclusion of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth symphony rang out appropriately in the background.
Chapter Eight
Lieutenant Jack Redmond sat in the jumpseat of the Canadian Forces CP-140, Aurora long-range patrol aircraft. The muted whine of the plane’s four turboprop engines produced an almost hypnotic effect on the exhausted, forty-three-year-old Arctic Ranger, and he briefly closed his eyes to take advantage of this rare moment of free time.
The past twenty-four hour period had been a most hectic one. It had all started innocently enough, with what was to be a routine overnight bivouac in the foothills surrounding Mount Assiniboine. With Angus McPherson accompanying them a good portion of the way with his melodious bagpipes, they had proceeded up into the Sunshine meadowlands without incident. Of course, this atmosphere of normalcy had changed the moment Jack had had his terrifying encounter with the two grizzlies. Yet the hand of fate had miraculously intervened in the form of the Canadian Forces helicopter that had literally rescued Redmond from the jaws of death and whisked him off to nearby Calgary.
It was at Calgary’s Currie Barracks that he learned why the chopper had been sent for him in the first place. In yet another isolated corner of the world’s third largest nation, a plane carrying Soviet Premier Alexander Saratov had presumably crashed. To make certain of this, and hopefully to locate the plane’s black box which would explain to the world the reason for this tragedy. Jack Redmond and his crack squad of Rangers were to be sent northward to far-off Baffin Island.
Most anxious to undertake this demanding mission, Jack waited as the rest of his squad arrived at the barracks. They flew in aboard a lumbering Boeing Chinook helicopter. This same vehicle whisked them off to the Calgary airport, where a chartered jet was waiting to convey them on a one and a half hour flight almost due northward, to the town of Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories. It was here that the Arctic Rangers had their permanent headquarters.
Once at their home base, they hurriedly gathered together the gear they would need. This included six snowmobiles that could each carry up to four men, special Arctic clothing, food, ammunition, and a directional finder with which to home in on the missing cockpit voice recorder. As soon as this assortment of equipment was gathered together, their present means of transportation arrived to carry them off to Baffin Island.
Jack Redmond was no stranger to the prop-driven Aurora aircraft they had been flying in for the last two hours. These reliable planes were used by Canadians to patrol their vast Arctic frontier. Loaded with state-of-the-art surveillance gear, eighteen long-range Auroras covered that immense frozen wasteland. And it was a difficult, demanding task. Yet if Canada was serious about extending its sovereignty to the portion of North America above the Arctic Circle, such patrols were vital.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant Redmond.” The voice came from the front of the cockpit. “We’ve spotted the Louis St. Laurent.”
These words were all that was needed to break Jack from his light slumber. Quickly wiping the sleep from his weary eyes, he unbuckled his seat belt and carefully edged his way forward, to the front portion of the flight deck. As he settled in between the two pilots, the uniformed figure seated to his left pointed out the cockpit’s window and continued.
“There she is now.”
Gazing in the direction in which the pilot was pointing, Jack spotted a single, black-hulled vessel, barely two-hundred feet from stem to stern, seemingly locked in a solid sheet of frozen ice. Though a thick column of gray smoke poured from its dual stacks, the ship didn’t appear to be moving and Redmond observed, “It doesn’t appear that they’re making much progress. Exactly where are they. Captain?”
“That’s the Barrow Strait they’re trying to transit,” returned the pilot. “They’re currently in between Somerset and Cornwallis islands, but I’m afraid that’s about as far east as they’re going to be able to go. That ice looks way beyond their capability.”
Redmond shook his head.
“Looks like we can’t be counting on the Coast Guard to give us any help. I still find it hard to believe that we don’t even have an icebreaker capable of operating in this portion of the Arctic all year round.”
“I hear you. Lieutenant,” retorted the pilot. “With all those millions we waste on our NATO obligation to defend Germany, we can’t even come up with the funds to protect our own coastline. Ottawa’s still fighting over committing the resources needed to build the Polar 8 icebreaker. With one hundred thousand horsepower engines and a specially fortified bow, such a ship would smash through that ice below quick enough. Eh?”
“I think we should build those nuclear submarines,” the copilot put in. “I’ve got a brother based on the Onondaga in Halifax, and he says the amount of trespassing that’s going on beneath these waters is positively criminal. The Soviets, Yanks, and even the Brits, carry on up here like it was their own territory. Yet if we had a fleet of nuclear submarines, it would be a different story. Then we could block off the choke points, and keep these seas one hundred percent Canadian like they should be.”
Jack Redmond turned to the young copilot.
“Does the Onondaga do much under-the-ice work?”
While slightly enriching the fuel mixture, the copilot answered.
“They’d certainly like to, but they can’t. As you know, all three of our subs are diesel-electrics. Since they’re dependent on their batteries while traveling submerged, prolonged patrols under the ice are just too dangerous.”
Jack Redmond thoughtfully reflected.
“I realize it would be enormously expensive, but a nuclear submarine would sure suit our needs right now. All one would have to do is cruise under the frozen waters of Lancaster Sound and pop up in an open lead. Then me and my lads could crawl out of the hold and take it from there.”
“Who needs a blooming submarine when we can do the job for you in a fraction of the time it would take the Navy to get you to Baffin,” the pilot retorted with la proud smirk. “In fact, if you hold tight, we can have you there in just under an hour.”
Redmond met this offer with an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and looked on as the pilot turned the steering yoke and the Aurora smoothly banked to the right. The compass read due east as the Ranger turned to his jumpseat. No sooner had he rebuckled his seatbelt than the door to the flight cabin popped open. With an excited gleam in his eyes, a short jumpsuit-clad airman entered and wasted no time expressing himself.
“I believe I’ve got it, Captain! I started picking it up right after you made that last course change.”
Not having the slightest idea what the sensor operator was talking about, the pilot was quick to intervene.
“Now hold on, lad. Just take a deep breath and tell us just what it is that’s got you so riled.”
Suddenly realizing the reason for the pilot’s confusion, the airman paused and then explained himself “It’s the homing beacon, sir. I was warming up the directional receiver in preparation for our arrival a the suspected crash site, when much to my amazement I began getting the faintest of returns on bearing zero-nine-zero. At first I didn’t think much of it but when we turned on that course ourselves and the signal began steadily increasing in strength, I knew we were on to something. I know it’s still a bit early Captain, but I’m almost positive it’s the black box.”