Ice Hunt (13 page)

But as usual with Chenko, there were layers of information hidden between the lines of his encryption.

U.S. Delta Forces mobilized
.

It was a simple statement that left as much unspoken as was written. The United States Delta Force was one of the most covert groups of the U.S. Special Forces and, when deployed, operated with immunity from the law. Once out in the field, a Delta Force team functioned with nearly complete autonomy, overseen only by an “operational controller,” who could be either a high-ranking military official or someone in significant power in government.

By the deployment of U.S. Delta Forces, the rules of the coming engagement were clear to both sides. The war about to be waged would never be played out in the press. This was a covert war. No matter the outcome, the greater world would never know what happened out here. Both sides understood this and had silently agreed to it by their actions.

Out on the polar ice cap, there was a vital treasure to be won, but also a secret to be buried. Both governments intended to be the victor.

Pity those who came between them.

Such covert conflicts were not new. Despite the outward appearance of cooperation between the United States and Russia, the politics behind closed doors was as rabid and retaliatory as ever. In today’s new world, one clasped hands in greeting while palming a dagger in the other.

Viktor knew this game only too well. He was an expert at its stratagems and deceptions. Otherwise he wouldn’t be where he was today.

He closed the metal binder and stood up. He crossed to the six titanium cases resting on the floor. Each was half a meter square. Stamped on the top were a set of Cyrillic letters, the initials for the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, located in St. Petersburg, Russia. No one, not even Moscow, knew what was in these crates.

Vikor’s gaze narrowed and settled on the symbol emblazoned below the institute’s initials, a trifoil icon known throughout the world.

Nuclear danger…

Viktor touched the symbol.

Here was a game he intended to win.

4

Airborne

APRIL 8, 2:42 P.M.
EN ROUTE OVER BROOKS RANGE

Jennifer Aratuk checked her airspeed and heading. She tried her best to ignore the Cessna banking through the skies toward her. It was difficult with Matt leaning forward in his seat, his nose all but pressed against the cockpit glass.

“They’re coming around!” he yelled.

No kidding
. She put the plane over on a wingtip and spun the Twin Otter away. As they turned, she saw her home below. The blasted storehouse still smoked and her dogs ran in circles, soundlessly barking. Her heart went out to her friends. They would have to fend for themselves until she could return or send someone to take care of them.

First, though, she and the others had to survive.

As she skimmed the Otter over the snow-tipped tops of trees, it sounded for a moment like the plane had run through a spate of hail. A pinging rattle vibrated through the cabin.

Bane barked from the row of backseats.

“They’re shooting at us!” Craig cried, buckled beside her father.

Jenny checked her right wing. Holes peppered its surface.
Damn them!
She pulled back hard on the throttle, driving the nose of the plane up. The agile plane shot skyward, gaining height rapidly.

Beside her, Matt grabbed his chair arms to hold himself in place.

“Buckle in,” she griped at him.

He hurriedly snapped his seat belt in place while he craned his neck around to search the skies for the Cessna. The other plane was pulling out of its dive and chasing after them.

“Hang on!” she warned as they crossed the top of the valley rise. She couldn’t let the other plane get above them again, but she also knew her craft was not as fast at the Cessna behind her. It would take some artful flying.

She dropped her flaps and pushed the wheel in, shoving the nose of the plane down into the neighboring valley. Its sides were steep, more a gorge than valley. The plane dropped sickeningly. She used gravity to increase her speed. The Twin Otter swooped down, slicing toward the wide river that carved through the center of the canyon. She followed it downstream.

The Cessna appeared behind her. It stayed high, arcing over the river valley. It again tried to get above her.

Jenny banked tightly and followed the river’s course as it wound through the gorge. “Come on, baby,” she whispered to her craft. She had flown the Otter since joining the sheriff’s department. It had gotten her out of many a jam.

“They’re diving on us again!” Matt said.

“I hear you.”

“That’s good,” he said.

She glanced to him, but he was staring out the window.

The plane sped over the river, arcing around a sharp bend where the river chattered over the series of rapids.
Close…
She stared ahead. A thick mist wafted over the river ahead, obscuring the way.

“Jen…?” Matt was now staring ahead.

“I know.” She brought the plane lower. The floats now glided three feet above the churn of boulders and frothing water. A rumble echoed into the cabin.

Then a new noise intruded. It sounded like firecrackers going off. A spray of bullets chewed across the rocky bank of the river and splattered into the water, slicing toward them. The Cessna flew overhead, slightly behind them.

“Machine gun,” Matt mumbled.

A slug ricocheted off a boulder in the river and struck the plane’s side window. Cracks spiderwebbed over its surface.

Craig gasped, ducking away.

Jenny ground her teeth. She had no choice but to stay her course. She had committed to this. The walls of the gorge had grown into cliffs and drawn inward on either side like vise grips.

Bullets again struck the wing, tugging the plane down on that side. Jenny fought her controls. The float on the same side hit the water, but bounced back. A single slug pinged through the cabin.

Then they were into the thick mists.

A sigh burst from Jenny. The world vanished around them, and a roar filled the cabin, drowning out the engines. The windshield ran with droplets. She didn’t bother with the wipers. She was momentarily blind. It didn’t matter.

She shoved the wheel forward, nosing the plane in a stomach-dropping dive.

Craig cried out, thinking they were crashing.

He needn’t have worried. Their airspeed rocketed up as they plunged almost straight down, following the waterfall as the river tumbled over a two-hundred-foot drop. The mists parted and the ground came hurtling up toward them.

Jenny again put the plane over on a wing and shot away to the right, following the cliff face on her left.

Matt stared at the monstrous wall. Craig gaped, white-knuckled in his seat. “The Continental Divide,” Matt said, turning to Craig. “If you’re visiting the Brooks Range, it’s something you really don’t want to miss.”

Jenny eyed the cliff face. The Continental Divide split the country into its watersheds, driving up from the Rocky Mountains in the south, through Canada, and down along the Brooks Range, ending eventually at the Seward Peninsula. In the Brooks Range, it split the flows between those that traveled north and east into the Arctic Ocean and those that drained south and west into the Bering Sea.

Right now, she prayed it split the course of her plane from her pursuers. She spotted the Cessna as it shot high over the falls, aiming straight out. A grim smile tightened her lips. By the time they spotted her and circled, she would have a significant lead.

But was it enough?

The Cessna was now a speck behind them, but she noted it swinging around.

Jenny made a course correction, aiming away from the cliff face and toward a wide valley that sloped out of the mountain range toward the lower foothills. It was the Alatna Valley. They were soon over the river that drained south out of the mountains. She continued straight ahead, leaving the Alatna River behind.

“Where are we going?” Matt asked, craning back. “We’re heading west. I thought you wanted to head to Prudhoe Bay.”

“I do.”

“Then why aren’t we heading straight north up the Alatna and over the Antigun Pass?” He pointed back to the river. “It’s the safest way through the mountains.”

“We’d never make it that far. They’d catch up with us again. After we clear the Antigun Pass, there is nothing beyond that but the open tundra. We’d be picked off.”

“But—?”

She glared over at him. “Do you want to fly this thing?”

He held up a hand. “No, babe. This is all your game.”

Jenny gripped the plane’s wheel tighter.
Babe?
She had to fight the urge to elbow him in his face. Matt knew how to fly. She had taught him herself, but he was no risk taker. In some ways, he was too cautious a flier to ever truly excel. One had sometimes to give oneself over to the wind, to simply trust one’s craft and the power of the slipstream. Matt never could do that. Instead he always fought and tried to control every aspect of flight, like he was trying to break a horse.

“Why don’t you make yourself useful,” she said, “and try the radio. We need to let someone know what’s going on up here.”

Matt nodded and pulled on a set of earphones with a microphone attached. He switched on SATCOM to bounce their signal off a polar-orbiting communication satellite. It was the only way to communicate in the mountains around here. “I’m just getting static.”

Her frown deepened. “Solar storms kicking in again. Switch to radio. Channel eleven. Try to reach Bettles. Someone may still receive us. Signals cut in and out all the time.”

He did as instructed. His words were terse, giving their location and direction. Once done, he repeated it again. There didn’t seem to be any response.

“Where are we headed?” Craig asked behind her, his voice shaky. He stared out the cracked side window at the passing meadows and forests far below. Jenny could only imagine his terror. He had already crashed once this week.

“Do you know the area?” she answered, drawing his attention to her.

He shook his head.

“If we mean to lose our tail, then we’re going to need some cover. We’re too open here. Too exposed.”

Matt overheard her. He glanced to her, then at her heading. Understanding suddenly dawned in his face. “You can’t be serious?”

Her father spoke one word, knowing her goal, too. “Arrigetch.”

“Dear God,” Matt exhaled, cinching his seat belt tighter. “You do have parachutes somewhere in here, right?”

3:17 P.M.
POLAR ICE CAP

Amanda Reynolds flew across the ice. There was no other term for this mode of transportation. Though it was properly called ice sailing, such a description was a far cry from the experience itself.

Winds filled the twelve-foot sail, spreading in a bright blue billow before her. With her body crouched, but comfortable, in the fiberglass molded seat, her feet worked the two floor pedals. She kept one hand on the jib line’s crank. Under her, the boat raced across the ice at breathtaking speeds, slicing through the frozen waves of snow.

Despite her speed, she glanced around her. There was no place more starkly empty and barren. It was a frozen desert, one even more formidable and inhospitable than the Sahara. Yet at the same time, there was a distinct spiritual beauty to the place: the continual winds, the dance of blowing snow, the subtle shades of ice. Even the jagged peaks of pressure ridges were sculptures of force given form.

She worked the pedals to arc around one of these ridges with a skill honed from a decade of practice. From a long line of sailors and shipbuilders, she was in her element here. Far though she was from the family-owned shop in Port Richardson, south of San Francisco.

With her brother’s help, she had built the iceboat she rode now. Its sixteen-foot hull had been constructed from handpicked Sitka spruce. Its runners were a titanium alloy. She had clocked the boat at sixty miles per hour on Lake Ottachi in Canada, but she had been limited by a run of only a thousand feet.