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Fog hung over the sea and ice like a white blanket, drifting on unseen breezes that offered the briefest glimpses of the nothingness that lay beneath and beyond.
Dane Maddock wasn’t sure that he liked the look of it. They were still some distance from the island and already the ice floes were getting denser, the sheer weight of ice around them claustrophobic. The waters encircling Wrangel Island were Russian territory. They were already deep inside their jurisdiction. If word leaked of their presence here it would be considered a military incursion—an act of hostility. Given the gradual thaw in frosty relations between the two superpowers, that would be a disaster of epic proportions. He really didn’t want to be the guy who broke Glasnost or Perestroika, whichever one it was that meant we were all getting along just fine now thank you very much.
He had been briefed on the fly about the intricacies of the situation: the island and the surrounding sea for twelve nautical miles were protected under international law and the Russians were quite happy using that as a reason for keeping ships at a distance. The gambit, not really the most convincing one Maddock had heard, basically came down to luck. The entire plan hinged on speed and the hope that the Red Army wasn’t paying too much attention to the seas because of other more pressing problems.
In and out, that was the plan. In and out.
Looking at the infinite ice, it was no surprise that a ship, even a nuclear submarine, could get itself locked in this frozen waste. It was bleak. The cold ate at his face, riming his stubble. The ice was thick, too. Cracks in the great plates showed that. Thick enough, surely, that even an ice breaker could get itself caught in the shifting sheets of ice. That would leave them at the mercy of the Russians. He didn’t want to think about what that would mean for the team. Seeing out the rest of his life in a gulag didn’t seem like a great career move. But, if the top brass were right and the island was being used for something the Russians didn’t want the rest of the world to know about, it was a guarantee that’s where the boys would end up.
“At least she’s traveling light,” Willis Sanders observed. The tall, broad-shouldered African-American wasn’t looking out to sea.
“Not sure if I want to know whether you’re talking about the ship or the Lieutenant,” Maddock said, seeing Leopov leaning against the guard rail on the other side of the deck. There was something about a woman in uniform. She had, as Bones had so aptly phrased it, a body like a country road; loads of curves a guy would like to stop off and have a picnic on. Fitting in the Lieutenant’s case. She was, however, obviously out of her depth and not happy to be bobbing about on the waves, crashing into the ice with suicidal abandon. Her eyes, so sparkling when they’d first met, now brimmed with dark concern, and her engaging smile was nowhere to be seen. It was understandable; to ignore, or even relish an environment like this took a special kind of madness like the one that afflicted the sailors she had hitched a ride with.
The helicopter had managed to reach the ship before the fog swallowed it completely. He wasn’t sure why the woman was being forced upon them, but as long as she didn’t get in the way of the mission, fine. She was obviously considered an asset by mission control. He was hardly going to call them idiots to their faces—not even over the safety of the ship-to-shore radio.
Their commander, Hartford “Maxie” Maxwell, had only stayed on board for a couple of minutes, preferring to give his briefing face-to-face. That was his style. Look into the men’s eyes. Don’t ask them to do something you’re not prepared to do yourself. He was a good man like that. That kind of leadership inspired faith. But until he’d actually laid down the mission brief, less than eighteen hours ago, they hadn’t been remotely sure what was expected of them here, which was far from ideal.
Now that he did know, he liked it even less.
He didn’t find the prospect of diving into these icy waters remotely appealing.
“The woman, of course. Come on, Maddock. It ain’t like I’m a complicated man.” Willis grinned broadly. “I ain’t seen much gear shipped on board for her, so I figure she ain’t equipped for combat even if she is front-loaded.”
“Maxie says she’s here for her language skills.” Maddock shrugged. “She speaks Russian with native fluency.”
Willis tilted his head and frowned. “Might be an asset if we stop around long enough to talk to anyone, I guess.”
Maddock nodded. “I got the feeling there was some resistance to her coming along. Let me guess, it was her name right? Ignorance raises its ugly head again. If you’ve got the wrong kind of name, or the wrong accent, you must be trouble.”
“Or the wrong color skin?” Maddock raised an eyebrow.
“You know that’s right. I keep telling you, Maddock. It pays to listen to me. I am wise beyond my years.” Willis grinned, displaying straight, white teeth.
The ship jolted as it struck heavy ice, rising up before crashing back down in a huge sea-sickening lurch as both moved slowly through the water. The ship was designed for ramming a passage through sheets of polar ice. That didn’t stop Maddock from feeling unnerved at the way the sound rang through the metal of the hull, growing louder instead of quieter as the hollow hull amplified it through some weird trick of acoustics. It sounded as if the metal was being torn apart down there. That made it hard not to imagine the ocean spilling in to fill the void and pulling the ship relentlessly under.
A nervous silence engulfed the deck as they waited for the next impact.
Maddock hadn’t even noticed he was holding his breath until he let out a long slow sigh. They were still afloat. It was as if the ship held its breath too. It continued to drift and push against the ice, but now it did so in near silence. They’d cut the engines. The ship drifted only under its own momentum.
“Yo, Maddock. The captain says this is as close as he can get us,” a voice called through the fog from somewhere further back on the deck.
“Bones?”
“You expecting someone else?” The hulking figure of Uriah “Bones” Bonebrake emerged from the mist. The Cherokee bore the deeply ingrained frown of a man who didn’t enjoy the cold. Maddock could not blame him. Shame Russian submarines never ran aground in the Florida Keys or just off the coast of Hawaii.
“Where the hell are we?” Bones scowled at the horizon.
“Still a mile from the island itself, but the ice is packed so tightly that we’re not going to be able to get much closer. By the time the ship comes to a halt we’ll have pushed into solid ice.”
“And?” Willis asked.
“End of the road. We walk from there.” Maddock grimaced.
“Walk? Are you freaking kidding me?” Bones grumbled.
“I guess you could run if you really wanted to, but I’m thinking it’ll be kind of slippery down there.”
They had been prepared for this moment, of course. Their heavy polar clothing insulated them from the worst of the staggering cold, but the wind chill was the worst of it by far, easily ten degrees below anything remotely tolerable. Maddock was glad of the three-day beard he’d managed to grow on the ship. It at least some kept some of the chill from his face, though it felt as if his lips shrank and tightened with every breath he took.
Even though the ships engines no longer turned, the momentum kept them gliding relentlessly forward for longer than he’d anticipated. The resistance of the ice floe slowed them, but it was gradual, and as their weight pushed them through fissures in the ice, it took an age to finally halt.
Rope ladders were thrown over the side. They scaled down them slowly. The rope was kinder on their grip than the iron ladder that ran part way down the hull. They wore thick fleece-lined mittens with inner cotton linings, but the cold could have penetrated even that and frozen their gloves in place long before they reached the ice, and each rung on the ladder already thick with treacherous ice.
“This is it then?” Maddock asked when they finally stood on the ice. Bones and Willis seemed even larger in their protective clothing with thick-soled boots and fur-lined hooded coats, like giant polar bears rearing up on the ice, and in the case of the two big men, every bit as intimidating. The captain had warned them about the danger of real polar bears, but looking at this pair, there was no way they’d want to go toe-to-toe for territory no matter how threatened they felt. He grinned, the smile lost in the rime around his chin. Beside Maddock, Pete Chapman, nicknamed “Professor” both for his intelligence and his broad knowledge of mostly useless trivia, shivered inside his own cold weather gear, slapping his hands against his arms as if it’d get his blood pumping.
“You all right, Professor?” Maddock asked.
Professor nodded, the gesture almost lost in his heavy hood. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
“I’m ready when you are’” Lieutenant Leopov assured them. “No need for special treatment, gentlemen.” The Arctic clothing she’d been provided with smothered her slender frame.
“We really don’t need you with us, Lieutenant,” Maddock said. “We’ve got this one covered if you want to sit it out?”
“I’ve got my orders, just like you, and they say that I have to go with you wherever you go.”
Maddock nodded. He looked into her eyes for a moment, her pale blue stare unblinking as she held his gaze. She was one determined woman.
“Say, Lieutenant, mind if I ask if you’re here to spy on us?” Bones asked.
“Spy?”
“Yeah, you know, check up on us to make sure that we do things by the book. I mean, I figure you’re not here to give lap dances or anything.”
“There’s a book?” She ignored the latter comment, obviously trying to pitch in with some levity in what could easily become uncomfortable, given the fact they’d be spending a lot of time together on the ice.
“So what are you doing here?” Bones pressed.
She took a second to answer that brutally direct question. She went for honesty in her reply. “I’m not sure why I’m here, soldier, other than the fact that my being able to speak Russian might prove useful.”
“Looking Russian can’t hurt, either,” Bones said.
“Must be in the genes,” she said, the humor now absent from in her voice. “You know, given that my parents were Russian. I take it that’s not going to be a problem?”
Maddock scanned their faces, trying to read their minds. They were about to head out into one of the most hostile climates in the world and the one thing they all needed to be able to do was trust their teammates. So much rested on what Bones said next.
“Not with me. You know which side you’re on. That’s all that matters.” Bones gave her a wink.
“I do indeed. My father died getting my mother and me out of Russia. I know where my allegiance lies.”
Bones nodded. And that was that. No dissent. She was more than capable of speaking up for herself. That was all the boys needed to know. Still, there was something about her that Maddock wasn’t completely happy about, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. It would have to wait. It would help to know why she was really there, because it couldn’t be purely a language thing, no matter what Maxie had said. But if Maxie trusted her, it was enough for him.
A thoughtful look passed across Bones’ face.
“What is it?” Maddock asked.
“I was just thinking. Leopov’s got the Russian looks, you look Aryan with your blond hair and blue eyes, Willis and I have our obvious ethnic charms, but Professor,” he turned to face Professor, “doesn’t look like anything at all. What the hell are you, anyway?”
Indeed, there was nothing remarkable about Professor’s lean build or light brown hair to make him stand out in a crowd.
“Scotch-Irish with a little French and a bit of...” Professor began.
“Nevermind.” Bones raised a gloved hand. “I’m already bored.”
“Let’s roll,” Maddock said. “But let’s be clear about this, no making the natives restless if we can help it. The last thing we want is to have word of our arrival reaching the Russians before we’ve done our job. Our primary objective is getting the hell out of here in one piece.” Maddock didn’t need to say any more than that. They all knew what was expected of them—even the two new additions to the party. He motioned for them to lead the way. Nate Shaw and Seb Lewis had run missions like this even if they’d never run into Russian territory. They might not have the combat experience, but they were hostile environment experts. That made them worth their weight in gold here. He was glad to have them with him.
He gave one last glance at the ship. The risk was that the fog would make it difficult to find their way back. He took a bead on the coordinates. Looking up, he saw the captain standing at the rail watching them head out onto the ice.
“Keep close together,” he shouted, keen to make sure that he kept them all in sight. It was going to be hard enough to make their way across this surface without having to worry about losing anyone in the fog.
“This fog’s thickening.” Tension stretched Shaw’s words. “It’d be smart to rope ourselves together, especially as the ice pack is unstable. We don’t want anyone getting caught between the sheets. It’s a lot less fun that it sounds.”
“Is there a chance of that?” Bones asked.
Professor spoke up. “The ice isn’t tightly packed, and it’s constantly shifting, so yes, it could move under our feet at any time.”
“Thanks for that.” Bones looked down at the ground with an uneasy grin on his face. “I feel nice and calm now. How come you know so much about ice? I didn’t think you’d been north of the Hudson?”
“He hasn’t,” Willis said. “But you know the Prof. If there’s a book somewhere, he’s read it.”
Ragged laughter rippled through those assembled. The men knew each other well. It broke the tension, which was the whole point. They formed a link with the ropes to allow them to walk in single file. Everyone except the first and last man connected to two others who were no more than six feet away. They made their way forward slowly, stumbling from time to time. It took more than thirty minutes to cover less than a mile of shifting ice, and with every step it threatened to shift and pitch them into the icy water.
The first part of their journey ended when the feel of solid rock replaced the ice under their boots. Snow and ice still covered the landscape, but had the comforting feel of solidity.
Without the team even realizing it, the fog had thinned as they marched. They could see considerably farther than they’d been able to when they’d disembarked the ship, even with corkscrews of breath misting in front of their faces. Not that there was a lot to see beyond the whiteness of ice and snow. Only the occasional jagged edge of darker rock spearing up through the white surface broke the monotony.
“Where now?” Bones asked.
The fact that he felt the need to ask reminded Maddock how far they were from their comfort zone. In other situations he’d have simply looked for approval after making the suggestion himself. More often than not, he was the one Maddock looked to for his opinion. But this wasn’t his territory. They might as well have been walking on the moon.
“West.” Maddock grabbed the compass that hung from his belt, double checking that he had his bearings. He saw nothing to even suggest that man had set foot on this particular part of the island.
Nate Shaw led the way across the rough terrain, still cautious, planting each footstep with care. Maddock walked close behind him, keeping an eye on where he trod, making sure to follow in his footsteps. It was all about keeping the weight distribution on a solid foundation. If it held for one, it would hold for another. Even so, his feet slipped from time to time as he put his foot down on exposed rock. Amazingly, lichen grew on some of the stone, hanging on for dear life where there were so few signs of actual life to be seen.
Behind him, Leopov walked only a few feet away.
He felt her hand on his back twice as she steadied her balance. He didn’t mind. That was what he was there for.
He turned a couple of times to see her walking with even more concentration than he was. At least she wasn’t being careless.
Suddenly, Leopov gave out the slightest sound, a sharp sucking in of air.
Maddock turned to see her reaching out, one of her feet sinking down to the ankle where the surface wasn’t as solid as she’d clearly thought.
He reached out one hand to grab her flailing arm and kept her upright.
“Thanks.” She pulled her boot from the hole that filled with water.
It was a stark reminder that although they were now on the island, rather than on the surface of the sea, and the ground was now solid enough to support their weight, they could easily be traversing a hidden river or any other kind of declivity that existed beneath the ice. One step in the wrong place could send them plunging to their deaths.
He still held onto her hand as she took her next step.
Bones gave him a wry smile, making it obvious he thought Maddock’s hand had lingered perhaps a moment too long.
“So how long have you been in the States?” he asked now that the ice had been broken in more ways than one.
“Almost all of my life,” she said.
He listened as she offered some of her life story; how her father had been shot getting them out of the country, how she’d been made more welcome than she could have hoped. He wondered if that last bit were true given his team’s reaction.
“And you ended up in Naval Intelligence?”
“It’s a way of paying back.” She offered no hint whether she meant paying back a debt of gratitude to the country that had given her and her mother a new life, or if she meant that she was paying back Russia for killing her father. It didn’t matter either way.
“How much further?” Professor called, his voice strangely eerie in the fog, as if it came from a hundred yards away despite the fact he followed less than five feet behind.
“Who knows?” Maddock said. “We need to set up camp so we can liaise with the ship to use each other as trig points to get the exact location of the submarine. They’ve been broadcasting a beacon, no doubt for the benefit of the Spetsnaz team. Be interesting to know if the crew realize they’re still dead, whether the Spetsnaz guys reach them in time or not.”
“Shhhh,” came the hiss from Shaw, who still held the lead. He stood perfectly still, one arm held out from his side.
All Maddock heard was silence; not even the sound of breathing broke the stillness. He took a couple of steps forward so that he stood beside Shaw at the point. He could just make out a shape in the fog.
“We could have walked straight into that,” Shaw whispered.
Although visibility had improved as they had walked, Maddock was surprised that they had drawn so close to buildings without being able to see them. He waited for a moment as the rest of the team huddled closer behind him; he could feel their presence and see warm breath drift over his shoulder.
“Wait here.” He untied the rope that connected him to the group and took another cautious step forward, and another, trying not to make a sound as he approached. Ice still crunched underfoot with every step he took. Even a single sound could be enough to alert someone to the arrival of their uninvited guests. He slipped off his mitten and pulled out his Walther. Even through the thick gloves he wore as a lining to the mittens he could feel the bone-numbing coldness of the metal on his skin. Behind him, Bones brought his Glock to the ready.
“No shooting unless we have to,” he said over his shoulder, then walked slowly away from them. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have needed to give the order, but he didn’t know Nate Shaw or Seb Lewis. He had no idea how they would react under pressure. And for that matter, he had no idea if Leopov was even carrying.
With each step the buildings became clearer, materializing in the fog. What at first had appeared as a huddle of low houses turned out to be a cluster of ramshackle structures that were seemingly held together by the elements that wouldn’t let them fall apart. A few leaned against one another for support as if they would collapse if forced to support their own weight. There were no obvious signs of life. Stovepipe chimneys emerged from each roof, but not one of them billowed smoke to add to the fog. He felt his body relax as he realized that they hadn’t stumbled onto a manned outpost. Whatever these building were, there hadn’t been anyone home for a long time.
He turned and beckoned the others to join him but as he shifted his weight Maddock felt the ground give a little beneath his feet. The deep, resonant sound of a crack that reverberated all around him filled the silence between heartbeats. He didn’t know whether to step back, or forward. Risked forward, but his foot slipped and a second snap rang out. Too late he realized that he was standing on ice again, with nothing solid beneath his feet. The ice shifted and tilted, as if trying to buck him. It made it almost impossible to maintain his balance, the weight of the pack on his back threatening to pull him over. He tried a third step to relieve the pressure on the ice, but that only made things worse.
“Maddock!” someone shouted, but in his fight to keep control he had no idea who. Water washed over the surface of the ice as his weight pressed down on it. He only had a moment to get off the unstable platform. He tried to take a step, but the ice supporting his standing foot slid beneath him and sent him plunging into the water.
He desperately tried to spread his arms across the rest of the ice that still clung to land, letting go of his gun as he went down. It couldn’t save him, but clinging to the Walther sure as hell could kill him. The pistol skidded away from him as he kicked wildly, trying to find any kind of purchase to stop himself from sliding all the way into the ice cold water.
The tug of the current wasn’t going to let him go.
It snatched at him, dragging him relentlessly down. He bobbed up back to the surface, spitting water, gasping and shivering, fighting not to be hauled away beneath the ice. Maddock knew that if he gave into it there would be no hope of getting out once that sheet of ice closed over his head. Even a few seconds down there could be lethal. The cold stole through his clothes, sucking the heat from him.
He needed to get out of there and he needed to get out fast.
His hands scrabbled against the jagged edge of the broken ice.
He could feel himself getting heavier and heavier as the water soaked into every pore, weighing him down. The pull was relentless. The ice in his bones hardened, making it impossible to fight it. Ice cracked again and gave way beneath his arms.
The cold swallowed him up.
Maddock’s world turned black as he slipped beneath the ice.