Ice Hunt

been shoved to the side and forced slightly back to the surface, exposing itself again. But not for long. The sub rocked stable and recommenced its stony plunge. The outside decks slipped under the sloshing water.

Mikovsky thanked all the gods of sea and men and turned away.

Then something caught his attention. On another video monitor. This camera, submerged a yard underwater, was aimed back toward the surface. The image was watery, but through the blue clarity of the polar sea, the image remained strangely vivid, limned by the flaming explosion of the Sidewinder.

On the video monitor, a soldier, dressed in polar camouflage, climbed into view on the opposite ridge. He bore a length of black tube on one shoulder, aimed square at the camera.

Rocket launcher.

A spat of fire flamed from the far end of the weapon.

Mikovsky screamed. “Ready for impact!”

He didn’t even finish his shout when the Drakon shuddered from the rocket strike. This time it was no miss.

Mikovsky’s ears popped as the rocket pierced somewhere aft, exploding a hole through the plating. An armor-piercing shell.

They were flooding. Smoke billowed into the conn. The Drakon, already heavy with water in the ballast tanks, yawed as the seawater pounded into the stern, lifting the nose. His planesman fought his controls to hold them level. Gregor leaned over him, yelling.

Mikovsky’s ears rang. He could not hear his words.

The sub continued to tilt. A clanging hammered through the captain’s temporary deafness. Additional hatches were being closed, manually and electronically, as the flooding sections of the boat were further isolated.

Mikovsky leaned against the thirty-degree tilt in the floor.

From the video monitor, he watched the nose of the Drakon break the water’s surface, tilting high in the air like a breaching whale, while the stern, heavy with the flood, dragged downward.

They were exposed again on the surface.

Mikovsky searched quickly for the lone warrior who had fired the rocket — then spotted him. The parka-clad man ran along the ice ridge, diving down the far side, running full tilt.

Why was he fleeing?

The answer appeared out of the blowing snow a moment later. Two helicopters, both painted as white as the blizzard, a Sikorsky Seahawk and a Sikorsky H-92 helibus. From the bus, ropes tumbled out open doors as the craft slowed. Men immediately slid down the whipping lines, weapons on backs. The helibus then swung out in a wide arc, dropping soldiers behind it, aiming for the drift station.

Mikovsky could guess the identity of the new arrivals. He had been briefed by the White Ghost.

United States Delta Force.

The other helicopter, the Seahawk, flew over the listing submarine, buzzing it like a fly over a dying bull’s nose. Mikovsky stared, sensing his doom. Under him, the Drakon sank into the sea, stern first. The best its captain could hope for was leniency for his crew, mercy from his captors.

As he prepared the order to abandon ship, the Seahawk flew right over the exterior camera. Mikovsky squinted at the monitor. Something was strange about the undercarriage of the aircraft. It took a full breath for Mikovsky to recognize what he was seeing.

Drums…a score of gray drums were attached to the Seahawk’s belly, like a clutch of steel eggs.

He recognized them on sight. All sub commanders did.

Depth charges.

He watched the first drum drop free from the Seahawk’s undercarriage, tumbling end over end toward the foundering sub.

Mikovsky had his answer to the fate of his crew.

There would be no mercy.

3:02 P.M.

USS POLAR SENTINEL

Perry stood in the Cyclops chamber, surrounded by the open Arctic Ocean. The Sentinel had retreated a safe distance away from the fighting, remaining silent in the waters. Even their motors were stilled as they floated.

Upon the first missile strike on the surface, Perry had ordered the Sentinel to dive deep. The Drakon was clearly under attack from the surface. This was confirmed a moment later when his sonar chief had reported a successful rocket attack. Listening from a half mile away, they had heard the explosion and the resulting bubbling of a ruptured submarine.

“It looks like the cavalry finally arrived,” Lieutenant Liang had said, grimly relieved, voicing everyone’s opinion.

The XO was probably right. The attackers had to be the Delta Force team noted in Admiral Reynolds’s last message.

Still, Perry had wanted confirmation before letting anyone know of their presence in these waters. The timing of this attack was too perfect. How had the Delta Force team crossed the blizzard to arrive so opportunely? And why hadn’t the two helicopters been heard before now? Had they been flying too high and were only picked up by the hydrophones as they made their bombing dive toward the surface?

Perry didn’t like questions he couldn’t answer — and in a submarine, paranoia was a survival trait. It kept you alive in dangerous waters.

As such, Perry stood in the forward chamber, watching the battle through the Sentinel’s window. He had wanted to see with his own eyes what was happening. He had tried to use the exterior cameras from the control bridge, but they didn’t have the zoom capability to cross the distance.

So Perry had improvised. Standing now in the Cyclops chamber, he used a set of ordinary binoculars to watch the battle.

Half a mile away, the Drakon was nose up in the waters, silhouetted in the storm light beaming through the open lake above. She listed at close to sixty degrees, almost vertical in the water.

Perry watched, knowing that his counterpart on the other sub must be sounding the evacuation alarm. The battle was already over. The Russian crew had only one chance here: to abandon ship.

Then through the binoculars, a bright flash ignited the waters, freezing the image upon Perry’s retina before temporarily blinding him. He blinked away the dazzle as the dull explosion roared to him. It sounded exactly like a rumble of thunder, followed by the rattling of deck plates from the distant concussion.

Perry’s vision cleared. The Drakon was fully upright, surrounded in a whirlpool of bubbles. Chunks of ice, blown down from above, rattled back up out of the depths.

The room intercom buzzed. “Captain, Conn. We’re reading a depth charge!”

Perry hurried away, tapping the intercom as he passed. “Pull us out of here!” he called out, then ducked through the hatch and ran back toward the bridge.

Another explosion shuddered through the boat, rocking the Sentinel.

These icy waters were about to get too damn hot.

3:03 P.M.

OMEGA DRIFT STATION

John Aratuk accepted death. He had seen entire villages, including his own, meet brutal and harsh ends. He had held his wife’s hand as she lay dying, trapped in the wreckage of his drunken accident. Death was a constant in his life. So as others around him shouted or cried, he sat quietly, his hands bound with plastic ties behind his back.

Another explosion shook the barracks building, setting the hanging lamps to swinging. The ice under the buildings bowed and rattled from the forces of the nearby explosions, threatening to shatter the entire area.

Around John, the military men were struggling to get free of their bonds, using whatever sharp edge they could find to saw through the tough plastic.

The Russians had bound them after Jenny and the seaman had escaped, keeping them under constant