Arctic Front

Allied lines. Nevertheless, despite what might be the seriousness of the situation, Nefski refused to be cowed. Who did this Zampolit think he was — Chernko? Nefski asked him coolly how it was that he assumed it was one of Nefski’s prisoners who had received the photos of the lake or whatever from the old Jew.

“I told you!” shouted the political officer. “The old man confessed. He gave it to someone on the Rossiya. By the time the SPETS got the old fool to talk, the photos had already been passed.”

“To whom?”

“The old Jew had no names. It’s a rule — they never give one another their real names. All the SPETS got from him was that it was a Jewess on the Khabarovsk carriage.”

“Was she pretty?” enquired Nefski.

The Zampolits face was creased with worry. “If the Americans suspect we’re slipping the midgets under the ice from Port Baikal at the southern end of the lake they’ll try to bomb the rail line and—”

“Why?” said Nefski, not minding his insolent tone. “What good would bombing Port Baikal do? The submarines are already safe — deep in the lake.”

“Yes, but they must come in for armament resupply.”

“Ah,” said Nefski, trying to reduce the consequences for both of them, because he had suddenly realized who it might be. “I don’t think the Americans know, Comrade. And if they did try to bomb Port Baikal and got through the heavy antiaircraft ring we have all about the lake, so what? If they hit one or two subs in the dock that were in for ammunition resupply, the other subs would still be at large in the lake. Plus they would be warned off by the explosions.”

“Ah!” said the Zampolit, mocking Nefski’s own tone. “You don’t understand the Americans, comrade. Haven’t you heard? They can be ingenious. They will try something.”

“Then,” shrugged Nefski, “put everyone around the lake on extra alert.”

The political officer conceded the point. “Nevertheless, you must try to find this woman and stop any other messages that might be—”

“Oh,” said Nefski, lighting a cigarette, “there is no mystery there, Comrade. There’s only one pretty Jewess that was sent from Khabarovsk to Irkutsk. I have interrogated her before. Her whole family is rotten.”

“Then I suggest you question her again. Get as much information from her as you can before you get rid of her.”

Nefski took a long drag on his cigarette — a Winston, the Zampolit noted enviously. Imported from Japan, no doubt. “That might be difficult,” Nefski was saying.”To eliminate her.” The political officer looked angrily at the KGB colonel. “Why? You shoot people every day. It’s your job.”

“A pilot,” said Nefski, “transferred to Irkutsk PVO with all the others from Khabarovsk station — he fancies her.”

“I don’t care what some pilot fancies,” began the political officer.

“This pilot is the son of a high party official, Comrade. Kiril Marchenko.”

“He’s in Moscow!” said the Zampolit defiantly.

“Ah, yes, but who knows who else is in Moscow? Perhaps he’s helping us.”

“I don’t care. Interrogate her then have her shot. Moscow’s finished. Novosibirsk is what counts now, Comrade.”

“The pilot is one of our aces,” Nefski informed him.

The Zampolit sneered contemptuously.”Never heard of him. Eliminate her.”

Nefski rose and saluted. “As you wish, Comrade.”

Nefski told himself he wasn’t afraid of the political officer, but nor was he a fool. You did what political officers told you or you would be eliminated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Christ! It’s colder’n a fish’s tit!” These were the first words that Aussie Lewis said as he stepped off the C-5 after the long haul from Alaska via Japan to the Never-Skovorodino road. “There a whorehouse ‘round here, Yank?”

The marine assigned to drive the twelve SAS/Delta Force troops to Freeman’s HQ was busy chipping ice from the Humvee track’s windscreen. “Nearest cathouse around here, buddy, is Japan. Thataway!”

“Oh, lovely!” said Aussie. “You hear that, Davey boy? You’re gonna have to play with yourself for the duration.”

“Better than being on Rat,” responded David Brentwood, saluting and shaking hands with the marine colonel who, though senior in rank to David Brentwood, was awed by the presence of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner.

“Take no notice of him, sir,” David told the colonel. “He’s an Aussie. They all talk like that. Good man in a firefight, though.”

The colonel grinned. “Yes, I knew a few in ‘Nam around Da Nan—” The Humvee’s radio crackled loudly in the frigid air. “Incoming! Incoming!”

Aussie Lewis hadn’t heard any heavy artillery. Where were the Russian guns? The Commies didn’t fire any artillery unless they had at least a hundred of them.

“Cruise missiles!” yelled a marine. “Let’s get outta here!”

“Beautiful,” said Aussie, heaving his eighty-pound pack into the back of the Humvee. “Hear that, Choir?” he called out to Williams. “No fucking class, these Sibirs. Can’t wait till a man’s unpacked.” Williams, the last man in, pulled the door shut. “Well, with you yabbering away, Aussie, they’ll have no trouble knowing where we are.”

“Now, don’t get shirty!” said Aussie and, either oblivious to or uncaring of a colonel of marines being present, adopted Choir Williams’s accent, explaining to all in the truck, “He’s a fucking Welshman. Take him out of the Estedford and he gets terrible cranky. He’d rather be singing in chapel you see. Tenor—’Men of Harlech’ and all that shit!”

David Brentwood, in the front with the colonel and driver, turned around. “You pack those Norsheets?” He was anxious that the Norwegian tent segments, which could be used to make various sizes of small tents, had been brought along.

“Planning on using them, are you?” asked Aussie.

“Did you pack them?”

“Yeah. Course I did. But we won’t need ‘em with our cold-weather garb,” he added. Beneath each man’s Gore-Tex parka and overpants there were three other layers: fiber pile, quilted jacket and pants, and polypropylene underwear. “She’ll be right, mate.”

“Thought you were cold?” said Choir good-naturedly.

“Not for long, Choir, not for long. Girls all say that I’m one hot—”

There was a scream of air, an enormous flash of light over the next rise. They saw a Humvee thrown at least forty feet into the air, its doors flying off, the black silhouettes of the marines flung from it.

The colonel and the SAS/Delta troopers felt the sudden jerk of acceleration as the driver put his foot down, and while Aussie might have been one of the toughest of the twelve commandos, he had never been under cruise salvo fire before, and wondered what the hell the driver was doing. But the marine wasn’t listening to advice; his helmet hard up against the windscreen, he peered through a tiny hole in the ice, picking up the infrared headlight beam.

“They land a quarter-mile apart,” explained the marine colonel. “Like running a traffic light. Provided you can—” Suddenly he stopped. Night was day, and they felt a warm wind actually push the Humvee forward as the vehicle hit fifty-five miles an hour on the hard snow road, started to skid, and righted in a rain of dirt, snow, and God knew what else falling on the vehicle’s roof as it continued on to Freeman’s HQ. No one said anything until the vehicle came to a shuddering stop, an MP swearing and jumping out of the way just in time, his weapon raised, momentarily fearing it was some kind of terrorist attack. The driver sat there shaking, the MP bawling him out. The