The Alex King Series

slowed some more, and then as the machine got down to around thirty-miles-per-hour, he elbowed Natalia and she fell to the side. King lurched the steering, powered on full throttle and drove head-on towards the snowmobile. The rider had a moment of indecision and pulled to his left. King took his right hand off the handlebar and the machine slowed as he reached for the Makarov pistol in his pocket and aimed at the rider. He let go of the other handlebar, steadied the weapon in a two-handed grip and fired three shots in quick succession. The rider fell backwards, the RPG spinning out from where he had wedged it under his armpit as he hit the ice. King waited for the man to come to a halt, then fired twice more into his back. He pocketed the pistol, manoeuvred the machine around and drove it back to Natalia, who was still getting to her feet. He noticed she had shrapnel wounds to her calf, looked down and saw the mess of his own. Strangely, it had stopped hurting. He thought perhaps the cold air had started to freeze the flesh around the wound.

Keep moving forward…

He could almost hear Stewart shouting at him. He closed his eyes for a moment, thought of his old friend and mentor dying in the hotel lobby. He had been wrong about him. But that was the world he lived in. Smoke and mirrors. Bluff and counter bluff. A world of deception and death. Of playing cowboys and Indians and hoping it made a difference.

The GPS was showing he was near. He slowed the machine a little and checked his watch. He needed to time it just right. Ahead of him, the frozen fjord loomed, hemmed in from both sides by the terrific triangular mountains, like jagged snow-capped pyramids.

“Where are we going?” Natalia asked. “There’s nothing here.”

Ahead of them, three-hundred meters from the frozen shoreline, the ice peaked and broke, driven thirty-feet skywards by the immerging coning tower of the Astute class submarine. King slowed the machine even more. He wanted to time it, so he could get to the base of the coning tower as the vessel settled. Hatch up, asset and himself onboard, hatch down, dive. Job done. Home.

There was movement from the top of the coning tower, and two of the crew fixed a rope to the railings and tossed the coil out and down onto the ice. King stopped the snowmobile fifty-feet away and switched off the engine. He got off but had to help Natalia off the machine and onto her feet.

“Are you okay?” King asked.

“No,” she said. “You knocked me off the damned bike and I’ve hurt my stomach. Shrapnel has torn my leg up, and my eyes are raw…” She forced a smile. “But other than that, I’m fine!”

King chuckled. “Well, it’s been quite a day.” He guided her to the rope and tied it around her waist. He gave a little tug, and the two crew members hand-overhanded her to the top of the coning tower some thirty-feet above the ice.

The rope was dropped back down, and King caught hold of it, gave them the curtsey of climbing as well as he was pulled up the soaking hulk of metal, now starting to freeze in the icy air.

“God almighty, you stink!” one of the men grumbled.

“Thank you, Seaman Archer!” the older man snapped. He looked at King. “I’m Commander Patterson, welcome aboard the boat.”

“The boat?” King asked incredulously.

“Secret squirrel stuff and nonsense,” Patterson said wryly. “No mention of the sub on this mission. Skull and crossbones stuff.”

King nodded. The commander seemed as if he’d been teleported in from 1944. He imagined him to be from a long line of socially awkward men from a family with a long-standing naval tradition. No doubt, some grandfather or great uncle had been an admiral. He turned to the young seaman and said, “And that’s fresh air, in all it’s glory,” he smiled, recalling an anecdote how submariners become so used to recirculated and sterile air, that they can smell the men who have been ‘up top’ from a huge distance. The men’s crewmates would smell the air on them, no matter how pure and fresh from The Norwegian wilderness.

“It’s overrated, Sir,” the young seaman quipped, expertly coiling the rope around his elbow and shoulder.

The commander stood aside and helped Natalia through the hatch and down the ladder. He looked back at King and his expression changed from mild curiosity to terror. “In coming!” he shouted and ducked down into the confines of the coning tower.

King felt the whoosh as the rocket propelled grenade shot past and missed the coning tower by mere inches. It carried on its flat trajectory and after nine-hundred metres detonated automatically. Molten-hot shrapnel showered down on the ice and the cloud of smoke spiralled in the wind. The thunderclap of detonation reached them a moment later.

King turned and saw the figure on the ice. He was staggering, reloading the launcher as he walked. King looked up at the seaman as he swung around the ladder and slid down onto the hull. “Get the sub out of here!” he yelled. “Now! And don’t wait for me!”

The commander was back on the coning tower and shouted, “We can’t risk the boat!”

“I said, don’t wait for me!”

King sat down and slid down the hull of the vessel, hit the ice slab and carried on sliding until he was on the icepack. As he sat astride the snowmobile and could already hear the sub sinking under the ice, and the whoosh of another rocket propelled grenade heading his way. This time, it found its mark and detonated against the thick slab of ice before the shrapnel bounced harmlessly off the coning tower. A direct hit would rupture the steel and the sub would be put out of