Arctic Gold

lethal/enhanced blast.” The round was the reason the MGL-140’s unofficial nickname was Master Blaster.

“Knock-knock,” Dean said, and he squeezed the trigger.

The grenade streaked across the open fantail deck and slammed into the steel door dead-center. The explosion engulfed the door; the concussion rang shrill in Dean’s ears and slapped against his face and combat vest with a palpable, startling blow. Pieces of the door frame clinked and rattled across the deck as smoke billowed across the fantail. As the smoke cleared, Dean could see that the watertight door had been punched off its dogs and slammed back into the passageway beyond.

“Go!” Taylor yelled. “Go! Go! Go!”

The SEALs dashed up to either side of the opening. One tossed a canister through into the swirling smoke, and a few seconds later a string of thunderous explosions and bright, strobing flashes erupted from inside. The flash- bang was designed to incapacitate anyone waiting on the other side, blinding, deafening, and stunning them with a series of sharp detonations. Dean suspected that if any bad guys had been on the other side of that door, they weren’t going to be affected much by a flash-bang grenade now, not after the Hellhound had come knocking.

The four SEALs of fire team three clambered over the smashed-in door, following close on the heels of the last of the flash-bang detonations.

“Good shot,” Taylor told him. He sounded relaxed, almost chatty. “You know, I trained with the 140 at China Lake for a while. Damned impressive weapon.”

Dean placed the launcher on the deck and retrieved the UAV controller. “It’s all about force multipliers, sir,” he said. Reasserting control over the UAV still circling high above the ship, Dean put the device into a shallow dive, bringing it down closer to the ice-girded Lebedev. As he turned the UAV to fly parallel to the ship, from stern to bow, he saw something on the screen, something worrisome.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “We’ve got trouble.”

“What?”

Dean enlarged the window on his monitor and zoomed in close. From either side of the bridge at the forward end of the Lebedev’s superstructure, open wings extended out over the port and starboard companionways. On the screen, two men in uniform could be seen wrestling something long and heavy out onto the starboard wing.

“What the hell?” Taylor said.

“PK,” Dean told him. “Russian machine gun. If they get that thing set up there, they’ll be able to sweep the entire starboard companionway.”

“Fire team two!” Taylor called over the radio. “Be advised there’s a Russian MG being set up on the starboard bridge wing. Watch yourselves!” Team two had been working its way up the starboard companionway toward the bow.

“Copy,” a voice came back. “We’ve got… shit! Shit!”

The sharp rattle of automatic fire sounded from somewhere forward. On the screen, Dean could see the two Russians on the bridge wing standing behind the PK, which had been dropped into a vehicle mount on the aft wing railing. They were firing sharp, short, controlled bursts down onto the companionway.

Tilting the UAV around, Dean was able to spot two SEALs, crouched on the companionway deck behind an open watertight door. They were using the door as cover, but if they moved, either to fall back or to go around the door to enter the superstructure, the machine gunners above would have them in a clear and deadly line of fire.

“One-one, this is Two-one,” a voice called. “Andrews is hit. It’s not bad, but we’re pinned down, can’t move!”

That PK machine gun had just sucked the vital initiative from the SEAL assault.

Dean put the UAV back onto automatic. “I can get that machine gun,” he said, picking up the MGL-140 again.

“Do it,” Taylor said.

Dean stood up and started forward.

“Where are you going?” Taylor asked.

Dan pointed. “Up there. I need a clear shot.”

A ladder led up the aft end of the superstructure to an upper deck, where the Lebedev’s single smokestack rose clear of the structure. Forward of that was a drill rig, with another ladder leading up.

“Don’t get yourself lost, Marine,” Taylor warned him. “When we sound recall, we’re gonna have to get the hell out of Dodge fast.”

“I’ll be there,” Dean said. And he started up the first ladder.

Main Starboard Passageway, Main Deck CFS Akademik Petr Lebedev Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1032 hours, GMT-12

Golytsin urged the American woman ahead of him at a ragged jog. He’d ordered her to turn right when the passageway came to a T intersection, leading her around and past the internal housing for the ship’s smokestack, then forward up the starboard side of the ship. Seconds after they made that turn, an ear-wracking boom had echoed down the passageway, followed moments later by something that sounded like Chinese fireworks, only much louder.

The enemy commandos were storming the Lebedev’s interior.

No matter. His destination was not much farther ahead.

“Look, Feodor,” the woman said. She sounded exasperated… and tired. “Give it up! Let me and the rest go and no one needs to get killed.”

“People have already been killed, Miss McMillan,” he replied, his voice cold. “But it’s in a good cause.”

“What good cause? Oil?”

“Money,” Golytsin told her. “Money, and something much more precious.”

“What’s that?”

“Survival.”

“I’d think you would want to survive the next ten minutes.”

“Miss McMillan, you really have no idea what the people I work for are like.”

“And who would that be?” she snapped. “The Organizatsiya?”

That observation alone confirmed for Golytsin that the woman was with American intelligence.

“Something like that. They are not nice people.”

“Then why work for them?”

He snorted. “As I say, you don’t know them. With Tambov, once you’re in, you can never leave.”

From outside, he heard the urgent, pounding yammer of a machine gun, and he knew the captain had gotten one of the PKs set up to sweep the outside companionway. It wouldn’t stop the enemy commandos for long, but it would slow them up long enough for him to get his prisoner to their destination.

And then the Americans could have the damned ship, for all the good it would do them.

Drilling Tower CFS Akademik Petr Lebedev Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1034 hours, GMT-12

Forward of the Lebedev’s smokestack, a miniature oil derrick rose forty feet above the aft superstructure. The Lebedev’s mission included taking core samples of the bottom, and the derrick, presumably, was used for drilling into the sea floor to get them. A ladder, steel rungs welded up one corner of the tower, gave access to the top of the structure. Slinging his Master Blaster, Dean grabbed the nearest rung and started up.

He needed to climb about twelve to fifteen feet to get a clear shot. While the ship’s aft superstructure was one level high, not counting the smokestack and several small buildings off to one side, the forward half was a solid block rising three stories above the main deck, with the much smaller bridge house on top of that. The bridge wings extended to either side of the bridge, and he needed to get high enough that the forward structure didn’t block his