Arctic Gold

won’t help you. But perhaps I can find a way to end this… standoff to our mutual advantage.”

The man chuckled. “Actually, Mr. Dean, as I see it, there is no ‘standoff,’ as you put it.” He waggled the pistol again. “I have the cards in my hand, and they appear to be a full house.” He brought the pistol back to McMillan’s temple, just as Dean had begun calculating his odds if he were to try a sudden lunge. If he could catch the Russian when the pistol was pointed somewhere else, pin the arm, wrestle him down…

“You,” the Russian continued, all lightness gone from his voice now, “will come with us. Actually, I was thinking of killing you, but it seems to me that holding two American intelligence agents might be to my advantage. I know some… people who might pay quite well for access to your memories.”

Dean raised his hands, palms out. “Take me, then. Two of us would be trouble. Believe me.”

“No. I quite like the young lady’s company. I considered bringing along her CIA companion, but decided he was too young and strong to be worth the risk. You, however, are old. I believe I can handle you, and the girl as well.”

Dean laughed at the brazenness of the statement but added a bitter, “You son of a bitch,” to the chuckle.

“Exactly. You will precede us down the ladder. Now.”

Dean did as he was told. The structure hanging from the side of the Lebedev was a wood, plastic, and canvas shelter around a ladder extending all the way to the ship’s waterline. At the bottom was a kind of flat pier, attached to the ship’s side but hinged so that it moved up and down with the lapping of the waves.

Moored to the side of the pier was something large and rounded, painted a bright yellow and with Cyrillic lettering here and there on the hull. A circular hatch on a raised combing gave access to the thing’s interior.

It took Dean a moment to realize what he was looking at. “Jesus!” he said. “A submarine!”

“Exactly,” the Russian said, descending the ladder right behind McMillan. “Permit me to show you just what it is we’ve been doing in this godforsaken wasteland. I think you will be impressed.” He waved the pistol again. “Open the hatch and climb inside. No tricks, or I will shoot the woman.”

Reluctantly, Dean stooped to obey the command.

21

The Art Room NSA Headquarters Fort Meade, Maryland 1841 hours EDT

“NIKOS-1 IS COMING OVER the Lebedev’s horizon now,” Marie Telach reported. “We’ve got the target ship onscreen.”

This time, the satellite would pass almost directly over the Lebedev, giving the observers in the Art Room the closest possible look at what was going on in the ship. Jeff Rockman entered keyboard commands that swung the spysat’s cameras up to focus on the approaching vessel, zooming in for a closer look.

Rubens studied the images with care. Fourteen minutes had passed since the last satellite had orbited over the Area of Operations. Anything could have happened in that time.

“Do we have comm pickup yet?”

“Coming through now, sir,” Telach reported.

“Three-one, One-one!” an urgent voice called, just intelligible through hissing static. “Get your people onto the bridge. The rest of you, start herding the tangos forward!”

“One-one, Four-three! We have resistance from the bow. Looks like two, maybe three November Indias behind the wreckage of that capstan!”

“Four-three! Take them down!”

“Copy that.”

November Indias-“NI,” for “naval infantry,” the Russian equivalent of Marines. And “tango” was SEAL shorthand for terrorists, in this case a generic term for the enemy. From the sound of things, the SEALs in general had the upper hand, though there obviously were still pockets of resistance. As the satellite drew closer and closer to a point directly over the Lebedev, the details of the action unfolding on her deck became clearer.

The scene was a computer-enhanced blend of optical and IR imaging. Rubens could see individual SEALs and Russians on the huge ship’s deck now. Heat sources inside the superstructure were vague, dark gray blurs, but the people in the open were easily distinguished, right down to details of uniforms and weapons.

“Can we raise Dean?” Rubens asked.

“We have a channel,” Rockman told him. “We can try.”

Establishing a direct channel to Dean had posed a serious technical challenge for the Art Room, one that had never been fully resolved. Dean’s usual communications gear and bone implant receiver were useless without a clear satellite connection accessible through an antenna coiled up in his belt, so the only way to reach him was through the SEAL tactical comm net.

And using that net for private chitchat ran the risk of jamming up the SEALs’ tactical communications in the middle of a firefight-something the SEAL CO would not appreciate.

But it was important that the Art Room let Dean know some key information about the Russian operation, information uncovered by Lia and Ilya in Sochi and added to day by day as the National Security Agency’s master eavesdroppers continued to look over Kotenko’s shoulder as he typed out e-mails and messages on his home computer.

And they would have only a brief window of opportunity as the NIKOS satellite passed overhead-two minutes at most.

“Sparrow, this is Bird Watcher,” Marie Telach was saying from her workstation. “Sparrow, Bird Watcher.”

Sparrow was Dean’s code name for this op. Bird Watcher, obviously enough, was the Art Room.

Static hissed in response.

“Sparrow, Bird Watcher.”

“Bird Watcher, clear this channel!” a new voice said, sharp and demanding.

Rubens picked up a microphone and held it to his mouth. “This is Bird Watcher,” he said. “We need to get a message to-”

“Bird Watcher, this is Sierra Echo One-one,” the voice said. “Your pet spook disobeyed orders and has gone MIA. Now clear the fucking channel!”

Rubens replaced the microphone. Sierra Echo One-one would be the call sign for the SEAL element commander, Lieutenant Taylor. Dean was missing?

“There!” Rockman said, pointing at the big screen. “That must be him!”

The satellite was now looking directly down on the Lebedev’s forward deck from the zenith. The watchers in the Art Room could see three figures now standing on some sort of platform extending from the ship’s side off the starboard bow. It looked like a mooring platform for a small boat against the larger ship’s waterline, and there appeared to be an oval hull tied up alongside, bobbing in the water. One figure was standing close beside the Lebedev’s hull, and even at the resolution of an image captured from space, the object in his hand was obviously a small pistol. The other two figures appeared to be unarmed, one a woman, one a man. The man had just opened a circular hatch on top of the oval hull and was now climbing down inside.

Rockman continued jockeying the satellite’s camera array, keeping the scene on the monitor locked on the mooring platform.

Rubens picked up the microphone again. “One-one, this is Bird Watcher. Dean is being taken on board a small submarine off the ship’s starboard bow!”

“Bird Watcher, this is Overwatch,” another voice said. “Clear the channel. You are jeopardizing the operation!”

Rubens scowled. Overwatch was the handle for the Special Operations Command HQ team overseeing the SEAL op in the Arctic. The airwaves over the ice suddenly felt uncomfortably crowded.

It would be a mistake to keep pushing, Rubens decided. The opportunity to communicate with the SEALs would