Arctic Drift

ridge that descended to Coronation Gulf. Though the frozen eyepiece numbed his brow, he held his gaze, hoping for some sign of movement. He finally lowered the glasses when another man crawled up the ice ridge beside him.

“Any sign of the captain?” the soldier asked, a young corporal whose face was hidden behind a cold-weather mask.

Tipton shook his head, then looked at his watch. “They’re late, and our aircraft are due in twenty minutes.”

“Do you want me to break radio silence and issue a call?”

“Go ahead. Find out what’s going on and when they’ll be here. We can’t keep those birds on the ground for long.”

He rose to his feet and turned toward the makeshift airfield. “I’m going to activate the beacons.”

Tipton walked quietly away. He didn’t want to hear the radio call. Instinctively, he knew that something had gone wrong. Roman had made an early start. He should have been back with the Polar Dawn’s crew nearly an hour ago. They certainly should have been within sight by now. Roman was too good a commander, the team too well trained for something not to have gone dramatically wrong.

Tipton reached one end of the airfield and turned on a pair of battery-operated blue lights. He then paced to the opposite end of the coarsely graded runway and activated a second pair of lights. Returning to the base camp, he found the corporal vainly calling the assault team over a portable radio, as one other soldier stood lookout nearby.

“I’m not getting any response,” the corporal reported.

“Keep trying until the planes have landed.” Tipton faced both men. “We have our orders. We’ll evacuate whether the rest of the team is here or not.”

Tipton stepped closer to the soldier on lookout, who was barely distinguishable from the corporal in his heavy white parka.

“Johnson, instruct the pilots to hold for five minutes. I’ll be on the ridge keeping lookout for the captain. Just don’t leave without me,” he glowered.

“Yes, Sergeant.”

A minute later, a faint buzz split the frozen night air. The sound grew louder until evolving into the recognizable whine of an aircraft, followed by another. The two Ospreys flew without navigation lights and were invisible against the black sky. Specially modified for expanded range, the two aircraft had flown nearly seven hundred miles from an airstrip in Eagle, Alaska, just over the Yukon border. Skimming low over the tundra, they had easily evaded detection flying over one of Canada’s most remote regions.

Tipton reached the top of the ridge and looked back toward the runway as the first plane made its approach. Waiting until it was just fifty feet off the ground before hitting its landing lights, the Osprey came in low and slow, jostling to a quick stop on the uneven surface well short of the perimeter blue lights. The pilot quickly gunned the plane to the end of the runway and whipped it around in a tight arc. An instant later, the second Osprey touched down, bouncing roughly over the ice, before taking its place in line for takeoff behind the first Osprey.

Tipton turned his attention to the gulf, scanning the shoreline again with his binoculars.

“Roman, where are you?” he hissed aloud, angry at the team’s disappearance.

But there was no sign of the rubber boats or the men who had sailed off in them. Only an empty expanse of sea and ice filled the lenses. He patiently waited five minutes and then five more, but it was a futile gesture. The assault team was not coming back.

He heard one of the idling aircraft rev its engines and he pulled himself away from the frozen vigil. Running clumsily in his heavy cold-weather gear, he made for the open side door of the first airplane. Jumping in, he caught a dirty look from the pilot, who immediately jammed the throttle forward. Tipton staggered to an empty seat next to the corporal as the Osprey bounced down the runway and lunged into the air.

“No sign?” the corporal yelled over the plane’s noisy motors.

Tipton shook his head, painfully reciting the mantra “no man left behind” in his head. Turning away from the corporal, he sought solace by staring out a small side window.

The Osprey, with its sister ship following close behind, flew over Coronation Gulf to gain altitude, then slowly banked around to the west in the direction of Alaska. Tipton absently stared down at the lights of a ship steaming to the east. In the first rays of dawn, he could see it was an icebreaker towing a large barge in its wake.

“Where are they?” Tipton murmured to himself, then closed his eyes and forced himself to sleep.

55

Tipton never knew that he had gazed down upon his Delta Force comrades. What he also didn’t know was that the men were suffering all the creature comforts of a medieval dungeon.

Zak’s security team had carefully stripped the commandos of their weapons and communication gear before marching them onto the deck of the barge, along with the Polar Dawn’s crew. The Americans were then unceremoniously forced at gunpoint into a small storage hold at the bow of the barge. As the last captive was forced down the hold’s steel steps, Roman glanced back to see two men hoisting the Zodiac inflatables aboard and securing them along the stern rail.

In the only sign of pity shown the captives, two cases of bottled water, frozen solid in the cold, were tossed into the hold before its heavy steel door was slammed shut. The door’s locking turn lever was flung over, then the rattling of a chain could be heard securing the lever in place. Standing silently inside the freezing black bay, the men felt an impending sense of doom hanging over them.

Then a penlight popped on, and soon another. Roman found his in a chest pocket and twisted it on, thankful that he had something of use that hadn’t been confiscated.

The multiple beams scanned the bay, taking in the scared faces of the forty-five other men. Roman noticed that the hold was not large. There was an open hatchway on the stern bulkhead in addition to the locked hatch through which they had entered. Two high coils of thick mooring line were stacked in one corner, while a small mountain of tires lined one bulkhead. The grimy, worn tires were extra hull bumpers, used to line the barge when at dock. As he took inventory, Roman heard the powerful diesel engines of the adjacent icebreaker fire up and then idle with a deep rumble.

Roman turned his light toward the crew of the Polar Dawn. “Is the captain amongst you?” he asked.

A distinguished-looking man with a gray Vandyke beard stepped forward.

“I’m Murdock, ex-captain of the Polar Dawn.”

Roman introduced himself and recited his mission orders. Murdock cut him off.

“Captain, it was an admirable effort to rescue us. But pardon me if I don’t thank you for freeing us from the hands of the Canadian Mounties,” he said drily, waving an arm around the dank confinement.

“We were obviously not anticipating outside interference,” Roman replied. “Do you know who these people are?”

“I might well ask you the same question,” Murdock replied. “I know that a private firm runs these icebreakers as commercial escort ships under license from the Canadian government. They evidently own the barges, too. Why they would have armed security and an interest in taking us hostage, I have no clue.”

Roman was equally stumped. His pre-mission intelligence outlined no threats besides the Canadian Navy and the Mounted Police. It just didn’t make sense.

The men heard the icebreaker’s engines throttle higher, then felt a slight jar as the lead ship pulled away from the dock, towing the barge with it. After clearing the port waters, the engine revolutions increased again, and the confined men could begin to feel the barge pitch and roll as they entered the choppy waters of Coronation Gulf.

“Captain, any speculation as to where they might be taking us?” Roman asked.

Murdock shrugged. “We are a considerable distance from any significant points of civilization. I wouldn’t think that they would leave Canadian waters, but that could still leave us in for a long, cold ride.”

Roman heard some grunting and kicking across the hold and shined his light up the entry steps. On the