marveling at the strength of his ancestors who survived the long march across this land bridge to enter the North American continent.
He snugged the cold weather parka more closely around his face and readjusted the wool scarf covering his mouth and nose. After only a few hours ashore, his goggles were already slightly pitted from the blowing ice crystals. A thin tracery of ice had taken hold around the edge of one lens. He considered taking the goggles off long enough to clean them, but the memory of the sharp cold that had bitten into his face last time he tried that dissuaded him.
The Spetsnaz commander had been absolutely insistent on the importance of maintaining an outside watch, and rightly so. Rogov was tempted to remove himself from the watch rotation, but in the end decided that he would take his turn in order to assert his equal standing among the small band of trained killers he commanded. He shook his head as he turned around, scanning the horizon and air above him. Two days ago, he hadn’t known he’d be worried about that.
Living under Aflu conditions was already proving more harshly draining than he ever dreamed possible. Subsisting on field rations, trying to catch a few shivering hours of sleep in the dank cave, and pushing the men to complete the foundations for the weapons systems had taken more out of him than he thought possible. Was it possible, he wondered, that he’d been a fool to insist on supervising this mission personally? At forty-eight years of age, he was a good fifteen years older than the most senior Spetsnaz here. How significant that was hadn’t shown up until he’d come ashore.
Somehow, the Spetsnaz seemed to thrive under the hostile, alien conditions. The danger, cold, and deprivation just seemed to bring a gleefully unholy look to their eyes. Nothing bothered them, not even the small section of ice cave crumbling in on them last night, almost landing on Rogov. He’d cried out, he remembered, when the first slabs of ice had hit his sleeping bag. The disdain in the other men’s eyes had been evident.
Off on the horizon, the thin traces of color were already deepening, evidence of the approaching dark. A flicker of movement caught his eye. He squinted. Had he seen something or was it just — no, there it was again, barely visible against the gloom.
He raised the radio to his lips, then paused. If it were a military aircraft, he ran the risk of its detecting the radio transmission. Better to be safe, he decided, and tucked the radio back into the oversize pocket on his parka. He turned and moved quickly toward the entrance to the ice cave.
The Spetsnaz were assembled and standing together as he entered the cavern. That was another spooky thing about them — their instantaneous reaction to any change in their surroundings. Between the time the first icy draft from outside had penetrated the cave and the time that Rogov had stepped across the threshold, they’d all piled out of their sleeping bags and grabbed their weapons. Now, looking at them, he could not tell that seconds earlier they had all been asleep.
“An aircraft,” he said. “The radio — it occurs to me that maintaining tactical communications with it is a dangerous idea.”
The Spetsnaz commander nodded. “As we discussed. However, I recall you were not quite so ready to listen to that suggestion earlier.”
“Assemble your team,” Rogov ordered unnecessarily, ignoring the intended rebuke. “I do not like the thought that the aircraft is headed directly for us.”
The Spetsnaz commander spread his hands out, palms up, as if to say, what preparations? Clearly, the men around him were already ready for action.
“Then take your posts,” Rogov snapped, annoyed — and, he admitted to himself, the tiniest bit afraid — that they’d readied themselves so quickly. But then, that was to be expected, wasn’t it? These were, after all, the finest unconventional warfare experts in the world.
The men slipped out of the ice cave quietly, each one heading directly for a previously scouted position. They would be, Rogov knew, even now snuggling down into the concealment they had either discovered or created. The odds of their being detected by the overflying aircraft were zero.
Almost zero, he corrected himself. He glanced over at the Spetsnaz commander, who was waiting.
“You will take the Stinger,” Rogov ordered. The Spetsnaz commander’s smile deepened.
“You see anything?” the pilot asked.
The copilot shook his head in the negative. “Not a damned thing except ice and water. Too damned much of both.”
Toggling on the ICS switch, the pilot said, “You happy now?”
Eel glanced over at the technician, who shook his head wordlessly. “We’re not detecting anything,” Eel admitted reluctantly. “One more circuit, just to make sure. Then we’ll head home.”
“That’s all it will be, then,” the pilot said. “Flying this low — I’m not doing anything that gets me below a real healthy reserve on fuel. Not over this water.”
“Understood. If someone’s down there, they ain’t talking now.”
As the aircraft started its final circuit over the island, cruising at barely three thousand feet above the land and water, Eel stared out the small side window at the rugged, desolate terrain, wondering what it was that made him so uneasy.
From his concealed position in the scree located at the base of the cliff, Rogov watched the black speck grow larger. Within minutes, he could distinguish the stubby-nosed profile of a P-3 Orion.
He nudged the Spetsnaz commander at his side, who looked over at him, annoyed. “You see?” Rogov pointed out. “Had we used the radios, they could have undoubtedly triangulated on our position.”
The Spetsnaz commander shrugged. “That will not make any difference in a few moments.” He shrugged himself up off the ground and raised the Stinger missile tube to his shoulder.
“Look! Over to the right!”
Eel moved over to a starboard window, trying to see what had excited the two pilots.
“I saw movement — I know I did,” the copilot’s excited voice said. “Just near the base of that cliff. In the rubble.”
Eel brought the binoculars up to his eyes and trained them on the area. Nothing, nothing, nothing — wait. He tweaked the binoculars into sharper focus. Against the shades of white and gray that made up the arctic landscape, an odd shadow protruded at an awkward angle. He looked at the ice above it, trying to decide what escarpment would cast such a — damn it!
He snatched up the nearest microphone and shouted, “Get us the hell out of here! There’s someone with a Stinger missile down there.”
“How can you be so sure?” the copilot’s surly voice came over the circuit.
Eel felt the P-3 jerk sharply upward as the pilot ignored his fellow aviator’s question. The pilot had been around long enough to know that if the TACCO wanted the aircraft out of the area, it was better to just do it and ask questions later. Explanations took time, and sometimes a few seconds made the difference between life and death.
“Altitude, now!” Eel insisted. “Just shut the fuck up and-“
The black cylinder nestled among the chunks of ice moved, shortening in length as the deadly firing end pointed directly at them. He stared at it with horrified fascination. The heat-seeking warhead carried enough explosive power to knock the wing off a P-3, or to seriously damage an engine. Even if the aircraft managed to stay airborne, what might be a minor mechanical problem or minor battle damage in these climates could soon turn deadly. He stared at the missile launcher, trying not to think of the barely liquid water beneath them. If they went in — no, he couldn’t think about that. They were as good as dead if they had to ditch the aircraft. In these waters, they wouldn’t even stay conscious long enough to escape the sinking airplane. They would be unconscious and drowning before they could reach the hatch.
“Flares!” he shouted. “Flares, chaff, and altitude — now,” he ordered.
The angle on the deck steepened as the P-3 fought for altitude. The range on the Stinger missile was only
