Page 95 of Enemy Within
“Don’t thank me yet. I can get you fromHonoluluto the ice cap, but from here to the station it’s an hour’s walk in the Arctic. You’ll need to bundle up.”
JACK KNEW, FROM THE moment Sergey suggested their excursion, that they wouldn’t be going alone.
Ethan instantly joined the mission. Sasha, too. Ethan briefed Scott and Adam, and then Adam rounded up his team and got them all geared up and waiting in the mess hall in six minutes, well before Jack had struggled into his thick neoprene dry suit and snow-white arctic military pants, jacket, hood, and gloves. Together, the whole team looked like a cross between polar bears on hind legs and a troop of Marshmallow Men.
On the bobbing hull ofHonolulu, Adam gave a quick brief of their mission. Doc listened doubled over, his hands on his knees, his skin as white as the snow slurry washing over the bow. They split the mission gear between everyone, checked and rechecked their arctic gear. And then, it was time to go.
Anderson had a small team ferry them from the deck ofHonolulu, through the slurry ice, and to the edge of the glacier. Sasha and Ethan shoved shoulders until Sasha put his foot down and insisted on disembarking first. He clambered out of the small boat and onto the ice sheet like a cat setting its paws on an uncertain surface.
The ice held.
Ethan hopped out, and then Scott and Adam, and after Adam’s team set up a perimeter, Ethan and Sasha pulled Jack and Sergey out of the small boat. On the ice cap, Faisal looked wide-eyed, gazing at the snow that surrounded him on all sides. He was bundled up tight, his jacket zipped up above his nose, and thick goggles covered the rest of his face. Together, they strapped crampons to their boots and roped a safety line around each of their waists. Adam’s team linked into their small groups. Sergey and Sasha moved together, and Jack, Ethan, and Scott tied themselves into one unit.
“We’re all here, Captain. Ready to head out.” Jack spoke into the radio Anderson had fitted him with. Adam had patched him, Ethan, Sergey, and Sasha into his team’s radio and passed out a set of throat mics and earpieces for them all, but Anderson had given Jack a separate ship-to-shore portable radio. It would only work whileHonoluluwas surfaced through the ice. “We’re moving to the RusFuel station.”
“Repair estimates are three and a half hours, Mr. President. I’ve got a team standing by in case you need them, but the cavalry won’t be moving quickly if you get into trouble. Keep your eyes and ears open. You’re in the Arctic now. This place wants you dead, and that’s before you find the son of a bitch. The wind, the snow, the cold. They’re all racing to see what kills you first. And, Mr. President, remember this. If you think it’s a polar bear, shoot first. Don’t let them get too close, or you’ll be a bloody smear on the ice before you even get near Madigan.”
“Thanks, Captain.” Jack grinned as Ethan rechecked his rifle, and Sasha put his in the ready position. “I’ll call you when we get there.”
38
North Kara Sea
OCTOBER REVOLUTION ISLAND WAS one of the last solid rocks on the planet, before the Arctic waters and the sea ice encased the island and its two neighbors. It was the most northern-flung scrap of dry land, covered in frigid sand and frozen tundra and hugging the same high Arctic circles as Franz Josef Land and Svalbard. For most of the century, it had been encased in sheets of ice, glaciers that crept off Siberia and plowed right over the island. Wind-burned lichen and frost-covered scrub grass tried to grow. Seals and walruses sometimes beached themselves on the glacier. Polar bears occasionally padded through the ghostly, snow-packed fog. It was as far from livable as any human could get on the planet. It might as well have been the moon.
The sea ice ran right up to the glacier that surrounded the island. A solid glacier, but, deceptively, not smooth. A hundred feet beneath them, the heaving ocean beat against the underside. Just like the ice keels stabbing into the depths, ice sails soared into the gloomy sky. Pressure ridges from crunching ice sheets pushed together, creating mountains that stretched like never-ending walls. Crevasses arched away in long lines, gaps that opened to the black waters below, so deep down that they looked like dark slits falling away to nothingness. A bad step and a slip into one, and their bodies would never be found.
Picking across the ice sheet to the RusFuel station took over an hour. They leaned into the katabatic winds as snow flurries blew twisters between their bodies. The safety line linking them together in groups turned from a nuisance to a silent comfort. Stepping across narrow crevasses and walking along the rippled edges of ice made Ethan’s heart pound until his head ached, beating like a bass drum.
Ethan stayed at Jack’s side, almost hovering, and Sasha stayed by Sergey. Adam’s team fanned out in a diamond formation, keeping Jack and Sergey in the center. Ethan watched Adam and Faisal, watched how they moved together, stayed together, operated as one.
Red flags marked the edge of the RusFuel station, stakes with bits of plastic flapping back and forth. Against the snow, the red flags looked like spilled blood, virtually a river of it, twisting and twining through the ice.
The station had the bare look of a Wild West outpost. It had clearly been built for efficiency, not for looks. At first glance, it seemed like a spaceship from the set of a bad 1950’s sci-fi movie. A central, wind-worn red building on stilts squatted in the center of a grid of shipping containers. Flags marched in straight lines, marking out walking paths between the main building and the shipping containers. A fleet of snowmobiles sat parked next to the central building, the seats and saddles covered in snow. On the other side, a generator sat, cold and offline, beside giant barrels of what should be fuel.
On top of one of the shipping containers near the main building, a geodesic dome—a giant golf ball, hollow on the inside—sat beside a dizzying array of antennas, masts, and satellite dishes.
The station was dark, and the air silent. No hum of a generator, no rattle and clank of a diesel engine churning out electricity.
“Looks like nobody’s home.” Ethan called for a halt. He ducked to one knee and peered at the station, searching for something. Movement. Signs of life. Signs of a struggle. Anything at all.
Adam’s voice broke over their radio, into his earpiece. “I’ll take my team in for a closer look, Director.”
“Go for it.”
He waited, weapons ready, with Jack, Scott, Sergey, and Sasha as Adam and his men crept up on the station, circling it from all sides before moving in. In their arctic suits, they blurred into the landscape, until they looked no different than a passing snow flurry. A haze of movement against the endless white wasteland.
Adam called it in. “Station is clear. No one’s here. Power’s offline. It’s creepy in here, sir.”
“We’re coming in.”
They moved in, Sergeant Wright holding the door for them, and they took their first steps into the RusFuel station.
As he entered, the hairs on the back of Ethan’s neck rose. It was cold, as cold inside as it had been outside. No one had been in there for a long time. He peered around the empty central room of the main station. Half-filled glasses of tea sat on tables next to unfinished, stale toast. Papers still lay in open folders. There were no signs of violence, no signs of a struggle. Overhead, bare fluorescent bulbs hung dark and cold. One hallway led away, presumably to the dormitories, also dark. “Where is everyone?”
“Could they be out doing surveys? Or at an oil rig?” Jack looked hopeful.
Sergey shook his head. “Always, a station has an operator on-site at all times. To keep the power on.” He lifted one hand, pointing to the dark lights.
