Ice Hunt

Don’t move or we’ll blast your boat out of the water.

And he could not argue. He had no defense. Trapped in the polynya, the Drakon had no way to maneuver, no way to escape an enemy attack. Surrounded on all sides by ice, he couldn’t even get a decent sonar sweep. While surfaced here, he was half blind.

Still, that wasn’t the greatest danger.

He stared over the shoulder of his XO and studied the radar screen. The snowstorm and wavering magnetic fluxes in the region wreaked havoc with the readings. Two helicopters sped toward him, low over the ice, making contact difficult and target locks impossible, especially in the blowing whiteout surrounding the boat.

“They’re coming in shallow, hugging ridgelines,” Gregor warned.

“I’m detecting a missile launch!” another sonar man yelled.

“Damn it!” Mikovsky glanced to the monitors feeding from exterior cameras. He could make out vague outlines of the pressure ridges surrounding the lake. The rest of the world was solid white. “Aerial countermeasures. Blow chaff!”

There was no weaker position for a sub than surfaced. He’d rather be lying on the bottom of a deep ocean trench than where he was now. And that was where he was going…to hell with whoever had pinged them. He’d rather take his chances below.

“Flood negative!” he shouted to Gregor. “Sound emergency dive!”

“Flooding negative.” A klaxon blared down the length of the boat. The submarine rumbled as ballast tanks were swamped.

“Continue blowing chaff until sail is awash!” Mikovsky swung to the crew at the fire control station. “I want to know who’s down here with us. Weapons Officer, I need a lock and solution as soon as we clear the ice.”

Nods met his orders.

Mikovsky’s attention flicked back to the video monitor. From the deck of his boat, a cloud of shredded foil belched into the air. The chaff was intended to distract the incoming missile from its true target. But the blizzard winds tore the foil away as soon as it exited from the sub, stripping the boat, leaving it exposed.

As the dive tanks flooded, the Drakon dropped like a stone—but not before Mikovsky noted movement on the monitor.

A spiral of snow…coming right at them.

A Sidewinder missile.

They would not escape.

Then the sea swelled over the exterior cameras, taking away the sight.

The explosion followed next, deafening. The Drakon jolted as if struck by a giant hammer. The sub rolled, carrying the video camera back to the surface. The streaming feed on the monitor showed the back half of the polynya. Its edge was cratered away, a blasted cove. The docking bollards sailed skyward. Fire spread over ice and water.

The missile had missed! A near miss, but a miss nonetheless. A lucky blow of chaff must have pulled the weapon a few degrees off course.

But from the force of the concussion through the water, the sinking Drakon had been shoved to the side and forced slightly back to the surface, exposing itself again. But not for long. The sub rocked stable and recommenced its stony plunge. The outside decks slipped under the sloshing water.

Mikovsky thanked all the gods of sea and men and turned away.

Then something caught his attention. On another video monitor. This camera, submerged a yard underwater, was aimed back toward the surface. The image was watery, but through the blue clarity of the polar sea, the image remained strangely vivid, limned by the flaming explosion of the Sidewinder.

On the video monitor, a soldier, dressed in polar camouflage, climbed into view on the opposite ridge. He bore a length of black tube on one shoulder, aimed square at the camera.

Rocket launcher.

A spat of fire flamed from the far end of the weapon.

Mikovsky screamed. “Ready for impact!”

He didn’t even finish his shout when the Drakon shuddered from the rocket strike. This time it was no miss.

Mikovsky’s ears popped as the rocket pierced somewhere aft, exploding a hole through the plating. An armor-piercing shell.

They were flooding. Smoke billowed into the conn. The Drakon, already heavy with water in the ballast tanks, yawed as the seawater pounded into the stern, lifting the nose. His planesman fought his controls to hold them level. Gregor leaned over him, yelling.

Mikovsky’s ears rang. He could not hear his words.

The sub continued to tilt. A clanging hammered through the captain’s temporary deafness. Additional hatches were being closed, manually and electronically, as the flooding sections of the boat were further isolated.

Mikovsky leaned against the thirty-degree tilt in the floor.

From the video monitor, he watched the nose of the Drakon break the water’s surface, tilting high in the air like a breaching whale, while the stern, heavy with the flood, dragged downward.

They were exposed again on the surface.

Mikovsky searched quickly for the lone warrior who had fired the rocket—then spotted him. The parka-clad man ran along the ice ridge, diving down the far side, running full tilt.

Why was he fleeing?

The answer appeared out of the blowing snow a moment later. Two helicopters, both painted as white as the blizzard, a Sikorsky Seahawk and a Sikorsky H-92 helibus. From the bus, ropes tumbled out open doors as the craft slowed. Men immediately slid down the whipping lines, weapons on backs. The helibus then swung out in a wide arc, dropping soldiers behind it, aiming for the drift station.

Mikovsky could guess the identity of the new arrivals. He had been briefed by the White Ghost.

United States Delta Force.

The other helicopter, the Seahawk, flew over the listing submarine, buzzing it like a fly over a dying bull’s nose. Mikovsky stared, sensing his doom. Under him, the Drakon sank into the sea, stern first. The best its captain could hope for was leniency for his crew, mercy from his captors.

As he prepared the order to abandon ship, the Seahawk flew right over the exterior camera. Mikovsky squinted at the monitor. Something was strange about the undercarriage of the aircraft. It took a full breath for Mikovsky to recognize what he was seeing.

Drums…a score of gray drums were attached to the Seahawk’s belly, like a clutch of steel eggs.

He recognized them on sight. All sub commanders did.

Depth charges.

He watched the first drum drop free from the Seahawk’s undercarriage, tumbling end over end toward the foundering sub.

Mikovsky had his answer to the fate of his crew.

There would be no mercy.

3:02 P.M.

USS POLAR SENTINEL

Perry stood in the Cyclops chamber, surrounded by the open Arctic Ocean. The Sentinel had retreated a safe distance away from the fighting, remaining silent in the waters. Even their motors were stilled as they floated.