Ian Slater - Arctic Front

Robert Brentwood looked across at General Freeman.”Fairest thing I’ve heard all day, General.”

“By God, Brentwood, that’s the spirit.” He turned to Norton. “I wish that old limey fart—” He paused. “What’s his name, Dick? At the White House?”

“Soames, sir. Brigadier Soames.”

“Yes, well I wish he was here. We’d show him American know-how. Eh, Dick?”

“General, that lake is heavily defended. Now that railhead at Port Baikal is bound to be heavily defended. Only place in the south where they could have slid a midget down slips direct from the rail tracks.”

“Defended by AA batteries, yes,” responded Freeman, “but they’re expecting fighters, bombers, Dick. Not a commando raid.”

Norton was confused. “But sir, the risk of a drop through all that AA—”

“Drop?” said Freeman, surprised. “Who the hell said anything about a drop?” He thrust his monocle at the map. “I’m not going to send brave men to drop on top of AA fire. You’ve got it ass backwards, Dick. We’ll fly them in. Can leave in the dark, but it’ll have to be a daylight raid, given our scanty intelligence on the layout of Port Baikal.” He was talking to Brentwood now. “Your brother’ll lead an SAS/Delta troop. Twelve men.” Without a pause he told Norton to make the preparations. “Now, Brentwood, you tell the what you need. I suggest seven more men from our navy base in Hokkaido to bring your strength to eight. Or do you want to pick your own outfit?”

“My own crew, sir.”

Freeman, his left hand pressed hard against his forehead like a sunshade, right hand with the monocle pumping time, was walking back and forth in the G-2 hut, giving orders left and right, including the minutiae of equipment needed by the small out mobile force. Norton and the G-2 officers took notes, looking like overworked waiters at a fast-food takeout.

“How long to get them here, Dick?”

“Took the ten hours,” said Brentwood, not quite yet believing that he was actually volunteering for the mission.

“Outstanding!” said Freeman. He looked at his watch to put the mission’s ETD on Zulu time. “Oh three hundred hours tomorrow.” Freeman was now talking to his logistics officer, Malcolm Wain. “Mal, I want you to oversee chopper preparation. Suggestions?”

Wain took the roll-rule and punched in the numbers on his calculator. “Five hundred miles with extra tanks — yes, sir. NOE flying. It’ll be risky, General. They’ll be under the radar screen of course, travelling that low, but there’s always the unexpected and—”

Freeman swung about from the map. “What the hell’s the matter with you? I picked you because you were a man with initiative. You can’t handle it, Mal, I’ll get someone who can.” There was silence in the G-2 hut, broken only by the steady hum of the computers.

“Yes, sir.”

“All right,” said Freeman. “Can you get them there?”

“Yes, sir. Four hours flying. Reach there by dawn. Return after dark. Two Cobras riding shotgun for two Super Sea Stallion choppers carrying the strike team. Six SAS/Delta troops, four of Brentwood’s crew and four collapsible Snowcat ‘Arrow’ vehicles in each Stallion. With a Stallion crew of three that makes thirteen men apiece. One chopper goes down, we still have one team — albeit a skeleton one — intact.”

“Anyone superstitious about thirteen?” asked Freeman. He gave no one an opportunity to answer. “I’m not.” He paused, hands on his hips, shaking his head and looking up at the man he’d chosen because he was reputedly the best of the finest in the service whose promise was “Venio non videor”—”! come unseen.” “By God, Brentwood, I envy you. I wish I was going with you, but I don’t know beans about driving a submersible.”

“Too bad, sir,” said Brentwood in as neutral a tone as he could manage. Norton coughed, turning away. The G-2 duty officer was handing Freeman an urgent decode. After reading the message, the general shook hands with Robert Brentwood. “You and Dick work out the fine-tuning here with Wain.” With that the general turned abruptly and walked over to the far corner of the hut where a terrain map had been spread out on one of the large folding tables.

Brentwood looked across at Norton, feeling as if he’d just been through a squall, suddenly realizing that the “fine-tuning” would have to include some way of getting back — after they’d got to Port Baikal and highjacked a GST. “Maybe,” he said to Dick Norton, “they’ll all be asleep.”

“It’s very sparsely populated,” said Norton. It was the only thing he could think of that might be remotely comforting.”Port Baikal — from the aerials — is just a bit of a village. I don’t think you’ll have trouble getting in there. Our chopper guys are the best in the world — flew special operations in the Iraqi desert.”

“Bit colder, I guess,” said Brentwood.

“Minus thirty. Good for the choppers, though. Gives ‘em more lift.”

“Great,” said Brentwood who, though facing the hazards of the deep every day of a submarine patrol, had always been of the mind, unlike his kid brother, that anything that flew was inherently unsafe. He was still watching the general who had now, it seemed, turned his attention to some other matter. The G-2 duty officer came up and gave Norton a copy of the decode.

“Sure would like to talk to him about some of those ‘finer details’ he mentioned,” said Robert Brentwood. “Like what the SAS/Delta boys’ll do if we make it to Port Baikal. They spend a few days hiking in the woods, waiting for us?”

“Oh,” said Norton, moving under the light to better read the message, “they’re trained to survive for days, even weeks, in—” He didn’t finish what he was going to say, falling silent, jaws clenched, realizing now why Freeman had abruptly ended the conversation with Brentwood to go to the maps. Norton showed the message to Brentwood. The Thirty-first “Stalingrad” Motorized Division, leading the Fifth Siberian Army, was only two hundred miles away. Robert Brentwood was a naval, not a military, tactician, but it was as obvious as the nose on his face that if he couldn’t kill the cruise threat from Baikal, Freeman wouldn’t stand a chance.

Two hours later, as they were going over the supplies needed, from every piece of winter clothing to the hand-held Magellan GPS — global positioning system — that gives a soldier his position within fifteen meters anywhere in the world, the young G-2 lieutenant came in with full kit for Brentwood, which included a small capsule called the “L” pill. “It’s optional,” explained the lieutenant with an apologetic smile. “We’ve had reports that in the Urals, when our boys from Ten Corps were cut off, well-”

“Siberians don’t take prisoners,” said Norton. “They figure looking after POWs is a drain on resources.”

There was an awkward silence, which Brentwood himself broke by a game attempt at humor.”I take it ‘L’ isn’t for love.”

“Lethal,” said the lieutenant. Norton said nothing. There was absolutely no point in telling Brentwood that the Siberians wouldn’t even waste a bullet on prisoners. In the Urals they’d used their rifle butts on a company of Ten Corps POWs. It saved ammunition — even if it took a little longer.

“You’d better get some sleep,” the lieutenant ingenuously suggested, then looked about conspiratorially. “I can get you a fifth of sake. Not as good as whiskey, but—”

“Sake’ll be fine. Thanks, Lieutenant.” Brentwood was a stickler for running a dry submarine and rarely drank, even when he was ashore. Last time he could remember having done so was having a beer with Rosemary on his last leave. But right now a fifth of anything would suit him just fine.