Stephen Coonts: Arctic Gold

“Ah, you young Marines don’t have a clue.”

“Cry me a river, Grandpap.”

Both Dean and Strieber were former Marines-within the fraternity of the Corps, there was no such thing as an ex -Marine-and that fact alone created a shared camaraderie, even though his experience in the service had left Dean somewhat bitter.

Dean had been one of Desk Three’s field operatives for over a year now. Strieber was employed by the National Security Agency as what was euphemistically known as a military expert consultant-which in his case translated to range boss at the NSA’s Fort Meade training center.

This particular range boss, Dean thought, got a particularly savage enjoyment out of ragging Dean about his age. Some of the comments hit a little too close to the mark sometimes. Dean was in his early fifties, now, and getting through the Fort Meade OC-the obstacle course-had been a major challenge, despite his daily routine of exercise and running.

“Charlie?” a new voice sounded in Dean’s skull. “This is Rockman.”

“What’s up?” Dean asked. Strieber raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He was used to Desk Three operators suddenly breaking into one-sided conversations, apparently with themselves. “I’m not even supposed to be on duty.”

“The DD told me to let you know,” Rockman said from the Art Room. “We’ve got a… situation here.”

“What kind of-”

Dean stopped, forcing down the sudden upwelling of cold fear. While Desk Three would be engaged in any number of ongoing operations on any given day, there were two well into their active phases that were of particular interest to Dean because both involved very dear friends. Right now, Tommy Karr would be somewhere out over the North Atlantic, helping escort some high-level government scientist or other to a conference in London. And Lia…

“Lia,” he said. “Is she okay?”

“You’d better get down here, Charlie. She’s out of contact. She may be in trouble.”

Dean bit off an unpleasant word, then forced himself to relax. Lia was a superb agent, well capable of handling herself in almost any situation imaginable.

But he didn’t like it. He’d argued point-blank with Rubens when he’d found out Lia was going to Russia. The new guy being paired with her was too new, too inexperienced. Dean wanted to go instead.

But Rubens had pointed out that Dean’s yearly quals were due and that there wasn’t time to wait while he worked his way through the battery of tests, physical drill, and proficiency exams. Damn the bureaucrats, anyway…

“Excuse me, Gunny. The master’s voice.”

“I hear you, Marine,” Streiber said, gathering up Dean’s equipment. “Go. I’ll check your gear out.”

“Thanks.”

“ Semper fi, Charlie,” the former Marine said, his voice grave. He must, Dean thought, have read something in Dean’s voice, or in his eyes.

“Yeah. Semper fi .”

He hurried toward the door.

DeFrancesaOperation MagpieWaterfront, St. Petersburg0034 hours

Lia hunkered down in the darkness between two walls of crates, watching and listening. From here, she could just glimpse several armed men moving past the opening to her hidey-hole, could hear more shouting in Russian.

She didn’t speak the language, beyond a few rough-and-ready tourist survival phrases like “Good morning” and “Where is the women’s restroom?” and she didn’t have her communications link with the Art Room for a running translation. Still, it sounded like they were demanding something of Alekseev, and it sounded like Alekseev was talking, talking all too willingly.

The fact that one of the newcomers had already identified her as an American told her that the mission had been compromised, quite likely by Alekseev. Two people breaking into a warehouse on a St. Petersburg waterfront? With crime and looting as bad as they were in the city, how would the newcomers know foreigners were involved, much less Americans?

No, someone had talked. And she was pretty damned sure she knew who.

Keeping low, she found a side passageway through the labyrinth of crates, one taking her closer to the main door. Emerging from the warren, she crept over to the southeastern wall of the warehouse, keeping to the shadows. She could see one of the bad guys now, twenty feet away, standing with his back to the open door. He was visible to her in profile, holding an AKM in his right hand, gesticulating with the left as he shouted something to the others. “Gdeh ona? Skarei! Skarei!”

She studied him carefully. He had a distinctive face, scarred and weathered, with a cruel mouth revealing blackened teeth when he shouted.

A garbage can sat just this side of the open door, next to a clutter of janitorial tools-a push broom, a rusty bucket and a mop, a pile of filthy rags. She thought she’d noticed the can when she’d peeked in through the fiber-optic surveillance device.

The garbage can was overflowing with trash, its round, handled lid perched atop the pile precariously. She edged along the wall, moving closer.

“Il ya ?” she called softly, giving the name its correct pronunciation, with the accent on the second syllable. “Ilya, do you copy?”

“I hear you.”

“I’m close to the main door… on the southeastern wall. Is anyone outside?”

“Yeah. Two goons with AK-74s. They’re standing to either side, their backs to the wall.”

“Can you take them?”

She heard a long pause as he studied the situation. “Yeah. They’re about fifty yards away.”

“Don’t do anything until I tell you to.”

“You’re the boss.”

Yeah. I’m the boss. And if I get out of this alive, I‘m going to have a hell of a time explaining to my boss …

Rising from her crouch, she moved toward the garbage can…

Ghost BlueTwo miles north of Ostrov Kotlin0034 hours

Major Richard K. Delallo eased back on the Raptor’s throttle, bringing the powerful twin Pratt & Whitney F-119-PW-100 thrust vectoring turbofans back to a purring near idle. According to his navigational display, he’d just passed the island of Kotlin, with its naval base at Kronshtadt, to his right. At fifty thousand feet, dense fog carpeted the waters of the Finland Gulf beneath him. He could just make out the diffuse glow of city lights beneath the fog ahead, eerily peaceful and quiet. Overhead, auroras flamed and shifted like pale, utterly silent ghosts.

His radio and radar receivers, however, showed a much busier picture. Pulkovo Airport was loudest, with traffic control radars banging away to the southeast, but he could distinguish the thready pulse of military search radars as well.

Nearest and most worrying was the big Kronshtadt SAM-2 site on Kotlin, just eleven miles away, but there were several naval bases in and around St. Petersburg itself, all on the lookout for exactly this sort of incursion.

No one was targeting him, though, and none of the signals suggested they’d picked up Delallo’s Raptor. The F-22’s actual radar cross section was highly classified but was widely assumed to be somewhat smaller than that of a sparrow.

He put the Raptor into a gentle, banking turn right and switched his receivers to the highly classified frequencies used by NSA operatives on the ground.

A man’s voice came through. “… about fifty yards away.”

“Don’t do anything until I tell you to.” That was a different voice, a woman’s voice.

“You’re the boss.”

Delallo opened the com feed channel to Fort Meade.

DeFrancesaOperation MagpieWaterfront, St. Petersburg0034 hours