Jack Mars - Primary Threat

“And how much of this will blow back to us?” Ulyanov said.

Marmilov took another deep inhale from his cigarette. It was like the breath of life itself. Yes, even here in Russia, even here in Marmilov’s inner sanctum, you could no longer hide from the facts. Cigarettes were bad for you. Vodka was bad for you. Whiskey was bad for you. But if so, why had God made them all so pleasurable?

He breathed out.

“It remains to be seen, of course. And it will depend on the media outlets covering it in each country. But the first dispatches will of course be in our favor. In general, I suspect that events will reflect rather poorly on the Americans, and then, a bit later, they will reflect poorly on our beloved President.”

He paused, and thought about it just a bit more. “The truth, and events will confirm this as they unfold, is the worse the disaster, the better our position.”

11:05 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time (September 4)

US Navy Ice Camp ReadyGo

Six Miles North of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Two Miles West of the Martin Frobisher Oil Platform

The Beaufort Sea

The Arctic Ocean

“No way, man. I can’t do this.”

The night was black. Outside the small modular dome, the wind howled. A frozen rain was falling out there. Visibility was deteriorating. In a little while, it was going to be near zero.

Luke was tired. He had taken a Dexie when the plane landed, and another a few moments ago, but neither one had kicked in.

The whole thing seemed like a mistake. They had traveled across the continent in a mad dash, at supersonic speeds, the mission was about to get underway, and now one of his men was backing out.

“This does not look right at all.”

It was Murphy talking. Of course it was.

Murphy did not want to go on this thrill ride.

The temporary ice camp, basically a dozen modular weatherproof domes on a floating ice sheet, had sprung up like so many mushrooms after a spring rain, apparently in the past two hours. It was one of several camps just like it, ringing the oil rig a safe distance away. The establishment of several camps out here on the periphery was in case the terrorists were watching. The activity was designed to make it hard for them to know where the counterattack was coming from.

Inside each of the domes, a rectangular hole had been cut through the ice, roughly the size and shape of a coffin. The ice here was two or three feet thick. A deck made of some wood-like synthetic material had been snapped into place around each hole. Diving lights had been affixed underwater, giving the hole an eerie blue color. New ice was already forming on the surface of the water.

Luke and Ed were in their neoprene dry suits, sitting in chairs near the hole. Brooks Donaldson was doing the same. Each man was being worked on by two assistants, men in US Navy fleece jackets, who busied themselves putting on the men’s equipment. Luke sat still as a man mounted his buoyancy compensator around his torso.

“How’s it feel?” the guy said.

“Bulky, to be honest.”

“Good. It is bulky.”

Luke’s hands weren’t in his gloves yet. They kept straying to the waterproof zipper across his chest. It was tight and hard to pull. As it should be. It was cold water down there. The zipper made a firm seal. But that meant it was going to be hard to open when they reached the destination.

“How am I supposed to open this thing?” he said.

“Adrenaline,” one of the assistants said. “When the shit starts flying, guys practically rip these suits off with their bare hands.”

Ed laughed. He looked at Luke. His eyes said it wasn’t that funny.

“Oh, man,” he said.

Murphy wasn’t laughing at all. He had come here with them from Deadhorse, but he never even began the process of suiting up.

“This is a death trap, Stone,” he said. “Just like last time.”

“You have nothing to prove to me,” Luke said. “Or anyone. No one has to go. It’s not like last time at all.”

Last time.

The time when they were both in Delta, back in eastern Afghanistan. Luke was the squad leader, and he had failed to overrule a glory hound lieutenant colonel who had led everyone—everyone except Luke and Murphy—to their deaths.

It was true. He could have aborted the mission. Those were his guys—they had no allegiance to the lieutenant colonel at all. If Luke had said stop, the mission would have stopped. But he would have risked a court martial for insubordination. He would have risked his entire military career—a career, oddly enough, which ended that night anyway.

Murphy looked at Ed. “Why are you going?”

Ed shrugged. “I like excitement.”

Murphy shook his head. “Look at that hole, man. It’s like someone dug your grave. Drop a coffin in there and you’re all set.”

Murphy wasn’t a coward. Luke knew that. Luke had been in at least a dozen firefights with him in Delta. He’d been in the shootout with him in Montreal, the one that saved Lawrence Keller’s life and brought President David Barrett’s killers to justice. He’d even had a fistfight with Murphy on top of John F. Kennedy’s eternal flame. Murphy was a tough customer.

But Murphy didn’t want to go. Luke could see he was scared. That might be because Murphy didn’t have the training for this. But it just might be because…

“Okay, guys, listen up!”

A burly man in a Navy fleece had come into the dome. For a split second, as he pushed through the heavy vinyl drapes that formed the airlock to the outside, the wind shrieked. The man’s face was bright red from the cold.

“As I understand it, you were all briefed in Deadhorse.”

The guy stopped. He looked at the empty seat where Murphy should be sitting. Then he looked at Murphy.

Murphy shook his head.

“I ain’t going.”

The guy shrugged. “Suit yourself. But this is a classified operation. If you’re not going, you’re not going to hear what I’m about to say.”

“I’m part of the civilian oversight team,” Murphy said.

The guy shook his head. “My orders are that two members of the civilian oversight team are at the command center in Deadhorse, and the rest of the team is suited up and going in with the SEALs.”

He raised his empty hands as if to say: That’s all I got.

“If you’re not at the command center and you’re not suited up, I don’t think you’re on the team.”

Murphy shook his head and sighed. “Ah, hell.”

He shrugged a heavy green parka over his thick coveralls.

“Murph,” Luke said. “Call Swann and Trudy. They’ll get you on a chopper.”

The new guy shook his head. “Choppers are grounded. The storm is coming in hard. We don’t want any accidents out there. The mission is bad enough.”

Murphy cursed under his breath and went out the way the man had just come in. The vinyl flapped and the wind shrieked again. The man watched Murphy leave, then looked at the three divers remaining.

“Okay,” he said. “This is an ice dive, at night, in a storm, in an overhead environment. I almost can’t think of a more challenging assignment. A year ago, we lost two experienced divers in a similar overhead ice environment, but it was a daytime training dive, there was no storm, and they were tethered to their home base. Okay? You should know that.”

“Were they swimming toward a firefight?” Ed said.

The man just looked at him. He was in no mood for humor. Luke felt much the same way. There was nothing funny about this.

“As you probably realize, this is not a tethered dive. For much of the swim, the ice above your heads will be frozen solid. You do not want to make contact with it. You want to drop five meters below it, then maintain neutral buoyancy, and good level trim.”