Mission- Arctic, page 7
part #3 of The Extractor Series
“Has Sokolov managed to come up with anything yet?” Phoenix asked. Her own intelligence analysis of the situation had been put on hold for the duration of the long flight from the US; she’d set up search programs on the mainframes back in the Bahamas, ready to interrogate satellite information, radio intercepts, electronic communications, area reports, and who knew what else, but she’d not had time to check out the results yet, if indeed there had been any. She’d be able to get properly into it once she’d set up shop at Nadym, but until then, Sokolov was trying his own level best to get some information on the possible whereabouts of Yuri and Maria.
Lee shrugged. “There’s not much he can do, without getting boots on the ground out there,” he said. “We’ve worked together though, managed to narrow down the possible sites to half a dozen.”
He pulled out a large, detailed map of the Siberian Arctic and lay it on the bed. Sometimes it was easier than looking at a small computer screen, Lee thought. As the others craned forward to look, he pointed out the six unused military bases that he and Sokolov thought to be the most likely.
“The only trouble is, they’re hardly close to one another,” Lee commented.
“No shit,” Hartman responded, deadpan. “That’s got to be an area of ten thousand square miles or more.”
“More,” Lee confirmed. “But it might not be as bad as it looks, because we know where these bases are; it’s not like looking for a needle in a haystack, we’ve got definite locations. If we can use the chopper, we can fly to them, one by one. Land a little further out, I’ll hike in and check them out.”
“And if you can’t use the chopper?” Mabuni asked.
“Then I sure as hell hope those snowcats have some good fuel economy,” Lee answered lightheartedly, although he knew that if he was forced to use the tracked vehicles, his chances of being able to check out all six sites were remote indeed.
“We’ll be able to use a chopper,” Hartman said with confidence. “I’ve got a backup plan anyway, I can probably get one across there within three days if we need to.” That was almost at the limit of their time there, Lee knew, but he appreciated the difficulties that Hartman faced. “But I still think I can convince them to let us use the civilian chopper. The guy seems okay, although I doubt I’ll be allowed to fly it myself.”
“Well, keep on trying,” Lee said. “It’ll make things one hell of a lot easier. But maybe we’ll get lucky, and the hideout will be the first place we look?”
“Yeah,” said Hartman, “but maybe it’ll be number six.”
“Or maybe,” Mabuni said, “it won’t be any of them at all?”
Phoenix laughed at that. “Ever the optimist, right Yukio?”
“Well, it’s something we need to plan for. It might not be any of the six.”
“He’s right,” Lee agreed. “So we need to do everything we can to make sure that we get the right place, and get it as soon as we can.”
“I spoke to my father,” Phoenix said, “and he told me that he’d see what he can do.”
Lee nodded. That was good news, at least. Some of the DGSE spy satellites had thermal imaging – and if they picked up any heat signatures at any of the abandoned bases, that would be an extremely positive sign. It wouldn’t be any sort of guarantee, of course – they would still need boots-on-the-ground, eyes-on confirmation to make sure – but it would make their initial target selection a lot easier.
“He was asking questions though,” Phoenix said.
Lee understood; if her father was going to use his influence to get the DGSE to re-task their satellites, it would have to be for a very good reason. And the thing was, it was for a good reason – aside from the direct personal element, the rescue of Yuri and Maria, there was also the fact that there was a nuclear weapon being constructed that could kill a lot more people than that. But Lee’s deal with Sokolov was to keep the whole thing quiet, unless there was no other choice.
“What did you tell him?” Lee asked.
Phoenix smiled. “I told him that he wasn’t one of the wealthiest men in Europe for nothing. I told him to come up with a believable story himself.”
Hartman laughed. “Wow, now that’s a man who must really love his daughter.”
“Well, I am daddy’s little girl,” she responded with a mock look of innocence.
“Yeah,” Hartman fired back, “and if anyone buys that look except him, I’ll eat Yukio’s lasagna.”
That drew a laugh from everyone; Mabuni’s first attempt at the Italian dish was widely known as a culinary disaster.
“Hey, what do you want from me?” he said in return. “I’m Japanese.”
“You were born in Boston,” Hartman said. “You’re an American.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not Italian, anyway.”
“Fair point,” Hartman conceded with a smile. “Anyway, gang, we should probably get some sleep while we can. I’ve got a private plane chartered for four in the morning, and the three of us have already been traveling for nearly a day. My body doesn’t know if it’s in Las Vegas or Bangkok.”
Lee laughed, although he knew it was an exaggeration; Hartman was more than capable of operating for days on end, with little to no sleep at all. Still, he knew the team would perform better with some proper rest, himself included.
The zero-four-hundred flight the next day would take them to Sabetta International Airport – possibly something of a misnomer, as almost all flights originated in Russia, and it could handle no more than two hundred passengers per hour.
Situated on the resource-rich Yamal peninsula, it was only a few years old, built primarily for the people who worked for Yamal LNG, a Russian firm specializing in the extraction and processing of liquid natural gas. It was also only a couple of hundred miles north of Nadym, and Colonel Matrosov had promised them onward transport to the base by helicopter, weather permitting. If all went according to Hartman’s plan, the crate of equipment should also be there, ready and waiting for them.
“You’re right,” Lee said. “We should all get some sleep.”
“So,” Hartman said to Phoenix, a wolfish grin on his face, “I’m sharing with you, right?”
Two rooms had been booked, but they hadn’t discussed who was staying where, and Lee knew that Hartman understood how awkward the situation would make him feel. But that was typical of the man’s sense of humor – if ever there was a chance to twist the knife, he wouldn’t miss it.
“In your dreams,” Phoenix said, going to Lee and putting her hand in his. “We’re taking this room, you and Yukio take the other.”
Hartman saluted her like a good soldier. “Yes ma’am,” he said. “I would hate to come between you two lovebirds, anyway.” He turned to Lee and winked. “Have a good night, boss. But be sure to get some sleep too, you hear?”
Lee wasn’t sure if he was blushing, but it certainly felt that way. But then Phoenix squeezed his hand and he turned to her, startled once again by her beauty.
Ah well, he thought to himself, who am I kidding?
“I’ll do my best, Marcus,” he said with a wink of his own. “But no promises, okay?”
Hartman laughed, and as Lee turned back to Phoenix, he saw that she was smiling too.
Life was too short, he told himself; he might as well live it.
Tomorrow, he could be dead.
5
It was still dark when they arrived at Sabetta – sunrise was still a couple of hours away – and it was bitterly cold. The gauges – in Celsius, as was European custom – told him that it was minus twenty, which was minus four degrees in Fahrenheit. Somehow, it seemed even colder.
“I’m glad it’s going to be you out there and not me,” Mabuni said, pulling his fur-lined hood tight around his face as they made their way to the terminal building.
“I bet,” Lee said, unable to blame the man.
It wasn’t going to be easy, he knew that. Traveling via chopper or snowcat would be okay, but at some stage, he knew he would be out there by himself, on foot. And if things went wrong – the vehicles malfunctioned, or the Bratva found him and he was forced to go on the run – then he might be out there for a long time. Ideally, he would extract the Yushenkos via helicopter, but he had to be prepared for a worst-case scenario, which would see him having to escort the untrained couple across the snowy wastes, on foot. Not an enviable proposition, but one which had to be allowed for. Plans, as he knew all too well, rarely survived contact with the enemy.
Mabuni and Phoenix would remain at the Nadym base for the duration of the operation, in charge of the technical side of the mission, whereas Hartman was going to accompany Lee into the field. He was a logistics specialist, but he was also a damn good combat soldier, and Lee would be happy to have him along as backup. Hartman would ride along with him – either in the chopper or the snowcat – and then wait for him as Lee went in for closer reconnaissance. Lee was more than used to operating alone in hostile areas, but that didn’t mean he didn’t welcome the extra assistance.
“Is that it?” Lee asked Hartman, his body shaking as they made their way inside the terminal building. He was pointing toward a crate that sat in the corner, and his friend nodded.
“That looks like it,” Hartman confirmed.
Lee whistled and shook his head. “I really don’t know how you do it.” He couldn’t imagine what logistical nightmares must have been overcome to get the package shipped from the United States to this remote part of Russia, to be ready and waiting for them upon arrival.
“You don’t want to know,” Hartman said with a grin, and Lee thought he was probably right.
They had been met by a security official as they came off the plane, but there had been no issues – between Phoenix and Sokolov, they’d made sure that Colonel Matrosov’s fast-track security checks had gone through without a hitch, and they were now here as guests of the colonel himself.
Lee hadn’t seen any sign of the promised helicopter on the airstrip outside, but he saw a military officer emerge from a small office and start walking toward them. The single red stripe and four gold stars on each epaulette marked him out as a Captain in the Russian Ground Forces.
Phoenix had managed to find out a little about the base at Nadym, and she’d filled him in the night before on what she knew. It was a part of a line of rescue centers situated along the Arctic coast, operated by the Russian Emergencies Ministry. Apparently, the guys who worked in that environment were good at their jobs – the year before, they’d performed fifteen-hundred search-and-rescue operations, and saved eighteen-hundred people. At Nadym itself, there was a permanent staff of close to fifty. There were four actual rescue teams – two civilian and two military, with half a dozen personnel in each. They normally operated separately, but could combine forces if the situation was large enough to require it. Military needs took priority of course, as was to be expected in Russia. The rest of the personnel was made up of civilian and military support staff – medical officers and technical specialists, as well as cooks and caretakers. It seemed to be an impressive setup, although different from Lee’s own military rescue experience.
Within the US military, there are three units designated as “Tier One”, also known as Special Mission Units. They come under the command and control of the Joint Special Operations Command, and there are only four such elite groups – Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, the Intelligence Support Activity, and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron. The Air Force STS provides JSOC with Combat Controllers, Weather Technicians, Tactical Air Controllers and Pararescuemen. As the tip of this elite spear, Lee’s rescue experience was tailored to the combat environment – when a Delta Force operator was injured in a firefight, or a pilot got shot down behind enemy lines, then the PJs were tasked with going in there to pull them out. They not only had to get into the hostile environment by any means available – parachute, SCUBA, conventional vehicle, on foot – but they also had to perform emergency medical aid and extract the personnel while under fire from the enemy. They had no home base or rescue center as such; they were merely attached to regular military bases and asked to make do. Their missions saw them travel all over the world, into the most dangerous warzones there were.
As such, their training was arguably the longest and most severe in the entire US military, a training pipeline known as “Superman School”. A nine-week Indoctrination Course – including extensive physical conditioning with swimming, running, weight training and calisthenics – was followed by three weeks of basic parachuting; then it was on to the Combat Diver Course, Basic Survival School, and the Military Free Fall Parachutist School. Then there was a further nine months of Pararescue EMT-Paramedic training, before spending the final six months of their initial two-year training program on the Pararescue Recovery Specialist Course. Once with their units, of course, they moved onto more advanced training, which never ended; there was always something new to learn, some better way of doing things.
Lee had no doubt that the men and women at Nadym would be proficient in their jobs; but they were trained in a different way, and Lee had to allow for that. It was another world altogether really; but Lee knew that he could still make use of their facilities, and their local expertise.
“Good morning,” the captain said in barely-accented English as Lee went to meet him. “I am Captain Vasily Kolchak. Welcome to Siberia.” The man snapped up a salute, and Lee smiled in return – he was a civilian, and there was no need to return it. Instead, he held out his hand, which Kolchak promptly took in his own, shaking firmly.
“Thank you, Captain,” Lee said. “And thank you for having us here, we really appreciate it.”
“It is not a problem,” Kolchak said. “We are always ready to help. And besides, maybe you can teach us something new, eh?”
Lee smiled; it was a good attitude to have, looking for ways to continually improve, and not one always readily apparent in the Russian military, from Lee’s prior experience. This officer, at least, seemed to have the right idea though.
“Likewise,” Lee said, smiling. “Is the chopper here already?”
“The helicopter?” Kolchak asked for confirmation, perhaps not familiar with the shortening. Lee nodded, and Kolchak pointed to the left; it was the opposite direction to where the plane had landed, which was probably why he hadn’t seen it. “It is outside waiting, yes. The helipad is through that way.”
He moved his head toward the crate and snapped his fingers, pointing toward it. Two airport workers moved toward it immediately. “We will get your equipment onboard, and then we will set off for Nadym. How does that sound?”
“It sounds perfect,” Lee said, and as they moved toward the helipad, he started to introduce Kolchak to the rest of the team.
So far, so good, Lee told himself.
Let’s just hope it stays this way.
6
“How the hell did you get this stuff through?” Lee asked, as Hartman doled out the kit from the packing crate.
Hartman shrugged, a sly smile on his face. “Well, that’s what I get paid the big bucks for, right?”
Lee laughed. “Right.”
They were at the base at Nadym now, which was situated a few miles away from the small town. Lee had seen the lights as they’d flown over it earlier that morning, an oasis in the plain, snow-white landscape.
Colonel Matrosov hadn’t been at the base to greet them – he’d been called away to a meeting of the Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command in Severomorsk – but Captain Kolchak was more than able as his second-in-command, and made them feel right at home. He’d also gladly accepted the signed Yankees baseball bat and glove on behalf of his colonel, who he said would be over the moon when he came back.
The base was fairly large, and very modern – the Russian government was obviously spending a lot of money on uprating its facilities, and the results were impressive. It had been early when they’d arrived, but there was still activity going on – there was always a team on shift, whatever the time of day. Some of the guys had been pumping iron in the gym, others had been playing cards or watching TV, while another had been checking over some of the equipment.
There was a suite of empty rooms that hadn’t been refitted yet, and the word from Matrosov was that Lee’s team could use them during their visit. The rooms were spacious, but filled with junk – boxes and crates, equipment and furniture that couldn’t fit anywhere else. Lee and his crew cleared some space and set out their stall, glad that the power and the heating were connected, at least.
Phoenix immediately got started on setting up the computer equipment that Hartman had shipped over. She had a laptop with her, but the gear in the crate was state-of-the-art stuff; Lee knew that as soon as she had it all sorted, they would have themselves a real little operations center.
But it wasn’t the computer equipment being brought into Russia that surprised Lee; it was the M4 rifles, SIG Sauer pistols, and associated ammunition that did it.
Hartman saw the wary look on Lee’s face as he observed the weapons, and shrugged again. “Hey, I know you love that martial arts crap,” he said defensively, “but if the shit hits the fan, I’m happier shooting people, okay?”
Lee understood; while he might have taken a vow not to kill, Hartman and the others had not, and he could hardly push his own values onto others when it came to risking their lives. If someone started shooting at his friends, it wasn’t anything to do with him how they chose to defend themselves.
“So, what have you got for me?” Lee asked Mabuni, whose eyes lit up at the question. The man had already dug out all of the standard cold-weather gear that was needed for operating in such a climate – thermal long-johns and vests, divers’ undersuits, insulated leggings, fleece tracksuits, arctic parkers, insulated hats, gloves and boots – but Lee was asking about the extra kit that Mabuni was so fond of.
