Chapter 48

48

May 14, 5:28 P . M . ANAT

East Siberian Sea

Tucker lay on his stomach on the second floor of a stone home. He had the butt of his AK-12 rifle at his shoulder, his cheek on its stock, and one eye peering through his weapon's holographic sight with magnifier.

From his sniper's perch, he watched a long line of lights bobbling down the arc of steps. He counted eighteen to twenty in that company. The exact number was hard to determine as shadows danced, but one thing was certain.

Way too many.

He needed to cull that herd.

Earlier, shortly after he heard the scream of a jet engine echoing down from above, a firefight had broken out topside, too. Grenades had exploded. Automatic weapons had rattled. Fearing the worst, Tucker had retreated with Kane and Marco into the labyrinth of homes. As he did, a new noise intruded. The rumbling roar of small engines, echoing hollowly, traveling along the ice chute. This was confirmed by a cascading fall of loose ice over the edge above, then lights had bloomed up there.

With that, he had quickly sought this higher roost among the homes.

Through his scope, he noted the familiar Arctic camo and body armor worn by most of the strike team heading down here.

Russians for sure.

Not that he had any doubt.

He scowled, knowing he could not let that group look too closely at the frozen waterfall—and what lay hidden behind it. To that end, he picked a target, zoomed his scope, and squeezed his rifle's trigger.

The sharp bang stung his ear, but he remained focused. A figure crumpled from the headshot. He shifted to the next in line, but lights blinked out, nearly in unison. A few lingered, then snapped off. In the last afterglow, he caught the barest glimpse of shapes leaping off steps or rushing headlong and heedless down them.

He winced at the swiftness of their reaction. He imagined they must be Russian special forces, the elite of the elite. He waited two breaths, but the lights never flicked back on. They must have come with night-vision gear.

Two could play at that game.

He pulled goggles over his eyes and tapped a button. The world revealed itself in shades of gray and green. He turned his gaze away and blind-fired a burst of three rounds. The slight muzzle flares stung, amplified through the night-vision gear. The flashes, confined inside the small room, were like camera bulbs exploding.

As he had meant them to be.

He needed to lure as many of the soldiers as he could into this maze, to get them to ignore the waterfall. He rolled into a crouch, dropped through a hole in the floor, and exited the home. He rushed away from where he had been roosted.

He had no way of knowing the number who would enter this labyrinth, but he had to be prepared.

And not just me.

He tapped another button on his goggles. The view through his lenses changed. In the outside corner of each eye, two video feeds played. One from Marco's vest-mounted camera. The other from Kane's. Kowalski had hauled in all of Tucker's customized gear when he had arrived with Kane and the rescue team in Severodvinsk.

Tucker touched his throat mike. His comm gear operated on dual band and was currently switched to UHF, which worked decently underground, as long as the trio kept close. With the channel open between his dogs, he let them know the plan.

"Boys, let's go hunting."

5:30 P . M .

Turov crouched next to Lieutenant Bragin. After losing one of his men, the spetsnaz leader's bloodlust was up. The man coordinated with his second-in-command. The other nine soldiers had quickly vanished into shelters along the edges of the stone city. They had moved swiftly. Even outfitted with night-vision gear, Turov had lost sight of them almost immediately.

Bragin had forced Turov into a small low-roofed abode, along with Sychkin and Yerik. Outside, Valya and Nadira had posted themselves to the left of the doorway. Another spetsnaz soldier was down on a knee to the right.

Turov stared up.

On the ice cap, the initial barrage to secure the landing site had quieted into occasional short bursts. As expected, the commercial icebreaker was ill-equipped to withstand a well-armed force. Lieutenant Osin's orders were to keep the crew cowed and on board the ship until the Lyakhov could finish repairs and sail here.

To the side, Bragin snapped quick orders, preparing to dispatch six of his teammates in parties of two to hunt down the enemy, reserving five to secure this immediate area.

Valya pivoted into the space. "Don't," she warned, sweeping her gaze across the men. "Keep your main force here. That was a lone shooter. Someone intent to pull your strength into that dark maze."

"One man or not," Bragin said, "I can't leave a sniper at our backs."

"Then send no more than a pair to harass him. Keep the rest in place." She stared outside. "If that shooter is trying to lure us in that direction, then we should be looking the other way."

Bragin turned to Turov.

Turov nodded, trusting Valya's judgment. "She may be right. For now, let's keep your men closer at hand until we gain a firmer grasp of the situation."

"Then let me send three after the sniper," Bragin argued. "One to draw out, two to kill."

Turov considered this. Bragin had decades of experience in urban warfare. In Syria. In Mali. Across the Crimean Peninsula. There was no reason to second-guess the lieutenant.

"Do it," Turov ordered.

Bragin revised his instructions to his second-in-command.

As the man ran off to pass on the orders, Nadira hissed outside. She waved without looking inside, drawing Valya and Turov to the doorway. The woman pointed toward a massive frozen spillway. At the top, sunlight flowed through the distant tunnel mouth and blazed off the ice, amplified to a blinding glare through their night-vision goggles.

Nadira wasn't pointing up there, but at the fall's base. The ice darkened as it dropped away from the sunlight—then brightened again near the bottom. "Something is lighting the far side," she whispered.

"And growing brighter." Valya turned to Turov. Satisfaction shone on her face. "Someone's coming."

5:35 P . M .

Gray rushed down the last of the tunnel. The beam of his flashlight reflected off the wall of ice at the end.

His heart pounded in his throat. He pictured Jason collapsing into his arms, poisoned by the harpoon strike of that plant. But he knew there would be no hope for the young man—for any of them—if the Russians got the upper hand.

As he neared the exit, he strained for the grenade blasts that had drawn him away with Seichan. Occasional gunfire reached him, but little else.

Was it already over?

He slowed as he reached the ice wall and edged toward the narrow gap behind the throne—and paused. An instinct warned him something was amiss.

"What're you doing?" Seichan asked, crowding at his back.

He lifted a palm as he realized what had raised his hackles. He took a single breath, firming his conclusion. Then took the only action he could. He lobbed his flashlight through the gap and out into the open, sending it spinning wildly—then swung around, cupped his palm over Seichan's light, and shouldered her toward the far side.

Behind him, he heard gasps, confirming the worst.

A spatter of gunfire sparked off the ice.

Now Seichan understood and flicked off her light.

A moment ago, the part of his brain honed during his years in the military, sharpened further by his decade with Sigma, had noted that it was too dark beyond that throne. His ears had also failed to pick up any murmur from Tucker, any shuffle from his two dogs. That paranoid section of his mind that was always on high alert put those pieces together in a heartbeat and had screamed ambush .

Additionally, as it was dark, it suggested the lurkers were using night-vision. Under those sensitive scopes, his spinning flashlight would burn as brightly as a flare, momentarily blinding anyone out there. And if he had been wrong, the only outcome would be a shattered flashlight and a couple startled dogs.

But he was not wrong.

He drove Seichan out the gap on the far side, scooting behind the throne carved with sea life. They dared not retreat toward Jason and the others or risk putting them in a direct line of fire.

Taking advantage of the momentary shock, Gray barreled out from behind the throne and into the open. He ran low, in case anyone was posted on this side and hadn't been looking when he tossed his makeshift flash-bomb. Behind him, his flashlight continued to twirl on the floor, strobing enough illumination for him and Seichan to reach the edge of the stone labyrinth.

Within steps, though, sweeping between two buildings, the world fell into deep shadows. The distant glow from the reflected sunlight offered little help. Gray rushed with one hand on the wall next to him, the other extended in front.

The only teammate with night-vision gear was Tucker and his two dogs. He cursed his group's lack of equipment and ducked into a doorway and tried his radio, but all he got back was low static. He ran a palm over the stone wall.

Still, too much rock.

Seichan leaned next to him, her voice a breathless whisper. "What now?"

5:37 P . M .

Valya cursed under her breath, her retinas still flared.

How had they known...?

Her goggles sat atop her forehead. One of the soldiers had already smothered the flashlight and extinguished it. To rest everyone's eyes, a few red lamps had been set up and glowed on the ground. The spetsnaz team sheltered at the edge of the city, out of the line of fire of any sniper.

Bragin had already dispatched three men in the direction of the fleeing pair, but it would be hard to flush them out of that labyrinth. Recognizing this, the lieutenant's instructions had been to canvass that side, to hold the line until a strategy could be worked out.

Valya had little patience, especially as she had caught a brief glimpse of one of the two who had fled. The slim shape, even the gait of her flight, was branded into Valya's memory. She was prepared to begin this hunt on her own, taking only Nadira. But she had acted rashly in the past and had paid a steep price for it.

Another hadn't learned that lesson yet.

Sychkin confronted Turov. "Those two came from somewhere well hidden, a location clearly meaningful with those two thrones flanking it. It must be important."

"It can wait," the captain said.

"It can't," the archpriest insisted. "We must know what they learned. Before communications fully reopen following this solar storm. When they do, we must be the first to announce it, to claim it for Russia. Nothing else matters."

Turov groaned, clearly perturbed and done with the archpriest. "Then go. Take Yerik. I'll give you three men, but no more. Not until we secure this area."

Sychkin smiled, showing too many teeth. He opened his mouth to say more, possibly to gloat, but the look on Turov's face dissuaded any further discussion. Taking advantage of this boon while he could, Sychkin hurried to Yerik and Bragin.

The lieutenant listened, then glanced askance at Turov.

The captain waved. "Let him go. He's best out of the way as it is."

Bragin nodded, agreeing with this judgment, and waved three of his men to follow the archpriest and his hulking aide.

Valya watched them leave. The five men pushed past the throne and vanished behind the ice curtain. After a few seconds, lights flared back there. Valya understood. As deep as that group would likely travel, it would be pitch dark—and night-vision required some ambient light to function, unless one employed special IR illuminators. But she knew Sychkin would only be satisfied with what he could see with his own eyes.

The glow slowly faded as the small group departed.

Turov returned. "We're ready. We'll be deploying a bombardment of grenades, to squeeze them into a narrowing net. Then we'll hunt them down with thermal scopes."

She nodded at this plan.

"I assume you'll want to accompany us," Turov said.

She smiled, showing too many teeth. "Try and stop me."

She followed Turov toward the gathered team. Two men freed rocket launchers and fitted them with warheads.

As she waited, she stared over at the ice wall, momentarily curious.

What the hell is down there?