Ice Hunt

Kanter spotted a pair of Russian sailors bob up in the lake, struggling to keep their heads above water. They wore orange float suits. Evacuees, attempting to escape. It did them no good. A depth charge landed a yard from them. It blew, casting their shattered and broken forms through the air to smash against both ice and their own boat.

There would be no escape.

Farther out, the Sikorsky helibus circled the hovering Seahawk. It had dropped the remaining team members and awaited further orders. Somewhere Delta One was organizing ground forces to retake the U.S. research base.

But Kanter’s attention remained on the polynya.

The majesty of the attack was breathtaking, a symphony of ice, fire, water, and smoke. He felt each explosion down to his bones, becoming a physical part of the attack himself.

Kanter had never been prouder than at this moment.

Then he spotted movement on the flank of the dying sub.

Mikovsky was strapped in a seat, as were most of the key bridge crew, trying to keep some semblance of order. Their boat was dead: compartments crushed, flooding everywhere, engines almost gone. Smoke choked through the bridge, making it difficult to think, to see. The explosions deafened them. The bridge crew wore emergency air-breathing masks, but such meager safety devices would not save them — only allow them one last act of revenge.

“Message relayed through digital shortwave!” the radioman yelled from the neighboring communication shack, half his face burned by an electrical fire he had managed to put out. His words sounded as if they came from down a long tu

Mikovsky glanced to his weapons officer. He got the nod he wanted. They could not carry on proper protocol, but communication was still intact. His weapons officer confirmed the fire control solution and target fix — one unlike any calculated before.

Their vessel might be doomed, but they weren’t dead.

The Drakon carried a full complement of two-hundred-knot Shkval torpedoes, SS-N-16 antisubmarine missiles, and one pair of UGST rocket torpedoes. This last pair were the latest in Russian design, powered by a liquid monopropellant with its own oxidizer. They were mounted in special flank tubes that deployed by pushing out from the sides of the boat. It had been an accident in such a deployment that had led to the Kursk tragedy back in 2000, a mishandling that led to the loss of all aboard.

There was no mishandling today.

He got the nod that the starboard UGST rocket tube was flooded and ready, target locked. All that remained was one word from him.

The last word he would ever speak.

“Fire!”

“I’m reading a weapons launch!” the sonar chief yelled, jerking to his feet. “Torpedo in the water!”

Perry started toward the man. “Target?”

The Polar Sentinel was in full retreat from the hot zone. The bombardment of depth charges threatened his own boat. The cap of ice overhead trapped the concussive waves from the explosions, radiating them outward under the ice. Like dropping a cherry bomb down a toilet.

But as the Sentinel fled, Perry kept tabs on the Russian sub. He was taking no chances.

“Target does not appear to be us,” the sonar chief said.

“Then who?”

Frantic, Master Sergeant Kanter tried to raise Delta One. He needed to get the warning out.

“Delta One, here.”

Kanter still wore his subvocal microphone — where the barest whisper could be heard — but now he yelled. “Sir, you have to tell the Seahawk—”

He was too late. From his vantage on top of the ice ridge, Kanter saw a blast of fire ignite below the churning waterline of the foundering submarine. From the flank side of its drowned bulk, a lance of gray metal burst out of the water, leaping into the air.

The missile rocketed skyward, aimed dead center on the Seahawk helicopter hovering overhead. It was impossible for the craft to get out of the way in time.

“Christ!” Delta One screamed in his ear, spotting the danger.

The torpedo struck the helicopter. It seemed for a moment to spear completely through the Seahawk, an arrow piercing its target.

Kanter held his breath.

Then the rotors slammed into the thrusted tip of the torpedo rocket. The blast — accentuated by the two remaining depth-charge drums still attached to the helicopter’s undercarriage — shattered outward in a ball of metal and flame.

Kanter dove behind his ridgeline, seeking shelter from the rain of oil and steel, covering his head. Through the noise of the explosion, he heard the telltale whup-whup of another chopper.

He glanced back over a shoulder.

The remaining helicopter, the Sikorsky helibus, raced overhead. Kanter saw it pelted with flaming debris, cutting right through the craft. A section of the Seahawk’s broken rotor flipped end over end and crashed into the forward crew cabin. The helibus lurched over on its side, its blades chopping vertically at the air.

Kanter struggled to his feet, but the slick ice and blowing winds betrayed him. He fell. He fought again, fingers digging at the sharp ice. The toes of his boots fought for purchase.

He snapped a look up. The helibus plummeted toward him, spi

It was impossible to get out of the way in time.

Kanter simply rolled to his back. Staring skyward, he faced his death. “Shit…” He had nothing more profound to say and that bothered him more than anything.

Perry listened as stations reported their status.

He hardly heard, his mind still on what had just happened.

Moments ago, the Drakon had sunk away and rolled into the deep ocean trench below, fading beyond crush depth. Perry had listened himself to the final bubbling as the Russian submarine gasped its last breath and was gone.

But it had not died alone.

Float ice is a great drum, transmitting sound to the waters below. Perry had heard it all happen. Then a helicopter had jammed into the cap, shattering through it. It had been visible through the periscope. The wreckage hung for a stretch, lit by the fires of its own oil and fuel. Then the surrounding ice melted from the heat of the conflagration and released its hold. The twisted wreckage sank into the sea, chasing the Drakon down into the depths.

Now all had gone dead quiet.

Perry kept his own boat ru

What the hell was going on? Cut off from the world, he was unsure what to do next. Should they surface and attempt to contact those who’d taken out the Russians? Was it indeed a Delta Force team or could it be a third combatant? And what about the Russian ice station? Was it still commandeered by a team of Russian ground forces?

“Sir?” Lieutenant Liang was staring at him. “Do we prepare to surface?”

That was the most logical next step — but Perry held off.

A submarine was at its most effective when no one knew it was there, and he wasn’t ready to give up that advantage. He slowly shook his head. “Not yet, Lieutenant, not yet…”

Admiral Kent Reynolds strode through the foot-thick steel blast doors of the command’s flag plot room. Already in the cavernous room were his handpicked team, experts in their fields called in last night, most buzzed from their beds and set to work here.