Smith recalled the name now, and he considered his options. Dr. Rosen Trowbridge was listed as the chairman of the organizing committee for the Wednesday Island science program, a fund-raiser and an academic administrator, not an explorer. On the one hand, he would be another complication in a situation that was already growing increasingly complex.
On the other, he might prove a useful information source on the personnel, assets, and environment on Wednesday.
“If he can make it down here by the time we’re ready to sail, he can come.”
Chapter Fifteen
Off the Alaskan Peninsula
With bright ice crystal stars overhead and an occasional distant shore light to starboard, the USS Alex Haley swept through the deepening autumn night, her engines rumbling at a steady fast cruise. The big ice cutter had a four-hundred-mile run to the southwest along the Alaskan coast before she could make her turn north at Unimak Island for the true long haul up through the Bering Sea.
Her cramped radio room smelled of ozone and cigarette smoke and was sultry with the waste heat radiating from the equipment chassis. The use-worn gray steel chair creaked with Smith’s weight and the roll of the ship, and the handset of the scrambled satellite phone was slick with perspiration. Smith had the radio shack to himself, the regular radio watch having been evicted in the face of security.
“How did they spot us?” Smith demanded.
“It’s not difficult to guess,” Fred Klein’s distant voice replied. “Pole Star Aero-leasing provides helicopters and light transport aircraft for a number of survey and science operations in the Canadian and Alaskan Arctic, including the Wednesday Island project. When the press release about your expedition to the Misha crash site hit the media, the hostiles must have staked out the most likely equipment sources. You were caught in an airborne version of a drive-by shooting.”
“Then somebody else must know about the anthrax aboard the Misha 124.”
“That’s a distinct possibility, Jon.” Director Klein’s voice remained controlled. “We’ve known from the start that the Misha warload would be a major prize for any terrorist group or rogue nation. That could explain the attack on your aircraft. But that’s only one possible explanation. We don’t know nearly enough to close out any options on this incident.”
Smith ran a hand through his sweat-dampened dark hair. “I’ll concede that point. But how did it get out? Where did it leak?”
“I don’t know, but I’d suspect it’s on the Russian side. We’ve been holding all the information on the Misha 124 tightly compartmentalized. Literally the only people stateside who know the whole story are the President, myself, Maggie, and the members of your team.”
“And as my people were the ones damn near killed in this intercept incident, I think we can safely eliminate them as a sellout source.”
Klein’s voice grew emotionless. “I said we can’t close out any possibilities, Jon.”
Smith caught the caution. Smyslov…Professor Metrace…Randi. He fought back the instinctive denial. Klein was right: “It’s inconceivable!” made a wonderful set of famous last words.
The director continued. “The other remaining option is that we had a leak on site, through one of the members of the Wednesday Island team itself. We have been assured that none of the expedition members have visited the downed bomber. Somebody may be lying. That will be something else for you to investigate, Jon.”
“Understood, sir. That brings us back to the question of who’s on our ass.”
“All I can say is that we are working that problem with all available assets,” Klein replied. “The ID numbers of the aircraft that attacked you belong to a Cessna Centurion owned by one Roger R. Wainwright, a longtime resident of Anchorage. The FBI and Homeland Security have pulled their packages on the man, and he has no criminal record and no known ties to any extremist organizations. The man’s a moderately successful building contractor and purportedly a solid citizen. But when the Anchorage FBI office scooped him up for questioning, he confessed to occasionally renting his plane out under the table to other parties. After that, he stopped talking and started yelling for a lawyer. The FBI is still working on him.”
“How about the hangar across from Pole Star Aero-leasing? Who rented that?”
“The name on the documentation was Stephen Borski. The people at Merrill Field business office recall a nondescript middle-aged man with a definite Russian accent. Possibly a Russian expat-they have a lot of them up this way. He paid in cash for a month’s hangar rental. The address and phone number given on the documentation have proven to be false.”
“Was he aboard the plane that hit us?”
“Unknown, Jon. The Coast Guard has found a floating debris field where the Cessna went down, but no bodies. They must still be in the plane, and it’s at the bottom of Kennedy Entrance. Given the deep waters and fast currents, it will be a while before they can locate and recover the wreck, if ever.”
Smith rapped a fingertip on the console top in frustration. Even Alaska was in on the conspiracy. “There’s one other Russian connection. Major Smyslov believes that the electronic warfare system used to knock out our radio was a Russian-made military communications jammer.”
Smith tilted his chair back on its swivel, wincing a little at the piercing squeal. “But why in the hell would the Russians be trying to stop us? They started it!”
“There are Russians and then there are Russians,” Klein replied mildly. “We’re working with the Federation government; somebody else might not be. Anchorage FBI says they get the feel of Russian Mafia or something similar, but that’s just an instinct call on their part, with nothing solid to back it up. The Russian links could be purely coincidental, or they could be local hirelings fronting for someone else.
“Whoever they are, they seem to have a broad spectrum of resources available to them. That bullet recovered from the float of your helicopter was a 7.62mm NATO standard round, and the Alaskan State Police Lab identifies the lands on the slug as coming from an American Army-issue M-60 machine gun.”
God, Smith sneered at himself. And just this morning he’d been saying that this shouldn’t be a shooting job? “What are your orders, sir?”
“I’ve been in conference with the President, Jon. We feel that the mission and its secrecy protocols are both still necessary, more so than ever if someone else is interested in that anthrax. We also view your team as still the best asset we have in position to do the job. The question is, how do you feel about it?”
Smith studied the cable-bedecked overhead for a long ten seconds. If he’d forgotten how to command, he’d also forgotten about the burdens that command brought with it. He was being reminded vividly now.
“I concur, sir. The team is still good, and we still have a valid operation.”
“Very good, Jon.” A hint of warmth crept into Klein. “I will so advise President Castilla. He’s ordered you some backup as well. An Air Commando task force is being deployed to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks. They’ll be on call to lift in to Wednesday Island should you need them. We are also working on the identity and motives of your attackers, top priority.”
“Very good, sir. There’s one other point I need to bring up: our liaison, Major Smyslov.”
“A problem with him, Jon?”
“Not with the man himself. He saved our collective asses today. Only after today’s events, I’m fairly sure he realizes that we’re not your average bunch of army doctors and government contract employees. And fair being fair, it’s pretty obvious Major Smyslov is not your average Russian Air Force officer.”