Smith kept to himself the fact the photomaps were not nearly detailed enough to make a truly accurate assessment of the descent. This was yet another lesson in command presence. A good commander must always appear sure of himself and his decisions, even when he wasn’t.

Switching off the lantern, Smith got himself under the load of his pack once more and stood up, offering Valentina a hand. Then he turned back to Smyslov, helping him to his feet as well. When the snow bridge had collapsed, Smith had felt the safety line behind him go taut. Smyslov had dropped into belay as well.

“Thanks, Major. I appreciated the backup.”

“As you said, Colonel…” The Russian’s voice was still emotionless. “Where you go, I go.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

Eielson Air Force Base, Fairbanks, Alaska

The two Air Commando MV-22 Ospreys had been repainted in the mottled white and gray of arctic camouflage. With their wings and propeller/rotors folded back and their long air-refueling probes thrusting forward, the VTOL assault transports lay under the glare of the hangar arc lights like a pair of beached narwhales, their Air Force ground crews swarming around them.

Down one hangar wall, Army rangers and NBC warfare specialists, likewise clad in arctic camo, sat or sprawled. Some read paperbacks; others played pocket video games or tried to doze on the cold concrete, all phlegmatically engaged in the traditional military pastime of hurry up and wait.

Outside, on the floodlit tarmac of the parking apron, an MC-130 Combat Talon brooded, an auxiliary power unit thumping steadily under its broad left wing. In the green glow of the cockpit instrumentation, a bored flight engineer held the big tanker/transport at ready-to-start-engines.

In the operations office at the rear of the hangar, the Air Commando flight crews clustered around a desk, looking on in awe as their task force commander accepted a telephone call.

Major Jason Saunders, a burly, brush-haired Special Operations veteran, barked back into the telephone handset. “No, sir! I will not launch this mission before we have the weather for it…Yes, sir, I am fully cognizant of the fact that some of our people are in serious trouble up there. I want to get to them just as badly as you do, sir. But losing the rescue force because we executed prematurely is not going to do anybody any good!…No, sir, it is not just a matter of the weather at Wednesday Island or the weather here. It’s a matter of what we’ll hit in between…The only way we can reach that island is by using air-to-air refueling…Yes, sir, we are trained for it, but topping an Osprey off from a tanker aircraft is tricky under the best of conditions. Turbulence and icing are major concerns. Attempting it at night and inside an active polar storm front escalates the risks to the suicidal. If we fail to get fuel to the VTOLs, we could lose them and the landing teams over the pack. Or if we midair we could lose the whole damn force, tanker and all, and never get near that island.”

The major took a deep, controlling breath. “In my best professional judgment, we are dealing with an impossible operational scenario at this time. I will not throw my men and aircraft away on an act of futility! Not even on your orders!…Yes, sir, I understand…I am holding the entire force at ready-to-launch, and we are receiving met updates every quarter hour. I guarantee you we will be airborne within five minutes of getting the weather…The meteorologists are saying sometime after first light, sir…Yes, sir, Mr. President. I quite understand. We will keep you advised.”

Saunders returned the phone to its cradle and collapsed face-forward onto the desktop. With his voice muffled by his crossed arms, he spoke to his squadron mates. “Gentlemen, I am ordering you to never let me do anything like that again!”

Chapter Thirty-eight

Anacosta, Maryland

The windowless office offered no direct hint to the state of the world outside, and only the digital clock on his desk and his bone weariness told the director of Covert One that it was the middle of the night. Klein pushed his glasses onto his forehead and rubbed his burning eyes.

“Yes, Sam,” he said into the red telephone. “I’ve been in communication with the captain of the Haley. He managed to close to within fifty miles of Wednesday Island before encountering solid pack ice too heavy for his ship to penetrate. He’s been forced to fall back due to the gale conditions, but he intends to try again as soon as the weather improves.”

“Have they heard anything from Smith and his people?” President Castilla inquired, sounding fully as tired as Klein.

“The Haley’s radio watch reports they may have picked up possible trace transmissions from the island party’s mobile transceiver this afternoon, but nothing decipherable. Clearly Smith has not been able to get the big station transmitter or the satellite phone back online. This could mean something or nothing. We’ve had one good piece of news on this point. Air Force Space Command reports solar flare activity has peaked and ionospheric conditions are improving. We should have decent communications back by tomorrow.”

“And what about strategic reconnaissance?” Castilla demanded.

“We’ve had one satellite over Wednesday since Smith and his team inserted, and a Navy Orion out of Dutch Harbor overflew the island this evening. Both passes were inconclusive. There’s just too damn much snow in the clouds to give us a clean look at the ground, not even with infrared and thermographics. We have another sat pass scheduled for later tomorrow morning after the weather clears.”

“I keep hearing that same line from everyone,” Castilla said bitterly. “After the weather clears.”

“We are not yet entirely masters of our own destiny, Sam. There are still forces in this world we can’t even start to fight.”

“As is quite apparent.” There was a brooding pause at the White House end of the line. “What about the FBI investigation of the Alaskan intercept incident? Is there any hint on who may have been responsible for it yet?”

“It’s a literal dead end, Mr. President. We know for certain we were dealing with a Russian Mafia cell, but they were apparently acting as independent contractors. As for the identity of the true instigators, we still have no clue. The only men who could have told us died in the crash.”

The silence returned to the phone circuit.

“Fred,” Castilla said finally, “I’ve decided to put the backup force on Wednesday Island. Smith and his team might just be suffering from fouled-up communications, but I’m getting a bad feeling about this situation.”

Klein suppressed his sigh of relief. “Sam, I concur fully with that decision. In fact, I’ve been sitting here considering how I was going to phrase the request. I think we must have some kind of incident under way. Smith would have gotten a situation report out to us by now if he hadn’t encountered trouble, bad communications or not.”

“Unfortunately, like everything else, the backup force is on hold until after the Christless weather clears!” Castilla flared into the phone. “I just hope there’s something left for them to back up.”

“Have you informed the Russians of your decision, Mr. President?”

“No, nor do I intend to, Fred. That’s one of the reasons I’ve elected to go overt with the operation. General Baranov, our Russian liaison, has been on call and standing by ever since we initiated the Wednesday Island operation. He’s been practically hovering on the line. Now, and for about the last nine hours, he’s become ‘unavailable’ and his aide de camp is not authorized to say anything beyond hello when he picks up the phone. I’m beginning to smell a considerable rat.”