The lieutenant nodded. “We were lucky to retrieve the broadcast intact. They must have been continuously broadcasting to slip through one of the breaks in the solar storm. The message is being repeated more slowly over VLF.”

Broadcasting on all channels. What could be so important?

The radioman stepped back. “I was able to send out confirmation that the message was received.”

“Very good, Lieutenant.” Perry turned his back on the curious faces of his officers and opened the clipboard. It was from Admiral Reynolds. As Perry read the message, an icy finger of dread traced his spine.

Perry shut the clipboard, closed his eyes, and ran the notes through his head.

The admiral had coded his own message into the encryption. LR was short for “Langley Reconnaissance,” which meant the Central Intelligence Agency was involved. So the Delta Teams were being deployed under CIA leadership? Not a good thing. Such an organizational platform led to one hand being unaware of what the other was doing. It also stank of black ops maneuvering. Information to follow meant that even Pacific Submarine Command was cut out of the loop. A bad sign.

And at the end: Keep your tap shoes polished, Greg. Again the informality in the use of his first name was as good as a long line of exclamation marks. During one of the Navy’s formal dinner parties, Admiral Reynolds had used that same phrase when the faction representing COMSUBLANT, the Atlantic Submarine Command staff, had arrived at the hall. The Pacific and Atlantic submarine teams were fiercely competitive with each other, leading to challenges, war games, and rivalries that stretched across careers. Keep your tap shoes polished was shorthand for “get ready because the shit’s about to hit the fan.”

Perry turned to his XO. “Commander, clear the boat of civilians. Get them back to Omega and rally the men still on shore leave.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Once the Sentinel is secured, ready her to dive on my command.”

The chief of the watch spoke up from his station. “So we’re heading to Prudhoe Bay?”

Perry searched the hopeful faces of his bridge crew. He knew there was no need to head to Prudhoe Bay to get into the action; his men would realize soon enough.

He rapped the metal clipboard on his thigh. “Just keep your tap shoes polished, men. We’ve got some fancy footwork ahead of us.”

Jenny stalked around the parked Twin Otter, inspecting it with a flashlight. A scatter of bullet holes peppered one wing, but there was no structural damage. Nothing else needed immediate attention, and she could patch the holes with duct tape. She sipped from a coffee cup as she completed her circuit of the aircraft.

They had landed at the darkened snow strip of the tiny Kaktovik airport half an hour ago. Matt and the others had gone inside the nearby hangar, where a makeshift diner had been built in one corner. She could see them through a grease-rimmed window, bent over mugs of coffee and talking to the young Inuit waitress.

Only Bane remained at her side as she tended the refueling and checked her plane. The large wolf had made his own circuit of their parking space, lifting a leg here and there to yellow the snow. He now followed at her heels, tongue lolling, tail wagging.

Ducking around the rear of the plane, she returned to Bennie Haydon’s side. The squat fellow leaned against the fuselage, a cigar clamped between his teeth, one hand resting on the fuel hose. Huskily built, he wore a Purolator cap tucked low over his sleepy eyes.

“Should you be smoking out here?” Jenny asked.

He shrugged and spoke around his stogie. “My wife won’t let me smoke inside.” Wearing half a grin, he nodded to the waitress.

Bennie had been with the sheriff’s department, servicing the patrol fleet, until he saved enough to move out here with his wife and start his own repair shop. He also ran a sight-seeing company out of the same hangar and flew folks in ultralights over the nearby Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve. The small nimble aircraft — really no more than a hang glider with lawn-mower engine and propeller — were perfect for traversing the raw country by air, buzzing the caribou herds or flying low over the tundra. At first it had been only the occasional tourist, but after the growing interest in ANWR for oil exploration, he now transported geologists, reporters, government officials, even senators. His single ultralight had quickly grown into a fleet of a dozen.

Bennie glanced to a gauge on the fuel hose. “Topped off,” he said, and began to crank the hose and detach it. “Both tanks.”

“Thanks, Bennie.”

“No problems, Jen.” He tugged the hose free and began to drag it away. “So you going to tell me about them bullet holes.”

Jenny followed the mechanic back toward the hangar. “It’s a long story without any real answers yet.”

Bennie made a thoughtful noise at the back of this throat. “Sort of like you and Matt.” He nodded toward the window. In the midnight gloom, the bright interior shone like a beacon.

Jenny sighed and patted Bane as the wolf followed beside her.

Bennie glanced over to her, spooling the hose line. “You know he quit drinking.”

“Bennie, I don’t want to talk about it.”

He shrugged again and puffed out a large cloud of cigar smoke. “I’m just saying.”

“I know.”

The small door to the hangar banged open. Belinda, Bennie’s wife, stood in the doorway. “You two coming in out of the cold? I have eggs and caribou strip steaks frying.”

“In a second, hon.”

Bane didn’t have such patience. With his nose in the air at the scent of frying meat, the dog sauntered toward the door, tail wagging furiously.

Belinda let him pass with a pat on the head, then pointed at the glowing tip of Bennie’s cigar. “The dog’s welcome, that isn’t.”

“Yes, dear.” He gave Jenny a look that said, See what I have to put up with. But Jenny also saw the love shining between both of them.

Belinda closed the door with a sorry shake of her head. She was a decade younger than her husband, but her sharp intelligence and world-weary maturity spanned the gap. She was native to Kaktovik, her family going back generations, but she and her parents had moved to Fairbanks when she was a teenager. It had been at the beginning of the black gold rush — a flood of oil, money, jobs, and corruption. Indians and native Inuit, all anxious for their share of the wealth, flocked to the cities, abandoning their homelands and customs. But what they found in Fairbanks was a polluted, blue-collar town of construction workers, dog mushers, Teamsters, and pimps. Unskilled natives were ground under the heels of progress. To support her family, Belinda became a prostitute at the age of sixteen. It was after her arrest that she and Bennie had met. He took her under his wing — literally. He showed her the skies above Fairbanks and another life. They eventually married and moved here with her parents.