Arctic Storm Rising Dale Brown (literature books to read TXT) 📖

“Are there any survivors from the downed helicopter?” Bill Taylor asked gravely. The white-haired defense secretary, who wasusually more energetic than far younger men and women, appeared to have aged visibly over the past several hours.

“A handful, Mr. Secretary,” Chao replied. “All critically injured, many with severe burns.”

General Neary, the Air Force chief of staff, stirred in his seat. “And the sons of bitches who shot our bird down? Any luckfinding them yet?”

Regretfully, the rear admiral shook her head. “No, sir. Personnel from the 673rd Security Forces Squadron are combing the area where that missile was launched. They found this”—she brought up a picture of the discarded SAM launcher—“but that’s it, so far.”

Jonas Murphy stared at the image. “Is that a Russian-made weapon?”

“It’s a Pakistani copy of a Chinese-designed derivative of the Russian 9K38 Igla,” Chao told him. “The type NATO labels an SA-18.”

Miranda Reynolds glowered. “That missile’s a goddamned blind. This wasn’t some random terrorist attack by Muslim extremists.This was a Russian Spetsnaz operation, from beginning to end.”

Chao nodded. “That’s almost certain, Ms. Reynolds.” She sighed. “What’s much less certain is whether this Russian specialforces operation is actually at an end.”

“Meaning what?” Murphy asked.

“Meaning that we cannot be sure yet that they had only one missile team deployed outside Elmendorf-Richardson,” she said bluntly.With the press of another key, she brought up a map hurriedly put together by her operations directorate staff experts. Itshowed all the areas around the air base where concealed enemy SAM teams might reasonably hope to take a shot at aircraftand helicopters while they were most vulnerable—at takeoff, on landing, and in the early stages of any flight.

A quick study of this map elicited dismayed-sounding murmurs from all of the military professionals present.

Chao nodded. “You see the point.” She turned to Taylor, Murphy, and Reynolds, the only three civilians now allowed into thiscavernous war room, and explained. “Even using units from the Army and Army National Guard, it will take us a minimum of severalhours to search and secure these areas. And until we’ve done that, launching another search-and-rescue mission toward thosecrash sites would be like ordering our people to play Russian roulette.”

“Literally, in this case,” Taylor said grimly.

“I’m afraid so,” the rear admiral agreed.

“But by the time our troops manage to secure the base perimeter against a missile ambush—” Murphy began.

“That storm front will be directly overhead,” Chao confirmed. “Making further flight operations impossible until the weatherclears.”

Miranda Reynolds scowled. “Don’t we have any other assets—troops, aircraft, something, for God’s sake—anywhere else in Alaskawe could send into the Brooks Range to look for those downed aircraft . . . and the stealth bomber?” Her fingers drummed nervouslyon the conference table. “Just because we’ve paid Petrov’s price doesn’t mean Moscow’s going to give up on getting the PAK-DAback. And if the Russians beat us to the punch while we’re sitting on our asses waiting for better weather conditions, we’vejust thrown away billions of dollars and a bunch of lives for nothing!”

In answer, Chao brought up another map, this one centered on northern Alaska. “My staff has found one possibility,” she saidquietly. Her fingers touched a control, highlighting Kaktovik and Barter Island. “There’s a Joint Force security team deployedhere, at one of our North Warning System’s long-range radar stations. We’ve checked the records and all the personnel attachedto this force have parachute training. In fact, they’ve recently completed a practice jump.”

Neary shook his head. “All the airborne training in the world’s no good without a plane to jump from. And with that blizzardsocking in both Eielson and Elmendorf-Richardson, we’re screwed on that front.”

“Not quite, sir,” Chao said coolly. “There’s an Air National Guard HC-130J on the ground now at Barter Island.”

The Air Force chief of staff stared at her. “On the ground there? Why?”

“Because it lost an engine in-flight and had to make an emergency landing,” she answered. “But we’ve checked the specificationsand that Super Hercules is rated to fly, even with a dud engine.”

“You’d be asking the flight crew to take a hell of a risk,” Neary commented. “Not to mention the troops you’re asking to parachuteinto the middle of nowhere in the tail end of a blizzard.”

Miranda Reynolds broke in impatiently. “Everything about this mess involves risk. I say we tell them to go.” She looked at Chao. “Who’s in charge of this security team?”

The rear admiral smiled oddly at her. “A U.S. Air Force officer it appears that your agency has had some dealings with inthe not-so-distant past, Ms. Reynolds. The officer in question is a certain Captain Nicholas Flynn.”

Reynolds’s mouth fell open in consternation. “You’re kidding me,” she managed to get out at last.

Chao shook her head, still smiling wryly. “No, Ms. Reynolds,” she said. “I most certainly am not.”

Thirty-One

Barter Island Long Range Radar Site, near Kaktovik, Alaska

A Short Time Later

Captain Nick Flynn unzipped his parka and stripped off his thick gloves as he sat down at the dining area table set asidefor his unit’s computers and other electronic gear. He’d just been called in from a duty shift outside the radar station,freezing his ass off on outpost duty. Apparently, an encrypted message had just arrived over their link to Alaskan Command—onethat only he could read.

After blowing on his hands to restore some semblance of feeling, he entered the necessary codes. Lines of text and embeddedmaps and images appeared on the screen. It was a task order assigning them a new mission. But any faint hope that he couldstand his unit down for some much-needed rest vanished the moment he read the message header. Good news did not carry theimmediate precedence designator. That was almost always reserved for situations involving serious military matters.

His mouth tightened as he read further. What the brass wanted them to do now went way beyond ordinary crazy. In fact, it was off-the-charts lunacy. Stripping out all the happy talk about achieving vitally important national security objectives, the operations staff officers cozily forted up at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson expected