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

taking this ruthless directive in stride. Like his men, Korenev was a hardened veteran of the war against terrorists in Syria, where prisoners were rarely taken by any side. Pocketing the map overlay, the Spetsnaz major moved on toward his waiting helicopter. As soon as he buckled into his seat, the Ka-60 lifted off and darted southeast, skimming just above the polar ice to avoid detection by enemy radar.

 

Ninety minutes later, the helicopter slowed in its headlong rush and turned toward an eerie black monolith rising starklyabove a gleaming mound of ice. A signal lamp blinked repeatedly from the top of the monolith, which was actually the SSBNPodmoskovye’s large sail.

The Ka-60 orbited once around the surfaced nuclear submarine and then settled in to land nearby. Before its rotors stoppedturning, sailors bundled up in thick coats and fur caps against the cold dragged hoses across the ice to begin refilling itsnearly empty fuel tanks. Soon, fully refueled, the helicopter lifted off again. Now it flew south, carrying Korenev and hisSpetsnaz commandos toward the coast of Alaska and the mountainous wilderness beyond.

Kodiak Force, F-22 Raptor Crash Site, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

A Short Time Later

Scorched and torn pieces of metal and fragments of half-melted composites were strewn for dozens of yards around a fire-blackenedcrater a couple of meters deep. The dying F-22 must have augered in almost vertically and at very high speed, Flynn judged.One gruesome check of the crumpled mass of fuselage half buried in the bottom of the crater had confirmed that the Raptor’spilot hadn’t managed to eject before her aircraft slammed nose-first into the frozen tundra. At least her death was quick,he thought sadly.

Now he and his team were probing the debris field for some sign of the fighter’s mission data recorder—which should have capturedeverything from cockpit voice and video recordings to detailed data from its engines, flight computers, and other avionics.That was exactly the kind of information Air Force investigators needed. With it, they might be able to piece together a reasonablyaccurate picture of what had happened during the clash between the American F-22s and the three downed Russian aircraft. Inthe pale glow cast by the low, full moon poking above the eastern hills, flashlight beams darted here and there through thetangled wreckage.

Flynn crouched beside a blackened metal panel wedged into the dirt. Holding his flashlight in one gloved hand, he gently brushed away flakes of carbonized composites with the other. The panel might have a serial number or an identifier code that could help determine which section of the Raptor it came from.

“Sir!” a voice hissed softly through his headset. “Hey, Captain! It’s me, Hynes. I think I got something here. There’s something weird upslope, maybe a few hundred yards out.”

Flynn looked toward where he’d posted the Army PFC as a sentry at the eastern edge of the debris field. The enlisted man haddropped to one knee, sighting along the barrel of his M249 Para light machine gun up at the steep, rocky hillside loomingover the crash site.

Quickly, Flynn moved toward Hynes, staying low himself. He went prone next to the shorter man. “What did you spot? Movement?”he asked sharply.

“No, sir,” the other man said. “Just some kind of lumpy shape up there on that slope. And it hasn’t moved an inch since Ifirst noticed it. But whatever it is, it sure as shit isn’t anything natural.”

Takirak dropped prone on the other side of Hynes. “Trouble?” he asked quietly.

Flynn shrugged. “Could be.” He grinned tightly. “Or maybe PFC Hynes here needs an eye exam.”

“Hey, I was twenty-twenty the last time the docs checked me over,” the enlisted man protested.

Flynn readied his own carbine and nodded to Takirak. “Let’s go check it out, Andy.” He glanced at Hynes. “You cover us, PFC.”

“Yes, sir,” the younger man promised, still sighting through his scope. “If whatever that thing is so much as twitches, I’llblow the shit out of it.”

Cautiously, Flynn led the way uphill, veering wide to stay out of Hynes’s line of fire. By the time they were about a hundred yards out, he could see what the enlisted man was talking about—a darker, oddly shaped mass nestled in among a field of ice- and snow-covered boulders that must have been deposited across the slope by some retreating glacier thousands of years ago. He and Takirak kept going, planting their feet carefully to avoid sliding back down the steep slope.

When they got within twenty yards, Flynn flicked on his flashlight. His eyes widened slightly as the beam illuminated an unsettlingsight—a corpse sheathed in ice and slumped over the handlebars of a snow machine that seemed to have wedged itself betweentwo larger rocks.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered in amazement, hearing an equally astonished murmur from Takirak a little behind him. He movedcloser and carefully set his M4 down against a boulder.

Gingerly, they eased the dead man off the machine, laid him down, and then rolled him over. His pale blue flight suit wasmarked by a dark, reddish-brown stain of dried blood around an ugly exit wound high up on his chest. Flynn’s light settledon the name tag fixed below this wound. генерал-майор василий мавричев, дальняя авиация, it read. Slowly, he translated the Cyrillic letters out loud, “Major General Vasily Mavrichev, Long-Range Aviation.” Hisjaw tightened. “Okay, this is bullshit,” he growled. “Total, absolute, complete bullshit.”

“Sir? What’s the problem?” Takirak asked, sounding puzzled.

Still frowning hugely, Flynn looked across the corpse at the noncom. “Our ice man here just happens to be the commander ofRussia’s Long-Range Aviation Force, Sergeant,” he explained. “The head of their whole goddamned strategic bomber force.”

He squatted back on his haunches, thinking fast. How the hell would a senior Russian Air Force commander end up all the wayout here in the middle of nowhere in the first place? Let alone dead with a bullet wound in the back? And riding a snow machinemanufactured in America or Canada? He shook his head. Nothing about this weird situation jibed with the briefing he’d beengiven about a downed