Arctic Drift (Dirk Pitt 20)

THE B-2 SPIRIT HAD BEEN AIRBORNE FOR OVER five hours. Taking off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the wedge-shaped stealth bomber had flown west on what appeared to be a normal training flight. But five hundred miles out over the Pacific, the black-and-gray aircraft, which resembled a giant manta ray in flight, turned northeast, flying toward the coast of Washington State.

“AC-016 bearing zero-seven-eight degrees,” the mission commander said in a soft Carolina accent. “She’s right on time.”

“I’ve got her,” replied the pilot.

Tweaking the throttles on the four turbofan jet engines, he banked the plane by thrust until matching the flight bearing, then closed in on a small white target visible out the cockpit window. Satisfied with his position, the pilot backed off on the throttles to match the speed of the leading aircraft.

Less than a quarter mile ahead and a thousand feet below was an Air Canada Boeing 777, bound for Toronto from Hong Kong. The pilots aboard the commercial airliner would have choked had they known that a billion-dollar bomber was tailing them into Canadian airspace.

With a nearly invisible radar signature, the crew of the B-2 need not have worried about hiding in the 777’s shadow to complete their mission. But with heightened military alerts on both sides of the border, they were taking no chances. The bomber tailed the jetliner over Vancouver and across British Columbia into Alberta. Approximately fifty miles west of Calgary, the Canadian airliner made a slight course adjustment to the southeast. The B-2 held its position, then veered sharply to the northeast.

Its target was the Canadian Forces Base at Cold Lake, Alberta, one of two Canadian air bases that housed F-18 fighter jets. A “quarter stick” of seven five-hundred-pound laser-guided bombs was to be dropped on the airfield, with the intent to damage or destroy as many fighter jets as possible while minimizing loss of life. With no response from the Canadian government after his twenty-four-hour admonition, the President had elected to halve the first-strike recommendation from the Pentagon and proceed with an attack on a single military installation.

“Eight minutes to target,” the mission commander announced. “Performing final weapons arming now.”

As he cycled through a computerized weapons-control sequence, an urgent radio call suddenly transmitted over their headsets.

“Death-52, Death-52, this is Command,” came the unexpected call from Whiteman. “You are ordered to abort mission. I repeat, we have a mission abort. Please stand down and acknowledge, over.”

The mission commander acknowledged receipt of the last-minute command, then immediately cycled down the bomber’s armaments. The pilot slowly reversed course, flying back toward the Pacific before setting a course to their home air base.

“The boss man cut it a little close there,” the pilot said a short while later.

“You’re telling me,” the mission commander replied, a deep sense of relief in his voice. “That’s one mission I’m glad was scrubbed.”

Gazing out at the Canadian Rockies passing beneath their wings, he added, “I just hope nobody else finds out how close we really came.”

89

BILL STENSETH LISTENED TO THE DEEP RUMBLE of the icebreaker’s powerful gas turbine engines, then nodded at the Narwhal ’s helmsman beside him to get the big vessel under way. As the ship slowly began to bull its way through the ice, Stenseth stepped out onto the frozen bridge wing and gave a friendly salute to the Santa Fe, still positioned in the ice a short distance away. Standing atop the sail, Commander Campbell returned the gesture, then prepared his own vessel to return to the depths.

The Otok turned and forged its way through the ice toward the NUMA submersible, easing to a halt just alongside. A pair of crewmen were let down onto the ice, where they attached a lifting cable to the Bloodhound. A large swing crane then lifted the submersible aboard the icebreaker, depositing it in a tight corner on the stern deck. In an adjacent unheated storage shed, the bodies of Clay Zak and his dead security team mercenaries were laid out, wrapped in makeshift canvas body bags.

A short distance across the ice, a polar bear stuck his head over a ridge and observed the operations. The same bear that Giordino had nearly awakened, it stood and stared at the icebreaker with annoyed disturbance, then turned and padded across the ice in search of a meal.

Once the Bloodhound was secured, the icebreaker moved on again, breaking into open water much to Stenseth’s relief. The ship steamed west, on a tack through Queen Maud Gulf and on toward the Beaufort Sea. The Santa Fe had by now slipped under the ice and trailed the icebreaker a mile or two behind. Stenseth would have been surprised to learn that by the time they’d leave Canadian waters, there would be no fewer than three American submarines sailing a silent escort, while a bevy of long-range patrol aircraft monitored their progress high overhead.

Along with Murdock, Stenseth enjoyed the opportunity to command a new vessel. With his own crew from the Narwhal and most of the Polar Dawn’s crew aboard, he was surrounded by able assistants. The icebreaker’s former crew was safely under guard belowdecks, watched closely by the Santa Fe’s SEAL contingent and Rick Roman’s commando team. Almost every man had wanted to sail home on the icebreaker, as a show of retribution for the ordeal suffered at the hands of her crew.

Once the ship was free of the sea ice, Stenseth turned toward a noisy congregation behind him. Crowded around the chart table with his bandaged leg propped up on a folding chair, Pitt sat sipping a hot coffee. Giordino and Dahlgren were wedged alongside, wagering over the contents of the thick leather logbook that sat at the table’s center.

“Are you going to find out what’s in the Erebus log or continue to torture me with suspense?” Stenseth asked the trio.

“The captain is right,” said Giordino, who, like Pitt, had an assorted array of bandages taped to his face. He gingerly shoved the logbook over to Pitt.

“I believe you have the honors,” he said.

Pitt looked down with expectation. The Erebus logbook was bound in hand-tooled leather, with an etching of a globe on the front cover. The book had received little damage from the black powder explosion, showing only a few small burn marks on the binding. Zak had held the logbook opposite the powder cask when it exploded, unwittingly protecting it with his body. Pitt had found the book wedged in a step beside his mangled corpse.

Pitt slowly opened the cover and turned to the first formal entry.

“Going to build the suspense, eh?” Stenseth asked.

“Cut to the chase, boss,” Dahlgren implored.

“I knew I should have kept this in my cabin,” Pitt replied.

With prying eyes and endless questions, he gave up thoughts of digesting the journal chronologically and skipped to the last entry.