Ice Hunt

Great, he thought.

Craig’s face had grown more pale and drawn. He had already experienced one plane crash. The reporter was surely getting sick of Alaskan air travel.

“Don’t worry,” Matt assured him. “If we run out of fuel, the Otter can land on its ski skids on any flat snow.”

“Then what?” Craig asked sourly, crossing his arms.

“Then we do what the lady here says…we push!”

“Quit it, Matt,” Jenny warned. She glanced back to the reporter. “We’ll get to Kaktovik. And if not, I’ve an emergency reserve tank stored below. We can manually refill the main tank if needed.”

Craig nodded, relaxing slightly.

Matt stared out at the burning coastline as it retreated behind them. He noted Jenny’s father doing the same. They briefly made eye contact. He read the suspicion in the other’s eyes. The sudden explosions were too coincidental to be mere chance.

“What do you think?” John muttered.

“Sabotage.”

“But why? To what end? Just because of us?”

Matt shook his head. Even if someone wanted to stop or divert them, this response was like killing a fly with a crate of TNT.

Craig overheard them. His voice trembled. “It’s a calculated act of distraction and misdirection.”

“What do you mean?” Matt studied the reporter’s face. It remained tight, unreadable. He began to worry about their passenger. He had witnessed post-traumatic stress disorder before.

But Craig swallowed hard, then spoke slowly. Clearly he sought to center himself by working through this problem. “We passed on word about our attackers to Prudhoe Bay. Someone was going to investigate tomorrow. I wager now that will be delayed. The limited investigative resources up here—military and civilian—will have their hands full for weeks. More than enough time for our attackers to cover their tracks.”

“So it was all done so someone could clean up the mess in the mountains?”

Craig waved this away. “No. Such a large-scale affront would need more of a reason to justify it. Otherwise, it’s overkill.”

Matt heard his own thoughts from a moment ago echoed.

Craig ticked off items aloud. “The explosions will delay any investigation in the mountains. It will also divert us and offer up a new, more exciting story for us to follow. The burning of Prudhoe Bay will be headlines for days. What reporter would want to miss such a story? To be here firsthand. To have witnessed it.” The tired man shook his head. “First the bastards try to kill me, now they try to bribe me with a more tantalizing and promising story. They throw it right in my damn lap.”

“Distraction and misdirection,” Matt mumbled.

Craig nodded. “And not just directed at us. We’re small potatoes. I would bet my own left nut that this attack had been preplanned all along. That we’re only a secondary distraction. It’s the larger world the saboteurs really want to distract. After this attack, everyone will be looking at Prudhoe Bay, discussing it, investigating it. CNN will have reporters here by tomorrow.”

“But why?”

Craig met his gaze. Matt was surprised to see the tempered steel in Craig’s eyes. He recalled him pulling the flare gun on him. Even under stress, the reporter thought quickly. Despite his scared demeanor, there were hidden depths to this man. Matt’s respect for the reporter continued to grow.

“Why?” Craig parroted. “It’s like I said. Distraction and misdirection. Let the whole world look over here at the fireworks”—he waggled his fingers in the air—“while the real damage is done out of sight.” The reporter pointed to the north. “They don’t want us to look over there.”

“The drift station,” Matt said.

Craig’s voice dropped to a mumble. “Something’s going to happen out there. Something no one wants the world to know about. Something that justifies setting fire to Prudhoe Bay.”

Matt now knew why Craig had been sent north by his editor. The reporter had tried to blame the assignment on a tryst with the editor’s niece, a punishment for a transgression. But Matt didn’t buy it. The man knew his business. He had a calculating mind and a keen sense of political maneuvering.

“So what do we do now?” Matt asked.

Craig’s eyes flicked to him. “We fly to Kaktovik. What else can we do?”

Matt crinkled his brow.

“If you think I’m going out to that friggin’ drift station,” Craig said with a snort, “you’re nuts. I’m staying the hell away.”

“But if you’re right—?”

“I’ve pretty much grown a liking for my skin. The bastards’ fiery show may not have fooled me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take a hint.”

“Then we tell someone.”

“Be my guest. No one will hear you above the sound bites for days. By the time you can get someone to listen, to go check, it’ll all be over.”

“So we have no choice. Someone has to go out there.”

Craig shook his head. “Or someone could just hide in that little fishing village and wait for all this to blow over.”

Matt considered the persistence of their pursuers, the explosion of Prudhoe Bay. “Do you really think they’d leave us alone out there? If they’re buying time to clean up their mess, that might include getting rid of us. They know our plane.”

Craig’s determined expression sickened.

“And we’d be sitting ducks in Kaktovik.”

Craig closed his eyes. “I hate Alaska…I really do.”

Matt sank back into his own seat. He looked at Jenny. She had heard it all. “Well?” he asked.

Jenny glanced over her gauges. “I’ll still need to refuel if we’re going to travel so far.”

“Bennie’s place at Kaktovik.”

“We can be there in an hour. And away in another.”

He nodded and stared north. Craig’s words echoed in his head: Something’s going to happen out there. Something no one wants the world to know about.

But what the hell could it be?

11:02 P.M.

USS POLAR SENTINEL

“We’ve been ordered to readiness, but not to deploy.” Perry stood atop the periscope stand. His officers had gathered in the control room. Groans met his words. They were Navy men, career submariners. They had all heard of the attack on Prudhoe Bay four hundred miles away. They were anxious to act.

Word had reached them half an hour ago through the snail-paced ELF transmission, sound waves passing with mile-long amplitudes through the ocean waters, emitting one slow letter at a time. The real-time communication net of NAVSAT’s satellites or UHF were currently under electrical bombardment by a solar storm.