Kowalski followed its passage. “Really need to get me a snowmobile.”
They had made it.
Just not all of them.
Fadd leaned forward into his controls. He coughed, spraying blood. As he fell back into his seat, a small hole in his chest poured a crimson stain through his clothes. He must have been hit during the opening volley but said nothing.
The plane’s nose dipped precariously.
Monk hollered, hitting a series of switches, transferring control of the Baikal to his seat. “Get him on his back! Put pressure on the wound.”
Tucker and Kowalski obeyed, manhandling the pilot out of the seat and to the floor. Monk pulled on the wheel, drawing their nose up. He was the only one who knew how to fly the aircraft.
He called back, doing his best to instruct them, but it was no use. Tucker shared a look with Kowalski. Both had seen enough death to recognize the inevitable. The young man stared up at them, gasping, choking out blood. Mercifully, after another few breaths, his body slumped, but his eyes stayed wide, as if he were surprised to find himself dead.
Tucker fell back onto his heels, his palms bloodied.
Elle covered her face.
Kowalski simply swore.
They had come so close to a clean break, but Tucker had learned a hard lesson years before.
Everything comes with a cost.
And too often it’s in blood.
A hush fell over the cabin as Monk sped them onward, flying low over the White Sea, trying to stay under any radar that was still operating during the geomagnetic storm. Hard winds buffeted the small aircraft. Snow kept the visibility tight around them.
They continued their race for international waters, not that such seas were necessarily a safe harbor.
And not just for them.
They had all heard Bailey’s warning, learned what information had been tortured out of him. With the ongoing blackout, only one path was left open to them.
To find Gray and the others—before the Russians did.
37
May 13, 9:48P.M. MSK
Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Oblast
Standing over his office desk, Turov slammed his receiver down, hard enough to send the encrypted phone skittering across his desk. The base’s landlines still functioned, but little else.
He had already learned that the enemy made a successful escape, fleeing aboard a small aircraft. The plane remained lost. With the solar flare continuing to pound the region, the base’s over-the-horizon radar systems—which bounced signals off the ionosphere—were plagued by ghosts and static. It made picking out a small craft nearly impossible.
That alone had infuriated and humiliated him enough.
But worst of all, men under his watch had died.
After everything, Turov had been forced to reach out to Vice Admiral Glazkov in Severomorsk, the commander of the Northern Fleet. Turov related all that had happened, all the way back to when Sychkin had tortured and killed two Moscow students.
The admiral’s fury had been palpable, burning Turov’s ears. Glazkov’s anger was not solely directed at Turov’s failure in securing the prisoners, but for what that threat posed. The Americans now had an opportunity to make landfall and establish a foothold out in the East Siberian Sea. Both Turov and Glaskov knew such a geostrategic site, deep in the Arctic, could be vital for Russian security and its hopes for expanding the country’s territorial reach. Not to mention, the Americans now hada chance to secure whatever unknown danger might be hidden on that island—to possibly weaponize it.
Upon learning all this, Glazkov had screamed at Turov, ordering him to mobilize a strike team—and to lead it. His final words tolerated no argument:Get your ass out there, or I’ll strip you of your command.
The admiral would also be repositioning theIvan Lyakhov, the military’s newest icebreaking patrol boat, a vessel full of Arctic-hardened soldiers and weaponry. Turov was to meet them, along with aspetsnazteam of twenty-four men, a group that he had handpicked after his first meeting with Sychkin. His team would depart the base within the hour aboard an An-74 transport plane fitted with wheel-ski landing gear.
