The North Atlantic fisheries had been a depressed industry for a long time, and cheeseparing and procrastination on the part of the trawlerOs owners had not made matters any easier. Finally, as it inevitably must, the neglected maintenance had caught up with them. Siffsdottar had spent most of last season held up in the yards with a protracted and expensive series of engine room casualties. The owners, as owners inevitably do, found it easier to blame the ship rather than themselves.

  Siffsdottar had been facing the breakersO yard, and her captain and crew the beach when, like a miracle, a last-minute reprieve had appeared: a month-long charter by a film company for enough money to pay off the repairs and poor season both. Only they must sail immediately to meet a production deadline.

  For once the owners and crew were in accord. They were happy to oblige.

  But when the filmmakers had come aboard they had proved to be a gang of twenty extremely tough-looking men, even by the standards of the hard-bitten trawler crew. There had also been a decided lack of camera equipment, just a good deal of electronics and radio gear.

  And the guns. Those hadnOt made an appearance until after they had gotten under way. Two of the filmmakers lounged at the rear of the darkened wheelhouse now, each of them with an automatic pistol thrust openly in his belt.

  They offered no explanation, and the trawlermen decided it prudent not to ask for one.

  The leader of the filmmakers, a tall, burly red-bearded man who relayed his orders in strangely accented English, had laid in a course to the west-northwest, their destination being a set of nameless GPS coordinates deep within Hudson Bay. He had also instructed that the trawlerOs radio be disabled. His people would handle all communications for the voyage, for business reasons.

  Siffsdottar Os captain now strongly suspected that his owners had made yet another bad business decision. But as the flashing point light at IcelandOs westernmost landOs end drifted past to starboard, he also suspected that there was little he could now do about it. Instead he would fall back on an ancient Icelandic survival mechanism: strict, stolid neutrality and a hope for the best. It had seen Iceland through a number of the worldOs wars essentially untouched. Perhaps it would suffice here.

  Belowdecks, the Command Section had taken over the main salon as the operations center. Seated at the big mess table, Anton Kretek splashed three fingers of Aquavit into a squat glass. Taking a slurping gulp, he grimaced. This Icelandic liquor was muck, but it was the muck that was available.

  Do you have the reports from Canada Section yet? he demanded irritably.

  Downloading now, Mr. Kretek, the chief communications officer replied from his laptop workstation. It will take a moment to decrypt.

  The Internet had proven a boon to the international businessman and the international criminal alike, providing instant, secure communications from point to point anywhere on the planet. A dinner-plate-sized sat phone dish, deployed in the trawlerOs upper works, linked them into the global telecommunications net, and the finest in commercial encryption programs sealed their Internet messaging away from prying eyes.

  A portable laser printer hissed and spat out a series of hard-copy sheets. Pushing his chair back from the communications desk, the communicator passed the hard copy over his shoulder to the waiting Kretek.

  Taking a small torpedo-shaped Danish cigarillo from the ashtray, the arms merchant puffed and read, the strong tobacco smoke blending with the salonOs background smell of diesel and fish oil.

  Kretek frowned. There was good news and bad in the dispatches. The attempts to disrupt the joint Russian-American investigation had failed. Kretek hadnOt had high hopes for the effort in the first place. The groupOs point man in Alaska had been forced to hire and equip whatever was available at short notice, in this case, local Russian mafia street trash.

  The ad hoc interceptor dispatched to kill the investigatorsO helicopter had failed to return. As there had been no news reports of an attack on the government expedition, or of a plane lost, it had probably gone down at sea or in the wilderness in an accidental crash.

  So be it. Let the investigation team come. If they beat him on site, he would rely on his agent on the island and on the shock effect of his main forceOs arrival. If a few history buffs made a nuisance of themselves at the wrong time, that would be their problem. Timing, planning, and the weather would be his allies against the outside world.

  Kretek took another draw from the cigarillo, followed by a throat-clearing sip of the liquor. Unless, of course, there had been more to the investigation team than had met the eye. Was it possible that the governments involved knew of the incredible prize that was still aboard the bomber?

  That seemed unlikely. If the truth was known, the Americans would be racing to secure the aircraft with all their considerable assets, and their national media would be having hysterics over the anthrax threat. The Russians must have assured them that the bomberOs payload had been jettisoned, if they had mentioned it at all. The former Soviet weapons experts within the Kretek Group had assured their leader that this would be standard operating procedure.

  For some reason SOP had not been followed aboard this particular aircraft, and Anton Kretek was prepared to take full advantage of the fact.

  The second dispatch, from Vlahovich and the Canada group, was far more favorable. Suitable aircraft had been procured, and suitable aircrewmen had been brought in through Canadian customs. Refueling base A was being established, and sites for bases B and C were being surveyed. Very favorable. Very favorable indeed.

  The final dispatch secured the arms merchantOs good mood. It was from Wednesday Island, indicating that no alarm had been raised. The station staff was preparing for the arrival of the aviation historians and for their own winter extraction. No problems noted. Operations proceeding.

  Now that the plan was under way, Kretek would be able to send their ETA and his final phase instructions on to Wednesday. If all continued to go as well as it had so far, it would be a most pleasant reunion.

  Kretek grinned and poured another finger of liquor in his glass. It was tasting better all the time.

  E

  Off the Eastern End of Wednesday Island

  The stars stabbed through rents in the cloud cover, their light refracting and reflecting off the jumbled pressure ridges of the ice pack, granting hunting illumination to the great, shambling bulk that moved spectrally among them.

  The polar bear was still a comparative youngster, a mere eight hundred pounds of rippling muscle and perpetual hunger thickly sheathed in glossy white fur. His instincts were driving him southward, to follow the edge of the expanding freeze up. But he had paused for a time in the vicinity of Wednesday Island. The stressed ice around the island had provided hauling-out leads and breathing holes for a lingering population of ring and hood seals, and a profitable hunting ground for a polar bear.

  The bear had slain twice in the past week, crushing the skulls of his prey with swift, precise swats of his massive paws, his powerful jaws stripping the seal carcasses of the rich blubber that he needed to fuel his biological furnaces against the piercing cold of the arctic environment. But winter loomed, and the seals were fleeing ahead of it. The bear must commit to his own southward drift as well. Either that or he must explore the possibilities of his only other potential food source: the odd, decidedly unseallike animals that inhabited the island itself and that walked upright on two legs.

  The polar bear was not familiar with these creatures, but the wind had carried him the scent of their sweet, hot blood, and on the ice, meat was meat.

  The bear dropped down from the pressure ridge onto the thin flat surface of a recently refrozen lead. Here, where the ice was thin and still pliant, he might find a more conventional meal: a seal gnawing its way to the surface and a breath of air. Padding silently to the center of the open lead, the polar bear paused, his head held low to the ice sheet, extending his senses, feeling and listening for the faintest hint of sound or vibration from below.

  There! There was a sense of something moving below the ice.

  And then came a titanic shock, and the bear was lifted off his feet and hurled through the air. Such indignities were simply not supposed to happen to the lords of the Arctic! He hit the ice sprawling. Scrambling to his feet, the bear fled in abject terror, bawling his protest to an uncaring night.

  A great black axe blade pressed up from beneath the surface of the frozen lead, the shattered ice groaning and splintering as it opened, flowerlike, around it. The mammoth Oscar-class SSGN bulled its way through the pack, hatches crashing open atop its sail as it stabilized on the surface. Men poured out of those hatches, dark, weather-scarred faces contrasting against the white of their arctic camouflage clothing. Some of them swung lithely down to the ice using the ladder rungs inset in the sides of the submarineOs conning tower. Dropping to the surface of the lead, they fanned out, unslinging AK-74 assault rifles as they established their security perimeter.

  The others focused on hoisting their gear up and out of the red-lit belly of the undersea vessel: loaded backpacks, white equipment, and ration-stuffed duffel bags, collapsible fiberglass man-hauling sledges, and cases of ammunition and explosives. All that they would need to live, fight, and destroy in a polar environment for a protracted time.

  The commanders of both the naval Spetsnaz platoon and the submarine were the last up the ladder to the submarineOs bridge.

  Damnation, but this is cold, the sub commander muttered.

  Lieutenant Pavel Tomashenko of the Naval Infantry Special Forces grinned in self-superiority and repeated the old saw. In weather like this the flowers bloom in the streets of Pinsk.

  The submarine commander was not amused. I need to submerge as soon as possible. I want to give this lead a chance to refreeze before the next American satellite pass. As was the case with all good submariners, he was a nervous and unhappy man on the surface. And he had reason to be so. He was inside Canadian territorial waters in an area forbidden to probing foreign submarines. And while the Canadian naval forces were totally incapable of enforcing this prohibition, the atomic hunter-killer boats of the United States Navy also cheerfully and routinely disregarded this restriction.

  Do not worry, Captain, we will be away in a few more minutes, Tomashenko replied, glancing down at his men as they loaded their sleds. We must be under cover by the time of the next pass as well. There will be no problems.

  So we can hope, the submariner grunted. I will endeavor to keep to the communications schedule, but I must remind you, Lieutenant, I can make no promises. It will depend on my finding open-water leads for the deployment of my radio masts. I will return to these coordinates once every twenty-four hours, and I will listen for your sounding charges and your through-ice transponder. I can do no more.

  That will be quite adequate, Captain. You run a very efficient taxi service. Dos ve danya.

  Tomashenko swung himself over the rim of the bridge and lowered himself toward the frozen lead.

  The sub skipper only muttered his response under his breath. It galled to take such lip from a mere snot-nosed lieutenant, but these Spetsnaz types considered themselves GodOs anointed under the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, this particular example came with a curt set of sealed orders from the Pacific Fleet Directorate that squarely placed the sub commander and his boat at the beck and call of Tomashenko. To disregard either the word or spirit of those orders would be extremely bad joss in the shrinking Russian navy.

  The sub skipper watched as Tomashenko and his platoon lined out, dark shapes against the ice, trudging toward the shadowed silhouette of Wednesday Island. He was glad to see them go. His soul and his ship were his own again for a time. He was pleased to have that particular outfit clear of his decks as well. TomashekoOs force had to be one of the most thoroughly cold-bloodedD and murderous-looking crews he had ever encountered. And given his twenty years of service in the Russian military, that was saying something.

  Clear the bridge! The submarine commander lifted his voice in a hoarse bellow. All lookouts below!

  As his seamen brushed past him to clatter down the ladder, he pushed the brass button beside the waterproof intercom. Control room, this is the bridge. Prepare to take her down!

  E

  The USS Alex Haley

  Randi Russell nudged a scarlet plastic disk an inch forward with a fingernail. King me, she said, staring across the game board with the focused intensity of a cougar preparing to pounce.

  Muttering under his breath in Russian, Gregori Smyslov took a counter from his minimal pile of trophies and clapped it down where indicated.

  YouOre in trouble, Gregori, Valentina Metrace said, munching a chip from the bowl resting beside the tabletop battlefield.

  Draughts is a childOs game, Smyslov said through gritted teeth. A childOs game, and I am not in difficulty!

  We call it checkers, Major. Smith chuckled from where he sat beside Randi. And yes, you are in trouble.

  Even the great Morphy would find it impossible to concentrate with certain people incessantly crunching crackers in his ear!

  TheyOre tortilla chips, to be precise, Valentina said, enjoying another savory crunch. But your real problem is, youOre trying to logic the game as you would chess. Checkers are more like fencing: a matter of finely-honed instinct.

  Indeed. Smyslov pounced, jumping one of RandiOs red checkers with a black. I told you I was in no difficulty.

  The riposte was lethal, RandiOs freshly minted king clearing the board of black counters in a swift, final tic-tic-tic triple assault. Best four out of six? she queried with just the faintest hint of a smile.

  SmyslovOs palm thumped into his forehead. Shit, and for this I left Siberia!

  Smith grinned at the Russian. DonOt feel too bad, Major; IOve never beaten Randi at checkers, either. I donOt think it can be done. Now, whoOs for bridge?

  Smyslov lifted his head and started to collect his dead soldiers. Why not? Being tortured with hot irons canOt be worse than having oneOs fingernails torn out.

  Covert One 7 - The Arctic Event

  The ice cutter was four days out of Sitka. After rounding Point Barrow she was now driving hard for the northeast and the Queen Elizabeth Archipelago. Only a certain portion of those days could be filled with briefings and brainstorming sessions about what they might find on Wednesday Island. Many hours were left to kill, and as outsiders to the tight seaborne community aboard the Haley, Smith and his people had been thrown together on their own resources.

  Smith was pleased with this mechanism. Team building was not purely an aspect of training and discipline. It was a matter of the components learning one other. How they thought. How they acted and reacted. Minutiae down to how they liked a cup of coffee. It all accumulated into a projection of how this individual might react in a given crisis. Precious information.

  Fragment by fragment, he was expanding his mental files.

  Randi Russell: She was one he had known before. He had a base to build on with her. She was solid, inevitably solid. But out on the edge of perception there was always that faint, frightening whiff of donOt-give-a-damn. Never about the mission, but only about herself.

  Gregori Smyslov: Clearly a good soldier, but also a man thinking a great deal. And from the moods Smith caught on occasion, he wasnOt happy with his thoughts. The Russian was working toward a decision. What that decision might be was something for Smith to think about.

  Valentina Metrace: She was something else to think about. Specifically, just what lurked inside the history professorOs vivacious, smoothly polished shell. There was some other entity in there. In his lengthening conversations with her he had caught only the slightest flavor of this alternate being. It wasnOt the slipping of a mask so much as the tracing of the camouflaged gun ports of a Q-ship. Weapons expert could mean any number of things.

  Not that her overt personality wasnOt interesting in its own right.

  The cabinOs overhead speaker clicked on. Wardroom, this is the bridge. Pick up, please.

  Smith rose and crossed to the interphone beside the hatchway. Wardroom here. This is Colonel Smith.

  Colonel Smith, this is Captain Jorganson. You and your people might want to come on deck and have a look to port. WeOre passing what you might call a local landmark.

  Will do. Smith returned the interphone to its cradle. The others looked up at him from their places at the mess table. The captain suggests we have some sights to see, people.

  The wind on deck was piercing now, numbing exposed flesh in only a matter of seconds. Piercing also was the gunmetal blue of the sea and sky, the latter marred by only a few streaming wisps of cirrus cloud. It made a vivid contrast to the stark white castle shape drifting slowly past the cutterOs quarter, the bulk of the iceberg showing as a wavering green mass below the oceanOs surface. This was only the first outrider of the pack. To the north, off the bow, the horizon shimmered with a hazy metallic luster, what the arctic hands called ice blink.

  Smith felt someone brush lightly against his elbow. Valentina Metrace was standing close by at his side, and he could feel her shiver. Dr. Trowbridge had emerged from the deckhouse as well and stood at the rail a few feet away, not speaking or looking at Smith and his team. Other members of the cutterOs crew were also coming topside, watching the passage of the pallid sea specter.

  The first enemy was in sight. Soon the battle would begin.

  E

  Wednesday Island

  Core water samples, series M?

  Check.

  Core water samples, series R?

  Check.

  Core water samples, series RA?

  Kayla Brown looked up from where she knelt beside the open plastic specimen case. TheyOre all here, Doctor Creston, she replied patiently, just like yesterday.

  Dr. Brian Creston chuckled and flipped his notebook shut. Have patience with an old man, child. IOve seen Mr. Cock-up drop in on many an expedition at the last minute. ThereOs no sense in getting sloppy in the home stretch.

  Kayla snapped the latches on the case and tightened the nylon safety strap around it. I hear you, Doctor. I donOt want anything to come between me and that beautiful, beautiful helicopter tomorrow.