The idea flared behind her eyes, In fact, with the components of this crash and the TU-4 thatOs on static display at the Gagarin Institute, IOll wager we could assemble one complete airworthy aircraft.

  She turned to face Smyslov, suddenly as excited as a schoolgirl with a new bicycle. YouOve been to the Institute! YouOve seen the Bull they have in the air museum there! What do you think?

  The Russian officer looked up, bemused. I really wouldnOt know, Professor, but IOm sure it would take a great deal of money.

  You leave the fund-raising to me, Gregori! I know of a number of wealthy war bird fanatics who would give an arm and a leg to see the Fifi, the Commemorative Air ForceOs Superfortress, doing a joint flyover with a genuine Russian B-29-ski. Champlain alone would be good for at least a quarter of a million!

  Smith couldnOt help but be impressed with her vibrant enthusiasm. Valentina Metrace obviously was a cobbler who stuck to her last. He whistled softly and aimed a thumb forward toward the bomb bays. IOm afraid we still have certain other priorities here.

  Valentina waved a hand arily. Details, details! I donOt care what breed of germ we might have to tidy up. No one is casually putting the torch to this aircraft if I have anything to say about it. This is history!

  That will be for the powers that be to decide, Val, Smith smiled. Not me, IOm very pleased to say.

  Smyslov looked over his shoulder at Smith, his expression intent. What do we do next, Colonel?

  We know the anthrax exists and is still a factor, so reporting that is our priority. Smith set the empty canteen cup on the deck. Tomorrow morning, if we have decent weather, I intend to make one fast sweep around the crash site to look for the survival camp of the MishaOs crew. Then we hike for the science station. If we canOt make radio contact with the outside from the station, then IOll send Randi back to the cutter in the helicopter to report.

  Smith studied SmyslovOs back as the Russian unrolled his sleeping bag in the crew bunk. IOm also going to commit the reinforcement group and secure the island, Major. ThatOs going to mean bringing the Canadians on board, and a general escalation of the whole scenario. I know we promised your government that weOd try and keep this low-key, but now, with both the anthrax and the disappearance of the station staff to contend with, we may have no choice but to go overt.

  I fully understand, Colonel. There is indeed no choice.

  SmyslovOs reply was unexpressive, and Smith had to wonder if the Russian was speaking in agreement with his words or with some thought of his own.

  Ah, me! ThatOs all for tomorrowOs worry list, Valentina said, glancing toward the hatch set in the rear bulkhead. In the meantime, there is something else I need to have a look at.

  CanOt it wait until morning? Smith asked.

  She looked toward Smith so the minute tilt of her head and the lift of her eyebrow would be masked from Smyslov. ItOs nothing really. ShanOt take a second.

  Catching up a flashlight, she got to her feet and moved aft. Undogging the pressure door, she ducked low through it. Assorted thumps and bangs followed as she worked toward the very tail of the aircraft, followed by a few minutes of involved silence. Now, this is interesting, her voice reverberated with a metallic hollowness. Jon, could you please give me a hand back here for a second?

  On my way. Smith followed Valentina into the dark of the passage. The historian was crouching on the gangway between the stinger turretOs ammunition magazines. With her flashlight aimed at her face, she silently mouthed the words Shut the hatch.

  Damn, Val. Were you raised in a barn! ItOs even colder out here. He pulled the pressure door closed and twisted the dogging lever to the locked position. Moving back to the magazines, he sank down on one knee beside Valentina. She was turning a wicked-looking autocannon shell over and over in her gloved fingers.

  WhatOs that? Smith inquired over the whine of the wind playing around the tail surfaces.

  A Soviet 23mm round. From the tail gun belts, she replied.

  All right. WhatOs going on?

  Something odd, Jon. Things arenOt adding up, or rather, theyOre adding up in a very peculiar way. ThatOs why I cut you off up in the cockpit this afternoon.

  I thought as much, he replied. What are you seeing?

  This airplane was fully outfitted for combat. In addition to having its anthrax warload aboard, its defensive armament was also fully charged. Furthermore, this plane didnOt make an emergency landing here. This was an accidental crash.

  Smith wasnOt quite sure of the differentiation. Are you sure?

  Quite. The bomber wasnOt configured for an emergency landing when it hit the ice. Remember when I asked about the propeller and fuel mixture controls in the cockpit? They had been left at their cruise settings. Also, I asked about the flap lever. The wing flaps hadnOt been lowered, as would have been done for any kind of a deliberate landing.

  Valentina rapped the top of the magazine housing with her knuckles. Finally they didnOt eject the gun turret ammunition magazines. In a B-29 Superfortress or a TU-4 Bull, that would be a standard procedure in a ditching or emergency landing scenario.

  Then what the hell did happen?

  As I said, a freak crash, a total accident, she continued. According to the maps of Wednesday Island, this glacier has a gradual descending gradient toward the north. The bomber must have come in from the North. They also must have been coming in at night, flying low and on instruments because they never knew the island was here. They came in between the peaks, and the terrain rose up underneath the aircraft. Before the pilots realized what was happening they struck the ground, or rather the ice. They must have been traveling at full cruising speed, way too fast for a conventional landing, but as fate would have it, the glacierOs surface at that time must have been comparatively smooth, without any ledges or crevasses to trip the aircraft. So they hit flat and skidded cleanly.

  There have been similar crashes in the Arctic and Antarctic, she continued in her whisper, when aircrews have lost situational awareness in whiteout conditions. To put a bottom line on this, this aircraft was not in an emergency state when it went down. They werenOt lost, and they werenOt landing. They were in a controlled cruise configuration, bound for somewhere else.

  If thatOs the case, wouldnOt they have seen the island on their charts? Smith asked.

  You have to remember that in 1953 detailed navigational information on this part of the world was all but nonexistent. The closest thing to an accurate chart was an American military secret. Wednesday Island is also something of a freak. ItOs one of the highest points within the Queen Elizabeth Archipelago. At that time, whoever plotted this planeOs course had no idea that a bloody great mountain would be parked out here in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

  ItOs not all that much of a mountain, Smith mused. WeOre only about twenty-five hundred feet above sea level here. WouldnOt that be a pretty low cruising altitude for a pressurized aircraft like this one?

  Very much so, she agreed. In fact, a TU-4 or B-29 would only follow such a low flight profile for one reason: if its crew were worried about being picked up by long-range radar.

  Jon forced himself to play devilOs advocate. WouldnOt they have seen the island on their own navigational radar?

  Only if they were using it. What if they were maintaining full EMCON, full emission control, with all of their radio and radar transmitters deliberately shut down to avoid detection?

  If such was conceivable, it seemed to grow colder. So what do you think, Professor? Smith asked.

  I donOt know what to think, Colonel, she replied. Or rather, I donOt know what I want to think. One thing I am certain of. Tomorrow morning we have got to find the crew of this plane. It might be more important in the greater scheme of things than the anthrax.

  Do you think this might have something to do with this Russian alternate agenda?

  He saw her nod. In all probability. I suspect when we find the survival camp, weOll know.

  I suspect weOll know about Major Smyslov by then as well, Smith replied grimly.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Smyslov watched Smith disappear into the tail. All evening he had been waiting for the opportunity to act, for a moment when the others were involved or distracted. This might be the best, if not his only chance.

  He headed for the crawlway tunnel leading forward, snaking down its length as rapidly and as quietly as he could. He knew exactly what he was to look for and exactly where it should be. He also had the set of fifty-year-old keys in his pocket.

  Earlier in the day, when he had been in the cockpit with Smith and Metrace, he hadnOt dared to search. He couldnOt risk drawing possible attention to the Misha 124Os official documentation until he could ascertain its status.

  Bellying into the forward compartment, he removed a pocket flash from his parka. Clenching it between his teeth, he sank down on one knee beside the navigatorOs station and sent the narrow beam stabbing across the map safe below the table. Drawing the key ring, he fumbled with the safeOs lock.

  This had been a Soviet Air Force bomber, and in the old Soviet Union, maps had been state secrets, denied to all but authorized personnel.

  After a momentOs resistance the tumblers of the lock turned for the first time in half a century. Smyslov swung open the small, heavy door.

  Nothing! The safe was empty. The navigational charts and the targeting templates that were to have been issued to the radar operator were gone.

  Wasting no time, he closed and relocked the safe. The bomberOs logbook and the aircraft commanderOs orders would be next. Moving forward to the left-hand pilotOs seat, Smyslov thrust the second key into the lock of the pilotOs safe located beneath it. Opening it, the Russian groped in the small, flat compartment. Again nothing!

  That left the political officerOs safe. The most critical of the three. He squeezed in between the pilotsO stations to the bombardierOs position in the very nose of the aircraft. Here the glass of the unstepped greenhouse had been caved in by the crash, and snow had drifted in and had refrozen. The bombsight itself was goneNit hadnOt been needed for this missionNand the rest of the station was buried in caked semi-ice. Drawing his belt knife, Smyslov hacked his way down to the deck-mounted safe.

  Damnation! The lock mechanism had been frozen solid. Swearing under his breath, the Russian tore off his gloves. Pulled his lighter from his pocket, he played the little jet of butane flame over the keyhole area. Burning his fingers, he muffled another curse and tried the key again. The stubborn lock yielded grudgingly.

  Empty. The targeting photographs and maps. The tasking orders. The political officerOs log and contingency instructions and the crewOs postmission action planNall were gone.

  Smyslov resecured the safe door, repacking and smoothing the snow over it, trying to erase the signs of his tampering. Standing, he drew his gloves on again, his thoughts racing. It was all gone. All the mission documentation. That was how it was supposed to be. The Misha 124Os political officer had been ordered to destroy every last scrap of evidence concerning the bomberOs mission and the March Fifth Event.

  But the political officer had also been ordered to destroy the aircraft and its payload. The thermite incendiary charges in the bomb bay were proof that he had been in the process of doing so when he had been interrupted. But what about the documents? Had he been prevented from destroying them as well?

  And what of the men? Tomorrow Smith would go looking for the bomberOs crew. What would be left for him to find?

  Smyslov tugged down the zip of his parka and restowed the pen flash. He also removed the cigarette lighter from his shirt pocket. Not the little plastic butane he had purchased at the airport shop in Anchorage, but the other one, the stainless steel Ronson-style reservoir lighter he had brought with him from Russia. Balancing it in his palm, his mind raced through his rapidly shrinking number of options.

  He could comfort himself with the thought that much of the decision making had been taken out of his hands. If the Russian Spetznaz troopers had killed the science stationOs personnel, fate must run its inevitable course. The coming confrontation between the United States and Russia would not be his responsibility.

  He need only concern himself with betrayal on a far more personal level. Today he had saved the life of a friend in this strange cold metal room. Tomorrow he might have to kill that friend as an enemy. And the disclaimer that it wasnOt his fault rang hollow.

  Hey, Major, you okay up there? SmithOs voice rang up the crawl tube from the aft compartment.

  Yes, Colonel, Smyslov replied, his fingers tightening around the little silver box. I only…dropped my cigarette lighter.

  Several hundred feet up the face of East Peak, on a ledge that overlooked both the glacier and the Misha crash site, the wide lens of a powerful spotting scope peered out through a crevice in an artfully camouflaged stone and snow windbreak. Two men lay behind the windbreak, sheltered by an ice-encrusted white tarp spread and supported over their heads. Even with the protection it was searingly cold on the exposed mountainside. Yet the two watchers stolidly endured, the one peering through the night-vision photomultiplier attached to the spotter scope, the other listening intently to the small radio receiver he had been issued.

  At regular intervals the two men conducted a survival ritual, their free hands moving between their crotches and armpits and their faces, transferring body warmth to their exposed skin, keeping at bay the vicious, scarring frostbite.

  Slithering on his belly like a lizard, a third parka-clad man crawled to join the two behind the windbreak.

  Anything to report, Corporal?

  Nothing of importance, Lieutenant, the man at the telescope grunted. They have set up their camp inside the wreck. You can see lights through the windows of the rear compartment. Sometimes in the front as well.

  Let me have a look, Lieutenant Tomashenko said.

  The Spetsnaz corporal rolled aside, making room for his platoon commander, and Tomashenko worked his way behind the night-vision scope, peering into the green and gray world it revealed. The bomber lay on the glacier below the observation post like a stranded whale. The faint wisp of illumination leaking from the downed planeOs astrodomes, all but undetectable to the naked eye, was magnified to a bright kelly glow by the photomultiplier. Intermittently the glow would pulse as a figure moved past the bubble windows.

  Apparently the anthrax spores are not loose inside of the airplane, Tomashenko muttered. That is something anyway.

  Tomashenko and his men had not ventured near the downed TU-4, nor had they even set foot on the glacier. The platoonOs orders were specific and stringent. Keep the crash site and the investigation team under long-range observation. Conceal their presence on the island. Avoid detection at all cost. Await the issuance of the alpha command by the point agent attached to the American party. Be positioned to intervene instantly on the transmission of said command. Be prepared to withdraw to the submarine should it not be issued.

  Tomashenko started to ask the radio monitor if he had heard anything, but caught himself. If the signal had been heard, he would hear. Until that moment they must wait.

  E

  Wednesday Island Station

  Randi Russell lay quietly in the darkness. Beyond the partition, in the main room of the bunkhouse, she could hear the heavy slumber breathing of Doctor Trowbridge, the sound she had been waiting for.

  An hour before, she and Trowbridge had banked the fire in the bunkhouse and theoretically had turned in for the night. However, in the womenOs quarters, Randi had only stretched out fully dressed atop Kayla BrownOs bunk, refusing sleep. Now, rolling silently to her feet, she began to prepare for the out-of-doors. She squeezed three pairs of socks inside the white thermoplastic bunny boots. Then came the parka and insulated overpants with the Lady Magnum and its speedloaders fitted into the holster pocket. Thin Nomex inner and leather outer gloves were pulled on, along with a white balaclava and finally the snow camouflage.

  She worked in total darkness. Before shutting down for the night she had carefully positioned everything she would need and had mentally mapped out every move she would make.

  Stepping to where she had left her pack, she removed a small plastic envelope from an outer compartment. Then, slinging her ammunition pouches and submachine gun, she took a folded HudsonOs Bay blanket from the sleeping roomOs upper bunk.

  Sliding open the door in the partition, she moved the length of the bunk room to the outside door, navigating unerringly by the faint rectangular lessening of black of the windows and the light brush of a fingertip on a table or countertop, easing each footstep soundlessly onto the floor. Trowbridge was still deeply asleep as she slipped through the snow lock.

  Sinking onto her hands and knees, she crawled through the outer door, keeping low in the snow trench beyond the entry. Snaking down the compacted paths, she made her way to the foxhole she had molded for herself covering the bunkhouse. There she constructed her hunting hide.

  The heavy HudsonOs Bay blanket went beneath her, insulation between her body and the ice. The contents of the plastic envelope went over her. It was a silvered foil survival blanket, incredibly warm for its cellophane-light weight. But unlike the usual blanket of its type, the backing on this one was not high-visibility orange but arctic camo white.

  Covering herself with it, Randi merged with her surroundings, making of herself nothing but an unevenness in the snowOs surface.

  Here, in the lee of the island, the night was almost still. Yet the wind could faintly be heard, roiling and gusting over the sheltering ridgeline. Even with her night-adapted vision, Randi could only make out the slightly variegated shades of darkness around her, the hutOs solid shadow geometrics against the slightly grayish black of the snow pack. Gradually, as the minutes and eventual hours passed, she began to note a faint wavering in these shades of night. She puzzled over it for a time, then realized the northern lights must be playing somewhere overhead, a meager hint of their illumination leaking through the cloud cover above the island.