“It sounds pretty tangled.”

“It is. And untangling it will not be your job, for which you can be duly thankful. But you’re going to have a damned full plate. Whatever goes down, I want you to make sure we have Braslov alive. If they’ve separated our intelligence operators from the rest, I want them found and freed. Whatever it takes.”

“Yes, sir.” No man left behind.

“And remind the SEAL platoon commander that there are two wounded men and a body, probably in the ship’s sick bay. We’ll need at least the wounded men for questioning, if we’re to make sense of this mess.”

A knock sounded on the wardroom door. “Mr. Dean?” a very young voice called from the other side. “The skipper says for you to get ready for the shore party. They’re getting ready to go.”

“I’ll be right there,” Dean called back. He looked at Rubens’ image again. “It’s time for me to go, sir.”

“Right. Good luck, Dean,” Rubens said. And the image winked off.

CFS Akademik Petr Lebedev Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 0920 hours, GMT-12

A sharp rap sounded from the door to Golytsin’s office. “Come.”

One of the naval marines assigned to the Lebedev opened the door and stepped inside. “Sir!” He handed a message flimsy across to Golytsin. “This just came in from the Dekabrist. It has been decoded.”

Golytsin accepted the message. “Very well.”

The marine saluted, turned, and left. Golytsin read the flimsy.

FROM: COMMANDING OFFICER, CFS DEKABRIST TO: F. GOLYTSIN, CFS AKADEMIK PETR LEBEDEV SONAR DETECTED SOUNDS OF UNIDENTIFIED SUBMARINE

SURFACING IN ICE AT 0810 HOURS. LOCATION

UNKNOWN BUT SUSPECT INTRUDER TO BE WITHIN 20

KILOMETERS GK-1. REQUEST SHOOT-FIRST ORDERS IF

INTRUDER SUBMARINE APPROACHES PERIMETER. SIGNED: KIRICHENKO, CAPTAIN FIRST RANK

Brief and to the point. Golytsin frowned, wishing there’d been a bit more information… like a bearing, for God’s sake.

But at least the waiting was over. The Americans were here.

They’d been expected, after all. The diplomatic message announcing the capture of fourteen American scientists and Greenpeace activists would have arrived on the desk of the American President several days ago. There’d been time for an American submarine to be redeployed north.

The problem, though, was that American submarines were so hellishly quiet. During the Cold War-the original Cold War that had so focused the military might of both the United States and the old Soviet Union-American technology had consistently outstripped the Russian Navy’s attempts to keep pace. The Walker spy ring, operating from 1967 to 1985, had helped tremendously, had in fact been responsible for a whole new generation of ultra-quiet Russian submarines, but that hadn’t significantly helped the Soviets track American subs.

Golytsin had been part of the Soviet naval intelligence team working on the information provided by the Walker ring. He’d also commanded two Russian submarines during the early 1980s, and he knew something about American submarine technology. It was good, very, very good. Time after time, American attack subs had picked up Soviet missile boats as they exited their lairs in the White Sea or along the north coast of the Kola Peninsula and trailed them, often just a few tens of meters astern, sometimes slipping close enough to photograph details of the Soviet craft’s hull through the periscope, and the Russian sonar operators had never heard a thing. A number of the better than two hundred thousand encrypted messages deciphered with Walker’s help had been top-secret reports on the movements of Soviet submarines, and their astonishing accuracy had alerted the Red Fleet’s high command to the problem.

Feodor Golytsin was one of the few men alive who knew just how difficult it was to track an American submarine, especially under the Arctic ice, where bizarre sonar echoes came ringing back from every direction and subs could play hide-and-seek among the polynyas, keels, and subsurface ice ridges.

And it had been Golytsin who’d recommended that the Dekabrist be deployed to the area around GK-1, as a bit of added insurance. The Americans, he’d argued, were certain to arrive, and the chances were good that they would arrive by submarine. Any submariner could tell you that the best way to catch a sub was to use a sub.

Those idiots back at Severomorsk HQ had hesitated. They feared a confrontation with the United States and didn’t see the GK-1 project as one of Russia’s vital national interests. What they didn’t understand was that Russia couldn’t possibly lose in this new round of international brinksmanship. If the Americans managed to sink the Russian boat, as some of the Northern Fleet’s admirals feared, it would simply be wood to the fire of Russia’s case before the court of world opinion: the Arctic Ocean properly belonged to Russia, and the United States was unfairly using its superior submarine technology to bully Moscow into yielding.

If, on the other hand, a submarine battle ended in a Russian victory, Moscow could simply claim that it was legitimately defending its own interests from the bellicose Americans. More to the point, the Americans were notoriously weak when it came to accepting necessary military losses. American military leaders were as afraid of open war in the Arctic as their opposite numbers at Severomorsk, and the American President would be reluctant to commit to yet another unpopular war. The Americans would… what was their delightful expression? Cave. That was it. The Americans would cave.

Either way, Russia would win.

And with the GK-1 project now fully in place, when Russia won, the Organizatsiya would win as well, would win to the point that, soon, the Tambov group would control all petroleum and natural gas production and sales across the Motherland, with an annual income to be measured in the trillions of rubles. Russia, and with her, Tambov, would again become a major player on the world stage.

And Feodor Golytsin would at last have his revenge over certain men, politicians prominent under both the Soviet regime and the new Federation, who’d been responsible for him freezing his ass for three bitter years in the gulag.

Captain First Rank Kirichenko was a good man, Golytsin knew, experienced, and a cunning tactician. If anyone could beat the Americans at their own game beneath the ice, it was Valery Kirichenko. But Golytsin needed to be sure Kirichenko knew what was at stake.

Turning to the computer keyboard on his desk, he began composing his reply to the Dekabrist’s commanding officer.

USGN Ohio Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 0942 hours, GMT-12

Dean met the others at the air lock leading to the Ohio’s aft deck and the waiting ASDS, located in a cramped compartment aft of the control room. A heavy, watertight door stood open as one SEAL passed a bundle of equipment through to a waiting SEAL inside, and he, in turn, passed the bundle up the ladder to someone out of sight overhead.

Taylor gave Dean a dark look as he walked in, and Dean knew that he resented what he thought of as micro-management on Dean’s behalf.

This would require tact and diplomacy. Perhaps a preemptive strike…

“Mr. Taylor,” Charlie Dean said, “I know you don’t like the fact that I’ve been assigned to operate with your platoon. I regret that… but I had nothing to do with the order. I hope you’ll let me prove that I can be an asset on this mission.”

“That’s one you’re going to need to prove to me, Mr. Dean,” Taylor growled. “I don’t like being told who’s coming along on my op. I don’t like having to leave one of my men behind because I have to make room for a damned tourist. And I damned sure don’t like babysitting a fucking suit. You understand me?”