“I hear you.” So had every man in the SEAL unit preparing to board the ASDS, plus Captain Grenville and Lieutenant Commander Hartwell and three enlisted ratings helping the SEALs with their gear. This was going to be tougher than Dean had expected. “You will not need to babysit me.”

Taylor ignored him. “You will be responsible for your own equipment. And you will follow my orders to the exact letter. Copy?”

“Copy,” Charlie Dean said, his irritation evident in his voice.

“All right. Just so we understand one another. You’d better get suited up, suit.”

“I think that’s enough tantrum, Mr. Taylor,” said the captain. “And please try to remember that you’re just a fucking lieutenant.”

That comment was a conversation stopper. “Yes, sir,” Taylor replied in a normal tone of voice.

They had a combat dry suit for Dean, a one-size-fits-almost-all worn over warm clothing. Unlike a standard wet suit, which allows water from the outside to get in between skin and suit and become warm with body heat, the dry suit worked by keeping cold water out. It was colored in a gray and white camo pattern that would be conspicuous on the ice but help the wearer blend in on board a gray-painted ship. The rig included a combat vest, boots, and a hood. Dean decided that if he actually fell into the water, the weight of his fashion statement was going to take him straight to the bottom.

“We won’t be doing a lot of swimming,” Taylor told him. “The dry suit should keep you alive for the swim up from the ASDS to the ship. Just stick close, do what you’re told, and be ready to hotfoot it up the boarding ladder when we tell you.”

“In broad daylight?” Dean asked.

“This here’s the land of the midnight sun, cupcake. It’s always broad daylight, at least for the next few months. But Captain Grenville here is going to create a small diversion for us.”

Grenville nodded. “We’ll be listening for our cue through our sonar system. When we get it, we’ll surface alongside the Lebedev, about a hundred yards off her port side. That should keep them looking at us and not at you, and should also mask any noise you make going aboard.”

“After that,” Taylor added, “it’s all up to us. Your boss said you have some gadgets that will help. Whatcha got?”

Dean was kneeling at the pack he’d brought on board, uncasing a bulky weapon with an oversized muzzle and a rotary cylinder. Reaching into an ammo case, he pulled out a blunt projectile.

“Forty mike-mike grenades?” one of the SEALs said with a dark chuckle. “Ain’t nothing new about those.”

“There is about this one,” Dean said. “It’s a tiny UAV. Has a camera in it that will send live-feed video, both visible light and infrared. It’ll help us keep track of where the bad guys are, and where our people might be.”

“I was told the hostages are on the main deck, in the aft superstructure,” Taylor said.

“And they might get moved as soon as the Russians know we’re on deck.”

Taylor nodded. “Okay, Dean. Maybe you’re a keeper after all. Just stay the fuck out of our way, right?”

“Ooh-rah,” Dean replied, the battle cry of the Marines.

“Shit, man,” Taylor said, grinning. “This is the Navy SEALs. It’s hoo-yah!”

The SEALs began filing into the airlock and up the waiting ladder.

ASDS-1 Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1010 hours, GMT-12

IT WAS, DEAN THOUGHT, LIKE being locked in a steel closet.

And fifteen Navy SEALs were locked inside with him.

The Advanced SEAL Delivery System was the latest evolution in using miniature submersibles to handle covert insertions of special operations teams. For decades, there’d been fierce turf battles between Navy SpecOps and the submarine force over the design of such craft.

The original SDVs, or SEAL Delivery Vehicles, had been wet subs, meaning that the SEALs on board rode in a water-filled compartment. After hours inside their cramped conveyance, they arrived at the Area of Operations cold, wet, and tired-a no-good way to begin a critical covert op. Requests for dry delivery vehicles had repeatedly been scotched by the submarine service, which insisted that all such vessels be under its control.

Eventually, though, the ASDS had surfaced as a compromise. In the forward compartment, Dean knew, were two men, a pilot/commander who was a Navy submariner and a SEAL copilot who handled navigation and sonar. It was an awkward division of responsibility, at times, but the two officers had cross-trained in each other’s jobs in case one or the other was incapacitated.

The aft compartment was large enough-just-for sixteen men and their weapons and equipment, and it had the added capability of becoming a hyperbaric chamber if there was a diving medical emergency. Between the two compartments was a spherical lock-out chamber with watertight doors above and below, and fore and aft. The design, drawn from the earlier DRSV deep-rescue submersibles, allowed the ASDS to dock with a variety of submarines, or for swimmers to exit or enter the minisub while it was underwater.

Dean sat on the narrow bench, his knees touching the knees of the SEAL sitting opposite him, his shoulders pressed against those of the men to either side. His weapon, ammo, and the UAV controller were inside a watertight pouch resting on the deck beneath his feet. Each man wore a Dräger rebreather unit on his chest, and held in gloved hands a full-face mask that included built-in short-range radio transceivers. Short flippers were strapped on over their boots and would be discarded as soon as they reached the Lebedev.

Bathed in the sullen red light illuminating the narrow chamber, Taylor was standing at the forward end of the compartment, his hand pressed against the side of his head, listening to a small receiver plugged into his ear. “Okay, men,” Taylor said after listening intently. “We’re passing under the Lebedev. Remember the op plan. Teams two and four, deck security. Team three, secure the hostages. Team one, water security and tactical reserve, once we’re on deck. Dean, you’re team one, with me. Everyone with me?”

He was answered in a subdued chorus of affirmatives. The Lebedev almost certainly had hydrophones in the water that would pick up loud noises, at least, so conversation was kept low and to a minimum.

“Okay,” Taylor continued. “Masks on!”

Dean pulled the diving mask on over his head, making sure the straps were tight at the back. The faceplate was triangular, covering his mouth as well as his nose and eyes. He checked the controls on his rebreather pack; air was flowing, though it had a faintly bitter chemical taste to it.

“Radio check,” Taylor’s voice said in Dean’s ear. “Sound off. One-one, okay.”

“One-two, right.”

“One-three, check.”

The SEALs ran down the line, identifying themselves by fire-team number. Each of them wore a tightly fitting hood over his head, with a short-range radio receiver next to the ear, a microphone pressed up against the throat. They would be able to talk while underwater.

“One-four, okay,” Dean said.

“Two-one, ready to rock.”

There were no portholes, of course, or TV monitors. Dean was aware of the faint vibration through the deck and the curved bulkhead at his back as the craft’s powerful electric motor drove it forward. Moments later, the deck tilted up sharply, and he felt the vibrations lessen.

“We’re at ten to twenty feet,” Taylor told them. “Twenty yards off the Lebedev’s starboard side. Commander Hartwell says we’re sending the signal now.”

Lieutenant Commander Hartwell was the SEAL officer forward, acting as copilot, navigator, and sonar operator for the ASDS. A coded sonar chirp would be easily picked up through the Ohio’s new Lockheed Martin AN/BQQ-10(V4) sonar-processing system, alerting the sub that it was time to surface and commence the diversion.