Arctic Storm Rising
- Автор: Браун Дейл
- Серия: Nick Flynn #1
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 9780063015050
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Arctic Storm Rising». Краткое содержание книги:
Chao nodded. “That’s almost certain, Ms. Reynolds.” She sighed. “What’s much less certain is whether this Russian special forces operation is actually at an end.”
“Meaning what?” Murphy asked.
“Meaning that we cannot be sure yet that they had only one missile team deployed outside Elmendorf-Richardson,” she said bluntly. With the press of another key, she brought up a map hurriedly put together by her operations directorate staff experts. It showed all the areas around the air base where concealed enemy SAM teams might reasonably hope to take a shot at aircraft and helicopters while they were most vulnerable — at takeoff, on landing, and in the early stages of any flight.
A quick study of this map elicited dismayed-sounding murmurs from all of the military professionals present.
Chao nodded. “You see the point.” She turned to Taylor, Murphy, and Reynolds, the only three civilians now allowed into this cavernous war room, and explained. “Even using units from the Army and Army National Guard, it will take us a minimum of several hours to search and secure these areas. And until we’ve done that, launching another search-and-rescue mission toward those crash sites would be like ordering our people to play Russian roulette.”
“Literally, in this case,” Taylor said grimly.
“I’m afraid so,” the rear admiral agreed.
“But by the time our troops manage to secure the base perimeter against a missile ambush—” Murphy began.
“That storm front will be directly overhead,” Chao confirmed. “Making further flight operations impossible until the weather clears.”
Miranda Reynolds scowled. “Don’t we have any other assets — troops, aircraft, something, for God’s sake — anywhere else in Alaska we could send into the Brooks Range to look for those downed aircraft… and the stealth bomber?” Her fingers drummed nervously on the conference table. “Just because we’ve paid Petrov’s price doesn’t mean Moscow’s going to give up on getting the PAK-DA back. And if the Russians beat us to the punch while we’re sitting on our asses waiting for better weather conditions, we’ve just thrown away billions of dollars and a bunch of lives for nothing!”
In answer, Chao brought up another map, this one centered on northern Alaska. “My staff has found one possibility,” she said quietly. Her fingers touched a control, highlighting Kaktovik and Barter Island. “There’s a Joint Force security team deployed here, at one of our North Warning System’s long-range radar stations. We’ve checked the records and all the personnel attached to this force have parachute training. In fact, they’ve recently completed a practice jump.”
Neary shook his head. “All the airborne training in the world’s no good without a plane to jump from. And with that blizzard socking in both Eielson and Elmendorf-Richardson, we’re screwed on that front.”
“Not quite, sir,” Chao said coolly. “There’s an Air National Guard HC-130J on the ground now at Barter Island.”
The Air Force chief of staff stared at her. “On the ground there? Why?”
“Because it lost an engine in-flight and had to make an emergency landing,” she answered. “But we’ve checked the specifications and that Super Hercules is rated to fly, even with a dud engine.”
“You’d be asking the flight crew to take a hell of a risk,” Neary commented. “Not to mention the troops you’re asking to parachute into the middle of nowhere in the tail end of a blizzard.”
Miranda Reynolds broke in impatiently. “Everything about this mess involves risk. I say we tell them to go.” She looked at Chao. “Who’s in charge of this security team?”
The rear admiral smiled oddly at her. “A U.S. Air Force officer it appears that your agency has had some dealings with in the not-so-distant past, Ms. Reynolds. The officer in question is a certain Captain Nicholas Flynn.”
Reynolds’s mouth fell open in consternation. “You’re kidding me,” she managed to get out at last.
Chao shook her head, still smiling wryly. “No, Ms. Reynolds,” she said. “I most certainly am not.”
Thirty-One
Captain Nick Flynn unzipped his parka and stripped off his thick gloves as he sat down at the dining area table set aside for his unit’s computers and other electronic gear. He’d just been called in from a duty shift outside the radar station, freezing his ass off on outpost duty. Apparently, an encrypted message had just arrived over their link to Alaskan Command — one that only he could read.
After blowing on his hands to restore some semblance of feeling, he entered the necessary codes. Lines of text and embedded maps and images appeared on the screen. It was a task order assigning them a new mission. But any faint hope that he could stand his unit down for some much-needed rest vanished the moment he read the message header. Good news did not carry the immediate precedence designator. That was almost always reserved for situations involving serious military matters.
His mouth tightened as he read further. What the brass wanted them to do now went way beyond ordinary crazy. In fact, it was off-the-charts lunacy. Stripping out all the happy talk about achieving vitally important national security objectives, the operations staff officers cozily forted up at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson expected Flynn and his men to parachute deep into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Then, assuming they survived this hazardous nighttime drop, they were supposed to begin an immediate search-and-rescue operation — hunting for combat aircraft, two American F-22s, a big Russian Tu-142 recon plane, and two more Su-35 fighters, which had crashed somewhere among those jagged peaks and rocky valleys during an air intercept that had gone horribly wrong.
He shook his head angrily. There was no way in hell he would ask his soldiers and airmen to commit suicide chasing some staff weenie’s whim, not without pushing back as hard as he dared first. Without waiting to start second-guessing himself, Flynn stabbed the screen icon that would open a direct, secure video connection to Anchorage.
There was a moment’s delay while his signal was uplinked through a satellite and stabilized, and then a new window opened on-screen. A senior Army noncom looked back out of it at Flynn. “Yes, sir?” the NCO asked.
“This is Captain Flynn at Barter Island. I need to talk to—”
“Wait one, sir,” the other man interrupted. “I’m switching you to General Rosenthal, now.”
Flynn felt his eyebrows go up. Lieutenant General David Rosenthal was the top dog, the overall commander for every airman, soldier, sailor, and member of the Space Force based in Alaska. And despite that, he’d apparently just been sitting around anticipating this video call from a junior officer posted to the back end of nowhere? This deal looked worse and worse.
Rosenthal’s lean, squared-jawed visage flickered onto the screen. “Good afternoon, Captain. I assume you’ve got some questions about your orders?”
Flynn stiffened. “Not exactly questions, sir.”
The general smiled dryly. “More like a protest, then. As in, what kind of stupid SOB dreamed up this nightmare and dumped it in your undeserving lap?”
Despite his anger, Flynn felt an answering ironic grin flit across his own face. “Not exactly in those words, sir. But I guess that’s basically the gist of it.” He leaned a little closer to the screen. “Look, General, between the crappy weather and the prevailing winter darkness, asking my guys to make a parachute drop into those mountains goes way beyond the call of duty. Risk is one thing. They all signed on the dotted line when they enlisted. But this is more like a kamikaze run. My troops aren’t even trained for combat search-and-rescue operations.”