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:
Oppressed suddenly by a sense of urgency, Petrov got up and moved back through the short interior tunnel to the open hatch. He climbed down the ladder there, dropped awkwardly onto the hard-packed snow floor, and then hurried over to the controls for the camouflaged aircraft shelter’s large central door. It was a simple, small box dangling from a power cord connected to electric motors mounted near the roof. He flipped the single switch and heard the motors hum. For a few moments, he stood watching just to make sure nothing went wrong as they slowly winched the hangar’s fabric covering upward.
In the moonlight, far across the gleaming white surface of his improvised runway, flames still danced amid the burning wreckage of the tent camp he’d set ablaze. A thick column of oily black smoke, lit from the inside by flickering sparks crackling off the gasoline-fed fire, curled away on the wind.
And then Petrov’s eyes widened in shock. A camouflaged military helicopter had just clattered straight through the smoke. Sleek-nosed, with a four-bladed main rotor, it was already flaring out to land close to the hangar. Someone had found him! He whirled around and scrambled under the PAK-DA bomber’s broad, blended wing to get back to the hatch.
Aboard the Ka-60 Kosatka helicopter, Flynn snapped an order to Hynes. He and the square-shouldered enlisted man were the only Americans aboard. He’d been forced to leave the other three able-bodied troops under his command, Vucovich, Kim, and Santarelli, behind at the spur to do their best to keep the wounded and injured alive until he could get back to them. “Keep the crew covered, Cole. Once we’re down, this bird doesn’t go anywhere without my say-so!”
The Army PFC nodded. “You got it, sir. One twitch I don’t like and both of these guys will end up splattered across that windshield.” He had the Russian-made AKM he’d picked up back on the battlefield angled to sweep the entire cockpit at the slightest sign of trouble from either of the helicopter’s two pilots. Fortunately, the Russian aviators still seemed to be in a state of shock at how easily the tables had been turned on them. When Flynn and Hynes came hurrying out of the darkness, they’d seen what they’d expected to see — two Spetsnaz commandos coming to report the destruction of the American force. Instead, they’d suddenly had assault rifles shoved in their faces and found out the hard way that they were now prisoners.
Once Flynn checked out this burning wilderness camp where no camp should be, he planned to use the captured helicopter to fly his men and the wounded Russian survivors south to Fairbanks, the nearest place with an emergency trauma center. With a little luck, he hoped, the blizzard would have eased up enough by then to make the flight possible. If not, some of the more severely injured would be dead before too long.
So time was short, he reminded himself sharply. But he still needed to find out what the hell was going on here. Too many men had died for him to walk away from here without answers. Not waiting any longer, he slammed the Ka-60’s side door wide open and dropped out onto the ground — ducking his head against a howling torrent of rotor-blown snow and ice.
Cradling his own captured AKM rifle, Flynn moved out from under the spinning blades… and then stopped dead, taken completely by surprise at what he saw ahead of him. They’d landed about fifty yards from the only intact structure left, a very large fabric tent of some kind. It was a faded white that matched the snow-covered terrain, and draped in camouflage netting to break up its silhouette. But the whole front of the tent had just rolled upward, allowing him to see the huge blended-wing aircraft hidden inside.
“Jesus Christ,” Flynn muttered to himself, staggered by the sheer size of this plane. It was as big as a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and shaped pretty much the same way. But it was just as obviously not an American aircraft design. Which meant it belonged to the Russians. His eyes narrowed in speculation. What kind of war game was Moscow playing here? Why secretly station a brand-new strategic bomber of some kind — for this could be nothing else — so deep inside American territory?
He felt a shiver down his spine. Whatever the reason, he was pretty sure it was nothing good, at least not from an American perspective. For a split second, Flynn stood frozen in place, remembering the earlier, explicit orders relayed to him from the Pentagon: Observe and report any unidentified aircraft on the ground, but under no circumstances take any other action without further instructions. Then he shook his head decisively. Yeah, screw that, he thought with a mental shrug. There was no way he was just going to sit back and watch the Russians finish whatever they were up to here, because he could hear that stealth bomber’s engines spooling up right now.
Besides, Flynn asked himself with a sudden grin, what more could the spooks and the Joint Chiefs do to him for disobeying orders? Exile him to the back end of Alaska again?
He started to trot across the snow toward the hangar. But then he spotted movement under the aircraft’s fuselage. A man in one of those pale blue Russian flight suits — the same kind worn by Mavrichev, the dead general they’d found — was already climbing up a short crew ladder into the bomber.
Without hesitating, Flynn raised the AKM rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. A clump of snow kicked up under the fuselage. Too low. He raised his aim slightly and squeezed off several more shots. This time he saw sparks cascading off the metal ladder. But the crewman he’d been shooting at had already disappeared through the open hatch.
Flynn lowered his weapon and sprinted toward the hangar, acting almost entirely on instinct. He couldn’t tell if he’d scored any hits on that guy, but whether he had or not didn’t seem to matter. Somebody was still inside that Russian stealth aircraft, and unless he wanted to just stand here and watch it fly away, he needed to get a lot closer.
Gritting his teeth in pain, Petrov dragged himself up the ladder and flopped over onto the deck. His right arm, torn open by a rifle round, now hung useless at his side. Straining, he struggled back to his feet. But when he tried to turn the manual hatch control, he almost blacked out.
Giving up with a muttered curse, he reeled into the cockpit and dropped into his pilot’s seat. Sickeningly aware of the hot blood soaking the sleeve of his flight suit, Petrov reached out with his left hand and quickly brought up a menu on one of the MFDs. Blurry shapes appeared, and he tapped an icon that would retract the ladder and close and seal the belly hatch. With a sigh, he released the brakes and sat back in a daze — feeling the PAK-DA bomber start its programmed takeoff roll.
Flynn saw the big aircraft lurch into motion, lumbering forward out of the tentlike hangar, accompanied by a steadily increasing roar from its jet engines. The crew ladder extending from its hatch had started to slide upward and out of sight. “No fucking way,” he snarled. He threw the rifle aside, lowered his head, and ran even faster, plunging across the snow with rapidly lengthening strides.
Moving all out now, he raced under the bomber’s fuselage — heading for the open hatch he’d seen. It was already swinging shut. Frantically, he jumped high, caught hold of the coaming, and hauled himself up through a rapidly narrowing gap. He wriggled away onto a metal deck just as the hatch slammed shut and latched tight behind him. From the vibration and noise all around him, it was clear that the Russian aircraft was still moving… bouncing up and down as it trundled onto a rough runway created out of compacted snow and ice.
Oh, smooth move, Flynn thought wryly. He’d just managed to scramble aboard an enemy aircraft that was obviously getting ready to take off. That was all well and good, except that his personal piloting skills had topped somewhere around the model airplane stage. Maybe he should have stopped to think about this whole idea first. Now what was he supposed to do?