Contents ( 55)
- In Memoriam
- Epigraph
- Cast of Characters
- Americans
- Russians
- Canadian
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Weapons and Acronyms
- Weapons
- Acronyms
- About the Author
- Also by Dale Brown
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
“Sir? What’s the problem?” Takirak asked, sounding puzzled.
Still frowning hugely, Flynn looked across the corpse at the noncom. “Our ice man here just happens to be the commander of Russia’s Long-Range Aviation Force, Sergeant,” he explained. “The head of their whole goddamned strategic bomber force.”
He squatted back on his haunches, thinking fast. How the hell would a senior Russian Air Force commander end up all the way out here in the middle of nowhere in the first place? Let alone dead with a bullet wound in the back? And riding a snow machine manufactured in America or Canada? He shook his head. Nothing about this weird situation jibed with the briefing he’d been given about a downed Tu-142 reconnaissance aircraft and the Su-35 and F-22 fighters. He said as much out loud.
“Maybe this Mavrichev bailed out of that Russian recon plane before it crashed?” Takirak suggested.
“And you think he just happened to land right next to a working snow machine?” Flynn said, not hiding his skepticism. “Dead-smack in the middle of a few million acres of totally uninhabited wilderness?”
“There are a couple of lone-wolf trappers working parts of the refuge. Or at least there used to be,” Takirak said stubbornly. “And those guys can get mighty trigger-happy if they think someone’s stealing from them. If one of ’em saw this Russian general zooming off on his snow machine, he’d shoot him dead in a heartbeat.”
Flynn stared at him in surprise. He’d expected more from the sergeant’s common sense and intelligence. The other man had to know how unlikely his theory sounded. “Pretty thin odds on that, Andy,” he commented dryly. “Somewhere around a billion-to-one against, I’d guess.”
“Well, he had to come from somewhere, didn’t he?” Takirak pointed out, with a shrug. “I mean, it’s not like he just fell out of an empty sky.” He shook his head. “Look, Captain, I agree this is odd. But the guy’s dead. He’s not a threat, and he’s sure not going anywhere. Right now, we’ve got bigger problems on our plate—between Pedersen’s busted leg and finding those other downed aircraft before the weather closes in on us again.”
Flynn frowned. Part of him agreed with the older man. But only part. The other half of his mind was remembering what General Rosenthal had said about maybe coming across an intact aircraft on the ground. He had a sudden conviction that the two things—this mystery plane and their frozen corpse—must be connected somehow. Which made the dead man potentially far more important than Takirak seemed to want to believe. He looked up. “We still need to call this in, Andy. Pronto.”
“If you say so, Captain,” the sergeant said dubiously. He eyed their surroundings. “Could be tough to get a connection around here, though,” he warned. “Got a lot of high ground in the way that might block our link to the satellite.” With obvious and surprising reluctance, he went through the process of setting up the radio and its small dish antenna.