Hall scooted up to the top of the ledge and looked in the direction Martinelli was pointing. He recognized the Mi-8 Hip helicopter at once. It could carry a squad of eighteen fully equipped troops and a machine gun at either side door. He and Martinelli had watched plenty of helicopters moving between the sub base and the military airfield over at Severomorsk, to the southwest. Just VIPs, mostly press and government officials in for the memorial service. They were getting their important asses shuttled to their waiting planes and back to Moscow before the storm building to the north trapped them in this unforgiving, inhospitable outpost.

The Hip was coming right at them. This wasn’t some VIP shuttle.

“Tony, it’s time we vacated our little penthouse,” Hall muttered through clenched teeth. The satellite transmissions. They had detected something and were coming to see what it was. “Let’s head for the trees.”

The two SEALs grabbed their gear and scurried off the ledge, dropping into the undergrowth just as the Hip breasted the hill. Martinelli and Hall wormed their way through the snow and underbrush, trying to get to safe hiding places before anyone in the war bird saw them and opened fire. They split up and burrowed in like animals hiding from a circling hawk.

The Russian helicopter hovered just a couple of meters above the snow-covered hilltop. A squad of naval infantry jumped out the door to the ground. The armed troops spread out and moved forward, heading in the general direction of the ledge where the SEALs had been. They were being very careful, moving slowly, their weapons at the ready.

A hare, frightened by the helicopter’s racket, broke from its brushy hiding place and dashed across the stretch of snow in front of the troops. A fusillade of automatic fire chased the hapless rabbit, then churned it into the ground. There was little more left than bloody snow and a rag of raw meat.

These troops were jumpy. They meant business. That made them very dangerous.

Hall lifted his head and peered out from behind the birch gorse that hid his bulky form. Martinelli was ten meters to the left, lying under a larch tree. Hall could just make out the ugly black muzzle of Martinelli’s M-4, pointed at the backs of the squad as they made their way toward the overlook they had just abandoned.

The Hip moved a little farther down the slope to a small, level clearing, not a hundred yards from where the SEALs hid. The rotors slung bits of ice and snow, whipping them into a white cloud as it settled to the ground and the wheels sank into the knee-deep snow. The pilot likely figured the squad of naval infantry fanning out around the hilltop would be adequate protection for him to take a rest while they searched the bluff.