Chapter 6
The Chinese ship rose up from the ice like a red castle in a field of white.
The Xue Hong had boxy lines and a towering rectangular superstructure that looked like someone had plucked a ten-story building from the middle of a crowded city and placed it onto the ship.
The monolithic block contained the crew quarters and the ship’s main operating spaces.
The bridge at the top was covered in a forest of antennas, satellite dishes, and radar housings.
Its broad windows were canted downward. As the ship was designed to cruise through endless floes of ice, these windows were heated, polarized, and tinted a reflective bronze like a set of giant ski goggles designed to keep the crew from going snow blind.
A long deck ran out behind the main structure, extending toward the stern.
An octagonal crown at the far end was painted green, with a gigantic yellow circle around the edge.
Planted squarely in the middle of this circle was a midsize helicopter, its windows, engine intakes, and rotor blades covered with removable plastic shields to keep the snow and ice from accumulating on them.
At the stern, a pair of red cranes had been swung outboard, where they acted as elevators, transporting vehicles, men, and equipment down to the ice and back up again as needed.
Inside the warm bridge, a trio of uniformed officers waited pensively. At various times they gazed through binoculars at the men on the ice or the empty sky. But there was nothing to see, not on radar or with the human eye. Nothing but endless frozen water and a cobalt-blue sky.
Two of the men wore the naval uniforms of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, PLAN. The third wore winter camouflage fatigues in a white and gray pattern.
“I don’t like this,” the first man said, lowering his binoculars.
He was a stocky man in his late fifties with a broad, square face and steel-gray hair.
He wore the uniform of a senior captain.
The icebreaker was his ship. But the mission was being run by another. “We shouldn’t be waiting like this.”
Beside the captain stood a willowy man with long arms and legs.
Rear Admiral Yang Li was elegant and composed.
His rank was impressive for his age, as he was only forty-five, almost ten years younger than the captain, but his ambition was to reach even more important positions.
“Our orders from the high command are to remain on station,” he said calmly.
“We shall do so until otherwise directed.”
By stating it this way, he took none of the blame for those orders. He gave no hint what he thought of them.
“What is the high command waiting for?” the captain grumbled. “It’s been twenty-eight hours. The American aircraft couldn’t have remained aloft for more than three. It’s not coming.”
Admiral Li didn’t appreciate the captain’s tone, though he actually agreed with the sentiment.
They had come here to meet the American C-17, creating a runway on the ice.
The men had worked without stopping for the better part of two days, taking chainsaws and flamethrowers to the uneven parts of the ice, cutting it away or melting it flat.
They’d laid fifty tons of steel mats down and then used snowmaking equipment and melted ice water to cover it and seal it in place.
Their work had produced five thousand feet of smooth, reenforced ice, lined with low-intensity lights to help the American pilot see it and make a safe landing.
As a precaution, Li had ordered a gigantic berm built up at the far end, in case the American overshot the runway or proved unable to stop.
The sixty-foot pile of snow and ice loomed in the distance.
But all of it was for naught. Aside from a few of the ship’s crew climbing the hill and sliding down it on their backs, none of the handiwork had been put to use.
After a certain period of time, it had become obvious to everyone that the aircraft was not coming.
A few hours later it became a mathematical impossibility.
The plane simply could no longer be airborne.
But the men above Li, those in the highest levels of command, which he hoped to join one day, felt otherwise.
They insisted, nonsensically, that the plane would still arrive.
When Li pressed them, they offered information from a source who advised that the plane had landed elsewhere to refuel and was waiting for nightfall to make the trip out to the ice.
The admiral considered the likelihood of that happening to be slim. They might as well have been hoping for sea nymphs to bring it to them. But as he hoped to join the high command one day, he’d chosen not to argue. He decided to share what he’d been told.
“Our superiors believe the American jet put down at a remote airfield, where it has been hangared and refueled. We only have to wait for nightfall to see it arrive.”
The captain shook his head in disbelief. “Where could such drivel possibly come from?” he asked, failing to hide his exasperation. “The most wishful of wishful thinking.”
“The high command hasn’t chosen to share the source of their information with me,” the admiral said truthfully. “Wherever it came from our orders are the same. We wait until they tell us otherwise. We keep the runway in working condition.”
The captain scowled, failing to hide his irritation. “Every minute we stay here we risk being discovered.”
Before the admiral could answer, the third man in the trio came over to join the conversation. “Discovered doing what, exactly?”
Gushan was a large figure with thick, black hair and a roundish face. He was slightly overweight, and had the look of a soft-living, mid-forties male who’d spent too much time on his couch and not enough time in a gymnasium.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Gushan was a hardened warrior, a black belt in several martial arts disciplines, a marksman, and a former wrestling champion who chose the military rather than a life training for Olympic glory.
Over the last twenty years, he’d led several different Special Forces groups.
He’d personally swum to and scouted beaches in Taiwan for an inevitable invasion.
He’d traced down traitors and terrorists.
He’d led missions into the disputed border region of India.
His reputation alone was enough to make both Li and the captain listen. But if they thought twice about hearing him out, the fact that his father sat in the upper echelons of power in Beijing kept them on their toes.
“Until the American plane appears out of the mist,” Gushan continued in a soothing voice, “we’re merely a group of scientists, setting up various experiments before the winter sets in.”
“And how do you explain a half mile of metal grating to reenforce and smooth the ice?” the captain asked.
“We won’t have to explain it to anyone,” Gushan replied. “No one owns this ice. But if anyone should ask, it’s merely an experiment to see if this type of grating can be used to keep the sea ice from breaking up. A method to reduce the damage caused by global warming.”
For a man known to be ferocious and lethal, Gushan’s voice was surprisingly pleasant. The captain was quickly soothed by his words.
“I suppose you’re right,” the captain said. “Either way, I need to get our men back out on the ice. The wind is causing the pack to shift. If this plane does arrive, we don’t want it tearing itself apart on a jagged ridge.”
The captain posed the question to Gushan as if he could give the order, but Gushan chose not to answer, instead he diplomatically pivoted toward Admiral Li.
Li appreciated that. “Have them check the runway and the nets,” he ordered. “Just in case.”
As the captain moved off to discuss the work detail with his executive officer, Li turned to Gushan.
“Your father’s political finesse did not skip a generation,” he began.
“But the captain is worrying for nothing. At best the Americans would protest our presence here, rattle on about more sanctions.”
It was a scoffing boast; the admiral was grinning as he made it.
Gushan’s face reflected nothing of the admiral’s bluster. “With all due respect, you should not kid yourself, Admiral. Nine Americans are dead aboard that plane—wherever it is. Their military is embarrassed and angry.”
“We’re not responsible for those deaths,” Li said. “We’re merely playing the hand that was dealt.”
“Of course,” Gushan said. “But the Americans won’t see it that way.
This plane is the most important military project they’ve undertaken in decades.
It means supremacy to them. Or to us. It is a prize that will reshape the entire world.
The Americans will not react with restraint if they find us with it. ”
The admiral found the words sobering. But he showed no weakness. “Neither will we. Should the Americans attempt to interfere with us, you and your men will kill them. There will be no quarter given in this game. Not until the prize is safely brought to Beijing.”