Ice War Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Logo

  Allied Combined Operation Group, Recon Team Angel

  Book One: Bering Strait

  Seal Team Two

  Above the Ice

  Heat

  Tank

  Arctic Tears

  Nokz’z

  Silent Angels

  Ivrulik

  Brogan

  Fezerker

  Book Two: Diomede

  The Briefcase

  Nukilik

  Monster Calls

  Tanks

  Lessons for the Dead

  The Bunker

  Melting the Ice

  Ambush

  Decoy

  Snow Angels

  Proof

  Elders

  The Briefcase

  War Planning

  Book Three: Ice War

  Aftermath

  Wilton

  The Hunt

  Spitfire

  Angels

  Attack Run

  The Run

  Spitfires

  The End

  Greater Love

  Russell

  Chisnall

  Glossary

  Congratulations

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Also in the series

  IT IS WINTER OF 2033 AND RECON TEAM ANGEL IS ON ITS MOST DANGEROUS MISSION YET.

  ON LITTLE DIOMEDE ISLAND – THE CONTROL CENTRE FOR THE BERING STRAIT – SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT. TWO SEAL TEAMS HAVE VANISHED, AND RECON TEAM ANGEL HAS BEEN SECRETED INTO THE FROZEN LANDSCAPE TO INVESTIGATE.

  IN THESE SUBARCTIC WASTELANDS, THEY WILL NEED EVERY OUNCE OF THEIR COURAGE AND DETERMINATION. IF BZADIAN FORCES MANAGE TO CROSS THE STRAIT AND ENTER THE AMERICAS, THEN THE PLANET WILL BE LOST.

  WHO WILL WIN THE ICE WAR?

  ALLIED COMBINED OPERATIONAL GROUP, RECON TEAM ANGEL

  The achievements of 4th Reconnaissance Team (designation: Angel) of the Allied Combined Operation Group (ACOG) 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, from November 2030 through to July 2035, during the Great Bzadian War, are well documented by scholars and historians.

  Less well known are the people behind the myth: the brave young men and women who earned the reputation, and the citations, for which Recon Team Angel became famous.

  These are their stories, pieced together from Post-Action Reports and interviews with the surviving members of the team. The young heroes whose skills, daring and determination changed the course of history.

  The members of this remarkable group changed over time, due to injury and death, as you would expect in a combat arena. By the end of the war, over seventy young people had served in the unit. They were ages fourteen to eighteen – small enough to pass themselves off as alien soldiers, but old enough and brave enough to undertake covert operations behind enemy lines.

  Six “Angels” were sent on a high-risk midwinter mission into the icy wilderness of the Bering Strait.

  ANGEL ONE: Lieutenant Trianne (Phantom) Price – New Zealand

  ANGEL TWO: Specialist Janos (Monster) Panyoczki – Hungary

  ANGEL THREE: Specialist Retha Barnard – Germany

  ANGEL FOUR: Specialist Dimitri (The Tsar) Nikolaevna – Russia

  ANGEL FIVE: Specialist Hayden Wall – United States of America

  ANGEL SIX: Private First Class Emile Attaya – Lebanon

  Many fought, and many fell, in pursuit of liberty for Earth. May their names live on in history.

  BOOK ONE – BERING STRAIT

  Fighting an Ice War is like turning the military clock back three hundred years.

  In the frozen wastelands of the Bering Strait, high-tech equipment fails, high-tensile steel shatters like glass, communications are intermittent or non-existent.

  This is war at its most primitive.

  It is war at its most brutal.

  – General Harry Whitehead

  SEAL TEAM TWO

  [TRANSCRIPT OF RADIO COMMUNICATION BETWEEN US NAVY SEAL TEAM TWO (CODENAME ICEFIRE) AND MISSION CONTROLLERS AT ACOG HEADQUARTERS, FEBRUARY 15, 2033.]

  [SCHEDULED RADIO CONTACT AT 0700 HOURS LOCAL TIME.]

  ICEFIRE ONE: Icefire Actual, this is Icefire One. How copy? Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Solid copy, Icefire One. What is your grid point reference? Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: Icefire Actual, we are in position at designated OP. Grid reference, Charlie November, four, three, five, niner, two, one. Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Clear copy, Icefire One. Do you have eyes on the island? Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: That’s an affirmative, Icefire Actual. Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Interrogative, Icefire One. Is there any sign of activity? Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: That’s also affirmative, Icefire Actual. Lights are on and there is movement inside. Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Can you confirm identity of the occupants? Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: Negative. It might be Goldilocks, or it might be the Big Bad Wolf. Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: What about enemy activity around the island? Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: Ah, that’s also a negative, Icefire Actual. We got nothing on the scopes and nothing eyes on. Looks all clear, but conditions are challenging. Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: What’s your visibility rating? Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: Visibility estimated at tango three. Lots of interference on the scopes also. We got a lot of bad TV here. Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Solid copy, Icefire One. You are cleared to move to grid reference Charlie November, four, three, five, niner, three, two. Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: Roger that, Icefire Actual. We are Oscar Mike to grid reference Charlie November, four, three, five, niner, three, two. Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Icefire One, hold position. I say again, hold your position. We have a transmission coming in from Overlord. They have had a break in the cloud cover and say they are picking up some kind of activity to your west. Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: What kind of activity, Icefire Actual? Scopes are still clear down here. Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Querying that now, Icefire One. Over.

  [TRANSMISSION BREAK: 23 SECONDS]

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. How copy? Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: Clear copy, Icefire Actual. What have you got for us? Over.

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Ah, no further information, Icefire One. Activity has ceased. They could not get a visual on it and could not identify a heat signature. There is no indication of enemy activity. I repeat, no enemy activity. It could have been wildlife. Over. You are re-cleared to move to grid reference Charlie November, four, three, five, niner, three, two. Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: [Garbled transmission, indeterminate noise]

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Ah, Icefire One, zero copy on your last. You are coming in weak and unreadable. Please repeat your transmission. Over.

  [TRANSMISSION BREAK: 16 SECONDS]

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. How copy? Over.

  ICEFIRE ONE: [Garbled transmission, indeterminate noise, possible screaming]

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. How copy? Over.

  [TRANSMISSION BREAK: 20 SECONDS]

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. How copy? Over.

  [TRANSMISSION BREAK: 20 SECONDS]

  ICEFIRE ACTUAL: Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. We are not receiving your transmissions. Please relocate to higher ground and resume radio traffic. Over.

  [TRANSMISSION ENDS AT 0707 HOURS]

  The recording finished. The silence in the room was colder than death.

  General Whitehead pushed the transcript away as if he was somehow offended by it.

  General Jake Russell, ACOG, Bering Strait Defe
nce Force, picked up his copy and folded it in half so he could no longer see the words.

  They were paper copies, an anachronism in an electronic age, but at the end of the meeting they would be collected and incinerated. There was no risk of an electronic copy finding its way into cyberspace.

  The room was oval in shape, as was the table in its centre. There were no windows. Here, deep in the heart of the Pentagon, security was far too tight for that. Nor were there air-conditioning ducts where microphones could be inserted. The room was swept every day for bugs.

  The walls were plain and white, no photos or artwork. They were bombproof. The table resembled wood, although it was made of a bulletproof composite fibre.

  Even the chairs, high-backed, comfortable and leather, had built-in airbags to deal with any sudden traumatic incident, like a missile attack.

  The workstations around the outside walls, where subordinates sat in a variety of uniforms, had no such luxuries. Their desks were plain, and their seating simple low-backed, secretarial-type, swivel chairs.

  Seated around the centre table were ten people, a mix of men and women. General Harry Whitehead, as head of ACOG, occupied pride of place at the top of the table. General Russell, second-in-command, was opposite him at the far end.

  “They were the second team we sent in,” Russell said. “Navy Seals again. Seal Team Two, specialists in Arctic warfare. Frostiest sons of bitches I ever met in my life. These guys have ice cubes for testicles. Kick ’em in the nuts and you break your toe. They don’t just survive, they thrive in the coldest, bleakest places on Earth.”

  “So where are they?” Whitehead asked.

  “It’s a dangerous place this time of year,” Russell said. “And in the middle of a blizzard …”

  Whitehead shook his head. “One team disappears, that could be a hole in the ice. Point man drags the rest of them in, bodies are never found. But two teams in a row …”

  “What were they doing there in the first place?”

  The speaker was Emily Gonzales, the new liaison officer from the ACOG Oversight Committee. Gonzales was a compact woman with bright blue eyes that shone with a glint of steel. The same steel was in her voice. “Why send in a Seal team, I’m sorry, two Seal teams, when you are still in contact with the station?”

  “Your predecessor was fully up to date with all these details,” Russell said. “Do we really have to go over this again?”

  Gonzales turned her head slowly and impaled him with those eyes. “If you want the approval of the oversight committee, you do,” she said.

  General Whitehead looked as though he was about to say something to that, but thought better of it.

  “I’ll answer the question,” Daniel Bilal said. A small, tidy man with a pencil-thin moustache, he had an air of calm, as though he was somehow removed from the tension in the room.

  Gonzales raised an eyebrow.

  “Daniel Bilal, Military Intelligence,” Bilal said.

  Gonzales made a note on her smartpad.

  “It’s a sensitive region,” Bilal said. “When the Pukes arrive, they’re going to come through the Bering Strait. And they’re going to come now, in midwinter, while the strait is frozen over. So if a butterfly farts in the strait at this time of year, we want to know what it had for lunch.”

  “Thank you for that lesson in basic geography and biology,” Gonzales said. “But that still doesn’t explain the need for the Seal teams.”

  Bilal was unfazed. “The commander of the station on Little Diomede was Jared Legrand,” he said. “A good man. Two days ago he fell into a crevasse. His body has not yet been recovered.”

  “How did it happen?” Gonzales asked.

  “He was checking sensors with one of the other crew,” Russell said. “It was an accident.”

  “The other crewmember, Nicholas Able, made it back alive,” Bilal said. “Legrand did not.”

  “Even so, there was no reason to suspect foul play,” Russell said.

  “Perhaps,” Bilal said.

  The others at the table all turned to look at him.

  “What haven’t you told us?” Russell asked.

  “Legrand was not a regular soldier,” Bilal said.

  “What kind of ‘not regular’?” Gonzales asked.

  “He was one of ours,” Bilal said.

  “Military intelligence.” Russell said it like it was some kind of a disease.

  “He was undercover,” Bilal said. “Making sure that nothing at that station could possibly go wrong.”

  “So he was a spy,” Russell said. “His death might still be an accident.”

  “And it might not,” Bilal said. “Can we afford that risk?”

  “Any sign that the station has been infiltrated by the Bzadians?” Gonzales asked.

  “All code signs were confirmed; no distress signals have been given,” Russell said. “Comprehensive background checks were done on the crew. They all came up clean. The remaining crew on Little Diomede are solid.”

  “Could they be under duress?” Gonzales asked. “Are there Bzadians hiding in the shadows with guns on our guys’ backs?”

  “There are duress codes,” Russell said. “None have been given. I repeat, there is no reason to think that anything is wrong out there.”

  “If it wasn’t in the Bering Strait, then I might agree with you and we might just wait for the storm to pass,” Bilal said. “But we don’t have that luxury. If we don’t stop the Bzadians on the ice, we sure as hell won’t be able to stop them when they hit dry land. We’ve spent the last year building up our arctic warfare capabilities exactly for that reason.”

  “How sure are you that they will attack?” Gonzales asked. “We beat them back once, and they haven’t tried again since.”

  “They weren’t ready,” Bilal said. “They learned their lesson in 2028. They would have attacked last year, but they didn’t have the fuel, thanks to Operation Magnum.”

  He stood and moved to the map. “To the west, Big Diomede Island. To the east, Little Diomede. Right bang in the middle of the strait. A couple of kilometres apart. Little Dio is bristling with every kind of detector you could imagine and controls a string of sensor buoys that extend for kilometres in each direction. It is also home to our control and maintenance centre here on the south-western tip. This gives the Pukes a big problem. If they try to sneak across the strait, we’ll know they’re coming. If they take out Little Dio, we’ll still know they’re coming. But if they could compromise our sensors in some way, and slip across under the cover of one of these ice storms, then the first thing we’d know about it could be when their battle tanks are spinning into Anchorage.”

  “Compromise our sensors?” Gonzales asked. “How?”

  “On Operation Magnum we replaced a couple of circuit boards in their SONRAD station and made our invasion fleet invisible to their scopes,” Bilal said. “Who’s to say they can’t do the same to us?”

  “What about Big Diomede?” Gonzales asked.

  Russell shook his head. “Deserted. It used to be a Russian outpost, but the Bzadians have never had a use for it. The only people who set foot on that rock are the local Inupiat people.”

  “You’re sure they’re Inupiat, and not Bzadians in disguise?” Gonzales asked.

  “We’re sure,” Bilal said. “And in any case, there are only a few of them, and they don’t go anywhere near Little Diomede.”

  “So what’s your plan?” Gonzales asked. “You’ve sent in two Seal teams and lost them both. If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, it seems to me that you’re going to run out of Seals.”

  “I agree,” Bilal said. “That’s the reason for this meeting. We want to send in the Angels.”

  “Recon Team Angel?” Gonzales asked.

  “The same,” Bilal said.

  “Children,” Russell said, shaking his head.

  “There would be Bzadians sitting in these chairs by now if not for those ‘children’,” Whitehead said.

  “You are
aware that the Angel program was shut down, along with the Demon program?” Gonzales asked.

  “I think that is common knowledge,” Bilal said. “But the personnel are still in barracks at Fort Carson. They could be reactivated in a matter of days.”

  “And why do you think a bunch of kids might succeed where highly trained Special Forces operatives have failed?” Gonzales asked.

  “If it’s holes in the ice, polar bears, or the abominable snowman, then they won’t,” Bilal said. “But if it’s enemy activity, then they just might. That’s what they do. Go behind enemy lines and pass themselves off as Bzadians.”

  “And this is our only option?” Gonzales asked.

  “No, not our only option,” Russell said.

  “So what’s your plan B?” Gonzales asked.

  “More Seals,” Bilal said.

  “Find another option,” Gonzales said. “The backlash against the Angels after the last debacle is not going away in a hurry. I’d never get this past the oversight committee.”

  “Helluva way to run a war,” Whitehead said. “Command by committee.”

  Gonzales ignored him.

  “In that case, we’ll have to wait for the storm to pass to get satellite and aerial recon again,” Bilal said. “And if that means we wake up in a few days time with aliens on our doorsteps, I want it on the record that you refused to reactivate the Angels.”

  “The Angels are off the table,” Gonzales said. “They’re not even trained for this kind of arctic stuff.” She studied her notes for a moment. “How long before we get a break in the weather?”

  “There’ll be a short window tomorrow,” Russell said. “We’ll get some satellite data.”

  “What are you looking for?” Gonzales asked.

  “Anything,” Bilal said. “Anything that gives us reason to believe that a million Bzadians are heading in our direction.”

  Bilal held the elevator door for Gonzales when they finished. The others were staying for another meeting.

  The elevator, although ornate, was armoured. It was the only entrance to the underground bunker.

  “Convincing enough for you?” Gonzales asked, when the heavy sheet metal doors had closed, cutting off all sound, as well as all sight, of the command centre.

  “You almost had me fooled,” Bilal said.