Arctic Drift Part 46

52

KUGLUKTUK, FORMERLY CALLED COPPERMINE after an adjacent river, is a small trading town built on the banks of Coronation Gulf. Situated on the northern coast of Canada's Nunavut province, it is one of just a handful of populated havens lying north of the Arctic Circle.

It was the deepwater port offerings that attracted Mitch.e.l.l Goyette to Kugluktuk. Kugluktuk represented the closest port facility to the Athabasca oil sand fields in Alberta, and Goyette invested heavily in order to stage a terminus for exporting his unrefined bitumen. Cheaply acquiring a little-used rail line from Athabasca to Yellowknife, he financed the expansion of the line north to Kugluktuk. With special snow-clearing locomotives leading the way, a long string of tank cars transported twenty-five thousand barrels of bitumen on every trip. The valuable heavy oil was then off-loaded onto Goyette's mammoth barges and sent across the Pacific to China, where a tidy profit awaited.

With the next railroad shipment several days away, Goyette's Athabasca Shipping Company rail terminus sat ghostly quiet. The icebreaker Otok sat at the dock, an empty barge tied to its stern. Two more of the ma.s.sive barges were moored out in the bay, riding high above their waterlines. Only the rhythmic pumping of a fuel line filling the icebreaker's tanks with diesel fuel gave an indication that the boat and dock were not completely deserted.

No such illusions were evident inside the ship, where an engaged crew made advance preparations for departing port. Seated inside the ship's wardroom, Clay Zak twirled a gla.s.s of bourbon over crushed ice as he examined a large chart of the Royal Geographical Society Islands. Sitting across from Zak was the Otok's captain, a puffy-faced man with gray hair cut close to the scalp.

"We'll be refueled shortly," the captain said in a heavy voice.

"I have no desire to spend any more of my life in Kugluktuk than necessary," Zak replied. "We leave at daybreak. It looks to be about six hundred kilometers to the Royal Geographical Society Islands," he said, looking up from the chart.

The skipper nodded. "Ice reports are clear all the way to King William Island and beyond, and this is a fast ship. We'll be there easily in about a day's sail."

Zak took a sip of his bourbon. His hastily arranged trip to the Arctic had been undertaken without a detailed plan, which made him uncomfortable. But there was little to go wrong. He would drop a team of Goyette's geologists on the north coast of the main island to search for the ruthenium mine, while he examined the Mid-America mining operations in the south. If necessary, he would put Mid-America out of business with the aid of an armed team of security specialists he had brought aboard, along with enough explosives to detonate half the island.

A door to the wardroom suddenly burst open, and a man in black fatigues and parka walked hurriedly over to Zak. He had an a.s.sault rifle strapped to his shoulder and carried a bulky pair of night vision binoculars in one hand.

"Sir, two rubber boats approached from the bay and tied up at the dock just astern of the barge. I counted seven men in total," he said, slightly out of breath.

Zak glanced from the man's binoculars to a bulkhead clock, which read half past midnight.

"Were they armed?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. They moved past the loading facility and onto the adjacent public dock before I lost sight of them."

"They're after the Polar Dawn," the captain said excitedly. "They must be Americans."

The Polar Dawn was docked only a few hundred feet away. Zak had noticed a throng of locals crowding around the American cutter when he had first arrived in Kugluktuk. He walked down and had a look for himself at the captured vessel. It was teeming with Mounties and Navy guards. There was no way that seven men would be able to retake the ship.

"No, they're here for the crew," Zak said, not knowing the ship's crew was being held in the old fish house just a stone's throw away. A devious smile crept slowly across his face. "Very kind of them to drop by. I think they will be a fine aid in ridding us of the Mid-America Mining Company."

"I don't understand," the captain said.

"Understand this," Zak said, rising to his feet. "There's been a change in plans. We depart within the hour."

With the mercenary in tow, he abruptly marched out of the room.

53

RICK ROMAN DUCKED BEHIND A PAIR OF EMPTY fuel drums and looked at his watch. The luminescent dial read 12:45. They were twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Humping the Zodiacs down to the water's edge the night before was going to pay dividends now, he thought. They'd be able to make a clean evacuation without fear of losing the cover of darkness.

So far, the mission had gone flawlessly. With a six-man team, he had set off in the Zodiacs just before midnight, right after the sun had finally made its brief retreat beneath the horizon. Powered by electric motors, the inflatable boats had silently crossed the gulf into the mouth of the Coppermine River and quietly tied up at the Athabasca Shipping Company's marine dock. The satellite photos Roman carried with him had showed that the dock was empty seventy-two hours earlier. A large tug cabled to an even-larger barge now occupied the waterfront, but both vessels appeared empty and the dock deserted. Farther down the quay, he could see the Polar Dawn, brightly illuminated by the dock lights. Even at the late hour, he could see guards pacing her deck, moving ceaselessly in an effort to keep warm.

Roman turned his attention to a faded white building barely thirty yards in front of him. Intelligence reports had indicated it was the holding cell for the Coast Guard ship's crew. Judging by the lone Mountie standing in the doorway, the prospects still looked good. Roman had a.s.sumed that the men would be lightly guarded and he was right. The harsh surrounding environment was enough of a deterrent for escape, let alone the six-hundred-and-fifty-mile distance to the Alaskan border.

A low voice suddenly whispered through his communications headset.

"Guppies are in the pond. I repeat, guppies are in the pond."

It was Bojorquez, confirming that he had viewed the captives through a small window at the side of the dilapidated building.

"Teams in position?" Roman whispered into his mouthpiece.

"Mutt is in position," replied Bojorquez.

"Jeff is in position," came a second voice.

Roman glanced at his watch again. The rescue planes would touch down on the ice runway in ninety minutes. It was plenty of time to get the Polar Dawn's crew across the bay and up to the airfield. Maybe even too much time.

He took a final look up and down the dock, finding no signs of life in either direction. Taking a deep breath, he radioed his orders.

"Commence go in ninety seconds."

Then he sat back and prayed that their luck would hold.

CAPTAIN MURDOCK WAS SITTING on a concrete block smoking a cigarette when he heard a loud thump at the rear of the building. Most of his crewmen were asleep in their cots, taking advantage of the few hours of darkness. A handful of men, also finding sleep difficult, were crowded into a corner watching a movie on a small television set. One of the men, a Canadian Mountie who oversaw the captives inside the building armed with nothing but a radio, stood up and walked over to the captain.

"You hear something?" he asked.

Murdock nodded. "Sounded to me like a chunk of ice falling off the roof."

The Mountie turned to walk toward a storeroom at the back of the building when two men stepped quietly out of the shadows. The two Delta Force commandos had traded their Arctic white apparel for black jacket, fatigues, and armored vests. They each wore a Kevlar helmet with a drop-down display over one eye and a foldaway communications headset. One of the men carried an M4 carbine, which he pointed at Murdock and the Mountie, while the second man fielded a boxy-looking pistol.

The Mountie immediately reached for his radio, but before he could bring it to his lips the man with the pistol fired his weapon. Murdock noted that the gun didn't fire with a bang but emitted just a quiet pop. Instead of firing a bullet, the electroshock stun gun fired a pair of small barbs, each tailed by a thin wire. As the barbs struck the Mountie, the weapon delivered a fifty-thousand-volt charge to the man, instantly incapacitating his muscular control.

The Mountie stiffened, then fell to the ground, dropping his radio as the surge of electricity jolted through his body. He had barely hit the floor when the firing soldier was at his side, locking his wrists and ankles in plastic cuffs and slapping a piece of tape over his mouth.

"Nice shot, Mike," the other commando said, stepping forward while his eyes searched the room. "You Murdock?" he asked, turning back toward the captain.

"Yes," Murdock stammered, still shocked by the sudden intrusion.

"I'm Sergeant Bojorquez. We're going to take you and your crew on a little boat ride. Please wake your men and get them dressed quickly and quietly."

"Yes, certainly. Thank you, Sergeant."

Murdock found his executive officer, and together they quietly roused the other men. The front door of the building suddenly burst open, and two more Delta Force soldiers burst in, dragging the limp body of another Mountie guard. Stun gun barbs protruded from his legs, where the soldiers had been forced to aim in order to bypa.s.s the man's heavy parka. Like his partner, the Mountie was quickly gagged and handcuffed.

It took less than five minutes for Murdock to wake and a.s.semble his startled crew. A few men joked about trading Moose-head for Budweiser and the Red Green Show for American Idol, but most remained quiet, sensing the danger of trying to escape without incident.