lining or some overlooked gap in his clothing. He could feel the heat
rising off his skin as he walked, felt the air sucking at it.
The point man stopped suddenly. He pointed and made a motion to
Sikes. Sikes moved forward until he was standing by the man. “What was
it?”
“Don’t know for sure–something dark green, blowing in the wind. In
this wind, it was gone before I could get a good look at it. Man-made,
though–definitely.”
Sikes lifted the radio to his mouth and quickly briefed the other
group and the lookout on the sighting. Even after a few moments of
standing still, he could feel his muscles start to tighten as the cold
seeped in.
Every sense heightened, adrenaline pounding through his veins and
further exacerbating the heat loss, he motioned for the other man to begin
again. There was no more chance that this was a false alarm. Whatever the
man had seen–and he had no doubt that the man had seen something–this
patrol was now tactical instead of practice.
1710 Local
USS Jefferson
“Sikes just radioed in that they’ve seen something,” Batman said into
the receiver. “Whoever’s taken up residence there and decided to start
shooting at our aircraft isn’t so hot of a housekeeper. Still, the
island’s supposed to be deserted. If they hadn’t taken a shot at our
aircraft, we probably never would have known they were there.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Admiral Magruder’s voice responded.
“There’s that radio report from the Inuits.”
“And who would have suspected it?” Batman mused. “Some Aleutian
Islander with a radio sees something strange and decides to call in the
Navy.”
“Not so strange as you might think,” Tombstone responded. His voice
took on a reflective note. “I wonder if it’s the same–no, couldn’t be.
He’d have to be pushing seventy years old by now.”
“Who?” Batman asked, confused by Tombstone’s apparent change of
subjects.
“Probably nothing,” Tombstone answered. “But years ago, when my uncle
was still involved in Special Forces projects, he spent some time out on
those islands. We were in the middle of the Cold War, and maintaining the
integrity of our homeland was a lot bigger issue than it is today.”
“Vice Admiral Magruder on a field trip to the Aleutians?” Batman
snorted. “I’d like to see that.”
“He wasn’t always a vice admiral,” Tombstone answered dryly. “At the
time, I believe he was a lieutenant commander. He told me the story a
couple of times, how he went out to the islands, met some of the native
tribes, studied their survival techniques. At the time, we were still in
our infancy on cold weather tactics. Some bright mind in the Pentagon
decided that the best way to shorten the learning curve was to study people
that have centuries of experience at it. My uncle’s always been an avid
skier and camper, so somebody figured he was perfect for the job.”
“How long did he spend there?”
“Three months. He visited five major islands, including one of the
largest ones near the end of the chain. And that’s the odd thing–he met
an old fellow there, an Inuit who was considered the leader of the tribe.
At first, they weren’t too interested in talking, but my uncle managed to
make friends with him somehow. It had something to do with killing a polar
bear, though I never got all the details. Anyway, this old fellow decided
my uncle was okay. They came to some sort of understanding about the
Russians, although I gather the Inuit wasn’t nearly as concerned as my
uncle was. He said he left the man some high-tech radio gear–high-tech
for that era, anyway–along with a list of standard tactical frequencies.
From what my uncle says, they’ve had a couple of reports from them over the
years, although I doubt that there’s been anything for the last decade or
so.”
“And this fella is still alive, you think? And the radio’s still
working?” Batman asked incredulously.
“You got the report, didn’t you?” Tombstone pointed out. “Besides,
this fellow might have handed on the responsibility to his son as well.
Who knows? At this point, I’m just grateful we’ve got an asset in place.”
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111