Chapter 6 - The Summit at Kodiak
Six months after the engagement party, the wind over the North Pacific sounded like a screaming jet engine.
I stood inside the steel-reinforced hangar at Naval Station Kodiak, wearing a heavy, thermal-insulated flight suit with the high-visibility orange stripes of the Tactical Recovery Group.
Outside, thirty-knot sea winds whipped ice rain against the corrugated metal walls.
On the concrete deck of the hangar sat our primary recovery aircraft—a heavily modified C-130 Hercules equipped with reinforced ski-wheels, high-output turboprop engines, and forward-looking infrared radar arrays.
My chief crew mechanic, a grizzled Master Sergeant named Miller, walked up beside me holding a digital clipboard.
"Fuel load is complete, Director," Miller called out over the roar of the wind outside. "We've got forty thousand pounds of jet fuel on board. Surgical unit is secured in the main cargo hold. But the weather service just upgraded the storm over Sector Four."
I looked at the digital weather radar on his tablet. A massive, swirling swirl of purple and dark red was covering the entire Aleutian island chain.
"What's the surface wind speed at the crash site?" I asked, my voice calm and analytical.
"Fifty-five knots, gusting to seventy," Miller replied, shaking his head. "Temperature is sitting at minus twenty-eight. Cloud ceiling is under two hundred feet. It's a complete whiteout, Lauren. Coast Guard turned back an hour ago."
"Coast Guard flies helicopters," I said, pulling my heavy leather gloves on. "We fly heavy transport. Who's on the ground?"
Miller tapped the screen, pulling up a classified operational manifest.
"A joint recon team from Naval Special Warfare," Miller said. "They were conducting cold-weather insertion training when their transport plane experienced dual engine failure during a hard landing on an unpaved ridge. Five operators stranded. Two injured."
I paused, looking at the unit designation on the screen: NSW GROUP TWO — TEAM SEVEN.
My eyes narrowed slightly. "Is Captain Cole on that manifest?"
Miller checked the roster. "Yes, ma'am. Captain Cole is the ground commander on site. He's established a perimeter in a snow trench, but their thermal shelter collapsed twenty minutes ago under ice weight. Hypothermia is going to set in within ninety minutes."
I didn't hesitate for a single second.
"Get the engines spun up, Miller," I commanded, my voice dropping into absolute operational steel. "We launch in ten minutes."
"Director," Miller warned, stepping closer. "That ridge is less than eighty yards wide, surrounded by three-hundred-foot ice cliffs. You've only made a landing like that once before."
"I made it in Idaho three years ago," I said, pulling my helmet off the equipment rack. "And Captain Cole was waiting for me then, too. Let's go."
Ten minutes later, four massive turboprop engines roared to life inside the stormy Kodiak night, throwing twin streams of blue exhaust into the driving ice.
I sat in the left pilot seat of the C-130, my hands resting lightly on the heavy control yoke. The flight deck instruments glowed in soft, amber tones around me, casting a sharp light across my face.
My co-pilot, a young Air Force Major named Harris, adjusted his headset.
"Pre-flight check complete, Whiteout One," Harris said, his voice tense but steady. "Tower has cleared us for emergency departure. God speed, Director."
May you like
I pushed the throttle levers forward.
The forty-ton aircraft surged down the wet, icy runway, picking up speed against the roaring ocean wind, until the nose pitched up and we burst into the dark, violent clouds of the Pacific storm.
