World War III

Caffey found his parka beside the door. Wherever Sub Block B3 No. 16 was, it was going to be a long, cold walk.

BROOKS MOUNTAIN RANGE 2345 HRS

He rested in a depression behind a mogul that shielded him from the violence of the blowing snow. In the last couple of hours the weather had changed, and not for the better. He didn’t mind the wind so much or the darkness, he’d done this kind of dead reckoning before in worse storms. He wasn’t lost, exactly. He knew which direction this sort of storm was coming from and therefore he had some idea which direction to head. After all, he was an Eskimo, and Eskimos don’t get lost up here. At least, that was the accepted notion.

Corporal Avalik tied another compress around his leg wound. That was the problem — in all the snow and wind and darkness he couldn’t see how badly it was bleeding, or if it was still bleeding, beneath the arctic trousers leg. He couldn’t do anything about the bullet hole in his side. He figured it wasn’t bleeding, at least it wasn’t bleeding much, because he’d have been dead hours ago if it were. Anyway, the fact that the temperature out here had to be minus forty degrees should help thicken his blood, or slow it down if it was running out.

He wasn’t an expert on blood clotting, but it made sense to him. And he was the only one he had to convince.

Leaving a trail of blood was his chief concern now, other than the pain. And not because the Russians might find it. No one would be out in this weather, and even if they were on his trail, the snow would fill in nearly as fast as he could crawl in this wind. It wasn’t the Russians he was worried about. It was the very good chance that a pack of arctic wolves might pick up the scent of his blood. Once they found it they’d follow it through any kind of weather.

Avalik adjusted his goggles and glanced up over the mogul. Snow and blowing snow and darkness beyond. It was an exertion even to breathe. He pulled himself forward, digging handholds in the crusty snow and moving in steady lurches. I’m not going to be a late-night snack for some band of goddamn maurading wolves, he told himself. Not this goddamn Eskimo.

He moved an arm’s length at a time, oblivious to the cold. In twelve hours he figured he’d crawled about a mile and a half from Jones’s Strip. It was eleven miles from Jones’s cabin to the base camp.

They’d find him. He knew that. But they were going to find him alive. Somebody had to tell them about the fucking Russians.

FORT WAINWRIGHT 0730 HRS

Caffey dumped a wastebasket brimming with papers into a large cardboard box. Then another. He’d been at this for two hours. Lt. Col. Klugen, the previous deputy brigade commander, obviously didn’t know what it meant to update files. His office filing system was a disaster. That would change, Caffey decided, immediately.

The office itself wasn’t particularly large and the furniture was gray metal stuff that had been liberated from a Navy vessel (the inside drawers were stamped u.s.s. EAGLETON). Without any windows to interrupt the surface of the walls, Klugen had stuck up maps and charts and notices with tape. All that remained were yellowed corners of paper attached to pieces of tape and one large map of Alaska with a tiny American flag and the colors of the 171st pinned over Fairbanks. To one side of the desk had been a standard-sized American flag that stank of cigar smoke. It was in the trash carton as well.

Caffey was nearly through all the desk drawers when someone entered. He was a tall black man with captain’s bars on his lapels. He was also chewing a doughnut and, by his expression, surprised to find anyone in the office.

“Don’t you knock, Captain?” Caffey said. He was in his shirtsleeves and had worked up a slight sweat.

“Colonel Caffey?” The captain held the doughnut just below his mouth as if he’d been suddenly frozen in prelude to the act of biting.

“That’s the name on the door. Who might you be?”

“Ah…” He brought the doughnut down quickly, eventually hiding it out of sight behind his back.

“Captain Devery, sir. Captain George Devery. Brigade adjutant.” He smiled weakly. “You’re a little early, Colonel. I mean, I didn’t expect to see you—”

“I opened up the place this morning.”

“Oh. When was that, sir.”

“Oh-five-thirty.”

Devery’s eyes got wide.

“Don’t worry, Captain. It won’t be a regular schedule. I just wanted to get down here and see what sort of office I was inheriting.” Caffey gestured at the boxes of trash. “As you can see, I’d like a few things eliminated.” Devery stood straighter. “Yes, sir.”

“Just calm yourself, Devery. I’m not head-hunting. Sit down. Finish your doughnut.” Devery obeyed.

He held the pastry in front of him but didn’t bite into it. “Is that a 101st patch you’re wearing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Sir?”

Caffey flew his hand in the air. “Whoosing a chopper around.”

“Oh, hell no… I mean, it’s safer on the ground.”