Arctic Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

“We need to hunt down these assholes who did this to us, Commander. They need to pay for what they did. I want to come in and do something; I don’t think I can sit here by myself.”
    Michel paused for a moment. “You sure about that? You up for flying out to Resolute?”
    Anika sat up. “What’s in Resolute?”
    “They’ve found the Kosatka, trying to hide in the harbor with other ships. The U.S. Navy has a patrol boat there, and the local police have the crew in custody. Can you fly our Investigations Unit guys out there to participate in the interrogation? They might use you to ID any of the guys. If you can.”
    “Of course I’ll do it.” She stood up.
    “There’s a light jet being fueled up right now,” Michel said. “They’ll be waiting for you.”

 
    6
    Resolute hadn’t changed much in the last three months. It was still a mess of boxy prefab mini-skyscrapers. They all cluttered around the sloping gravel leading to the harbor, which jutted out of the boundary of rock and sea.
    Another port deep in the Arctic Circle. Another island detached from the mainland of Canada, like Baffin. Just farther west. Most of these places were barely presences at the turn of the century. Forty years later, they were bursting with prefabs and activity. When the ice left, the Canadian North opened up. Once-tiny towns exploded, particularly once shipping traffic began to stream through the Northwest Passage, and ports rapidly built themselves up. Places that were actually on the Canadian mainland, like Bernard Harbour, Coppermine, Gjoa, and Taloyok, had become powerful economic and demographic engines that made Canada the lead of the so-called “Arctic Tiger” nations that benefitted from the warm polar oceans. The megalopolis Anchorage turned into had made Alaska one of the more powerful states in the U.S.A.
    Anika stood for a moment on the helicopter deck on the back of an old U.S. Navy destroyer. Her blue UNPG flight suit kept her warm against the bitter wind.
    She spotted the familiar bulk of the Kosatka at anchor among four other larger ships.
    Her lips quirked. There it was. Like a shark hoisted out of water. She remembered why she feared it, and she remembered the attack. But now it was just this inert, still thing. It was nothing more than a ship at anchor.
    The two very serious-looking UN Polar Guard special agents that she’d flown out to Resolute paused as they noticed her looking. Yves and Anton. French and Russian. Mirrored sunglasses. And not a smile between the two.
    “Real fucking mess, no?” Anton said, taking off his glasses to reveal bright blue eyes.
    Anika nodded. “Can we go inside to see them now?” Standing up here stewing about what happened wasn’t what she wanted to do. She needed to keep moving and to keep busy. To not think about Tom. Not think about Jenny, sitting on that bench in the hospital.
    Yves pulled a cell phone down and pointed to a pair of uniformed Americans waiting for them. Yves, Anton, and Anika had been let aboard the destroyer, but in the time it had taken to fly out here, the whole thing had become some sort of jurisdictional mess, and they were stuck on the helicopter deck as everyone tried to figure out if they were allowed belowdecks.
    The Americans had found the Kosatka trying to hide in the harbor. But the Canadians said it was their port the Kosatka was inside, and that the men should be handed over to them for charges. And of course, the UNPG wanted a piece. After all, it had been Anika and Tom shot of the sky.
    Her special agents, usually used to internal investigations and smuggling prosecution, had spent the whole flight out making calls and arguing with people on the other side, trying to penetrate the international layers of bureaucracy involved.
    “We can go in,” Yves said, nodding at the Americans. “We can interrogate, we can record. We cannot move prisoners.”
    Anton swore in Russian, then gently grabbed Anika’s elbow. “You can stay out here,