Arctic Warriors

The Bering Strait links the Arctic Ocean with the Bering Sea and separates the continents of Asia (Siberia) and North America (Alaska). Big Diomede and Little Diomede Islands are located in the middle of this passage. Big Diomede belongs to Russia and Little Diomede to the United States. At the closest point 2.4 miles of open water separate the islands thus the two greatest super powers in the history of the earth.

At the height of the cold war these super powers were nuclear antagonist. Recognizing the importance of this passage as an invasion route they deployed large numbers of air, naval and ground forces along this border, ostensibly for defensive purposes. Then the U.S. designated a WWII airbase east of Fairbanks as a SAC base and staffed it with a fleet of B-52's and a jet fighter wing.

Seeing the need for a still greater defense of this key link in the chain of defense for this western entry into the American homeland the Alaskan Command was established and immediately deployed the 562nd Air Defense Artillery battalion around the SAC base. Five batteries each equipped with the Nike Hercules missile now provided our own "iron curtain" through which no aggressor could send their bombers.

The Nike Hercules was equipped with nuclear warheads and was well proven in their ability to intercept and destroy airborne targets including incoming missiles. It could also be used in a conventional "cannon" configuration to vaporize invading land forces.

The Russians correctly determined that with these atomic birds present the most obvious invasion route was now closed. To re-open it they had to first take out the SAC base and to do that they had to take out the missiles. The burden of gaining the information needed to accomplish this task fell to their intelligence services and that resulted in Fairbanks being filled with Soviet Spies.

It is often said and is always true that the best thought out chain of defense is only as strong as its' weakest link. In this case the weakest link was the homesick G.I.'s assigned to Alaska on 15 month tours. These young soldiers then became the target of the Soviet Intelligence agents; young women working the bars and brothels of Fairbanks where they would meet and ensnare the youngsters with sexual favors until they had them compromised or could otherwise glean information from them.

In my manuscript Arctic Warriors capitalize on my experiences as a Military Police Officer assigned to the Alaskan Command to provide a fictionalized account of Jake Tolbert, a ‘runt of the litter’ who found his place in the cerebral world of computerized fire control of America’s nuclear arsenal. Jake was a prime target for the Russians seeking information on the Nike Hercules and finds himself being wooed by Layne, true name Nikita, a Russian agent posing as a prostitute at the Polaris Club, a brothel in Fairbanks. Things go bad quickly and Jake is involved in the murder of two army investigators who stumble onto him in the company of Layne with top secret information in his possession. In a panic Jake defects carrying the top secret material to the Soviets. Allowing Jake to sit with the Soviets and reverse engineer the fire control system is something the U.S. cannot do.

The novel recounts the ‘crossing over’ of the narrow strait by a select team of Military Police to stop the flow of information by capturing Jake and returning him to the U.S. or by killing him.

The Arctic Warriors cross over, seize Jake, kill his escorts and then run to the sea for extraction by helicopter. The capture of Nikita brings about the possibility of putting her and Jake together as a team to assist American intelligence agencies in their fight against the Soviet espionage efforts on the U.S. mainland. All is progressing well until she is discovered dead in her cell locted within a secure military prison. The killer is identified as a soviet agent who has been planted as a member of the United States Air Force Security Police. This brings the novel to a close with the exposure of the total infiltration of American society and government by the Soviets in an effort to fulfill another Nikita’s prophecy, “We will bury you.”