Operation Icebreaker Thanos Kal amidas operaTion icebreaKer a novel “Spy gameS on ice!” - wrt preSS Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book Operation Icebreaker operation icebreaker Thanos Kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Operation Icebreaker abisko national park, northern sweden – 03:17 am H e was dying, and he knew it. Each step was a negotiation between pain and gravity. Blood seeped from a wound high in his side, left kidney, maybe spleen. Hard to tell. There’d been no time to assess it properly back in the ravine when the first shot cracked the silence and blew the reindeer carcass beside him to wet shreds. It didn’t matter now. The only thing that mattered was the briefcase. The case. The codes. The world. Thanos Kalamidas Dr. Oleg Pavlovich Malinov, once a man of titles and medals, now a fugitive traitor, trudged through waist-high snow under a ceiling of black sky and faint northern lights. Every few yards he stopped, not by choice, but necessity. His heart was pounding un- evenly, as if trying to remind him of the pact they’d made. He pushed forward. The wind howled like the ghosts of old wars. He glanced over his shoulder. Nothing. But that meant little. Spetsgruppa V weren’t am- ateurs. They didn’t stalk. They executed. They were here. Somewhere. The shot he’d dodged in the ravine was proof. A warning. Or maybe a signature. He climbed a ridge of ice-glazed rock, boots slip- ping twice before he reached the top. Below him, spread like a sheet of polished steel, was Lake Torn- eträsk, frozen solid and empty. Somewhere beneath it, ancient tectonic pressure and cold water slept side by side. Above it, Oleg’s breath came in clouds, then ragged wheezes. His vision blurred. He blinked. Again. Another twenty minutes. That was all he needed. Operation Icebreaker He reached into the coat, an old wool military surplus he’d found in Kiruna and pulled out a small black device. Plastic, chipped on one corner. No but- tons. Just a single slide switch and a biometric plate. He looked at it, and for a moment he hesitated. It was the only piece of insurance he had left. The dead man’s switch. If his heart stopped, if the sig- nal was lost for more than sixty seconds, it would activate. Not the weapon, not SVERUS itself. That would be madness. But the message. The triggering sequence . The upload to servers that officially didn’t exist. Stockholm, Langley, Brussels, Beijing, Tel Aviv. They’d all see it at once. SVERUS is real. And it is missing. He whispered in Russian. “For my sons. For no one else.” A sound cut through the wind. Low. Mechanical. Growing louder. Oleg turned, squinting up into the sky as a black Mil Mi-28 helicopter broke over the crest of the mountain—its rotors silent beneath the gusts. No lights. No insignia. Just shape and steel. Thanos Kalamidas It was here. His fingers hovered over the switch. But he couldn’t press it yet. Not until he reached the extraction bea- con. He was close Two minutes A flare lit up the sky from the chopper’s undercar- riage, phosphor-white and Oleg dropped instinctive- ly. The snow burned his cheek. He rolled, grabbing the case; heart now a jackhammer in his chest. Another shot, this time a clean burst from a sup- pressed rifle. The rock behind him spat chips. A sec- ond shot, closer. They were guiding him. Herding him. He moved. Stumbled. Ran. Fell. The case hit first, thank God still sealed and Oleg crawled toward a shape barely visible in the white fog ahead. A pole. Satellite antenna. The beacon. Operation Icebreaker He laughed. He actually laughed. The laughter died with the third shot. A whisper through the air. No drama. No cinemat- ic burst. Just a small hole just below his ribs and heat. Then ice. The pain followed behind it like an after- thought. He fell. Hard. Snow cushioned the impact. His face turned to the sky. The rotors were overhead now, blotting out the stars. He reached for the case. Not to protect it. To open it. With shaking fingers, he pressed his thumb to the biometric seal. It hissed open. Inside: a black hard drive the size of a passport, sealed in mylar, marked only with three Cyrillic letters. СВР Thanos Kalamidas He pulled the switch from his coat and pressed it against the drive. The light turned blue. One last whisper: a name. “Kovalev...” He pressed the slide. Then silence. The chopper banked, slowing, dropping its skids to the snow. Men emerged, faceless in black armour. But it was too late. Somewhere beneath layers of digital camouflage and quantum firewalls, the world had just received a message. The countdown had begun. * * * * * * * * * paris – rue de montreuil, 09:23 am Connor Dane opened his eyes to the sound of wa- ter running. Somewhere behind him, a faucet gur- gled, coughed, then shut off with a metallic pop. He was lying on silk sheets—crimson ones, sheets that didn’t belong to him, in a hotel room that also didn’t belong to him. Operation Icebreaker The ceiling was French plaster, cracked. His head ached. His Glock was missing. So was his wallet. And his watch. And ...hell, his pants. He sat up fast, instantly regretting it. His temples screamed. Nausea rose. He blinked the blur away and scanned the suite. A wine bottle lay on its side on a low table. Half a baguette on a plate. Two glasses. Lipstick on one. The woman stepped out of the bathroom a mo- ment later, barefoot, towel-wrapped, and humming something by Edith Piaf. She was tall, Nordic maybe, with an athletic build and a neck like a swan’s. Her eyes found him and smirked. “You drink like a Berlin diplomat,” she said in clipped English. “You also sleep like one.” “Where are my pants?” Dane asked. She pointed vaguely at the sofa. “Check under the Swiss ambassador’s ego.” Thanos Kalamidas Dane exhaled sharply. “What’s your name?” “You didn’t ask last night.” “I’m asking now.” She smiled, walked past him, and picked up a ring- ing burner phone from the nightstand. He didn’t rec- ognize the ringtone. It wasn’t his phone. She answered without greeting, listened, then her smile vanished. Her hand dropped. Her voice changed. “They’re five minutes out.” Dane didn’t wait for the rest. He rolled out of bed, scooped his jeans from under a chair, found the Glock holstered under the cush- ion. The safety was still on. That gave him pause. She could’ve shot him in his sleep. She hadn’t. Which meant... The explosion knocked him flat. The suite erupted. Fire tore through the far wall like a dragon’s breath. Glass shattered. Wood screamed. Smoke churned black. Dane hit the marble floor and Operation Icebreaker rolled beneath the coffee table. The air went silent again, that surreal vacuum of adrenaline before real- ity reasserts itself. His ears rang. His mouth tasted like battery acid. But his instincts were back. He stood. The woman was gone. So was the phone. He kicked open the door to the hallway, ran bare- foot past three stunned guests and a concierge shout- ing “Mon dieu!” , then took the stairwell two steps at a time. Third floor. Second. First. Exit. The street outside was chaos, sirens already in the distance, locals filming with phones, tourists frozen in horror. The top corner of the Hotel Lys was blown apart, smoke pouring out like it had secrets. Dane ducked into a florist’s kiosk, grabbed a trench coat and a scarf from a mannequin, and slipped into the crowd. Three blocks east, he stopped at a café, ordered a black coffee, and stole a phone from an inattentive college student showing his friend memes about Ital- ian croissants. Thanos Kalamidas Dane logged in to a secure ghost server: Craven- Ring74 . A voice answered immediately. No greeting. Just a rasp. “You’re burned.” “No shit,” Dane replied. “We told you Warsaw was the safer intercept point.” “She had the data. Or said she did.” “She wasn’t real. Deepfake dossier. The woman doesn’t exist. Neither does the mission file.” Dane took a breath. “Then why blow the room?” “Because something real did happen last night,” the voice said. “In Sweden.” That pulled Dane up short. “Talk.” The rasp continued. “Name is Oleg Malinov. Rus- sian defector. Head of an R&D black program out of Murmansk. He activated a dead man’s switch at ze- ro-three-hundred hours. We intercepted the signal ten minutes ago. Packet fragmented across seventeen darknet nodes.” Operation Icebreaker “And?” “It’s not a bluff. We decoded part of the burst. Something called SVERUS . Weapon class unknown. Nuclear adjacency confirmed.” “Delivery system?” “Autonomous.” Dane felt his gut tighten. That word. Autonomous It didn’t belong in the same sentence as nuclear “Who else has seen the burst?” “NATO. Mossad. Maybe MSS by now. But here’s the fun part, Malinov’s signal went through a NATO proxy server in Stockholm, but the briefcase didn’t.” “Let me guess.” “Unit Twelve.” Dane closed his eyes. Kadyrov That sick bastard. “Why me?” Dane asked. “I’ve been off the grid five years. You tossed me.” “You’re not off the grid if they’re using your name,” the voice said coldly. Thanos Kalamidas “What?” “You didn’t just get burned, Dane. Someone im- personated you on the Warsaw dead drop. Kadyrov’s men used a fake Dane ID and picked up the bait an hour before the real courier arrived.” That meant only one thing: someone wanted him visible again. Tracked. “Someone inside?” The voice was silent. Dane nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He stood, downed the coffee, and dropped the stu- dent’s phone in a passing cyclist’s backpack. “Where do I start?” “Leila Singh,” said the voice. “MI6. Now freelance. She’s already in Warsaw, tracking Kovalev.” Dane’s stomach dropped. “Kovalev? The cipher architect?” Operation Icebreaker “Malinov’s former deputy. The man who can crack the SVERUS payload. We believe he’s working with Unit Twelve.” Dane was already walking. “Where do I find her?” “You won’t need to. She’s already found you.” Click. Dane turned, just in time to see Leila Singh step out of a blue cab, sunglasses on, hair pinned tight, and a 9mm in her purse that would be aimed at his gut before he could say hello. She didn’t wave. She didn’t smile. She said one word: “Run.” * * * * * * * * * stockholm, sweden – Government district, 14:07 local Time The elevator groaned on the way up. Not the kind of groan that meant poor mainte- nance or faulty hydraulics. The kind that suggested Thanos Kalamidas the walls had ears. That someone, somewhere, was listening. Recording. Measuring every breath inside its soundproofed cabin. Leila Singh stood still, arms crossed, face blank be- hind her dark glasses. No makeup. No jewellery. A lightweight field jacket covered the Sig Sauer under her left arm. She didn’t check it. She didn’t need to. She’d already memorized the angles, the exits, the timing of the guard rotations downstairs. Sixteen seconds between the outer vestibule and the corri- dor to the archive room. Twenty-three to access the sealed wing on Floor Four, assuming no secondary scan was added since Tuesday. Beside her, connor dane shifted slightly. He hadn’t shaved. His coat still smelled of city smoke and cheap soap. But his eyes were razor-sharp now, the hangover replaced by something colder. Calcu- lating. Dangerous. “You still working freelance?” he asked without looking at her. Leila didn’t answer. “You working against me?” Operation Icebreaker She smiled faintly. “If I were, you’d already be un- conscious.” “That’s not a no.” “Correct.” The elevator dinged. Level 4. They stepped into a corridor lined with beige walls and no visible security. The quiet kind of place. Not a bunker. A nerve center. Files without names. Camer- as disguised as vents. Real intelligence. At the end of the hall was a double door marked only with a black alphanumeric code: sec–a–11. Dane raised an eyebrow. “That’s above Level Five. Your access or mine?” “Neither,” Leila said. “We’re stealing someone else’s.” She moved to a security pad and held up a latex fingertip, clear, flexible, with a faint residue of oils and protein. “Colonel Jarlsson,” she explained. “Swedish Intel- ligence Liaison. Likes French women and sleeping pills. He won’t know it’s missing until Tuesday.” Thanos Kalamidas She pressed it to the reader. The door hissed open. Inside was a room made of frost-glass and brushed steel. On a central screen, frozen in projection, was a photo of Oleg Malinov’s corpse, face half-buried in snow, a smear of red where his breath had ended. The beacon antenna stood five feet from him. The brief- case was gone. Leila walked to the table and tapped a holograph- ic console. The image dissolved into a topographic map: Abisko National Park. A red line marked the last known GPS path of the beacon before transmis- sion failed. Connor leaned in. “What are we looking at?” “Trajectory,” Leila said. “The device Oleg was car- rying activated a directional pulse. He was aiming it at a satellite we’re not supposed to know exists.” “We?” “MI6. FSB. Mossad. Nobody admits it’s real, but we all borrow it from time to time. Codename Glass-