Cold is the Sea

18

There was a new compulsion in the Manta as she raced for the edge of the ice pack, where the ice would be thinner, the probability greater of being able to break through to send a message. For the better part of a day, Rich and Buck labored over its wording. They must report the loss of the Cushing, give the names of the men lost with her, tell of the battle with the intruding submarine, and describe their suspicions that there was some sort of a Soviet base, not far away, near enough for the submarine they had sunk to have gone there for instructions. The Cushing might well have been originally very near it, since Keith had reported seeing aircraft apparently orbiting just over the horizon, and landing and taking off.

The message, encrypted in the highest classification code available on board, ended with terse naval jargon, UNODIR PROCEEDING RECON GUARDING VLF ONE HOUR NOON GREENWICH: Unless otherwise directed, Manta would try to locate the base and discover its nature and purpose. Once a day, at noon Greenwich Mean Time, she would come to as shallow a depth as possible, at minimum speed, to listen to the very-low-frequency radio circuit for any instructions. Otherwise, the Manta would most likely be at deep submergence and unreachable by any means of communication.

Thirty hours were required to find an area where the ice cover was thin enough to break through. Buck directed his course to pass as nearly as possible through the same spot where the relayed message from the Cushing had been sent, but it was not found. Doubtless they passed within a short distance of it, but there was no indication of any thinning of the ice pack on the upward-beamed fathometer, nor any sign of discontinuity of the ice pack as the Manta cautiously circled the area with her periscopes up. Finally, it had been necessary to punch through ten feet of cover with the submarine’s bow, elevated at a steep angle so as to take the shock of the contact with her strongest ice-breaking capability. Then Manta came back around and, more gently this time, shouldered her way through the shattered slot in the ice with her sail. When the message was at last cleared — it had carried the highest possible priority prefix — she went deep and headed toward the place indicated on Jerry Abbott’s plot.

Buck Williams, sitting at the head of the wardroom table, was wagging his head. He and Richardson had adjourned there to study Jerry’s work, leaving the exec free to continue the incredibly complicated task of organizing living, sleeping and messing arrangements for an influx of nearly double the crew of the Manta.

Jerry had plotted backward every known movement of the enemy submarine, as Buck had instructed, but he had had to make a number of assumptions, some questionable at best. And there had been no opportunity to get anything from Keith. Fortunately, Keith had given an estimated position of the aircraft he had seen in his last message, the one transmitted via the Manta. How long ago had that been? Less than two days. A decoded copy lay on the table.

“I hate even to look at this,” growled Buck, clutching one hand into a fist while he tapped the paper with the other. “This little piece of paper cost Keith his life! I hope they choke on it down in Washington! Do you really think Admiral Donaldson will get it across how much this has cost? Will he ram it into the people responsible?”

“If I know him, he certainly will. The lives of eleven damn good men, not to mention a brand-new submarine, is a stiff price tag. He won’t let that pass easily. But, of course, all they can do is be sorry.”

“The very least they could do is send the people who insisted on this message up to New London when we hold the memorial service! They ought to be made to sit in the front row!”

“They’d better be incognito and sit in the back, as far as I’m concerned.” Rich paused. “But right now we’ve got to figure out what’s going on up here. Those guys are no little exploration party on the ice! There’s a lot more than that going on!”

After several hours of study, frequent interrogations of Jerry Abbott and many cups of coffee, an “indicated circle of probability” was decided on. It was twenty-five miles in diameter, circular since it was only the locus of centers of possibilities. As soon as it was reached, a slow, methodical, crisscross search of the circle would be begun, with both periscopes up looking for anything unusual. The area of practicable view was so tiny that Rich and Buck quickly realized they could pass nearly directly under the spot they were seeking without seeing it. Active sonar, which might increase the size of the area being searched at any moment, was ruled out.

“I don’t think we should echo-range,” Rich told Buck. “They could be listening. There could be another sub around. Anything.”

“We really don’t have any idea of what we’re looking for,” grumbled Buck, as the second day of fruitless search drew toward its end. By agreement, he and Rich were alternating periods of wakefulness, except that both found themselves haunting the radio room during the daily VLF listening stint, and both enjoyed the afterdinner coffee hour, now reconvened in Buck’s cabin.

“The main thing that worries me, Buck, is that for some reason we’ll be ordered out of the Arctic, or run out of oxygen or CO₂ absorbent. With all the Cushing people aboard, that’s going to be a problem very soon. We’ll find out what’s going on if we’re able to look for a while. We just have to have enough time.”

“Do you think Washington knows what we’re doing, Skipper?”

“They’re just as curious as we are. If they call us off, it will be because they have to. That’s what I’m worried about.”

But no orders arrived. Cutler, which could be heard clearly, carried only a single message for them. Prosaically addressed to COMTASKGRU 83.1, it merely acknowledged receipt of Rich’s previous message and added the perfunctory, “Submit written report upon arrival Conus.”

The place was found by an unexpected means, by the sonarman on watch, midway of the third day. “I think I’m hearing a beacon,” he reported.

Schultz, instantly on the scene, confirmed it. “It’s very distant. It sounds like one of those homing beacons divers use. It’s a standard intermittent buzz. You can only hear them a mile or so!”

“It’s for that sub to home in on!” said Buck. “He navigates to a mile or so of this place, picks up this little thing, and homes in on it!”

“So will we, after we’ve made a couple of complete circles around it. After that, I want to pass under with the periscopes up, starting as deep as we can use them. Now that we’ve found their base of operations, whatever it is, it’s up to us to find out everything we can about it!” Rich’s logic was unassailable, and Buck found himself apologizing for hinting at a shortcut.

Moving slowly and deliberately in the dead-silent condition, Manta made not two but three complete circuits around the sound source, at different depths, plotting and recording every scrap of information that could be obtained. Finally, with Rich’s approval, Buck ordered her two periscopes raised and told Tom Clancy to gradually increase depth to 185 feet. “Any deeper, and the hoists won’t hold them up, boss,” he said. “They’ll still be hard to turn when we get down there, but at least we’ll not have to wait while they creep out of the wells.”

Rich smiled morosely as he received the report. Neither he nor Buck was far from the memory of Keith’s last moments, which hung, cloudlike, over everything.

Nor, for that matter, was anyone else aboard. Merely the fact of the Manta’s extraordinarily crowded condition was a constant reminder. Jerry Abbott had made the fairest possible division of sleeping spaces, eating schedules and “standing hours.” Since a man occupies less useful space in the vertical posture, everyone was required to be physically on his feet twelve hours out of every twenty-four. Wherever possible Cushing crew members were put on watch with their opposite numbers in Manta’s crew, again only to reduce congestion. But there were many, the missile department crew for example, who had no counterparts in the Manta. And all of them, despite sincere effort, were constantly in the way. Not that anyone complained. Men had died to make their safety possible.

Manta’s control room, at least, was kept moderately clear, most particularly in the vicinity of the sonar shack, the periscope station and the diving station. With extra personnel available, there were two quartermasters on watch with a third detailed to maintain a most complete notebook log of all activities. One quartermaster was assigned to assist at each periscope. “How much longer to pass under?” asked Buck, without taking his eyes from the eyepiece.

“Two minutes fifteen,” said his quartermaster. “Dead ahead. A hair on the port bow.”

“Tell Mr. Abbott to pass directly under, if he can.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“… How long now?”

“Ninety seconds … sixty … thirty … twenty, fifteen …”

Richardson had no idea when it was that he first realized he was looking at something. Though clear, the water was dark, for there was very little light penetrating the ice cover, and out of the deep formlessness of the shadowed water, solidity slowly emerged. It was the color of water, bespoke regularity, and rigidity, a gradual gathering together of vague nothingness in the sea until there was something, square and angular, huge and sinister. And close. Very close! Rich realized he was looking with his line of sight elevated, quickly swiveled it downward, saw what he took to be a square bottom, flipped up the handles, reached for his periscope hoist lever.

“Down periscope!” rapped out Buck, snapping up his control handles. His startled tone caused his quartermaster to jerk the hoist lever, and his periscope shot downward. The man managed to push the lever back toward Raise, to brake the fall, barely in time to bottom the periscope without damage.

Rich’s “Down ’scope!” was almost simultaneous with Buck’s. As he instinctively grabbed for the lever, he felt his own quartermaster already there, pulling it for him, getting the heavy tube down swiftly and safely.

“Left full rudder!” shouted Buck. “Take her down fast!” The whoosh of air and the rush of water into negative tank pervaded the control room. He made a show of wiping the sweat off his forehead. “Did you see what I saw, boss?”

“I think so. What do you think it was?”

“It was mighty big, that’s all I can say!”

“I think we’d have passed under it, but it sure scared me,” said Richardson. “Damn good thing we were going so slow!”

“That’s for sure!”

“What was it, Skipper?” asked Abbott, standing on the main deck outside the periscope circle rail. “An iceberg?”

“No. Too regular for that. Something straight up and down in the water!”

“That’s what I saw, too, Buck! I thought I could see the bottom of it, though — could you?”

“Negative, I had my ’scope turned up. All I saw was something suddenly awfully big and awfully close!”

“The bottom looked squared-off to me. It was man-made, all right!”

“Did it move, or look as if it could move?”

“Passing three hundred. Give me a depth, Captain!” said Clancy, calling from the other side of the periscope station. “I need speed, or permission to blow the tank.”

“Blow negative now, Tom,” said Buck swiftly, “and vent the pressure easy. Try to hold whatever depth you can stop her at.”

The noise of blowing air. Then the flood valve clanked shut, and a great quantity of air, at pressure corresponding to the depth of water, began to vent into the ship. Rich and Buck had to swallow several times before their sinus passages felt normal. “I don’t think that thing was mobile, Buck. That was no seagoing shape. Let’s come on around and ping on it. We’ll have to chance nobody will hear us. Maybe that will give us an idea of what it is.”

At half-a-mile range and depth of three hundred feet, Manta made several complete circuits of the strange object, pinging first strongly, then progressively less so. Finally Schultz had his equipment down to minimum power, the ping barely perceptible as it went out, almost inaudible when the echo returned. And gradually, the outline of what they were looking at so painstakingly came clear.

Rich recognized it first. “It’s a cylinder, Buck! Four cylinders, rather, fastened together in some way and standing upright in the water!”

“That’s what it looks like, all right! I’ve never heard of anything like this! Have you?”

“No. Not ever. It must be floating in the sea, but it doesn’t look as if it were intended to be mobile.”

“Not with that shape,” said Buck. “How big do you make it?”

“No idea — yes, we do too have a guess. If the bottom really was a little above the tops of our periscopes, that would put it at a hundred twenty feet or so. From the sonar picture it’s about two-thirds that in width.”

“And the top’s got to be frozen in the ice pack! If it can’t move, it’s got to be!”

“That makes sense, Buck. But what is it?”

“Let’s close in again till we can see it, boss,” begged Buck. “Maybe that will give us the clue. Besides, if anybody heard us pinging, the quicker we get this over with, the better.”

“Agreed!”

The water was remarkably clear, but the dim light filtering through the bumpy underside of the ice pack was barely sufficient to outline the huge structure. The control room had been darkened, leaving only red lamps glowing at the important stations. Buck and Rich kept their faces firmly pressed against the rubber buffers at the periscope eyepieces, the better to acclimate their eyes to the tenebrous half-light. Forty feet above them, at the tops of the periscopes, they turned their two glass orbs from side to side, elevated and depressed the prisms inside, and gradually the amorphous thing took shape. There was an impression of massive strength, vertical steel solidity held together with an intricate interlocking of rugged girders, combined with a much more delicate tracery of smaller lines running in every direction. At several places steel ladders could be distinguished. The entire structure — or structures, for there seemed to be four principal elements of equal size — was painted sea gray. It was relatively new, for as yet there had been very little growth on the surfaces. Here and there black lettering could be seen featuring the occasional “reversed” characters of the Russian alphabet. Other areas, irregular in shape, were most likely merely abrasions, or rusted places.

As the Manta crept slowly around the complex, rising nearer the surface and then descending to inspect its bottom, its dimensions were determined to be approximately 120 feet in depth, roughly 80 feet in width overall. In composition it was four huge vertical cylinders, each some 35 feet in diameter, attached together by steel girders. Where it encountered the ice overhead, three sides of the square were evidently frozen into it, for there was no visible demarkation above, except that light came through the ice and not through the metal. But on the fourth side there was a large opening in the ice, in length and width many times the size of the two cylinders touching it, through which bright sunlight streamed in stark contrast to the dimness everywhere else.

“What do you think, Buck? Ever see anything like this before?”

“The only thing I can remember that looked like this was the grain elevator in my hometown. It had six silos, sort of roofed — silos! Silos! Could these be missile silos?”

“Missile silos, floating in the Arctic Ocean! By God, that’s what they could be! Then that little polynya would be a resupply dock! Imagine the trouble they’re going to, to keep it ice-free! Buck, I think you hit it! This is the headquarters of that Soviet polar exploration expedition they were talking about in that lousy press release, and it’s really an intercontinental missile base! I’ll bet you five there’s an ice runway alongside it, too!”

“We’ve got to report this as soon as we can, boss!”

“Just as soon as we can. But we’ve got to be sure first. If we’re right, this will really shake up the powers down in Washington!”

“This must be where that submarine was based, and we know he’s not coming back. Maybe we can ease on up and take a careful look! Then we’ll know!”

“And take a batch of pictures through the periscope, too, to prove it! Our intelligence boys will love us for that!”

“We’d better go to battle stations, boss. Whoever these people are, their history shows they’ll resent strangers taking pictures through the periscope!”

“I was about to say the same, Buck. But don’t sound the alarm. Pass the word quietly in case they’ve got a sonar watch on.”

Positioning the Manta in the center of the artificial polynya was easy; it was more than twice her length in both dimensions. The difficulty lay in bringing the submarine up slowly, using buoyancy only — with no way on she got no benefit from her control surfaces — and stopping her ascent at exactly the right depth. The periscope itself could be varied in height from the conning station deck to the overhead, thus giving the diving officer a few feet of flexibility in case Manta began to rise or descend unexpectedly. A person using the periscope could do it either lying on his stomach or standing, or anywhere in between so as to expose only the desired amount of the instrument. The big job was Clancy’s, for it took consummate skill to hold the great steel bulk of the submarine within five feet of the desired depth without motion of any kind.

Tom Clancy was fortunately entirely equal to the task. With Buck at a half-crouch, the tip of Manta’s high periscope came one inch above the mirrorlike surface of the artificial lake. Buck spun it around swiftly, dropped it two feet below the surface. “I didn’t see anyone looking,” he said, speaking quickly, “but there’s a lot going on. I could see cranes, a hangar and several huts, all painted white or covered with snow. Quite a few people wandering around, too.”

“Can I have a look?” Rich could not keep the eagerness from showing in his voice.

“That’s what we’re here for! That and the camera!”

Through the tiny prism at the top of the attack periscope, Rich was first conscious of the height of the ice all around: nearly ten feet above the surface, he estimated, high above the minimal periscope height he and Buck had determined was all they would risk. This was not an ordinary floe. The ice must extend five times that far below the surface. The Soviets had preempted an ice island for their missile station! Then he saw the hangar, a large, white, arched-roof building vaguely resembling the quonset hut which had been their quarters in Idaho. The elevated white booms of two large cranes were prominent against the sky.

He was dictating his observations rapidly to two quartermasters and two yeomen as he swiftly traversed the periscope. Near the hangar he thought he could distinguish an aircraft, though of this he could not be sure for the height of the ice interfered, and it would not be wise to raise the ’scope higher for a better look. The structure enclosing the tops of the silos, white like all the other construction, apparently even with the ice surface, formed a portion of one side of the polynya. One silo door was open; he could see the twin halves standing vertically, parallel to each other. Extending for some distance below the water surface, and in the air up to the level of the ice ledge, the two silos nearest him were covered with metal siding, again white, but artfully camouflaged where it entered the water. At a distance it resembled the edges of the polynya. The smooth steel glistened in a non-icelike manner, however, and from nearby it looked more like the side of a ship, painted white, without portholes.

Alongside the shiplike siding, mooring cleats — they could only be for submarines — had been built. They too had been painted white, but there were dark rope burns which proved they had been used. And, as Buck had said, there were numbers of people to be seen, all dressed in heavy clothing.

Rich dunked the ’scope several times as he made his methodical traverse, and he maintained a constant monologue dictating his observations. The necessity of maintaining no more than an inch or so of periscope exposure in the calm waters of the artificial polynya caused him to vary his attitude from standing fully erect to squatting on his haunches, once lying flat on his stomach to bring the eyepiece of the periscope as near to the deck as was possible while Tom Clancy fought to keep Manta’s 3,000 tons of steel from drifting higher.

It was with surprise that Rich noted, when he finally dunked the ’scope a little farther than usual and turned it over to the camera party, that he had been using it less than five minutes. The camera party itself, with four cameras ready and the arc of interest carefully defined, accomplished its mission in half a minute.

Buck retrieved the periscope, spun it twice rapidly as he bounced around on his haunches, once inspecting the sky, then dropped it to the bottom of its well.

“This has been mighty well done, Skipper,” he heard Richardson say, more loudly than necessary, so that he would be overheard by nearly everyone in the control room. “Now let’s get away from here and get off that message!”

Rich might have gone on, was, in fact, preparing to say a few words in specific praise of Tom Clancy and his diving team, when all thought was abruptly reoriented by a thunderous crash! Manta’s deck seemed to buckle, then straighten. Richardson felt himself flung into the air, saved himself from falling by grabbing the guardrail around the periscope station, found it vibrating madly. Buck had also nearly been thrown off his feet, he noticed, and several of the men in the control room had truly been knocked down. The atmosphere in the control room was alive with particles of paint, dust and cork. Manta’s entire interior resounded like a huge steel drum.

“All compartments report!” said Buck urgently to the battle stations telephone talker a few feet away. Rich found himself blessing the foresight which had led them to order the ship rigged for depth charge and the crew at action stations beforehand. Then the second depth charge arrived, if anything, closer than the first. And then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth…

Nikolai Konstantinov Shumikin, commander of the First Soviet Arctic Free Missile Base, was seriously worried. For a time things had been going so well, and now, ever since he had sent Zmentsov back to prevent escape of the damaged American missile submarine, the sixth sense which had always served him had not been functioning. Number one, there had been a second very recent transmission in undecipherable code from somewhere nearby, and for this last one there was no clear explanation. Grigory Ilyich Zmentsov, skipper of the Novosibirsky Komsomol, had suggested the one before it must have been from a submarine sent from the United States to render assistance to the one they had so cleverly immobilized. The trapped vessel, the newest model of Polaris missile submarine, must not be permitted to escape. The Americans had no right to attempt to make the Arctic Ocean into a place from which they might shoot Polaris missiles! His own top-secret missile base, of course, was a very different thing. It was more like an extension of Russia’s land mass a little farther into the sea: perfectly legitimate, even if subterfuge had been necessary because of stupid treaties. But not a missile submarine! That was too much!

His first report, praising the Novosibirsky Komsomol and her commander for so brilliantly carrying out his instruction to damage the American submarine in an apparent accident, had resulted in deserved praise for himself as well. It had been an extraordinary stroke of luck to have been forewarned of the expected appearance of the enemy sub, and to have had Grigory Ilyich and his specially configured Novosibirsky Komsomol ready. Reporting the loss of one of his aircraft as due to a weapon fired from the damaged submarine had given the Kremlin an excellent pretext for the decision to take the damaged vessel into custody, and it had also camouflaged the bombing run he had ordered. That had been necessary to prevent the enemy submarine from escaping. The intent, after all, had been only to drive her back under the ice once more, so that she could not further communicate with her headquarters, and this had been achieved. It was simply unfortunate that she had managed to surface and get those two initial messages off.

Indeed, that had been the beginning of the bad luck that, somehow, had dogged him ever since. The second submarine had undoubtedly come in response to the call for help, but had been stupid enough to advertise her presence by sending a long message herself, from not many miles away. By great good fortune, Grigory Ilyich had actually been in Shumikin’s office when the radio messenger arrived to report interception of the transmission, and he had immediately ordered him to investigate. The Americans were really astonishing. Grigory had returned with the extraordinary report that somehow the second submarine, a smaller, older model, had actually managed to rig a towline to the first one and was even then in the process of extracting her from under his very nose! There had been no time to radio for instructions. He had had to make the decision on his own, and it had been a most difficult one, but it was the only one possible. It would not have been necessary to order the second submarine destroyed, had it not interfered by taking the first one in tow. He regretted the necessity of rewarding such ingenuity with death, but there had been no alternative.

Grigory Ilyich had departed immediately, but he had not yet returned. That was four days ago. It was inconceivable that anything could have gone seriously wrong! Grigory himself had assured him that the towing sub was helpless to defend itself, and furthermore could not have that recent triumph of Soviet technology, the new force-field antitorpedo system which made all Soviet submarines practically immune to attack. Perhaps they had gotten farther away than Grigory had expected, or perhaps some other difficulty was holding him up. Submarines were delayed more frequently than other ships because of some unexpected problem. One had to be respectful of the implacable power of the sea, especially if one operated beneath its surface. All the same, it had begun to be worrisome.

Three days ago the second of the two recent American messages had been brought to his office in the hangar, and this had caused Shumikin extreme concern. The direction-finding people had said it had been sent from farther away than the previous one. Perhaps the Americans had gotten much farther — had towed faster — than Grigory Ilyich had predicted they could. Perhaps they had actually given him the slip. But Grigory was persistent. He would continue the pursuit. He would find them eventually, even if he had to track them out past Greenland! But, then, how had the American submarine managed to break through the ice to send a message if it was still attached to a towline? And what was Grigory doing? Why had he not reported back? By this time he must have found them. He must be returning soon. The underwater beeper had been going continuously. He would have no difficulty homing on it. Where in the devil was he?

For three days there had been a close watch kept on the lagoon. Shumikin would be informed the instant Grigory’s periscope was observed, or his sonar heard. It would be only a few steps from anywhere in his base to the silo-pier, and he could be there before the Novosibirsky Komsomol completed surfacing. Then he could set his mind at ease. Probably the delay was nothing important.

He was still in this frame of mind when, late on the fourth day since Zmentsov’s departure, the expected messenger came. But the initial delight at seeing him instantly gave way to dismay. The man was excited. “There is a submarine! But it is acting strangely!” Shumikin had to force himself to walk to the observation post. He would have covered the short distance at a run, but it would not do to let his men see that he was anxious. On the way he learned that echo-ranging had been heard, but the vessel had seemed to become more distant instead of coming closer. Perhaps Grigory Ilyich for some reason could not hear the beeper and therefore was searching the area by sonar. This had happened once before, when the beeper had broken down, but that was not the case today. Now, the periscope had been sighted in the lagoon, but instead of rising high out of the water, as was Zmentsov’s custom, it remained very low and could be seen turning in all directions as though it were inspecting the place. At this point, the puzzled watch officer had sent for his superior.

In the observation post, fortunately built for just this contingency, Shumikin was able to inspect the waters of the polynya through binoculars without himself being observed, and what he saw increased his apprehension. The periscope was indeed acting most strangely! It was going up and down at short intervals, turning in all directions and never exposing itself more than an inch or two above the water. When it was lowered beneath the clear surface he could see the tapered end, only a few feet under, poised, waiting, and then in a moment it would rise again to repeat the process. Nikolai Konstantinov Shumikin was no submariner, but the entire performance was disquieting. Grigory Ilyich would not behave like this unless something were seriously wrong! And then the full implication struck him with sledgehammer impact. Savagely, he turned on his officer of the watch.

“Why was I not informed of this sooner?” he demanded in a fury. “Why was this submarine permitted to echo-range without my knowing of it?”

The man was unable to answer. He had been expecting the Novosibirsky Komsomol, knew nothing about the possibility of another submarine being in the vicinity, had not been overly disturbed by the slightly different pattern of the echo-ranging, had not, in fact, become concerned at all until he had seen the periscope. Shumikin stamped his foot in rage, continued with the same furious anger. “Sound the alarm, you dolt! This is an enemy! Release the ready depth charges!”

Twenty depth charges, in camouflaged racks at the far side of the polynya, could be released electrically. They had been carefully set deep enough so that their explosions would not damage the silos, nor the ice above them, hence they could not harm an interloper at shallow depth. A far more potent weapon lay in the torpedo room, built in the base of the mooring pier. There were two torpedo tubes, and a supply of the latest target-seeking torpedoes, similar to those carried by the Novosibirsky Komsomol.

With the sounding of the alarm, furious activity struck the missile base. There had been planning, and drills. Now the base commander was thankful for his insistence on them. Other depth charges would soon be ready to be rolled into the lagoon, and the cranes could swing still others almost into its center. Numerous small guns and two large 100-millimeter anti-aircraft rifles would also be manned, although they would be useless unless the strange submarine surfaced. Most important of all, the torpedoes could be brought into action in three minutes from a standing start.

At least a minute had elapsed since the first depth charge. They had all been set deep, but nevertheless the surface of the polynya was roiled with disturbed water, and the periscope had disappeared. Shumikin grabbed the observation post telephone. “Sonar!” he barked, “Where is that submarine?”

“It’s going away, Commander! Right after the depth bombs we heard it speeding up!”

“Well, keep the contact! It was your negligence that let it come up on us without warning! You should have reported at once on the battle intercom! Don’t repeat your error or it will go very hard with you!”

“We guarantee it, Commander! The error is regretted, but we did not know—” Shumikin banged the telephone down with irritation. He was in no mood to listen to excuses, especially when his subconscious told him there might be a certain amount of justification to them.

He pushed the call for the torpedo room. “Torpedo!” he shouted in the same tone. “When will you clowns be ready with those fish?”

“About a minute, Commander! We’re going as fast as we can!”

“Very well! Hurry!” He slammed the phone into its cradle, leaped out of the observation post and ran toward the hatch leading down into the torpedo room. He was almost in a frenzy. He knew well what the strange submarine was up to. He knew as soon as he realized it must be an American. Already he regretted the depth charges. They had only alerted the enemy. It would have been better to surprise him with the torpedoes. Having detected the silo base, perhaps even having photographed it, the American submarine commander was undoubtedly hightailing it to find a place from which to inform Washington. This must be prevented at all costs! If these torpedomen were ever to beat their three-minute record, now was indisputably the time!

By his presence in the torpedo room he hoped to galvanize his men into even greater effort. But in this he was disappointed, for even to his nontechnical eyes they were working as rapidly as possible. Shumikin had the good sense to desist from his exhortations as soon as this was clear to him, and finally there came the moment when both torpedoes could be fired, fortunately at a still well-defined sonar target. He congratulated himself also on having acceded to the demand of the senior torpedoman that there be a suitable wait, more than half a minute, before firing the second torpedo. Else they might interfere with each other, the man had said, rendering both of them harmless. How nearly he had come, in his impatience, to overriding the torpedoman’s obvious professional training! But now both torpedoes were on their way, and at least one of them, most likely both, would certainly home on the target. Sonar should shortly hear two muffled explosions, and he would then know he had at least protected the grave secret entrusted to his care.

As for Grigory Ilyich Zmentsov and his ship, the heroic Novosibirsky Komsomol, it was too bad, but a painful duty now devolved on him. He would spend all day composing a fitting epitaph in the form of a message describing how they had sacrificed their lives in the service of their country. He would begin this difficult chore immediately, with the highest personal priority, as soon as sonar reported the two explosions…

Walking deliberately, Shumikin left the torpedo compartment and went down another hatchway leading to the sonar room. It would be good to be there in person, both to ensure the highest performance of its personnel, whose attainments he had had reason to doubt recently, and to be able to report that he had personally witnessed the results of the initiative he himself had been forced to take in performance of his duty.

The depth charge meter in Manta’s control room had gone wild, but it had also indicated that all the depth charges were at some distance below. Not many in her crew had experienced depth charging. The ship’s hull vibrated resoundingly, despite its extraordinarily solid structure. The noise was tremendous. Pipelines, frames, cableways, even the very bulkheads with their great watertight doors shook spasmodically with every explosion. Buck Williams, after a quick reassuring look at the depth charge meter — the tests, months ago, had convinced him the gadget really worked — took a perverse pleasure in the initiation his crew was getting. Cushing’s crew too, for that matter. He, at least, had experienced it all before.

So had Rich. Buck had felt actual pleasure carrying out Rich’s order to stay at periscope depth despite the shattering, smashing blows being inflicted, the dust storm raised inside the ship, even the knowledge that somehow one of the charges might be set shallow enough to do actual harm. It had been his evaluation, concurred in by Richardson and substantiated by the depth charge meter, that the Soviets would have to set the charges deep. Otherwise they would risk unacceptable damage to their own installation, in particular their precious silos. The guess had proved correct. And then, when the last of twenty explosions had died its reverberating death, he was able, with the greatest composure, to seize the temporary cessation of the attack to order depth increased and the reactor to deliver power to the waiting turbines.

It had all been too easy. First the inspection of the missile base. Then, the depth charge attack had removed any doubt of Soviet intention to safeguard knowledge of its existence in the Arctic, even at the cost of direct, hostile, military action. Now no power on earth could prevent the Manta from making known what she had discovered. Buck heaved a deep sigh, and at that moment heard the scream from Schultz, ten feet away in his sonar room. “Torpedo!” Schultz shouted the word, shouted it with all the force and all the voice at his command.

Buck did not wait for the sweeping motion of Richardson’s hand. “All ahead emergency! Take her down!” Instantly he could feel the tilt of the deck, the bite of the suddenly accelerated screws. Tom Clancy at the diving station and the engineers in the maneuvering room were slamming all their pent-up tension into execution of the order. But there was too little time. The range was much too short. Even as the air vented from the negative tank, adding its whistle to the now silent compartment and its quota of air pressure which he could feel on his ears, there was a vicious jolt, a violent resounding blow, and the high-pitched sound of an explosion combined with rending metal. Buck could hear something, metal fragments, rattling on the hull.

Simultaneously, steady, fantastically heavy vibration began to be communicated to Manta’s rugged structure. Buck and Rich were both looking at the annunciators, when, unbidden, the starboard annunciator turned to Stop.

“Starboard shaft is stopped! Maneuvering says the starboard shaft is damaged! They’ve stopped it because of heavy vibration!” The telephone talker stuttered in his panic.

Buck snatched the nearest handset out of its cradle. “Maneuvering, Captain here. How bad is it?”

“That explosion must have been right on the starboard propeller, Captain! She started vibrating like crazy right after! I had to stop it, sir!”

“Are you taking water? How’s your shaft seal?”

“The engineroom’s okay! We’re checking the stern room now!” Buck held the instrument to his head while he waited. “The seal’s been damaged, Captain! The stern room’s taking water! Request the drain pump on the stern room bilges!”

“Tom! Take the angle off the boat! Start her back up! Stern room, open your drain-pump suction! We’ll put the pump on as soon as she’s lined up! Maneuvering, get some men back aft and tighten the gland! Where’s Mr. Langforth?”

“He’s just run back there! So did Mr. Steele.”

“Good! Keep me informed about the leak!” Buck turned to Abbott, who was gripping the other side of the periscope-stand guardrail, staring at him. “Jerry! Get on aft as fast as you can! We’ve got to know how bad we’re flooding!”

To Clancy, Buck said, “Tom, how are the stern planes?”

“They’re moving slower than before, but I think we’ve still got them, Captain! We’re taking the angle off now!”

“Have someone check the hydraulic pressure, and get a report from the after room on how the stern planes are operating!”

“Aye, aye, sir — passing five hundred feet! Twenty-five degrees down, decreasing!”

Buck and Rich could feel the angle lessening as Tom Clancy followed instructions.

There was another cry from Schultz. “Torpedo! Another one!” His scream was of pure terror.

Manta was still in a headlong dive, her port engine still racing. Buck did not hesitate. “Right full rudder!” he ordered, his tense voice sharp with urgency. “Tom, keep the angle on!”

Manta rolled to starboard, leaning into the turn like a rollercoaster car. Her gyrocompass repeaters began to spin. She had almost reached full speed but had slowed markedly with the loss of one engine, and now even more as the rudder drag took effect. The whirling port propeller, driven with the maximum output of the reactor and steam generators, was cavitating heavily because of the increased hull resistance. Its noise came clearly through the hull. Richardson’s face was immobile. Buck suddenly had the impression that he was not there at all.

“This is it, Skipper,” said Buck softly. “Just like the last time, only we’ve lost half our power. It’s all we can do!” He spoke almost with resignation.

“What’s our depth now, Buck?” asked Rich, not stirring from his position, braced against the double angle on the ship.

“Passing six hundred feet. We’ll have to take the angle off her pretty soon, even if we can contain the leak!”

“Buck,” said Rich, speaking somberly and slowly, “Keith did one thing for us that we didn’t appreciate at the time. It’s almost as if I could hear him all over again. Do you remember the depth the Cushing reached?”

“Yes. He told us fourteen hundred pounds sea pressure. That’s over three thousand feet!”

“If the Cushing could go that far below her design depth, so can we, Buck! Even with a bad leak. But that torpedo won’t! It’s our only chance! Tell Tom to keep the angle on and level her off at fifteen hundred feet!”

Buck nodded shortly, his eyes wide as he took it in. The memory of Keith’s last moments was strong in him as he deliberately gave the orders. There was silence in the control room, and in all the other compartments. The silence of men who realized the risk but who also understood the necessity for it. If ever they were to put their faith in the men who had designed and built their ship, who had given it a marvelous power plant and a magnificent hull to go with it, now was the time. Damaged or no, there was no other choice.

One thousand five hundred feet was far below Manta’s designed depth, yet far short of the depth sustained by the Cushing’s stout hull before its inevitable and catastrophic collapse. The Manta was there in slightly more than a minute, and as Clancy began to level off, the immense pressure of the sea was already obvious. During the descent there had been creaks in the solid structure, as the implacable squeeze drove everything inward upon itself. Light partition bulkheads were bowed, drawers and sheet-metal doors were jammed shut. Even some of Manta’s steel interior decks were curved upward or downward, where their girders were compressed lengthwise. All depth gauges had reached their limits and had been secured, the valves communicating to the sea closed tightly. So had most of the sea pressure gauges, only a few of which could register the 670 pounds per square inch the depth produced. A special watch had quickly been set up on all sea connections, throughout the ship, with special emphasis on the periscopes and propeller shafts. Most particularly on the port shaft and its thrust bearing, now also taking increased pressure from the depth as well as the drag imposed by the dead starboard shaft. As expected, its oil temperature had immediately begun heating up.

Everyone aboard was subconsciously aware of an unwonted rigidity in Manta’s heavy framing. Flecks of paint popped off as the squeeze minutely compressed the steel, and it seemed to settle itself, almost as though with flexed muscles and a look of defiance, at holding back the malevolently waiting sea. Steel shapes cannot be alive, and yet there was the indisputable aura of elemental struggle about them as they held fast.

Manta’s speed on one shaft had been reduced to fifteen knots with the rudder hard over, and the overloaded propeller was thrashing loudly. Buck left the rudder on for one more full circle to render the disturbance it made in the water as nearly impenetrable as possible, then put the rudder amidships and let her steady on a course away from the polynya. Resistance eased, the furiously cavitating screw became more quiet, but not completely so, and Manta’s speed increased to nineteen knots.

The real battle, as everyone was well aware, was taking place in the stern room, where the inrush of water must be somehow contained, where Tom Clancy’s two assistants and the entire engineering department, backed up by Jerry Abbott, were at full stretch. There were no illusions about what was going on. The water must be spurting in with maniacal force, sufficient to break an arm or rip off clothes and skin. The proper treatment for any leak is to reduce the pressure behind it — exactly opposite to what they had done. With the damaged shaft stopped, the seal where it exited from the Manta’s hull could be clamped down tightly by its huge peripheral bolts, but to do this under the best of conditions men would have to reach into nearly unreachable places, jammed, confined, with hardly the room to swing a wrench. Only now they would also be confronted with a roaring spray with the force of fifty fire hydrants issuing from behind these same bolts. But no news, in this case, must be good news. They must be coping with the leak, somehow.

Jerry Abbott was undogging the door leading aft to the reactor compartment, was returning to the control room. He left a trail of water dripping on the deck behind him, and a large puddle began swiftly forming under him as he stopped, facing Buck. He was soaked through and breathing hard. “We can’t hold her at this depth, sir,” he said rapidly. “We’ve got the packing nuts as tight as they’ll go, but the water is coming in so hard that two of us had to hold a piece of sheet metal to deflect it so that one man could reach the gland nuts. We’ll have to pressurize the compartment!”

“Is everybody out of there?” asked Buck.

“Not yet. Harry Langforth and Whitey Steele and our three best men are still working on the gland, but there’s not much more they can do. The leak’s still a bad one. The drain pump’s taking a suction, but it can’t pump very fast at this depth. The water’s gaining fast, and I’m afraid the rest of the seal might blow out with the pressure!”

“We’ve got to stay down here for a while, Jerry, until that second torpedo either runs down or collapses. Have them abandon the stern room and start putting air in it. That will help the drain pump, and also cut down the rate of the leak!”

Abbott said, “Aye, aye, sir!” and ran aft. As he passed through the watertight door he heard Buck order, “Port ahead two-thirds!”

“The best thing we can do is slow down, Skipper,” said Buck to Rich. “If they’ve got another fish ready we’re still making so much noise it might be able to follow us! Everything else is silenced except the propeller!”

“Right!” It was not necessary to mention the fact that, in her present condition, Manta dared not slow to such a degree that she could not carry the increased weight. Buck would otherwise have ordered one-third speed. A glance at the diving station verified that Clancy had already begun to use angle on the stern planes to hold the stern up. More would be needed as speed dropped, as well as a large bubble of air in the after group of ballast tanks. They could hear the hiss of air as Abbott began to follow his orders at the stern room bulkhead.

Chief Sonarman Schultz finally made the report that had been so anxiously awaited. “When we quieted down I could still hear the torpedo pinging somewhere astern and above us,” he said. “Then it sort of petered out and stopped. I think it finally ran down!”

Clancy had been adding air for several minutes to the ballast tanks aft to compensate for the weight of the water in the stern room, and the anxious looks on his face and on those of his diving crew testified to their realization that the total cubic capacity of all of Manta’s air banks could only expand six times against sea pressure at the 1,500-foot depth — far from enough to empty the after ballast tanks. A silent cheer went through the control room when Buck gave the order to bring the ship up.

“It’s obvious we’d not have been able to stay down much longer, Commodore,” said Buck. “Jerry says there’s five feet of water in the stern room. It’s still coming in fast, but with the shallower depth and air pressure in there, he thinks we can cope with it.” Then he went on, speaking more slowly, with a certain deliberate formality in his words. “Commodore, this illegal base has opened fire on us without cause, and it has damaged us. The submarine based here sank the Cushing and caused the loss of eleven good men, one of them our close friend. I request permission to return the fire!”

Williams saw once again the faraway look in the face and eyes of his superior. Rich spoke quietly, almost pensively. “No, Buck. We’re not at war, and we’ll not attack in cold blood. I killed a man that way, once, during the war, and I vowed I’d never do it again. Shape your course away from here at shallow depth, and we’ll let Washington handle it when they get our message!”

“My God, boss! What do you mean, ‘cold blood’? After what they’ve done? This ship is a man-of-war! They can’t shoot at us without getting shot back at!”

“They can’t hurt us now, Buck. And Bungo Pete — I mean, Captain Tateo Nakame — couldn’t hurt us then, either. I drove him to shooting with his rifle when he saw what we were doing to his lifeboats!”

Buck’s arm around his shoulder was almost like a blow. “Skipper!” he hissed, “stop it! You heard what Keith said, and I’ve been saying the same thing! Stop it! You hear me? Okay, we’ll not try to get even with these bastards, but you’ve got to promise me to stop it!” Both hands were now on Rich’s shoulders, gripping them.

Jerry Abbott, coming on the tableau, ever afterward puzzled over the meaning of what he saw. Nor did he have any way of realizing that it was he who at that instant changed the entire complexion of the private talk between his skipper and their admired, but unaccountably suddenly irresolute, squadron commander. “Skipper!” he said to Buck, “we’ve got to surface! We can’t stop the water! We’ll have to get the stern as high as we can and remake the seal with flax packing! The graphite seal is completely shot, and it’s getting worse fast!”

“How long can we hold out the way we are, Jerry?” asked Buck.

“Who knows? The seal might let go any minute! A couple of hours, no more. With air pressure in the stern room, I mean. We’ll have to let it off to go back in there, and there’s no telling what will happen then!”

“How long will it take to make the change once you start?”

“About an hour. It’s a big job, but we have everything we need to do it, once we can stop the water from coming in like this!”

Richardson, listening, knew that Admiral Donaldson’s cryptic words aboard the Proteus, and in the sedan returning to the airfield in Groton, had at last achieved their full meaning, even though neither he nor anyone could have anticipated the situation. “The United States needs someone who can make the right decision at the right time, and take the responsibility for it, Rich. That’s the main reason you’re going along on this trip. You may run into a lot more up there than we expect!” Aloud, Rich said, “There’s only one place around here we can bring her to the surface, Buck!”

“How are we—” Buck began, but Richardson interrupted him.

Speaking loudly, so as to be overheard, Rich said, “Buck, enter in your log that because there is only one place to surface, which is occupied by a hostile force that not once but several times has endeavored to destroy this ship and all on board, and has now seriously damaged her so that the lives of all hands depend on her coming to the surface to make repairs, the commander of Task Group 83.1 has ordered destruction of the offensive power of the said base so that Manta can surface unmolested!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“I will sign the entries in the quartermaster’s notebook and the official log to attest to their accuracy. And now, make ready the torpedoes!”

Nikolai Konstantinov Shumikin, finally relaxed at his desk, was beginning to be pleased with himself. No matter how you cut it, no matter that the American missile submarine had got away, or that the Novosibirsky Komsomol had been unaccountably and unfortunately lost, the American submarine which had had the temerity to lift her periscope in the middle of his own artificial lagoon was now also resting on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. He himself had heard the torpedo explosion which had killed her, and he had heard some of the desperate moves she had made to save herself. With her had died the possibility of premature revelation of the existence of his missile base. This the Kremlin intended to announce at the appropriate and propitious time, as the many briefings he had received had made clear. His primary responsibility was to safeguard its secrecy until then, and he had succeeded. It had been at some cost, but he had been successful.

He would compose a priority message explaining that a number of exotic weapons had been used against him, all illegally and all unsuccessful, that Grigory Ilyich Zmentsov and his whole crew in the Novosibirsky Komsomol had died heroically defending their country, and that his own inspired crew had finally sunk the American submarine responsible for it all. Having the trapped missile submarine slip through his fingers, for there was no way to find her now, was a misfortune, but it would have to be accepted. Certainly that had been through no fault of his. On the contrary, it was he who had taken the decisive action which had nearly captured her after all — and, in any case, she could know nothing about the existence of the missile base.

Loss of the Novosibirsky Komsomol would be the hard thing to explain, but surely the Naval Ministry knew they were taking this risk when they fitted her out for her special mission. Nevertheless, he would have to provide sufficient detail so that a plausible announcement as to the circumstances could be made. He was beginning to grapple with the problem, had decided he would have to send two messages, one in language proper for public distribution, the other a more private, more accurate explanation for official use only, when suddenly the alarm bell jangled. “Torpedo fired!” shouted a hoarse voice over the command intercom.

Shumikin leaped to his feet, pressed the button overriding the sonar room. “What do you mean, ‘torpedo fired,’” he snarled. “Who ordered it?”

“It’s not us, Commander, It’s that submarine! We heard it firing! There’s two torpedoes, now! We can hear them! They’re coming this way! Very noisy! They’re big torpedoes!” The voice rose in a shriek, then was cut off.

A tremendous geyser of water and explosive gas burst out of the open silo, rose high above it and, descending, drenched everything within several hundred yards, Nearly simultaneously, a wracking, explosive BOOM shattered the calm atmosphere. A plume of gray smoke shot high above the ice, then lazily drifted away in the still air.

The ruined silo, instantly filled with angry water, jerked sideways, hanging from the heavy steel foundations built into the ice and from its moorings to the other three. The ice cracked on the far side of the hangar, and the water level rose several feet up the steel facing of the Novosibirsky Komsomol’s mooring pier.

The second torpedo struck a silo diametrically opposite the one first hit. Its exit doors burst open. A second geyser of water, mixed with smoke and gas, shot into the air. This time it was followed by a streak of white-hot fire from the ruptured fuel section of the missile recently lowered into it.

The silo complex, which had begun to list to one side, straightened. It had been built with tremendously strong and wide underpinning in the ice itself, firmly planted into the rigid crystalline structure and then “cemented” in place by water. Its designer had proudly stated that it would continue to float, and remain operable, even if two of its silos were damaged or destroyed, and this had, by consequence, been written as one of the operational requirements. Now he was proved wrong, for the weight of the two flooded silos dragged down the entire structure, the whole section of the ice island into which it had been built, to within inches of the water level in the polynya. Seawater began to trickle around the hinges of the missile exit doors of the two undamaged silos, and into the long, narrow, unsealed cracks separating their halves.

The personnel of the undamaged silos needed no encouragement to evacuate. They had already been severely shaken by the two heavy explosions they had felt, and all electric power had cut off. Candles and battery-powered lights only heightened their appreciation of danger. When one of their number frantically reported that water was only centimeters from the portals of the crew entry hatches, they unceremoniously started up the interior ladders to the top level and ran out. They were barely in time, for great cracks had begun appearing in the laden ice. Water was coming through them, collecting on the surface, everywhere. Within minutes, a stream of water was running down the personnel hatches. The base commander, confronting the men as they ran, furiously ordered them back to their stations, but they stood stolidly, affecting not to hear him, not daring to obey.

By this time the burning silo had begun to resemble a missile trying to drive itself farther into the ice. Violent, rocketlike flame was erupting from the exploded silo doors, reaching, like a searing blade, a hundred feet into the air. From there it gradually turned increasingly deep shades of red until finally the fire cone petered out, some six hundred feet above the ice, in a plume of jet-black smoke.

It had been a mistake to tie in the aircraft hangar’s services with those supporting the silos. The designer had used the opportunity to include its foundations with theirs also, and the whole ice slab, with its network of steel beams, insulated conduits, pipes and cables, had been laid out with great engineering skill and frozen solidly together. It cracked in several places, but the steel links in the ice held firm, and the entire camp area began to sag. Then, with a great smashing of ice, groaning of tortured metal and snapping of steel reinforcements, along with a continuous popping of burst rivets, stretched hoses, broken pipes and tangled utility lines of all kinds, the hangar, silos, cranes and all equipment in the vicinity slowly began to descend into the sea.

Or, rather, the sea waiting underneath simply poured up through the cracks, and out of the lowered edge of the polynya, to inundate the space recently occupied. A huge slab of ice cracked free from the rest of the ice island, just beyond the hangar, and irresistibly was dragged down by the weight of two full silos and two more filling rapidly.

Sensing the danger from the suddenly slanted footing and the water creeping ever farther over familiar environs, everyone in the camp began to run toward the only undamaged area, the aircraft landing strip. Nikolai Shumikin, despairingly recognizing the inevitable, could do no more than follow. The last man out of the ruined missile base, he stepped reluctantly off the sinking ice and the shattered remains of his command, stood on the edge of the runway, on the good ice.

His mind was still numb as to the magnitude of the disaster, but he knew that full appreciation would come in time. Everything was going straight to hell! And he would not be able to escape blame. Everything had gone wrong, beginning with the time that American missile submarine had arrived in the Arctic! He was furious with himself, furious with Grigory Ilyich, in a rage against his watch officer and the sonar watch-standers who should have heard the submarine returning. The fact that there might have been nothing to hear did not even enter his head. They should have alerted him!

He shaded his eyes as he looked into the low-lying sun, and with despair saw the hangar, with one plane inside, both cranes, the other aircraft which had been temporarily parked outside the hangar, the radio hut and his two big anti-aircraft guns, flanking their combined ammunition magazine, gently dropping out of sight, following the already vanished silos.

For a long time, Nikolai Konstantinov Shumikin stood looking at the scene of his disaster. That it was a personal as well as an official one could not be doubted. And then he saw a strange periscope rising out of the once again smooth waters of the much enlarged polynya. It was club-headed, with a large glass window — two glass windows, in fact. And it kept rising, higher and higher, until the black foundations underneath also broke water, and then the entire hull of a submarine.

It was a strange submarine, one he had never seen before. And it seemed to surface in a strange way, somehow oddly tilted, with the highest exposed portion of the hull at the point farthest away from the periscope. No men were to be seen. No one came on deck, or into what he assumed must be the bridge area, near the base of the periscope, although he could hear some noises of concealed activity apparently from that vicinity.

The periscope itself, he could tell from the glass windows at the top, was in nearly constant motion, although frequently it steadied for long minutes during which he felt it was leveled exactly at him. He felt distinctly uneasy at such times, as though he were in personal danger, but there were men watching him from the runway, and he stood his ground.

After about an hour, air bubbled from around the hull of the strange submarine, and it slowly descended back into the water and disappeared.