Raise the Red Dawn

Chapter Seven

Kalik’s eyes were bleary from staring at the screens hour after hour searching for Red Dawn. Sonar was picking up nothing. Radio had drawn a blank. Kalik had tried every search pattern, every trick in the book, to find the missing sub, even active sonar. If the Americans hadn’t been out of the area it would have given away Akula’s presence a dozen times over. The sonar did no good. In the end he had to admit to himself that the search was futile.

Kalik had never composed a communication to Naval Command with less relish than the one he sent informing them Red Dawn was missing. He continued the search while waiting for their response. Command would surely demand an explanation as to why he had disobeyed orders and left Red Dawn. The only way to forestall that inquiry was to find the sub. He was having difficulty facing the fact that he could tell them nothing. He had no ideas. Had the sub sunk? How could he know? There was a mile of ocean under them, and Red Dawn’s crush depth was only a fraction of that. It was maddening to think they might never find out what had happened. Sure, there was still a chance Red Dawn was disabled somewhere, maybe even caught in an ice cavern unable to surface or withdraw. Under those circumstances it could be rescued. But none of that explained the ship’s total silence. And it had a limited air supply that was dwindling every second. Maddening.

The navigator, under instructions to find a place to surface, suddenly called out, “Comrade Captain, open water ahead. Two hundred meters.”

Kalik glanced at the screen and saw it. “Right ten degrees rudder,” he ordered. Well, it was time to pay the piper. “Engine Room. All stop. Prepare to surface. Radio Officer, raise the masts as soon as we clear the ice.”

Akula broke through the surface into cold Arctic waves. Kalik scanned the area through the periscope. Jagged hills of sullen white ice surrounded the tiny patch of open water. The sky overhead was overcast, as gray as the freezing water.

As soon as the mast was up, the radio officer turned to Kalik, “Comrade Captain, incoming message.”

Kalik had known there would be one. He accepted the paper and read the message carefully.

Volkov moved to his captain’s side. The news wouldn’t be good. No one gave you medals for losing submarines. “Vassily? What do they say?”

“The tone is as cold as the ice around us, Viktor. The gist of it is that other ships have been dispatched but none are close enough to be of any immediate help in the search, so the responsibility for Red Dawn is ours. Given estimates of her air supply, we have two days to find her. Then the other ships will be here and we are to return home. To face a court-martial, I imagine.”

“Two days. What can we do?”

Kalik saw his senior lieutenant’s crestfallen expression and clapped him on the back. “Relax, my friend. A world can be won in two days. We don’t have to slink home just yet. And besides,” he added, “there’s only one head to chop. Mine.”

“That’s not a comfort.”

“Let’s have some coffee. We will talk. Maybe we can see together what I cannot see alone.”

MacKenzie leaned quietly against the sonar console. Lieutenant Kurstan put the sound over the loudspeaker. The active sonar pings Seawolf s sensors were picking up were as regular as clockwork.

“He’s back, Skipper,” said Kurstan. “And running a search pattern. He’s looking for something. Not being very quiet about it, either.”

“He figures he lost us. My bet is he’s looking for Red Dawn.”

“Could be, sir. He’s in the shallow zone. Course one eight zero. He speeds up to twenty knots, stops, searches, then runs fast again to a new sector.”

“Can we correlate the signature yet?”

Kurstan shook his head. “Still no luck, Skipper. That’s the quietest damn Russian sub we ever laid ears on. The computers are working overtime on this one. We’ve got a few more bytes, but it still doesn’t add up. As soon as it does…”

MacKenzie smiled dryly. “I know. You’ll call me.”

“You’ll be the first, sir.”

Two hours had passed and they were no closer to an answer.

“ ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,’ ” Kalik observed, tapping one against the table as the steward removed the latest round of empty mugs. “That’s T. S. Eliot. Did you know that, Viktor?”

“No.” Volkov was tired and frustrated. “No, I did not. A writer?”

“A poet. A great poet. American. You like poetry?”

“Only if it rhymes. The rest confuses me. As do Americans.”

“Understanding Americans is quite simple if you remember one thing, Viktor: they truly believe God loves them.”

“Does he?”

“There are times,” Kalik said with a sigh, “when I believe he does.”

“Well, you fooled the Americans before easily enough.”

“I…” Kalik stopped. “You know, Viktor. We’ve gone at this thing from every angle except one.”

“Which is?”

“Maybe I didn’t fool the American captain.” Kalik hit his head with his hand angrily. “I’m getting old, Viktor. So set in my ways. It is like the fable of Comrade Elephant and the new dress.”

“There are facets of your education that astound me, Vassily. Enlighten me, please.”

Kalik leaned back. “Comrade Elephant goes into a store — a Party store naturally — and tries on a new hat. It is horrible. It makes her look like — well, like an elephant. But the clerk flatters her and tells her she looks beautiful, so Comrade Elephant buys it. As soon as she goes out on the street, several passersby laugh and point. Adoration, thinks Comrade Elephant. Others shake their heads and frown. Envy, thinks Comrade Elephant. Viktor, too often we see and hear what we want to. In all this time we have never considered that maybe I am Comrade Elephant and perhaps the clever American captain was not fooled at all.”

“But he followed us. We heard him.”

“Yes, we did. We heard him at regular intervals, just as we were supposed to. Fifty miles, a hundred miles. But did we ever hear him again? Christ, I am a stupid man only now beginning to see the light.”

“You think he broke off? And did what?”

“He came right back here. He guessed we were decoying him away, and he doubled back.”

“Then he got back here before we did,” said Volkov, seeing the logic. “And if he did…”

“He knows we’re here. And he might also know what happened to Red Dawn. Christ, he’s been listening to our search.”

Volkov shrugged. “We can’t ask him where Red Dawn is.”

Kalik shook his head excitedly. “Of course not, but this presents a whole different problem, one with a potential solution, for a change. We aren’t looking for Red Dawn. We’re looking for the American sub that will lead us to Red Dawn.”

“I don’t know, Vassily. So many IPs…”

“Too many,” Kalik agreed, “but what is the alternative? Scour the ocean floor for wreckage to send home? Come, Viktor. Now we have something to look for.” He rose quickly to his feet, suddenly back in control. “And if our very clever American captain makes just one little mistake, we will be back in the game.”

The communications officer looked up as the hot printer began to chatter, discharging the reply from Naval Command in its original coded form. He pressed a button, electronically rerouting the message through the cipher machine and the secondary printer and handed it to MacKenzie, who read it quickly. “Take a look, Tom.” MacKenzie handed it to his XO.

“Raise the Red Dawn. Wow.” Lasovic whistled. “Command’s got some pretty big ideas. Think it can be done?”

“It won’t be easy, but if Garver is in on this, it’s bound to be creative.” MacKenzie chuckled. “We’ll know more when their man gets here.”

“He’d better be quick if they expect to get the crew out alive. You figure that’s what this is all about?”

“I doubt it,” said MacKenzie, suddenly reflective. “Red Dawn wasn’t out here on any regular cruise. Look at the way the Boomer is behaving. I’m not impugning our concern for life, but everything about this sub is unusual. I think this is more than just a simple rescue mission.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“On alert. For now let’s get ready to receive our guest.”

Pilot Mick Halperin fought to stay on course in the high Arctic winds that were buffeting his aircraft. He had only one passenger, a special delivery he’d picked up in Fairbanks, who was now staring out the cockpit window with a disturbed expression that Mick didn’t have to be a mentalist to read.

Ten thousand feet below the warm interior of the C-130 military transport was the ice cap’s compassionless frozen wasteland. Wind-driven snow obscured everything but the highest, sharpest pressure ridges. Temperature on the surface was minus ten degrees. Mick fought a sharp gust and fed power to the engines, raising the noise level in the cabin considerably.

Mick had invited his passenger to come forward and sit in the copilot’s seat when his copilot went back to get the drop load ready. He’d been told nothing about his passenger or the reason for the priority flight up here. He had simply been rerouted from his regular duties and ordered to make a nonstop pickup and an even faster hop to the pole. It was unusual, but Mick had been ferrying for a long time and didn’t ask about things that didn’t concern him. That included his passengers’ missions and the deeply tanned skin visible under this one’s heavy down parka, which spoke of recent habitation in far warmer climes. Flying, that’s what he knew. There wasn’t a square inch of the desolate ice cap that he hadn’t landed on or flown over.

“It looks awfully cold down there.” His passenger sighed.

“You got that right.” Mick smiled. “First time up here?”

“Does it show?”

“Well, you got what we taxi jocks call the how-can look.”

“How can?”

“How can there be so much goddamn ice in one fucking place?”

The passenger had a good laugh, full and hearty, and it warmed the cabin. She extended her hand. “Justine Segurra.”

Mick took it. A strong hand, firm. Not masculine, but confident. “Mick Halperin. Pleased to meet you.”

“It can’t be as bad down there as it looks. Can it?”

Mick mimicked a real estate salesman. “Well, you got your long periods of total darkness, dense fog, storms, and freezing temperatures. On the bright side, you got no neighbors and you’ll never run out of ice. By the way, if they didn’t tell you, permanent addresses are in short supply ‘cause all that ice is moving due to the wind and the undersea currents.”

“But you can get one helluva house for the money, huh?”

It was Mick’s turn to laugh. “Make sure you check the insulation.”

The copilot poked his head into the cabin. “Mick. Ten minutes to the drop point.” He leaned close to Justine. “We’ve got your gear loaded and your chute packed. Ready when you are, ma’am.”

“On my way. Appreciate the lift, Captain.”

“Mick, okay?”

“Thanks, Mick.”

“Any time. Safe landing. Oh, one sec. Forgot to give you this. Came by special pouch. Eyes only.”

Justine slipped the envelope inside her nylon parka. “Thanks again.”

The copilot took his seat, and Justine moved to the back of the plane. There the jumpmaster had lashed the tarpaulin-covered crates together with heavy netting. He pointed. “These go first. You jump on the second pass. Use the beeper when you hit. It’ll lead you right to them.”

“Gotcha.”

“You ready for this, ma’am?”

“Honestly? No.”

The jumpmaster grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

Justine’s white nylon parka and trousers were cinched at ankles and wrists and worn over a special body suit and insulated undergarments. Her goggles were darkened to prevent snow blindness. The heavy parka fit snugly into a jumpsuit. The jumpmaster helped her into the parachute harness and attached it to the jump line.

A buzzer sounded and an overhead lamp flashed yellow. “Get the hatch open,” he ordered. His men slid the door back, and a bitter, howling wind filled the cabin. The jumpmaster patted her on the back. “Show time.”

Justine nodded in spite of genuine fear. She was fighting for control, and it was a point of pride to her not to show it. The men respected her silence. Nobody jumped into that mess below without fear. The really brave ones just shut up about it.

The buzzer sounded again, and this time the light flashed green. The men shoved the crates out the hatch. The parachute billowed open.

“Okay, ma’am. We’re coming around fast.”

Justine muttered a truly heartfelt prayer, and when the buzzer sounded again she took a last look out the hatch into the face of heaven, yanked her face shield into place, and stepped out into space. There was nothing left to do but fall. The crates, distant by now, tumbled below her in what seemed like slow motion in the screaming wind. Then the jump line jerked her chute open and she dropped in a long, fast swing to the ice cap below.

“Sonar, Conn. Is the captain there?” It was Lasovic.

MacKenzie leaned over and hit the intercom. “Here, Tom. What’s up?”

“Message from Captain Halperin, pilot of a C-130 just about right over us. The party we’re expecting just left the plane. Wants us to know the wind is a real mother out there. Visibility’s way down cause of the snow. Tough for our pickup.”

MacKenzie thought for a moment. The ice pressure around Seawolf was tolerable but increasing. It would help if they could speed things up a bit. “Break out the cold-weather gear and take a shore party to meet him. I want to be out of here within the hour, Tom.”

“Okay, Skipper.”

He wondered who they were sending. Poor bastard. MacKenzie himself had no qualms about spending months hundreds of feet underwater or diving over a mile deep in a tiny DSRV, but jumping out of an airplane several thousand feet up onto the polar ice cap — Jesus, that took balls.

Lasovic stuck his head into the sonar room. “We’ve got a fix on the homing signal. I’m heading out.”

“Good hunting. Keep us informed by radio.”

A few minutes later Joe Santiago called in to say the snowstorm was worsening. Visibility was way down and the light was going fast.

MacKenzie hit the intercom again. “Chief, cut in communications to the bridge and get me a cold suit. I’m going up top.”

Ten degrees below zero, MacKenzie mused. Bring in your brass monkeys.

The ground came up faster than Justine expected, and the impact took her breath away. She slid on the ice and fell trying to get her footing. The wind took up the billowing chute. She found the breakaway catch and released it. Visibility was poor because of the swirling snow, but locating the crates proved easy with the beeper. They had landed only a few hundred feet away.

Looking around, she found it hard to imagine a more desolate place. The endless white plain was broken only by low, sharp, lunarlike crests. She shivered. Life itself was unwelcome here. The cold wasn’t just some minor annoyance. It tore at you, slapping you hard across the face. Drops of moisture froze on her cheeks like a collection of tiny diamonds.

Justine had grown up in the jungles and high plateaus of Central America. Life there was rich, fecund. This was an alien place, a canvas that had no color. It lacked brush strokes and form and substance. Where were the blues and greens? What about animal noises and the rich smell of dark earth and the insect hordes that burrowed incessantly within it? She fervently hoped Mac’s sub was close by. Freezing to death in this white haze was a distinct possibility.

She had nothing to worry about. The homing device lit up and beeped contentedly the moment she turned it on. The sub was indeed near, over in that direction, beyond a group of low ice hills. She could remain here and wait for a party to be sent out to her. “The hell with it,” she muttered. “After that jump, I need a bathroom too badly to wait.”

She trudged to the crates, feeling the crunch of the snow under her feet. Snowshoes and ski poles and a backpack were neatly tucked between the crates. Two small tubes, each containing a weather balloon complete with transmitter, were taped beneath the tarp. She fished one out and hit the trigger on the gas cartridge. A silver foil balloon attached to a wire line fixed to the crates inflated and shot up into the sky. She hoped it would be visible from a distance. She slipped the other tube into the backpack, struggled into it, and slipped on the snowshoes.

The arctic clothing was a miracle of lightweight protection. With the hood up, the face shield in place, and the goggles down over her eyes she could withstand the cold. She tested the snowshoes and found walking in them fairly easy. The hills beckoned; the warmth of the sub was just beyond them. She figured by now Mac had sent men to get her, probably led by Tom Lasovic. Should she wait or head off? She shivered. It was an easy decision.

The wind was rising and it was getting hard to see. She moved out into the rising snow to meet them.

Wet and hot. That’s how the interior of the sub still felt. Ligichev had figured the temperature curve. It didn’t look promising. At the rate the ice was bleeding heat out of the ship, they had a day till the temperature dropped back into a comfortable range and then plunged into deadly cold. For now, since they were unable to vent the ship, moisture dripped from glass gauge covers. A slime of oily water lay on the steel deck, making it treacherous to walk on. Men wrung out their shirts and hung them over hot pipes, and tendrils of steam rose from the sodden cloth.

In the control room, Galinin pulled out from under the main console and shook his head tiredly. They had been at it for twelve hours but were no closer to restoring communications. Air supplies were also perilously low. But how the hell did you send up a snorkel through solid ice? Galinin smiled humorlessly. Freeze to death or die of asphyxiation. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Ligichev entered the control room. “I need to talk to you.”

Galinin nodded. Emergency lighting cast a dim glow in the corridor. He followed the scientist to the mess where the steward, clad only in an undershirt and trousers, handed him a cup of hot coffee. Galinin raised an eyebrow in query when he felt the heat.

The man understood. “Candles, Comrade Captain.”

Ligichev sat down heavily in the booth. A red-brown scab had formed over his right eye, and he looked pale. “Comrade Captain, we must accept the fact that we are alone and unable to communicate with Akula or any other ship. Under the present conditions we have less than two days to live. Thus, desperate measures are called for.”

Galinin took a sip and felt the warmth spill down his parched throat. “I’ll try anything with the slightest chance of success.”

“Good. First, we must have air. Without that precious commodity all our efforts will come to naught. I have done some thinking. There may be a way.”

“How?”

“Tell me. Can a torpedo tube be opened at both ends?”

“Sure, if you care to flood the torpedo room and sink the sub.” Galinin looked as if he were talking to an idiot child. “Open the tube to the sea, of all the…” He stopped, his expression suddenly changing. “Christ, but you wouldn’t, would you? There’s no water out there. I mean, none that would flood in.”

“That’s what I suddenly realized,” agreed Ligichev. “The tube is blocked by ice. We are in a completely new situation, one that calls for new thinking. If we opened both ends of the tube, the ice would be accessible to us and we could tunnel our way into the very keel that holds us.”

“Assume it could be done. What then?”

“Your men tell me the torpedoes themselves are wire-guided. Do I understand that correctly — an actual wire trails from the sub to the torpedo as it travels through the water?”

Galinin nodded. “We can maneuver the torpedo from the control room till its sensors pick up the target. Then it homes in and destroys it.”

“Could something be attached to this wire? It would have to be quite a ways behind the torpedo.”

Galinin inclined his head thoughtfully. “Something like a small, temporary snorkel? Yes. Yes, I think it could. By God, I see what you have in mind.”

Ligichev continued. “If we tunnel through the ice till there’s only a foot or so left why couldn’t we fire a torpedo right through it out into open sea with the snorkel towed behind? Then we could direct it up at the ice cover, blow a hole in it, and the snorkel will float naturally to the surface. I first thought of tunneling straight up to the surface, but we have no idea how far down we are or how thick the ice is overhead, and a vertical shaft of any length seems impractical at best. It’s shorter to the outer edge of the ice keel.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone trying anything like it, but then again, no one’s ever been in this situation before. It just might work,” said Galinin, enthusiasm growing. “My hat’s off to you, Comrade. We’ll have to improvise the entire mechanism, and the torpedo will have to pack a big punch to break through so much ice, but it might just be possible.”

Ligichev shrugged tiredly. “Unfortunately, a whole host of things might prevent it from working. A charge sufficient to blow a hole in the ice might also destroy the snorkel or, worse, split the very ice keel we are embedded in and send us all to the bottom of the ocean. But we have to try something.”

“How are you coming with the engines?”

“We’re working on them. Ivanna is trying to salvage enough parts from both machines to get one going. If she does, it could provide power to the batteries for heating.”

Galinin’s hopes were evident. “Heat and air. We’ll get out of this ice castle yet. Comrade Chief Scientist, you have made me a happy man.”

“If it works,” cautioned Ligichev. “I wouldn’t count on things too quickly.”

“Come now,” the captain said happily. “Don’t be such a pessimist.”

Ligichev’s smile was as dry as the tabletop between them was wet. “On the contrary, Comrade Captain. A pessimist thinks ill because he does not see the world as it is,” he said. “Fm an optimist. I know how bad things really are. Get your men and we’ll begin.”

Justine tried to ignore the panic rising within her, but she finally had to admit she was lost. The shrieking, howling wind was driving a blizzard that obscured the land and the sky and made everything look alike. The homing device had to be malfunctioning, because it glowed in every direction. She shouted into the wind, but the sound was swallowed up in the noisy gusts.

She kept walking. Her tracks were obliterated almost as soon as her snowshoes left the ground, so she had no way to trace her path back to the crates and wait for rescue. She cursed the Arctic. In the jungle at least you could climb a tree and look around to find out where you were. Here there was nothing. No landmarks, no way to judge distance. Just an endless swirling snowstorm and cold white ice.

She felt the first touch of cold bite at her extremities. It startled her, like the first time she was in the woods at night far from the light of her rebel group’s campfires. That was when she had understood what night was, how black it could be. She was only now beginning to understand the cold here. It could kill you.

She walked on. She was getting tired. God, the wind was incessant. She stopped. Just wandering around in circles was going to exhaust her. Where were the hills she had spotted from the crates? She saw a dark shape briefly at the periphery of her vision. It was barely visible through the storm; then it was gone, obscured by the snow. It had to be the sub. She tried not to run from relief. To run was to stumble. Go slowly. She felt the ground sloping upward under her feet. There, ahead, she could make out something.

She climbed the ridge. These had to be the hills she had seen before. The sub would be just beyond them. But then she looked down and saw something on the ground that clutched her heart with hands colder than the air around her.

With a sinking feeling, Justine realized she was not alone.

MacKenzie was standing in the sail and the storm was all around him. He pulled the hood of his fur-lined parka tighter around his head and lifted the binoculars to his eyes again.

“Skipper?” Tom Lasovic’s voice came through the headset. “We found the crates, but there’s no sign of our pickup. Snow’s wiping everything out.”

MacKenzie scanned the ice but saw nothing. “He’s supposed to have a homing device.”

“Sure, but it won’t be the first thing not to work the way it’s supposed to up here,” came Lasovic’s voice. “Can you see anything?”

“Nothing, Tom. Get back here. We’ll have to organize a quadrant search.”

“Okay, coming in.”

MacKenzie was worried. The pressure of the packed ice around Seawolf was steadily increasing. Large chunks were already stacked up against the sail. They couldn’t stay here much longer without risking being frozen in. MacKenzie pursed his lips grimly, well aware that submerging would be tantamount to passing a death sentence on the pickup. He could never survive out here without Seawolf s refuge.

He spoke into his throat mike. “Mr. Randall, you are relieved of your station. Assemble a second party and mount a search. Guy yourselves to the ship. If I want you back, it’s going to be in a hurry.”

“Aye, Skipper. On my way.”

MacKenzie wiped the snow from his goggles and looked over the side. More ice. And the driven snow was like mortar between the bricks. Whoever Garver sent better get here soon.

Very soon.

Justine heard it before she saw it. Suddenly there was a roar like nothing she had ever heard before and it sent primordial chills up her spine. She bolted, running back down the ridge before conscious reason could stop her. It was the wrong move. She tripped and sprawled forward, losing one of her ski poles. As she twisted around to recover it, a massive shape reared up behind her, snarling and growling. The terror of it paralyzed her. Transfixed, she watched it rise higher and higher till it reached fully fourteen feet and the sheer monstrosity of it froze her to that spot like a pin through an insect on a specimen board.

The polar bear stood fully erect on its hind legs. Its slavering mouth was drawn back to reveal sharp yellow teeth. It threw its head back into the wind and roared again, the king of its domain. It wove back and forth, the claws of its powerful forelegs slicing the air. A thousand pounds of white fury moved a step closer to her with muzzle wide open and teeth ready to rend and suddenly it dropped toward her like an avalanche.

Justine was close enough to see the stiff bristles on its paws. Panic had frozen her brain, but she was fighting for her life and her combat-trained reflexes took over instinctively. As the polar bear attacked she thrust her remaining ski pole with all her strength at the bear’s mighty chest. She had time only to feel the point bite home as a miasma of hot breath and the fetid smell of rotten fish engulfed her. Then she was rolling aside, plunging the rest of the way down the hill, landing in a heap. She struggled to right herself as the bear howled more in surprise and irritation than in pain, and stumbled into a run.

The bear went down on all fours shaking its massive body from side to side, trying to dislodge the ski pole sticking out of its bleeding chest. Angry red eyes sought the source of its torment. With a mighty shake of its torso the bear dislodged the pole and roared angry defiance to the wind. It fixed its eyes on its prey, but this time it was warier. The prey had sharp teeth of its own. It rumbled forward, picking up speed. The red eyes seemed to glow.

Justine ran, not even pausing to wipe the snow off her goggles or risk a look back. She climbed slipping and sliding up a hill, plunged over the top, and skidded down the other side without concern for anything but escaping the monster behind her. She felt the vibrations from its weight on the ice through the soles of her feet, felt it pounding after her, taking the hillock with huge strides. The hardest thing she had ever done was to stop and force herself to search through her backpack till she found it. Food. Wrapped in foil bags. She spread it over the snow, hoping the bear would stop to eat it.

Then she ran for her life.

“Skipper!” It was Tom Lasovic’s voice. “Maybe something. Closer to you than to us. Two hundred yards off the starboard bow. I can’t be sure with all this snow. Can you verify?”

MacKenzie swung the binoculars around quickly. It was difficult to see, but someone was coming fast over the hills between him and the ship. As MacKenzie watched, the man slid over a summit and down the next slope. His legs were pumping and his arms flailing to keep his balance. He fell, only to rise again and continue running. What was driving him?

“I’ve got him, Tom. Head to him. Mr. Randall, you, too.

Converge on that spot. One five zero yards — zero five zero north of Seawolf. Looks like he’s in trouble.”

“Aye, Skipper.”

“Chief, bring me a sidearm and some men. On the double. Meet me at the forward hatch.”

“Right, sir. Coming up.”

MacKenzie clambered down the sail ladder to the deck. He didn’t need the binoculars to see that the man was running at full speed, and what MacKenzie saw charging after him removed all doubt as to why. The polar bear was a good distance behind but closing quickly. Lasovic was too far away to help. So was Randall. He’d have to leave the ship himself. He spoke through his headset. “Mr. Santiago, you have the conn. Watch the ice and get the hell out of here fast if you have to.”

“Aye, Skipper.”

The hatch was flung open and two crewmen scampered out. The chief of the boat himself followed, a grizzled old seaman everyone called Casey. He pressed a .45 into MacKenzie’s gloved hand. MacKenzie didn’t have to explain anything. A roar reached them and all eyes turned instantly to the spectacle of the man running for his life from the huge white bear.

“Check your clips and move out,” MacKenzie ordered, and they hit the ice running.

Justine surmounted the crest of the last hill and saw the sub, but it was too late. She heard a thundering tread and then the bear hit her from behind and sent her sprawling with one swipe of its huge paw. The impact tore the breath from her and ripped the backpack open. It cushioned her from the sharp claws and prevented the blow from slicing her open like a ripe fruit.

She tumbled down the slope and lay dazed at the bottom, flat on her back amid the things spilled from the pack. She couldn’t move, but it didn’t matter now. Things were warmer. Farther away. The noise of the wind wasn’t so loud, and the snow was a pleasant blanket slowly covering her. Long ago her father had had a blue satin down comforter on his bed. She and her brothers had often snuggled under it before the revolution forced them all to become soldiers. The snow was like that now. She heard voices calling to her from a distance, like the voices in dreams. She tried to force her arms and legs to move. They wouldn’t.

The bear stood on its hind legs and roared its conquest. The crimson stain on its chest was larger now. Drops of blood fell onto the snow and froze into tiny rubies. Its prey was helpless before it. The huge jaws opened.

Justine closed her eyes.

The first shots hurt the bear less than a swarm of angry bees, but they distracted it. It looked around angrily. Men were approaching. It roared fiercely and slashed at the air. MacKenzie put his sights on the bear and pulled the trigger again. The .45 bucked in his hand, and he saw his bullet hit home. But the monster just shrugged it off and stood there weaving angrily over the fallen body as it studied the new threats arrayed against it.

“Circle it,” MacKenzie yelled. “Watch those claws.”

One of the crewmen charged in bravely, weapon firing, hoping to get the man out while the bear was distracted by the others.

“Wait,” warned MacKenzie. “Not yet. Stay back.”

The warning came too late. The bear’s paws flashed out and knocked the man off his feet. Its claws sliced through the parka. Massive jaws clamped down on the crewman’s leg and he screamed in pain. Casey ran in to drag his fallen mate away, but the bear dropped to all fours and bowled him over. Casey was trapped under the bear. With a last-ditch effort he managed to lever the muzzle of his gun under the big torso and pull the trigger.

The explosion was deafening. The bear shrieked in agony and rolled off, eyes glowing madly with rage and pain. A black powder burn scarred the white fur alongside the red. Mac and the others pulled Casey and the crewman away as the bear rolled on the ground rubbing the burn in the snow to ease the pain.

MacKenzie shoved his gun into a pocket and raced to the fallen pickup. The chest rose and fell weakly but there seemed to be life in the body. The contents of his pack were strewn about the ice. MacKenzie made no effort to collect the things. He got his arms under the limp body. The bear’s claws had torn long gashes in the nylon parka. MacKenzie stood up, surprised at the lack of weight.

“Skipper, watch out!”

Taking his eyes off the bear had been a serious mistake, and MacKenzie barely had time to regret it as the animal, sensing the theft of his prey, turned and blasted into him like a freight train. He’d never felt such raw power. He went down hard, and the man was flung from his arms. The bear slashed at him, and MacKenzie felt his parka being sliced open. Frigid wind seared his chest. The smell of fish made him gag. He got his hands under the bear’s muzzle and pushed with all his strength to keep those deadly teeth away from his face.

The bear bit and slashed. MacKenzie was thrown from side to side wrestling with the animal to keep it from him. He needed a weapon, any weapon. He couldn’t find his gun. He heard weapons firing, even felt the impact of the slugs through the bear’s body, but nothing short of a cannon was going to kill this creature. The bear shook “off the slugs with a toss of his massive head and bit for his exposed neck. MacKenzie fought with all his strength. He felt the teeth right through the parka. His hand searched in the snow for anything to use against this monster. He felt the objects that had spilled from the pack. He heard his men shouting.

His fingers closed on the tube containing the weather balloon. There was a red haze in front of his eyes. He tried to concentrate. The bear was no weaker, and MacKenzie was fading fast, but suddenly the tube clarified itself like a TV picture suddenly tuned in. With his last ounce of fading strength MacKenzie shoved it in between the bear’s drooling jaws and pressed the trigger.

Deep in the bear’s throat the balloon inflated with a rush of gas. It rolled off MacKenzie tearing at the offending object but could do nothing to dislodge it. It rammed its muzzle into the ground. It rolled onto its back. It roared with what was now a sickly wheeze and rambled off. The balloon would dislodge in time. MacKenzie managed to raise himself. He knew he was bleeding. He felt warm, sticky fluid coursing down inside his clothing. He crawled over to the fallen pickup and pushed the face mask aside to check his pulse. Let him live, he prayed. Don’t let all this be for nothing.

Nothing could have been more of a shock than the face that stared up at him. “Justine? My God, how—”

He rubbed her leaden limbs and covered her face with his, breathing warm air to keep her skin from freezing. “On the double. Over here,” he shouted.

“We’re here, Skipper.” It was Tom Lasovic beside him.

“Tom, it’s Justine. Help her. And remember the ice.” He was mumbling and he knew it. “Pressure. Gotta watch the ship.”

“It’s okay, Mac. We’ll get it.”

MacKenzie felt himself lifted and carried forward. Justine was carried, too. Good. Tom would be in charge. He could sleep soon. He had a sudden thought that his wife would tell him how stupid it was to go up against a polar bear with a handgun and a weather balloon. She was probably right.

“She’ll be okay, Mac. Don’t worry. Her pulse is strong.”

MacKenzie heard the steel clang of Seawolf’s deck under their feet. Lasovic grabbed MacKenzie’s headset from where he’d left it. “This is the XO. Prepare to take her down. Secure all hatches. Dive, dive!”

From far away MacKenzie heard the dive Klaxons blaring. He made a mental note to kill the dumb bastard who’d sent his wife up here. Then they lowered him into Seawolf and he surrendered to the darkness that rose up and engulfed him.