Raise the Red Dawn

Chapter Nine

Kalik had been pacing the control room liked a caged tiger for the better part of an hour. Volkov wondered whether the strain was getting to him. There was no sign of the American sub, and countless traverses of the area had failed to locate Red Dawn. The time remaining to him was more than half over, and half the northern submarine fleet was on its way to take over the search. Maybe that made the admirals rest easy, but it only increased the pressure on him. It wasn’t going to help one bit if someone other than Kalik found Red Dawn.

Volkov had no trouble imagining the dour faces of the Politburo when this issue was considered. Kalik had put himself and Volkov at risk when he left Red Dawn to lure the Americans away — and he had lost. The only way to salvage their careers was to find Red Dawn.

A call from Sonar broke the tension.

“Comrade Captain, we are receiving signals on several wavelengths. American locators. Ten… no, at least twenty different locations.”

Kalik felt relief flood his entire body. Anything was better than the endless silence. A signal meant his adversary was still there, and that meant Red Dawn could not be far away.

“Track and plot every one,” Kalik ordered. He marched into the sonar room. The points glowed on the screen like a fistful of sparks.

“What are they doing?” asked Volkov.

“Hiding the real signal in a pack of false ones,” Kalik said with calm assurance. “Look at all those tracks. He’s interested in only one. The others are just camouflage. He’d like us to spend days checking them out.”

“So how do we find the right one?”

“I don’t know yet. There is nothing to differentiate any one signal from all the others. You were right, Viktor. He is very smart. Too smart to be caught with his pants down. So we have to concentrate on what he is not too smart to conceal.”

“Which is?” Volkov wondered.

Volkov had seen Kalik do this before, explore several logic chains at once, picking and choosing from a host of facts with an intuition that made sudden leaps from the known to the unknown and back again. To Volkov, who never thought of himself as other than ordinary, it was a humbling sight.

Kalik was testing his thoughts out loud. “You mark a spot when you want to find it again or when you want others to find it. Either he’s returning to Red Dawn or someone else is.”

“Another sub?”

“Maybe. But in that case he could send the coordinates by radio and meet there.”

“A landing party? Comrade Captain, could the Americans be sending a search-and-rescue team here?”

“Excellent, Viktor. That would make sense,” Kalik said. “So now answer the final question: how would you get them here?”

“By plane, of course. If there’s one up there…”

“We prove our hypothesis,” finished Volkov. “Come, we must be quick.” They strode into the control room. Kalik wasted no time. “Comrade Navigator, how thick is the ice above us?”

“We are in a field of thick ice, Comrade Captain. Three meters minimum.”

“Akula can handle it,” Kalik decided. “Prepare to surface.”

“Comrade Captain? Three meters—”

“Take her up. I want some speed. Blow main ballast.”

“Blowing main ballast.”

Akula rose toward the surface like a shot. Kalik grabbed the intercom and opened the all-ship channel. “Attention all crew. We are about to surface through some very thick ice in roughly…”

“Ten seconds to impact,” called the navigator.

“Ten seconds. The shock will be quite severe. Prepare yourselves and remain calm. Captain out.”

Pilot Jack Holloway scanned the surface of the ice cap below ruefully. The light was bad, and the ground was covered by a winter storm. He decided someone on board the submarine had to have a sense of humor — he had to be kidding expecting them to land down there. His copilot, Lieutenant Frank Washington, put it more succinctly.

“No fucking way. I mean it, Jack.”

Holloway shrugged. “We’ve got a delivery to make. Who do you want me to complain to?”

“Call Operations.”

“Frank.”

“I mean it. Hey, show me a runway and I’ll fly this thing through hoops to get to it, but there’s no concrete down there. There’s nothing but ice. We’re not equipped for this.”

“We got our snow gear on. Besides, you heard the man. The plane’s expendable. Get the SEALs and their equipment down — that’s the mission pure and simple. Charlie, are you picking up the homing signal?”

“I’ve got two dozen signals on as many wavelengths, but we’ve been cued into the right one,” said Charlie Woodson, the navigator.

Holloway picked up the radio. “Georgia Leader, this is Georgia One. We have a lock on your position. We’re gonna take a pass or two down low to survey the scene, then bring her in. Roger?”

“Georgia One, this is Georgia leader. Get close, but don’t fall in, fellas. Roger.”

“See? Wha’d I tell you? Fucking wise guys,” Washington said darkly.

Holloway banked gently, losing altitude. The Galaxy was the largest cargo plane in the world, over 250 feet long with a 220-foot wingspan. The cockpit stood three stories off the ground and the tail over six. The Galaxy had seats for seventy-five troops in its upper deck and enough space in its cavernous hold for two tanks or three helicopters. In fact, the Wright brothers could have flown their first trip inside a C-5 Galaxy.

They descended into the rough weather. “Release flares,” ordered Holloway.

“Flares away.” They drifted down with an orange light. “Maybe… there,” said Washington. “See that broad plain? On your right. Looks pretty flat.”

“I see it. That’s a go, buddy.” Holloway brought the big craft around and reached for the intercom. “Attention, loadmasters. We are beginning our final approach. Watch your cargo. It’s going to be a bumpy landing.”

The intercom crackled back. “This is Winestski. We got eyes, Cap. And that’s got to be one of the world’s great understatements.”

Holloway grinned. “Without doubt, Sergeant.”

The small group gathered in the torpedo room, Ligichev, Galinin, and Ivanna watching Pytor display the final preparations for the snorkel launch.

Galinin peered down the torpedo tube. “You’ve cleared it?”

Pytor nodded. “There is less than eighteen inches of ice at the end. The torpedo will break out without any problem.”

“In all this I think there’s something I forgot,” Ligichev said suddenly. “Won’t hitting the ice seal ignite the torpedo? The ice is as hard as a sub’s hull.”

“It’s already taken care of, Comrade Chief Scientist,” Petrov explained. “We can set minimum rotations for the motor so the torpedo will be armed only at a certain depth. The warhead will not arm itself till that point has been reached. That way it can never turn back on us armed.” He held out a snorkel, just a larger version of the ones carried by skin divers everywhere. It was enclosed in a flotation housing and attached to a long length of hard vinyl tubing. “The snorkel has been fixed five hundred feet behind the torpedo on the wire guide. That’s far enough away so the explosion won’t damage it. The trajectory is a programmed sine curve, like a roller-coaster ride. The exhaust tube and the snorkel line will be coiled in the torpedo tube. The torpedo will travel down to a depth of a hundred meters with the snorkel trailing behind it, then arc upward and head for the surface, bringing the snorkel directly under it. The snorkel will be right under the area of impact and will hopefully float up through the hole created by the explosion. We have the intake tube rigged to the fan room to pump the air in and blow it throughout the ship. We are loading the torpedo now.”

“How long to finalize all this, Comrade Lieutenant?” asked Galinin.

“We’re ready to fire on your order, Comrade Captain. This snorkel is one of several in storage we would use for dewatering in an emergency.”

Galinin shook his head. “No sonar. We can’t even use the scopes. We’re firing blind. We could hit an ice keel or the line might get wrapped around something out there. It’s going to take a lot of luck.”

“The alternative is to have someone swim it out, Comrade Captain,” said Ligichev, “and I can’t imagine any volunteers.”

“No, of course not,” Galinin said. “Well, I suppose we’ll know soon enough whether it will work. All right, Comrade Lieutenant. Open the outer door. Flood the tube and the tunnel from the torpedo tank.”

Petrov hit a switch and the door motor whined. “Outer door open. Flooding tube and tunnel, Comrade Captain… Ready to launch tube one.”

“Fire tube one manually with minimum air pressure.”

“Firing tube one.”

“The C-Five is coming in for a landing, Skipper. Final approach.”

“Keep them on your scope, Sonar.” MacKenzie pictured the huge aircraft coming in overhead. He had a lot of respect for pilots. Imagine spending half your life up in the air depending on the vagaries of the atmosphere and jet engines to keep you aloft. He just couldn’t see it…

His thoughts were interrupted by Jim Kurstan’s voice crackling out of the speaker in alarm. “Emergency! Emergency! Captain, high-cycle motor noise. Incoming torpedo. Repeat, incoming torpedo. Range four hundred fifty yards and closing.”

MacKenzie reacted without conscious thought. “Helm, right full rudder. Ahead flank. Attack Center, launch decoys in a full pattern. Emergency deep. Emergency deep!” He hit the alarm handle and the alarm blared stridently throughout the ship. “Main battle stations. This is the captain speaking. We are under attack. This is no drill.”

“Torpedo four hundred yards and closing.”

“Sonar, where did that thing come from?”

“Captain, it was launched from Red Dawn!”

Pumps whined as Seawolf took in water by the ton. The helmsman shoved his yoke forward hard, without regard for anyone who might be caught unaware. The down angle increased radically and men clung to whatever they could. Seawolf dived as fast as she could, propelled by her engines increasing to maximum speed.

“Torpedo three hundred fifty yards and closing.”

“Conn, Attack Center. Decoys launched in full pattern, Captain.”

“Give me a sounding, Mr. Santiago. Sonar, where is that torpedo?” MacKenzie demanded.

“Three hundred yards and closing.”

“One mile of depth, Skipper. No obstructions. Plenty of room.”

MacKenzie held on. They weren’t out of the woods yet. It was still a race. Could Seawolf outdistance its pursuer?

“Maneuvering. Cavitate. Depth, Mr. Randall.”

“Six hundred. Six hundred twenty-five. Six hundred fifty…”

“Conn, Sonar. We have a decoy match!”

The explosion could not have been more than a hundred feet from Seawolf’s hull and it rolled the sub like a giant fist. The shock wave burst pipes, and a vicious cloud of steam shot across the conn. A crewman screamed and clutched his face. Tom Lasovic jumped over the guardrail and yanked him out of the way. MacKenzie wanted to race over, but the safety of the ship came first. She was still diving fast. Too fast.

“Maneuvering, all back emergency! Mr. Randall, five seconds on blow the forward group. Chief, full rise on all planes.” The angle began decreasing. “All right. Vent the forward group. All stop.” MacKenzie waited, feeling the ship respond. Then: “All ahead one-third. Make your depth one thousand feet. Sonar, sweep the area.”

“Conn, Sonar. All clear, Skipper. No noise at all.”

MacKenzie started to ease up. Goddammit! He suppressed a primitive and quite visceral urge to point Seawolf at the ice keel and blow Red Dawn out of existence. The rules of engagement would have permitted it, too, if they had deliberately taken a shot at Seawolf; but they weren’t out of trouble yet. Lasovic was pointing at the TV screen worriedly. “Skipper, look!”

“I see it. What the hell is that?”

“Conn, Sonar. There’s a keel from the ice cap coming straight at us. It must have been blasted loose by the explosion. It’s big, Skipper. Almost as big as the one Red Dawn’s in.”

MacKenzie’s mind ran options like a battlefield computer. The keel was too big to race around. The suction alone might sweep them into the powerful currents. There was no time for second guesses. The huge ice keel was coming toward them too fast.

MacKenzie stood his ground. “Snap shot tubes one and two. Torpedo Room, open outer doors on tubes one and two. Fire Control, compute a basic straight-running shot. Firing point procedures. Sonar, give them the inputs. Lock on to the ice keel. That’s our target.”

“Course, Skipper?” Randall sounded shaky.

“Remain on this course, Mr. Randall,” he said sharply. “Hold her steady.” The ice keel was closer now, almost filling the screen.

“Captain, ship ready, solution ready, torpedo room ready.”

“Conn, Sonar. Target bearing one one five degrees, range one thousand yards.”

Tom Lasovic stood calmly by MacKenzie’s side. “It’s going to throw off big chunks if we don’t blow this thing into ice cubes. Could hole us pretty easily.”

“My thinking, too. But if we miss it and hit the ice cap, we might shake Red Dawn right off her perch. Gotta be right on the money. Sonar, range.”

“Six hundred yards and closing.”

MacKenzie waited.

“Five hundred yards and closing.”

MacKenzie watched the ice keel. It looked like a dagger coming at them.

“Mac?” Tom Lasovic pointed to the screen. The huge ice mass filled it.

“Not yet…” MacKenzie said softly.

“Four hundred yards and closing.”

MacKenzie commanded, “Fire Control, match sonar bearings and shoot tubes one and two.”

“Set. Stand by. Fire! Unit one away. Set. Stand by. Fire! Unit two away.”

“Right full rudder. All ahead flank.” MacKenzie saw the wake from the speeding torpedoes on the screen as Seawolf pulled away. Two plumes of white water speared toward the ice keel. It looked good. .

“Skipper, both units running hot, straight, and normal… Torpedoes and contact bearings are merging. Explosions!”

Blazing light filled the television screen, and they felt the force of the explosions as Seawolf rocked in the wake. Light debris rained down on the hull. When the screen cleared, the ice keel was gone.

Shouts of victory filled the conn. “Way to go, Skipper!” and “We got it!”

“Nice shooting, Mac,” Lasovic said happily.

“Good work, everybody,” MacKenzie said. “Mr. Santiago, take us back to Red Dawn. Mr. Randall, make your depth one zero zero feet.”

“Aye, Skipper.” And he added, “Nice work, sir.”

“Conn, Radio. Skipper, there’s something wrong up top. We’re getting a transmission from the C-Five. They’re in trouble, sir!”

“We have them!” Kalik pounced on it. “Do you hear me, Viktor? We have them. We are all out in the open now.” Kalik stood behind his sonar operator and gazed raptly over his shoulder at the screen. “Someone fired on the American sub. Did you see how he ran? I think the torpedo came from Red Dawn. We have no other ships in the area, and the American wouldn’t fire on one of his own subs.” He put a hand on the sonar operator’s shoulder. “You have the coordinates for the origin of the torpedo track?”

“I do, Comrade Captain. And I think we have enough for a signature on the American sub.”

“Excellent.” Kalik opened the intercom. “Comrade Navigator, match sonar’s coordinates and lay in a course. All ahead two-thirds. Bring us in at a depth of seven hundred meters. Let the depth cloak us. I want to be unnoticed.”

Kalik thought he understood what had happened. Sonar told the tale. For some as yet unknown reason Red Dawn had taken a shot at his adversary, but the American captain had deflected it by launching a decoy. That in itself was quite interesting. It was good to see how someone reacted to danger — especially if you might have to shoot at him one day. The American dived to starboard and sent up a screen of decoys. A reflex. Basic. Those habits were the hardest to break. You did them without thinking. So if one day they had to fight and he could force the captain to react…

“We have the signature. We’re trying to correlate it now, Comrade Captain.”

“Keep at it.”

The American sub could not conceal its identity any longer after running at top speed from Red Dawn’s torpedo and shooting the ice keel that had almost crushed it. Kalik was sure it was an ice keel. Sonar couldn’t have been mistaken about the size. And nothing else could be so large, unless a chunk of the ice cap itself had been knocked loose by the torpedo. Remarkable. With a thousand tons of ice coming straight at him the American captain had just stood his ground and blasted it to hell with a pair of torpedoes. What nerve. What confidence and poise under pressure.

“Comrade Captain, our computers indicate the American ship is not a Los Angeles class as we first thought. It is larger and faster than a Los Angeles. We have a signature match and preliminary findings indicate—”

“Seawolf!” Kalik pounced on the thought. “The Americans’ newest. One of a kind. Make sure the engagement tapes are sent to Naval Command. A very good job, Comrades.”

“Thank you, Comrade Captain.”

“Viktor, it seems we have two prizes—Red Dawn and the Americans’ vaunted Seawolf.” That would explain much, Kalik mused. Only their very best would captain her.

“I’ll be happy to compose the message to Naval Command,” said Volkov, relieved. “It should postpone our courts-martial.”

Kalik laughed. “At least for now. One never knows.”

Volkov smiled at the candid admission. “One never used to know. Maybe it’s changing. At least they’ve eliminated that infuriating Zampol on board. No more second-guessing all the time, eh?”

“True enough. It used to make me furious having to check every promotion with some ideological fanatic,” admitted Kalik. “But as much as things change, Viktor, I fear they remain the same.”

“The cat’s out of the bag, as they say. I don’t see how it can be put back in,” Volkov said.

Kalik’s response was cut off. Michman Rostov poked his head into the sonar room in an obviously highly agitated state, “Comrade Captain, you’ll want to see this. It’s unbelievable. On the control room screen, quickly.”

They followed him in. The crew was huddled tightly around Akula’s TV monitor, but parted for Kalik and Volkov.

“Now, what is all this about—” Kalik began, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the screen. “That’s Red Dawn. But… is it possible? It’s embedded in solid ice! I must be dreaming.”

“Then we all are,” said Volkov, wide-eyed. “Vassily, how could this have happened?”

Kalik shook his head. “I don’t know. Sonar, do we have a contact on the Americans?”

“We’ve lost them, Comrade Captain. They must have gone silent.”

“Helm, steer a circle around the ice keel at a depth of thirty meters. Rostov, use the videotape machine to make a record of Red Dawn’s situation for transmission to Naval Command with the engagement tapes. All ahead two-thirds. I want to be out of the immediate area in ten minutes.”

The burly Rostov took a video cassette out of a locker and inserted it into the heavy steel machine under the second periscope. As Akula circled the ice keel a green light showed it was recording.

“It’s… unbelievable,” breathed Kalik. All eyes were glued to the monitor as they completed the circuit. As an afterthought, Kalik added, “Rostov, make a copy of that tape for me. I’ll want to study it later.”

Volkov was still staring at the image of Red Dawn in the ice keel, unable to take his eyes off the screen. “Sonar, what’s going on in there?”

“We hear noises, Comrade Senior Lieutenant. They could be trying to make repairs. How many alive is impossible to tell.”

“Keep listening. Alert us to any change.”

Rostov announced, “All finished, Comrade Captain. I’ll prepare the pickup balloon.”

“Fine. Viktor, take us down to eight hundred meters. I wouldn’t think Seawolf can follow below six hundred. I want a chance to think this over without disturbance. Rostov, bring the other tape to my cabin.”

Volkov moved to comply. Kalik came up beside him. “We have to establish communication with Red Dawn. Any ideas?”

“Vassily, I need time to think. It’s too much to take in all at once.”

Kalik noticed that the sight of Red Dawn’s entombment had unnerved Volkov so much that twice he had called him by his first name in front of the crew. Kalik decided not to mention it. The lapse would bother his meticulous senior lieutenant for days.

“Do that, Viktor. But first have Navigation find us some open water and send for a jet pickup. There are going to be a lot of very surprised faces in the Kremlin tonight.”

The roar of the engines was a constant whine. Jack Holloway and Copilot Frank Washington leaned over their steering yokes peering into the dim light and swirling snow below them.

“Steady… steady now…” Holloway brought the big plane in. Twice before, they’d had to pull up when the storm sent sudden severe gusts across the plane’s bow. They were lucky the new computers sounded an alarm. Wind shear like that could pull them right down into the ice cap — and nobody survived a crash landing in this terrain.

“Georgia Leader, this is Georgia One. We’re attempting another pass over the landing site. The storm is worsening. Visibility is way down.”

“Roger, Georgia One. We’re down here watching. Good luck.”

Holloway looked over to his copilot who, for all his complaining, was steady as a rock. “What do you think, Frank?”

“The light up here isn’t going to change. The wind can only get worse. If we go, it’s now or never.”

Holloway looked back at his navigator, Charlie Woodson. “Charlie?”

“You’re covered, Cap. Final approach. Vector Blue.”

Holloway picked up the radio mike. “Loadmasters, prepare for landing. Charlie, altitude, every fifty feet. Call it out.”

“Yes, sir. Steady on course zero nine zero.”

Holloway banked the plane into line. “Zero nine zero, roger.”

“You’re in the glide path, cap,” Woodson called out. “Begin your descent now. Altitude, one thousand feet. Nine hundred fifty. Nine hundred…”

Strong winds buffeted the plane. Holloway concentrated. There was nothing in his mind except getting his airplane down in one piece.

“Lower landing gear.”

The navigator called out their descent. “Eight hundred… seven hundred fifty. Seven hundred. Glide slope… glide slope.”

Holloway pulled his nose up and stopped thinking about his passengers. You couldn’t worry about the lives in your charge; it just made you nervous. He couldn’t afford that. Lower… Hold her on line. Skids were going to be a bitch when they hit, but they had twice the usual landing length and the special studded tires. They would stop in time.

“Landing gear down and locked. Steady on glide path.” Washington’s voice was reassuringly calm.

The SEALs in back were going to think they’d been thrown into a giant washing machine and left to tumble. “This is the pilot. We are making our final descent. Check your harnesses,” he radioed back.

“Four hundred. Three hundred fifty. Two-fifty…”

Holloway could see the ice cap below, long and wide and flat. They could do it. The Galaxy had a strong back, and the load she was carrying wouldn’t overtax her. Easy now… Wind tore at the plane. Holloway cut his airspeed and brought them lower.

“Two hundred. One-fifty. One hundred…”

“Georgia Leader, this is Georgia One. Coming in for a landing.”

“Roger, Georgia One. Georgia Leader standing by.”

It was all in the handling. Find a good spot to set her down and the rest would be easy. Hit the braking jets hard. The wings would hold. Taxi in the rest of the way. He hit the landing alarm and it blared throughout the ship.

“Hold on, everybody.”

“Fifty feet. Forty. Thirty. Twenty…”

Holloway knew it was wrong from the first second the wheels hit. He felt the big plane slide out from under his control in a wide fishtail. The studded wheels weren’t holding.

They bumped and roared over the ice at eighty knots an hour and almost took off again. Holloway fought the flaps and brought the plane down, feeding power to the braking jets. He felt a sudden tug and their speed dropped ten knots.

“Parachute open,” Washington called. Holloway could hear the worry in his voice as they slid over the ice cap out of control. Traction. He needed traction. The wheels weren’t holding. Snow and ice hit the windshield like bullets. Vision was down to nothing. He peered into the violent storm, looking for the flats he’d seen from the air, desperately trying to hold his airplane in line.

It happened just when he thought he had control. Their speed was down; they needed just a mile or two more. The plane was holding, the tires finally biting into the snow. But they had gone farther than he planned. The ice below was no longer flat. It was rough and broken by pressure ridges.

He didn’t see the hill until it was too late. The huge Galaxy hit it like a ramp and vaulted into the air. Holloway blasted power into the engines in a vain attempt to prolong the arc, hoping he could take the plane up and over the next ridge of broken ice and into a stall landing in the plain beyond.

“Jack, she’s not gonna make it!” Holloway heard Washington grab the radio. “Mayday, Georgia Leader! Mayday—”

The pressure ridge hit the Galaxy’s nose like a fist. The metal crumpled like aluminum foil. Both wings cracked and swung forward like the blades of a giant scissors, the engines spitting fire. The tail came up as the nose went down and crashed back down hard onto the ice. Holloway was thrown forward by the impact, and his head hit the steering yoke. He felt something warm sliding down his face under his flight helmet and he wanted to shout something to his copilot. . and then he felt nothing at all.

The Galaxy came to a final stop. Snow fell over its once gleaming skin and began to cover it. Inside and out there was silence.

“Radio, what about the C-Five? What’s happening up there?” MacKenzie demanded.

“They’re down, but I can’t raise them, Skipper. That last transmission is all we got.”

“Sonar, have you got a fix on them?”

“Yes, sir. We heard the bang right through the ice.”

MacKenzie turned to Justine, her rank as operations officer entitling her to be present in the conn. “You heard. They’ve crashed. They’re not too far from here. Maybe a mile.”

“We have to get them, Mac.”

“We’re going to try.” He hit the intercom. “Jake, are repairs complete?”

“Aye, Skipper. Right as rain here,” said Chief Engineer Jake Cardiff.

“Very well. Stand by. Navigator, take your coordinates from Sonar and plot a straight course to Georgia One.”

“We’ve still got our Russian friend nearby, Mac,” Lasovic reminded him.

“Can’t be helped. Besides, he must have heard us evading the torpedo and the ice keel, and his sonar will pinpoint the crash anyway. For better or worse we’re out in the open now.”

Santiago looked up from his instrument table. “Course zero nine five, Skipper.

“Helm steer course zero nine five. All ahead flank. Joe, what kind of ice is over us?”

“Medium thick, Skipper.” Santiago read from the upward-looking Fathometer. “Three to five meters. Thicker in some spots.”

MacKenzie thought of the men up there in that storm. Brave men risking everything under impossible conditions. “Tom, break out the cold-weather gear.”

Holloway awoke to the pleasant sight of snowflakes falling. It looked like Christmas in his beloved New Hampshire. Gentle. Sweet. There was even the smell of a wood fire in the fireplace… the fireplace…

Consciousness came rushing back suddenly and he realized two things. The snow was drifting over him because there was no longer any cockpit windshield to prevent it, and the smell of burning was no dream. The plane was on fire.

Holloway tried to get out of his seat, but he couldn’t move his arms or legs. He managed to turn his head to get a look at his copilot. Washington was unconscious, but Holloway thought he detected the shallow rise and fall of his friend’s chest under his flight suit. Both of them were trapped under the control consoles that the crash had crushed down on them. He craned his neck back as far as he could. Charlie Woodson had been literally torn out of his seat and thrown across the cabin by the crash. It looked as if his neck was broken.

Holloway’s nose crinkled. The smell of smoke was stronger now. The engines were burning, and the fire was getting closer. Well, it didn’t much matter that poor Charlie had bought it in the crash. They were all going to die. Holloway couldn’t move, and it didn’t seem likely anyone was alive back there to put the fire out.

He thought about trying to rouse Frank, but for what? Neither of them could move the ton of metal console off them. And the fire would be here soon. Better he be unconscious when it came. Holloway settled back and tried to compose himself. The scene in front of him was eerily beautiful in its own way. The snow was an utter whiteness. With his wrecked cabin wrapped around him he had a front row seat.

He stared up into the storm. He was sorry his last mission had been a failure. He thought about the men in back. He’d tried to get them down safely, but a C-5 was never meant to land here. It made a weird kind of pilot sense that in the end it was the ground that had rejected him.

The smoke was closer now. Tendrils curled into the cabin. He forced himself to stare into the snow and remember the sights he’d seen during three decades in the air. Red backlit clouds in the dawn sky. The lights of desert cities coming up fast in the night. He felt the first vibrations right through his seat and idly wondered what had exploded. The plane was probably consumed by fire now. Just a matter of time before it hit the fuel tanks. Then he felt it again, like a jackhammer hitting him from underneath, and suddenly Jack Holloway knew that all the sights he had ever seen amounted to nothing beside the one that was now appearing before his eyes. If he ever witnessed the Second Coming it would surely be a minor occurrence compared to the vision of Seawolf’s mighty black sail crashing up through the ice in front of the C-5 and towering over him.

The sail continued to rise. Great chunks of ice fell away from Seawolf’s wetly gleaming hull. Men in thick parkas clambered out of the hatches as soon as the deck cleared the ice. Holloway saw them run around to the rear cargo hold. Outside, he heard someone climbing the cockpit ladder. A hooded face peered in.

“Hey, anyone in there? Can you hear me?”

“Here…” Holloway managed weakly. “My copilot…”

The man pulled his hood up and stared down, smiling. “You’re alive. I had my doubts anyone would be. Jesus, what a mess. Captain Holloway, I’m Tom Lasovic, Seawolf’s XO. We’ll have you and your copilot out of here in a jiffy. Anybody else back there?” Lasovic looked back into the cabin, and his face fell. “Your navigator… I’m sorry.”

“What about the others?”

Lasovic turned to shout for more help then began to clear the debris himself. He shook his head in amazement. “I don’t know how you did it, Captain. I’ll lay odds this bird will never fly again, but apart from some busted arms and legs back there, everybody else made it okay. Including the equipment.”

Holloway heard the whooshing sounds of fire-fighting equipment. He felt strength flowing back into him. Helluva thing.

Justine had a team on the fuselage cutting away the tail section with torches. She’d been inside. The robot sub and prefab buildings were all in good shape. She looked at the C-5 lying flat on its belly with its spine crushed. All things considered, they were lucky as hell. Reports were the pilot was okay. He deserved a medal for bringing this one in.

She stood in the snow waiting for the cutters to finish. Four of the SEALs and two of the loadmasters had broken limbs, so she split her party up to take them back to Seawolf. A C-130 would be sent for the wounded.

“Tail’s coming loose! Everybody back!”

The tail section fell to the ice and rolled aside, revealing the cavernous hold. Crates were stacked high and Quonset hut sections were laid out on the floor. One of the loadmasters, a big man in a down parka, jumped down to the ice.

“You’d have to be Ms. Segurra. I’m Sergeant Winestski. I was told you’re in charge of this operation.”

“That’s right, Sergeant. Let’s get this stuff unloaded and the huts set up at the base camp site. I’ve about had it with this snow.”

Winestski grinned. “Me, too, ma’am. How close are we to the site?”

“Two miles.”

“Pleasant walk, ma’am,” said the big man, taking a deep breath, “after that landing.”

“I understand. Take the torch crew and I’ll see if Mr. Lasovic still needs his men.”

MacKenzie watched it all from Seawolf’s sail. It was unbelievable that the C-5 had made it. The plane looked as if Godzilla had stepped on it. But the injured men were already on board Seawolf and Tom had radioed that the pilot and copilot were alive and he was bringing them in.

Justine reported that the equipment they needed was in good shape as well.

The unloading went as smoothly as it could in a snowstorm, and everything was soon packed on sleds. Justine moved everyone off toward the spot where Red Dawn lay under the ice, and MacKenzie had to pick up his binoculars to follow them. They looked like a line of ants weaving their way over the ice cap through the snow. He’d meet them at the campsite, where the real work would begin.

He looked at the C-5. It was nothing but scrap metal now. One man had died within her. “Mr. Randall, this is the captain. Rig topside for dive and submerge the ship.”

Red Dawn had claimed her first casualties. MacKenzie wondered if it was a portent of things to come.