Raise the Red Dawn

Chapter Twelve

Benton Garver looked up from his desk, surprised to see Winestock standing in his doorway.

“May I come in?”

Garver eased back in his seat. “Sure. Want a progress report?”

“I’ve already got one.” He looked at his watch. “They should be getting the DSRV ready to leave Phoenix in under an hour.”

Garver laughed. “I forgot who I was talking to. What can I do for you?”

Winestock dropped a file on Garver’s desk. Inside was a stack of eight-by-ten photographs. “Take a look.”

Garver thumbed through them. “These are satellite recon photos.”

“Yes, and they show a disturbing situation evolving.”

Garver squinted to make out the detail. “Christ, a Russian icebreaker.”

“Plowing toward Red Dawn. We figure the Soviets know where their sub is and they’re sending the Ural to do something about rescuing her.”

“Well, our exclusive was too good to last,” said Garver. “And now that we know their sub in the area is really the Akula, we have to count on some kind of attack. To tell you the truth, I’m surprised they didn’t send in their commandos or some kind of light, fast force to rough us up even before this.”

“There are quite a few who want to. But the general secretary’s got a leash on them. Look, screw all our bombers and subs. That’s not what the top leadership is worried about. Practically speaking, there’s only one thing that could really harm long-term Soviet-American normalization.”

“And that is?”

“American public opinion. Twenty years ago, Ho Chi Minh understood the power of public opinion and won a war. More recently, China didn’t, blew away a few hundred kids on TV, and that action may yet cost them their most-favored-nation status. In real terms that’s several billion dollars a year. Ben, public opinion polls say eighty percent of the country now likes the Russians, up from twenty percent just a few years ago. Now, imagine the field day the media would have showing on the eleven o’clock news the bodies of American seamen killed by Soviet troops at the North Pole. Public opinion could easily shift again. With his entire economic bailout in the hands of Western bankers, the general secretary just can’t risk the PR fallout from a hot little war with us at the North Pole.”

“In some ways, it works just as much against us. We won’t go to war over this, either. If their attack subs converge on Red Dawn before we can get her out, we’ll have to back off, too, right?”

“Right. Timing is everything,” Winestock said.

“How long will the general secretary’s leash hold?”

“We don’t know. Speed’s still of the essence.”

Garver studied the photos. “This breaker poses a problem. Red Dawn is a Soviet government ship. They could claim that the Ural has the legal right to raise it and order us off.”

“If they make it in time. Can they?” Winestock asked.

“It’s going to be close.”

“What would you say to sending in one of our own icebreakers?”

“Why?” Garver said.

“Head them off at the pass, so to speak. Throw a block. Choose your own metaphor. Give MacKenzie more time.”

Garver ran a hand over his lower face. “I’d like to oblige. But the sad fact is that we don’t have an icebreaker in this man’s navy.”

“What? You’re kidding.”

“Wish I was. The last navy icebreaker was transferred to the coast guard over ten years ago. Some of the bigger oil companies may have one or two that they use for oil exploration, Humble Oil’s Manhattan comes to mind, but it isn’t under our control.”

“I need something to run interference with the Ural. But it’s got to look like we’re still helping. C’mon, Ben. Nobody gets to be CNO without a good strong larcenous streak.”

Garver grinned. “The Ural’s a big ship. Bigger than anything we ever built, public or private. In fact, I know of only one icebreaker any bigger, and the Arctic’s her stomping grounds. Hell, she was built for the ice cap. With any luck she might be in range.”

“C’mon. Let’s have it.”

“I don’t know if even you guys swing enough weight to manage this one. These folks are awfully touchy about sovereignty up there. That’s why they built it.”

“Ben, we’ve got weight you never dreamed of.”

“I hope so. You speak good French?”

“I sound like I’m gargling.” Winestock listened to Garver’s idea, finally nodding in admiration. “Mind if I use your phone?”

“Be my guest. I just wish I could be there to see it. God, what a race it’ll be.”

“I’ll send you pictures. Hello? This is Winestock. Patch me through to the White House.”

The prime minister of Canada was an inveterate poker player, and Wednesday was poker night. Smoke hung in the air and chips clicked across the green felt table. It was an old friends’ game filled with old friends’ talk.

“Seven times,” the PM said, shuffling the deck. He was a big man with long-fingered hands, and his skill with cards was legendary. “Seven times it takes to shuffle the deck completely.” He winked. “I read it in the New York Times.”

“Seven times or seventy, we’re still watching you,” said the minister of finance archly.

The PM’s administrative assistant yawned. “Deal, Peter. It’s getting late.”

The prime minister smiled. “An eternal truth of the game, George. The winner smiles, the loser says ‘Deal.’ ” The other men at the table laughed, and the PM sent cards whizzing around the table.

“Remind me to vote for the opposition,” said the AA.

The door to the study opened and the PM’s secretary peeked in. “Excuse me, sir, there’s a call for you.”

“Tell whoever it is I’m in a meeting. An urgent nighttime national damn security meeting.”

“Well, sir, I would… but it’s the president of the United States.”

“All the more reason,” said the PM, eyes twinkling. “Wait. Forget that. I’ll take it.” He put his hand down. “Nobody touch the cards. Hello, Brendon. Qa va, mon ami? Good…, Well, you caught me right in the middle of a security conference.” He listened, then laughed. “Of course the cards are being good to me. They’re always good to me.” He looked over the mouthpiece at his poker buddies. “Which one of you is CIA?” He listened again. “What’s that, Brendon? A favor for a cut of the pot. What pot?… Bien, j’ecoute, I’m listening.”

The PM did listen, for a full five minutes. Then he did a thing his poker buddies had never seen before, and they went all the way back to his gold-prospecting days in the tundra. He hung up the phone, tossed his cards on the table, and said, “I fold.” Then he was out the door yelling for someone to locate the defense minister.

The Ural was a big, sharp-bowed 20,000-ton icebreaker with 30,000-horsepower engines that at the moment were propelling it through ice almost three feet thick at a constant speed of better than two knots. It plowed forward under a flat, dim Arctic sun like a giant ice-eating behemoth, making a steady booming noise as its prow crunched through the ice cap, leaving a long, winding, watery trail behind it.

On the bridge, Ural’s master, Captain Boris Ivanov, sat in the captain’s chair and scanned the ice field ahead with binoculars. His ice specialist, Lieutenant Stephan Portnov, was next to him also watching the surface closely, alert for the slightest sign that the ice was thickening past the point at which Ural could penetrate it at constant speed and would have to start breaking through with stop-and-start procedures.

Some people said the Inuit Eskimos, who used the ice cap like a highway, had over a hundred words for ice and snow. It seemed to Ivanov that Portnov knew them all. Rumor even held that he’d spent time with the Inuits. The slightest change in the coloration or swell of the ice somehow sent signals to him. He almost seemed to sense the thickness of the ice ahead by some extrasensory means, and he often warned the captain of changing conditions long before they were visible to anyone else.

Ivanov saw that his junior officer was tiring. Portnov had been on station far too long and only the urgency of their orders, coming from Admiral Korodin himself, and the instruction to make all possible speed made Ivanov use him this way. He was worried about straining the man. One didn’t bang on a Stradivarius, and certainly Portnov was as much a fine instrument.

“Over there, those striations. The ice is about to thicken,” Portnov announced. “Right ten degrees rudder, Comrade Captain.”

“Right ten degrees rudder,” commanded Ivanov. “Maintain headway if you can.” Sure enough, the thickness held and their forward progress continued unabated.

“What’s the latest weather report?” Ivanov asked his navigator.

“The temperature is minus thirty-five degrees centigrade and falling, Comrade Captain. We’re tracking an Arctic low that could produce a localized storm, and we’ve got heavy fog coming in.”

Ivanov considered what he had just heard. Fog usually meant areas of open water. When water was exposed, the air overhead became saturated immediately because the water-vapor capacity of cold air was so low. It was less common in this area, but at the edges of the ice cap there was usually low, clinging fog most of the time.

“Conditions are deteriorating,” he said to Portnov.

“Uh-huh, it smells like a storm. How long to our destination?”

“If conditions hold, we’ll make Red Dawn’s position in three hours.”

“I’ll do my best, Comrade Captain.”

“I’m certain of that, Stephan.”

Ivanov started thinking about the submarine. He had rescued many subs stuck on the surface in grinding pack ice, but one stuck in ice under the surface? Never. Getting tow lines on it was going to be a bitch. He’d have to send down divers. He was just about to call a meeting of the division officers who would be involved when Portnov’s shocked tone yanked him out of his thoughts.

“Comrade Captain, look! Off the port bow. What is it?”

Ivanov swung his glasses around. At first he thought it must be some trick of the northern atmosphere, that somehow a reflection of the Ural had been transposed out onto the ice fields, like a desert mirage. But as he gazed through his binoculars at the huge, dark shape approaching over the icy white horizon his heart sank.

“Unfortunately, Stephan, that is the biggest and most powerful icebreaker in the world. The Polar Eight.”

“What flag does it fly?” asked Portnov in awe.

“Canadian,” Ivanov responded. “And if we have the same goal in mind there is plenty of reason to worry.”

Ivanov had heard about the Canadians’ Polar 8 icebreaker, but he’d never actually seen it. It was 55,000 gross tons with 96,000 horsepower of brute strength. The “Polar” in its name meant it was capable of year-round service in the Arctic. The “8” meant the ship could defeat hard, level ice at least eight feet thick. Ivanov shook his head. Eight feet of ice and it could still maintain headway at a constant four knots. Ural could barely defeat ice half that thick, even when backing and ramming.

“My God, will you look at it?” said Portnov. “It’s huge. At least twice our tonnage.”

Ivanov’s curse was heartfelt. “Now I know how a midget feels in a whorehouse. Radar, what’s their speed?”

“Four knots, Comrade Captain.”

“Even with your talent to guide us, Portnov, we can’t go where they can,” Ivanov said bleakly. “They’ll reach Red Dawn well before we do.”

“They’re not omnipotent, Comrade Captain. If the ice gets thicker than eight feet they’ll be just as stuck.”

“True enough, but they’re unlikely to run into anything that thick.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Portnov turned to the navigator. “If we increase our speed to four knots, could we overtake them?”

The navigator bent over his chart table and ran rapid calculations. “At that speed we would reach Red Dawn before they do.”

“Fine thought, Stephan. But we can’t make four knots, not with this ice.”

Portnov shook his head. “There’s thin ice out there, Comrade Captain. We just can’t find it from up here.” He began pulling on his cold-weather gear and fur-lined parka.

“Stephan, where do you think you’re going?”

“Down on the ice,” said Portnov with equanimity.

“Look, there’s fog ahead. That means open water. Probably thin ice all around it. Give me two men and a radio and I’ll lead you right to it. We’ll make that four knots.”

“I won’t have you wandering out on that ice in the fog. It’s suicide.”

“I’ve done it before. The ice cap and I are old friends. Tie us to the ship with long lines. Any trouble, you can pull us in.”

“Soon you’ll be saying if worse comes to worst, you’ll pull the whole damn ship.”

“I would gladly try. You know that.”

Ivanov looked out to the horizon. Already the Polar 8 had pulled ahead. “All deliberate speed,” Korodin had ordered, and Portnov was a man to count on. Besides, damn it, the Red Dawn was a Russian ship!

Portnov was fully dressed, waiting expectantly. Ivanov came to a decision. “All right, Stephan.” He clapped him on the shoulders proudly. “Go assemble your party at the bow ladder and we’ll put you on the ice.”