Raise the Red Dawn

Chapter Thirteen

MacKenzie got up from the ice and brushed himself off. The drill had been knocked over by the force of the explosion, and Hansen was thrown from behind the controls. He was just getting to his feet. Greene was still breathing hard from his run. “That’s powerful stuff, Lieutenant,” MacKenzie said. “I did tell you so.”

“I suppose you did. Good run.” Greene grinned. “Motivation’s the key.” The charges had blown a jagged hole the size of a school bus in the solid ice. Churning water and broken plates of ice ground together inside it. “Mac, are you okay?”

He turned. It was Justine coming over the ice. “I’m fine. What happened to the Argo?”

“Dr. Rose has control again. He’s completing the surveillance you asked for. He’ll bring the tape over to Seawolf.”

“How is Captain Galinin?”

“I managed to communicate that we had a temporary malfunction,” said Justine, “and that we’ll start rescue operations as soon as the DSRV gets here.”

“How’d you tell him that?”

“Mac, we used to use Morse code over the AGR-Nines we liberated from the guardsmen.”

“That was a long time ago, Just.”

She shrugged. “True, and I’m a little rusty. I either told him we’d be right back or asked him to shower with me.”

“Either one would be a comfort, dear.”

Hansen was standing at the edge of the hole. “Hey, Captain. Take a look at this.”

MacKenzie joined him. Hansen pointed into the water. “Oil?”

MacKenzie bent over and dipped a finger in and held it to his nose. “Captain Hansen, tell Dr. Rose to bring up the Argo. I’ve got to get back to Seawolf.”

“Sonar’s picking up surface ships approaching, Mac,” Tom Lasovic said as soon as MacKenzie and Justine entered the conn. “Breakers. Signatures identify them as the Ural and the Polar Eight.”

“The big Canadian ship?”

“That’s her. Heading right for us.”

“They must be additional rescue missions. How soon till they get here?”

“Several hours. We’ve got time to get Red Dawn out, but it’s going to be close. The Ural’s making faster headway than I would have figured. She’s ahead of the Polar Eight.”

MacKenzie figured time and distances. They’d have to work faster.

“What happened out there?” asked Lasovic.

“We almost lost the Argo.” He explained how he’d stopped the jamming.

“That’s got to be a first,” Lasovic said. “Depth-charging a sub from dry land.”

“Dry ice. What did sonar make of their condition?”

“We had a solid fix on Akula and you… we could hear the drilling loud and clear. Then contacts merged and the explosions went off. Akula went down like somebody opened the hatches. Really rocked them.”

“Under power?”

“Their engines were working overtime to keep them afloat. Plenty of internal damage. Pipes bursting. Certainly fatalities. We tracked them as far as we could, but we lost them. Too much ice and signal attenuation. They took the blast very close. It may have ruptured the outer ballast hull. We can’t say for sure.”

“I don’t like it,” MacKenzie said darkly. “It’s like having a wounded animal in the area.”

“This captain’s smart,” said Lasovic. “That trick with the missile launch was a beaut. I wouldn’t count him out yet.”

“No, I wouldn’t either. That’s the trouble,” MacKenzie said sourly. “Tom, those charges were supposed to bounce him around a little and foul up his gear, not sink him. If he manages to save his ship, he’ll be back. Count on it. I would.”

“The rules of engagement are unclear here, Mac,” said Justine. “You did exactly the right thing. He was interfering with a rescue mission.”

“Save it for the troops, Just. He knows what we’re after.” MacKenzie looked worried. “This could develop into a shooting war.”

“If it does we’re vulnerable as hell up here, Mac,” Lasovic pointed out.

“You’re right, Tom. Rig for dive and then submerge the ship. Keep on constant alert status. Stay in defensive posture and make sure we’ve got running room. Let’s stay hidden and quiet. Wounded animals do unpredictable things.”

“Mac?” Justine began, but he brushed past her grimly. “Later, Just. I’ve got some things to think over. Take over, Tom. I’ll be in my cabin.”

He walked out. Tom Lasovic was concerned. It didn’t take much to see that MacKenzie was upset. He started after him, but Justine caught him. “Let me, Tom. Okay?”

Lasovic nodded, “It might be better.” He turned back to his command and Justine headed aft.

KGB Chief Abrikov walked into Solkov’s office and handed him a sheet of paper. “Read this.”

“What is it?”

“Korodin’s orders to Kalik. My people picked them up.”

Solkov scanned the document. “But he’s told Kalik to stand down, not to interfere. Christ, we want him to attack.”

Abrikov took the paper back. “Korodin’s sent in an icebreaker. He’s clever. He avoids the military confrontation and so he remains loyal to the general secretary, but he can still say he obeyed your orders.”

“This isn’t what we want, Agi. The worst thing of all would be for the Ural to succeed. Without a military crisis with the Americans—”

“We have no cause to remove the general secretary. I know,” Abrikov finished. “Don’t worry. You’re sending Kalik a new set of orders. I had them drawn up. It ought to provoke things. Here, take a look.”

Solkov read them and smiled. “Much better. Kalik will like this. He’ll like this very much.”

Captain Phil Arlin looked at his TV screen and studied the image of Red Dawn. “If I didn’t see it I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said to his XO, Pete Binz. “Have we got a fix on Seawolf yet?”

“We do. They’re at five hundred feet. Captain MacKenzie would like you on board as soon as possible.”

“Well, we didn’t rendezvous with the plane that dropped Avalon by chute and ferry it the rest of the way here on our back at top speed just for show,” said Arlin. “Make the craft ready and notify Lieutenant Johnson we’ll be crossing over to Seawolf as soon as possible.”

“Captain MacKenzie advises extreme caution. Akula is in the area and is considered hostile.”

“Make continual ESM searches and keep our ears out. Stay close.”

“Will do, Skipper.”

Kalik walked his ship surveying the damage. His anger was white-hot in his mind. Three men dead. Twenty wounded. Enough system damage to send them limping home under ordinary circumstances. It was a bitter roll call.

He shifted his arm in the sling. It wasn’t broken as he feared, just badly sprained. A day or two would see it back to normal use. Viktor hadn’t been so lucky. His collarbone was broken, and the hasty rigging the med tech had been able to fix up for him probably meant the bone would have to be reset when they got back to base.

Kalik wanted revenge. He was the head of his ship, and what hurt Akula hurt him. The constraints of his orders plagued him like a nagging wife. The more he lost, the more he had to win.

The air was fetid inside the engine room. The chief engineer and his men were sweating over an array of broken gauges, installing new ones. The bandages on the chief engineer’s head were stained with blood. Kalik brought his anger under control and put a lighter tone in his voice.

“Comrade Chief Engineer Melkon,” he said loudly, “haven’t I told you that driving the engines with your head will only dent the plates?”

The burly Melkon spun around angrily but relaxed into something of a smile when he saw who it was. “Pity the poor engineer who works for you, Comrade Captain. Next time when I tell you I need to stop the engines, let me stop them!”

“What, and make your job too easy? You must want the surface navy, my friend.”

The men all laughed. “All this and insults, too,” said Melkon feigning hurt.

Kalik felt the tension lessen. It was his way of telling them, I am still here. Trust in me. If I can laugh at all this, why should you be worried? “Tell me,” he said to the engineer, “what is our condition?”

“For all the shaking up you gave us we are not in such bad shape. The steam leaks were mostly in the secondary system, no radiation has escaped, and we should be able to give you full power as soon as the reactor auxiliary pump is replaced.”

“How long?”

“Say three hours.”

Kalik felt his spirits rise. “Good. Very good.”

He left feeling better than when he’d walked in. Without serious damage to the engines, and with the electronics in the control room now being replaced, Akula would soon be back to combat readiness. Even the rupture in the outer hull that had holed a ballast tank wouldn’t be a real loss. Other tanks could make up the difference. Thank the ship designers for their double-hull design. Without it, Akula would be lying on the bottom.

Kalik walked back to the control room, talking to the crew and making sure his presence was felt at every station. Men didn’t put their faith in machines, they put it in men. They put it in him.

Kalik felt weakened by the brush with destruction. Hands shook after an accident. Introspection started after you put down the smoking gun. He had been a combat captain for a long time, but he’d never come so close to losing his ship. He hated the weakness. It felt like… cowardice. He expunged it by replacing it with the anger lying so close to the surface. Damn his orders. Damn the Ural. Damn Seawolf He wanted action. Revenge would cure him. He’d made too many mistakes — that fear worm bit him hard. Was he losing his capacity to command? He had to prove differently. Seawolf and its clever captain were becoming more than just adversaries. If he beat them, it would be proof his hunter’s prowess remained intact, like bringing home a lion’s skin or an eagle’s feather. Through the hunt, he would be reborn.

Around him he felt Akula coming back to life, and with it, his strength was returning, too. “Vassily?” It was Volkov, come to find him. “Yes, what is it, Viktor?”

“We just received this.”

Kalik scanned the order from the minister of defense. “You read it?”

“Yes, and I don’t like it, Vassily,” said Volkov, nursing his shoulder. “Since when do orders come from Solkov? Only some kind of power play would have made him go over Korodin’s head. Korodin says hold, Solkov says attack. We could find ourselves in the middle of a very nasty situation. Vassily, we could be starting a war. Who do we listen to?”

But Kalik already knew which voice he would listen to. The one that spoke of the hunt. He even thought he heard drumbeats, till he realized it was his own heart, beating hard. The gods of war had given him authorization to act. He was ready. Three hours, the chief engineer had said. Three hours. Three hours…

There was a knock on MacKenzie’s cabin door. He looked up from his desk where he was half working, half staring into space, surprised to see Justine standing there. “May I come in?”

“It’s your cabin, too.”

“Well, I didn’t know who was in here, the captain or my husband.”

MacKenzie laughed. “Who was it you wanted?”

“My husband.”

MacKenzie pushed back from the desk. “Okay, he’s listening.”

Justine closed the door and perched on the bunk. “Talk to me, Mac. Something’s bothering you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Nope. It has to do with what you said to Tom Lasovic, doesn’t it?”

MacKenzie looked away. “I don’t know if I can explain it to you,” he said. “Maybe you have to be navy.”

“Try.”

“Justine, what I did was a crime. An unprovoked attack. And men died. I have to live with that.”

“Mac, you’ve been in battle before.”

“That’s the point. It was battle. I had direct orders to engage the enemy, and we had certain knowledge there was a threat to the United States. Look, I know that my orders may result in loss of life. Every C.O. has to be prepared for that, but I almost sent a hundred men to the bottom with a cowboy stunt that may have results I can’t even begin to predict.”

Justine watched him struggling with inner demons for a while. “Mac, what’s the difference between a soldier and a murderer?”

“Legal right,” MacKenzie answered unhesitatingly.

“Wrong,” said Justine. “Moral right.”

“You’re splitting hairs.”

“No, I’m not. When we were down in that stinking jungle waiting to ambush Somoza’s troops, you think we had a legal right? For Christ’s sake, he was the legal president. But he was slime. That gave us the right.”

“According to that, I’m still wrong. There’s no slime on board that sub. Just men. Average read-the-sports-page men. The officers are professionals like me. The rest just want to do their service and get the hell home.” His eyes held something she had never seen before. It took Justine a moment to realize it was self-doubt. “But some of them aren’t going home because I made a mistake and murdered them.”

“Which bothers you more, the murder or the mistake?”

MacKenzie reacted as if stung. “You know me better than that.”

Justine regarded him steadily. “Maybe. When’s the last time you made a mistake?”

“C’mon, Just. I make them all the time. Everybody does.”

“When’s the last time you made one that really counted?”

“What’s your point here?”

“It’s no stretch to forgive yourself because you forgot to buy oranges at the supermarket. Now, just a second, don’t jump at me. I know we’re dealing with something a lot more major. You’re calling it murder. Okay, we’ll deal with that in a minute. Mac, I know you better than anyone else does, and I can see you’re also feeling bad about making a mistake in the first place, wondering if it’s a reflection on you as a man and as a commander, and that’s almost as hard for you to deal with as the nature of the mistake itself.”

“That’s pretty complicated.”

“So are you. So is life.”

MacKenzie shook his head ruefully. “A lot of what you say is true. I’m not sure how to deal with this. Do I just say ‘too bad’ and move on? It’s like the captain who shot down that Iranian passenger plane by mistake. No matter how you cut it, lives were lost and I’m responsible.”

“I understand that. I was responsible when I was seven.”

“I know. I didn’t mean—”

She ticked off points one at a time. “As for the mistake part, if you hadn’t done something, we would have lost Red Dawn and everyone on board, as well as the Argo. The entire mission was in jeopardy. You had to act. As for the responsibility part, in my opinion the tragic consequences of your actions were unintended and, frankly, unforeseeable. The bottom line is you stopped the jamming. If it helps any, I’m in charge here and I say what you did was both effective and prudent, given the circumstances and the need for immediate action.”

“I appreciate that. But that’s what I have to decide now, isn’t it?”

“Mac, let me help.” She reached for him.

He held back. “We’re different, you and I, in this, Just. Maybe you’re more flexible. God knows you should be, given how you had to grow up. But I need the rules. The codes. You can do this under certain conditions, you can’t do it under others. That’s how I know. That’s how I justify what I do. It’s how I can take lives if I have to and still sleep at night.”

“The rules are never enough. You’re deeper than that. Even the captain part of you knows it.”

“The man doesn’t.”

“Mac, I learned this in the jungle. The rules are only a temporary refuge. There always comes a time when you have to operate without them.”

He sat down next to her tiredly. “I don’t know.”

Justine looked at him tenderly. He was in such pain. She wanted to say “You’ll learn to live with it” because it was true, but she decided to spare him that particular sadness. Instead, she brushed his hair back and kissed him and drew him down to her because in the end a really good wife knew when words should end and comfort begin.

MacKenzie convened a conference in the crew’s mess. Tom Lasovic watched him closely, still concerned. MacKenzie returned his gaze, unruffled. Whatever his personal feelings, the job came first. The look in his XO’s eyes seemed to say that he knew it would.

The intercom crackled. “Captain, Randall here. Avalon is docking over the aft escape hatch.”

“Send Captain Arlin and Lieutenant Johnson up as soon as they’re on board.”

“Aye, Skipper.”

A few moments later a wiry black southern lieutenant in a blue nylon jumpsuit sauntered into the room beside Phoenix’s captain, Phil Arlin. He grinned when he saw MacKenzie and stuck his hand out. “How are you, Captain? Mighty nice to see you again.”

“Hello, Luke,” MacKenzie said with genuine affection. “Good to see you, too. Been too long since Gitmo.”

Lieutenant Lucas Johnson—“Luke” to MacKenzie — had been his copilot once before, on the DSRV Mystic during a near fatal trip through the Cayman Trench. Luke was a fine pilot in his own right and an expert mechanic. Probably his most important skill was having the velvet touch of a surgeon with the DSRV’s external hydraulic arm.

“You know they had to give me another ship after what you did to the first one, Captain. But wait till you see the new modifications. Avalon’s got real heavyweight punch now and a new arm with more attachments than a French vibrator. Say, any truth to the rumor you got married?”

MacKenzie felt Justine stir behind him. “Er, Luke, meet Justine Segurra, also Mrs. MacKenzie. Central Intelligence. She’s in charge of this operation.”

Luke looked sheepish. “Excuse me, ma’am. Pleased to meet you. I didn’t mean—”

“Relax, Lieutenant. I know technical talk when I hear it. I’m delighted to hear the arm is so versatile.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s it. Versatile.”

There was muffled laughter from the others gathered in the mess to watch the videotape: Dr. Rose, Captain Hansen, Lieutenant Greene, and Joe Santiago.

Phil Arlin was an old family friend. He gave Justine an affectionate hug. “How’s the toughest lady this side of the equator?”

“Fine, Phil. Was it a good trip up?”

“Piece of cake. Of course,” he said dryly. “I didn’t have the navy’s newest sub to tool around in. Getting into trouble again, eh, Mac?”

MacKenzie shook hands warmly. “Welcome to Seawolf, Phil.”

“Glad to be aboard, Mac. She’s quite a boat.”

“A champion. Everything we hoped for and more. We had a nasty situation a few hours ago, and she came through without mussing a hair.”

“I’d like a look at the engagement tapes.”

“As soon as we’re done here.”

“Gentlemen, time is pressing.” Justine motioned them to take their seats. “Okay, Mac. It’s your show. Dr. Rose, please do the honors.”

The oceanographer put the tape into the VCR, and the picture of Red Dawn encased inside the ice keel came onto the screen. MacKenzie explained what they were seeing as Captain Galinin went through his message writing and again when the picture jumbled as Akula jammed the signal.

“Keep in mind several objectives as you view the tape,” MacKenzie instructed. “First, to locate their towing pad eye, if there is one. Second, to see how to clear it so we can plant the towing rig. Third, to map out the points on the keel where Luke and I in the DSRV and Captain Hansen’s men in scuba gear will plant the charges to blow the sub out of the ice. All right, you can see Captain Galinin being reassured that we were back in control and coming for the snorkel soon. We’re coming up on Argo’s first complete circuit.”

The discussion was animated as the group formulated a plan of attack. Through Argo’s camera lens they could see that Red Dawn did indeed have a pad eye located forward of her sail. Luke Johnson assured them that Avalon’s drill-tipped arm could handle the distance through the ice to the pad eye, a little more than fifteen feet. “But it’s got to be done fast or the hole will refreeze,” he added.

“The ice charges are tricky,” said Bernie Greene. “We’ll plant them inside the keel and direct the force out and away from Red Dawn.

“But not too close to the sub or we’ll rupture the hull,” Hansen added.

“Mac, are you assuming that by Waives out’ Galinin means his main ballast tank vent valves are damaged and can’t be opened?” asked Phil Arlin.

“I think so. To those of you unfamiliar with submarines, that means even when we blast Red Dawn free she won’t be able to bring enough water into her ballast tanks to submerge under the ice so we can tow her out.”

“What’s the alternative?” Justine asked.

“We’ll have to flood her sufficiently to take them down. The only way to do that is to drill into the main ballast tanks.”

“That’ll give them the weight,” Arlin agreed. “By the way, Mac, my engineers think they have a good idea of how to do the towing.”

“Shoot.”

“We’ve never towed a sub this big underwater before, so we’re on new ground, but we’re going to have to use a fairly long line. They calculate at least eight hundred feet.”

“Why so long?” asked Justine.

“Red Dawn has no power to stop herself,” Arlin reminded her. “If we stop short, she’ll ram right into Phoenix’s aft end and damage her propeller. Then you’ve got two disabled ships.”

“Where did you attach the line?” MacKenzie asked.

“To the two main cleats on Phoenix’s main deck. They should be strong enough to take the strain. It’s the cable we’re worried about. There’s got to be a bend in it of some kind so it doesn’t taut up and pop when we put pressure on it. The engineers had a clever idea. They rigged up a metal ball that’ll hang in the center of the tow line and hold it down. We run the tow line from the cleats back to the ball, then from the ball to Red Dawn.”

MacKenzie saw the inventiveness of the arrangement. “It’ll hang under the sub and pull against Phoenix’s belly so the pressure backs up against the cleats. You’re right. It is clever.”

“That’s the way we see it, Mac,” Arlin finished.

“Okay, that about wraps it up. Anything else?”

“We need to get back to the surface, Captain,” said Hansen, “and we’d better take plenty of hot food. Once our men get into that water they’re going to burn calories like they’re going out of style.”

“Our cooks will provide anything you need.”

“I’m heading for the surface, too, Mac,” said Justine, “The wounded are being airlifted out. Dr. Rose, you better get Ethel ready for pickup. You’ll both go out if we can get a second plane down.”

“I was wondering when anyone would remember us.”

“Well, we did,” Justine said, taking the finicky scientist by the arm. “You didn’t think we’d leave you here, did you?”

MacKenzie hid a smile and glanced at his watch. “All right, we have our assignments. Luke, all set to go?”

“Avalon’s powered up and ready, Captain.”

“Okay. Let’s give those folks some breathing room.”

MacKenzie paused below the aft escape trunk for a word with Phil Arlin. They discussed Norfolk’s latest intelligence estimate of the number of Soviet subs steaming for the area and the potential problems posed by the breakers overhead. Then Mac related recent events concerning Akula and Seawolf and finished with a description of dropping the charges to stop the jamming.

“…So we lost him in the commotion, but unless I miss my guess he’s out there somewhere. He’s been hurt and battered, and he can’t be happy we’re about to pull Red Dawn out of there.”

“I don’t like this, Mac,” Arlin said. “Phoenix is going to be too damn easy a target towing that Tango out of here. If Red Dawn goes down she’ll take Phoenix right along with her.”

“We’ll be right on your tail, Phil. I just wanted you to know things could get sticky. It was my mistake; I don’t want anyone else to pay for it. So be prepared.”

“Justine and her people would have a fit if we lost Red Dawn.”

“It’s your call, Phil. I’m just talking.”

Arlin nodded. “Okay. Thanks for the warning.”

MacKenzie climbed the ladder into the escape tube, followed by Arlin. They passed through the bell-shaped skirt that joined Avalon to Seawolf. When the skirt was pumped free of water, as it was now, outside pressure created a leakproof seal between the two craft. Arlin belted himself into the middle cabin, actually the second of three internal spheres that made up Avalon. Mac went forward.

Luke was already in the padded copilot’s chair, and MacKenzie slid in beside him. Avalon was in most ways a duplicate of her sister ship, Mystic. The deep submergence rescue vehicle was a fifty-foot, thirty-seven-ton cigar-shaped craft with an inertial guidance system created for the Apollo spacecraft. She could move up and down, right and left, forward and back, and her hull was constructed of twenty-six layers of fiberglass, titanium, and steel, enabling her to dive more than a mile deep. Avalon could hold up to twenty-four men and off-load a downed submarine in four or five trips.

“Power on, Luke.”

MacKenzie felt the craft come alive. His hands drifted over the controls. It brought back memories of fading air supplies and the search for his old sub, the Aspen. That hunt had almost ended in their death. He remembered how much he had wanted to come back from that trip. He had just met Justine and for the first time in his life had something to lose. Now, after two years of marriage, he was risking even more.

“You married, Luke?” he asked as they ran through the checklist.

“Five years. We have a three-year-old. Little boy named Jake.”

“We’re thinking about kids, too. Makes me wonder why we don’t call it quits. Come home at five and watch the ball game. Hydraulics.”

“Check.” Luke looked at MacKenzie curiously. “You’re thinking long thoughts, Mac. Problem?”

“Nope. Batteries.”

“Fully charged. What, then?”

“Momentary lapse. Forget it.”

Luke laid a sympathetic hand on his arm. “You got a right. We all do sometimes, y’hear?”

“I hear. Thanks. Ready?”

Luke grinned. “Lay on, Macduff.”

Mac punched commands into the on-board computer. A smooth power curve flowed onto the screen. The rest of the board was green. He seized the radio mike dangling on a spiral cord between their padded seats.

“Seawolf, Avalon. Ready to disengage.”

“Avalon, Seawolf. This is Lasovic. On your mark.”

MacKenzie hit a switch on the panels surrounding them and pumped water into the bell housing matching external pressure and breaking the seal.

“Mark.” Simultaneously he fed power to the electric motors lifting Avalon off Seawolf’s deck, and Tom Lasovic dropped the sub a few feet.

Luke called out, “Separation.”

“Good luck, Avalon. Seawolf out.”

Mac took firm hold of the steering yoke and slid Avalon swiftly off into the icy waters heading for Phoenix. Seawolf would take the others to the surface and would come back to wait for Avalon’s return. It was eerily beautiful. There were crystal-clear waters around them, and the occasional polynyas above were clearly visible on Avalon‘s TV screens and in her round forward viewports. MacKenzie felt a sense of personal freedom in the small craft, like flying a single-engine Cessna after a 747.

Luke tested the hydraulic arm. It was originally intended to remove any debris that might be covering a downed submarine’s escape hatch. Ice digging was a brand-new application.

“Coffee?” asked Luke, reaching between the seats for a thermos.

“I forgot how prepared you are. Love some.”

MacKenzie kept their depth constant. They were approaching Phoenix. He took a few sips of coffee and put the no-spill container in a holder.

“Coming up on Phoenix,” Luke reported.

“Avalon, this is Phoenix. Ready to engage.”

“Phoenix, Avalon. Hold her steady. Coming in over the aft trunk.”

MacKenzie settled the DSRV onto Phoenix and blew the water out of the bell housing. The radio crackled. “Avalon, you are properly engaged.”

Arlin called from the inner sphere, “Thanks for the lift, fellas. We’ll be ready when you need us.” Arlin opened the hatch and disappeared below, sealing it behind him.

“Phoenix, Avalon. Ready to disconnect.” MacKenzie brought the DSRV up from Phoenix’s deck and sped off, this time toward the ice keel.

Red Dawn grew larger on their screens. “There,” said MacKenzie. “See the snorkel in that lower tunnel? They must have dug it out again.”

“I’ve got a fix on it,” said Luke. “Come in on the port side. I can get a better angle.”

“First the exhaust path. Once that’s cleared they can run the engines and get some heat in there.”

MacKenzie moved in and hovered just off the ice keel like a fish poised effortlessly in the water. Luke swung the arm’s boxlike control panel down into his lap. He rotated the arm and began a slow chipping motion against the ice. It took less than half an hour to clear the exhaust path. Pieces of ice broke off and floated slowly away, a shower of icy diamonds scintillating in the light of Avalon’s powerful beams.

“You haven’t lost your touch,” MacKenzie observed.

“Nope. Just a little bit more…”

Luke cleared the last of the ice from the hull. They could see the first trapped bubbles rising from the unblocked valve.

“She’s open. Good work, Luke.”

MacKenzie lifted Avalon and moved back across the ice keel. Red Dawn slid by beneath them under the glistening ice, black and shimmery. The snorkel and air hose were coiled behind the ice seal in the lower tunnel. Mac hovered in close and Luke began chipping at the seal.

“Hey, look,” Luke exclaimed. “Up there.”

MacKenzie followed his finger and saw Captain Galinin watching them from the upper tunnel.

“We have an audience.”

“That’s good. Because I think it’s… yep… show time!”

All at once the ice seal got too thin to withstand the water pressure and it crumbled. Seawater flooded the tunnel, pounding Red Dawn’s hull like a fist. Then the turbulence settled down and the snorkel floated calmly inside the watery chamber with a long length of air hose attached to it. Luke reached in and grabbed the snorkel head in the arm’s pincers. MacKenzie backed Avalon out a bit. The snorkel came free of the keel with the air hose trailing behind it. Above them, Galinin still watched.

MacKenzie headed for the surface.

Galinin crawled back into the torpedo room. “They’ve taken the snorkel. We should have air going into the fan room in just a few minutes. The exhaust path is clear, too.”

The mood on board changed from grim anticipation to jubilation. Men clapped one another on the back. Ligichev was already trying to figure out how to restore the drive. Ivanna threw herself into Pytor’s arms. With power and a renewed air supply they could await the towing in relative comfort. It wouldn’t be a Russian ship that rescued them, but survival was beyond politics. Sooner or later they would be returned home.

Everyone was happy but Galinin. Of all the things he had imagined, rescue by the Americans was not among them. It posed serious problems. Red Dawn was not an ordinary submarine on an ordinary mission. There were dire security considerations. He left the torpedo room and walked down the main corridor, ignoring the spontaneous celebrations that had broken out.

He was the only one on board with the combination to the wall safe in his cabin. It contained the usual code books and system schematics, but also the special orders he had been given before sailing. In order to open the safe if he were incapacitated or killed, a sub tender would have to be summoned to bring the safecracker it kept on board for just such emergencies.

Galinin opened the safe and spread the material on his desk, skimming over the usual nonsense — the standing orders, the protocols, and the ROEs. But as he read through the special orders he came upon a section that began simply, “In the event of capture…”

Halfway through it, he understood why he had been chosen to captain the Red Dawn.

Stephan got down on his hands and knees and scooped up the top layer of snow, sniffing it as he had seen his Inuit tutor do. Around his waist was a line trailing back to the Ural’s surging bow. The ship was now making a steady three knots just a few hundred yards behind him.

The icebreaker’s passage was thunderous. Stephan could feel vibrations through the soles of his boots. He looked into the sky. The pale sun was barely discernible through the cloud cover. He sniffed the snow again. The water was near. He could smell the thin film of condensation on the surface layer.

“Comrade Lieutenant, which way?”

His two crewmen, Seamen Rolf and Pinkov, trudged alongside him. They were also guyed to the ship. Both looked colder and more miserable by the second. Rolf was a heavy man with curly hair, moist eyes, and full lips. Pinkov was short, squat, and barrel-chested with a nervous smile that showed missing front teeth.

Stephan took care not to laugh at their discomfort, but it was barely thirty degrees below zero. An Inuit would have his shirt off in this weather, thinking he was lucky to have such a warm winter.

“Tell the captain to steer left fifteen degrees rudder. The ice will be thinner and he can increase speed.”

“Increase speed? I’m getting tired of running ahead of the ship now, Comrade Lieutenant,” Pinkov said as Rolf called the ship on his portable radio. “What happens if they go faster?”

“I have an idea, Pinkov,” Stephan said lightly. “Just remain where you are and when the ship passes it can pull you with it.”

Not sure whether the often puzzling lieutenant was serious, Pinkov gave him a worried look and began coiling the lines.

“The captain acknowledges your signal, Comrade Lieutenant,” Rolf said, slinging the radio back over his shoulder.

“Good. Let’s move on.”

They walked, a process of fits and starts that had Stephan on his hands and knees as often as on his feet. This far north, nature had different rules and he had come to know many of them during his time with the Inuit. It was a far cry from the warm, sunny beaches of the Crimea where he was born.

Most Soviet citizens would have considered themselves lucky to live in such a place. The Russian Riviera, it was often called. Party bigwigs and union officials vacationed there, hastily fleeing Moscow’s bitter winter. The stores were usually pretty well stocked, and the restaurants had better than average food procured from a thriving black market catering to the tourist trade.

No wonder his parents told him he was foolish to want to leave. What was the point of seeing the world when they had so much right here? Besides, the world, especially the West, wasn’t accessible to anyone but the nomenklatura. Did he see himself a big shot like that? Stephan didn’t, and he soon realized the Party schools were not for him. He took the next best route. As soon as he was of age he joined the navy.

Chance brought him to the Inuit and to the ice. He was assigned to a vessel that routinely supplied an arctic weather research station. The captain of the vessel was a morose, sullen man who lived first to regale his crew with stories of his exploits during the Great Patriotic War and second to drink himself into unconsciousness every night.

One day the drinking started earlier than usual and resulted in his trapping the vessel in grinding pack ice. The hull was holed, and the crew had to take off over the ice or drown. Most died of exposure in the first few hours. The rest ran into a storm, and Stephan was separated from them in the blinding snow. When morning came he found himself alone on the ice cap, colder and more scared than he had ever been in his life. He dreamed of his childhood beaches, wishing he had never left them.

Wandering over the ice he lost all sense of time and place. He had no idea in what direction the research station lay, and his fading strength made reaching it unlikely even if he could find out. There were no signs here to read like in the woods. Everything looked the same, and the shifting snow obscured his tracks virtually as he made them. For all he knew he had been walking in circles.

When he ran out of food he knew he had just hours to live. He made peace with that knowledge. There was little choice, really. After one footstep or another or the next, whenever he finally ran out of strength, he would lie down and go to sleep and dream of the beaches and never wake up.

He came to an open lead in the ice. He could see fish swimming below. Faint with hunger, he fashioned a fishing line using cloth ripped from his uniform. His belt buckle became a hook. It was a desperate and creative act, but it didn’t work. The fish were maddeningly close, and yet he couldn’t catch a single one. Delirious, he got mad at the fish for not biting. Bad fish. Mean fish. They could help him live, but they weren’t going to. He could actually see them swimming happily by. He got angrier and angrier, especially when he realized he couldn’t move his legs anymore, so he hit the water and cursed the fish. He slapped at the ice cap and threw snow into the hole. At last, frustrated beyond endurance he grabbed for one fish that happened to swim near the surface and even managed to get hold of its slippery skin before he overbalanced and toppled into the numbing water.

The Inuit brave who was traveling over the ice to visit his wife’s mother’s home that day had been watching Stephan for the better part of an hour and enjoying his antics more even than the “I Love Lucy” reruns they played on the tavern TV at the outpost where he traded his furs for tools and medicines. In return for such pleasure he dragged Stephan from the water, stripped him naked, dried him, and wrapped him in furs from his sled. Then he began cutting ice blocks for an igloo, a temporary shelter the Inuit built on the ice while traveling.

Stephan awoke to find himself warm, dry, and naked, lying on a fur-covered pallet on the igloo floor. Rancid smoke from a fish oil heater lamp filled the ice shelter with light and warmth. The temperature was a pleasant twenty-five. The waiting Inuit squatted across from him chewing on a piece of raw fish. Unsure whether Stephan would live or die from exposure to the water he had elected to let the gods decide. Now that it seemed they had come to a favorable decision, he offered the stranger food and water, and by the end of the day Stephan had recovered some of his strength.

Stephan spoke no Inuit, and the Inuit spoke no Russian. To the brave, however, Stephan’s tenacity and will to survive were as pleasing as the young man’s clumsiness was amusing. He managed to communicate that he was planning to be here for a while to run a string of traps and that he would not throw Stephan out. Stephan thanked him, but for his own sake he wanted to be able to carry his own load. He wanted to learn how the Inuit survived on the ice cap. The Inuit seemed to find the humor in this roughly on a par with Lucy’s learning to work on the chocolate candy assembly line, but he soon discovered Stephan was a fast learner and a dependable partner, and while Stephan mended, his skills slowly increased.

Stephan learned to fish and to work the sled dogs, to render oil for the lamp, and to retain his body heat at temperatures that once would have made him loath even to stick his head outside. He learned about trapping, and finally he began to learn about ice.

He learned that there were more colors in white than he had ever dreamed of, and he learned what each one meant. He learned to spot, from a quarter of a mile away, thin ice that could break under his feet, and he learned to smell unseen open water on the wind. By the time they broke camp to begin the long haul to the research station, which the Inuit knew of and had passed many times, Stephan probably knew as much about the ice cap as any eight-year-old Inuit, which meant he knew more than almost anybody else about it, anywhere.

The scientists in the research station were shocked to see him. A whole summer had passed since Stephan’s ship went down. All hands had long ago been presumed dead. His tale was incredible, but here he was looking healthy and fit, and beside him was an Inuit who took one whiff of the inside of the research station and left for clean air with a simple wave good-bye. It only occurred to Stephan much later, when he was in the airplane winging his way back home, that he would probably never see the Inuit again.

“Comrade Lieutenant? Comrade Captain Ivanov radios he is making four knots,” Rolf announced, so many ice droplets caked on his lashes and mustache that he looked like a coal-eyed snowman.

“What? Yes, sorry. Tell the captain to come right with ten degrees rudder. And you’d better keep moving or you’ll get run over.”

Pinkov groaned as Stephan picked up the pace. Keeping up with the lieutenant was hard work. Didn’t the man get cold or tired?

Stephan moved on, remembering. The men of the high command weren’t stupid. They realized what a find they had in him. They had tried to get him to lecture, but the academic world wasn’t for him, so they sent him for officers’ training and then to ice specialty school, where he ended up teaching the teachers. That was eighteen months ago. He had served on the Ural with Captain Ivanov ever since.

The time he spent with the Inuit had changed him. The ice cap was central to his life now in a way that no one understood except the Inuit he would never see again. This close to the ice in the cold clear air lit by a pale distant sun, his own captaincy assured one day, he was content.

“There, Pinkov, do you smell it? Open water. Close. Follow me.”

Pinkov gathered the slack in the line, and Rolf grabbed the radio, and they followed the enigmatic lieutenant across the ice.

Captain Roland Maré of the Royal Canadian Navy looked at his radar operator and asked for the report again, unsure he’d heard it correctly.

“It’s true, Captain. They’re making four knots now.”

“Impossible,” said Mare. “Not in ice that thick, eh?”

“It’s an odd course he’s weaving,” said Lieutenant Jean Renaud, Polar 8’s icemaster. He quit studying the radar screen and switched to high-powered binoculars. “First this way, then that. It’s like he has eyes out there on the ice. He’s catching up.”

“Relax, Jean,” said the bearded Mare. “One mistake and he’ll wedge himself in for hours. I’m not worried.”

Renaud wasn’t so sure. The Ural was moving with a confidence he found unsettling, almost as if it saw obstacles before it got to them. He read the Fathometer report and studied the ice ahead of his own ship. It was holding at six feet, and the Polar 8 was eating it up like croissants for breakfast.

The two behemoths of the Arctic continued to crash ahead, pitting their power and the knowledge of their icemasters against each other. A race was shaping up, and Renaud had his money solidly behind his ship, but he kept a close watch on the Ural as both icebreakers split the ice field and surged on.

Justine came inside, knowing they had been lucky. The storm had lifted enough to get the wounded on the first C-l 30 able to get in and out. No one knew how long it would take for a second plane to land. The dorm was a hubbub of activity. Dr. Rose was finishing packing the Argo for transport on the next plane. Bernie Greene was taking a party of SEALs to the fishing hole to wait for Mac to bring up the snorkel, and Captain Hansen was readying his men to go underwater to plant the explosives in the ice keel.

“Need any help, Doc?” Justine asked.

“Just get me on that plane. I want the sun. I want warm water. The closest I want to come to cold ever again is a frozen daiquiri.”

Justine had to laugh at the man’s steadfast aversion to the region. “Isn’t there anything you like up here?”

“Frankly, no.”

“Well, then, relax. You did a fine job with the Argo. We’ll take it from here.”

“Glad to help. Will you get those people down there out alive?”

“We’re sure gonna try.”

Then Rose said something unexpected. He said, “I hope so. I’ll pray for you all.”

Justine completed her report to Winestock in Washington over her satellite link radio and signed off. The news about the Ural’s increased speed and the fast-approaching Soviet subs wasn’t good, but all indications were that they would be done before the ships got there. In the case of the Ural, there was still the Polar 8 to head it off.

“Nice rig,” commented Hansen. “Satellite direct?”

“Yes.”

“They used this kind for the Iranian rescue mission. Unfortunately, it let the president second-guess his field commander.”

“Sometimes reach out and touch can be a bad thing, hmm?”

Hansen laughed. “I suppose.” He put out another dry suit from an open crate. “Not much interference up here.”

“Nope.” She smiled. “Straight down.”

“Don’t you mean straight up?”

“I meant to the U.S.”

“Yeah. Right. Funny thinking of it that way.”

“This whole region reorients you,” she said. “All you hear about is the east and the west. Especially where I come from. You begin to think there’s only one direction, across the globe. Then you come up here and realize that Russia and the United States are closer here than at any other point except near Alaska, and the two continents are separated only by an ocean full of ice and missile subs. We’re south of them, really, not west. And they’re north of us. So no wonder everybody’s running under-ice maneuvers like they’re going out of style. I suppose I’ve bought into Mac’s concern about this region.”

“He’s a good commander, your husband. His men like him. Mine, too.”

“Thanks. Me, too.”

“Yeah, I can see that. I wouldn’t mind my wife looking at me the way you look at him. What’s the secret?”

“He makes me laugh.”

“That’s it?”

Justine smiled. “That’s part of it. Most of all I guess I like his confidence and his intelligence. He’s not scared of anything, I don’t think. And the way he sees things. Mac’s a tried and true optimist. Most people think the world is coming to an end. He sees diseases we’ve cured and political differences being resolved and a more just society evolving, things like that. He’s completely unthreatened by my talent and success, and he honestly trusts in the basic dignity of every human. That’s rare.”

“And that makes you laugh?”

“No, that makes me respect him, because even though he believes what I consider to be naive malarkey, he is nobody’s fool. And when I’m in one of my most serious and depressed moods and the accumulated weight of my life feels like God singled me out for special punishment and I barely have the energy to get out of bed, he comes bounding into the bedroom to tell me how neat it is that somebody just invented a way to put four billion phone calls in a wire the size of a piece of spaghetti, or that some song on the radio made him feel so good we should go out to brunch because it’s Thursday, or that this really is the land of the free, or that he’s double-jointed and can touch his thumb to his wrist or some such thing, and I laugh. Trust me, don’t sell lightheartedness short.”

Hansen couldn’t help but smile.

“See? That’s Mac. He’s catchy.”

“I think I’m envious.”

Justine just smiled. “Me and Mac, we’re a funny combination, but it works.”

“Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Mrs. MacKenzie. Thanks.”

“Justine, okay?”

“Sure. Look, I’ve got to get some tanks from the warehouse. Be back.”

Hansen left the dorm. Justine found Dr. Rose and had just started helping him get squared away when harsh words broke out across the room. She looked over to the SEALs, two of whom were shoving each other angrily. She sighed. Conflicts were inevitable under the stress of these conditions. The only thing unusual was that something hadn’t happened before now.

“I don’t give a shit why you did it!” yelled a SEAL named Ellis. “I told you I was gonna flatten you if it happened again and I’m gonna.”

The other SEAL, Burke, glowered and hefted a weight belt like a ball and chain. “Try it, asshole.”

Justine moved toward them. “Excuse me. That’s enough. We’re all tired. Put that down and let’s forget it.”

Ellis looked at her and started to say something, but he caught himself and got back under control. The one with the weight belt just couldn’t. Justine had seen it before in the jungle, the product of fatigue and tension. “Excuse me, lady,” Burke said nastily. “This doesn’t concern you, so fuck off.”

Justine let out a tired breath, stepped forward, and slapped him hard across the face. “I am your superior officer. Get hold of yourself. Put it down. Now.”

It was the wrong move. The slap was the last straw, and Burke blew. Justine saw it in his eyes. They unfocused, and as the others yelled for him to stop it and shouted warnings to Justine, he leaped forward swinging the belt over his head, coming straight for her.

Later the SEALs would tell the story among themselves, and no one would be quite sure which version was correct. One said he saw her foot hit the big man first in the groin, then in the chest, and then in the side of the head so fast it looked as if all three blows occurred simultaneously. Another said the kicks came later, that it was the forearm block that came first, when she let the weight belt wrap around her arm and shifted her weight like a dancer to flick it back at the man, taking him hard under the chin and snapping his head back like a hammer. Yet another said it was the sudden skip-spin move that really did the trick, taking her inside the man’s reach to drive her elbow into his solar plexus, doubling him over and exposing the back of his neck to the quick sharp chop that sent him senseless to the floor.

In any event, five seconds later Justine, without a hair mussed, was standing over the unconscious SEAL. The rest of the men looked at one another in amazement and broke into applause.

“Jesus, did you see that?”

“Christ, where did you learn to move like that, Ms. Segurra?”

“Ma’am, that’s the greatest thing I ever saw. He’s gotta outweigh you by a hundred pounds and be taller by a foot.”

“It was unfair, really. I started early,” she said simply.

The SEALs roared with laughter. One named Jackson, whom she had seen managing the others, spoke up. “Please, ma’am. Burke didn’t mean it. It’s just the damn cold. It’s got us all a little crazy. Captain Hansen, ma’am, well… I mean, it’s up to y’all, but…”

Justine had led too many men into battle not to know when stress was the real enemy. These were disciplined men, and the offense wouldn’t be repeated. She grinned mentally. Especially not now. “What say we get him off the floor and pump some coffee into him? Cold’s got me jumpy, too, boys.”

“Thanks, ma’am,” said Jackson. “We won’t forget it.”

There was a collective grin of relief as they lifted Burke off the floor and dumped him on a cot. Justine felt sorry for him. He was in for quite a ribbing when he came to. She went back to work with Dr. Rose.

A few minutes later she saw the oceanographer look past her and blink a few times. “Ah, Justine…?”

She looked up. SEALs with friendly smiles were standing there. Jackson was holding a flask.

“Ma’am, it’s against regs, but to say thanks… well, would you care to join us?”

Justine was touched. “Gentlemen, my pleasure.”

Volkov took the final damage-control reports from his division officers and went to find Kalik. He found him sitting alone in his cabin nursing a cup of coffee like a grudge.

“Repairs are complete, Comrade Captain. Engineering reports the new cooling pump is installed and they are able to produce maximum power. All our other systems are fully operational. We are ready to resume patrol.”

“Where is the Ural?”

“Twenty miles from us. Sonar reports they are approaching at a steady rate of four knots, but they have been joined by a Canadian icebreaker, the Polar Eight. The computers verify the signature.” Volkov paused, then plunged on. “The Polar Eight is twice as large as the Ural. Given the ice between us I can’t say with any certainty that the Ural will get here first.”

“I see. And the Americans? Is the DSRV still in the water?”

“They’re working at the ice keel with the hydraulic arm. We can read the sounds plainly.”

“My guess is they’re taking the snorkel to the surface. That would be the logical move.” Kalik pushed his cup away. “Sound battle stations.”

“Battle stations? Why? Vassily, what are you planning to do?”

“Don’t question me, Viktor.”

“I’m only asking you. Have I lost that privilege?”

“I’m going to give the Ural time to get here.”

“How? What do you intend to do?”

Kalik’s face darkened. “Careful, Viktor.”

“Vassily, I’m worried. We’re in the middle of something. It’s more than just Red Dawn. It stretches all the way back to the Kremlin. Solkov and Korodin are part of it. If we aren’t careful we’re going to get caught in the middle.”

“I’m tired of politics,” Kalik said forcefully. “I’m a submarine commander and I have a job to do. The Americans aren’t going to steal Red Dawn from us.”

“I beg you, Vassily. Think. There are larger issues here. You’re going against Korodin’s direct orders and siding with Solkov. It could start a coup. What if we gain Red Dawn only to lose everything else?”

“You’re questioning my authority?”

Volkov took a deep breath. “Not your authority, Vassily. Your wisdom.”

Kalik reacted as if he’d been slapped. “That’s enough, Viktor. Now order battle stations and get to your post before I replace you for insubordination.”

Kalik tested system after system and found Akula sound again despite the fresh welds on the pipes in the control room and the scars on bulkheads and consoles. He glanced at Volkov standing calmly in his place, as ready as the rest of the crew under battle conditions. There was no sign of discontent on his face. If nothing else, Viktor was a professional. No one would know of the words between them — or of the trust and faith that had been so badly damaged.

“Comrade Diving Officer, begin pumping variable ballast to sea and raise us off this shelf,” Kalik ordered. “Helm, steer course one eight zero as soon as we’re clear.”

As Akula grew lighter, she shuddered and lifted clear of the ice shelf. “All ahead one-third.” At this low speed he didn’t need the reactor-cooling pump operating. Akula would be a silent shadow. They moved out into the cold waters. “Bring us to one hundred meters,” he ordered.

“One hundred meters,” echoed the diving officer a few moments later.

“Torpedo Room, what is the status of tubes one and two?”

“Both tubes are loaded and ready, Comrade Captain.”

“Sonar, lock in the coordinates for the Americans’ camp on the surface. Attack Center, match sonar bearings.”

Kalik looked across the cabin. Volkov was watching him, his eyes hard and unyielding. Kalik continued to reel off commands under his senior lieutenant’s stern gaze, feeling as if he were performing the ritual for Volkov alone. Look somewhere else! Kalik wanted to shout at those watchful eyes. Who are you to judge me and what I must now do?

“Attack Center. We have matched the coordinates, Comrade Captain. A firing solution is ready.”

Kalik could almost hear Volkov in his mind. You don’t know who’s up there, he would complain. There could be civilians, maybe even women. This is not a military maneuver, it is… vengeance. It’s murder.

Kalik stopped listening. “Fire tubes one and two.”

When Captain Hansen returned he noted a subtle change in the dorm’s atmosphere. He couldn’t identify it exactly, but everyone seemed in better spirits. As long as the work was progressing he ceased to wonder about it. Besides, even goddamn Burke seemed downright contrite.

Justine was helping with the equipment. Twenty-eight-degree water left no room for error. It would paralyze a man’s muscles before he knew what had hit him. Engrossed, she bolted up when her radio suddenly crackled into life.

“Base Camp, this is Seawolf. Base Camp. Emergency.” It was Tom Lasovic.

“Base Camp, over.”

“Justine, quick, Sonar’s reading high-speed motors. It’s Akula. There are torpedoes headed straight for you. Get out.

Get everybody out. Now. Don’t wait. Fifty seconds is all you’ve got.”

Justine turned. Hansen and his men had already heard and were grabbing supplies. “Forget all that,” she yelled, “and get out. Now!”

“Release noisemakers,” ordered Lasovic, hoping to draw the torpedoes away from the camp. Goddammit, they had come out of nowhere. They had to be from Akula.

“Noisemakers away. But it’s a long shot, Mr. Lasovic. Awfully far.”

“Sonar, keep tracking.”

“Conn, Sonar. I can hear them. They’re not going for the noisemakers, sir.”

“Keep tracking,” Lasovic said, clenching his hands helplessly.

MacKenzie saw the fishing hole above them and relaxed a bit. “Get set, Luke, they should be waiting to take the snorkel.”

But instead, Luke clutched his earphones tighter. “Captain, it’s Mr. Lasovic. Incoming torpedoes! Navigation has them headed straight into the base camp. They’re evacuating.”

MacKenzie hit the controls and rammed the steering yoke all the way back to its stop. “Emergency deep. C’mon, Luke. Move!”

Luke hit the pump switches, and Avalon dropped like a rock. MacKenzie cut in the hydrophones. Sure enough there they were. Incoming high-cycle motors. Akula had come back to finish the war he had mistakenly started.

He had to draw the torpedoes away from the camp, had to give Justine and the others time to get out of there. Twin fish would blow the ice for a hundred yards in every direction. He heard Seawolf’s noisemakers going off in the distance, trying to decoy the fish away. They were useless, too far away. There was only one target that might turn the fish. He had only seconds.

“Luke, they’ve got only one chance topside, and that’s if we decoy the torpedoes away. You understand? I’m making us the target. We’re not too deep. You can get out the hatch.”

“One hundred feet. Sonar tracking. Range one half mile and closing. Get stuffed, sir.”

“I’m gonna kiss your ugly face if we get out of this. All right. We need to find a big ice keel, then draw them in and duck behind it right before they hit. Got it?”

“Quarter mile and closing. Fat chance. Sir.”

“Sweet talker.” MacKenzie scanned the screens. The keel had to be big enough to take the blast, near enough to get to in a hurry.

“Mac, over there… maybe?”

“I see it. Yeah, that’s the one. Here we go.”

Avalon sprinted for the keel, her propellers cavitating bubbles wildly in a wake behind her.

“One thousand feet. Five hundred feet… Oh, sweet Jesus, Mac, they hear us. They’re changing course.”

“Closing. Almost ready to run.” MacKenzie held the ship steady, hovering in water as clear as air. He had to be certain, had to know the fish were coming straight in and could not change their course till it was too late. He ran the motors for noise, waiting. The big ice keel beside them beckoned like a shield. He longed to dive for it.

“C’mon, Mac! Three hundred feet!”

“One second more… It’s going to be rough, Luke. Hold on tight.”

“One hundred feet! Mac!”

“Now!” MacKenzie hit the power switch and put everything Avalon had into one urgent surge for the keel. The props bit hard into the water as he dived hard to starboard and Avalon jumped as if it had been kicked. On the screen he could see the ice sliding in between them and the torpedoes. MacKenzie pushed the motors as hard as they could spin.

The blast shattered the ice keel and turned the ocean into a maelstrom. Ice chunks the size of boulders blew away and tumbled past them into the deep. MacKenzie tried to dodge the flying debris, but the blast created horrific currents that bounced off the surface ice and drove Avalon into the explosion. Systems blew. Power failed. They were plunged into darkness, pummeled by icy debris. Luke’s head slammed into a bulkhead, and he slumped over in his seat.

MacKenzie’s last thought as they were swept away by the irresistible currents was that all of this was his fault. His mistakes had come back to haunt him. Then the aftershocks hit and he lost consciousness, so there was nothing to think of at all.

The explosions caught them as they ran. The ice cap buckled up from underneath as if a giant hand had punched it, and cracks appeared by the thousands. It sounded like a thousand panes of glass shattering as the ice split open. Water spurted through the fractures like geysers, forced up by the pressures below.

A chasm opened before Justine. She lost her balance and fell toward it, digging her fingers into the snow to keep herself from falling in. There was no purchase. A SEAL got hold of her and pulled her back. They scrambled to their feet and continued running for the hills that ringed the camp.

All around them the tiny valley the camp had been nestled in began to shatter. She heard a scream of pain and turned to see that Dr. Rose was caught behind them on a rising sheet of ice frantically trying to jump off. She started to turn back. One of the SEALs grabbed her. “You’ll never make it!” Ellis shouted. She struggled to get free, but it was too late. The frail Dr. Rose slid helplessly down the ice into the freezing water and disappeared from sight. Justine felt tears of rage and frustration freeze on her cheeks. He had been right about the Arctic. In the end it had killed him.

Another SEAL tripped and slid headfirst into the icy churning waters before anyone could grab him. They ran. Hansen stopped for one of his men whom a chunk of ice had hit hard. He felt for a pulse. There was none. The ice behind him began to break up. Somebody shouted a warning. Hansen rolled aside and leaped to his feet as the ice cracked. Then he was running again with the rest.

The ice was breaking up, and the plane was no longer level or solid. Justine leaped across a chasm that had opened virtually beneath her feet. The ice on the other side reared up at the same time. She grabbed for the edge of the rift as it rose up, dropping the precious radio as she tried to lever her body over it. She rose into the air with the ice, hanging on for dear life. The strain in her arms was intolerable. She felt her fingers slipping, but hands encircled her wrists and she looked gratefully into Burke’s face as he grabbed her from the other side. “Kick!” he shouted and she dug her feet in, scraping enough friction to bring her up and over the ice and into his arms. She stood for a moment dizzy and shaking.

“Thanks—” she began.

“No time. Run!”

She ran. On the other side of the basin Greene and his men bolted away from the fishing hole. Fissures were traveling along the ice just behind them. Hansen and the other SEALs yelled for them to run faster. They watched in horror as the very last man in Greene’s party failed to outrace the widening fissures and was swallowed up. A second man and a third went in and were covered by ice.

The basin that the camp had lain in became an undulating maelstrom before collapsing back into a mass of huge grinding pressure ridges. Every trace of the Quonset huts had disappeared. Greene and his remaining men finally joined up with Justine, Hansen, and the rest of the SEALs, cursing the treachery of the ice beneath them.

As if in response the ice under them shifted and moved in warning. Fissures were still a danger. No one knew how far the fracturing might spread. They had to make distance, get out of the basin onto firmer footing.

It was almost forty below zero and the temperature was still dropping. Eerie dark fog lay over the distant ice. Thunderheads were moving in fast. They had no food or shelter.

They moved off, wondering how long it would be before they envied the dead.

Galinin turned the air tube over and over again in his hands like a snake that had bitten him. “Nothing.”

“What could have gone wrong? The Americans were right here,” Ligichev said angrily, showing the first sign of temper Galinin had seen from the scientist. “To be this close… What could have gone wrong?”

“What indeed?” wondered Galinin. He was worried, too, but for a very different reason. They couldn’t die like this. His orders were clear. Under no condition could he permit the Americans to plunder Red Dawn, and therefore he could not allow the ship to become an unprotected tomb. It was up to him. He had to hope the Americans did succeed in raising them so that he could send Red Dawn to the bottom. Scuttle the sub in two miles of ocean, that was the only grave deep enough to hide the professor’s work. Nothing in this world could raise it then, and in the next… well, he’d know about that soon enough.

He watched Ligichev looking at his daughter. He so wanted life for her. Galinin was struck by the irony of it. The flow of oxygen would doom them just as surely as the lack of it.

Galinin had nourished the hope that Akula would return and somehow save him from what he had been ordered to do. But he realized now that he was to have no reprieve. It took a certain kind of man to scuttle his own ship and kill his crew. Galinin wondered at the dubious distinction of having been chosen as one who could do it. But the more he thought about it the more he came to understand. It wasn’t his lack of family ties or a character flaw. On the contrary, it was his ability to see this sacrifice as no different from charging into an enemy machine gun or diving onto a grenade to protect his fellow soldiers. Wasn’t the ultimate act of heroism to give one’s life unflinchingly? For a moment he felt a kinship with the kamikaze who screamed the name of the emperor while diving his tiny airplane into an aircraft carrier. For a moment he felt… divine.

Galinin understood. If life was war, death would be the peace he had always been denied.