Raise the Red Dawn

Chapter Five

Captain Kalik should have felt pleased with himself. The American sub was lost in the marginal ice zone, and Akula had made it back to the testing area with time to spare, but their repeated failure to raise Red Dawn had turned mild concern into full-scale alarm.

“I am sorry, Comrade Captain,” said the radio officer. “We cannot raise them.”

“Keep trying. Sonar, anything?”

“No, Comrade Captain. No contacts. The area is clear.”

“Viktor, I am at a loss. Suggestions?”

Volkov responded slowly. “Perhaps we should go active. Make a complete search pattern.”

“I don’t know. All this ice hanging about… Some of these keels go down a thousand feet. Galinin may not be brilliant, but he’s competent enough to hold a sub in position. Where the hell is he?”

“I have checked with Naval Command, as you wished, Comrade Captain.” advised the radio officer. “They report no communication from Red Dawn. They want to know if there is a problem.”

“Radio all is well. I don’t want Kola sending the fleet out yet.” Kalik turned back to his XO. “So he’s either in trouble or hiding,” he reasoned.

“Why hide?” said Volkov. “The area scans clear. But even assuming he is hiding, surely he would have heard our signal and replied by now.”

“Then he is in trouble,” Kalik decided. “Maybe they tried the drive and there was an accident.”

“Your orders said specifically to postpone the test.”

“And if we had only Galinin to contend with, I’d feel fairly sure he had obeyed them. But Ligichev? You ever meet a genius with the slightest respect for authority? No. Ligichev could have ignored my orders. So could his daughter.” He hit the railing in frustration. “Where are they?”

Volkov saw self-recrimination in Kalik’s rage. Pride was a dangerous quality in any man, but it could be fatal to a submarine commander. Kalik had left Red Dawn against orders, and now the sub was lost. That would mean some pretty fancy explaining if it wasn’t found soon. Volkov was not optimistic. “The waters here are five kilometers deep. The ice above is ten meters thick. There’s a forest of keels the size of ocean liners. How do you intend to find Red Dawn?”

“God only knows,” Kalik said grimly. “And you’d better hope He decides to help us, Viktor, because we’re going to need it. Commence search pattern.”

“Conn, Radio. Captain, message for COMSUBLANT coded and ready to transmit, sir.”

“Very well, Radio,” MacKenzie said. “Mr. Randall, make your depth one zero zero feet. Prepare to surface. Get those radio antennas up as soon as we clear the ice.”

“Aye, sir.”

MacKenzie had put more than fifty miles between Seawolf and Red Dawn before he felt comfortable with the noise he was about to make. “Sonar, I need some thin ice.”

“Can do, Skipper. Upward-looking Fathometer engaged.”

“Call it out.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Mr. Santiago, keep me informed of distance to surface.”

MacKenzie swiveled the video screen toward him for a better view. Seawolf’s sail was ice-hardened, so up to six feet of ice wouldn’t pose a problem, but from the looks of the ice pack’s undersurface in this area, thin ice might not be so easy to find.

“Thick ice, ten feet. Thick ice, ten feet. Eight feet. Eight feet. Thick ice, nine feet…”

For several miles the ice was just too thick to break through. Then MacKenzie saw the lightninglike pattern up ahead that meant polynyas. “Right ten degrees rudder. Steer course zero five zero. All ahead slow. Call it out, Sonar.”

“Thick ice, twelve feet. Ice, ten feet. Clearing… ice, six feet. Thin ice, Skipper, four feet. Four feet, three feet, three feet…”

“All stop.” MacKenzie took the mike and opened the IMC channel to broadcast ship-wide. “This is the captain. We are about to surface the ship through the ice in order to facilitate radio communications. There’s going to be a bit of a bump, so hold on. Captain out.”

“Thin ice, three feet. Five feet. Three feet.”

The thinness of the ice sheet was holding. “Prepare to surface the ship through ice, Mr. Randall.”

“Prepare to surface the ship through ice, aye.”

“Mr. Santiago?”

“Aye, sir. Depth to surface, one hundred feet. Ninety feet. Eighty-five feet…”

“Ice five feet. Seven feet. Ten feet. Ten feet…”

MacKenzie peered closely at the screen. The ice was thickening again. And up ahead, something else… hard to make out.

“Ice ten feet. Ice twelve feet… Wait, a pressure ridge, Captain! Thick ice! Thick ice. Twenty feet!”

“Depth to surface seventy feet.”

Measured from the keel, they were only yards from the ice cap surface. “Mr. Randall, flood main ballast. Emergency deep. Take her down without any bubble to one zero zero feet.”

It was too late. With a grinding crash Seawolf rammed hard into ice more than twenty feet thick. It was no contest. Barely cracking it, Seawolf was tossed about from the shock of the harsh impact. Men lost their footing and sprawled on the deck. The hull groaned and shuddered.

“Damage Control. Report,” MacKenzie barked as the ship steadied.

Suddenly a pressure fitting burst, spraying water all over. Tom Lasovic grabbed a wrench. A thick-armed CPO named Kelly left his board to lend a hand. Together they stopped the flow.

“Back at your board, Chief. Check the electronics,” MacKenzie ordered. “Clear that water.”

“Depth one zero zero feet, Skipper.”

“Hold her steady, Mr. Randall.”

One by one the section chiefs reported little or no damage. Order returned.

MacKenzie was angry. No way that pressure ridge should have been there. He sighed internally. That was one of the things he was learning about this region. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to. “We’re going to try it again,” he announced. “Stations, everyone. Take her up slowly, Mr. Randall. Sonar.”

“Sonar, aye. Ice six feet. Six feet. Thin ice, three feet.”

The thinness of the ice sheet was holding again. “Prepare to surface the ship through ice, Mr. Randall.”

“Prepare to surface the ship through ice, aye.”

“Mr. Santiago.”

“Depth to surface one hundred feet. Ninety feet. Eighty feet.”

“Ice three feet. Four feet. Four feet. Five feet…”

MacKenzie cursed. The ice was thickening again.

“Ice eight feet, eight feet…”

“Seventy-five feet. Seventy feet…” There was a sudden crashing lurch. Santiago looked up. “We are in place under the ice.”

“Ice overhead is ten feet thick, Captain,” Sonar reported.

MacKenzie considered. Ten feet? Well, maybe it was time to see what Seawolf’s new ice-hardened sail could take. “Surface the ship, Mr. Randall.”

“Surface the ship, aye.”

With a groan, Seawolf pressed against the ice umbrella overhead.

“Ice is holding… holding—”

Seawolf strained against the ice sheet. Shocks vibrated through MacKenzie’s spine like a car crash. The hull groaning increased. MacKenzie could feel the ship trying to rise against the ten-foot slabs of ice that held her back. “Blow main ballast, Mr. Randall. She’ll hold. Take her through it, son.”

“Blowing ballast… rising… It’s giving, Skipper!”

With a final push Seawolf broke through the ice cap into the glistening white world of the North Pole. Her sail split the ice like a mighty dark sword, pushing it up and aside so that thick slabs rolled off her deck and crashed back onto the ice cap. Gray-metal waves chopped at Seawolf s hull.

MacKenzie scanned the ice cap around them through the periscope. Endless white land, vast white sky. In the warmth and silence of Seawolf s inner confines, he felt dwarfed by the enormity of the frozen waste. “Raise the radio antenna,” he ordered.

“Antenna extended.”

“Transmit.”

A petty officer raised the UHF antenna and relayed a transmit signal to the radio room, which sent out the signal on the UHF satellite band.

MacKenzie settled in to wait for the reply. Their window into this barren upper world would remain open for only a while. Soon enough the inexorable pressure of millions of tons of shifting ice would begin forcing it closed. Seawolf s hull couldn’t withstand that pressure for long.

“Message sent and acknowledged, Skipper. Channel open for reply.”

“Let me know as soon as it comes in. Tom, send a lookout onto the sail to watch the ice buildup around the hull. Stand ready to take us down.”

MacKenzie thought about the Soviet sub trapped in the ice. The Boomer’s captain was surely back in the area now, searching for it. With the flick of a switch Mac knew he could turn on the locators and alert each to the other quickly enough. How many lives was he risking by choosing as he had? What were the Russians doing out here in these cold, silent waters that was so important?

MacKenzie hoped Norfolk had some answers.