The Ice Limit

"Was there anything unusual about the meteorite?" McFarlane asked. "Anything funny?"

Garza thought for a moment. Then he shook his head.

McFarlane leaned closer. "That freak wave that heeled the ship. Do you think tilting the meteorite could have caused the explosion?"

"Why? It was tilted, banged, and shoved all the way from the impact site to the holding tank. Nothing like this happened."

There was a silence.

"It's the rock," Garza murmured.

McFarlane blinked, not sure he had heard correctly.

"What?" he asked.

"I said, it's the goddamn rock. It wants us dead. All of us."

And with that, he turned toward the bulkhead and would not speak again.

Rolvaag,

10:00 A.M.

VIOLENT dawn rose beyond the windows of the bridge, revealing a wind-torn sea. A procession of gigantic swells, undulating, remorseless, came out of the storm-wracked western horizon and disappeared into the east. The panteonero continued to build, a screaming wind that seemed to rip pieces of sea from the tops of the waves and send them flying, shredding the water into white sheets of foam. The great ship heaved up, heaved down, rolling and pitching in agonizing slow motion.

Eli Glinn stood alone at the windows, hands clasped behind his back. He gazed out at the violence, conscious of an internal serenity he had rarely felt since the project began. It had been a project fraught with unexpected turns and surprises. Even here, on the ship, the meteorite continued to bedevil them: Howell had returned from the sick bay with reports of six dead and Garza injured. Nevertheless, EES had succeeded. It was one of the greatest engineering feats ever.

He would not care to repeat such a project again.

He turned. Britton and the other ship's officers were glued to the surface radar, tracking the Almirante Ramirez.

Lloyd hovered behind them. It was a tense-looking group. Clearly, his assurances about Comandante Vallenar had not convinced them. A natural, if illogical, position to take. But Glinn's proprietary profiling program had never been wrong in a critical prediction. Besides, he knew Vallenar. He had met the man on his own turf. He had seen the iron discipline on his ship. He had seen the man's skill as a naval officer, his overweening pride, his love of country. The man will not cross the line. Not for a meteorite. At the last minute would turn; the moment of crisis would pass; and they would be on their way home.

"Captain," he asked, "what course do you propose to take us out of Drake Passage?"

"As soon as the Ramirez turns around, I'll order a three three zero bearing to bring us back into the lee of South America and get us out of this gale."

Glinn nodded approvingly. "That will be soon."

Britton's eyes dropped back to the screen. She said nothing more.

Glinn strolled over and stood with Lloyd behind Captain Britton. On the electronic chart, the green dot that represented Vallenar was fast approaching international waters. Glinn couldn't help but smile. It was like watching a horse race on television for which he alone knew the outcome.

"Any radio contact from the Ramirez?"

"No," Britton replied. "They've been maintaining radio silence throughout. Not even making contact with their own base. Banks heard the base CO order him back hours ago."

Naturally, thought Glinn. It fit the profile.

He allowed his gaze to linger on Britton: at the scattering of freckles on her nose, the poise in her bearing. She doubted his judgment now; but later she would see that he had been right. He thought about the courage she had shown, the unerring good sense, the coolness under pressure; the dignity, even while the bridge had been out of her command. This was a woman, he felt, he could finally trust. Perhaps this was the woman he had been looking for. It bore further consideration. He began thinking of the correct strategy to win her, potential avenues of failure, the likeliest path to success...

He glanced back at the radar screen. The dot was now just minutes from the line. He felt the faintest twinge of nervousness disturb his serenity. But all factors had been taken into account. The man would turn.

He looked deliberately away from the screen and strolled back to the window. It was an awesome sight. The waves were topping the maindeck, sweeping past in green sheets, streaming through the scuppers back into the sea. The Rolvaag, despite its movement, still felt quite stable — it was a following sea, which greatly aided stability. And the mass in the center tank acted as ballast.

He glanced at his watch. Any moment now, Britton would report that the Ramirez had turned back.

There was an audible sound, a collective murmur, from the group around the radar.

"The Ramirez is changing course," said Britton, glancing up.

Glinn nodded, suppressing a smile.

"Turning northerly to a zero six zero heading."

Glinn waited.

"He just crossed the line," Britton added in a low voice. "Still heading zero six zero."

Glinn hesitated. "Vallenar's navigation is slightly off. His rudder is damaged. He's clearly in the process of turning around."

The minutes ticked off. Glinn left the windows and once again approached the screen. The green dot continued heading east-northeast. It wasn't exactly chasing them now, but it wasn't turning around either. Strange. He felt another twinge.

"He will come around momentarily," murmured Glinn.

The silence lengthened as the Ramirez continued on its bearing.

"Maintaining speed," said Howell.

"Turn," muttered Lloyd.

The ship did not turn. Instead, it made another slight course correction to zero five zero.

"What's the hell's he doing?" Lloyd suddenly exploded.

Britton straightened up and looked squarely at Glinn. She said nothing, but words were unnecessary: Glinn could read her expression with crystal clarity.

Doubt passed through him like a spasm, to be quickly replaced by reassurance. He knew now what the problem was. "Of course. He's not only having trouble with his rudder, but his primitive navigation systems have been affected by our jamming. The man doesn't know where he is." He turned to his operative at the console. "Turn off the ECM. Let our friend find his bearings."

The operative typed a series of commands.

"He's twenty-five miles distant," said Howell. "We're just within range of his Exocets."

"I'm aware of that," murmured Glinn.

There was a moment in which the entire bridge fell silent. Then Howell spoke again. "We're being illuminated with targeting radar. He's getting our range and bearing."

For the first time since his final op as a Ranger, Glinn felt a certain kind of uneasiness in his gut. "Give him a few more minutes. Let him figure out we're both in international waters."

Again the minutes ticked by.

"For God's sake, bring the ECM back on line!" Britton said sharply.

"Another minute. Please."

"Exocet launched," said Howell.

"CIWS full auto," said Britton. "Prepare to launch chaff."

The minutes passed in frozen dread.

Then there was a sudden rattling of Gatling guns as the CIWS went into action, followed by a harrowing airburst off the starboard side of the ship. A tiny piece of shrapnel ticked off a bridge window, leaving a star.

"Still being painted with radar," said Howell.

"Mr. Glinn!" Britton cried. "Order your man to reemploy ECM!"

"Reemploy electronic countermeasures," Glinn said weakly, leaning on the console for support. He stared at the implacable green point on the screen, his mind racing to find the answers, to see the pattern. Vallenar had stayed true to form by launching a missile at them. This was a gesture Glinn had anticipated. Now, having rattled his saber in impotent rage, the man would turn back. Glinn waited, willing the ship to turn.

But the pulsing green dot continued on its course: not their own course, exactly, but a course that took it ever deeper into international waters.

"Eli?" It was Lloyd. His voice was strangely calm. With an effort, Glinn detached himself from a hundred avenues of speculation and met Lloyd's flinty stare.

"He's not going to turn," Lloyd said. "He's coming after us. For the kill."

Rolvaag,

10:20 A.M.

SALLY BRITTON steeled herself, tuning out extraneous details one at a time, focusing her mind for what was to come. One look at Glinn's pale, shattered face had disarmed her anger and told her all she needed to know about the failure of his prediction. She felt a twinge of sympathy for the man, despite the unforgivable misjudgment which had now put all their lives in extreme danger. She herself had made a misjudgment, on a bridge similar to this one, not all that long ago.

She turned her attention to the rear of the bridge, where a large nautical chart of the Cape Horn region was displayed. As she looked at it, going automatically through the familiar steps, she felt the worst of the tension ease. A few options presented themselves. All might not be lost.

She felt Glinn's presence behind her. She turned to see that the color was returning to his face, and the look of shock and paralysis was leaving his eyes. She realized, with surprise, that this man was still far from beaten.

"Captain," he said, "may I confer with you a moment?"

She nodded.

He took up position beside her, removing a piece of paper from the vest pocket of his suit as he did so. "I have here all the specifications of the Almirante Ramirez. The data is accurate as of approximately three weeks ago."

She looked at him. "Where did you get this?"

"From our home office."

"Let's hear it."

"The Almirante Ramirez is an Almirante-class destroyer, built for the Chilean navy by Vickers-Armstrong in the U.K. Its keel was laid in 1957 and the ship was commissioned in 1960. It has a complement of 266, with 17 officers. It displaces —"

"I don't need to know how many dinners they serve. Get to the threat systems."

Glinn's eyes flitted downward. "It was retrofitted in the seventies to hold four Aerospatiale 38 Exocet sea-skimming missiles. They have a range of twenty-five nautical miles. Fortunately for us, they use an earlier generation of active radar homing that can't overcome our advanced ECM system. So the Exocets are useless to him, even in visual range."

"What else has he got?"

"Four Vickers four-inch guns, two forward and two aft, that can deliver forty rounds a minute with a range of ten nautical miles. These are normally directed using two SGR 102 fire-control radars, but, if necessary, can also be targeted visually."

"Dear God. Forty rounds a minute per gun?"

"There are also four Bofors 40-millimeters with a range of six point five nautical miles. They can throw three hundred shells a minute."

Britton felt the blood leave her face. "Any one of those guns could take us out in a matter of minutes. We can't let him get within range."

"Visual targeting in this heavy sea will be difficult. But you are correct: we wouldn't last long in a barrage. We've got to increase our speed."

Britton didn't answer at first. "You know we're already pushing the limits of the turbines at sixteen knots." She turned to the chief mate. "Mr. Howell, is there any way we can squeeze a little more speed out of her?"

"I might be able to wring out another knot."

"Very well. Do it."

He turned to the helmsman. "All ahead one ten."

Deep inside the ship, she felt an answering rumble as the engines were brought up to 110 rpms. That would give them — she did a quick mental calculation — four and a half hours, maybe a little less, before they were within range of the Vickers.

She turned back to Glinn and the chart. "I've worked it out," she said. "Our best option is to head northeast into Argentinian national waters as soon as possible. Argentina is a bitter enemy of Chile, and they'd hardly countenance a Chilean destroyer chasing us into their waters. They'd consider it an act of war."

She glanced at Glinn, but his veiled look betrayed nothing.

"Alternatively, we could head for the British naval base on the Falkland Islands. We should also radio our government and report we're under attack by a Chilean warship. We might be able to put some military pressure on that crazy son of a bitch."

She waited for a response.

At last, Glinn spoke. "I understand now what Vallenar's slight course changes were about."

"What?"

"We've been cut off."

Britton looked quickly back at the map. The Ramirez was now twenty miles northwest of them, on a true bearing of 300 degrees. Suddenly, she understood.

"Oh shit," she breathed.

"If we change course now to Argentina or the Falklands, he'll overtake us about here." Glinn drew a small circle on the map with his finger.

"We'll head west back to Chile, then," Britton said quickly. "He wouldn't get away with sinking us in the Puerto Williams harbor."

"No doubt. Unfortunately, even if we turn back now, he'll intercept us here." His finger traced another circle on the map.

"Then we'll head for the British scientific station on South Georgia Island."

"Then he'll intercept us here."

She watched the map, a paralyzing chill creeping down her spine.

"You see, Sally — may I call you Sally? — when he made those course changes to the northeast, he had already anticipated our possible points of refuge. If we had realized this and acted immediately, we would have had a chance of getting to Argentina, at least. But now even that route is closed to us."

Britton felt a pressure on her chest. "The U.S. Navy—"

"My man's already checked that. There's no effective military help within twenty-four hours."

"But there's a British naval base on the Falklands, armed to the teeth!"

"We considered that, too. Chile was a British ally in the Falklands War. For the U.S. to request military help from the U.K. against its former ally, using the very base they fought for — well, let us just say it is a request that would take more time than we have to expedite, even with Lloyd's and my connections. Unfortunately, the extreme South Atlantic is no place to get into a military scrape. We're on our own."

She looked at Glinn. He returned her gaze with gray eyes that seemed to have deepened until they were almost the color of the surrounding ocean. There was a plan behind those eyes. She was afraid to ask what it was.

"We head south," Glinn said simply. "To the Ice Limit."

Britton could hardly believe it. "Go south into the Screaming Sixties, into the ice, in a storm like this? That's not an option."

"You're right," said Glinn quietly. "It's not an option. It's the only option."

Almirante Ramirez,

11:00 A.M.

AFTER DAWN, Vallenar noticed that the wind had begun its inevitable shift to the west. His plan had worked. Belatedly, the Americans had realized they were cut off. There was no place for them to go but down into the Sixties. Already, they had changed course to one eight zero — due south. And that's where he would intercept them, where the endgame would play out: at the Ice Limit, in the black freezing waters of the Antarctic Ocean.

He spoke softly, precisely. "From now on, I'll have the deck."

The oficial de guardia, the officer of the deck, called out, "Aye, sir, the comandante has the deck!"

"Set heading one eight zero," Vallenar said to the conning officer.

This order would place the violent sea directly on their beam, the most dangerous position for the destroyer. The bridge officers knew this. He waited for the conning officer to repeat the order and call rudder directions. But no orders came.

"Sir?" It was the officer of the deck who spoke.

Vallenar did not turn to look at the officer of the deck. He did not need to; he sensed what was about to happen. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the conning officer and the timonel, the helmsman, all rigidly at attention.

So this was it. Better it should happen now than later.

He raised his eyebrows at the officer of the deck. "Mr. Santander, are we having a problem with the chain of command on the bridge?" He spoke as mildly as possible.

"The officers of the Almirante Ramirez would like to know our mission, sir."

Vallenar waited, still not looking at the man. Silence, he had long discovered, was more intimidating than words. A minute passed, and then he spoke.

"Is it customary for Chilean naval officers to question their commander?"

"No, sir."

Vallenar took out a puro, rolled it between his fingers, bit off the end, and placed it carefully between his lips. He drew air through it.

"Then why are you questioning me?" He spoke gently.

"Sir... because of the unusual nature of the mission, sir."

Vallenar removed the cigar and inspected it. "Unusual? How so?"

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"It is our impression, sir, that we were ordered back to base last night. We are not aware of any orders to pursue this civilian ship."

Vallenar took in the word civilian. It was a deliberate rebuke, a suggestion that Vallenar was engaged in a cowardly pursuit against an unarmed adversary. He drew more air through the unlit cigar.

"Tell me, Mr. Santander. On board ship, do you take orders from your comandante, or from a base commander on shore?"

"From the comandante, sir."

"Am I your comandante?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then there is nothing more to discuss."

Vallenar removed a box of matches from his uniform pocket, opened the box, removed one wax match, drew it slowly across the striker until it flared, and lit his cigar.

"Sir, I beg your pardon, what you have said is insufficient. Men died repairing that screw. We respectfully request information on our mission."

At last, Vallenar turned. He felt the growing rage within him — rage at the arrogant Americans, at the man Glinn who came to chitchat while his divers sabotaged the vessel, at Timmer's death — all channeled now toward this subordinate, who dared to question his decisions. He puffed, drawing the smoke into his lungs, feeling the surge of nicotine in his blood. When he was steady again, he flicked the match toward the damp deck and lowered the cigar. This oficial de guardia was a green, foolish man, and the challenge was not unexpected. He looked around at the other officers on the bridge. All of them quickly lowered their eyes.

With one smooth movement, Vallenar withdrew his sidearm and pressed its barrel against the officer's chest. As Santander opened his mouth to protest, he pulled the trigger. The 9-millimeter slug thrust the man back like the blow of a fist, slamming him hard into a bulkhead. The officer of the deck stared down in disbelief at his ruined chest and the small horizontal fountain of blood that pumped its rhythmic stream. Air sucked in and out of the wound, once, then again. The man fell to his knees, then toppled forward onto his elbows, surprised eyes now turning glassy, mouth still open wide.

Vallenar returned the gun to its sling. The only sound on the bridge was Santander's stertorous attempts to breathe and the quiet patter of blood as it rained from his chest onto the deck.

Vallenar glanced at the conning officer. "Mr. Aller. Effective immediately, you are the officer of the deck. And you, Mr. Lomas, are the conning officer. A new course has been ordered. Execute it."

He turned away, drawing on his cigar, looking once again out over the storm-tossed ocean. The heel of his right hand still rested on the Luger. He waited to see if the incipient mutiny would continue. It would be a pity to lose Aller as well.

Aller looked at the new conning officer, and nodded weakly.

"Right standard rudder," said the conning officer, "steady on course one eight zero."

The helmsman answered. "Aye, sir, right standard rudder, coming to course one eight zero."

Vallenar slipped his hand from his weapon. It was over. Cut off the head and the body will die.

The ship began to turn broadside to the sea, helped along by terrifying shoves from each passing wave. As the shuddering and reeling grew worse, the bridge personnel took hold of stanchions, flagbag rails, anything that would help them keep upright.

"Steady on one eight zero," said the helmsman in a quavering voice.

"Very well," the conning officer answered.

Vallenar leaned into the speaking tube. "Radar, estimate when we will be within targeting range of the American ship with the Vickers guns."

After a moment, the response came: "Sir, at present course and speed, estimated range in three hours, thirty minutes."

"Very good." Vallenar leaned away from the tube and flicked a thumb toward the dying man at his feet. "Mr. Sanchez, take this away. And get a cleaning detail up here."

He turned back to the violent sea.

Rolvaag,

11:30 A.M.

GLINN STOOD next to Britton, motionless beside the helm. As they fled southward toward the sixtieth parallel, the Rolvaag had moved squarely into the westerlies that raged around the bottom of the world, endlessly circling, building up the greatest seas on earth. As far as the eye could see, a terrifying progression of Atlantic rollers swept eastward, high as mountains. In the last hour, as the storm grew in intensity, the ocean seemed to have lost a solid surface; there was no longer a sharp line between water and air. The screaming winds and heaving seas joined in a fury of spray and spume. As the tanker sank into the trough between each wave there would come a brief, eerie calm; and then the great ship would shudder and rise back into the howling gale.

But Glinn did not see the storm. For some time his thoughts had been elsewhere. Vallenar had staked everything — his career, his crew, his ship, the honor of his country, his very life — on this chase. He knew they were carrying only a rock; a huge rock, but a rock nonetheless. This chase did not make sense.

He had miscalculated badly. Unforgivably. For the briefest of moments, Glinn contemplated failure; rolled it to and fro on his tongue, as if tasting it. Then, with a spasm, he forced it from his thoughts. There would be, could be, no failure here.

The problem did not lie in the computer profile, or in the two-foot file on Vallenar back in New York; it lay in himself. There was a crucial piece missing. And this piece was in his own mind, waiting for him to recognize it. If he could understand Vallenar's motivation for this insane pursuit, then he could act upon it... How far would Vallenar take it? Would he pursue them past the Ice Limit? He shook his head, as if to shake loose the answer, but there was nothing. Without understanding Vallenar's motivation, he could develop no plan.

He glanced over at Britton. She was staring at the radar, and the wavering green pip that represented the Almirante Ramirez.

"The Ramirez has matched our course for the last half hour," she said, without looking up. "One eight zero, dead astern, holding at twenty knots, constant bearing and decreasing range."

Glinn said nothing. It was incredible to him that Vallenar would take his ship into a beam sea like this. The giant Rolvaag was struggling, and it was far better at handling the storm than a destroyer with scarcely a forty-foot beam. It was truly insane. There was a good chance that the Almirante Ramirez would be capsized. But a good chance was still a chance, and Glinn had no idea what kind of seamanship Vallenar could bring to bear. He suspected first-rate.

"At current speed and bearing, he'll catch up with us at the Ice Limit," Britton said. "And he'll come within firing range considerably before then."

"In just over three hours," said Glinn. "Around dusk."

"Once we're in range, do you think he will fire?"

"I have no doubt of it."

"We have no defense. We'll be ripped to pieces."

"If we're unable to lose him in the darkness, that's unfortunately true."

She looked up at him. "What about the meteorite?" she asked in a low voice.

"What about it?"

She lowered her voice, glancing at Lloyd. "If we drop it, we'll be able to increase our speed."

Glinn felt himself stiffen. He glanced over at Lloyd, who stood frowning at the bridge windows, trunklike legs planted wide apart. He hadn't heard. When Glinn answered, he spoke slowly, reasonably.

"To jettison it, we have to bring the ship to an absolute halt. That would give Vallenar all the time he needs to catch us. We'd be sunk before we came to rest."

"Then you've run out of answers?" she asked, her voice even lower.

He looked into her green eyes. They were clear, and steady, and quite beautiful. "There is no such thing as a problem without a solution," he said. "We just have to nd it."

Britton paused. "Before we left the island, you asked me to trust you. I hope that I can. I would like to very much."

Glinn looked away, feeling an unexpected flush of emotion. For a moment, his eyes fell on the GPS screen, and the dotted green line marked Ice Limit that ran across it. Then he looked back into her eyes. "You can trust me on this, Captain. I will have a solution for you. I promise."

She nodded slowly. "I don't believe you're a man who breaks his promises. I hope I'm right. Mr. Glinn — Eli — there's only one thing I want out of life right now. And that's to see my daughter again."

Glinn began to answer. But what came out instead was a hiss of surprise. He took an involuntary step back. In a blinding flash of insight brought on by Britton's final sentence, he understood what was driving Vallenar.

He turned and, without a word, abruptly left the bridge.

Rolvaag,

12:30 P.M.

LLOYD PACED restlessly across the long expanse of the bridge. The storm battered furiously against the windows, but he had averted his eyes from the tearing seas. In all his life, he had never seen anything so frightening. It barely resembled water anymore, looking more like mountains, green and gray and black, rising, falling, sweeping, crumbling apart in gigantic creamy avalanches. He could hardly see how their ship — any ship — -could survive five seconds in such a sea. Yet the Rolvaag plowed on. It was difficult to walk, but he needed the distraction of the physical activity. Reaching the starboard wing door, he pivoted brusquely and resumed pacing. He had been at it for sixty minutes, ever since Glinn had vanished without a word.

His head ached from the sudden reversals of fortune, the abrupt shifts in mood, the unbearable tension of the last twelve hours. Exasperation, humiliation, triumph, apprehension. He glanced up at the bulkhead clock, then at the faces of the bridge officers. Howell, his face set. Britton, expressionless, monitoring alternately the radar screen and the GPS chart. Banks, framed inside the door of the radio room. Lloyd felt like shaking some kind of answers out of them. But they had already told him everything there was to know. They had about two hours before the Ramirez would start edging into range.

Lloyd felt his limbs stiffen against a current of rage. It was Glinn's fault. It was overweening arrogance: he had studied the options so long the man believed himself incapable of failure. Think long, think wrong, someone had once said. If he'd been allowed to call in some favors, they wouldn't be helpless, like a mouse waiting for the cat to close in for the kill.

The door to the bridge opened and Glinn stepped in. "Good afternoon, Captain," he said nonchalantly.

More than anything, this air of nonchalance sent fury coursing through Lloyd. "God damn you, Glinn," he said, "where the hell have you been?"

Glinn's eyes drifted toward him. "I've been examining Vallenar's files. I know now what's driving him."

"Who the hell cares? He's the one who's driving us, right towards Antarctica."

"Timmer was Vallenar's son."

Lloyd stopped short. "Timmer?" he asked, confused.

"Vallenar's signal officer. The man who was killed by the meteorite."

"That's absurd. Didn't I hear Timmer had blond hair and blue eyes?"

"He was Vallenar's son by a German mistress."

"Is this another guess, or do you have evidence?"

"There's no record of a son, but it's the only explanation. That's why he was so anxious to get Timmer back when I visited. And that's why he initially refrained from attacking our ship: I told him Timmer was in the brig. But as soon as we left the island, he realized Timmer was dead. I believe he thinks we murdered him. That's why he pursued us into international waters. That's why he'll never give up until he dies. Or until we do."

The spasm of fury had left. Lloyd felt drained, exhausted.

Anger at this point was useless. He controlled his voice. "And how, pray tell, is this psychological insight going to help us?"

Instead of answering, Glinn glanced back at Britton. "How far are we from the Ice Limit?"

"It's seventy-seven nautical miles south of our position."

"Can you see any ice on your radar?"

Britton turned. "Mr. Howell?"

"Some drift ice at ten miles. A few growlers. Just at the Limit, the long-range surface radar's picking up a massive ice island. Two ice islands, actually; it looks like one broke in half."

"Bearing?"

"One nine one."

Glinn spoke: "I would suggest heading that way. Make a very slow turn. If it takes Vallenar a while to notice the course change, we might gain a mile or two."

Howell looked questioningly at Britton.

"Mr. Glinn," said Britton, "it's suicide to take a huge ship like this past the Ice Limit. Especially in this weather."

"There are reasons," said Glinn.

"Care to share them with us?" Lloyd asked. "Or are you going to keep us in the dark again? Maybe we could've used some freelance decision making back there."

Glinn's gaze fell first on Lloyd, then Britton, then Howell.

"Fair enough," he said, after a moment. "We are reduced to two options: turn away and try to outrun the destroyer. Or keep to this course and try to lose the destroyer below the Ice Limit. The former has a close to one hundred percent probability of failure; the latter, somewhat less. This latter plan also has the advantage of forcing the destroyer through a beam sea."

"What is this Ice Limit?" Lloyd asked.

"It's where the freezing waters around Antarctica meet the warmer northern waters of the Atlantic and Pacific. Oceanographers call it the Antarctic Convergence. It's known for impenetrable fogs and, of course, extremely dangerous ice."

"You're proposing to take the Rolvaag into an area of ice and fog? It does sound like suicide."

"What we need now is concealment, time to lose the destroyer long enough to lay a course away from it. In the darkness, in the ice and fog, we might just escape."

"We might just sink, too."

"The probability of hitting an iceberg is lower than the probability of being sunk by the destroyer."

"What if there's no fog?" asked Howell.

"Then we have a problem."

There was a long silence. And then Britton spoke: "Mr. Howell. Set a new course for one nine zero. Bring her head around slowly."

There was the briefest of hesitations. Then Howell relayed the order to the helmsman in clipped tones. As he spoke, his eyes never left Glinn's.

Rolvaag,

2:00 P.M.

MCFARLANE SLUMPED back in the uncomfortable plastic chair, sighing and rubbing his eyes. Rachel sat beside him, cracking peanut shells and letting the debris fall onto the metal deck of the observation unit. The only light came from a single monitor set high in the bulkhead above them.

"Don't you ever get tired of those damn peanuts?" McFarlane said.

Rachel seemed to consider this a moment. "Nope," she replied.

They lapsed into silence. Conscious of an incipient headache and low-grade nausea, McFarlane closed his eyes. The moment he did so, the roll of the ship seemed to increase dramatically. He heard the tick of metal, the occasional drip of water. Other than that, the holding tank that yawned beneath them was quiet.

McFarlane opened his eyes with an effort. "Run it again," he said.

"But we've already viewed it five times," Rachel said. When McFarlane did not reply, she gave a disgusted snort and leaned forward to punch the transport controls.

Of the three security viewcams in the holding tank, only one had survived the explosion. He watched as Rachel ran the tape forward at high speed, slowing to normal speed a minute before the detonation. They watched in silence as the seconds counted down. Nothing new. Garza was right: nobody had touched the rock. Nobody had even been close.

McFarlane leaned back again with a curse, glancing out of the observation unit and along the catwalk, as if searching for an answer on the walls of the tank. Then he let his eyes travel slowly down the forty-foot span to the top of the meteorite. The explosion had gone off sideways, killing most of the lights in the tank, damaging communications networks both fore and aft, but leaving the catwalk and observation unit at the top of the tank unharmed. The web looked largely intact, although it was clear that some struts had been knocked out. Molten steel had sprayed in foamy streaks across the walls of the tank, and some of the massive laminated oak timbers were charted. Flecks of blood and red matter could be seen here and there at points the scrub team had missed. The meteorite itself looked unchanged.

What's the secret here? he thought. What is it we're missing?

"Let's go over what we know," he said. "The explosion seems to have been just like the one that killed Timmer."

"Perhaps even stronger," Rachel said. "One hell of an electrical blast. If there hadn't been so much metal around to absorb the charge, it might have blown the ship's electronics."

"And afterwards, the meteorite threw off a lot of radio noise," he said. "Just like with Timmer."

Rachel picked up her radio, turned it on, made a face at the roar of static, turned it off again. "And it's still throwing it off," she said.

They lapsed into silence again.

"I wonder if anything triggered the blast," said Rachel, rewinding the tape. "Maybe it was random."

McFarlane didn't respond. It couldn't be random; something must have triggered it. And despite Garza's remark — and the increasing nervousness of the crew — he didn't believe the meteorite was some malignant thing, actively seeking to hurt them.

McFarlane wondered if perhaps Timmer and Masangkay had never touched the thing, after all. But no; he'd analyzed it too carefully. The key to the mystery had to be Palmer Lloyd. He had placed his cheek against the rock and lived to tell the story. The two others had been blown up.

What was different about their touches?

He sat up in the chair. "Let's watch it again."

Wordlessly, Rachel punched the controls, and the monitor flickered to life.

The surviving camera had been placed almost directly above the rock, just below the observation unit. There was Garza, standing to one side, the welding diagrams unrolled before him. The TIG welders were spaced evenly around the rock, working on various nodes. They were kneeling, their bright points of flame leaving red tracks on the screen. In the lower right corner, a time display ran rapidly through the seconds.

"Turn up the sound," McFarlane said. He closed his eyes; the headache and nausea were getting worse. Seasickness.

Garza's voice leapt into the small enclosure. "How's it going?" he shouted. There was an answering shout: "Almost there." Scratchy silence; the trickle of water; the pop of a torch flaring out. Room tone, then a flurry of creaks and groans as the vessel began to heel. He heard Garza's voice: "Hold tight!"

And then it ended in a hiss of white noise.

McFarlane opened his eyes. "Back ten seconds."

They watched as it ran through again.

"It went off at the very top of the roll," Rachel said.

"But Garza's right. That thing was manhandled all the way down to the shore." McFarlane paused. "Could there be another workman, hidden by the rock? Somebody we're not seeing?"

"I thought of that. Six welders came in, plus Garza. Look, you can see them all there in the last frame, clearly visible. All well back from the meteorite."

McFarlane dropped his chin to his hands. Something about the video was nagging at him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was just too damn tired.

Rachel stretched, swept peanut shells from her knees. "Here we are, trying to second-guess Garza," she said. "But what if everybody's right?"

McFarlane glanced at her. "I don't understand."

"What if nobody touched the meteorite? What if it was something else that touched the meteorite?"

"Something else?" he replied. "But there was nothing else moving in that room —" He stopped abruptly, realizing what had been troubling him: the sound of water.

"Give me the last sixty seconds," he said. "Quickly."

He lifted his head toward the screen, searching for the source of the sound he'd heard. There it was, very faintly: a thin stream at one side, falling from above, disappearing into the depths of the tank. He stared at it. As the ship began the heavy roll, the stream of water pulled away from the bulkhead and began angling closer to the meteorite.

"Water," McFarlane said aloud.

Rachel looked at him curiously.

"There was a stream of water coming down the side of the tank. There must be a leak in the mechanical door. Look, you can still see it." He pointed up at a narrow stream trickling down the far longitudinal bulkhead. "The meteorite went off when that roll brought the water in contact with it."

"That's absurd. The meteorite's been sitting in waterlogged ground for millions of years. It got rained and snowed on. It's inert. How could water possibly affect it?"

"I don't know, but take a look." He replayed the video, demonstrating how, at the instant the water connected with the meteorite, the screen popped into snow.

"Coincidence?" she asked.

McFarlane shook his head. "No."

Rachel looked at him. "Sam, how could this water be different from all the other water that's touched the meteorite?"

And then, in a moment of revelation, it became clear. "Salt," he said. "It's salt water dripping into the hold."

After a shocked moment, Rachel suddenly gasped.

"That's it," she said. "And that's why Timmer and Masangkay set it off with their hands — their sweaty hands. There was salt in their touch. But Lloyd put his cheek to it on a bitterly cold day. There was no sweat in his touch. It must be highly reactive to sodium chloride. But why, Sam? What's it reacting to?"

McFarlane looked at her, then beyond, to where the trickle of seawater still glistened in the gloom, swaying with the gradual motion of the ship.

The motion of the ship...

"We'll worry about that later," he said. He reached for his radio, snapped it on, heard the hiss of static.

"God damn it!" he said, shoving the radio back in his belt.

"Sam —" Rachel began.

"We've got to get out of here," he interrupted. "Otherwise, when the next big roll comes, we're toast."

He stood up just as she gripped his arm.

"We can't leave," she said. "Another explosion like that might break the web. If the meteorite gets loose, we'll all die."

"Then we have to keep the water from the rock."

For a moment, the two stared at each other. And then, as with a single thought, they sprinted down the catwalk toward the access tunnel.

Almirante Ramirez,

2:45 P.M.

VALLENAR STOOD at the bridge, looking southward over the heaving seas, an old pair of binoculars cradled in his hands. The officers around him were struggling to remain on their feet in the wildly rolling ship, their faces frozen masks of neutrality. They were terrified. But now his regime of absolute discipline was paying off: the test had come, and those who remained were with him. They would follow him to hell, if necessary — and that, he thought as he glanced at the chart, was exactly where they were heading.

The snow and sleet had stopped, and the sky was clearing. Visibility was excellent. But the wind had, if anything, picked up, and the seas were mounting ever higher. When the ship sank into the bottom of the troughs, it became enshrouded in a midnight darkness, and the walls of black water rising on either side made him feel as if the ship were at the bottom of a vast canyon. At the bottom of these troughs, the wave crests were an astonishing twenty meters above the level of the bridge. He had never seen a sea like this in his life, and the increase in visibility, while useful to his plan, made it appear all the more dreadful. The normal procedure would be to head into the wind and ride it out. That was not an option. He had to keep a heading that put the wind and sea almost on his beam; otherwise, the heavier American ship would escape.

He watched as the bow of his destroyer plowed into the sea at the bottom of the long trough and came up slowly, the castillo thunderously shedding water; the ship leaned to starboard until the bridge was hanging over the open ocean, wracked with foam. Everyone grabbed a handhold. The bridge hung for frightening seconds, then slowly righted itself, the momentum dipping it to port. It was an especially ugly roll.

Vallenar knew the ship, knew what it could and could not do. He could feel when the wind and water took charge. They had not — at least, not yet. It would take vigilance, and adroit seamanship, to keep the ship from foundering. He would do it himself, not leave it to the conning officer.

He saw a foaming swell looming in the distance, towering over the rest, thrusting itself through the storm like a whale. He spoke calmly, almost nonchalantly. "Ease your rudder to left standard, starboard engine back one-third, port engine ahead two-thirds. Keep calling your head."

"Coming around easy, sir," said Aller. "Heading one seven five, heading one seven zero —"

"Steady on one six five."

The wave began to take the ship in its embrace; the Ramirez rose, strained, canted. Vallenar held on to the engine-room telegraph as they heeled sickeningly, the inclinometer reading close to forty degrees, before the wave finally crested. For a moment, he had a long view across the southern ocean, all the way to the horizon. He quickly fitted the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the tumultuous sea until they subsided into the next trough. It was a terrifying sight: the monumental peaks and valleys of water, the absolute promiscuity of chaos. It temporarily unnerved him.

As the ship fell, he calmed himself. They rose again, and so did Vallenar's binoculars. He felt a sudden lurch in his chest: there it was; a dark silhouette against the sea, bordered in white. It was larger, and closer, than he thought it would be. He kept the binoculars trained, almost afraid to blink, as the ship subsided, then slowly began to rise on the next foam-webbed mountain of water. As they topped it, and the combing crest creamed over the port railing and slanted the ship over, Vallenar saw the tanker again.

"Port engine back one-third. Right standard rudder. Steady on one eight zero."

Once more the deck heaved up and fell to starboard.

"What is our fuel?"

"Thirty percent."

He turned to the ingeniero de guardia, the engineer of the watch. "Ballast the tanks." Filling the empty tanks with seawater would slow them down half a knot, but it would add a stability they would need for what was about to come.

"Ballasting the tanks," said the engineer, with evident relief.

Vallenar turned to the quartermaster. "Barometer?"

"Twenty-nine point two eight, falling."

He called his tactical action officer to the bridge. "We have visual contact with the American ship," he said, handing the man the binoculars.

The man raised them to his eyes. "I see it, sir," he said after a moment.

Vallenar turned toward the officer of the deck. "It bears one nine zero, or thereabouts. Have CIC give me a course to intercept."

The orders were relayed, the new course given. Everything now was crisp, correct.

Vallenar swiveled back to the tactical action officer. "Report when we are within gun range. Do not engage without my order."

"Yes, sir," said the tactical action officer, in a carefully neutral tone.

The destroyer began to yaw as it cleared another ugly wave, its prow dropping into the next trough with a rumble of water. The deck heaved, careening to starboard. The head began swinging to port, a heavy, uncontrolled motion.

"I can't hold her at one nine zero."

"Use full rudder to maintain your heading."

The ship steadied. Vallenar could see a tigre approaching from due west.

"Ease your rudder to standard. Ease it!"

The ship began a slow, dangling roll as it mounted the side of the enormous wave. When the wave broke, a sheet of water came racing across the deck: they were actually shipping water on the bridge.

"Right hard rudder! Right hard!"

The ship skidded sideways.

"Rudder's out of the water, sir!" the helmsman cried, the wheel loose in his hands.

"Port engine back two-thirds! Starboard ahead flank!"

The operator worked the engine telegraph. The ship continued sideways.

"She's not answering —"

Vallenar felt a twinge of fear — not for himself, but for his uncompleted mission — and then he felt the stern settle in the sea and the screws bite into the water.

He slowly released his breath, then leaned into the squawk box as if nothing had happened. "Report any air contacts." No ship would be coming to the aid of the Americans in this weather, he was sure of that; but he felt less sure about aircraft.-

"No air contact out to two hundred miles," returned the CIC. "Ice to the south."

"What kind of ice?"

"Two large ice islands and assorted growlers and drift ice."

They're running to the ice, Vallenar thought with satisfaction. It was a desperate measure, taking a tanker below the Ice Limit, deliberately heading for the ice, in a storm like this. But it was their only move, and he had expected it. Perhaps they thought they could play hide-and-seek among the bergs, or escape under cover of darkness. Perhaps they were hoping for fog. It would not succeed. On the contrary, the ice would work to his advantage by dampening the heavy seas. And in ice, a destroyer was far more maneuverable than a tanker. He would kill them in the ice — if the ice didn't get them first.

"Drawing into gun range, sir," said the tactical action officer.

Vallenar looked out over the storm-tossed ocean. Now, even without the binoculars, he could occasionally glimpse the dark speck of the American ship. It was perhaps eight miles away, but even at that distance it made a big, fat target.

"Do you have visual contact acceptable for targeting?" he asked.

"Not yet, sir. Visual targeting will be difficult in this sea, at this range."

"Then we wait until we are closer."

The minutes dragged on as they gained, very slowly, on the American ship. The sky darkened as the wind held steady at eighty knots. The fear that had gripped the bridge remained, a healthy tonic. The sun was setting. Vallenar continued to issue a stream of carefully nuanced rudder and engine instructions, responding to the changing sea. The repairs to the propellers and rudder were holding well. The men had done a good job. Pity so many had died in the process.

Night would be falling soon, and the Rolvaag was running dark. He could wait no longer. "Mr. Casseo, bracket the target. Tracers only."

"Yes, sir," said the tactical action officer. "Loading tracers."

Vallenar looked down at the forward guns. After a minute he saw them turn, elevate to about forty-five degrees, and then fire in sequence: two bright shells. The barrels jerked backward in a gout of flame, and the bridge shook with the recoil. Vallenar clapped his binoculars to his eyes and watched the ranging shots arc into the storm. Both fell wild, well short of the tanker.

The ship subsided into another trough, then climbed again. Once more, the forward guns fired tracers in the pause at the top of their roll. These flew farther, but still fell short.

The tactical action officer timed additional shots for the wave crests, making slight adjustments. After a few minutes, he spoke again. "Comandante, I believe we have sufficient range data to lay a line of shells across the target."

"Very well. Fire for effect. I want to disable the ship enough to slow it down but not sink it. Then we will draw close for a clean kill."

There was the briefest of silences at this.

"Yes, sir," said the tactical action officer.

As the destroyer rose, the guns went into action once again, live rounds leaving the barrels now, screaming southward in deadly arcs of orange.

Rolvaag,

3:30 P M.

MCFARLANE SANK back against the bulkhead of the observation unit, ignoring the nearby chair and letting himself slide down to the metal deck. He felt utterly drained. Countless small muscles twitched spasmodically in his arms and legs. He could feel Rachel plop herself down beside him, but he felt too exhausted even to look over.

With the meteorite disrupting their radios, and no time to get help, they had been forced to find a solution themselves. Standing in the access corridor, behind the safely closed hatch, they had finally come up with a workable scheme. There were dozens of waterproof tarps in the storage compartments behind them, slung over the stacks of stores. They rigged a series of those tarps over the top of the web to shield the meteorite from seawater. It took a half hour of frantic activity, conducted under constant fear of another explosion.

McFarlane unclipped his radio, found it was still dead, and snapped it off again with a shrug. Glinn would learn all about it eventually. It seemed strange to McFarlane that Britton, and Glinn, and the rest could have been on that bridge all this time, preoccupied with their own work, completely unaware of the crisis that had played out half a dozen decks beneath them. He wondered what the hell was going on up there; the storm seemed to be getting worse.

He felt himself roll back with the ship. It was only a matter of time until the stream of seawater swerved toward the web once again.

They lapsed into silence. McFarlane looked over as Rachel reached into a breast pocket of her shirt, pulled out a jewel case containing a CD-ROM, and gave it an appraising glance. Then, exhaling in relief, she replaced the case.

"I'd forgotten all about that in the scramble," she said. "Thank God it wasn't damaged."

"What is it?" he asked.

"Before boarding, I dumped all the data from our meteorite tests onto this disk," she said. "I want to go over it again. If we get out of here alive, that is."

McFarlane said nothing.

"It must have an internal energy source," Rachel went on. "How else could it generate so much electricity? If it were just a capacitor, it would have discharged whatever electricity it had millions of years ago. It's generating the charge inside itself." She tapped the disk in her pocket. "The answer has to lie somewhere in the data."

"What I want to know is just what kind of environment it comes from. I mean, the thing reacts so violently to salt water, of all things." McFarlane sighed. "Ah, hell. Let's give the damn rock a rest."

"That's just the problem," Rachel said. "Maybe it isn't just a rock."

"Not your spaceship theory again."

"No. Maybe it's something a lot simpler than a spaceship."

McFarlane began to answer, then stopped. The rolls of the ship were growing ever steeper.

Rachel too had gone silent. It was clear she knew what he was thinking.

"Must be a hell of a sea up there," he said.

She nodded. "Anytime now."

They waited in silence as the rolls grew ever stronger. At last, at the very crest of a great roll, the stream of water once again parted from the bulkhead and angled through the air toward the tarps. McFarlane pulled himself to his feet and stared out the window of the observation unit, waiting. Over the rush of the ocean and the distant shriek of the wind, he heard the patter of water on plastic coming up from below. He watched it run harmlessly down the tarps to drip into the spaces between the bottom girders.

They paused, expectantly, for the space of a heartbeat. Then Rachel let out a long breath.

"Looks like it worked," she said. "Congratulations."

"Congratulations?" McFarlane replied. "It was your idea."

"Yeah, I know. But you figured out the salinity angle."

"Only through your prompting." McFarlane hesitated. "Listen to us," he went on. "We're a goddamn mutual appreciation society."

Despite his weariness, he found himself grinning. He could almost feel a huge weight lifting from his shoulders. They knew now what caused the explosions. They had taken the necessary steps to make sure it would not happen again. They were on their way home.

He looked down at Rachel, her dark hair shining in the dim light. Just a few weeks ago, the thought of sharing this easy, comfortable silence would have been unthinkable. And yet now it seemed hard to imagine a time when she had not been with him, working at his side — finishing his sentences for him, teasing him, providing speculation, wisecracks, and insight whether they were desired or not.

She was leaning back against the tank, gazing out at nothing as the ship went into an even steeper roll, unaware that he was looking at her. "Do you hear something?" she asked. "I could swear I heard a distant explosion."

But McFarlane was barely listening. To his surprise, he felt himself kneeling beside her and drawing her near with a very different feeling than the passion that had briefly filled him in her cabin.

She laid her head on his shoulder.

"You know something?" he said. "You're the nicest smart-assed, backstabbing assistant I've met in a long time."

"Mmm. I'll bet you say that to all the girls."

He stroked her cheek gently, then raised her lips to his as another large wave passed by. Water splattered loudly across the tarps.

"Does this mean I get to wear your MIT ring?" she murmured.

"No. But you can borrow my rock hammer."

They kissed again as the ship slowly righted, then went immediately into another heavy roll in the other direction.

Suddenly, McFarlane drew back. Over the general muttering and creaking of the hold, over the distant boom of the sea, he heard a new sound, a strange, high-pitched creaking, ending in a metallic crack, loud as a gunshot; and then another, and another.

He glanced quickly at Rachel. She looked back, her eyes wide and luminous. The loud reports ceased, but the echoes still sounded in his ears. They waited in shocked silence. With each fresh roll of the ship, there now arose a chorus of other sounds: the groaning of steel, the creak and crackle of splintering wood, the tearing of rivets and welds.

Rolvaag,

3:30 P.M.

BRITTON WATCHED the first tracer shell rise lazily above the wracked surface of the sea and then fall away in a twinkle of light. Another one followed, still dropping well short of their position.

Lloyd was instantly at the window. "Christ, do you believe this? The son of a bitch is firing at us."

"Tracers," said Glinn. "They're getting our range."

She saw Lloyd's jaw set in a tight line.

"Mr. Howell, hard left rudder," she ordered as another pair of tracer shells arched over the sea, a little closer this time.

They watched in silence as more shells came on, creeping ever closer. And then one flashed directly overhead, a streak of light against the dark sky.

"We're bracketed," murmured Glinn. "Now they'll open up with live rounds, walking them through our position."

Lloyd turned on him. "What are you, a sports announcer? We need a plan, not running commentary. I can't believe this. Three hundred million and this is where you've brought us?"

Britton spoke, quickly but distinctly. "Silence on the bridge! Mr. Howell, right full rudder! Engines emergency astern!" In the crisis, she felt her thoughts begin to stream past with a crystalline clarity. It was almost as if someone else was doing her thinking for her. She glanced at Lloyd, standing there at the center of the bridge windows, his beefy fingers twined like a knot as he looked southward over the ruthless seas. How difficult it must be to realize that money couldn't buy everything — even one's own life. How different he was, in the last analysis, from the man who stood beside him.

Her eyes moved to Glinn. She found herself becoming dependent on his judgment now, in a way she would never have allowed before he had been proven wrong — proven human, she thought.

Beyond the two men lay the storm-tossed sea. As night had fallen, they had darkened the ship in an attempt to elude Vallenar's guns. But a huge southern moon, a day from full, had risen in a crystalline night sky to thwart their hopes. To Britton, it almost looked as if it was smiling mockingly at them. A panteonero was a strange form of weather: it usually ended in a clear night of maddening, murderous wind. In the moonlight, the moiling surface of the ocean had a ghastly luminescence. The surreal ocean continued to launch a procession of gigantic breakers past them, looming above the ship, periodically throwing it into darkness deeper than night, subsiding in huge roars as the ship broke out once again into the moonlight, the tumbling white water, and the banshee winds.

An abrupt report, faint but audible above the storm, shook the bridge windows. Others followed in measured cadence. Britton saw a row of geysers climbing down the face of a wave to the north, one after another, heading toward the Rolvaag along the line of its former course.

The great ship's head labored and wallowed in the seas. Turn, you bitch, she thought.

Suddenly, the ship bucked and shuddered. A great billow of ugly yellow smoke shot from the bow, hot metal whining upward, trailing streamers. A thunderous report immediately followed. One of the king posts jerked into the air, twisting as it fell back, the guy wires whiplashing across the deck. Then the geysers were erupting ahead of them and turning wide as the fire passed their position.

There was a deathly moment of stasis.

Britton was the first to recover. She raised her glasses and examined the bow area. It appeared that at least one shell had ripped through the forecastle. The great ship rose on the next wave; in the bright moonlight, she could see water running into the exposed chain locker and out a ragged hole, well above the waterline.

"General alarm," she said. "Mr. Howell, send a damagecontrol team forward. Assemble a fire team with AFFF foam and an Explosimeter. And I want a lifeline rigged up along the maindeck, bow to stern."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

Almost involuntarily, she glanced at Glinn.

"Cut the engines," he murmured. "Veer away from the wind. Cut ECM. Pretend we're crippled. That will stop his firing for now. Give it just five minutes, then we'll run again. That will force him to repeat his range-finding. We must make those ice islands."

She watched him step away to confer with his operative in low tones.

"Mr. Howell," she said. "All engines stop. Left thirty degree rudder." The ship continued forward under its immense inertia, slowly turning.

She looked at Lloyd. His face had gone gray, as if the firing had shocked him to the core. Perhaps he believed he was about to die. Perhaps he was thinking about what it would be like to be sinking in the cold, black, two-mile-deep water. She had seen that look before, on other ships in other storms. It was not a pretty sight.

She dropped her gaze to the radar. It was getting a lot of sea return, but it cleared every time the Rolvaag rose. They were now twenty-five miles from the Ice Limit and the pair of ice islands. The beam sea was slowing down the Chilean ship by as much as a knot, but it was still closing the gap steadily, relentlessly. As she looked out over the boiling seas, she wondered how the destroyer could possibly be surviving.

Suddenly the door to the bridge burst open. And there, framed in the doorway, was McFarlane. He took a step forward, Rachel following close behind.

"The meteorite," McFarlane said as he struggled for air, his face wild.

"What about the meteorite?" Glinn asked sharply.

"It's breaking free."

Rolvaag,

3:55 P.M.

GLINN LISTENED as McFarlane gasped out his story, feeling an unfamiliar — and unpleasant — sensation of surprise drift over him. But it was with his usual, unhurried economy of motion that he turned toward a telephone. "Sick bay? Get Garza on the horn."

In a moment, Garza's weakened voice came across the line. "Yes?"

"Glinn here. The meteorite's breaking its welds. Get Stonecipher and the backup team down there at once. You lead it."

"Yes, sir."

"There's something else," said McFarlane. He was still struggling for breath.

Glinn turned.

"The rock reacts to salt. Salt, not touch. That's what sets it off, what killed Garza's team. Rachel and I strapped tarps over the web. But whatever you do, for God's sake keep salt water off it. And it's still throwing off a lot of radio noise. Radio communication will be spotty, at least for an hour or so.

Glinn took this in, then raised the phone and spoke again to Garza. As he was finishing, he heard a fumbling sound on the other end, followed by the nasal, angry voice of Brambell. "What's this devilment? I forbid this man leaving sick bay. He has head trauma, concussion, a hyperextended wrist, and —"

"No more talk, Dr. Brambell. I must have Garza's expertise at whatever cost."

"Mr. Glinn —"

"The life of the ship depends on it." He lowered the phone and looked at Britton. "Is there any way to reduce the ship's list in these waves?"

Britton shook her head. "In seas this heavy, ballast shifting would only make the ship more unstable."

The Rolvaag continued driving southward, the raging sea alternately burying its maindeck in the water, then forcing it skyward, water thundering out the scuppers. Two of the containers had torn free and washed overboard, and several others were now shifting in their lashings.

"What the hell were those explosions?" McFarlane asked Glinn.

"We were fired on by the Chilean ship." He looked first at McFarlane, and then at Amira. "Do you have any idea why salt affects the meteorite?"

"It doesn't seem like a chemical reaction," McFarlane said. "None of the meteorite was consumed in the explosions, and there sure as hell wasn't enough salt to generate that kind of energy."

Glinn looked at Amira.

"It was too big an explosion to be either a chemical or catalytic reaction," she said.

"What other kind of reaction is there? Nuclear?"

"That's one unlikely possibility. But I think we're not looking at this problem from the right perspective."

Glinn had seen this before. Amira's mind had a tendency to jump out of everyone else's groove. What resulted was either genius or idiocy. It was one of the reasons he had hired her, and even at this extremity he knew better than to ignore it. "How so?" he asked.

"It's just a feeling. We keep trying to understand it from our point of view, thinking of it as a meteorite. What we need to do is look at it from its point of view. Salt is important to it, somehow — something either dangerous, or... necessary."

Howell's voice filled the resulting silence. "Captain, more ranging shots being fired from the Ramirez." The chief mate hunched over the Doppler radar. There was a long moment of silence, and he looked up, a grin on his face. "A snowsquall just cut us off from the Ramirez. The bastards can't see us, Captain. They're running blind."

"Come right, steady on one nine zero," said Britton.

Glinn moved to the GPS chart, staring at its arrangement of green dots. The chess game was drawing to a close; the board was cleared of all but a few pieces. Their fate had been reduced to a combination of four factors: two ships, the storm, the ice. He examined them intently for thirty minutes, the positions of the two ships changing ever so slightly, his mind intensely concentrated. He closed his eyes, retaining the image of the green dots in his mind. In that simplicity lay a deadly lack of options. Like a chess master, he had played out in his mind each possible sequence of moves. All but one led to one hundred percent probability of failure. And the probability of success on the last option remained exceedingly low. For this last play to succeed, everything would have to happen perfectly — and on top of that, they would need luck. Glinn hated luck. A strategy that required luck was often fatal. And now that which he hated, he needed most of all.

He opened his eyes, focusing immediately on the chart. The green dot representing the Rolvaag was now thirty minutes from the Ice Limit and a few minutes more from the two gigantic ice islands.

Glinn's radio chirped and he snapped it on.

"Garza here," came the weakened voice over a wash of static. "In the tank. There's a lot of radio interference, don't know how long we can talk."

"Go on."

"There are welds failing with each roll of the ship."

"Cause?"

"The meteorite's discharge snapped some critical points on the web and weakened others. Also, Rochefort designed the cradle for a maximum thirty-five-degree roll. We're still ten degrees below the limit —" For a moment, the radio cut out. "But of course the meteorite is two hundred and fifty percent heavier than Rochefort initially anticipated. We might be a bit short on the engineering."

"How short?"

"Hard to say without —" The radio cut out a second time. "Still a certain amount of overengineering was built into the design, even beyond double-overage. Stonecipher thinks we might be able to go a long way like this. On the other hand, if some key points go, the rest could fail quickly."

"I don't like these words `might' and `could.'"

"It's impossible to be more precise."

"So how quickly is `quickly'?"

"We'd have five, ten minutes, maybe. Maybe more."

"And then?"

"The meteorite will shift. Even a few inches might be fatal, cause hull failure."

"Reinforce those critical point welds."

There was a crackling pause. Glinn knew what Garza was thinking about: what happened the last time they welded the cradle.

"Yes, sir," Garza said finally.

"And keep the salt water off it."

The only answer was another buzz of static.

The great ship Rolvaag drove southward, ever southward.

Rolvaag,

5:00 P.M.

AT THE rear of the bridge was an observation alcove, a small area sandwiched between the radio room and the chart room. Except for the tall expanse of windows, it was devoid of furniture or decoration. At the windows stood Glinn, binoculars to his eyes, looking aft between the stacks. The snowsquall, a wavering gray line to the north, was passing. It had given them sixty minutes. They needed another twenty. But as the bright moonlight once again lay a carpet of illumination across the raging seas, it became clear that they were not going to get it.

As if on cue, the Ramirez came blowing out of the distant curtain of snow. It was shockingly close now, no more than four miles away, lights ablaze. Its bow rose and fell in the violent sea, and he thought he could even see the forward guns trained on them, etched against the night sky behind. The Rolvaag would be as clear to them as the Ramirez was to him. There was a sudden murmur on the bridge, followed by an unbearably tense silence. Vallenar was wasting no time: the forward guns quickly adjusted their elevation.

Even worse, with another gun the Ramirez began firing a string of white phosphorus "Willey Peters," which popped on and drifted slowly down, brilliantly lighting up the Rolvaag and the sea around it.

Vallenar was methodical, not rushed. He was being careful. He knew he had them. Glinn glanced at his gold pocket watch. At four miles, the Ramirez would just fire away, not bothering to get their range. The Rolvaag was twenty minutes from the ice islands. They would need twenty minutes of luck.

"Crossing the Ice Limit, ma'am," said Howell to Britton.

Glinn glanced down to the sea. Even in the moonlight, he could easily make out the abrupt color change in the water. from a deep green to a clear, almost bluish black. He came to the front of the bridge now, searching the southern horizon with his binoculars. He could see thin patches of brash ice lifting and falling, and as the ship rose he caught a striking glimpse of the ice islands — two low, flat lines of turquoise. He raised his binoculars and examined them more closely. The one to the east was huge, perhaps twenty miles long; the one to the west about five. They rode steady in the water, vast still mesas above the changeable sea — so large that even this violent sea could not raise and lower them. There was a gap between the islands of perhaps a thousand yards.

"No sign of fog," said Britton, coming up beside him with her own binoculars.

As Glinn continued gazing southward, a terrible feeling, perhaps the most terrible he had ever felt, constricted his solar plexus. The Ice Limit had not brought them cover. If anything, the sky to the south was clearer. The brilliant moonlight, silvering the enormous waves, was like a searchlight across the sea. The Willey Peters, slowly dropping about them, made the landscape as bright as day. There was no place to hide. They were completely vulnerable. It was intolerable, an exquisite pain unique in Glinn's experience.

With supreme self-mastery, he once again raised the binoculars and examined the islands. The Ramirez was not firing, taking her time, sure now of the kill. Minutes passed as his mind traveled back down all the dead avenues it had explored before. Again and again his mind probed farther, deeper down the branches of possibility, trying to reach another solution to their problem. But there were no others: just the one far-fetched plan. The silence stretched on.

A shell came screaming down past the superstructure, sending up a delicate plume of spray. And another, and another, closing on their position.

He quickly turned to Britton. "Captain," he murmured, "pass between the two islands, staying close to the larger island. Understand me now: as close as you possibly can. Then bring the ship into its lee and heave to."

Britton had not dropped her binoculars. "That's going to turn us into a sitting duck as soon as he comes around the island. This is not a viable plan, Eli."

"It's our only chance," he answered. "Trust me."

A geyser erupted off their port side, and another, the shells once again walking through their position. There was no time to turn, no point in evasive action. Glinn braced himself. Tall columns of water shot up around them, moving closer. There was a brief lull, pregnant and terrible. And then a terrific explosion jerked Glinn from his feet and threw him to the deck. Some of the bridge windows blew out, scattering jeweled shards across the deck and letting in the howling of the wind.

As Glinn lay on the deck, half stunned, he heard — or perhaps felt — a second explosion. And that was when the lights went out.

Rolvaag,

5:10 P.M.

THE FIRING stopped. Britton, lying amid shards of Plexiglas, instinctively listened for the engines. They were still running, but the vibration was different. Different, and ominous. She rose shakily as the orange emergency lights snapped on. The ship rolled with the terrifying sea, and now the roar of the wind and waves, blasting through the broken windows, filled her ears, along with stinging sheets of salt spray and gusts of subzero air. The storm was now inside the bridge. She staggered over the main console, which was covered with blinking lights, shaking chips of plastic out of her hair.

She found her voice. "Status, Mr. Howell."

He was also on his feet, punching buttons on the console, speaking into the phone. "Losing power to the port turbine."

"Ten degrees left rudder."

"Ten degrees left rudder, aye, ma'am." Howell spoke briefly into the intercom. "Captain, it looks like we received two hits on C deck. One in six starboard, the other in the vicinity of the engine room."

"Get damage control on it. I need damage assessment and casualty count, and I need them now. Mr. Warner, start the bilge pumps."

"Start the bilge pumps, aye, ma'am."

Another gust of wind blasted through the bridge, bringing with it another sheet of spray. As the temperature on the bridge dropped, the spray was starting to freeze on the deck and consoles. But Britton hardly felt the cold.

Lloyd approached, shrugging glass from his clothes. A nasty cut across his forehead was bleeding profusely.

"Mr. Lloyd, report to sick bay —" Britton began automatically.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said impatiently, wiping the blood off his brow and flinging it to one side. "I'm here to help."

The blast seemed to have shocked him back to life. "Then you can get us all foul-weather gear," Britton said, gesturing toward a storage locker at the rear of the bridge.

A radio crackled and Howell answered. "Waiting on the casualty list, ma'am. Damage control reports fire in the engine room. It was a direct hit."

"Can it be contained with portable extinguishers?"

"Negative. It's spreading too fast."

"Use the fixed C0₂ system. And I want water fog on the exterior bulkheads."

She glanced over at Glinn. He had been speaking urgently to his operative at the EES console. The man stood and vanished from the bridge.

"Mr. Glinn, I need a report from the hold, please," she said.

He turned to Howell. "Patch Garza through."

A minute later, the overhead speaker crackled. "Jesus, what the hell's going on?" Garza asked.

"We've received two more hits. What's your status?"

"Those explosions came on a roll. They broke additional welds. We're working as fast as we can, but the meteorite —"

"Keep on it, Manuel. Smartly."

Lloyd returned from the locker and began distributing gear to the bridge crew. Britton accepted hers, pulled it on, and looked forward. The ice islands now loomed up, faintly blue in the moonlight, barely two miles distant, rearing two hundred feet or more out of the water, the surf tearing and ripping at their bases.

"Mr. Howell, what is the position of the enemy ship?"

"Just at three miles and closing. They're firing again."

There was another explosion off the port beam, a geyser of water that rose, only to immediately bend almost horizontal under the force of the panteonero. Now Britton could hear the distant reports of the guns themselves, strangely disconnected from the nearby explosions. There was another crash, a shudder, and she flinched as white-hot metal screamed up past the bridge windows.

"Glancing shot, maindeck," Howell said. He looked over at her. "The fire's being contained. But damage to both turbines was severe. The explosion knocked out the high- and low-pressure turbines. We're losing power, fast."

She dropped her eyes and watched as the digital readout blinked the ship's speed back at them. It dropped to fourteen knots, then thirteen. With the drop in speed, the motion of the ship became worse. Britton could feel the storm taking over, clutching her ship in its anarchistic grip. Ten knots. The bigger waves were shoving it hard, sideways, up, down, in a weird and sickening ballet. Never had she believed a ship this big could be so bullied by the sea. She focused on the console.

The engine warning lights were on. They didn't tell her anything she didn't already know: beneath her feet she felt the distant thrum of the wrecked engines, strained, stuttering, intermittent. And then the lights flickered again as the power failed and the backup systems engaged.

No one spoke as the great vessel plowed through the seas. Its great inertia continued to carry it forward, but every breaking wave robbed another knot or two from its forward motion. Ramirez gained on them ever more quickly.

Britton looked around at her officers on the bridge. Every one of them looked back with pale, steady faces. The chase was over.

Lloyd broke the silence. Blood from his wounded forehead trickled into his right eye, and he blinked it away absently. "I guess this is it," he said.

Britton nodded.

Lloyd turned to McFarlane. "You know, Sam, I wish I was down in the hold right now. I'd kind of like to say goodbye to it. I suppose that sounds crazy. Does that sound crazy to you?"

"No," he replied. "No, it doesn't."

Out of the corner of her eye, Britton saw Glinn turn toward them at these words. But the man remained silent as the dark shadows of the ice islands slipped ever closer.

Almirante Ramirez,

5:15 P.M.

CEASE FIRING," Vallenar said to the tactical action officer. He raised his binoculars and examined the wounded ship. Plumes of black smoke, thick and low, were pouring from the stern of the tanker and barreling across the moonlit seas. At least two confirmed hits, including what looked like a shell directly into the engine room and extensive damage to their communications masts. It was brilliant shooting in seas such as this: enough to leave the ship dead in the water, exactly as he had hoped. He could already see they were losing headway — really losing headway. This time, there was no feint.

The American ship was still aiming for the ice islands. They would prove a pathetic, temporary shelter from his guns. But the female captain had shown great courage. She would not surrender her ship until all courses of action had been tried. He could understand such a captain. Hiding behind the island was a noble, if futile, gesture. And, of course, for them there would be no surrender. Only death.

He glanced at his watch. In twenty minutes, he would pull through the gap and draw up to the Rolvaag. The slack water in the lee of the ice islands would give him a steady platform for precise firing.

He began to visualize the kill. There could be no error, no possibility of reversal. He would position the Ramirez at least a mile away, to prevent more underwater excursions. He would illuminate the entire area with phosphorus flares. There would be no haste: the operation would be executed with care. But he wouldn't tease it out, make things unduly slow; he was no sadist, and the female captain in particular deserved a respectful death.

It would be best to hull her aft, he decided; at the waterline, so she would go down by the stern. It was most important that none escaped to provide an eyewitness account of what happened here. He would turn the 40-millimeter guns on the first lifeboats; that would keep the rest on board until the end. As the ship went down, the survivors would crowd into the forecastle, where he could better see them. He wanted most particularly to make sure the smooth one, the lying cabrón, would die. This man was behind everything. If anyone had ordered his son executed, it was him.

The tanker, now slowed to five knots, was drawing between the ice islands, passing close to the larger one. Very close, in fact; perhaps the rudder was damaged. The islands were so tall, so sheer, that the tanker appeared to be slipping into some monstrous hangar of gleaming azure. As the Rolvaag disappeared from view between them, he saw the ship begin a turn to port. That would take it behind the larger of the two islands and into its lee, temporarily out of the reach of his guns. It was a sad, hopeless effort.

"Sonar?" he called out, dropping the binoculars at last.

"Clear, sir."

That was it — there was no unexpected underwater ice; it was a clean drop from the top to the root of the ice island. Time to finish the job.

"Steady through the gap. Follow their course."

He turned to the tactical action officer. "Await my orders to engage with the guns."

"Aye, sir."

Vallenar swiveled back to the windows, raising the binoculars once again.

Rolvaag,

5:20 P.M.

THE ROLVAAG passed between the ice islands, gliding into a tranquil, twilit world. The wind dropped, no longer gusting through the broken windows into the bridge. Suddenly the ship was released from the evil grip of the storm. Britton found the sudden silence in the midst of the storm unsettling. She stared up at the cliffs that rose up on either side, sheer as if cleaved with an ax. Below, at the waterline, the pounding surf on the windward side had formed an undercut of fantastic-looking caves. In the moonlight, the ice shone a pure, rich blue so deep she thought it one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. Funny, she thought, how the nearness of death could heighten one's sense of beauty.

Glinn, who had disappeared onto the port bridge wing, now returned, closing the door carefully behind him. He approached her, wiping flecks of spray from his shoulders.

"Steady as she goes," he said quietly. "Keep the tanker's head at this angle."

She did not bother relaying the useless and cryptic direction to Howell.

The ship had lost even more headway making a ninety-degree turn behind the ice island. Now they were gliding parallel to the ice at about a knot, still slowing. Once they stopped, they'd never start again.

She glanced at his profile, at the unreadable face. She almost asked whether he really thought they were going to successfully hide their almost-quarter-mile ship from the destroyer. But she kept silent. Glinn had made a supreme effort. There was nothing more he could do. In a few minutes, the Ramirez would round the ice island and that would be it. She tried not to think of her daughter. That was going to be hardest of all, letting go of her daughter.

In the lee of the island, everything seemed strangely quiet. There was a terrible silence on the bridge: there were no longer any orders to give or receive. The wind was gone, and the swell warping around the island was smooth and low. The wall of ice was only a quarter mile distant. Here and there, long fissures ran down from its top, deep runnels worn by icemelt and rain. She could see small waterfalls feathering into the moonlit sea, and hear the distant cracking and pinging of the ice. Beyond that came a distant keening sound of wind, raking the top of the ice island. It was an ethereal, otherworldly place. She watched an iceberg, recently calved off the island, drift away to the west. She wanted to be there when it slowly melted and disappeared into the sea. She wanted to be anywhere but here.

"It isn't over, Sally," Glinn said quietly, so that only she could hear. He was regarding her intently.

"Yes, it is. The destroyer killed all our power."

"You'll see your daughter again."

"Please don't say that." She brushed away a tear.

To her surprise, Glinn took her hand.

"If we get through this," he began, with a hesitation foreign to him, "I would like to see you again. May I do that? I would like to learn more about poetry. Perhaps you could teach me."

"Please, Eli. It's easier if we don't talk." She gave his hand a gentle pressure.

And then she saw the prow of the Ramirez nosing past the ice.

It was less than two miles away, slinking close to the blue wall of the ice island following their own wake, approaching like a shark closing on its disabled prey. The gun turrets were tracking them with a cool deliberation.

As Britton stared out the rearward bridge windows at those guns, waiting for the final deadly fire to erupt from their barrels, time slowed. The space between her heartbeats seemed to grow longer. She took in the scene around her: Lloyd, McFarlane, Howell, the watch officers, silently waiting. Waiting for death in the dark cold water.

There was a popping sound from the destroyer, and an array of Willey Peters soared into the air, exploding into a crooked line of brilliance. Britton shielded her eyes as the surface of the water, the deck of the tanker, the wall of the ice island, shed their colors under the terrible illumination. As the worst of the brightness eased, she squinted out the windows once again. The guns on the Ramirez lowered their elevation, pointing at them until all that could be seen were the black holes of the muzzles. The ship was now halfway through the gap and slowing fast. The shooting would be almost point-blank.

An explosion cracked through the air, echoing and reverberating between the islands. Britton jerked back instinctively, and felt Glinn's hand bear down on hers. This was it, then. She murmured a silent prayer for her daughter, and for death to be merciful and quick.

But no burst of flame had come from the destroyer's guns. Britton's eyes scanned the scene in confusion. She saw movement far above.

At the top of the ice cliff above the Ramirez, splinters and chunks of ice were spinning lazily into the air, rising above four drifting puffs of smoke. The echoes died, and for a moment the stillness returned. And then the ice island seemed to shift. The face of the cliff above the Ramirez began to slip, and the blue fissure opened between it and the rest of the island, rapidly widening; now Britton could see that a gigantic piece of ice, nearly two hundred feet high, was peeling away. The great plate of ice separated from the cliff and began to descend, breaking into several pieces as it did so, in a kind of slow, majestic ballet. As it merged with the sea, a wall of water began to rise: black at first, then green and white. Higher and higher the water rose, propelled by the great plunging mass of the ice, and then the sound began to reach her, a mingled cacophony of noise that grew steadily in volume. And still the wave mounted, so precipitous it began breaking over itself even as it formed, climbing, breaking, climbing again. The vast block of ice disappeared, driven below the surface by its own momentum, and the steep-walled wave broke free and headed, broadside, for the Ramirez.

There was a roar from its steam turbines as the destroyer tried to maneuver. But in an instant the wave was upon it; the destroyer yawed, rose, and rose still farther, heeling, the rust red of its bowplates exposed. For a sickening moment it seemed to pause, slanting far to starboard, its two masts almost horizontal to the sea, as the crest of the monstrous wave foamed over it. Seconds ticked by as the ship hovered there, clinging to the wave, poised between righting itself and foundering. Britton felt her heart pounding violently in her chest. Then the ship wavered and began to come upright, water shedding from its deck. It didn't work, she thought; God, it didn't work.

The righting movement slowed, the ship paused again, and then it sagged back into the water. There was a sigh of air from the superstructure, jets of spray shot in all directions, and the destroyer turned over, its slimy keel rolling heavily toward the sky. There was another, louder sigh; a moiling of water and foam and bubbling air around the hull; and then, with hardly a swirl, it disappeared into the icy deep. There was a second brief explosion of bubbles, and then those, too, disappeared, leaving behind black water.

It had taken less than ninety seconds.

Britton saw the freakish wave race toward them, spreading and attenuating as it did so.

"Hang on," murmured Glinn.

Positioned lengthwise to the wave, the tanker rose sharply, heeled, then came easily to rest.

Britton disengaged her hand from Glinn's and raised her binoculars, feeling the cold rubber against the sockets of her eyes. She could hardly comprehend that the destroyer was gone. Not a man, not a life raft — not even a cushion or bottle — appeared on the surface. The Almirante Ramirez had disappeared without a trace.

Glinn's eyes were on the island, and she followed his gaze. There, at the edge of the ice plateau, were four dark specks: men in dry suits, crossing their arms over their heads, fists together. One by one, the flares dropped into the sea, each with a faint hiss. Darkness returned.

Glinn raised his radio.

"Op accomplished," he said quietly. "Prepare to receive the launch."

Rolvaag,

5:40 P.M.

PALMER LLOYD found himself momentarily unable to speak. He had been so certain of impending death that to stand here on the bridge, drawing breath, seemed a miracle. When he finally found his voice, he turned to Glinn. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"The chance of success was too slim. I myself did not believe it would succeed." His lips twitched briefly in an ironic smile. "It required luck."

In a sudden physical display of emotion Lloyd leapt forward, wrapping Glinn in a bear hug. "Christ," he said, "I feel like a condemned man getting a reprieve. Eli, is there anything you can't do?" He found himself crying. He didn't care.

"It's not over yet."

Lloyd simply grinned at the man's false modesty.

Britton turned to Howell. "Are we taking in water?"