"We ceased hostilities in April of 1945."
Pitt did not like the look of the machine gun mounted on the forward section of the conning tower and pointing in his direction. He knew time was running out and was certain the U-boat meant to destroy the Polar Storm and everybody on it. "And when did you launch the Fourth Reich?"
"I see no reason to carry this conversation any further, Mr. Pitt." The voice came as tonelessly as a newscaster giving a weather report in Cheyenne, Wyoming. "Goodbye."
Pitt didn't need to be poked by a sharp stick in the eye to know what was coming. He dove behind an ice hummock in the same instant the machine gun on the conning tower opened up. Bullets buzzed through the air and made strange hissing sounds as they struck the ice. He lay in a slight depression behind the hummock, unable to move. Only now did he regret wearing the NUMA turquoise Arctic gear. The bright color against the white ice made him an ideal target on which to train their sights.
From where he lay, he could look up at the superstructure of the Polar Storm. So close, yet so far. He began wiggling out of his Arctic suit, stripping it away until he was down to a wool sweater and woolen pants. The boots would prove too clumsy to run in, so he removed them, down to his thermal socks. The hail of bullets stopped, the gunner probably wondering if his fire had struck Pitt.
He rubbed snow on his head so his black hair would not be obvious against the white. Then he peered over a lip of the hummock. The gunner was leaning against his weapon, but the U-boat commander was looking through binoculars in Pitt's direction. After several moments, he could see the commander turn and point toward the ship. The gunner swung his weapon in the direction his captain motioned.
Pitt inhaled a deep breath and took off, sprinting across the ice, pumping his legs and zigzagging with almost the same agility he'd used many years before when playing quarterback for the Air Force Academy, only this time there was no Al Giordino to run interference for him. The ice slashed his socks and cut into his feet, but he shook off the pain.
He had dashed thirty yards before the crew of the U-boat woke up and began firing again. But their shells went high and behind him. Before they corrected and began to lead him, it was too late. He had curled around the rudder of the Polar Storm a second before bullets smashed into the steel, chipping the paint like angry bees.
Safe on the side of the ship away from the submarine, he slowed and caught his breath. The gangway had been pulled up and Gillespie had ordered the ship into a 180-degree turn at Full Ahead, but a rope ladder was thrown over the side. Pitt thankfully jogged along the ship as it increased speed, grasping the ladder and hoisting himself up, just as the jagged ice chunks thrown aside by the bow slid past under his stocking feet.
As soon as he reached the railing, Cox lifted him over and stood him on the deck. "Welcome back," he said, with a broad smile.
"Thank you, Ira," Pitt gasped.
"The captain would like you on the bridge."
Pitt simply nodded and padded across the deck to the ladder leading up to the ship's bridge.
"Mr. Pitt."
Turning, he said, "Yes?"
Cox nodded at the bloody footprints Pitt left on the deck. "You might ask the ship's doctor to take a look at your feet."
"I'll make an appointment first thing."
Standing out on the bridge wing, Gillespie was studying the U-boat, her black hull floating rigid amid the ice where she had surfaced. He turned as Pitt hobbled up the ladder. "You had a nasty encounter."
"It must have been something I said."
"Yes, I heard your little exchange."
"Has the commander contacted you?"
Gillespie gave a curt shake of his head. "Not a word."
"Can you get through to the outside world?"
"No. As we suspected, he's effectively jammed all satellite communications."
Pitt stared at the sub. "I wonder what's he's waiting for."
"If I were him, I'd wait until the Polar Storm swings around and heads toward the open sea. Then he'll have us in position for an easy beam shot."
"If that's the case," said Pitt grimly, "it won't be long now."
As if reading the U-boat commander's mind, he saw a puff of smoke from the barrel of the deck gun, instantly followed by an explosion that erupted in the ice immediately behind the icebreaker's big stern. "That was close," said Bushey, standing in front of the control console.
Evie, who was standing in the door to the bridge, had a dazed expression on her face. "Why are they shooting as us?"
"Get below!" Gillespie bellowed at her. "I want all nonessential crew, scientists, and passengers to stay below on the port side away from the sub."
Rebelliously, she snapped several shots of the U-boat with her camera before heading below to a safer part of the ship. Another explosion erupted, but with a different sound. The shell struck the helicopter pad on the stern and blew it into a tangled mass of smoking wreckage. Soon, another shell screamed through the frigid air and smashed into the ship's funnel with a deafening crash that ripped it like an ax striking an aluminum can. The Polar Storm shuddered, seemed to hesitate, and then, straining, resumed pounding through the ice.
"We're opening the gap," Cox called.
"We have a considerable way to go before we're out of range," said Pitt. "Even then, he can submerge and pursue us beyond the ice pack."
The sub's machine gun opened up again, and its shells stitched a pattern across the bow of the icebreaker and up the forward superstructure until they found the glass windows of the bridge and blew them into a thousand shards. The shells tore across the bridge, smashing into anything that rose more than three feet off the deck. Pitt, Gillespie, and Cox instinctively fell and flattened themselves to the deck, but Bushey was two seconds too slow. A bullet tore through his shoulder, a second creased his jaw.
The U-boat's deck gun spat again. The shell struck just aft of the bridge in the mess room, a vicious blow that smashed in the bulkhead with a blasting impact that made the Polar Storm tremble from bow to stern. The concussion smothered and reverberated all around them. Everyone on the bridge was hurled about across the deck like rag dolls. Gillespie and Cox had been thrown against the chart table. Bushey, already lying on the deck, was sent rolling under the shattered remains of the control console. Pitt wound up half in and half out of the doorway to the bridge wing.
He pulled himself erect, not bothering to count the bruises and glass cuts. Acrid smoke filled his nostrils, and his ears rang, cutting off all other sounds. He staggered over to Gillespie and knelt beside him. The explosion had smashed his chest against the chart table, breaking three, maybe four, ribs. His eardrums were bleeding. Blood also seeped from one pant leg. The captain's eyes were open but glassy. "My ship," he moaned softly, "those scum are destroying my ship."
"Do not move," Pitt ordered him. "You might have internal injuries."
"What in hell is happening up there?" came the voice of the chief engineer over the only speaker still functioning. His voice was nearly lost in the beat and roar of the engine room.
Pitt snatched the ship's phone. "We're under attack by a submarine. Give us every bit of power you've got. We must get out of range before we're shot to scrap."
"We have damage and injuries down here."
"You'll have a lot worse," Pitt snapped, "if you don't keep us on Full Speed."
"Jake," groaned Gillespie. "Where's Jake?"
The first officer lay unconscious and bleeding, with Cox leaning dazedly over him. "He's down," Pitt answered simply. "Who's your next in command?"
"Joe Bascom was my second officer, but he returned to the States in Montevideo because his wife was having a baby. Get Cox."