Nina stuffed the skeletons' possessions into her pockets. "Sorry lads," she said, "but you're not going to need them, and I might. Come on, Sam."
Admiral Whitsun alighted from the hovercraft in a remote bay. He crossed the beach, marching smartly past a small cohort of PMCs, and made his way to a small speedboat, which was waiting to transport him to the destroyer anchored nearby.
"Welcome back, sir!" His second-in-command, Captain Belvedere, saluted as Admiral Whitsun stepped onto the boat. "Did things go well?"
"Exceptionally well, Captain Belvedere," Whitsun replied as they sped across the water. "The virus is definitely still live and highly communicable. Our friends in the East will pay a great deal for it. However, there was one slight hitch — I believe that the rest of the expedition party might attempt to make an escape, and if they do we need to be ready for them. Either they will come by land, in which case the platoons surrounding Neumayer will deal with them, or they will find a way to get that old submarine working. Oh, it seems unlikely, I know. But I may have underestimated both Mr. Purdue and the guide. In retrospect I should simply have killed them all. Mr. Blomstein might have posed me a problem there, but perhaps he could have been paid off and recruited. The others… I should have contented myself with seeing Mr. Cleave dead, rather than succumbing to the temptation to leave him and his friends to die slowly. But forgive me, I am allowing myself to be distracted. If they succeed in making it to the surface, they will emerge somewhere to the southwest of Deception Island. While our colleagues recover the biological material from Wolfenstein and prepare it for transport, we shall wait near Deception Island. If that submarine appears, we shall destroy it."
"Oh god… I don't know if I can. I'm sorry." Nina physically recoiled from the black hole on the top of the submarine. "I just can't. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Come on, Nina," Alexandr cajoled. "It is only a submarine. If you do not get in we have to leave you here with the skeletons."
She stood by the hatch, staring down into it, her head full of images of the tiny submarine surrounded by the vastness of the ocean. She could see the U-boat collapsing under the pressure of the water, or losing power and sinking like a stone, or running out of oxygen as they had so nearly done before.
"I can't," she moaned, digging her fingers into her scalp. Her breathing was harsh and ragged, and tears were beginning to stream down her face. "Please don't…"
Purdue was watching Nina from the bottom of the ladder. "She's not going to come down of her own free will." He turned to Blomstein. "We need her to get aboard. Take care of it."
Without a word, Blomstein climbed up to the hatch. Nina had sunk to her knees on the little platform and was clinging to the rails with one hand. The other covered her face. There was blood under her fingernails where she had anxiously dug them into her skin. Blomstein bent down to lift her up, intending to carry her bodily into the sub.
"Get the fuck off me!" Nina screamed. She lashed out at Blomstein with both hands, clawing at his face and kicking out wildly as he lifted her up. For a moment he struggled to keep his grip on her, but only for a moment. Nina's small frame was easy enough for him to subdue. She continued to scream and writhe as he pinned her arms to her sides and threw her over his shoulder. She landed several kicks on his abdomen, but Blomstein was indifferent to both her kicks and her shrieks as he began to climb down the ladder.
When they reached the bottom, Blomstein dropped Nina unceremoniously, knocking the wind out of her. "She is mad," he said, pressing the back of his hand against his bleeding cheek.
"No, she's not," said Purdue, helping her up. "She's just claustrophobic. Let's not rush to any conclusions, Ziv. Let's all get back to our stations. I'll take Nina through to Sam, he's helping Alexandr in the engine room. He can keep an eye on her."
"Oh, great idea," Jefferson sneered. "Get her boyfriend to watch her. Because he's going to be the first one to report it if she starts freaking out."
"He's not my boyfriend…" Nina whispered, still winded.
"If she's got the virus, we're all dead," Jefferson said. "We'd be doing her a favor by just putting a bullet in her head right now."
Purdue's face went a shade paler than usual. "Mr. Daniels," he said, gathering Nina close to him, "if I hear any further suggestions along those lines, it will not be her who gets a bullet in the head. She is perfectly well. Now go and ask Dr. al-Fayed if she is ready to set off. With Sam taking care of Nina, we will need you and Professor Matlock to run messages between stations this time."
With difficulty, Purdue helped Nina through the small hatches that led from one section of the submarine to another. Jefferson and Blomstein watched them go, then shared a silent moment of agreement before going about their assigned tasks.
"Open water!" Fatima's voice rang out through the submarine. "We're coming up for open water, dead ahead!"
Alexandr gave a jubilant whoop and waved the oil can in his hand. He was performing a complicated dance with the neglected machinery, racing back and forth as the legs of the motor whirred and thumped. Every time one of them stuck due to long inactivity, Alexandr would hear the missed step in the dance and rush over to oil it and manually operate it until it was back in rhythm.
"Not much longer now!" he called to Sam and Nina over the clatter of the motor. "Soon we will have fresh air and wide open skies, Nina! Think of it!"
Curled up in the corner of the engine room, Nina could not reply. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. All she could think about was the metal tube she was in, the crushing weight of the water that lay between it and the surface, and the walls closing in around her. She tightened her grip on Sam's hand and tried as hard as she could not to whimper.
By the time the U-boat broke the surface of the water, Nina was standing at the bottom of the exit ladder and Sam was at the top of it, his hands on the wheel that opened the hatch, just waiting for the all clear to open it.
"We're up!" Purdue dived through the little doorway, shouting the news at the top of his voice. "We are officially above ground for the first time in days! Let's see some daylight, Sam!"
The trapdoor swung open, sending an icy shower of salt water splashing down over Sam, Nina, and Purdue. Sam laughed aloud as the cold liquid crashed over his face. They were out of the ice station, they were alive, and he was elated. He pulled himself up through the hatch and onto the observation platform, making room for Nina and Purdue to climb up behind him.
Slate blue water stretched out ahead of them, dotted with ice floes as far as the eye could see. Behind them lay the ice field that they had just sailed under, and above them the sky was white and streaked with dark-grey clouds. It was the most welcome sight that any of the trio had ever seen.
Sam laid his hand over Nina's on the rail and gave it a squeeze. "There we go," he said. "You've made it."
"I've never seen anything so beautiful," Nina said, managing a faint smile.
"You'll be all right now," Sam reassured her. "We'll be able to stay up here until Purdue's boat arrives to pick us up. No more tin tubes for — oh!" Without warning, Nina flung her arms around Sam's waist and hugged him tightly.
"I thought we were never going to get out of there," she sighed. "I can't believe I lost it like that. I'm so sorry."
"Well, this is odd," Purdue muttered distractedly. He had his tiny communications device in the palm of his hand and was tapping it, staring at it, then tapping it again.
"What's wrong?"
"The boat is not receiving my communications." He frowned and looked up at the sky. "Extreme weather conditions would explain it, but there should be nothing interfering on such a clear day. The device is functioning perfectly." Frustrated, he sighed through gritted teeth. "I told them that only the captain was authorized to use that equipment! If I find out that someone else touched it and damaged it, I will make sure that not a single member of the crew ever sails again. Excuse me." He climbed back down the ladder, and as he descended Sam and Nina heard him calling to Alexandr, telling him that they needed to find the flares.