“Too damned bad we can’t set down and pick them up.”
Crossfield looked over at the panel and saw the fuel levels dipping. “We’re going to have to get back and get some gas anyway.”
“Message is out, skipper.”
“Take us back. Maybe by the time we refuel and get back here the damned storm will be clearing.”
“I hear it.” Mcdonne scanned the clouds with the binoculars but the lenses kept fogging up. The storm was getting worse, if that were possible.
“I do, too,” Kane said. “Hard to tell what direction he is, though. Shoot another flare.”
Mcdonne shot the flare gun. The flare immediately disappeared into the vapor of the swirling snow and clouds.
Both men listened. Kane shook his head.
“I don’t hear it anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
“But we both heard it, right?”
“Yes, Captain. It was definitely aircraft engines.”
“And now they’re gone.”
“The SAR people found something. A solid radar return and a heat bloom, several heat blooms. Like they shot a flare. The latitude matched the last transmission of the Phoenix.”
Rummel read off the message to Donchez. Donchez had bags under his eyes, his cheeks hollow. He looked embalmed.
“What are they waiting for? Did they go in?”
“Afraid not. Admiral. Winds are still too high and they were out of fuel. But at least they found something.”
“Yeah, corpses.”
It took most of the afternoon to return to Kangamiu, fuel up and wait for the wind to ease enough just to be able to take off again. The airstrip’s runway was covered with almost a foot of snow, drifts forming in the wake of buildings. It had taken all of Crossfield’s skill just to find the runway to set down the V-22. Even as he landed the wind velocity exceeded the limits for a safe landing, but there had been no choice, the tanks were empty. It was land or crash. This time he’d been lucky, but he wouldn’t try to take off with a full load of fuel with the high windspeed at zero visibility.
It had been a ninety-minute wait on the ground before the wind slowed. Crossfield had no idea how long it would last, but he didn’t wait to see. Trill spooled up the rotors and lifted off, immediately transitioning to horizontal flight. By the time the V-22 was over the location of the original detection, it had been almost six hours since they had departed.
Night had closed in quickly, the only thing worse than the white of the blizzard the blackness of the snow-filled night.
Crossfield searched again for the infrared signature of the Phoenix.
Nothing.
Trill called wearily from the copilot seat. “Weather radar and the weather report from base agree for once. The storm cell is passing through. Should be over in the next half-hour.”
“Great,” Crossfield said. “Tell that to the poor bastards down there.”
It was Mcdonne’s turn to go topside. Kane had kept someone on deck ever since they had heard the aircraft engines.
The watch was shifted every thirty minutes, rotating between the dozen men still able to go topside. Even with Mcdonne’s added bulk, the wind seemed to blast right through his parka, his sweatshirt, his two sweaters and into his flesh, right down to the marrow of his bones.
The flares had run out hours before. They now had brought papers and mattresses and lighter fluid and anything that would burn, making a fire in the cubbyhole aft in the sail where a lookout would normally be stationed. That way the fire was protected from the blasting wind, but then the heat of it was lost to the men topside. Worse, the flames and heat would be detected only if the aircraft was directly overhead. But all attempts at starting fires on the deck had proved futile. The wind ate the flames or blew the material overboard. Mcdonne crouched in the sail, feeding paper to the flames, the pages of the reactor-plant manual burning slowly.
It was all stupid, he thought. They were just waiting to die. For an instant he felt an impulse to leap overboard and just get it the hell over with. It could take the sea only two or three minutes to lower his body temperature enough to take away consciousness. After that, who cared?
There was something wrong, he suddenly thought. Something was different. It took him a long time to realize it, his thinking impaired by the cold.
The different thing was the wind.
There was no wind.
The storm had finally passed.
And then something else changed. Mcdonne shut his eyes, trying to listen, his eardrums still ringing from the previous gale-force winds. But he was sure he heard it. Even though he realized he wanted to hear it enough to make himself hear it.
No. It was real. Aircraft engines. So powerful he could feel their throbbing. He stoked the fire, frantic to show the aircraft they were there. It took several minutes for him to remember that with the wind gone he could start a fire on top of the sail and not have it blown overboard. Quickly he assembled the piles of paper on top of the frozen metal of the sail, trying and failing several times to get it lit from the lighter in his pocket. Finally he grabbed flaming papers from the cubbyhole fire and put them to the pile of paper on the sail, burning his hand but lighting the fire. He watched the fire burn, and only then turned his face to the direction of the aircraft engines.
Far off in the distance he saw lights, aircraft beacons flashing. He began jumping up and down on the grating, shouting stupidly into the night. He wondered if they could be airliners, but no regular airline routes went this far north, and the lights looked like they were flying in formation.
The aircraft got closer until one of them put a bright spot light on the ship. As it floated downward into view, Mcdonne could see it was a V-22 tilt rotor, the big transport using its props as helicopter rotors while it lowered itself down near the bow. Lights came on, illuminating the fuselage, the star in a circle flanked by stripes on either side painted beside large block letters that spelled U.S. NAVY.
Mcdonne sank to the deck.
Finally, incredibly, it was over.
EPILOGUE
Tuesday, 4 March
Janice Pacino kissed her husband’s damp forehead and walked out the door with her son.
Around the corner she nearly collided with Admiral Richard Donchez. She stepped back for a moment. Donchez saw the look in her eye and said only, “How’s he doing?”
“He’ll live,” she said, then took hold of Tony’s arm and hurried off down the hall.
Donchez watched after her for a moment, wondered if he should call her back and tell her what her husband had achieved, then decided against it. She was in no mood to hear it.
He walked into the room, looked at Pacino lying in the bed surrounded by machinery, IV needles snaking into his arm. The Vortex had saved him and damn near killed him.
At least they’d taken the respirator out. He had gained consciousness for the first time the day before.
“Mikey,” he said, touching the only exposed surface above the blankets, Pacino’s face. “Mikey, are you with me?”
Pacino’s eyes opened, he tried to smile. The attempt left him exhausted, his eyes falling half-closed.
“Mikey, you made it. I won’t be long, I just wanted to bring you something.”
“What …” Pacino got out. Donchez leaned close “… happened?”
“You did it, son,” Donchez said. “You sank the Destiny before he could fire the missile with its warhead. Silhoud’s dead. Without him, the UIF gave it up and surrendered in Paris last week. I’ll fill you in more later.”