“He did not waste our time,” Cheetah said. “He made a tactical decision. You do not stand watch with him. I do. He knows this ship and how to command it.”
“I could say the same of the Frenchman,” Jaguar said. “When I see how quickly he figures out things on this submarine, it does not seem so impressive. The country needs the warheads, not our caution. Slate is taking his time for no good reason.”
As Tiger finished his hundred and twentieth push-up, he heard Cheetah call upon him.
“What do you say, Shin?”
Tiger stood, shook his arms, and pointed at Cheetah’s nose.
“I’m telling Sergeant Kao to inform the American that we need to drive faster than five knots.”
“What if he disagrees?” Cheetah asked and pushed Tiger’s finger away.
“Then I will put a steak knife into Slate’s heart myself. This slow speed is cowardice.”
In maneuvering, Jake flipped switches on the reactor panel and heard concern in Renard’s voice.
“The plant is completely liquid?” Renard asked.
“Yeah. Solid plant. The steam pocket in the pressurizer vessel condensed. I’ve got the pressurizer heaters on, and I’m starting a pair of coolant pumps to heat us up with flow friction,” Jake said.
“The lack of a compressed vapor bubble in the primary piping makes pressure control complex, is that not right?”
“Yes. Bass is on the phone with Gant in middle level. Gant’s going to discharge water into retention tanks if we need to keep pressure down,” Jake said.
“How are we doing on pressure, Bass?” Jake asked.
“We’re way low,” Bass said. “We might not have to discharge.”
“Alright,” Jake said. “I’m going to start pulling rods. We’ll go critical to accelerate the heat up.”
Jake twisted a shim switch on the reactor panel. Relays clicked and motors whirred. His gaze flickered across analog digits that rolled off inches of control rod depth within the core.
“How do you know when you’re critical?” Renard asked.
“You forgot?”
“It has something to do with neutron count acceleration.”
“Bingo.”
Jake nodded at the neutron count meter.
“We’re still way sub-critical, but you can see the neutron population just beginning to accelerate.”
Minutes passed. Jake released the shim switch. Motors droned and stopped.
“Neutron count is trying to hold,” he said. “Baby wants to go critical a half inch below critical rod height… nope, not quite.”
“May I smoke now?” Renard asked.
“Just because we’re nearing criticality?”
“No, because I’m dying for a cigarette.”
“Sure, and… the reactor is critical,” Jake said. “I’ll keep withdrawing rods into the functional range.”
He felt a tickle in his throat and coughed.
“Sorry,” Renard said and lowered his cigarette.
“Can’t you do something useful?” Jake asked.
“Yes, of course. How can I help?”
“Go read the gyroscopic navigators reset procedure. That’s next on our list. It’ll take fifteen hours to reset them.”
“Fifteen hours?”
“You’d risk under-ice travel without inertial navigation?”
“Of course not,” Renard said. “It would be suicide.”
“The full procedure for resetting the gyroscopic navigators takes three weeks tied to a pier. I’m doing the condensed version while drifting under an icecap. We’ll be lucky if we know our location within five miles.”
“Then I suppose it will dismay you to hear that Mister Lion recently informed me that his team is very concerned about the five-knot speed limitation you’ve imposed.”
“How concerned?” Jake asked.
“Enough to make me worry.”
John Brody dreamt of his wife Carole. His subconscious mind relived his honeymoon. She wore a red satin backless dress that caressed her soft brown skin on a moonlit Jamaican beach.
Carole slipped away. A new image wearing a bathrobe appeared, fifteen pounds heavier, with a scornful expression. Cold eyes locked with him as she said that she was leaving.
The dream disappeared as a fist hammered Brody’s door.
“Messenger, sir. The Officer of the Deck requests your presence in the control room.”
Brody squinted at a digital display that showed eight knots — seven knots slower than he had prescribed. He slipped into his jump suit and trotted to the control room.
Jerry Skiff, the Miami’s navigation officer, furrowed his brow.
“Sir, under-ice sonar indicated that the roof was starting to slant down on us. I went deeper, but we’re getting squeezed to the floor. I wanted you here before I went any further.”
Brody rubbed his eyes. His sleep had been fitful.
“Are we on track?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Skiff said. “I’ve double-checked three times. We’re in the deepest water around here and should have cleared the ice by now, but we’re hitting a dead end.”
“The charted paths are no guarantee for what Mother Nature does with the ice year to year,” Brody said. “We’re lucky we made it this far without having to turn around. Slow to four knots, push until we get thirty feet above and below us, and then turn east. There’s got to be a way around this ridge.”
Jake sat in the captain’s chair in the Colorado’s wardroom. He suppressed a cough as Renard indulged in a drag of his Marlboro. Commandos filled six of the remaining eight chairs with Kao by his side.
“Mister Slate, we are concerned that five knots speed will cost us too much time,” Kao said. “We are already nine days behind schedule. The rendezvous ship may not wait.”
“I planned for up to two weeks of contingencies. That’s how long the rendezvous ship should be willing to wait for us,” Jake said.
For the first time, Jake saw the younger men protest. He could not understand their Mandarin, but he heard its biting tone. Kao snapped a word and they fell silent.
“Every day is added risk for the rendezvous ship, and for the nation itself,” Kao said. “They need the warheads now.”
“Look, we have a ripped right fairwater plane from the aircraft attack, and we probably just bent the left one against the roof. That means noise, and there’s probably someone still looking for us.”
“Moving slow did not prevent us from being hunted once before. Perhaps speed is a superior tactical alternative.”
Jake felt reality inverting as a Taiwanese commando told him how to drive a Trident submarine under the ice.
“Safety dictates that we move slowly,” he said. “Our navigation is going to be inaccurate due to the gyroscopic navigators restart. We’ll have a tough time working through this maze, and we could smack our bow into an ice wall if we go too fast.”
Kao directed his question to Renard, and Jake felt his authority slipping.
“You have experience, Mister Renard. What is the real danger if we impact an ice structure?”
“Jake’s concerns are well founded,” Renard said. “With the complete and alert crew on the Amethyst, I would brave fifteen knots. With this sluggish Trident and its personnel limitations, I would fear more than say, eight — and that as an extreme.”
“Eight knots. At least you agree that—” Kao said.
“Ten!” Jake said.
The room quieted. Jake stared at Kao.
“Ten knots, Mister Lion. Mister Renard doesn’t realize how long our ballast tanks are against those of his precious Amethyst. If we go ten knots, I can make up for two days. If something goes wrong and we smack the ice, then we have a sonar dome and three ballast tanks to take the blow. We’ll crumple like a car hood, but we might live.”