He should leave Houston’s survivors where they were… there should be no other choice. Wasn’t that right? Weren’t they all in danger? His first responsibility was to Imperator and her crew — and the mission. He should pull the plug right now. But he could help those men… and he had to ventilate that computer area. God, how he needed Caesar!
It wouldn’t take more than a few moments. Get Andy Reed back with him — then send the bird back — just the fuselage of the helo would suffice to protect the others until he could surface again. Once they were inside, there would be warmth and some medical supplies.
He snapped on the speaker to control again. His first decision had to be right! “Double the medical supplies aboard that bird. Just toss in some extra kits. We’ll worry about what’s in them later.” His entire body shook now… never before.
A wounded man. Snow reasoned, who was about to freeze to death, wasn’t particular about the quality of his medical supplies. He peered impatiently over the top of the sail as the gull-wing doors folded back to reveal the helo rising on the elevator. Two crewmen were already unfolding the rotors. A third was cramming additional supplies inside. The pilot and copilot could be seen through the front, already strapped into their seats. Colonel Campbell waved toward the bridge.
Snow flipped the switch to sonar. “What have you got on the Russian? Is he closing?” Imperator’s active sonar was on the bottom of the hull, a hundred feet below.
“Negative, Captain. He probably went deep… lots of decoys in the water He sure as hell wants to confuse things.”
“A course… direction… anything!” He knew the shaking would stop once they had contact. “Where’s he headed?”
“He started to open his range slightly when he pulled the plug… then he seemed to reverse course. As best as we can figure, he may be circling toward our stern now.”
“Okay, sonar, call me with anything, anything at all. We’ve got survivors on the ice.” Snow switched to the control room. “Is Miss Petersen in the control room?” He’d almost said “Carol!”
“Negative, Captain. She went below as soon as they vented the equipment room.”
“Can you get her on the 21MC?” Carol… and Caesar… working together.
“No communications down there as yet, sir.”
“Send a messenger down. Have her call the bridge immediately.” There were so many factors — too many. He turned to study the Houston survivors with his binoculars. There were a half dozen of them stumbling through the snow and ice, waving their arms at him. It was a bizarre sight — men in pants and shirt sleeves near the North Pole… and he could sense their fear. Too many factors…
“Captain, I have a flight of aircraft approaching on radar — very low. There’s no response from them on the interrogator. I don’t think our own people have picked them up yet.”
“Range?”
“About one two five miles… closing at about four seven five miles per hour… still no answer on the interrogator.”
“Roger, stand by the lasers… starboard section. Anything in the sky knows who we are already, so these probably aren’t our guys coming in on the deck.”
“Roger, Captain, preparing starboard lasers.”
“DC Central — how much more time do you need? We’re running out up here.”
“Can you spare another five minutes, Captain? We still have some insulation smoldering down here.”
Snow could feel the tension in every muscle of his body. Aircraft coming in on the deck, men beginning to freeze to death on the ice, a Russian Alfa somewhere below intent on destroying him… and Caesar was inoperative! “Make it fast. I may have to pull the plug any moment. Status is changing fast up here.” Too many factors…
With a roar in the silent arctic air, the helo lifted off and banked sharply toward the frantic survivors. Snow watched through his binoculars as they tried to run, but their feet sank into the hard snow or slipped on ice hummocks invisible in the whiteness about them. Their energy was disappearing so quickly in the frigid air that panic already enveloped them.
Survival was primary to all of them, all except Andy Reed. As he shuddered violently against the cold, he yearned for revenge against the man who had just sunk Houston.
Carol Petersen waited anxiously outside the entrance to the computer spaces. The protective mask she wore was tight around her face. Little drops of perspiration collected at the base. She was uncomfortably aware of the hissing sound she was making with each breath.
A damage control party pushed their way past, dragging a power cable. She was forced back against the bulkhead by a burly sailor who shouted something incomprehensible at her. But the smoke was gradually clearing from the passageway, and the emergency lanterns were almost as clear as the normal lighting. The shadows they cast were strange and frightening in the organized confusion around her.
She jumped at the hand that grasped her shoulder from behind. “Okay to go in now, Miss Petersen… detectors are reporting clean air… but don’t take off your mask right away.”
Carol nodded as the sailor loosened the dogs around the hatch and pulled it back. She found perhaps an inch of water covering the deck as she stepped inside. Leaning back through the hatch, she saw that the damage control party had already moved on to the next compartment. Forget it, she said to herself. Nothing serious at this point. She’d catch up with them as soon as she checked each of the systems. With no power to the space, there wasn’t an immediate hazard.
But as she worked, moving from unit to unit, she noticed that it was getting deeper — not quickly, but it was sloshing over her shoe tops as the ship rolled gently from side to side.
Abe Danilov was close to completing his mission. Only one object remained in his path. Then he could return to Moscow and his Anna. Anna… the name excited him as it flickered through his mind… Anna… the loyal wife who had written all of those letters, one for each day… the dying woman who was trying to live long enough for him to come home one more time… and there were only two days left!
And then her name vanished from his mind, willed away by another name—Imperator, the most dangerous of all, the immense weapon that posed such a threat to his homeland.
“Range to Imperator?” Danilov called out.
“We’re at approximately six kilometers and opening slightly. Should be on her port quarter,” Sergoff added. “I don’t think she’s moved.”
“Well, there’s no doubt that she probably holds us,” Danilov remarked softly. The active sonar from the American submarine echoed continuously through Seratov. It was an astonishing instrument, the largest ever built, so powerful that it was piercing the boiling water, where Houston had disappeared. Its sheer power was evident by the terrifying sound heard clearly by every man aboard.
Seratov had reloaded immediately after firing on Houston, but there was little point in wasting a torpedo at this stage. There was too little chance of accurate homing as long as the target remained on the surface with all that ice surrounding it, scraping against the hull; too much that would confuse or distract a homing device. No, they had to wait until Imperator was getting underway. Let her begin to drop below the ice and commence some sort of movement. Then Danilov would make sure they fired everything in their power before she could maneuver freely.
“Those noisemakers… will they have any effect?” Lozak inquired cautiously. He was unable to fully grasp the admiral’s tactics at this stage. Everything seemed to be the opposite of what he might have done.