"It is all finished here," Bondarenko said.
The Major looked at his radio for a moment, then blew his whistle to assemble what was left of his men. The Archer's company knew the way to the assembly point, but all that mattered now was getting home. He counted his men. He'd lost eleven and had six wounded. With luck he'd get to the border before the snow stopped. Five minutes later his men were heading off the mountain.
"Secure the area!" Bondarenko told his remaining six men. "Collect weapons and get them handed out." It was probably over, he thought, but "over" would not truly come until that motor-rifle regiment got here.
"Morozov!" he called next. The engineer appeared a moment later.
"Yes, Colonel?"
"Is there a physician upstairs?"
"Yes, several-I'll get one."
The Colonel found that he was sweating. The building still held some warmth. He dropped the field radio off his back and was stunned to see that two bullets had hit it-and even more surprised to see blood on one of the straps. He'd been hit and hadn't known it. The sergeant came over and looked at it.
"Just a scratch, Comrade, like those on my legs."
"Help me off with this coat, will you?" Bondarenko shrugged out of the knee-length greatcoat, exposing his uniform blouse. With his right hand he reached inside, while his left removed the ribbon that designated the Red Banner. This he pinned to the young man's collar. "You deserve better, Sergeant, but this is all I can do for the present."
"Up 'scope!" Mancuso used the search periscope now, with its light-amplifying equipment. "Still nothing " He turned to look west. "Uh-oh, I got a masthead light at two-seven-zero-"
"That's our sonar contact," Lieutenant Goodman noted unnecessarily.
"Sonar, conn, do you have an ident on the contact?" Mancuso asked.
"Negative," Jones replied. "We're getting reverbs from the ice, sir. Acoustic conditions are pretty bad. It's twin screw and diesel, but no ident."
Mancuso turned on the 'scope television camera. Ramius needed only one look at the picture. "Grisha."
Mancuso looked at the tracking party. "Solution?"
"Yes, but it's a little shaky," the weapons officer replied. "The ice isn't going to help," he added. What he meant was that the Mark 48 torpedo in surface-attack mode could be confused by floating ice. He paused for a moment. "Sir, if that's a Grisha, how come no radar?"
"New contact! Conn, sonar, new contact bearing zero-eight-six-sounds like our friend, sir," Jones called. "Something else near that bearing, high-speed screw definitely something new there, sir, call it zero-eight-three."
"Up two feet," Mancuso told the quartermaster. The periscope came up. "I see him, just on the horizon call it three miles. There's a light behind them!" He slapped the handles up and the 'scope went down at once. "Let's get there fast. All ahead two-thirds."
"All ahead two-thirds, aye." The helmsman dialed up the engine order.
The navigator plotted the position of the inbound boat and ticked off the yards.
Clark was looking back toward the shore. There was a light sweeping left and right across the water. Who was it? He didn't know if the local cops had boats, but there had to be a detachment of KGB Border Guards: they had their own little navy, and their own little air force. But how alert were they on a Friday night? Probably better than they were when that German kid decided to fly into Moscow right through this sector, Clark remembered. This area's probably pretty alert where are you, Dallas? He lifted his radio.
"Uncle Joe, this is Willy. The sun is rising, and we're far from home."
"He says he's close, sir," communications reported.
" 'Gator?" Mancuso asked.
The navigator looked up from his table. "I gave him fifteen knots. We should be within five hundred yards now."
"All ahead one-third," the Captain ordered. "Up 'scope!" The oiled steel tube hissed up again-all the way up.
"Captain, I got a radar emitter astern, bearing two-six-eight. It's a Don-2," the ESM technician said.
"Conn, sonar, both the hostile contacts have increased speed. Blade count looks like twenty knots and coming up on the Grisha, sir," Jones said. "Confirm target ident is Grisha-class. Easterly contact still unknown, one screw, probably a gas engine, doing turns for twenty or so."
"Range about six thousand yards," the fire-control party said next.
"This is the fun part," Mancuso observed. "I have them. Bearing-mark!"
"Zero-nine-one."
"Range." Mancuso squeezed the trigger for the 'scope's laser-rangefinder. "Mark!"
"Six hundred yards."
"Nice call, 'Gator. Solution on the Grisha?" he asked fire control.
"Set for tubes two and four. Outer doors are still closed, sir."
"Keep 'em that way." Mancuso went to the bridge trunk's lower hatch. "XO, you have the conn. I'm going to do the recovery myself. Let's get it done."
"All stop," the executive officer said. Mancuso opened the hatch and went up the ladder to the bridge. The lower hatch was closed behind him. He heard the water rushing around him in the sail, then the splashes of surface waves. The intercom told him he could open the bridge hatch. Mancuso spun the locking wheel and heaved against the heavy steel cover. He was rewarded with a faceful of cold, oily saltwater, but ignored it and got to the bridge.
He looked aft first. There was the Grisha, its masthead light low on the horizon. Next he looked forward and pulled the flashlight from his hip pocket. He aimed directly at the raft and tapped out the Morse letter D.
"A light, a light!" Maria said. Clark turned back forward, saw it, and steered for it. Then he saw something else.
The patrol boat behind Clark was a good two miles off, its searchlight looking in the wrong place. The Captain turned west to see the other contact. Mancuso knew in a distant sort of way that Grishas carried searchlights, but had allowed himself to disregard the fact. After all, why should searchlights concern a submarine? When she's on the surface, the Captain told himself. The ship was still too far away to see him, light or not, but that would change in a hurry. He watched it sweep the surface aft of his submarine, and realized too late that they probably had Dallas on radar now.
"Over here, Clark, move your ass!" he screamed across the water, swinging the light left and right. The next thirty seconds seemed to last into the following month. Then it was there.
"Help the ladies," the man said. He held the raft against the submarine's sail with his motor. Dallas was still moving, had to be to maintain this precarious depth, not quite surfaced, not quite dived. The first one felt and moved like a young girl, the skipper thought as he brought her aboard. The second one was wet and shivering. Clark waited a moment, setting a small box atop the motor. Mancuso wondered how it stayed balanced there until he realized that it was either magnetic or glued somehow.
"Down the ladder," Mancuso told the ladies.
Clark scrambled aboard and said something-probably the same thing-in Russian. To Mancuso he spoke in English. "Five minutes before it blows."
The women were already halfway down. Clark went behind them, and finally Mancuso, with a last look at the raft. The last thing he saw was the harbor patrol boat, now heading directly toward him. He dropped down and pulled the hatch behind himself. Then he punched the intercom button. "Take her down and move the boat!"
The bottom hatch opened underneath them all, and he heard the executive officer. "Make your depth ninety feet, all ahead two-thirds, left full rudder!"
A petty officer met the ladies at the bottom of the bridge tube. The astonishment on his face would have been funny at any other time. Clark took them by the arm and led them forward to his stateroom. Mancuso went aft.
"I have the conn," he announced.
"Captain has the conn," the XO agreed. "ESM says they got some VHF radio traffic, close in, probably the Grisha talking to the other one."