A wave of uneasiness swept through her. She hated him for violating Georg's sanctuary. "Move."
"Do you have any idea what you are doing?"
"Go to hell, Werner."
"You haven't a clue about reality."
His expression was not one of a man angry or afraid, so she was curious. "Do you want me to lose to Christl?"
His expression softened. "I wasn't aware it was a contest. I thought it more a challenge. But that's why I'm here-to help you."
She needed to know what he knew and how, but could only bring herself to say, "A dead child does not make a marriage." Her gaze bore into his. "I don't need your help. Not anymore."
"You're wrong."
"I want to leave," she said. "Will you let me pass?"
Her husband remained frozen and, for an instant, she was actually afraid. Werner had always clung to emotions like a drowning man to a life preserver. Good at starting fights, terrible at finishing them. So when he retreated from the doorway she wasn't surprised.
She stepped past.
"There's something you need to see," he said.
She stopped, turned, and saw something else she'd not seen in this man for a long time. Confidence. Fear again swept through her.
He left the church and walked back to the car. She followed. He found a key and opened the trunk. Inside, a weak light revealed the contorted, dead face of Sterling Wilkerson, a bloody hole in the center of his forehead.
She gasped.
"This is quite serious, Dorothea."
"Why?" she asked. "Why did you do that?"
He shrugged. "You were using him, as he was using you. Here's the point. He's dead. I'm not."
FORTY
2:40 PM
RAMSEY WAS USHERED INTO THE LIVING ROOM OF ADMIRAL RAYMOND Dyals Jr., four stars, retired, US Navy. The ninety-four-year-old Missourian had served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, then retired in the early 1980s. In 1971, when NR-1A was lost, Dyals had been chief of naval operations, the man who'd signed the classified order not to launch any search and rescue for the missing sub. Ramsey had then been a lieutenant, the one chosen by Dyals for the mission, afterward personally briefing the admiral about Holden's covert Antarctica visit. He'd then been quickly promoted to commander and assigned to Dyals' personal staff. From there, the moves upward had been fast and easy.
He owed this old man everything.
And he knew Dyals still carried clout.
He was the oldest living flag officer. Presidents consulted him, the current one no exception. His judgment was considered sound and meaningful. The press afforded him great courtesy, and senators routinely made pilgrimages to the room into which Ramsey now walked, before a raging fire, a wool blanket spread across the old man's spindly legs, a bushy cat nestled in Dyals' lap. He'd even acquired a label-Winterhawk-which Ramsey knew the man relished.
Crinkly eyes flashed as Dyals spotted him entering. "I always like it when you come by."
Ramsey stood respectfully before his mentor until he was invited to sit.
"I thought I might hear from you," Dyals said. "I heard this morning about Sylvian. He served on my staff once. An okay aide, but too rigid. He seems to have done all right, though. Nothing but glowing reports all day on his life."
Ramsey decided to come to the point. "I want his job."
The admiral's melancholy pupils lit with approval. "Member, Joint Chiefs of Staff. I never made it that far."
"You could have."
The old man shook his head. "Reagan and I didn't get along. He had his favorites, or at least his aides had their favorites, and I wasn't on that list. Besides, it was time for me to leave."
"What about you and Daniels? Are you on his favorites list?"
He caught something hard and unbending in Dyals' expression.
"Langford," Dyals said, "you know that the president is no friend of ours. He's been hard on the military. Budgets have been slashed, programs curtailed. He doesn't even think we need the Joint Chiefs."
"He's wrong."
"Maybe. But he's the president, and he's popular. Like Reagan was, just with a different philosophy."
"Surely there are military officers he respects. Men you know. Their support of my candidacy could make the difference."
Dyals lightly stroked the cat. "Many of them would want the job for themselves."
He said nothing.
"Don't you find this whole business unsavory?" Dyals asked. "Begging for favors. Relying on whore politicians for a career. It's one reason I opted out."
"It's the way of our world. We don't make the rules, we just play by the ones that exist."
He knew that many flag officers and a good number of those "whore politicians" could thank Ray Dyals for their jobs. Winterhawk had lots of friends, and knew how to use them.
"I've never forgotten what you did," Dyals quietly muttered. "I often think about NR-1A. Those men. Tell me, again, Langford, what was it like?"
A haunting bluish glow seeped through the surface ice, its color gradually deepening with depth, finally evolving into an indigo blackness. Ramsey wore a bulky navy dry suit with tight seals and double layers, nothing exposed except a tiny strip of skin around his lips that had burned when he'd first entered the water but was now numb. Heavy gloves made his hands seem useless. Thankfully, the water dissipated all weight, and floating in the vastness, clear as air, he felt as if he were flying rather than swimming.
The transponder signal Herbert Rowland had detected led them across the snow to a narrow inlet where freezing ocean licked icy shore, a place where seals and birds had congregated for summer. The signal's strength compelled a firsthand inspection. So he'd suited up, Sayers and Rowland helping him don his gear. His orders were clear. Only he went into the water.
He checked his depth. Forty feet.
Impossible to know how far down to the bottom but he was hoping he could at least catch sight of something, enough to confirm the sub's fate. Rowland had told him that the source lay farther inland, toward the mountains that rose from the shoreline.
He kicked through the water.
A wall of black volcanic rock peppered with a dazzling array of orange anemones, sponges, pink staghorns, and yellow-green mollusks rose to his left. But for the fact the water was twenty-eight degrees he could have been on a coral reef. Light dimmed overhead in the frozen ceiling, and what had just appeared as a cloudy sky, in varying shades of blue, steadily went black.
The ice above had apparently been replaced with rock.
He unclipped a light from his belt and switched it on. Little plankton floated around him. He saw no sediment. He shone his light and the beam seemed invisible, as there was nothing to backscatter the photons. They simply hung in the water, revealing themselves only when they struck something.
Like a seal, which shot past, barely flexing a muscle.
More seals appeared.
He heard their trilling call and even felt it in his body, as if he were being sonar-pinged. What an assignment. An opportunity to prove himself to men who could literally make his career. That's why he'd instantly volunteered. He'd also personally chosen Sayers and Rowland, two men he knew could be depended on. Rowland had said the signal source was maybe two hundred yards south. No more. He estimated that he'd swum at least that far. He searched the depths with light that penetrated maybe fifty feet. He was hoping to spot NR-1A's orange conning tower rising from the bottom.
He seemed to be floating in a massive underwater cavern that opened directly into the Antarctic continent, volcanic rock now encircling him.
His gaze searched. Nothing. Just water dissolving into blackness.
Yet the signal was here.
He decided to explore a hundred more yards.
Another seal rocketed past, then one more. Ahead of him, their ballet was entrancing. He watched as they glided with no effort. One of them whirled in a broad somersault, then beat a hasty retreat upward.