Icebound

by Dean Koontz

  “But who?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “Not even from the corner of your eye?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Did he speak to you?”

  “No.”

  “If he wanted you dead, why wouldn’t he wait for midnight? The way it looks now, you’ll die then with the rest of us. Why would he feel he had to hurry you along? Why not wait for midnight?”

  “Well, maybe…”

  “What?”

  “This sounds crazy…but, well, I am a Dougherty.”

  Harry understood at once. “To a certain breed of maniac, yes, that would make you an appealing victim. Killing a Dougherty, any Dougherty—there’s a sense of history involved. I suppose I can see a psychopath getting a real thrill out of that.”

  They were silent.

  Then Brian said, “But who among us is psychotic?”

  “Seems impossible, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But you do believe me?”

  “Of course. I can’t make myself believe you knocked yourself unconscious with two blows to the back of the head, then dragged yourself out of sight.”

  Brian sighed with relief.

  Harry said, “This pressure we’re under…If one of us was a borderline case, potentially unstable but functional, maybe the stress was all that was needed to push him over the edge. Like to take a guess?”

  “Guess who it was? No.”

  “I expected you to say George Lin.”

  “For whatever reasons, George doesn’t care for me or my family. He’s sure made that abundantly clear. But whatever’s wrong with him, whatever bee he’s got up his ass, I still can’t believe he’s a killer.”

  “You can’t be sure. You don’t know what’s going on inside his head any more than I do. There’re few people in this life we can ever really know. With me…Rita’s the only person I’d ever vouch for and have no doubts.”

  “Yes, but I saved his life today.”

  “If he’s psychotic, why would that matter to him? In fact, in his twisted logic, for some reason we’d never be able to grasp, that might even be why he wants to kill you.”

  The wind rocked the snowmobile. Beads of snow ticked and hissed across the cabin roof.

  For the first time all day, Harry was on the verge of despair. He was exhausted both physically and mentally.

  Brian said, “Will he try again?”

  “If he’s nuts, obsessed with you and your family, then he’s not going to give up easily. What does he have to lose? I mean, he’s going to die at midnight anyway.”

  Looking out the side window into the churning night, Brian said, “I’m afraid, Harry.”

  “If you weren’t afraid right now, kid, then you’d be psychotic.”

  “You’re afraid too?”

  “Scared out of my wits.”

  “You don’t show it.”

  “I never do. I just pee my pants and hope nobody’ll notice.”

  Brian laughed, then winced at another spasm of stinging pain in his extremities. When he recovered, he said, “Whoever he is, at least I’ll be prepared for him now.”

  “You won’t be left alone,” Harry said. “Either Rita or I will stay with you at all times.”

  Rubbing his hands together, massaging his still cold fingers, Brian said, “Are you going to tell the others?”

  “No. We’ll say you don’t remember what happened, that you must have fallen and hit your head on an outcropping of ice. Better that your would-be killer thinks we don’t know about him.”

  “I had the same thought. He’ll be especially cautious if he knows we’re waiting for his next move.”

  “But if he thinks we don’t know about him, he might get careless the next time he tries for you.”

  “If he’s a lunatic because he wants to murder me even though I’ll probably die at midnight anyway…then I guess I must be nuts too. Here I am worrying about being murdered even though midnight’s only seven hours away.”

  “No. You’ve got a strong survival instinct, that’s all. It’s a sign of sanity.”

  “Unless the survival instinct is so strong that it keeps me from recognizing a hopeless situation. Then maybe it’s a sign of lunacy.”

  “It isn’t hopeless,” Harry said. “We’ve got seven hours. Anything could happen in seven hours.”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything.”

  5:00

  Like a whale breaching in the night sea, the Ilya Pogodin surfaced for the second time in an hour. Glistening cascades of water slid from the boat’s dark flanks as it rolled in the storm waves. Captain Nikita Gorov and two seamen scrambled out of the conning-tower hatch and took up watch positions on the bridge.

  In the past thirty minutes, cruising at its maximum submerged speed of thirty-one knots, the submarine had moved seventeen miles north-northeast of its assigned surveillance position. Timoshenko had taken a bearing on the Edgeway group’s radio beacon, and Gorov had plotted a perfectly straight course that intersected with the estimated path of the drifting iceberg. On the surface, the Pogodin was capable of twenty-six knots; but because of the bad seas, it was only making three quarters of that speed. Gorov was anxious to take the boat down again, to three hundred feet this time, where it would glide like any other fish, where the turbulence of the storm could not affect it.

  The satellite tracking gear rose from the sail behind the bridge and opened like spring’s first blossom. The five petal-form radar plates, which quickly joined together to become a dish, were already beginning to gleam and sparkle with ice as the snow and sleet froze to them; nevertheless, they diligently searched the sky.

  At three minutes past the hour, a note from Timoshenko was sent up to the bridge. The communications officer wished to inform the captain that a coded message had begun to come in from the Ministry in Moscow.

  The moment of truth had arrived.

  Gorov folded the slip of paper, put it in a coat pocket, then kept his eyes to the night glasses. He scanned ninety degrees of the storm-swept horizon, but it was not waves and clouds and snow that he saw. Instead, two visions plagued him, each more vivid than reality. In the first, he was sitting at a table in a conference room with a gilt-trimmed ceiling and a chandelier that cast rainbows on the walls; he was listening to the state’s testimony at his own court-martial, and he was forbidden to speak in his own defense. In the second vision, he stared down at a young boy who lay in a hospital bed, a dead boy rank with sweat and urine. The night glasses seemed to be a conduit to both the past and the future.

  At 5:07 the decoded message was passed through the conning-tower hatch and into the captain’s hands. Gorov skipped the eight lines of introductory material and got straight to the body of the comminiqué.

  YOUR REQUEST GRANTED STOP MAKE ALL SPEED TO RESCUE MEMBERS EDGEWAY EXPEDITION STOP WHEN FOREIGN NATIONALS ABOARD TAKE ALL PRECAUTIONS AGAINST COMPROMISE OF CLASSIFIED MATERIAL STOP SECURE ALL SENSITIVE AREAS OF YOUR COMMAND STOP EMBASSY OFFICIALS IN WASHINGTON HAVE INFORMED AMERICAN GOVERNMENT OF INTENT TO RESCUE EDGEWAY GROUP STOP

  At the bottom of the decoding sheet, Timoshenko had written two words in pencil: RECEIPT ACKNOWLEDGED. There was nothing to do now but act upon their new orders—which they had been doing anyway for the past half an hour.

  Although he was not at all sure that sufficient time remained in which to get those people off the iceberg, Gorov was happier than he had been in a long time. At least he was doing something. At least he had a chance, however slim, of reaching the Edgeway scientists before they were all dead.

  He stuffed the decoded message into a coat pocket and sounded two brief blasts on the electric diving horns.

  By 5:30 Brian had been in the snowmobile nearly an hour. He was suffering from claustrophobia. “I’d like to go out and walk.”

  “Don’t rush yourself.” Rita switched on a flashlight, and the sudden brightness made her eyes water. She studied his hands. “Numb? Tingling?”

  “No.”
r />   “A burning sensation?”

  “Not much any more. And my feet feel a lot better.” He saw that Rita still had her doubts. “My legs are cramped. I really need to exercise them. Besides, it’s too warm in here.”

  She hesitated. “Your face does have some color now. I mean, other than the attractive blue it was. And your hands don’t look translucent any more. Well…all right. But when you’ve stretched your muscles, if you still feel any tingling, any numbness, you’ve got to come back here right away.”

  “Good enough.”

  She pulled on her felt boots and then worked her feet into her outer boots. She picked up her coat from the bench between them. Afraid of working up a sweat in the warm air, she hadn’t been wearing all of her gear. If she perspired in her suit, the moisture against her skin would leach away her body heat, which would be an invitation to death.

  For the same reason, Brian wasn’t wearing his coat, gloves, or either pair of boots. “I’m not as limber as you are. But if you’ll step outside and give me more room, I think I’ll manage.”

  “You must be too stiff and sore to do it yourself. I’ll help.”

  “You’re making me feel like a child.”

  “Rubbish.” She patted her lap. “Put your feet up here, one at a time.”

  He smiled. “You’d make a wonderful mother for someone.”

  “I already am a wonderful mother for someone. Harry.”

  She worked the outer boot onto his somewhat swollen foot. Brian grunted with pain when he straightened his leg; his joints felt as if they were popping apart like a string of decorative plastic beads.

  While Rita threaded the laces through the eyelets and drew them tight, she said, “Well, if nothing else, you’ve a wealth of material for those magazine pieces.”

  He was surprised to hear himself say, “I’ve decided not to write them. I’m going to do a book instead.” Until that moment his obsession had been a private matter. Now that he had revealed it to someone he respected, he had forced himself to regard it less as an obsession and more as a commitment.

  “A book? You’d better think twice about that.”

  “I’ve thought about it a thousand times the last few weeks.”

  “Writing a book is an ordeal. I’ve done three, you know. You may have to write thirty magazine articles to get the same word count as a book, but if I were you, I’d write articles and forget about being an ‘author.’ There isn’t half so much agony in the shorter work as there is in the writing of a book.”

  “But I’ve been swept along by the idea.”

  “Oh, I know how it is. Writing the first third of the book, you’re almost having a sexual experience. But you lose that feeling. Believe me, you do. In the second third, you’re just trying to prove something to yourself. And when you get to the last third, it’s simply a matter of survival.”

  “But I’ve figured out how to make everything hang together in the narrative. I’ve got my theme.”

  Rita winced and shook her head sadly. “So you’re too far gone to respond to reason.” She helped him get his right foot into the sealskin boot. “What is your theme?”

  “Heroism.”

  “Heroism?” She grimaced as she worked with the laces. “What in the name of God does heroism have to do with the Edgeway Project?”

  “I think maybe it has everything to do with it.”

  “You’re daft.”

  “Seriously.”

  “I never noticed any heroes here.”

  Brian was surprised by her apparently genuine astonishment. “Have you looked in a mirror?”

  “Me? A hero? Dear boy, I’m the furthest thing from it.”

  “Not in my view.”

  “I’m scared sick half the time.”

  “Heroes can be scared and still be heroes. That’s what makes them heroes—acting in spite of fear. This is heroic work, this project.”

  “It’s work, that’s all. Dangerous, yes. Foolish, perhaps. But heroic? You’re romanticizing it.”

  He was silent as she finished lacing his boots. “Well, it’s not politics.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “What you’re doing here. You’re not in it for power, privilege, or money. You’re not out here because you want to control people.”

  Rita raised her head and met his gaze. Her eyes were beautiful—and as deep as the clear Arctic sea. He knew that she understood him, in that moment, better than anyone ever had, perhaps even better than he knew himself. “The world thinks your family is full of heroes.”

  “Well.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “I know them better.”

  “They’ve made sacrifices, Brian. Your uncle was killed. Your father took a bullet of his own.”

  “This will sound meanspirited, but it wouldn’t if you knew them. Rita, neither of them expected to have to make a sacrifice like that—or any sacrifice at all. Getting shot or killed isn’t an act of bravery—any more than it is for some poor bastard who gets gunned down unexpectedly while he’s withdrawing money from an automatic teller machine. He’s a victim, not a hero.”

  “Some people get into politics to make a better world.”

  “Not anyone I’ve known. It’s dirty, Rita. It’s all about envy and power. But out here, everything’s so clean. The work is hard, the environment is hostile—but clean.”

  She had never taken her eyes from his. He couldn’t recall anyone ever having met his gaze as unwaveringly as she did. After a thoughtful silence, she said, “So you’re not just a troubled rich boy out for thrills, the way the media would have it.”

  He broke eye contact first, taking his foot off the bench and contorting himself in the small space in order to slip his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “Is that what you thought I was like?”

  “No. I don’t let the media do my thinking for me.”

  “Of course, maybe I’m deluding myself. Maybe that’s just what I am, everything they write in the papers.”

  “There’s precious little truth in the papers,” she said. “In fact, you’ll only find it one place.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “You know.”

  He nodded. “In myself.”

  She smiled. Putting on her coat, she said, “You’ll be fine.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, in twenty years maybe.”

  He laughed. “Good God, I hope I’m not going to be screwed up that long.”

  “Maybe longer. Hey, that’s what life’s all about: little by little, day by day, with excruciating stubbornness, each of us learning how to be less screwed up.”

  “You should be a psychiatrist.”

  “Witch doctors are more effective.”

  “I’ve sometimes thought I’ve needed one.”

  “A psychiatrist? Better save your money. Dear boy, all you need is time.”

  When he followed Rita out of the snowmobile, Brian was surprised by the bitter power of the storm wind. It took his breath away and almost drove him to his knees. He gripped the open cabin door until he was certain of his balance.

  The wind was a reminder that his unknown assailant, the man who had struck him on the head, was not the only threat to his survival. For a few minutes he’d forgotten that they were adrift, had forgotten about the time bombs ticking toward midnight. The fear came back to him like guilt to a priest’s breast. Now that he had committed himself to writing the book, he wanted very much to live.

  The headlamps on one of the snowmobiles shone through the mouth of the cave. In places, the fractured ice deconstructed the beams into glimmering prisms of light in all the primary colors, and those geometric shapes shimmered jewellike in the walls of the otherwise white chamber. The eight distorted shadows of the expedition members rippled and slid across that dazzling backdrop, swelled and shrank, mysterious but perhaps no more so than the people who cast them—five of whom were suspects and one of whom was a potential murderer.

  Harry watched Roger Breskin, Franz Fischer,
George Lin, Claude, and Pete as they argued about the options open to them, about how they should spend the six hours and twenty minutes remaining before midnight. He ought to have been leading the discussion or at the very least contributing to it, but he couldn’t keep his mind on what the others were saying. For one thing, no matter how they spent their time, they could not escape from the iceberg or retrieve the explosives, so their discussion could resolve nothing. Furthermore, although trying to be discreet, he couldn’t prevent himself from studying them intensely, as though psychotic tendencies ought to be evident in the way a man walked, talked, and gestured.

  His train of thought was interrupted by a call from Edgeway Station. Gunvald Larsson’s voice, shot through with static, rattled off the ice walls.

  The other men stopped talking.

  When Harry went to the radio and responded to the call, Gunvald said, “Harry, the trawlers have turned back. The Melville and the Liberty. Both of them. Some time ago. I’ve known, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.” He was unaccountably buoyant, excited, as if that bad news should have brought smiles to their faces. “But now it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, Harry!”

  Pete, Claude, and the others had crowded around the radio, baffled by the Swede’s excitement.

  Harry said, “Gunvald, what in the hell are you talking about? What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”

  Static shredded the airwaves, but then the frequency cleared as Larsson said, “…just got word from Thule. Relayed from Washington. There’s a submarine in your neighborhood, Harry. Do you read me? A Russian submarine.”

  FOUR

  NIGHT

  8:20

  DETONATION IN THREE HOURS FORTY MINUTES

  Gorov, Zhukov, and Seaman Semichastny clambered onto the bridge and faced the port side. The sea was neither calm nor as tumultuous as it had been when they had surfaced earlier to receive the message from the Naval Ministry. The iceberg lay off to port, sheltering them from some of the power of the storm waves and the wind.