* * *
Pacino took the plastic Steinke hood handed him by Vaughn and stood with the other men while Vaughn opened the valve to flood the trunk. The trunk was about ten feet in diameter, about ten feet tall, with a steel wall separating the upper portion from the approach to the upper hatch. The wall came down only a few feet, ending at chest level.
Vaughn had his head inside the partitioned area as he operated the valves.
The water that came in soaked into Pacino’s clothes, terribly cold, the water at that depth actually colder than ice water because of the salt in it. The water rose to his shins, and by that time his feet were already numb, his ankles beginning to get numb. The frigid water climbed to waist level, soaking the trousers of his poopysuit. The air in the space was getting foggy, its pressure rising, its temperature climbing from the compression, the odd effect of the hot humid air next to the freezing water filling the chamber with fog so dense that Pacino could no longer make out the upper hatch in the light of the twin battle lanterns. The water rose to his chest, and he could feel his heart pounding, working against the stress of the cold. When the water rose higher he heard Vaughn calling him into the partitioned area. Pacino crowded over with the rest of the men, the hot cloudy air and close quarters making it difficult to breathe. The water rose up to chin level.
Vaughn’s voice sounded eerie in the highly pressurized space, its pressure equal to outside the ship. Without mixed gas for breathing, the oxygen in the space would become toxic in minutes. They had to get out or die here. Pacino’s feet and legs had left him long before. His hands were going and now even his torso was nearly numb.
Vaughn filled the first man’s Steinke hood, the plastic going over the man’s head to chest level, a small clear plastic window in the mask showing the man’s pained face.
“Don’t forget to scream all the way up,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn hit a hydraulic lever that opened the upper hatch.
Pacino could hear a bubbling sound as the trapped air out side the partition left the trunk. The chamber was now open to the sea, the surface 1,200 feet above, the only air what was trapped in the partition.
The men left one by one. Now it was Pacino’s turn.
Vaughn put on his hood, the high-pressure air filling it, the taste of it dry and coppery. Vaughn then filled his own and dropped the hose, looking at Pacino.
“Let’s go, sir. Don’t forget to scream. See you on the surface.”
Vaughn and Pacino ducked down, their heads popping underwater and emerging on the other side of the partition wall, now directly under the upper hatch. Vaughn went first.
In the dim light, still shining underwater, Pacino saw Vaughn rise up through the circle of the hatch and vanish.
Just for a moment, Pacino was tempted to shut the upper hatch and go back into the chamber, but Vaughn’s words rang in his ears. What would the XO tell the crew?
Pacino felt his way, the air in his hood making him buoyant. He pushed himself up, the hood pulling him upward. He put his hands on the hatchway, guided himself out, and as he passed out the hatch he said the words aloud, knowing there was no one else to do it.
“Seawolf, departing.”
The light shone weakly from the open hatch. He had the briefest impression of the green hull extending into the darkness fore and aft, the hull ending at a jagged rip. He let go of the metal of the hatch, surprised that he could still feel something with his fingers, and now he looked up, beginning to feel the water flow as he began to rise.
It was a strange sensation being in arctic seawater, body numb, knowing it was a quarter-mile to the surface. He wondered if he was succumbing to nitrogen narcosis, rapture of the deep, a drunkenness from the toxicity of nitrogen at the high partial pressures. He looked up to the surface, seeing only blackness, and he screamed, screamed to prevent his lungs from exploding as he moved into shallower and shallower water with the easing of the pressure, but he also screamed because he felt like screaming.
“Ho ho ho! Ho ho ho! Ho ho ho!”
The shout they’d taught them all at sub school when they’d made a simulated escape from 100 feet. Back then it had seemed a lark, an adventure. Today it was something else.
He screamed and screamed.
* * *
“Listen to this. Captain.”
Kane took his eyes from the periscope and joined Mcdonne at the speaker of the UWT system. There was a multitude of bubbles, rushing noises, and what sounded like screaming.
“Must be a school of whales,” Kane said, returning to his periscope. He
lit the low-light enhancer and gasped. “We’ve got open water here. We’ve got to get the blower ready to go.
God knows how much power we have left. It could be gone.”
“Houser, line up the system. Prepare to surface.”
“AFT COMPARTMENT, CAPTAIN, WE ARE PREPARING TO SURFACE. PUT A FIVE-DEGREE UP ANGLE ON THE SHIP USING THE STERNPLANES. I SAY AGAIN—”
Kane nodded. They might have no power at the surface but at least they would be where the world could see them, and the only power he would need was enough to transmit on the HF radio distress signal.
Then they would have to wait. Wait… The hull inclined upward. Mcdonne and Houser were pumping out the depth-control tanks and getting ready to blow out the water from the ballast tanks with the low-pressure blower. Kane could only hope there would be enough battery power left just to do that.
“Scope’s breaking,” he called as the phosphorescence flashed against the periscope view. He turned off the light enhancer. The light from the surface was diffuse, as it would be in the dawn, perhaps an overcast dawn. “Scope’s clear.”
Kane spun the instrument in several circles, his vision obscured by fog and dense clouds close to the surface as well as the snowflakes whipping by the lens of the periscope. He found himself looking at the snow instead of the horizon.
The snowflakes were distracting, Kane thought, as he realized he’d never seen snow at sea. “Open the induction mast and put the low-pressure blower on all main ballast tanks.”
He picked up the UWT mike.
“AFT COMPARTMENT, CAPTAIN. WE ARE STARTING A LOW-PRESSURE BLOW ON THE BALLAST TANKS. TRY TO KEEP THE EPM UP FOR ANOTHER TEN MINUTES.”
He dropped the mike and looked out the scope, watching as the sea got lower. The added height did little to improve visibility in the snowstorm. Even as he watched, the wind picked up, the snowflakes suddenly accelerating almost to the horizontal in the wind. The waves sprouted whitecaps in the gust. Kane could almost feel the deck heel over from the force of the wind on the sail. He trained the view to the left, to the east, hoping to see a brightness from the sun, but the clouds were just as dense where the sun should have been.
Kane bit back disappointment. He had hoped to see the sun again, to seal the ordeal behind him and remind him that he was alive. Instead, there was a blizzard. He trained his view to the left, to the east, saw the sun rise over the horizon, a sight he had never thought he would see again.
The roar of the blower started, the ballast tanks filling with water. Soon they should be stable on the surface and he could talk to the men aft face to face on the hull.
Within ten minutes he could see the top of the hull in the gray water. The ballast tanks were dry, the ship surfaced.
“Secure the blow.” He picked up the microphone.
“AFT COMPARTMENT, CAPTAIN, WE ARE ON THE SURFACE. ALL STOP. OPEN YOUR ESCAPE TRUNK HATCH AND COME UP FORWARD.”
He trained the view aft, and watched as the hatch slowly popped open, the haggard men climbing from the hatch, looking dazed at the falling snow, unsure of whether to rejoice at reaching the surface or curse to be in the middle of a winter storm. As they walked they hugged themselves against the cold.
“XO, get those guys in here from the aft hatch.”
Mcdonne left to get the engineroom crew in. Kane looked out the periscope for a few minutes. They had, by God, lived. The Phoenix now drifted in the
sea, its battery nearly dead.
He realized he needed to get to radio. He left Houser on the periscope and found Binghamton in the room, his parka and gloves on, his breath coming out in clouds.
“Can you bump up the bigmouth?” were Binghamton’s first words. Kane called the request to Houser. Binghamton handed Kane the microphone and they listened to static for a few minutes, then Binghamton waved Kane on.
“Norfolk Navcom, this is Echo Five November with an urgent Navy Blue, over.”
In the control room Houser took his face from the periscope and looked at the speaker of the UWT, disbelief in his eyes. It was unmistakable … “… ho ho ho! Ho ho ho! …”
There were many voices, the call repeated over and over, the sounds coming in distorted like a Halloween tape recording made for a haunted house. But haunted spirits up north, here at the top of the world?
Or was that ho-ho-hoing something to do with … Ho ho ho, like they’d learned in submarine school? An emergency escape? The other submarine, the one that was to take care of the Destiny but had shot at them, forcing them to run, and then what had happened, no one knew. Maybe the Destiny had won. It seemed to have left them alone so far but—
* * *
“Ho ho ho!”
It was worse than any nightmare Pacino had ever had. The sea around him was a black darkness. It was so cold he could feel his body shutting down. It was all he could do to continue to shout ho-ho-ho, his screams getting weaker the higher he rose. But then he began to hear things, his ears already damaged from the Vortex launch and the explosions, but now he could swear he heard a ghostly voice echoing through the deep saying strange things … Compartment, Captain, right twenty degrees rudder … level the ship … low-pressure blow … Captain …
An auditory hallucination … what else could it be? But it seemed so real, the voice so large, coming from a giant throat and echoing through the water.
“Ho ho ho,” he screamed.
The ascent seemed to go on forever. At last the sounds of the voices stopped. In the final hundred feet of his ascent he lost consciousness, no longer aware when the voice rang out through the deep again. He had stopped shouting but was breathing rapidly, his lungs giving up the air, which was fortunate … if he had breathed any slower he might have had his lungs explode.
He rose until the light from the rising sun penetrated the surface. He blasted through the surface, rising until only his shins were submerged, then splashed back down, floating in the water buoyed up by his Steinke hood. He never felt the arms grab him and pull him into the raft.
FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
Admiral Donchez stared at the plate-glass window at the building’s entrance. The snow had finally stopped, but the plows would still take a long time even to get to the primary roads. The drifts were as tall as houses, the snow in the flats almost waist-high. All Donchez wanted was to get out of this prison.
“Admiral? Another signal for you, sir. It’s in the comm center.”
Donchez rubbed his bloodshot eyes as he followed the radio tech sergeant.
In the comm center he took the message form. It was another message from Pacino! He could scarcely believe it.
DATE/TIME: TIME OF RECEIPT OF SLOT MESSAGE
FROM: USS SEAWOLF SSN-21
TO: C.N.O WASHINGTON, DC // CINCLANT NORFOLK, VA // COMSUBLANT NORFOLK, VA
SUBJ: CONTACT REPORT NO. 4
//BT//
1. SEAWOLF DOWN, THIS POSITION.
2. PLEASE HURRY.
//BT//
“Mother of God,” he muttered. He caught Fred Rummel’s eye. “Fred, get me Admiral Steinman on the secure voice.
And get me a weather report for the Davis Strait and the Labrador Sea. Now, dammit!”
All he could hope for was that the storm hadn’t moved off to the northeast, that it had gone out due west, maybe even curved to the south. While he waited he couldn’t help wondering what had become of the Destiny. And the Phoenix.
He had heard nothing.
No sonic booms had been heard across Canada, nor any in the northeastern U.S. If the Destiny had launched, the missile would have landed by now. Pacino must have stopped the Destiny’s launch and was alive. At least for the moment.
Please hurry.
Hang on, Mikey.
When Steinman’s voice came over, Donchez began speaking, the action allowing him to fight off the images of his surrogate son and friend at risk of dying in the frozen north.
* * *
Chief Nelson found Kane in the radio room, still trying to get through.
“Sir, we have only minutes left on the battery. If you can, you’ve got to hurry up with that distress signal. The battery breaker will be popping open at any minute.”
“Dammit. Norfolk Navcom, this is Echo Five November, Navy Blue to follow, over.”
Nothing but static.
“I’m going to transmit in the blind. Senior Chief. If they get it, they get it … Navcom, Navcom, Navcom, this is Echo Five November. Navy Blue as follows. Estimated position very rough at six three degrees three zero minutes. November, five eight degrees two zero minutes whiskey. We are drifting with battery almost dead. Urgent you pick us up as soon as possible, with airlift if available. I say again, Navy Blue as follows.” Kane read the message again.
There was no response, just the whine of the static. Suddenly the room plunged into darkness.
“Guess that’s it. Captain,” Binghamton said, tossing his headset to the deck and clicking on the battle lantern. “This boat’s just a big life raft now.” Life raft. Bad joke.
The battle lanterns in the control room came up, then on through the upper level. Kane walked into his control room, amazed at how quiet it was with no ventilation, no firecontrol, no intercom system. A dead ship. Kane shivered and zipped his parka. It seemed much colder now without the lights even though the temperature had already been at freezing for hours.
Now all they could do was wait, and hope that Norfolk — or someone — had received their distress signal.
They wouldn’t last long in this dead hull.
FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
Donchez glared at both Captain Rummel and the communications technical sergeant. “Read it again,” he said.
“Signal means, “Navcom, Navcom, Navcom, this is Echo Five November’ — that’s the USS Phoenix, Admiral — “Navy Blue as follows. Estimated position very rough at six three degrees’ — garbled here, then — ‘minutes November’ — garbled again, then message concludes — ‘drifting with battery almost dead. Urgent you pick us up as soon as …’ The rest was static, Admiral.”
Donchez nodded and pulled Captain Rummel aside. “The weather?”
“The storm went up the coastline, sir. The Davis Strait and the Labrador Sea are in the middle of the worst of it. And there’s no reason to think it will ease up. As it goes north, the cold will make it real bad.”
“Great. Can we fly?”
“Bad visibility and high winds aloft. But yes, we can fly. We just won’t see anything.”
“The search-and-rescue guys. We need to get them working on this.”
“I know the skipper of the Navy Search and Rescue unit out of Kangamiu, Greenland. They’re the closest. We’ll get the Canadians on it too. But don’t get your hopes up, sir.”
“They never were up, but what’s on your mind?”
“With the storm and all, we’ll have a rough time of it. Even though we can fly, we may not see anything. And if we do see something, with the winds aloft, it’ll be a damned miracle if we can get down to it.”
“What options do we have?”
“Fly search-and-rescue or quit.”
“There you go. Well, this old man ain’t about to quit. Get on it, Fred.”
Donchez watched Rummel go. They had a partial location of the Phoenix, but what the hell would become of the Seawolf. Just what did “Seawolf down, this position” mean, anyway? Were the crew members trapped in a submerged hull? Or had they made it to the
surface and abandoned ship? It would take twenty hours to get a deep-submergence rescue vehicle to the Davis Strait if the weather were perfect, but the DSRV’s ungainly transport plane would not be able to get anywhere close until the storm eased. If Pacino and his men were in a sunken hull they’d have a long wait.
With no food and no heat and no oxygen.
KANGAMIU AIRFIELD, WESTERN GREENLAND
Lieutenant Commander Alex Crossfield stuffed the tobacco into his cheek. Crossfield had been an all-state offensive lineman at Milton High in the Florida Panhandle. Milton had been more Alabama than Florida, but being in Greenland when he was from the Sunbelt had been hell on earth. Why he had ever taken the promotion to come to this ice hole evaded him. Now almost forty, Crossfield still looked like he could block half the line of scrimmage of the meanest team in the South. He weighed in at 285. His neck was bigger than most men’s heads, his upper arms the size of thighs. A quiet and gentle man — he only needed to glance at one of his men to enforce some discipline. He had risen through the enlisted ranks, promoted in a now defunct chief-to-ensign program, and was fond of disparaging the officer ranks, although he had proved to be one of the best unit commanders Navy Search and Rescue had ever had.
As an enlisted man he had crewed in choppers, then gone on to be a maintenance-crew chief, where he caught the eye of the officer recruiters, who packed him off, put him through a brief hell and thought they’d put some kind of stamp on him by pinning ensign bars on his lapels, like somehow being commissioned would keep the salt from his language and the chewing tobacco from his mouth. It had done neither, and secretly Crossfield was surprised, perhaps even disappointed, that the officer promotion seemed permanent. He was sent to the Coast Guard for three years of cross-training, then to the NATO force commander for search-and-rescue in the Bosnian crisis, avoiding the Somalia involvement. By then he was a junior grade lieutenant, earning what he had been sure would be his last promotion.
An assignment with the Canadian Defense Force had taken two years, and the Canadians had taken to him. Soon he was a full lieutenant and shipped off to the Pacific. After a tour that seemed all too short in Pearl Harbor, he was zipped through a few Air Force SAR training courses, invariably held in the driest, hottest deserts, then dropped off in Greenland.
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