Such undersea hydrophones will surely pick up the Neva as we initiate our transit. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to approach Lancaster Sound from the other direction, by way of the M’Clurc Straits?”
Quick to support Sergei was his senior lieutenant.
“I agree with the captain. Three months ago, the Neva attempted to penetrate the Nares Strait and enter the waters of Baffin Bay undetected. After carefully skirting the known SOS US station at Alert, off the northeastern coast of Ellesmere Island, we activated our anechoic masking system and cautiously continued southward. Yet for all our circumspection, waiting for us as we entered Baffin basin was a US Navy P-3 Orion that was able to tag us with an active sonobuoy on its very first pass. Surely this indicates that no matter how stealthily we might travel, the Nares Strait’s SOS US line will be able to pick us up.”
“I appreciate the wise feedback, comrades,” Admiral Kharkov responded.
“And under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t hesitate to heed your excellent advice. But we currently find ourselves in a situation where time is of the essence. For it’s imperative that we reach Lancaster Sound with all due haste.”
“But the American’s will be waiting for us,” repeated Viktor.
“To hell with the Americans!” exclaimed Mikhail Kharkov passionately.
“I don’t give a damn if their SOS US line does indeed pick us up, for we’ll be in and out of there long before the pathetic Imperialists will be able to react to our presence.”
Again the admiral snapped his fingers, and in instant response, Konstantin Zinyagin once more unfolded another chart. This one was of a meteorological variety, and as the two senior submariners looked on, Mikhail Kharkov was quick to explain it.
“Please note the series of tight circular lines that are located off the northern coast of Baffin Island. This unique pattern is indicative of an intense low-pressure system. The chart that you see before you was compiled from data relayed to the Neva by way of the Salyut space station. Red Flag. It is less than three hours old, and shows a storm of great magnitude, currently stalled over the waters of Lancaster Sound.
Since it appears that this powerful system will be influencing the region for at least forty-eight more hours, we can forget about the threat of encountering any type of observation from above. No airman in his right mind would brave such a blizzard. And concerning the possibility of meeting up with a surface vessel, I think this photo speaks for itself.”
Quick to take the hint, the Zampolit uncovered a large glossy, black and white photograph and handed it to Sergei Markova. As Belenko leaned over to take a look at the picture, the Admiral of the Fleet continued his narrative.
“What you are now seeing has also been relayed to us by Red Flag; I took the liberty of bringing it along with me from Murmansk Fleet headquarters. Taken two days ago, it shows the Canadian Coast Guard cutter, Louis St. Laurent, hopelessly trapped in the ice to the west of Lancaster Sound. This pitifully weak icebreaker is the only ship in the entire Imperialist fleet that could possibly give us any trouble. And unless the spring thaw comes six months early this year, the Neva won’t have to worry about sharing these waters with a boatload of crazed Canucks.”
As he placed the photograph back on the wardroom table, Sergei Markova voiced himself.
“This is all rather fascinating. Admiral. But I still don’t understand why it’s so urgent for us to get into the waters of Lancaster Sound.”
“Of course you don’t, Captain,” Kharkov answered.
“But if you’ll hear me out a bit longer, all your confusion will soon be gone.”
Pushing his chair back and standing at this point, the white-haired veteran continued, his voice strong with conviction.
“Taking it for granted that the Neva will successfully reach Lancaster Sound in the minimum amount of time, I will need five members of the crew. These men have got to be tough enough to take an inordinate amount of physical punishment, and they must have resolute characters. They will be outfitted with special Arctic survival gear that has already been brought onto the ship, and will leave the Neva under my command, once the vessel has surfaced in a suitable polynya.
“At this point I will utilize a directional homing device to locate the Flying Kremlin’s cockpit voice recorder, or, as it is more commonly known, its black box. Such an instrument contains a specially constructed cassette tape on which a full account of the flight is recorded. Hopefully this black box can be located before its battery pack runs low, and the ultrasonic beacon it continually projects stops transmitting.
The Salyut space station Red Flag has already picked up this signal, and has definitely traced its origin to somewhere on the northern shore of Baffin Island. Unfortunately, these were the most accurate coordinates that could be relayed to us.”
“How long before this battery is scheduled to fail?” questioned Sergei.
Glad to see that the captain was following him, the admiral replied.
“The best estimate gives us another seventy-two hours before the transmissions stop.”
“Then no wonder it’s so important we get there with such haste,” reflected Viktor Belenko.
“Precisely, comrade,” responded Mikhail Kharkov, as a hint of gathering excitement flavored his tone.
“If the fates are with us, then the black box will be successfully retrieved. And once it’s conveyed back to the Neva, I will be able to complete an almost-instant analysis of the tape’s composition by using the ship’s computer and a special software program that is curntly locked in my cabin’s safe. Within minutes, we’ll soon enough know the true nature of the disaster that led to our Premier’s tragic passing. And if it’s indeed learned that a Yankee missile was responsible for the Flying Kremlin’s demise, then the Neva’s next mission will be one of pure revenge!”
These last words rang out with a threatening intensity, and as the Neva’s two senior officers shared the briefest of concerned glances, the wardroom’s intercom rang. Without hesitating, Viktor Belenko reached out for the nearby plastic handset.
“Senior Lieutenant, here … Why of course, Chief.
You may stand down from Hank speed at once. I’ll join you in the engine room to assess the situation.”
No sooner did Viktor hang up the handset than Admiral Kharkov exploded with rage.
“How dare you cut the Neva’s speed! Haven’t you been listening to a single thing I’ve said?”
Barely paying this outburst any attention, Viktor stood and directly addressed Sergei Markova.
“That was Chief Engineer Koslov, Captain. It seems we’ve got a problem in the engine room. The main seal to the propeller shaft is leaking.”
Immediately standing himself, Sergei quickly backed up his subordinate’s decision.
“You acted correctly by allowing the chief to cut our speed, Senior Lieutenant. If this leak is a serious one, and we ignore it, this mission may well be over long before it’s even started. Come on, comrade, let’s get down there and inspect the damages.”
As the two officers rushed off toward the aft portion of the boat. Admiral of the Fleet Mikhail Kharkov vainly tried to control his rising frustration.
Directly meeting the empty look projected from the Political Officer’s beady eyes, the white-haired veteran vented his anger.
“Well don’t just stand there like a complete moron, Comrade Zinyagin! Show me the quickest route to the engine room. And for the Motherland’s sake, don’t tarry! Why, this entire operation could be in jeopardy!”
Thusly motivated, the Zampolit led Mikhail Kharkov through the aft hatchway. The sweat was pouring off his forehead as he tried his best to lengthen his short stride. Yet try as he could to quicken his pace, the seventy-six-year-old veteran remained glued to his heels as Konstantin Zinyagin sprinted down a narrow passageway and began to descend a steep ladder. His palms were so wet that once his grasp faltered, and as the ladder’s steel rung slipped out of his right fingers, he found himself hanging precariousl
y by his left hand only.
“Can’t you do anything right, you uncoordinated idiot!” screamed the Admiral of the Fleet from above.
Desperately flailing out with his free hand to steady himself, the Political Officer’s grasp made contact with a vacant rung, and with his heart pounding away in his chest, he hung to it for a moment to regather his nerve. Yet a furious command all too soon had him resuming his downward climb.
“Move it, you fool! Or so help me, I’ll climb right over you!”
By the time they reached the engine room, Konstantin Zinyagin feared that he might keel over from a coronary. The out-of-shape Zampolit’s wheezing breaths were pained and irregular, while a tight knot had gathered in the left portion of his chest.
Completely oblivious to the Political Officer’s condition, Admiral
Kharkov expertly surveyed the chaotic scene before him. All of the action was focused on the extreme aft section of the compartment, where the end of the propeller shaft penetrated the hull.
Here a geyser of water shot through the air. A half-dozen soaked seamen were gathered beside the shaft and the excess water was already well over their ankles.
On the catwalk beside these sailors. Captain Markova and his senior lieutenant could be seen.
Both of these officers had flashlights in hand, and were angling the narrow beams of their battery-powered torches on the area of the hull where the faulty seal was located.
“Get those bilge pumps working. Chief!” cried Sergei Markova forcefully.
One of the seamen who had been gathered on the deck below the captain waved in response to this command. He was a barrel-chested, giant of a man, with bulging biceps and a short spiky crewcut. Ignoring the soaking that he was getting, the Chief turned around to head for the emergency pump activation switch. Yet as he pivoted, he lost his footing and fell awkwardly to the soaked deck with a splash. When he didn’t immediately pick himself up out of the water, Admiral Kharkov sensed that he could have had the wind knocked out of him. In such a compromising position, lying in the water as the chief was, a common injury could become most serious, yet his shipmates had turned their attention back to the leaking seal and seemed completely ignorant of their comrade’s plight.
It was like a scene from a nightmare: the Admiral of the Fleet screamed out to the sailors, but the constantly spraying water effectively veiled his shouts of warning. Prepared to pull the downed seaman off the deck himself, Kharkov was just about to intervene when the Neva’s captain bolted over the catwalk he had been standing on. With long, fluid strides Sergei Markova sloshed over the wet deck, reached the injured seaman’s side, and bent down to assist him.
The fallen man was soon sitting up on his own, rubbing the side of his head, and coughing up the water he had swallowed. Not stopping to celebrate this fact, the young captain, who was now thoroughly soaked, turned his attention back to the leak.
“Try backing up the shaft, Viktor!” screamed Markova to his senior lieutenant.
“Perhaps that will plug the seal.”
The admiral breathlessly watched as the Neva’s second-in-command sprinted over to the annunciator.
Seconds later, the shaft began spinning in reverse, and as the sub’s huge propeller bit into the surrounding seawater, the Neva shook wildly and trembled with such force that Mikhail Kharkov had to reach out to a nearby bulkhead to steady himself.
Cowering at the admiral’s side, the Zampolit looked at the veteran mariner, his eyes filled with horror, and somehow found the words to express his worst fears.
“And to think that all this is happening while we’re under the ice. We’ll never be able to get to surface again!”
Kharkov was all set to slap some sense into the cowardly Political Officer when a torrent of water exploded from the still-spinning shaft. This geyser shot through the air like a tidal wave, and with his own uniform now thoroughly soaked. Admiral Mikhail Kharkov sensed that something was seriously wrong. The roar of the spinning propeller rose to an almost deafening crescendo, and with the hull still wildly vibrating around him, the white-haired veteran found his own gut tightening with fear. For the first time since the closing days of the Great War, when an exploding Nazi depth charge almost sent his command to the bottom, he prepared himself for a painful but quick, watery death.
It was at that exact moment the leak sealed itself.
With the sound of spraying water suddenly absent, Captain Sergei Markova’s voice rang out clear and true.
“Stop the shaft, Viktor!”
As the senior lieutenant faithfully carried out this directive, the mad vibration finally halted. Noting that only a small trickle of water was now seeping through the seal, Kharkov listened as the Neva’s captain cried out forcefully.
“All ahead two-thirds, Viktor. She’ll hold now, I can just feel it!”
Once more the shaft began rotating. Yet this time as it started rapidly spinning, the trickle of leaking water stopped flowing completely. As the young captain had said, the seal had indeed held — the crisis was over!
Exhaling a grateful breath of relief. Admiral of the Fleet Mikhail Kharkov looked down to the man responsible for their salvation. Sergei Markova stood on the still partially flooded deck, his blue-eyed stare locked on the spinning shaft. With his wet blond hair slicked back off his forehead, the captain looked strikingly handsome, like a movie actor playing out a scene in a remarkably accurate set.
A sudden feeling of pride swelled in the old warrior’s chest. He had picked Sergei Markova to be a winner when the man was but a cadet in postgraduate school. As a secret patron, Mikhail had guided the young officer’s career from its very start, and he had been an instrumental force in getting Markova his current command. Certain now that he had picked the right man for the all-important mission that faced them, the white-haired veteran turned to head for his cabin and a change of clothing.
Chapter Ten
The storm struck Arctic Bay soon after the Aurora CP-140 aircraft carrying Lieutenant Jack Redmond and his squad of Rangers landed at the settlement’s primitive airport. With the gathering winds already beginning to strengthen in velocity, the commandoes hurriedly unpacked their gear. As Jack Redmond supervised this effort, his sergeant-major rushed into the adjoining town to see about getting the services of a dog team and sled to lead them across the ice fields.
The Rangers were in the process of carefully carrying their six snowmobiles out of the plane’s cargo bay and down onto the windswept tarmac when a short, powerfully built figure approached them. Dressed in a heavy, down-filled parka and wearing a distinctive dark blue hat, this individual climbed up into the plane’s rear cabin and quickly cornered the squad’s commanding officer.
“Excuse me, sir. You must be Jack Redmond. I’m Lieutenant Bill Elliot, the local representative of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Welcome to Arctic Bay.”
Redmond accepted the Mountie’s firm handshake and replied.
“Thank you. Lieutenant Elliot. Looks like we got here just in time to beat this storm. Eh?”
“You certainly did,” returned the Mountie.
“From what I understand, it’s going to be a real bad one. In fact, if this Aurora doesn’t get airborne in a hurry, they’ll be staying right here for at least the next thirty-six hours. May I ask what your exact plans are? The telephone briefing I got was a bit sketchy.”
With the wind howling in the background, and his men scurrying around them to unload the supplies, Redmond answered.
“We’re off for the northern portion of the Brodeur Peninsula. Seems Ottawa feels the plane carrying the Soviet Premier could have gone down here, and we’ve been dispatched to search for any debris that would prove it did. We’re particularly interested in finding the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder.”
“Sounds like you’ve certainly got your work cut out for you,” reflected the Mountie.
“Where do you plan on staying until the blizzard passes? We can’t offer much in the way of accommodations
here, but I think the school gymnasium could be outfitted with enough mattresses to hold you and your men.”
Jack Redmond shook his head.
“That won’t be necessary. Lieutenant. You see, we’ll be leaving for the Brodeur Peninsula within the hour.”
A look of total disbelief came to the Mountie’s face.
“You can’t be serious! Perhaps you didn’t understand, but we’ve got a nasty low-pressure system moving in from Lancaster Sound even as we speak.
Not far north of here, the winds have already been clocked at over sixty miles per hour, meaning plenty of blowing snow and temperatures well below minus thirty degrees.”
“I understand all too well. Lieutenant Elliot. But our orders don’t allow us the luxury of waiting for this blizzard to vent itself. We have no alternative but to proceed as directed.”
The Mountie still seemed flustered by what he was hearing.
“Good lord, man, this is ridiculous! This storm has all the makings of a killer, and it’s sheer lunacy to challenge it. Wouldn’t it be wise to first give your commander a call and inform him of the situation up here before needlessly putting your lives on the line?”
“I sincerely wish I could do just that. Lieutenant.
But my current orders come right from the Prime Minister’s office, and I’m not about to call Ottawa to give them a blooming weather report! No, my friend.
I’ve been instructed to get up there as quickly as possible, and I intend to do just that.”
Easing off, the Mountie reflected.
“Perhaps the Prime Minister has reason to believe there could be some survivors up there, though this is certainly the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Who can say?” retorted Redmond, softening his tone a bit.
“But orders are orders, and as Arctic Rangers, my men are prepared to take on just about anything that Mother Nature can throw our way.
Thanks for your concern. Lieutenant, and now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better give the lads some help with the rest of the gear. Otherwise, this plane crew is going to be stuck up here longer than they had anticipated.”
Under the Ice Page 18
