Icebound

more putting assassins and saboteurs ashore. Saving lives now, Nikki. I know I can do it. I'm not going to let them die. That's a promise.”

He was squeezing the photograph so tightly that his fingers were pale, bloodless.

The silence in the cabin was oppressive, for it was the silence of the other world to which Nikki had gone, the silence of lost love, of a future that would never happen, of stillborn dreams.

Someone walked by Gorov's door, whistling.

As if the whistle were a slap in the face, the captain twitched and sat up straight, suddenly aware of how maudlin he had become. He was privately humiliated. Sentimentalism would not help him adjust to his loss; sentimentality was a corruption of the legacy of good memories and laughter that this honest and good-hearted boy had left behind.

Annoyed with himself, Gorov put down the photograph. He got to his feet and left the cabin.

Lieutenant Timoshenko had been off duty for the past four hours. He had eaten dinner and napped for two hours. Now, at eight-forty-five, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, he had returned to the communications center once more, preparing to take the last watch of the day, which would end at one o'clock in the morning. One of his subordinates manned the equipment while Timoshenko sat at a corner desk, reading a magazine and drinking hot tea from an aluminum mug.

Captain Gorov stepped in from the companionway. “Lieutenant, I believe it's time to make direct radio contact with those people on the iceberg.”

Timoshenko put down his tea and got up. “Will we be surfacing again, sir?”

“In a few minutes.”

“Do you want to talk to them?”

“I'll leave that to you,” Gorov said.

“And what should I tell them?”

Gorov quickly explained what they had found on their trip around the huge island of ice — the hopelessly stormy seas on the windward side, the sheer wall on the leeward side — and outlined his plans for the breeches buoy. “And tell them that from here on out, we'll keep them informed of our progress, or lack of it, every step of the way.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gorov turned to go.

“Sir? They're certain to ask — do you think we've a good chance of saving them?”

“Not good, no. Only fair.”

“Should I be honest with them?”

“I think that's best.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But also tell them that if it's at all humanly possible, we'll do it, one way or the other. No matter what the odds against, by God, we'll try our damnedest to get them off. I'm more determined about that than I've been about anything else in my life. Tell them that, Lieutenant. Make sure you tell them that.”

8:57

Harry was surprised to hear his mother tongue spoken so fluently by a Russian radio operator. The man sounded as though he had taken a degree at a good middle-level university in Britain. English was the official language of the Edgeway expedition, as it was of nearly every multinational scientific study group. But somehow it seemed wrong for a Russian submariner to speak it so flawlessly. Gradually, however, as Timoshenko explained why the leeward flank was the only avenue of approach to the iceberg worth investigating, Harry became accustomed to the man's fluency and to his decidedly English accent.

“But if the berg is five hundred yards wide,” Harry said, “why couldn't your men come on from one end or the other?”

“Unfortunately, the sea is as stormy at either end as it is on the windward side.”

“But a breeches buoy,” Harry said doubtfully. “It can't be easy to rig one of those between two moving points, and in this weather.”

“We can match speeds with the ice pretty much dead on, which makes it almost like rigging between two stationary points. Besides, a breeches buoy is only one of our options. If we're unable to make it work, we'll get to you some other way. You needn't worry about that.”

“Wouldn't it be simpler to send divers across to the ice? You must have scuba equipment aboard.”

“And we've a number of well-trained frogmen,” Timoshenko said. “But even the leeward sea is much too rough for them. These waves and currents would carry them away as quickly as if they leaped into a waterfall.”

“We certainly don't want anyone put at too great a risk on our behalf. It wouldn't make sense to lose some people to save others. From what you said, your captain sounds confident. So I guess we're better off leaving all the worrying to you. Have you anything else to tell me?”

“That's all for the moment,” Timoshenko said. “Stay by your radio. We'll keep you informed of developments.”

Everyone except Harry and George had something to say about the call from the Ilya Pogodin's communications officer — suggestions about preparations to be made for the rescue party, ideas about how they might be able to help the Russians scale the leeward wall — and everyone seemed determined to say it first, now, instantly. Their voices, echoes of their voices, and echoes of the echoes filled the ice cave.

Harry acted as a moderator and tried to keep them from jabbering on to no point.

When George Lin saw that their excitement had begun to abate and that they were growing quieter, he finally joined the group and faced Harry. He had something to say after all, and he had only been waiting until he was certain he would be heard. “What was a Russian submarine doing in this part of the world?”

“This part of the world?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I'm afraid I don't, George.”

“It doesn't belong here.”

“But these are international waters.”

“They're a long way from Russia.”

“Not all that far, actually.”

Lin's face was distorted by anger, and his voice was strained. “But how did they learn about us?”

“From monitoring radio reports, I suppose.”

“Exactly. Precisely,” Lin said, as if he had proved a point. He looked at Fischer and then at Claude, searching for a supporter. “Radio reports. Monitoring.” He turned to Roger Breskin. “And why would the Russians be monitoring communications in this part of the world?” When Breskin shrugged, Lin said, “I'll tell you why. For the same reason this Lieutenant Timoshenko speaks English so well: The Pogodin is on a surveillance mission. It's a goddamned spy ship, that's what it is.”

“Most likely,” Claude agreed, “but that's hardly a startling revelation, George. We may not like it much, but we all know how the world works.”

“Of course it's a spy ship,” Fischer said. “If it had been a nuclear-missile sub, one of their doomsday boats, they wouldn't even let us know they were in the area. They wouldn't allow one of those to break security. We're lucky it's a spy ship, actually, something they're willing to compromise.”

Lin was clearly baffled by their lack of outrage, but he was determined to make them see the situation with the same degree of alarm that he himself obviously felt. “Listen to me, think about this: It isn't just a spy ship.” His voice rose on the last few words. His hands were at his sides, opening and closing repeatedly, almost spastically. “It's carrying motorized rafts, for God's sake, and the equipment to rig a breeches buoy to point on land. That means it puts spies ashore in other countries, saboteurs and maybe even assassins, probably puts them ashore in our own countries.”