Icebound

11:59:47.

“Clear water. No ice overhead.”

11:59:49.

For the second time in ten minutes, a warning siren sounded, and EMERGENCY flashed in red on one of the overhead screens.

Gorov keyed up a display and found that another torpedo tube in the damaged area of the hull had partially succumbed: MUZZLE DOOR COLLAPSED IN FORWARD TORPEDO TUBE NUMBER FOUR. TUBE FILLED WITH WATER TO BREECH DOOR.

Pulling down a microphone, Gorov shouted, “Captain to torpedo room! Abandon your position and sell all watertight doors.”

“Oh, dear God,” said Emil Zhukov, the atheist.

“The breech doors will hold,” Gorov said with conviction, and he prayed that he was right.

11:59:59.

12:00:00.

“Brace yourselves!”

12:00:03

“What's wrong?”

“Where is it?”

12:00:07.

The concussion hit them. Transmitted through the shattering iceberg to the water and through the water to the hull, it was a surprisingly mild and distant rumble. Gorov waited for the power of the shock waves to escalate, but it never did.

The sonar operator reported massive fragmentation of the iceberg.

By 12:02, however, when sonar had not located a substantial fragment of ice anywhere near the Ilya Pogodin, Gorov knew they were safe. “Take her up.”

The control-room crew let out a cheer.

AFTER…

[1]

JANUARY 18

DUNDEE, SCOTLAND

Shortly before noon, two and a half days after escaping from their prison of ice, the survivors arrived in Scotland.

Ever since he had escaped on a small boat with his father from mainland China so many years ago, George Lin had not cared much for travel by sea, whether above or below the waves, and he was relieved to be on land once more.

The weather was neither severe nor mild for winter in Dundee. The flat gray sky was low and threatening. The temperature was twenty degrees Fahrenheit. A cold wind swept in from the North Sea, making the water leap and curl across the entire length of the Firth of Tay.

More than one hundred newsman from all over the world had flown to Dundee to report on the conclusion of the Edgeway story. With friendly sarcasm, a man from The New York Times had dubbed the place “Dandy Dundee” more than twenty-four hours ago, and the name had stuck. Among themselves, reporters apparently had gotten more conversational mileage from the bone-chilling weather than from the news event that they were there to cover.

Even after debarking from the Pogodin at 12:30 and standing in the brisk breeze for nearly an hour, George still enjoyed the feel of the wind on his face. It smelled clean and so much better than the canned air of the submarine. And it was neither so cold nor so fierce that he needed to fear frostbite, which was a vast improvement over the weather with which he had lived for the past few months.

Pacing energetically back and forth at the edge of the wharf, followed by a covey of reporters, he said, “This boat — isn't she a beautiful sight?”

Anchored in a deepwater berth behind him, the submarine was flying an enormous Russian flag and, for courtesy, a Scottish flag of somewhat smaller dimensions. Sixty-eight crewmen were in two facing lines on the main deck, all in dress blues and navy pea coats, standing at attention for a ceremonial inspection. Nikita Gorov, Emil Zhukov, and the other officers looked splendid in their uniforms and gray winter parade coats with brass buttons. A number of dignitaries were also on the bridge and on the railed gangplank that connected the submarine to the dock: a representative of Her Majesty's government, the Russian ambassador to Britain, two of the ambassador's aides, the mayor of Dundee, two representatives of the United Nations, and a handful of functionaries from the Russian trade embassy in Glasgow.

One of the photographers asked George to pose beside a weathered concrete piling with the Ilya Pogodin as a backdrop. Smiling broadly, he obliged.

A reported asked him what it felt like to be a hero on the front pages of the newspapers worldwide.

“I'm no hero,” George said at once. He turned to point at the officers and crew of the boat behind him. “They are the heroes here.”

[2]

JANUARY 20

EDGEWAY STATION

During the night, the wind velocity began to fall for the first time in five days. By morning, ice spicules stopped ticking against the roof and walls of the communications shack, and soft snowflakes filled the air again. The violent storms in the extreme North Atlantic had begun to break up.

Shortly after two o'clock that afternoon, Gunvald Larsson finally established contact with the United States military base at Thule, Greenland. The American radio operator immediately reported that the Edgeway Project had been suspended for the remainder of the winter. “We've been asked to bring you off the icecap. If we get the good weather they're predicting, we should be able to come for you the day after tomorrow. Will that be enough time to close down your buildings and machinery?”

'Yes, plenty of time,” Gunvald said, “but for God's sake, never mind about that! What's happened to the others? Are they alive?”

The American was embarrassed. “Oh, I'm sorry. Of course, you couldn't know, isolated as you've been.” He read two of the newspaper stories and then added what else he knew.

After five days of continuous tension, Gunvald decided that a celebration was in order. He lit his pipe and broke out the vodka.

[3]

JANUARY 25

E-MAIL MESSAGE

TRANSMITTED FROM

MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA,

TO PARIS, FRANCE

Claude, Franz, and I got here January 23. Within in an hour of arrival, both the taxi driver who brought us from the airport and the hotel clerk referred to us as “an unlikely group.” Man, they don't know the half of it.

Can't get enough sun. Even I'm acquiring a tan.

I think I've met the woman of my dreams. Her name is Majean. Franz got picked up in the bar by a modern