Ice Station

... and hit the steel hull of the submarine just below the torpedo port with a loud metallic clunk! The Maghook?with the live Tritonal charge attached to it?bounced off the thick steel hull of the sub and began to sink limply into the water.

Schofield couldn't believe it.

He'd missed!

 Shit! his mind screamed. And then suddenly another thought hit him.

The people inside the sub would have heard it. Must have heard it.

Schofield quickly hit the black button on his grip that reeled the Maghook in, hoped to hell that it got back to him before twenty seconds expired.

Have to get another shot.

 Have got to get another shot.

 The Maghook began to reel itself in.

And then suddenly Schofield heard another noise.

Vmmmmmm.

 Off to his left, on the other side of the bow, one of the other torpedo doors was opening!

This door was smaller than the one Schofield had tried to shoot his Maghook into.

Smaller torpedoes, Schofield thought. Ones that are designed to kill other subs, not whole ice stations.

And then with a sudden whoooosh! a compact white torpedo whizzed out from the newly-opened torpedo port and rolled through the water toward Schofield.

Schofield couldn't believe it.

They had fired a torpedo at him!

 The Maghook returned to its launcher and Schofield quickly pressed the arm-disarm switch on the Tritonal charge?with four seconds to spare?just as the torpedo shot past his waist, its wash knocking him over in the water.

Schofield breathed with relief. He was too close. The torpedo hadn't had time to get a lock on him.

It was then that the torpedo slammed into the iceberg behind him and detonated hard.

Renshaw was standing on the edge of the iceberg, looking down into the water, when the torpedo hit, about twenty yards away.

In an instant, a whole segment of the iceberg exploded in a cloud of white and just fell away into the ocean like a landslide, cut clean from the rest of the massive berg.

'Yikes,' Renshaw breathed in awe.

And then suddenly he saw Schofield surface about twenty yards out, saw him gulp in a lungful of air, and then he saw the lieutenant go under again.

With the sound of the torpedo's explosion still reverberating through the water all around him, and a large slice of the iceberg plunging into the water behind him, Schofield aimed his Maghook at the torpedo port a second time.

2:59:37

2:59:38

2:59:39

Once again, he pressed the arm switch on the Tritonal charge?twenty seconds?and fired.

The Maghook shot through the water ...

... hung there for a long time ...

... and then disappeared inside the torpedo port.

Yes!

 Schofield quickly pressed the button marked 'm' on his grip, and inside the torpedo tube the magnetic head of the Maghook responded immediately by releasing its grip on the silver-and-green Tritonal charge.

Then Schofield reeled in the Maghook, leaving the Tritonal charge inside the torpedo tube. And then he swam. Swam for all he was worth.

Inside the torpedo room of the French submarine, the world was deathly silent. A young Ensign called the countdown.

'Vingt secondes de premier lancer,' he said. Twenty seconds to primary launch. Twenty seconds to the launch of the eraser, a nuclear-tipped Neptune-class torpedo.

'Dix-neuf... dix-huit... dix-sept...'

From the iceberg Renshaw saw Schofield break the surface, saw him swimming frantically through the water, Maghook in hand.

The French Ensign's count continued. 'Dix ... neuf... huit... sept...'

Schofield was swimming hard, trying to put as much distance between himself and the sub as he could, because if he was too close when the Tritonal charge went off, the implosion would suck him right in. He'd been ten yards away when he'd fired the Tritonal charge. Now he was twenty yards away. He figured twenty-five and he would be OK.

Renshaw was yelling at him, 'What the hell is happening!'

'Get away from the edge!' Schofield yelled as he swam. 'Move!'

'Cinq ... quatre ... trois ...'

The French Ensign's count never got beyond 'three.' Because at that moment?at that terrible, stunning moment?the Tritonal charge inside the torpedo tube suddenly went off.

From where Renshaw stood, the underwater explosion was absolutely spectacular, and all the more so because it was unexpected.

It was instantaneous. The dark shadow under the surface that was the French submarine spontaneously erupted into an enormous cloud of white. An immense spray of water fifty feet high and two hundred feet long shot up out of the water and fell slowly back down to earth.

From water level, Schofield saw a horde of monstrous blue bubbles suddenly begin to billow out from a gaping hole in the bow of the submarine, like tentacles reaching out for him. And then just as suddenly they began to retrace their steps and, with terrifying force, the bubbles shot back in toward the submarine and Schofield suddenly felt himself getting sucked back toward the sub.

Implosion.

 At that moment, the massive French sub collapsed in on itself like a great big aluminium can and the suction from the implosion ceased. Schofield felt the water's grip on him relax, and he let himself float to the surface. The submarine was gone.

A few minutes later, Renshaw pulled him out of the water and dragged him up onto the iceberg.

Schofield dropped down onto the ice?breathing hard, soaking wet, freezing cold. He was gasping for breath, his body overwhelmed with fatigue, and at that moment?with the French submarine destroyed and himself and Renshaw hopelessly marooned on an iceberg?the only thing in the world that Shane Schofield wanted to do was sleep.

In the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the NATO conference reconvened.

George Holmes, the U.S. representative, leaned back in his chair as he watched Pierre Dufresne, the head of the French delegation, stand to speak.

'My fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen,' Dufresne began, 'the Republic of France would like to express its