Steve Berry
The Charlemagne Pursuit
Study the past, if you would divine the future.
The Ancient Masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive
. The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable.
Because it is unfathomable, all we can do is describe their appearance.
Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream.
Alert, like men aware of danger.
Courteous, like visiting guests. Yielding, like ice about to melt.
Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood.
He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.
PROLOGUE
'Depth?' he called out.
'Six hundred feet.'
'What's beneath us?'
'Another two thousand feet of cold water.'
His gaze raked the active dials, gauges, and thermometers. In the tiny conn the helmsman sat to his right, the planesman squeezed in on the left. Both men kept their hands locked on control sticks. Power flickered on and off.
'Slow to two knots.'
The submarine lurched in the water.
The alarm stopped. The conn went dark.
'Captain, report from reactor room. Circuit breaker has blown on one of the control rods.'
He knew what had happened. The safety mechanisms built into the temperamental thing had automatically dropped the other rods-the reactor had scrammed, shut itself down. Only one possible course of action. 'Switch to batteries.'
Dim emergency lights came on. His engineering officer, Flanders, a neat and deliberate professional on whom he'd come to depend, stepped into the conn. Malone said, 'Talk to me, Tom.'
'I don't know how bad it is or how long it's going to take to fix, but we need to lighten the electrical load.'
They'd lost power before, several times in fact, and he knew batteries could provide temporary power for as long as two days provided they were careful. His crew had trained rigorously for just this kind of situation, but once a reactor scrammed the manual said it had to be restarted within an hour. If more time passed, then the boat had to be taken to the nearest port.
And that was fifteen hundred miles away.
'Shut down everything we don't need,' he said.
'Captain, it's going to be hard holding her steady,' the helmsman noted.
He understood Archimedes' law. An object that weighed the same as an equal volume of water would neither sink nor float. Instead it would remain level at neutral buoyancy. Every sub functioned by that basic rule, kept underwater with engines that drove it forward. Without power, there'd be no engines, no diving planes, no momentum. All problems that could easily be alleviated by surfacing, but above them wasn't open ocean. They were pinned beneath a ceiling of ice.
'Captain, engine room reports a minor leak in the hydraulic plant.'
'Minor leak?' he asked. 'Now?'
'It was noticed earlier, but with the power down they request permission to shut a valve to stop the leak so a hose can be replaced.'
Logical. 'Do it. And I hope that's the end of the bad news.' He turned toward the sonar tech. 'Anything in front of us?'
Submariners all took their cues from others who'd sailed before them, and those who'd first fought frozen seas passed down two lessons. Never hit anything frozen if you don't have to and, if that's not possible, place the bow to the ice, push gently, and pray.
'Clean ahead,' sonar reported.
'Starting to drift,' the helmsman said.
'Compensate. But go easy on the power.'
The sub's nose suddenly pitched down.
'What the hell?' he muttered.
'Stern planes have gone to full dive,' yelled the planesman, who rose to his feet and pulled back on the control stick. 'I can't get them to respond.'
'Blount,' Malone hollered. 'Help him.'
The man fled the sonar station and rushed to assist. The downward angle increased. Malone gripped the plotting table as everything that wasn't attached tumbled forward in a wild avalanche.
'Emergency plane control,' he barked.
The angle increased.
'Beyond forty five degrees,' the helmsman reported. 'Still on full dive. Not working.'
Malone gripped the table harder and fought to maintain his balance.
'Nine hundred feet and dropping.'
The depth indicator changed so fast the numbers blurred. The boat was rated to three thousand feet, but the bottom was coming up fast and the outside water pressure was rising-too much, too fast, and the hull would implode. But slamming into the seabed in a powered dive wasn't a pleasant prospect, either.
Only one thing left to do.
'All back emergency. Blow all ballast tanks.'
The boat shook as machinery obeyed his command. Propellers reversed and compressed air thundered into tanks, forcing water out. The helmsman held tight. The planesman readied himself for what Malone knew was coming.
Positive buoyancy returned.
The descent slowed.
The bow angled upward, then leveled.
'Control the flow,' he ordered. 'Keep us neutral. I don't want to go up.'
