icebreaker on a seventy-five-degree turn to port, scanning the echo sounder for any underwater spurs that might have protruded from the berg. The icebreaker's stout hull was built to withstand a hard blow from solid ice, but Gillespie saw no reason to cause even the slightest damage to its steel plates.
He skirted the berg from less than three hundred yards, a safe distance but still near enough for the crew and scientists on the outside deck to stare up at the icy cliffs towering above. It was a strange and wonderful sight. Soon the palisades slipped by, as the ship circled the huge mass and turned into the open pack beyond.
Suddenly, another vessel sailed into view, having been hidden behind the berg. Gillespie was astonished to identify the encroaching ship as a submarine. The undersea craft was sailing through an open lead in the ice and passing on a course that took it directly across the icebreaker's great bow from port to starboard.
The helmsman acted before Gillespie's orders issued across the bridge. He sized up the situation, judged the submarine's speed, and threw the icebreaker's big port diesel engine into Full Reverse. It was a wise maneuver, one that might have saved the White Star liner Titanic. Rather than reversing both engines in a futile effort to halt the momentum of the big icebreaker, he kept the starboard engine on Half Ahead. With one propeller thrusting the Polar Storm forward and the other pulling it backward, the ship began turning far more sharply than a simple rudder command. Everyone on the bridge stood mesmerized, as the big bow's direction slowly angled from the sub's hull toward the wake behind its stern.
There was no time for a warning, no time for communications between the two vessels. Gillespie hit the great horn on the icebreaker and shouted over the intercom for the crew and scientists to brace for a collision. There was a cloud of restrained frenzy on the bridge.
'Come on, baby,' the helmsman pleaded. 'Turn, turn!'
Evie stared enraptured for a few moments before the business and professional side of her mind shifted into gear. She quickly snatched her camera out of its case, checked the settings, and began snapping pictures. Through the range finder she saw no crew on the deck of the submarine, no officers standing in the top of the conning tower. She paused to refocus her lens, when she saw the submarine's bow slip beneath the ice pack as it began to crash dive.
The two ships closed. Gillespie was certain the massive reinforced bow of the icebreaker would crush the pressure hull of the submarine. But a sudden burst of speed from the undersea vessel, the quick action of the helmsman, and the ability of the Polar Storm to make sharp turns made the difference between a near miss and tragedy.
Gillespie ran out onto the starboard bridge wing and stared down, fearing the worst. The submarine had barely dipped under the surface when the icebreaker's bow swung over her stern, missing the rudder and propellers by less than the length of an ordinary dining table. Gillespie could not believe the two vessels had not collided. The strange submarine had disappeared with barely a ripple, the icy water slowly swirling in a whorl and then turning smooth, as though the submarine had never been there.
'My God, that was close!' the helmsman muttered with a thankful sigh.
'A submarine,' said Evie in a vague voice, as she lowered her camera. 'Where did it come from? What navy did it belong to?'
'I saw no markings,' said the helmsman. 'It certainly didn't look like any submarine I've ever seen.'
The ship's first officer, Jake Bushey, came rushing onto the bridge. 'What happened, Captain?'
'A near collision with a submarine.'
'A nuclear submarine, here in Marguerite Bay? You must be joking.'
'Captain Gillespie isn't joking,' said Evie. 'I've got a photo record to prove it.'
'It wasn't a nuclear sub,' said Gillespie slowly.
'She was an old model by the look of her,' the helmsman said, gazing at his hands, noticing for the first time that they were shaking.
'Take the bridge,' Gillespie ordered Bushey. 'Keep us on a course toward that ice ridge a mile off the starboard bow. We'll drop the scientists there. I'll be in my cabin.'
Evie and Jake Bushey both caught the distant, puzzled expression on the captain's face. They watched as he dropped down a companionway to the passageway on the deck below. Gillespie opened the door to his cabin and stepped inside. He was a man born to the sea and a lover of sea history. Shelves stretching around the bulkheads of his cabin were filled with books about the sea. His eyes wandered over the titles and stopped at an old ship's recognition book.
He sat in a comfortable leather chair and turned the pages, stopping at a photo in the middle of the book. There it was, a picture of the identical vessel that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The photo showed a large submarine cruising on the surface not far from a rocky coastline. The caption underneath read,
Only known photo of the U-2015, one of two XXI Electro Boats to see operational service during World War II. A fast vessel that could stay submerged for indefinite periods of time and cruise nearly halfway around the world before surfacing for fuel.
The caption went on to say that the U-2015 had been last reported off the coast of Denmark and had vanished somewhere in the Atlantic and was officially listed as Fate Unknown.
Gillespie could not believe what his eyes told him. It seemed impossible, but he knew it to be true. The strange, unmarked vessel the Polar Storm had nearly sent to the icy bottom of the bay was a Nazi U-boat from a war that had ended fifty-six years before.
10
After a lengthy conference call with Admiral Sandecker, chief director of the National Underwater & Marine Agency, and Francis Ragsdale, the recently appointed director of the FBI, it was agreed that Pitt, Giordino, and Pat O'Connell would fly to Washington to brief government investigators on the strange series of events in the Paradise Mine. FBI agents were dispatched to Pat's home near the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to take her daughter to a safe house just outside Washington, where they would soon be together. Agents also swooped into Telluride and hustled Luis and Lisa Marquez, along with their daughters, to a secret location in Hawaii.
Escorted by a protective ring of deputies, courtesy of Sheriff Eagan, the three of them- Pitt, Giordino, and Pat O'Connell- boarded a NUMA jet and took off for the nation's capital. As the turquoise painted Cessna Citation Ultra V jet banked over the snow-mantled peaks of the San Juan Mountains and set a course northeast, Pat relaxed in her leather seat, reached out, and took Pitt's hand in hers.
'You're sure my daughter is safe?'
He smiled and gently squeezed her hand. 'For the tenth time, she's in the capable hands of the FBI. You'll have her in your arms in a few hours.'
'I can't picture us living like hunted animals the rest of our lives.'
'Won't happen,' Pitt assured her. 'Once the lunatic nutcases of the Fourth Empire are rooted out, arrested, and convicted, we'll all be able to live normal lives again.'
Pat looked over at Giordino, who had fallen asleep before the wheels lifted off the runway. 'He doesn't waste any time drifting off, does he?'
'Al can sleep anywhere, anytime. He's like a cat.' He held up her hand to his lips and give her fingers a light kiss. 'You should get some sleep, too. You must be dead on your feet.'
It was the first display of affection Pitt had offered since they'd met, and Pat felt a pleasurable warmth course through her. 'My mind is too busy for me to be tired.' She pulled her notebook from her case. 'I'll use the flight to begin an initial analysis of the inscriptions.'
'The aircraft has a computer facility in the rear cabin, if it would be of any help.'
'Does it have a scanner to convert my notes onto a disk?'
'I believe so.'
The fatigue seemed to ebb from her face. 'That would be a great help. A pity my film was ruined after being immersed in the water.'
Pitt reached down into his pants pocket, retrieved a plastic packet, and dropped it into her lap. 'A complete photo survey of the chamber.'
