some way to break contact with this Fuller, get separation, and find him again.'
Ilse watched the latest frightening game of thrust and parry. Again it was a draw. Earlier, Challenger had to stay on Deutschland's tail to keep Eberhard from going nuclear near land. Now, Deutschland needed to stay on Challenger's tail, or Jeffrey could get off the first effective A-bomb shot. Ilse looked at the charts again. This stern chase could go on for thousands of miles, up past the North Pole and beyond.
But it couldn't go on forever. There on the chart, on the far side of the winter Arctic ice cap, stretching from horizon to horizon, was the solid land mass of Russia. Much nearer lay Spitsbergen, owned by Norway, now Axis- controlled. Every minute, Deutschland forced Challenger closer toward unfriendly waters backed by hostile shores.
'They're still holding position in our one-eighty, sir,' Bell said. Jeffrey nodded.
'Sonar. Oceanographer. I want you to give me some way to break contact with Deutschland, get separation, and find her again.'
TWO HOURS LATER
On the gravimeter, Ilse saw the canyon Challenger followed grow narrower. Ahead lay a different formation of ridges, barring the Shetland Channel from the huge Norwegian Basin to the northeast. These new ridge lines, their crests sawtooth-jagged, ran northwest. If Challenger continued straight, she'd have to climb the wall into the Basin — the Basin was open and flat.
Despite the stress, Ilse smiled: Above the constant flow noise on her headphones, she heard whales playing. There were many here, between Norway and the ice cap. Ilse wondered how many whales and dolphins had been killed by the fighting so far. She stopped smiling and pressed her headphones closer. 'Oh, bizarre.' Kathy heard it, too. 'Captain, Deutschland is calling us on underwater telephone.' Jeffrey hesitated. 'Put in on the speakers.'
'…Not your fault… Your own uncaring commanders… sent you in over your head.' Eberhard's voice echoed and reverbed on the gertrude, like the announcer in a sports stadium. He was almost drowned out by the steady hissing at flank speed—
Challenger's hull and sail and control planes tearing through the water — but it was definitely Eberhard.
'Jesus,' Jeffrey muttered. Ilse helped Kathy's people clean up the signal.
'Accept my truce.. Let us be chivalrous…. I promise you safe passage… to internment in Russia or Sweden.' The voice was crisp, blase, superior. The English was perfect, the accent aristocratic.
'He can't be serious,' Bell said.
'He wants to get under my skin.'
Ilse turned to look at Jeffrey. He stood, and steadied himself against the ship's vibrations by grabbing a stanchion on the overhead. Ilse saw him frown, then smile and grab the mike for the underwater telephone.
'Hiya, Kurt. Whazzup, buddy?' Jeffrey unkeyed the mike, and laughed. 'That should piss him off nicely.' Eberhard didn't answer. Jeffrey keyed the mike again. 'Why should I trust you?'
'I make my offer. sincerely… as one naval officer to another… as warrior to warrior.
…across the gulf between us….'
'Melodramatic, don't you think?' Bell said under his breath.
'Typical Eberhard.'
'I make this offer… for old times' sake…. We once worked together…. Let us do so again, for peace.'
'Old times' sake?' Jeffrey said to Bell. 'Wrong thing to say.'
'You have one minute… or I withdraw my offer.. and you die.'
'Ooh,' Bell said. 'Think he means it? Has some new secret weapon up his sleeve?'
'It's bull. If he had something, he'd've used it already.' Jeffrey keyed the mike. 'You're a mass murderer, Eberhard…. I'd love to see you hang for war crimes.'
'You fool. I'll crush your ship like a cheap cigar.'
'No. I'm gonna blow your Teutonic ass to Hell.' Prolonged silence. Jeffrey hung up the mike.
Both ships kept charging north along the bottom. Ilse eyed her gravimeter once more.
'Captain,' Sessions said, 'we're at the way-point.' 'V'r'well, Nay. Helm, left standard rudder. Make your course three one five.' Northwest.
Meltzer acknowledged. Challenger settled on course, still making flank speed, down in a new canyon — a different valley squeezed between parallel ridge lines that ran on for another hundred miles.
The water got deeper and deeper. Deutschland followed close behind. Over the speakers, Ilse could hear a steady rumbling now, not from flow noise, nor from Deutschland, not from crunching icebergs on the distant ice cap edge, nor from some far-off nuclear battle.
'Live volcanoes on the seafloor, Captain,' Kathy reported. 'Bearing three one five. Range one hundred nautical miles, matches the latest charts.' These volcanoes, Ilse knew, lay at the northern extremity of the tectonic-plate spreading seam that formed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. They were a recent offshoot of the same magma hot spot that caused lava flows on Iceland. Ilse knew, because it was her job to know, and it was her recommendation to head there.
'Perfect,' Jeffrey said.
Eberhard hung up the gertrude mike, and smirked.
'Aspect change on Challenger,' Haffner said.
'Confirmed,' Beck said. 'Challenger steadying on new course three one five.'
'Exactly as I predicted. Pilot, steer three one five.' Coomans acknowledged. Beck could just make out a rumbling and burbling over the speakers. 'Live volcano field now one hundred sea miles ahead.'
'Perfect, Einzvo. How are you and Haffner coming on the new acoustic holography module?'
'We'll be ready, Captain.'
'Perfect.'
TWO HOURS LATER
Jeffrey sat at his console. Challenger at this point had run at flank speed, with her reactor pushed as hard as he dared, for longer than ever in her short but exciting life as a warship.
The ride was still very rough. Jeffrey knew from Bell that crewmen who took their coffee with milk and sugar had taken to not bothering to stir; the constant tossing and bouncing did it for them.
The men thought this was funny; morale was high. Everyone aboard had heard by now of Jeffrey's strange conversation with Kurt Eberhard. Whatever the German had sought to achieve, his ploy backfired. The crew was more determined than ever — their fatigue, and any self-doubts, melted away.
Was this because the crew saw Jeffrey, and their banged-up boat, as the underdogs?
What had Eberhard been trying to achieve? The enemy Fregattenkapitan was a coldly rational man.
Jeffrey stared at the gravimeter and listened to the sonar speakers. There ahead of him, close enough now to be sharply resolved on the screen, was a group of active volcanoes. The noise was like a mix of rolling thunder and ten thousand boiling witches' cauldrons. Jeffrey felt a tightness and a tingling in his chest: This was the most risky, if not downright insane, maneuver he'd ever even thought to pull in a submarine. Now here they were, actually doing it, and not even on their own but with a determined opponent on their tail fixated on sinking them before some natural phenomenon could. Challenger began to rattle and buck in a different way than before; the ride was choppy, the ship rolled back and forth. She rose and dipped, forcing Jeffrey into his seat, then forcing his stomach toward his Adam's apple.
'Captain,' Meltzer said as he fought his controls, 'advise encountering volcano-related turbulence.'
'Maintain course and speed.' Jeffrey knew this would be very dangerous.
'Sea temperature and chemical content fluctuating rapidly,' Ilse said. 'Average water temperature rising almost one degree per second.'
'Constant variable ballast adjustments needed,' COB reported. He worked his panel actively.
