strain of standing watch in heavy seas. Although just why he was out here
in the first place was something of a mystery. He knew what the Greenpeace
people said. He’d paid attention during all the briefs, had been impressed
by their starry-eyed innocence and fanatic dedication to their cause, but
it still didn’t make much sense to him. Spending months watching for the
occasional appearance of a pod of whales and trying to develop a complete
census of the creatures didn’t strike him as doing much for world peace and
endangered species. It’d be a hell of a lot more effective if the Navy put
a couple of torpedoes up the ass of Russian fishing vessels that harvested
them. Well, at least the wages made up for part of the misery of bobbing
around like a cork in this storm.
He paused, squinting at Aflu. From this distance, the
twenty-mile-long island was only a smidgen on the horizon, a bleak white
outcropping of ice and rock. While the uninhabited island had played a
major role in World War II, today it served mostly as a landmark for
fishing vessels and ecologists searching for schools of fish and pods of
endangered whales.
Like his current passengers. A nice enough herd, if a bit
single-minded. After four weeks of listening to their unflagging
enthusiasm, their nightly dinner speculations about the state of whales in
the northern Pacific were starting to take on a wistfully plaintive note.
As much as he begrudged it, he’d found himself eager to find something to
cheer them up. One whale–that would do for starters.
Holden scanned the horizon again. He’d pit his experienced seagoing
eyes against their array of techno-toys and sonar monitors any day.
Finally, he saw what had caught his attention. There was something
between the Serenity and Aflu, a trace of darker color against the roiling
blue-black, whitecapped ocean. He took two quick steps forward to the
front of the bridge, grasped the railing there with one hand, and lifted
binoculars to his eyes. The picture came into sharper focus.
Yes, something definitely was there. He reached for the ship’s
telephone to call the scientists, already grinning with anticipation at the
childish cries of glee that would shortly be filling the bridge.
1210 Local
Kilo 31
“She’s surfacing, sir,” the sonar technician said.
“What the hell-?” the Kilo’s skipper muttered. He leaned over the
sonar console, his face almost next to his technician’s. “Any indication
she’s having trouble?”
“Could be, sir,” the technician replied. “I thought I saw some
instability in her electrical sources.”
Rogov watched the Kilos commander analyze the possibilities in his
mind. A reactor failure, a casualty of some sort, or, worse yet, every
submariner’s nightmares–fire. He waited for a few minutes, then decided
to intervene, and shoved himself through a mass of technicians and sailors
to the sonar console.
“It is not our business,” he said neutrally. “We have our
mission–nothing must interfere with that.”
“There are one hundred and seventy-eight men on that submarine,” the
skipper said. “If they have to abandon ship, we have to be there to pick
them up immediately. Otherwise, even with the protective life rafts, they
have no hope of survival.”
Rogov shook his head from side to side almost imperceptibly. “The
mission,” he reminded the skipper.
For the first time, the man showed some signs of fighting spirit.
“May God rot your soul,” the normally passive submariner snapped. “You saw
what that sea does–ten minutes, at the most. We must-”
“And just where will you put all these men, Captain?” Rogov asked.
“Have them standing in line in your tiny passageways? Will you jettison
your torpedoes to make room for them in those tubes? No,” he concluded,
“even if you were to reach them, you have no room for them on board. If
they have problems, they must solve them themselves. I’m sure their
captain is a resourceful man.”
“They could get to shore. Your camp there–at least they’d have a
chance!”
Rogov stiffened. The breach of operational security was unforgivable.
While every sailor on the submarine knew that the boat had surfaced, had
noted the absence of the forbidden figures that had boarded it in