ICEBOUND By Dean Koontz

11:56

Harry tried the hatch again, and it swung open.

He waited until Franz and Pete had entered, and then he followed them and dogged down the hatch from inside.

They sat with their backs to the walls.

He didn’t even have to look at his watch. An internal crisis clock told him that they were about four minutes from detonation.

The drain dilated, and the pumps drained the escape trunk.

11:57

A mountain of ice on the verge of violent disintegration loomed over them, and if it went to pieces when they were under it, the boat would most likely be battered to junk. Death would be so swift that many of them might not even have a chance to scream.

Gorov pulled down an overhead microphone, called the maneuvering room, and ordered the boat into immediate full reverse.

The maneuvering room confirmed the order, and a moment later the ship shuddered in response to the abrupt change of engine thrust.

Gorov was thrown against the command-pad railing, and Zhukov almost fell.

From the overhead speaker: “Maneuvering room to Captain. Engines full reverse.”

“Rudder amidships.”

“Rudder amidships.”

The iceberg was moving southward at nine knots. The submarine was reversing northward at ten … twelve … now fifteen knots against a nine-knot current, resulting in an effective separation speed of fifteen knots.

Gorov didn’t know if that was sufficient speed to save them, but it was the best that they could do at the moment, because to build to greater speed, they needed more time than remained until detonation.

“Ice overhead,” the surface-Fathometer operator announced. They were out from under the funnel-shaped concavity in the center of the berg. “Sixty feet. Ice overhead at sixty feet.”

11:58

Harry entered the decompression chamber and sat beside Rita. They held hands and stared at his watch.

11:59

The center of attention in the control room was the six-figure digital clock aft of the command pad. Nikita Gorov imagined that he could detect a twitch in his crewmen with the passage of each second.

11:59:10.

11:59:11.

“Whichever way it goes,” Emil Zhukov said, “I’m glad that I named my son Nikita.”

“You may have named him after a fool.”

“But an interesting fool.”

Gorov smiled.

11:59:30.

11:59:31.

The technician at the surface-Fathometer said, “Clear water. No ice overhead.”

“We’re out from under,” someone said.

“But we’re not yet out of the way,” Gorov cautioned, aware that they were well within the fallout pattern of blast-hurled ice.

11:59:46.

11:59:47.

“Clear water. No ice overhead.”

11:59:49.

For the second time in ten minutes, a warning siren sounded, and EMERGENCY flashed in red on one of the overhead screens.

Gorov keyed up a display and found that another torpedo tube in the damaged area of the hull had partially succumbed: MUZZLE DOOR COLLAPSED IN FORWARD TORPEDO TUBE NUMBER FOUR. TUBE FILLED WITH WATER TO BREECH DOOR.

Pulling down a microphone, Gorov shouted, “Captain to torpedo room! Abandon your position and sell all watertight doors.”

“Oh, dear God,” said Emil Zhukov, the atheist.

“The breech doors will hold,” Gorov said with conviction, and he prayed that he was right.

11:59:59.

12:00:00.

“Brace yourselves!”

12:00:03

“What’s wrong?”

“Where is it?”

12:00:07.

The concussion hit them. Transmitted through the shattering iceberg to the water and through the water to the hull, it was a surprisingly mild and distant rumble. Gorov waited for the power of the shock waves to escalate, but it never did.

The sonar operator reported massive fragmentation of the iceberg.

By 12:02, however, when sonar had not located a substantial fragment of ice anywhere near the Ilya Pogodin, Gorov knew they were safe. “Take her up.”

The control-room crew let out a cheer.

AFTER…

[1]

JANUARY 18

DUNDEE, SCOTLAND

Shortly before noon, two and a half days after escaping from their prison of ice, the survivors arrived in Scotland.

Ever since he had escaped on a small boat with his father from mainland China so many years ago, George Lin had not cared much for travel by sea, whether above or below the waves, and he was relieved to be on land once more.

The weather was neither severe nor mild for winter in Dundee. The flat gray sky was low and threatening. The temperature was twenty degrees Fahrenheit. A cold wind swept in from the North Sea, making the water leap and curl across the entire length of the Firth of Tay.

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