ICEBOUND By Dean Koontz

If the outer skin had only been scraped, or if it had suffered only a minor dent, the boat would survive. However, if the hull had sustained even moderate compaction at any point—and worst of all, distortion that lay across welded seams—they might not live through a deep dive. The pressure on the submarine would not be uniformly resisted by the damaged areas, which could cause severe strain, and the boat might fail them, implode, and sink straight to the ocean floor.

The young diving officer’s voice was loud but, in spite of the circumstances, not shaky. “Two hundred feet and descending.”

The sonar operator reported: “The profile of the target is narrowing. She’s continuing to come bow-around in the current.”

“Two hundred fifty feet,” said the diving officer.

They had to get down at least six hundred feet. Approximately a hundred feet of ice had been visible above the water line, and only one seventh of an iceberg’s mass rode above the surface. To be safe, Gorov preferred to descend to seven hundred feet, though the speed of the target’s approach reduced their chances of attaining even six hundred in time to avoid it.

The sonar operator called the distance: “Three hundred eighty yards and closing.”

“If I weren’t an atheist,” Zhukov said, “I’d start praying.”

No one laughed. At that moment none of them was an atheist—not even Emil Zhukov, in spite of what he’d said.

Even though everyone appeared cool and confident, Gorov could smell the fear in the control room. That was neither an exaggeration nor a theatrical conceit. Fear did have a pungent odor of its own: the tang of an unusually acrid sweat. Cold sweat. Virtually every man in the control chamber was perspiring. The place was redolent of fear.

“Three hundred twenty feet,” the diving officer announced.

The sonar operator reported on the iceberg as well: “Three hundred fifty yards and closing fast.”

“Three hundred sixty feet.”

They were in a crash dive. Going down fast. A lot of strain on the hull.

Even as each man monitored the equipment at his station, he found time to glance repeatedly at the diving stand, which suddenly seemed to have become the very center of the room. The needle on the depth gauge was falling rapidly, far faster than they had ever seen it drop before.

Three hundred eighty feet.

Four hundred.

Four hundred twenty feet.

Everyone aboard knew that the boat had been designed for sudden and radical maneuvers, but that knowledge did not relieve anyone’s tension. In recent years, as the country had struggled to rise out of the impoverishment in which decades of totalitarianism had left it, defense budgets had been trimmed—except in the nuclear-weapons development programs—and systems maintenance had been scaled back, delayed, and in some instances postponed indefinitely. The Pogodin was not in the best shape of its life, an aging fleet submarine that might have years of faithful service in it—or that might be running with a stress crack serious enough to spell doom at any moment.

“Four hundred sixty feet,” said the diving officer.

“Target at three hundred yards.”

“Depth at four hundred eighty feet.”

With both hands, Gorov gripped the command-pad railing tightly and resisted the pull of the inclined deck until his arms ached. His knuckles were as sharp and white as bare bones.

“Target at two hundred yards!”

Zhukov said, “It’s picking up speed like it’s going downhill.”

“Five hundred twenty feet.”

Their descent was accelerating, but not fast enough to please Gorov. They would need to get down at least another hundred and eighty feet until they were without a doubt safely under the iceberg—and perhaps, a great deal more than that.

“Five hundred forty feet.”

“I’ve only been this deep twice before in ten years of service,” Zhukov said.

“Something to write home about,” Gorov said.

“Target at one hundred sixty yards. Closing fast!” called the sonar operator.

“Five hundred sixty feet,” the diving officer said, although he must have known that everyone was watching the platter-size depth gauge.

One thousand feet was the official maximum operating depth for the Ilya Pogodin, because she wasn’t one of the very-deep-running nuclear-war boats. Of course, if its outer skin had suffered a loss of integrity in the earlier collision, the thousand-foot figure was meaningless, and all bets were off. The starboard-bow damage might have rendered the boat vulnerable to implosion at considerably less depth than that stated in the official manual.