“Target at one hundred twenty yards and closing.”
Gorov was contributing his share to the stench within the small chamber. His shirt was sweat-stained down the middle of the back and under the arms.
The diving officer’s voice had softened almost to whisper, yet it carried clearly through the control room. “Six hundred feet and descending.”
Emil Zhukov’s face was as gaunt as a death mask.
Still bracing himself against the railing, Gorov said, “We’ve got to risk another eighty feet or a hundred, anyway. We’ve got to be well under the ice.”
Zhukov nodded.
“Six hundred twenty feet.”
The sonar operator struggled to control hi voice. Nevertheless, a faint note of distress colored his next report: “Target at sixty yards and closing fast. Dead ahead of the bow. It’s going to hit us!”
“None of that!” Gorov said sharply. “We’ll make it.”
“Depth at six hundred seventy feet.”
“Target at thirty yards.”
“Six hundred eighty feet.”
“Twenty yards.”
“Six hundred ninety.”
“Target lost,” the sonar operator said, his voice rising half an octave on the last word.
They froze, waiting for the grinding impact that would smash the hull.
I’ve been a fool to jeopardize my own and seventy-nine other lives just to save one tenth that number, Gorov thought.
The technician who was monitoring the surface fathometer cried, “Ice overhead!”
They were under the berg.
“What’s our clearance?” Gorov asked.
“Fifty feet.”
No one cheered. They were still too tense for that. But they indulged in a modest, collective sigh of relief.
“We’re under it,” Zhukov said, amazed.
“Seven hundred feet and descending,” the diving officer said worriedly.
“Blow negative to the mark,” Gorov said. “Stabilize at seven hundred forty.”
“We’re safe,” Zhukov said.
Gorov pulled on his neatly trimmed beard and found it wet with perspiration. “No. Not entirely safe. Not yet. No iceberg will have a flat bottom. There’ll be scattered protrusions below six hundred feet, and we might even encounter one that drops all the way down to our running depth. Not safe until we’re completely out from under.”
A few minutes after the concussion from the torpedo had rumbled through the ice, Harry and Pete cautiously returned to the cave from the snowmobiles, in which the others were still taking shelter. They proceeded only as far as the entrance, where they stood with their backs to the furious wind.
They needed to take the radio, which Harry was carrying, to the deepest and quietest part of the cave in order to contact Lieutenant Timoshenko aboard the Pogodin and find out what would happen next. Outside, the wind was a beast of thousand voices, all deafeningly loud, and even in the cabins of the sleds, the roaring-shrieking-whistling gale made it impossible to hear one’s own voice, let alone comprehend what was being said by anyone on the radio.
With his flashlight beam, Pete worriedly probed the jumbled slabs in the ceiling.
“Looks okay!” Harry shouted, though his mouth was no more than an inch from the other man’s head.
Pete looked at him, not sure what he’d said.
“Okay!” Harry bellowed, and he made a thumbs-up sign.
Pete nodded agreement.
They hesitated, however, because they didn’t know if the Russian submarine was going to launch another torpedo.
If they reentered the cave with the radio and then the Russians fired on the ice again, the concussion might bring the ceiling down this time. They would be crushed or buried alive.
The malevolent wind at their backs was so powerful and fearfully cold, however, that Harry felt as though someone had dropped several ice cubes down his back, under his storm suit. He knew they dared not stand there much longer, paralyzed by indecision, so at last he stepped inside. Pete followed with the flashlight, and together they hurried toward the rear of the chamber.
The cacophony of the storm diminished drastically as they went deeper into the cave, though even against the back wall there was so much noise that they would need to turn the receiver volume all the way to its maximum setting.
The orange utility cord still trailed inside from one of the snowmobile batteries. Harry plugged in the radio. He preferred to power it from the sled so long as possible and save the batteries in the set, in case they were needed later.