Nichols managed to keep them clear of the coast road for most of their journey, but there was one point where the road looped around a small cove to within a mile of their path. Here they faced a cruel choice: risk observation from the road, where the traffic was probably Russian, or from the mountaintop. They risked the road, slowly and gingerly as they watched traffic motor along every fifteen minutes or so. The sun was low in the northwestern sky as they crept up a ravine with steep walls. They found a rockpile to rest in before their dash below the observation post.
“Well, that was a nice day’s walk, wasn’t it?” the sergeant of Royal Marines asked. He wasn’t even sweating.
“You trying to prove something, Sergeant?” Edwards asked.
He was. “Sorry, Leftenant. Your friends told me you were in proper shape.”
“I don’t think I’ll have a heart attack just yet, if that’s what you mean. Now what?”
“I’d suggest that we wait an hour, until the sun sinks lower, then press on. Nine more miles. We’ll want to move as quick as we can.”
Sweet Jesus! Edwards thought. He kept his face impassive. “You sure they won’t see us?”
“Sure? No, I am not sure, Leftenant. Twilight is the hardest time to see, however. The eye cannot adjust from the bright sky to the dark ground.”
“Okay, you got us this far. I’m going to go and check on the lady.”
Nichols watched him walk off. “I would not mind seeing ‘the lady’ myself.”
“That wasn’t a good thing to say, Nick,” Smith observed quietly.
“Come on, you know what he’s-”
“Nick, talk nice about the lady,” Smith warned. He was tired, but not that tired. “She’s had a bad time, man. And the skipper’s a gentleman, y’dig? Hey, I thought he was a wimp, too. I was wrong. Anyway, Miss Vigdis, man, that’s one hell of a lady.”
Mike found her curled in a fetal position next to a rock. Rodgers was keeping an eye on her, and moved off when the lieutenant arrived.
“How are you?” Mike asked. She turned her head fractionally.
“Dead. Michael, I am so tired.”
“Me, too, babe.” Mike sat down beside her and stretched his legs out, wondering if the muscle tissue would just fall off the bones. He was strong enough to stroke her hair. It was matted with sweat, but Mike was past noticing such things. “Just a little while longer, Hey, you’re the one who wanted to stay with us, remember?”
“I am fool!” There was a note of humor in her voice. As long as you can laugh, Mike remembered his father saying, you are not defeated.
“Come on, you better stretch those legs out or they’re gonna knot up. Come on, roll over.” Edwards straightened her legs and massaged her calves briefly. “What we need is some bananas.”
“What?” Her head came up.
“Bananas have lots of potassium. Helps to prevent cramps.” Or was it calcium for pregnant women? he wondered.
“What do we do when we get to our new hill?”
“We wait for the good guys.”
“They come?” Her voice changed slightly.
“I think so.”
“And you leave then?” Mike was quiet for a moment, measuring his boldness against his shyness. What if she says-
“Not without you, I don’t.” He hesitated again. “I mean, if that’s-”
“Yes, Michael.”
He lay down beside her. Edwards was startled by the fact that he desired her now. She was no longer the victim of rape, or a girl pregnant by another man, or a strange person from another culture. He was awed by her inner strength and other things for which he had no names, and needed none.
“You’re right. I do love you.” Son of a bitch. He held her hand as both rested for the task ahead.
USS CHICAGO
“That’s one of ’em, sir. Providence, I think. I got some funny transients, like metal pieces beating against each other.”
They’d been tracking the target-every contact was a target-for two hours, closing very carefully as the possible noise source changed into a probable one. The overhead storm degraded their sonar performance measurably, and the target’s stealth prevented their developing a signature identification for an agonizing period. Might she be a Russian sub creeping in search of her own target? Finally the faint rattles from the damaged sail betrayed her. McCafferty ordered his boat to close the target at eight knots.
Had Providence repaired her sonar systems? Certainly they’d try, McCafferty thought, and if they then detected a submarine approaching very cautiously from the rear, would they think this was their old friend Chicago, or another Victor-III? For that matter, how sure were they that their target was Providence? That was why American subs were trained to operate alone. Too many uncertainties attached to cooperative operations.
They’d left the Soviet surface forces behind. McCafferty’s hit-and-run maneuver had fooled them, and before the noise faded out, they listened to a spirited hunt involving aircraft and surface forces, now thirty miles astern. That was a positive development, but the absence of any surface ships in this area made McCafferty uneasy. He might now be in a submarine-dedicated sector, and submarines were by far the more dangerous opponents. His earlier success against the Victor had been pure luck. That Soviet skipper had been too interested in starting his own hunt to check his flanks. It was a mistake he did not expect to be repeated.
“Range?” McCafferty asked his tracking party.
“About two miles, sir.”
That was the fringe of gertrude range, but McCafferty wanted to get a lot closer than that. Patience, he told himself. Submarining was a continuous exercise in patience. You spent hours in preparation for a few seconds of activity. It’s a wonder we don’t all have ulcers. Twenty minutes later, they had closed to within a thousand yards of Providence. McCafferty lifted the gertrude phone.
“Chicago calling Providence, over.”
“You took your time about it, Danny.”
“Where’s Todd?”
“He went off west after something two hours ago. We lost him. No noise at all from that direction.”
“What’s your condition?”
“The tail works. Rest of our sonar’s shot. We can shoot fish from the torpedo room control systems. Still raining in the control room, but we can live with it as long as we stay above three hundred feet.”
“Can you go any faster?”
“We tried going to eight knots. Found out we couldn’t keep it up. The sail’s coming apart. The noise just gets worse. I can give you six, that’s it.”
“Very well. If you got a working tail, we’ll try to take station a few miles ahead. Call it five miles.”
“Thanks, Danny.”
McCafferty hung up the phone. “Sonar, you got anything that even looks like it might be something?”
“No, sir, it’s clear right now.”
“All ahead two-thirds.” So, where the hell is Boston? the captain asked himself.
“Funny how quiet things have got,” the exec pointed out.
“Tell me about it. I know I’m acting paranoid, but am I acting paranoid enough!” McCafferty needed the laugh. “Okay. We sprint and drift north, fifteen minutes sprint, ten drift, until we’re five miles ahead of Providence. Then we settle down to six knots and continue the mission. I’m going to catch a nap. Wake me in two hours. Talk to the division officers and chiefs, make sure the troops are getting some rest. We’ve been pushing pretty hard. I don’t want anybody to fold up.” McCafferty grabbed half a sandwich as he walked forward. It was only eight steps to his stateroom. The food was swallowed by then.
“Captain to control!” It seemed he had only just closed his eyes when the speaker over his head went off. McCafferty checked his watch on the way out the door. He’d been asleep for ninety minutes. It would have to do.
“What do we got?” he asked the exec.
“Possible submarine contact on the port quarter. Just picked it up. We got a bearing change already-it’s close. No signature yet.”
“Boston?”
“Could be.”
I wish Todd hadn’t gone off like that, McCafferty told himself. He found himself wondering if they shouldn’t just tell Providence to go to her best speed and screw the noise. That was fatigue talking, he knew. Tired people make mistakes, especially judgmental errors. Captains can’t afford those, Danny.
Chicago was making six knots. No noise at all, the captain thought. Nobody can hear us . . . maybe, probably. You don’t really know anymore, do you? He went into the sonar room.
“How you feeling, Chief?”
“Hangin’ in there, skipper. This contact’s a beaut. See how he fades in and out. He’s there, all right, but it’s a cast-iron bitch to hold him.”
“Boston headed off west a few hours ago.”
“Could be him coming back, sir. Lord knows he’s quiet enough. Or it could be a Tango on batteries, sir. I don’t have enough signal to tell the difference. Sorry, sir. I just don’t know.” The chief rubbed raw eyes and let out a long breath.