Roger Crossland - Red Ice

Chamonix cocked an eyebrow. “The right charge in Henry’s ski booby trap could have taken us all out?”

“Yes, including the turncoat,” Dravit interrupted.

“What can he do in Siberia that won’t take him ‘out,’ along with us?”

“Maybe he wants to be in Siberia. Maybe the people he’s working with are there,” Dravit persisted.

That was a possibility I most dreaded.

“Why, then, take the trouble to tamper with the regulators?”

Chamonix had withdrawn enigmatically from the conversation. Evidence of his fine mind burned through occasionally, but too often his thoughts lay concealed behind a dark cloud.

“We’re talking about nine men.”

“I know.”

“All we need is one bloke who can make contact with the wrong people at the right time and you’re bloody well through.”

“I’ve considered that.”

“You run the chance of jeopardizing the sub’s crew, too. That’s another eighty men to figure into the balance.”

“Yes, they’re at risk.”

His face was reddening. “We are open to retribution.”

“We would be anyway.”

Knockout punches were for the movies. Real fights, Dravit knew, were won by steadily pounding your opponent into rubber-legged submission.

“If they capture a single mucking one of you, they won’t be gentle like my maiden aunt. Once they get out of you what they want to know, Vyshinsky will be as good as dead.”

“He’s nearly as good as dead already.”

“Righto, so bloody well don’t go!” He brought both fists down onto the table.

“Enough of this feels right. We’re going. You are right, something’s wrong, but the odds are as good as they’ll ever get.” I had unconsciously laid emphasis on “we’re going.” He wasn’t and that took some weight from his arguments. “Who’s ever going to expect an operation as audacious as this?”

Chamonix looked at Dravit and shrugged. The Englishman opened his mouth, then shut it. Each of them had enough military time to have run into situations like this before. Instances where the commanding officer and his senior people did not agree. There was no point in arguing further.

“The matter is closed,” I pronounced. I, too, had experience, and more in positions of ultimate responsibility. Consensus was always desirable, but I had learned to trust my instincts. Kurganov had hired one man to make the final decisions. Finality was the nature of the work I did, and of the inescapable responsibility I had assumed.

Frazer, were you right this time? At what point would they stop following you?

“Remember one thing: only you, Henry, and I know the complete plan. Our turncoat isn’t sure how hard he has to be trying. I’m going to settle that little question. We’ll brief tonight on the entire mission. Lay out the warning order and everything. We’ll begin phase planning later tomorrow.”

The klaxon sounded and there was a rush of feet in the passageway. The crew were rushing to their diving stations.

That night the troop compartment was cramped and humid.

“ Bitte , will this be an aerobic session for us, you know, as schuss ing moving targets? Or is it to be a learning opportunity, say, for us to discover how many pieces of equipment can be cleverly rigged to malfunction, or perhaps blow up,” Lutjens kicked off with a sweet smile, “sir?” He turned to the others with a hand gesture that invited similar challenges.

The high-living German was apparently a master of the military fine art of the border-line insubordinate question. Always end it with “sir.”

I saw Chief Puckins bridle. If I was any judge, Puckins as the senior enlisted SEAL would soon be giving Lutjens a verbal blowtorching in private.

Dravit and I gave the preliminary briefing. Assignments would be made shortly and each man would be preparing a briefing to be given to the group of his portion of the mission prior to execution. Using a dozen maps, diagrams, and photographs taped to the top of an upturned Ping-Pong table, we took two and a half hours to outline the key points. More would follow, this was just the beginning. Only one or two showed any surprise. By now they had a general sense of the risks, even without knowing the countries involved.

“We will be putting our kayaks ashore, that’s the program. I believe we can pull this off. Anyone who wants to back out now, can. Just remember that if you back out, you don’t get a dime, and you won’t be going anywhere beyond this submarine.

“One more thing. If we fail ashore, this submarine will be next on the list for counterattack. It won’t be hard for Ivan to trace back the thread. If it turns out failure was for the lack of a man’s participation, I don’t really expect that man will outlive us much by staying on this boat. So you see, if any of us goes, we’d all better go.

“Stay-behinds, do I have any takers?”

No one moved. We had advanced so deeply into the maw that movement in any direction was as perilous as movement in any other direction.

“ Ja , well, that about does it. I’m giving three-to-one odds we don’t make it,” Lutjens added with forced good humor.

“Just how do you expect to collect on that one?” Alvarez said as everyone cleared the compartment. The Cuban’s mental discipline never waivered.

“W-w-wire his estate,” Kruger replied, flipping a coin high into the air. “His posh grand-duchess aunt, or whatever she is, ought to be able to cover it.”

“B-b-better idea,” he added thoughtfully, “have your estate wire his estate.”

As we drew closer to our destination they showed great care in tending to their personal equipment and developed the habit of daydreaming. Time was drawing short.

I followed the briefing with an extended calisthenics session in the troop compartment. Though the Koreans had added a snorkel, on occasion the sub ran on the surface at night with its vents open and at these times we could get enough fresh air for exercise. There wasn’t room for an orthodox PT session, so each man did his push-ups, sit-ups, and flutter kicks in his rack. Nine men running in place felt as insane as it looked to the crew of the Korean sub.

Then we practiced putting the five disassembled kayaks through the after hatch and assembling them on deck. Each kayak was designed for two paddlers, though it could be paddled by one alone. Each could hold three men comfortably, and in a pinch, four. But after tying on ahkios , skis, and other equipment, we found barely enough room to squeeze in two paddlers.

First we assembled the simple interlocking skeleton halves of Finnish ash. Then the skeleton halves were fitted into the rubberized-fabric skin. Dual inflatable sponsons running the length of the craft provided the locking tension that kept the skin in place. Under some circumstances, the skeleton could be pre-assembled in halves below decks. However, the beams of these kayaks were too broad for the hatches of this submarine.

It was dangerous work in this climate. Everyone above decks was required to wear a safety harness. A man lost overboard at night in waters like these stood little chance of recovery. Yet the harness and the tether lines were awkward, and despite my warnings more than once, I saw men detach their harnesses to get at a particularly obstinate piece of gear.

My stopwatch read ten minutes. Too long. The low-lying fog that enshrouded the decks could only serve as a partial excuse.

Time permitted only one kayak drill. The sub’s captain had said that we would be entering the Soviet radar umbrella very soon. This was one of the last times prior to launch that the sub would run fully surfaced. Since the sub had been modified with post-World War II snorkel equipment, it could run on diesel in moderate seas at periscope depth.