Joe Poyer - North Cape

As he-did, so, the computers took over total control of the aircraft. He saw the red, flashing DESTRUCT light come on just as the metal shields slid down between him and the instrument panel. The two halves of the flattened hemisphere joined together with a solid thunk and the blowers switched on with a high-pitched whine. Teleman settled himself securely into the acceleration couch as it adjusted to a semireclining position. He took a secure grip on the handholds and drew a deep breath, just as the bottom of the A-17 exploded away and the ejection capsule was jettisoned downward. As he fell he could see the distorted bottom of the fuselage pass over him. The capsule began to tumble end over end in the high winds, but not before he saw the lightened plane, huge and sleek in the dead light, bound up, corkscrew, and then recover as the autopilot caught hold of the control surfaces.

Teleman did not see the aircraft bore on into the Barents Sea, where five miles off the coast it erupted into a burst of white flame and plummeted into the icy seas. Pieces of wreckage were blown in every direction, much of it burning fiercely as it hissed into the waves.

The ejection capsule smashed upward, jerking Teleman cruelly against the restraining belts. Through the observation slit Teleman could see the orange and white parachute pop open wide. The ejection capsule bounced several more times, then settled down to a steady swaying. Inside, Teleman was powerless to control the descent or landing area, in fact helpless to do little more than lie there while the capsule was swung and jostled at the mercy of the winds. From fifteen hundred feet it should not have taken more than two minutes to make the descent. Instead it took eight — eight minutes of endless swinging, and Teleman had no idea in which direction.

When the capsule did land it hit with such force that it ruptured the inflated air pods beneath. The wind caught at the parachute and began to drag the capsule. The automatic chute release did not go off as it should have. As he grabbed for the manual release Teleman had a confused impression of trees and rocks roiling past the observation slit. Teleman yanked several times on the manual release before it finally gave and the capsule rolled free and came to a rest with a grinding sound that presaged the blast of wet snow and air that barreled in.

Teleman tore the straps loose and wiggled around in the seat to peer at a foot-long gash in the metal beneath his feet. The capsule had stopped against some obstruction, so that it was canted over at a steep angle. The close confines of the interior gave him little room to move about, but he managed to reach the emergency pack strapped beneath the seat and haul out the sleeping bag, cursing fluently under his breath. He got the sleeping bag jammed into the hole and at once the shrieking sound of the wind died away to a thin whistle. Teleman struggled back into the couch, breathing hard. The amp meter showed a full charge in the batteries that should be good for several hours of steady heat output, providing he ran nothing else at the same time. The interior temperature was already down to twenty-two degrees above freezing, and unless he wanted to freeze to death while he slept he had to bring it back up. Forcing his fuzzy mind to work, he did a rough calculation on how long it would take the RFK to reach the coast. As near as he could tell, he could not be farther than five miles from the cliffs, probably three hours hiking in this miserable storm. He felt the best the RFK could make in the seas that he had glimpsed briefly from the air was about twenty knots, this close to the Cape. At two-hundred-odd miles that would be at least ten to eleven hours. Teleman knew that he had to get some sleep, no matter what happened. His heart was thudding painfully again and his eyes refused to focus. Hell, he thought, he would make it six hours of sleep. They would wait for him.

Painfully, he brought his arm up and fumbled with the alarm on his wristwatch, setting it for six hours. The last thing he remembered was trying to peer out of the narrow slit to see what the terrain was like. The roar of the wind in the trees and the delicate shuddering of the capsule knocked him out as effectively as a blackjack.

The storm crested a few hours after Larkin turned the ship to run before the heavy seas crashing down on the battered, ice-shrouded shape with winds of gale force as it ran toward the coast at twenty-three knots. Teleman’s call had come just after she had reached the rendezvous point. As soon as Teleman had bailed out, the radar operator had done his best to track the ejection capsule as it plummeted into the thick forest edging the coastal cliffs. They now had the pilot’s location pinpointed to within a mile and were running for the location as fast as they dared in the heavy seas. Larkin motioned Folsom over to his console and handed him a flimsy that had just come in.

“Another little missive from our bosses. In spite of our health, we must put forth our ultimate effort,” he said dryly.

Folsom grinned and took the flimsy. It was as Larkin had said, minus the sarcasm of course: they were to expend every effort to assure the safety of the pilot. In short, get him before the Russians did.

“They seem to be forgetting that. the Norwegians might have something to say. Allies or no, I should think they wouldn’t take too kindly to such operations off their coasts, or in their coastal waters, for that matter.”

“I agree. And I would also guess that if Washington had informed Oslo, they would have told us so.”

Folsom nodded, then glanced at the chronometer. “About four hours yet and we should be off the point where he came down.”

Already, Folsom noted, both he and Larkin had begun referring to the unknown pilot as a personal acquaintance.

Larkin got up stiffly and walked over to the forward ports. “In effect, those orders say to bring him back at any cost,” he said half aloud. “At least we appear to have the weather on our side. It is doubtful if the Soviets will send surface ships out searching after him, or aircraft either for that matter. But submarines are definitely in this year and the sub pens at Murmansk are only ten, high-speed hours away.”

Folsom joined him at the ports, both staring out into the sky that was beginning to lighten with a gray dawn that only made the seas and the cold that much more oppressive. “Well, it at least is going to give us a chance to test our own ECM gear under what you might call semicombat conditions. To this point, I hope, they do not know that we are out here. Or rather,” he amended, “they don’t know who and where we are. It’s very likely that they picked up part of the transmission and so they will know that somebody must be out here to pick it up.”

Larkin nodded agreement with his analysis. “And it will be very important that we keep it that way.”

“What about those?” Folsom indicated the silent tape console with its full reels of data from the aircraft.

“I am sending those at 0800 —direct — and through double-scrambled circuits. It may be that the whole ball game is over in terms of these missions. What his mission was this time I don’t have the faintest idea. But the Soviets know that the pilot picked up whatever he was after. So we have to get to him before they do.”

“So we go get him,” Folsom said simply.

“That’s right.”

Teleman opened his eyes. A gray, washed-out light stared at him. The sound of the wind roaring through trees was louder than ever and the rocking of the capsule was more pronounced’ than he remembered. An insistent shrilling filled the capsule and it was several moments before he could wake himself enough to realize that it was his wrist alarm. Teleman shut it off with a fretful twist and lay back on the couch. Weariness that was almost pain flowed through his body, flooding down his arms and legs with heaviness. Flashes of light obscured his vision and the control board before him swam unevenly with the residual effects of the lysergic drugs. The batteries were just about dead and the intense cold was beginning to work its way inside. In addition to the tiredness, he was stiff and aching in every joint, both from the cold.and the cramped position in which he had been lying. Finally, his. head ached abominably.