Joe Poyer - North Cape

Larkin’s voice contained undertones of worry. “I agree that you ought to stay put until you see how he is. I should have known that the false rise in temperature would lead to an even deeper drop. Katabatic storms often end this way. You can probably expect the temperature to drop at, least another twenty degrees in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Ye gods, another twenty degrees!” Folsom exclaimed.

“That’s right… but at least it will bring an end to the winds.”

“Yeah, thanks for small favors,” Folsom murmured.

“I’m afraid we are going to have to stand farther out to sea until these waves let up.”

“I was afraid that the seas were going to force you out farther,” Folsom replied: For a moment there was silence as the two men tried to think of what to say next. Larkin continued to stare through the forward ports at the heavy snow thrashing past as the battle cruiser moved through the waves at eight knots. Folsom, hunching over the radio, listened to the wind’s keening beyond the tent walls and felt the loneliness of being cut off from help in the face of the enemy. The other two caught the mood and silence’ enveloped the tent until Folsom said, “Well, it looks like we are stuck here awhile. I’ll set two-hour radio watches for routine checks.”

“Fine. We’ll keep you informed. Out.”

Several minutes later the tent flaps parted and Folsom crawled out and stood up. The wind moaned through the treetops with force enough to whip the powdery snow into twirling gusts. Vaguely he had in mind a short hike for a good look at the area, but the snow, falling heavily, and the wind, backing and filling through the trees, had created a ground blizzard. He changed his mind. It would be too easy to become confused and lost in the closely pressing trees. Instead, he rounded the tent and headed for the line of cliffs half a mile distant.

The snow overlay provided treacherous footing among the frozen grass hummocks of the tundra. The powdery snow had not settled and frozen enough to provide firm footing as yet. He wondered just how far the muskeg extended. If for some reason they had to run for it, it would be bad enough with three healthy, rested men, but damned near impossible with the exhausted pilot. Less than a hundred feet from the tent he stopped and decided not to go any farther. The wind had freshened slightly and in a few minutes time the snowfall had almost. doubled. He had seen this happen before and knew that for the neat few hours they were in for a heavy blizzard. As he turned back, retracing his dimly seen footsteps quickly before they were covered by the falling and drifting snow, he thought of the heavy blizzard with gratitude. The Russians, should a capture party be landed, would not be able to move either. Once back in the tent, he organized the watches, checked on the sleeping Teleman, then settled into his own sleeping bag and was asleep in seconds.

The snow continued to fall heavily during the long night. Folsom, had taken the second radio watch but the RFK reported nothing new. The ship’s detector systems had so far uncovered no trace of movement in the vicinity of the North Gape: land, sea, or air. They had been, however, monitoring radio traffic and Larkin gave him an abstracted report. The Russians were seriously considering attempting the rescue or capture, depending on how you looked at it, of the downed pilot. Other than that, most of the transmissions had been in a new code which the ship’s computers had as yet been unable to break. The transmissions had been recorded and relayed to Virginia, but so far they had had no word on what they contained. Folsom signed off with an uneasy feeling that something big was brewing. He only hoped that they would have some warning before it happened. The close-woven mesh of the nylon tent fabric was covered with snow. Even without the snow, the mesh did not allow much in the way of air circulation. The outside temperature had dropped to 35°F as the wind had all but disappeared, but inside the tent it had become stifling. When they had opened a tent flap, the warm air had immediately rushed out into the night, leaving the inside of the tent as cold as the outside. The three men had tried to keep the tent free of snow, but the blizzard was so heavy that it was almost useless to climb into parkas and boots and work for twenty minutes to brush away the snow. Folsom, lying in his sleeping bag after his second watch, was restless and wide awake. He groaned and rolled over, trying to ignore the closeness of the air, thinking longingly for the very first time of the mind-deadening desk job he had left in the Navy Department to serve aboard the RFK.

Larkin, too, was lying awake in his bunk, but for different reasons. His mind was churning with the possibilities for action. Larkin was trying to examine the situation from the standpoint of the Soviet war room, which must, from somewhere, be directing the ” rescue” operations. He had, as had many other military commanders before him, found it of great value to put himself in the enemy commander’s place and as dispassionately as possible work out the tactic needed to destroy the enemy. This particular situation was a little bit different from others he had encountered in the past. This time he was sure that the enemy commander did not know the RFK existed. They might suspect that somehow, some American forces had gotten to the downed pilot, but they would not know the nature of these forces — which was a damned good thing, he thought grimly. Three men, armed with rifles, cut off from further support in the middle of the North Cape, was, not much of an’ opposing force to worry about.

They had made radar contacts with several, presumably Russian, aircraft throughout most of the afternoon and evening. All seemed to be orbiting the North Cape area where the pilot had gone down. None had ventured out to sea, a sign that Larkin interpreted as meaning the ship was undetected. Larkin was not worried about the ship. She was more than a match for anything the Soviets could throw in against her. But the Soviets would move twice as fast if they knew the RFK was nearby.

As long as the blizzard lasted, he was safe from visual detection. His own electromagnetic counterdetection gear would protect him from electronic snooping; so Larkin held the position of the reserve queen on the chessboard, the deciding factor of the game.

The buzzer on the intercom over his bunk interrupted his musings. He reached a hand and flipped the switch. “Larkin here.”

“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” came the unruffled voice, “but sonar shows a blip, unidentified and approaching subsurface from the northeast.”

“Be right up,” Larkin snapped and sat up, rubbing his face with his hands. He had not had any decent sleep for more than twenty-four hours now and it was beginning to tell on him. He stumbled across to the lavatory and washed his face with hot water and soap, then rinsed with cold. With the cold water still running, he held his wrists under the stream until they were all but numb, then toweled his face and arms vigorously. This helped to refresh him for the moment. Wishing that he had time for a shower, he pulled on trousers and shirt, knotted a tie quickly, tugged on his turtleneck sweater, and, picking up his cap, left for the bridge.

Three minutes later he was peering at the heavy seas through the ports, bracing himself against the railing. “All right, kill the lights.” The tortured scene of thrashing white water and intense snow disappeared abruptly as the powerful searchlights winked out. Larkin turned from the screen and made his way to his console, where he strapped himself in. The marine guard, doubling as steward, brought him coffee.

“Let’s have a status report,” he said into the microphone. “First, the radar.”