James Rollins - Ice Hunt

But what was the time frame?

His diving officer, Lieutenant Liang, stepped to his side. His features were tight with worry. “Sir, I’ve run the proposed scenario over with the helm crew. We’ve wrangled various options.”

“And what’s the time estimate for the maneuver?”

“I can position us in under three minutes, but we’ll need another two to rise safely.”

“Five minutes…” And we still have to get there.

Perry glanced to their speed. Forty-two knots . It was blistering for a sub running silent, but that was the Sentinel’ s advantage. Still, they dared go no faster. If the Drakon picked up the cavitation of their propellers or any other telltale sign of their approach, they were doomed.

He calculated in his head the time to reach Omega, to get in position, to orchestrate the rescue…and escape. They didn’t have the time. He stared at his chief. If only the Drakon hadn’t already been in position, weren’t already evacuating Russian forces…

Liang stood quietly. He knew the same. They all did. Once again, he prepared to call their boat around. They had made a run for it, but it was hopeless. The Russians had beaten them.

But he pictured Amanda’s smile, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes when she laughed, the way her lips parted under his own, softly, sweetly…

“Chief,” Perry said, “we need to delay the Drakon’ s departure.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want you to ping the other boat with active sonar.”

“Sir?”

Perry turned to his men. “We need to let the Drakon know someone shares their waters. That someone is watching.” He paced, running out his plan aloud. “They expected us long gone. That no one would be around to witness what is going to happen. By pinging them, it will force their captain to confer with his commander, delay a bit longer. Perhaps buy us the time we need.”

“But they’ll be on full alert with all their ears up,” Liang said. “As it is, we’ll be hard-pressed to sneak under their nose and perform the rescue maneuver.”

“I’m aware of that. We were sent north to run the Polar Sentinel through its paces. To prove its capacity in speed and stealth. That’s just what I intend to do.”

Liang took a deep, shuddering breath. “Aye, sir.”

Perry nodded to the chief. “One ping…then we go dead silent.”

“Aye to that, sir.” The chief shifted over to the sonar suite and began conferring.

Perry turned to his diving officer. “As soon as we ping, I want the helm to heel the boat away at forty-five degrees from our present course. I don’t want them to get a fix on us. We run fast and silent.”

“As a ghost, sir.” Liang turned on a heel and retreated to his station.

One of the sonar techs suddenly jumped to his feet. “Sir! I’m picking up venting! Coming from the Drakon !”

Perry swore. The Russian sub was preparing to dive, taking on ballast, venting air. They were too late. The evacuation had already been completed.

The chief stared over at him. His face was plain to read: Continue as planned or abort?

Perry met the other’s gaze, unflinching. “Ring their doorbell.”

The chief spun around and placed a hand on the sonar supervisor. Switches were flipped and a button punched.

The chief nodded to him.

It was done. They had just given themselves away. Now to observe the reaction. A long moment stretched even longer. The Sentinel swung under their feet, deck plates tilting as the sub adjusted to a new trajectory.

Perry stood with clenched fists.

“Venting stopped, sir,” the technician whispered.

Their call had been heard.

“Sir!” Another sonar tech was on his feet, hissing urgently for attention. The tech wore headphones. “I’m picking up another contact. Noise on the hydrophones.” He pointed to his earpiece.

Another contact? Perry hurried to him. “Coming from where?”

The tech’s eyes flicked upward. “Directly on top of us, sir.”

Perry waved for the phones. The technician passed them to him, and he pressed an earpiece to his head. Through the phone, he heard what sounded like drums, beating slowly…more than one…their cadence picked up rapidly.

Perry had once been a sonar tech. He knew what he heard drumming through the ice from above. “Rotor wash,” he whispered.

The technician nodded. “There are two birds in the air.”

Mikovsky was getting the same information from his sonar crew. A moment ago, their boat had been pinged, deliberately and precisely. Clearly someone was in the waters below — and now another party was in the skies above.

The Drakon was pinned down, trapped.

If the other sub had pinged them, then they certainly had a weapons lock. He could almost sense the torpedo aimed at his ass. The fact that no fish was already in the water suggested the ping had only been a warning.

Don’t move or we’ll blast your boat out of the water .

And he could not argue. He had no defense. Trapped in the polynya, the Drakon had no way to maneuver, no way to escape an enemy attack. Surrounded on all sides by ice, he couldn’t even get a decent sonar sweep. While surfaced here, he was half blind.

Still, that wasn’t the greatest danger.

He stared over the shoulder of his XO and studied the radar screen. The snowstorm and wavering magnetic fluxes in the region wreaked havoc with the readings. Two helicopters sped toward him, low over the ice, making contact difficult and target locks impossible, especially in the blowing whiteout surrounding the boat.

“They’re coming in shallow, hugging ridgelines,” Gregor warned.

“I’m detecting a missile launch!” another sonar man yelled.

“Damn it!” Mikovsky glanced to the monitors feeding from exterior cameras. He could make out vague outlines of the pressure ridges surrounding the lake. The rest of the world was solid white. “Aerial countermeasures. Blow chaff!”

There was no weaker position for a sub than surfaced. He’d rather be lying on the bottom of a deep ocean trench than where he was now. And that was where he was going…to hell with whoever had pinged them. He’d rather take his chances below.

“Flood negative!” he shouted to Gregor. “Sound emergency dive!”

“Flooding negative.” A klaxon blared down the length of the boat. The submarine rumbled as ballast tanks were swamped.

“Continue blowing chaff until sail is awash!” Mikovsky swung to the crew at the fire control station. “I want to know who’s down here with us. Weapons Officer, I need a lock and solution as soon as we clear the ice.”

Nods met his orders.

Mikovsky’s attention flicked back to the video monitor. From the deck of his boat, a cloud of shredded foil belched into the air. The chaff was intended to distract the incoming missile from its true target. But the blizzard winds tore the foil away as soon as it exited from the sub, stripping the boat, leaving it exposed.

As the dive tanks flooded, the Drakon dropped like a stone — but not before Mikovsky noted movement on the monitor.

A spiral of snow…coming right at them.

A Sidewinder missile .

They would not escape.

Then the sea swelled over the exterior cameras, taking away the sight.

The explosion followed next, deafening. The Drakon jolted as if struck by a giant hammer. The sub rolled, carrying the video camera back to the surface. The streaming feed on the monitor showed the back half of the polynya. Its edge was cratered away, a blasted cove. The docking bollards sailed skyward. Fire spread over ice and water.