“I’m tired, Captain Alexeyev,” Trusov said over the hurricane wind of the storm. “I’m losing strength.”
“Do you want me to carry you?” Alexeyev asked.
Trusov looked at him in horror. “Dear God, no, sir. I’ll die in my boots before someone carries me.”
Alexeyev laughed, putting his arm around Trusov to help her walk. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
“Captain! What is that!” Trusov pointed out in front of them.
Alexeyev looked up. It was a flashing light, a strobe light. Were they both hallucinating it?
He shouted to the crowd. “Does anyone know Morse code and English letters?”
Captain Third Rank Chernobrovin, the engineer of the Losharik, held up his hand. “I know Morse, but not English letters.”
“What about ‘SOS,’ the international standard for distress?”
Chernobrovin nodded. “Yes, Captain, I know it.”
“Can you see the strobe?”
“I see it. Let me observe it for a moment.” Chernobrovin stared off into the distance. “There is definitely an SOS, but there are other letters I don’t know.”
“Let’s keep walking,” Alexeyev said. “Sergei, join me at the head of the column, we will need to approach the American camp carefully. No sense getting shot by a sentry.”
Pacino supervised as Chief Albanese emptied the tins of chicken entrees onto the ice about fifty feet away from the shelter and the distress strobe light.
“How’s this, Mr. Patch?”
“That should do it, Chief. Keep a weather eye out for polar bears, but if you see one, two to the central mass, then two to the head.”
“L.T., I’m going to empty the entire goddamned magazine into any polar bears happening by,” Albanese said. “But don’t you think they’re sheltering from this storm?”
“Even bears are too smart to be out in this storm,” Pacino said, but just in case, he pulled off his goggles and turned on the night vision, then put the infrared scope to his eye. “I’ll be dipped in shit,” he said in disbelief.
“Polar bear?” Albanese said, training his rifle the direction that Pacino had looked.
Pacino put his arm out to Albanese’s barrel, lowering it.
“It’s people,” Pacino said. “The Russians! Get to the shelter. Get the captain and XO.”
29
Sonarman Chief Albanese bolted for the shelter as the column of people slowly approached. The lead figures looked like two tall men supporting a limping, smaller female.
The captain, XO and navigator hurried out of the shelter, then the other junior officers, until the driving curiosity brought out all the crew but for the three dozen who were still deathly ill from the food poisoning. The New Jersey crew stood there in the driving winds and blinding snow until the approaching people could be made out in the light of the strobe lamp of the emergency beacon.
Pacino looked to his right at the captain. “Do you want the helmet, sir?” The column of people was a hundred yards long, maybe fifty of them. Seagraves took the helmet from Pacino, put it on and adjusted the infrared and night vision scopes. “Can you get a count, Captain?”
“I think so. Looks like twenty-four or twenty-five.”
The leaders of the column came closer, until their features could be made out. Pacino squinted in the blizzard, his mind filling with disbelief.
“Captain… Captain Alexeyev? Irina? Irina Trusov?”
One of the men holding up the near unconscious female was unmistakably Captain First Rank Georgy Alexeyev.
Alexeyev looked at Pacino, recognition dawning on his face.
“Lieutenant — Lieutenant Pacino, right?” Alexeyev’s voice was a weak croak, barely audible over the wind.
“You two know each other?” Seagraves asked.
“Captain,” Pacino said to Seagraves, “this is Captain Alexeyev of the Yasen-M submarine Kazan. And now presumably, captain of the Belgorod, right? Captain Alexeyev, this my commanding officer, Commander Tim Seagraves and my executive officer, Commander Jeremiah Seamus Quinnivan, Royal Navy. You remember Lieutenant Dankleff? And our SEAL officers?”
Alexeyev dropped to one knee, exhausted, the female kneeling with him, the other burly man looking at Seagraves.
“I’m Captain Kovalov of the submarine Losharik,” Kovalov said over the howling noise of the wind, “the deep-diver submarine assigned on this mission with Belgorod. May I ask if we can join you in your shelter? We are all exhausted and near frozen.”
“Where are my manners?” Seagraves said, smiling. “Come on, please, this way. XO, get everyone inside.” He looked at Senior Chief Thornburg. “Doc, help get these people warmed up, some hot tea all around, and coffee. And see if anyone needs first aid.”
“Yes, Captain.” The corpsman led in the two men and the nearly unconscious female. When all twenty-five of the Russian survivors were inside the shelter, the New Jersey crew followed them in. Pacino handed his rifle to Dankleff, who would stand the next two hours of polar bear watch.
“Now we really need to shoot a polar bear,” Pacino said. “I hear we’re out of rations.”
“With the chicken gone, the rest went fast. So it’s a polar bear or cannibalism,” Dankleff said over the blasting wind.
“I could use some hot coffee right about now,” Pacino said, watching as the last of the crew and the Russians entered the shelter.
Dankleff coughed. “I could use some good scotch right about now. Hell, forget good scotch, I’ll take that rotgut we found in Faslane.”
Pacino pulled open the heavy outer door of the shelter, entered the vestibule, shut the door behind him, then went through the door flap of the inner door. The oppressive, stuffy, dry heat of the shelter hit him like a fist in the chest.
“Oh my God, it’s like Hell in here,” Pacino said, pulling off his parka and hanging it with the others in the corner of the shelter. He looked over at one of the picnic tables, where the hurt female sat, the Russian submarine captains on either side of her. One of them held a cup of hot tea to her lips. She looked up from the tea, saw Pacino, handed her cup to Alexeyev, took two big steps to Pacino and slapped him hard in the face. Both the Russians and Americans stared. Pacino could feel the stinging welt on his cheek, his other cheek feeling hot from blushing in embarrassment.
“You fucking asshole!” she screamed, her accent thicker than he remembered. “You fucking did it again!”
Pacino rubbed his face while Alexeyev and Kovalov pulled Irina Trusov off him.
“What’s she talking about, Georgy?” Kovalov asked, mystified.
“Mr. Pacino here,” Alexeyev said, trying not to smile, “commanded the hijacked Iranian submarine I told you about. In the melee of trying to escape, with us trying to keep him from escaping, he got lucky and sank the Kazan. But then he came back and pulled us out of our escape chamber.”
“I was just the second-in-command of that mission, Captain,” Pacino said, turning to see Seagraves and Quinnivan looking on from over his shoulder.
“Were you here in the same submarine as in that conflict, Lieutenant?” Alexeyev said, having calmed down Trusov and sitting her back down to drink her tea. “What was it, named after one of your provinces—Vermont? Vermont, yes?”
Pacino glanced at the deck. “No. Vermont is in the drydock. There was a bad fire. We drove her replacement up here.” Pacino decided not to name the New Jersey. No sense being accused of giving the Russians intel.