Did he laugh, or was it just static I heard?
His men were now in their Zodiacs. They pushed off from his sub. There were wooden crates in there with them. For all I knew, they were bringing their own hazmats.
I tried again. “Captain, did you hear? We have a pathogen of unknown nature here. We’re trying to determine its origin.”
“Yes, I heard you. That is an interesting story, Colonel,” he said, a new and harder note in his voice. “So, as I understand it, you admit that your vessel was carrying a bioweapon, which somehow got loose, infected your own crew.”
I was stunned. This was the last possible response I’d envisioned.
“That is absolutely not what I am saying. There’s no bioweapon!”
He had taken the truth the wrong way. But then another, horrifying thought hit me.
He’s been right about everything else. Is it possible?
No, no, it’s not possible, if it started with bodies brought aboard from a long time ago.
I said, “I’m telling you that we’re close to determining the source of infection. Do you hear me? Captain?”
He was silent. The wind came up suddenly. The storm, which had been easing, grew instantly, violently worse. The snow fell harder. I could barely see him now, much less guess his intent.
Even the static grew louder.
I shouted into the set, and braced for gunfire or torpedoes. It was the worst possible moment for communication to fail.
FIFTEEN
“A bioweapon,” he repeated, twenty seconds later.
At least the set worked, but I cursed the distance. I wished I could see his face. I wondered if he was in contact with Beijing. I wondered if he was alone in making decisions, as I was.
I said, stalling, as the snowfall thickened and ice pellets resumed their machine-gun rattle against steel, and the exposed areas on my face, “If it will help to convince you, please do send your physician. Take the blood samples. We would very much appreciate your medicines and any assistance in identifying the pathogen here.”
I hope Clinton was right about the ten minutes.
The Marines remained in place, vague statues through snow, vulnerable to the Chinese guns, a very long forty feet from the sub. Even if they reached us, they’d have to clamber up those slippery ice blocks to reach the deck, backs exposed. If shooting started, they were doomed.
Captain Zhou said, “Good, I’ll send over Dr. Liu, with the medicines.”
I raised binoculars and saw shadow figures on the opposite bridge, one gesturing angrily, the other in a posture of subservience. He was playing for time, too. He had his own ideas of what to do. Andrew Sachs stood staring into my face with an intensity that I did not like, and I wished I understood what he was thinking.
I know you are angry, but why?
I also thought, Zhou is using different satellites for communication than I am. Does his system work? Is he in contact with Beijing? He’s not going to give up on the Montana.
The green light went on and Zhou, back now, was straining at being cordial. “Come now, Colonel. What’s the expression in America? The laying of the playing cards on a table? There was an accident. A release of an experimental toxin. Perhaps a defensive weapon only. Yes?”
What is he doing? Recording my answer? Recording this so the Chinese can release an American admission of guilt?
How can I convince him that I’m telling the truth?
Zhou suggested, “It got out of control, and made your crew sick.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“An accident. A warhead. Yes, a bad accident.”
Between the static, the pellets pounding the hull, the stamping of Sachs to keep warm, and the wind, I was only vaguely aware of the new sound, a low vibration, like a far-off train, approaching through a tunnel.
“After all,” Zhou continued, “your sub was conducting cold weather weapons trials in the North, was it not?”
Who tells them these things?
I said, “I won’t comment on her mission, but please let me assure you—”
“Yes, I would like your assurance.”
“The United States does not use biological weapons. They are illegal and immoral and we have signed every treaty banning them.”
“I am familiar with immoral acts, Colonel. Like ramming a Chinese submarine last week in the South China Sea, causing the deaths of twenty-eight of our sailors.”
He is recording this!
“That was a terrible accident,” I said.
“Ah, that was the accident.”
It struck me, with perverse humor, that Zhou had his torpedoes pointed at us, was attempting to steal the Montana, that he had sent soldiers to encircle us, and yet he was acting like the aggrieved party.
“The two things are not connected,” I insisted.
Suddenly the hull beneath me lurched.
I looked down. We were not under power. So what had hit us? For a second, I feared it was a dud torpedo. Then I realized it had been ice.
Clinton jabbed me and nodded at the shore. There, the ice boulders had shifted slightly. The top ones had tumbled away and the pile now seemed a foot farther away from the hull than it had been a moment before.
Clinton nodded. Five minutes, he mouthed, holding up five gloved fingers. He’d removed his mitten for a moment to do it.
It occurred to me that the ice sounds might mask any noise coming from the Montana, if our power switched on.
I told Lieutenant Speck, “Get down there. Tell them what is happening, to get a torpedo ready and power on.”
As he descended inside, he kept off his bulky head gear. He’d be breathing possibly contaminated air, risking his life to move faster. His resolve — and a vision of those men in the tents on the ice — fortified me.
I will save every one of you that I can.
The Montana lurched again, this time to a sound like fingernails on a blackboard. The vibration seemed to pass through the hull, to set the steel trembling beneath my mittens.
Clinton nudged me.
“See? Behind their submarine? See?”
I raised the binoculars and peered into the mass of flying ice pellets. I saw the ghost sub, and the vague line of ice pack behind it. The “shore” had been an inverted bow shape before. Now it was a jagged line, closer to the rear of the Chinese sub. Suddenly I understood exactly what Clinton had been telling me. My hope rose. If the ice pushed Zhou’s sub, it could swing the bow away from us, and their midships toward us, and, if we kept moving also, then…
She’ll be sitting in front of our tubes. The threat will be reversed.
I would have had no idea that the ice was about to move if not for Clinton. Zhou may be as ignorant as me. Neither of us knows ice.
I heard a cr-ack below, as if some large mass had snapped in half, and almost simultaneously, a soft hum sounded; a vague glow shone, and looking down, I saw yellow light inside. We had electrical power!
Had Zhou’s people heard it come on?
There was no comment from the Chinese sub.
Well, the director said to scuttle her if I have to.
Their Zodiac boats, their boarding crew, were ready.
I felt the choice facing me as a series of emotions, played out in fractions of seconds. If broken into solid thoughts, they would have sounded like this.