Icebound (15 page)
“Green board!” the petty officer called.
Gorov ordered compressed air released into the submarine, and when the pressure indicator didn’t register a fall, he knew the boat was sealed.
“Pressure in the boat,” the diving officer called.
In less than a minute they had completed the preparations. The deck acquired an incline, the top of the sail submerged, and they were out of sight of anyone in a ship or aircraft.
“Take her down to one hundred feet,” Gorov ordered.
The descent was measured by signifying beeps from the computer.
“At one hundred feet,” the diving officer announced.
“Hold her steady.”
“Steady, sir.”
As the submarine leveled off, Gorov said, “Take over for me, Lieutenant Zhukov.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can return the control room to a skeleton watch.”
“Yes, sir.”
Gorov left the chamber and walked aft to the communications center.
Timoshenko turned toward the door just as the captain entered the room. “Request permission to run up the antenna, sir.”
“Denied.”
Blinking in surprise, Timoshenko tilted his head to one side and said, “Sir?”
“Denied,” Gorov repeated. He surveyed the telecommunications equipment that lined the bulkheads. He had been given rudimentary training in its use. For security reasons, the telecommunications computer was separate from the ship’s main computer, although the keyboards were operated in the same manner as those in the control room with which he was so familiar. “I want to use your coder and the communications computer.”
Timoshenko didn’t move. He was an excellent technician and a bright young man in some ways. But his world was composed of data banks, programming keys, input, output, and gadgets—and he was not able to deal well with people unless they behaved in a predictable, machinelike manner.
“Did you hear me?” Gorov asked impatiently.
Blushing, embarrassed, and confused, Timoshenko said, “Uh…yes. Yes, sir.” He directed Gorov to a chair before the primary terminal of the communications computer. “What did you have in mind, sir?”
“Privacy,” Gorov said bluntly as he sat down.
Timoshenko just stood there.
“You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”
His confusion deepening, Timoshenko nodded, tried to smile, but instead looked as if he had just been jabbed with a long needle. He retired to the other end of the room, where his curious subordinates were unsuccessfully pretending that they had heard nothing.
The coder—or encrypting machine—stood beside Gorov’s chair. It was the size and shape of a two-drawer filing cabinet, housed in burnished steel. A keyboard—with all the usual keys plus fourteen with special functions—was built into the top. Gorov touched the
ON
switch. Crisp yellow paper automatically rolled out of the top of the coder cabinet and onto the platen.
Gorov quickly typed a message. When he was finished, he read it without touching the flimsy paper, then pressed a rectangular red key labeled
PROCESS
. A laser printer hummed, and the coder produced the encrypted version under the original message. It appeared to be nonsense: clumps of random numbers separated by occasional symbols.
Tearing the paper from the encrypting machine, Gorov swung around in his chair to face the video display terminal. Referring to the encoded version of the message, he carefully typed the same series of numbers and symbols into the communications computer. When that was done, he pressed a special-function key that bore the word
DECODE
and another labeled
PRINTOUT
. He did not touch the
READOUT
tab, because he didn’t want his work displayed on the large overhead screen for the benefit of Timoshenko and the other technicians. After dropping the flimsy yellow sheet from the encrypting machine into a paper shredder, he leaned back in his chair.
No more than a minute passed before the communiqué—now decoded and in its original state—was in his hands. He had come full circle in less than five minutes: The printout contained the same fourteen lines that he had composed on the coder, but it was now in the usual type style of the computer. It looked like any other decoded message received from the Ministry in Moscow, which was precisely what he wanted.
He instructed the computer to erase from its memory banks every detail of what he had just done. With that, the printout was the only evidence that remained of the exercise. Timoshenko would not be able to quiz the computer about any of this after Gorov left the cabin.
He got up and went to the open door. From there he said, “Oh, Lieutenant?”
Timoshenko was pretending to study a logbook. He glanced up. “Yes, sir?”
“In those dispatches you intercepted, the ones having to do with the Edgeway group, there was mention of a transmitter on that drift ice with them.”
Timoshenko nodded. “They’ve got a standard shortwave set, of course. But that isn’t what you’re talking about. There’s also a radio transmitter, a tracking beacon, that puts out a two-second signal ten times every minute.”
“Have you picked it up?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Is it a strong signal?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Have you got a bearing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, run another check on it. I’ll be back to you on the intercom in a few minutes,” Gorov said. He returned to the control room for another conversation with Emil Zhukov.
Harry had not yet finished telling Rita how the auxiliary drill had broken down, when she interrupted him. “Hey, where’s Brian?”
He turned to the men who had entered the ice cave behind him. Brian Dougherty was not among them.
Harry frowned. “Where’s Brian? Why isn’t he here?”
“He must be around somewhere. I’ll take a look outside,” Roger Breskin said.
Pete Johnson left with him.
“He probably just went behind one of the hummocks out there,” Fischer said, although he surely knew better than that. “Nothing especially dramatic, I’ll wager. Probably just had to go to the john.”
“No,” Harry disagreed.
Rita said, “He would have told someone.”
Out on the icecap, far from the security of Edgeway Station or the inflatable igloos of a temporary camp, no one could afford to be modest even about bladder and bowel habits. When going to the john, they all realized that it was necessary to inform at least one other person as to exactly which hill or pressure ridge would serve as a screen for their toilet. Acutely aware of the vagaries of the icefield and the weather, Brian would have let others know where to start looking if he didn’t make a timely return.
Roger and Pete reappeared in less than two minutes, pulling up their goggles, tugging down their ice-veined snow masks.
“He’s not at the sleds,” Roger said. “Or anywhere else we can see.” His gray eyes, usually expressionless, were troubled.
“Who rode back here with him?” Harry asked.
They looked at one another.
“Claude?”
The Frenchman shook his head. “Not me. I thought he rode with Franz.”
“I rode with Franz,” George Lin said.
Rita was exasperated. Tucking an errant strand of reddish hair back under her hood, she said, “For God’s sake, you mean he was left behind in the confusion?”
“No way. He couldn’t have been,” Harry said.
“Unless that was what he wanted,” George Lin suggested.
Harry was perplexed. “Why should he want to be left behind?”
Clearly untouched by their anxiety about Brian, Lin took time to blow his nose, fastidiously fold the handkerchief, and return it to a zippered pocket of his coat before answering the question. “You must have read some of the newspaper stories about him. Spain…Africa…all over, he’s been risking his life for a lark.”
“So?”
“Suicidal,” Lin said, as though it should have been obvious to them.
Harry was astonished and not a little angry. “You’re saying he stayed behind to die?”
Lin shrugged.
Harry didn’t even need to think about that. “Good God, George, not Brian. What’s the matter with you?”
“He might have been hurt,” Pete said. “A fall.”
Claude Jobert said, “Fell, hit his head, unable to cry out, and we were so eager to get out of there and back here, we didn’t notice.”
Harry was skeptical.
“It’s possible,” Pete insisted.
Dubious, Harry said, “Maybe. All right, we’ll go back and look. You and me, Pete. Two snowmobiles.”
Roger stepped forward. “I’m going with you.”
“Two can handle it,” Harry said, quickly fixing his goggles in place.
“I insist,” Breskin said. “Look, Brian handled himself damn well out there on the ice today. He didn’t hesitate when he had to go over that cliff to get a line around George. I’d have thought about it twice myself. But he didn’t. He just went. And if it was me in trouble now, he’d do whatever he could. I know it. So you can count me in on this whether or not you need me.”
As far as Harry could remember, that was the longest speech that Roger Breskin had made in months. He was impressed. “Okay, then. You’ll come along. You’re too damn big to argue with.”
The
Ilya Pogodin’
s cook was its greatest treasure. His father had been the head chef at the National Restaurant in Moscow, and from his papa he had learned to perform miracles with food that made the Bible story of loaves and fishes seem like an unremarkable exercise. The fare at his table was the best in the submarine service.
He had already begun to make fish
selianka
for the first course of the evening meal. White fish. Onions. Bay leaves. Egg whites. The aroma drifted from the galley past the communications center, then filled the control room.
When Gorov entered the room, Sergei Belyaev, the diving officer on duty, said, “Captain, will you help me talk sense to Leonid?” He gestured at a young seaman first class who was monitoring the alarm board.
Gorov was in a hurry, but he did not want Belyaev to sense his tension. “What’s the trouble?”
Belyaev grimaced. “Leonid’s on the first mess shift, and I’m on the fifth.”
“Ah.”
“I’ve promised if he’ll change shifts with me, I’ll fix him up with an absolutely gorgeous blonde in Kaliningrad. This woman is nothing short of spectacular, I swear to you. Breasts like melons. She could arouse a granite statue. But poor, dumb Leonid won’t deal with me.”
Smiling, Gorov said, “Of course he won’t. What woman could be more exciting than the dinner being prepared for us? Besides, who would be simple-minded enough to believe that an absolutely gorgeous blonde with breasts like melons would have anything to do with you, Sergei Belyaev?”
Laughter echoed in the low-ceilinged chamber.
Grinning broadly, Belyaev said, “Perhaps I should offer him a few rubles instead.”
“Much more realistic,” Gorov said. “Better yet, U.S. dollars if you have any.” He walked to the chart table, sat on one of the stools, and put a folded printout in front of Emil Zhukov. It was the message that he had run through the coder and communications computer only a few minutes ago. “Something else for you to read,” he said quietly.
Zhukov pushed aside his novel and adjusted his wire-rimmed eyeglasses, which had slid down on his long nose. He unfolded the paper.
MESSAGE
NAVAL MINISTRY
TIME:
1900
MOSCOW
FROM: DUTY OFFICER
TO: CAPTAIN N. GOROV
SUBJECT YOUR LAST TRANSMISSION
#34-
D
MESSAGE BEGINS:
YOUR REQUEST UNDER CONSIDERATION BY ADMIRALTY STOP CONDITIONAL PERMISSION GRANTED STOP MAKE NECESSARY COURSE CHANGES STOP CONFIRMATION OR CANCELLATION OF PERMISSION WILL BE TRANSMITTED TO YOU AT
1700
HOURS YOUR TIME STOP
After he had chewed on his lower lip for a moment, Zhukov turned his intense stare on Gorov and said, “What’s this?”
Gorov kept his voice low, but he tried not to seem secretive to any crewmen who might be watching. “What is it? I think you can see what it is, Emil. A forgery.”
The first officer didn’t know what to say.
