The altimeter was falling past two hundred meters. Ybarra took a great risk and increased the throttle settings on the three remaining engines.
It was a useless gesture born of desperation. The engines would burn their last few gallons of fuel at a faster rate and die sooner. But Ybarra wasn't thinking logically. He could not sit and do nothing. He felt he had to perform one final, defiant act, anything, even if it meant hastening his own death.
Five tormenting minutes passed as one. The black sea reached up to clutch the aircraft.
"I see lights!" Rubin blurted suddenly. "Dead ahead!"
His eyes instantly flicked up and focused through the windshield. "A ship!" he cried. "It's a ship!"
Almost as he shouted, the plane roared over the polar Explorer, missing the radar mast by less than ten meters.
The crew of the icebreaker had been alerted by radar to the approaching aircraft. The men standing inside the bridge involuntarily ducked as the airliner, exhaust from its two straining engines screaming like an army of banshees, swept overhead toward the Greenland coast to the west.
The roar filled the electronics compartment, and it emptied like a lake through a split dam. Knight took off for the bridge at a dead run with Pitt and Giordino right behind him. None of the men manning the bridge as much as turned as the captain burst past the door. Everyone was peering in the direction of the receding aircraft.
"What in hell was that?" Knight demanded from the officer on watch.
"An unidentified aircraft nearly ranmied the ship, Captain."
"Military?"
"No, sir. I caught a quick glimpse of the lower wings as she flashed overhead. She bore no markings."
"A spy plane maybe?"
"I doubt it. All her windows were lit UP."
"A commercial airliner," Giordino suggested.
Knight's expression became vague and a trifle irritated.
"Where does the pilot get off, endangering my ship? What's he doing around here anyway? We're hundreds of miles off commercial flight paths."
"She's losing altitude," said Pitt, staring at the blinking lights as they grew smaller in the east. "I'd say she's going in."
"God help them if they set down on this sea in the dark."
"Strange he hasn't turned on the landing lights."
The watch officer nodded his head in agreement. "Strange is the word. A pilot in trouble would surely send out a distress signal. The communications room hasn't heard a peep."
"You tried to raise him?" asked Knight.
"As soon as they came at us on radar. No reply"
Knight stepped to the window and gazed out. He dnimmed his fingertips thoughtfully for no more than four seconds. Then he turned and faced the watch officer.
"Maintain course, continue the grid pattern."
Pitt looked at him. "I understand your decision, but I can't say I applaud it."
"You're on a Navy ship, Mr. Pitt," said Knight sternly. "We're not the Coast Guard. Our mission takes first priority."
"There could be women and children on board that plane."
"The facts don't spell tragedy. She's still in the air. If the Polar Explorer is the only hope of rescue in this part of the sea, why no distress call, no attempt to signal us with his landing lights, no sign of preparations to ditch? You're a flyer, you tell me why the pilot hasn't circled the ship if he's in trouble."
"Could be he's trying for land."