Ice Hunt

Perry glanced over to Amanda. She had read his lips, saw his expression. She mirrored his reaction. The race was over before it began. They were defeated.

“…nuclear trigger…” the man continued. “Get clear…”

Before Perry could answer, Amanda’s fingers dug into his arm. Her voice slurred at her sudden anxiety. “Get us deep! Now!”

“What?” he asked.

But she was already running. “As deep as the boat will go!” she yelled back at him.

Perry responded, trusting the woman’s urgency. “Emergency dive!” he yelled to the crew. “Flood negative! Now!

Klaxons rang throughout the sub.

9:17 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Craig pounded down the hall of Level Four. He knew his destination, but did he have time? There was no telling. He patted his parka’s pocket, hearing a satisfying clink.

He ran past one of the Delta Force team members. The sergeant major called to him as he fled past. “Sir…?”

He didn’t slow, running headlong around the curving hall. His goal came in sight. He needed a secure place to hide, somewhere to ride out the blast wave, someplace waterproof. He knew only one sure place.

The door to the solitary tank was still open, empty of its recent occupant, the Inuit boy. Craig dove inside. He twisted around and yanked the glass door closed. Still powered on the generators, it automatically locked down and was sealed, closing him in.

But was it secure enough? He touched the glass. It vibrated from the sonic pulse of Polaris.

Craig sank to the bottom of the cylinder, bracing himself.

How much time was left?

9:17 P.M.

RUSSIAN I-SERIES SUB

Matt lay with Jenny. In each other’s arms, the pair was nestled between two mattresses, crammed and sandwiched in one of the bunks. The others were similarly padded, limited two to a bunk. Washburn watched over Maki. Even Bane had been penned in a padded cell of mattresses.

After boarding the sub, there had been no time for niceties or plans. They had all fled to the sub’s berths and found ways to secure themselves from the coming explosion.

And now the waiting.

Matt buried himself into Jenny. The admiral must have survived longer than he’d guessed. Or perhaps the lag time on the device was a bit longer than one minute.

He clutched Jenny, and she him. Hands sought each other, moving from memory, reflexively. His mouth found hers. Soft lips parted under him. They murmured to each other, no words, merely a way to share their breath, reaching out to each other in all ways, a promise unspoken but heartfelt.

He wanted more time with her.

But time had run out.

9:17 P.M.

OUT ON THE ICE…

Under the twilight sky, Command Sergeant Major Edwin Wilson, currently designated Delta One, stood on the ice. The Sikorsky Seahawk rested five paces behind him. Its rotors slowly spun, engines kept hot, ready for immediate action. As ordered, he had retreated thirty miles from the submerged ice island. With the discovery of the bomb at the station, it was up to him to protect the stolen journals. He was only to return if an all clear was dispatched by the mission’s operational controller.

Until then, he waited. No further updates had been transmitted.

Under his feet, the ice had begun to vibrate. At first he thought it was his imagination, but now he was not so certain. The trembling persisted.

What was happening?

He faced northeast, staring through high-powered binoculars, equipped with night vision. The terrain was so flat and featureless that he was able to make out the tall line of pressure ridges near the horizon.

Nothing. No answers there.

He checked his watch. According to the timetable of the original report, there were only a few more minutes to spare.

Frowning, he lifted the binoculars again.

Just as he raised them to his face, the world ignited to the north. The flash of green through the scopes whited out the view, blinding him. Stumbling back, he let the scopes drop around his neck.

He blinked away the glare and stared to the north. Something was wrong with the horizon. It was no longer a smooth arc. It now bowed up, rising like a wave.

He snatched the binoculars and stared again. A deep green glow marked the center of the cresting wave, like a signal buoy riding a wave.

Then it was gone.

A roar like the end of the world rumbled over the ice.

He continued to stare. The bomb had clearly gone off, but what was happening? He couldn’t understand what he was seeing through the scopes.

Then it hit him. He suddenly understood why the glow at the center of the explosion had vanished. It was blocked from his view—by a wall of ice rolling toward him, as wide as the horizon.

As he stared, the cresting wave spread out from ground zero, like a boulder dropped into a still lake.

A tidal wave of ice.

His heart leaped to his throat as he ran for the idling helicopter. “Go!” he screamed as the world continued to rumble ominously. Instead of the explosion fading and echoing away, it was growing louder.

He fled to the Seahawk’s door.

One of his men pushed the door open. “What’s happening?”

Wilson dove in. “Get this bird in the air! Now!”

The pilot heard him. The rotors immediately began to kick up, spinning faster, rotating toward lift off.

Wilson dove to the copilot’s seat.

The blast wave of ice raced toward them.

He stared upward, praying. Overhead, the rotors spun to a blur. The Seahawk lifted from its skids, bobbling a bit as the rotors dug at the frigid air, trying to find purchase.

“C’mon!” Wilson urged.

He stared as the horizon closed in on them.

Then the bird took to the air, shooting straight up.

Wilson judged the distance of the surging ice-tsunami. Was its speed slowing? Fading?

It seemed to be.

It was!

They were going to make it.

Then a half mile away, something blew under the ice. The entire cap slammed up at them, striking the skids of the helicopter. It tilted savagely.

Wilson screamed.

The amplified wave struck the helicopter, swatting it out of the sky.

9:18 P.M.

USS POLAR SENTINEL

Amanda stared at the screen of the DeepEye. A moment ago, the monitor’s resolution had fogged from a deep sonar pulse, wiping out detail. Then worse—the screen went suddenly blue.

Only one effect registered that hue on a sonar device.

A nuclear explosion.

John Aratuk stood beside her. The elderly Inuit maintained his vigil in the Cyclops room. He stared up through the dome of Lexan glass. The seas lay dark around them. They were nearly at crush depth. Here the world was eternally sunless.