Phoenix Sub Zero

The young man hurried out the door. Crossfield looked after him, then out the window and shook his head. The glass was rattling with the fury of the wind, the snow covering the bottom half, ice starting to form on the top half.

“Those bubblehead submariners sure can pick the day to need help,” he mumbled to himself.

LABRADOR SEA

Kane drummed his fingers on the chart table. It had been a half-hour since they had surfaced and sent the distress code.

Since then nothing had happened. The storm continued to blow outside. Inside it was extremely cold. Having nothing to do made matters even worse, the men could only focus on the cold.

Kane decided to take a look topside. Houser had rigged the bridge for surface, the hatches open. Kane climbed up the long ladder, the metal of it threatening to freeze his skin.

Houser lifted the grating for him.

The view was so bright it hurt Kane’s eyes. The skin of his face felt like he was being sandblasted by ice particles.

The fog had eased somewhat since they’d come up, and Kane thought he could make out the shape of the icebergs in the middle distance. Houser, in a leather face shield like a hockey-goalie mask, was looking through binoculars at a steady bearing toward the bow.

“What are you looking at?” Kane asked him.

“I’m not sure I believe it. Captain. I was waiting for it to be a mirage.”

“Let me look.” Kane took the binoculars. “I don’t believe it either.” Kane would have had an easier time explaining the sight of pink elephants.

“The sounds you heard on the UWT—”

“Yes, skipper.“Ho ho ho.’ Merry submarine escape.” “Good God,” Kane said, staring into the binoculars, seeing the impossible, the dozen orange rafts floating in the whitecaps, all full of men. None of the men moving.

“XO to the bridge,” Mcdonne called from below. Kane stepped aside while Houser lifted the grating for him. The bridge seemed crowded with Mcdonne’s bulk.

“Jeez, it’s cold up here. And I thought it was bad below—”

“XO, check this out,” Kane said.

Mcdonne looked and whistled, then looked again.

“Life rafts? Where the hell did they come from?”

“Who knows? Maybe the Destiny?” Kane said.

“Those rafts look like USN issue.”

“They do?” Kane had never seen submarine rafts.

“Yes sir. Don’t forget, I worked damage control over at navsea during shore duty. We’ve got to do something for these guys.”

“XO, they’ve got to be a mile away. Maybe two. What are you going to do, swim?”

“I’ll get our own rafts out there, pull those guys back here,” Mcdonne said, already going for the grating to the access tunnel. “We’ve got a couple of those canned electric motors from the seal deployment exercise. I could use those attached to our rafts and go over there and get them.”

“Poor bastards are probably already dead,” Houser said, still looking through the binoculars that Mcdonne had given back to him.

“If they’re not, they will be by the time we pull them aboard,” Kane said. “And even if they’re alive then, getting them aboard doesn’t do them much good. It’s almost as cold below as it is up here. We might drift here for days or weeks before anyone finds us. By then the cold will probably take all of us.”

Houser looked over at him. “Hey, skipper. You’re the captain. You’re the one who’s supposed to be so god damned positive. Ditching’s my job, remember?”

Kane stared at the lieutenant. Nodded. Honesty was dumb policy right now.

“You think the XO is really going out there after those guys?”

“If he can find the rafts. If he doesn’t freeze just getting them in the water.”

Houser looked through the binoculars. “They’re definitely not moving. If they were alive they’d be waving at us or launching flares or something …”

The wind picked up, blowing snow into the cockpit, reminding Kane of the cold. “I’m going below. You staying up here?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Kane looked over at the rafts, the blizzard beginning to make them hard to find.

“Get below soon, Houser. Your face looks bad.”

Kane lowered himself down the ladder, numbness creeping into his hands in spite of the cold. In the control room he could still see his breath.

Chapter 37 Saturday, 4 January

KANGAMIU AIRFIELD, WESTERN GREENLAND

The snow blew over the runway, obscuring the lights and the painted numerals. The snow-clearing crews had worked continuously through the night, without complete success.

Crossfield pulled on the oversized helmet, adjusted the boom microphone, tested it and studied the chart clipped on his thigh clipboard while Trill, his copilot, brought the engines of the V-22 up to speed. The big aircraft shuddered as the rotors wound up to idle, the blades spinning horizontally as the plane prepared for a vertical ascent. Crossfield went through the takeoff checklist, spoke a few words to Trill, then watched as Trill throttled up. The engines howled louder than the wind, and the patch of runway beneath them, momentarily cleared of snow by the fierce manmade wind of the rotors, faded away.