Phoenix Sub Zero

“I’ve got something. An IR trace and a radar contact at the same bearing and range.”

“Let me see.” Crossfield looked at the IR scope. “Polar bear. Or a seal. Damned dumb seal to be out in this weather.”

Trill shrugged. “Where’s he supposed to go?”

“Keep circling for a few minutes. I want to watch this. Anything visual?”

“Still nothing but white.”

“Whoa.” Crossfield said as the weak IR trace bloomed into bright hot life. “What’s this?”

Trill looked. “Flare? That’s got to be them …”

“Note the position and radio it back to base. Have them send it in to the brass running this op.”

“Yes sir.”

“Too damned bad we can’t set down and pick them up.”

Crossfield looked over at the panel and saw the fuel levels dipping. “We’re going to have to get back and get some gas anyway.”

“Message is out, skipper.”

“Take us back. Maybe by the time we refuel and get back here the damned storm will be clearing.”

* * *

“I hear it.” Mcdonne scanned the clouds with the binoculars but the lenses kept fogging up. The storm was getting worse, if that were possible.

“I do, too,” Kane said. “Hard to tell what direction he is, though. Shoot another flare.”

Mcdonne shot the flare gun. The flare immediately disappeared into the vapor of the swirling snow and clouds.

Both men listened. Kane shook his head.

“I don’t hear it anymore.”

“Neither do I.”

“But we both heard it, right?”

“Yes, Captain. It was definitely aircraft engines.”

“And now they’re gone.”

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

“The SAR people found something. A solid radar return and a heat bloom, several heat blooms. Like they shot a flare. The latitude matched the last transmission of the Phoenix.”

Rummel read off the message to Donchez. Donchez had bags under his eyes, his cheeks hollow. He looked embalmed.

“What are they waiting for? Did they go in?”

“Afraid not. Admiral. Winds are still too high and they were out of fuel. But at least they found something.”

“Yeah, corpses.”

* * *

It took most of the afternoon to return to Kangamiu, fuel up and wait for the wind to ease enough just to be able to take off again. The airstrip’s runway was covered with almost a foot of snow, drifts forming in the wake of buildings. It had taken all of Crossfield’s skill just to find the runway to set down the V-22. Even as he landed the wind velocity exceeded the limits for a safe landing, but there had been no choice, the tanks were empty. It was land or crash. This time he’d been lucky, but he wouldn’t try to take off with a full load of fuel with the high windspeed at zero visibility.

It had been a ninety-minute wait on the ground before the wind slowed. Crossfield had no idea how long it would last, but he didn’t wait to see. Trill spooled up the rotors and lifted off, immediately transitioning to horizontal flight. By the time the V-22 was over the location of the original detection, it had been almost six hours since they had departed.

Night had closed in quickly, the only thing worse than the white of the blizzard the blackness of the snow-filled night.

Crossfield searched again for the infrared signature of the Phoenix.

Nothing.

Trill called wearily from the copilot seat. “Weather radar and the weather report from base agree for once. The storm cell is passing through. Should be over in the next half-hour.” “Great,” Crossfield said. “Tell that to the poor bastards down there.”

It was Mcdonne’s turn to go topside. Kane had kept someone on deck ever since they had heard the aircraft engines.

The watch was shifted every thirty minutes, rotating between the dozen men still able to go topside. Even with Mcdonne’s added bulk, the wind seemed to blast right through his parka, his sweatshirt, his two sweaters and into his flesh, right down to the marrow of his bones.

The flares had run out hours before. They now had brought papers and mattresses and lighter fluid and anything that would burn, making a fire in the cubbyhole aft in the sail where a lookout would normally be stationed. That way the fire was protected from the blasting wind, but then the heat of it was lost to the men topside. Worse, the flames and heat would be detected only if the aircraft was directly overhead. But all attempts at starting fires on the deck had proved futile. The wind ate the flames or blew the material overboard. Mcdonne crouched in the sail, feeding paper to the flames, the pages of the reactor-plant manual burning slowly.

It was all stupid, he thought. They were just waiting to die. For an instant he felt an impulse to leap overboard and just get it the hell over with. It could take the sea only two or three minutes to lower his body temperature enough to take away consciousness. After that, who cared?

There was something wrong, he suddenly thought. Something was different. It took him a long time to realize it, his thinking impaired by the cold.

The different thing was the wind.

There was no wind.

The storm had finally passed.