North Cape (28 page)

He realized that he was carrying extremely vital information the American state-of-theart in electronic countermeasures, aircraft and engine design and sensor technology. He also knew that this information locked away in his brain could easily be unlocked by the Soviets, and, therefore, he was much too valuable to let himself fall into their hands. Folsom, McPherson, Gadsen—all, or one, meant to kill him. Only that factor was ice clear in his drug-crazed mind.

What Teleman had endured in the past seventy-two hours might easily have killed a lesser man. Instead of recovering in the special-care unit of a military hospital, he was staggering around the North Cape of Norway in the midst of the century's worst Arctic storm. His body still contained microresidues of the various psychic and-physical energizers and, without the compensating PCMS, was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. The momentary hysteria hours before, which had sent him into a shallow coma that Folsom and Gadsen had mistaken for sleep, had been the beginning. The deepening cold endured since then was affecting the action of the drug residues, changing and catalyzing their effects to an extent never before tested. As a result Teleman's mind burned with the steady intensity of an arc lamp. As he lay in the snow his mind was busy collating drug-affected impressions, misunderstood facts, and skewed extrapolations, all of which only served to reinforce his conviction that those helping him were actually his assassins. Forgotten was the intense effort, at the risk of their own lives, that had already been expended to aid him.

As Gadsen disappeared around the far side of the tent, Teleman got shakily to his feet and hegan to run at little more than a half trot due south. He had no firm plan in mind for his escape. The sudden awakening minutes before had brought only the galvanizing need for escape. Somewhere deep in his mind was the idea of heading south for several miles, then turning east into a shallow arc that would bring him to the naval base from the southeast at an angle great enough to pass unseen by Folsom and the others. If they had already arrived at the base he would simply denounce them as his would-be killers and claim asylum.

Teleman trotted on for several more minutes under the wavering streamers of electrons decorating the sky. The weird light made seeing difficult and twice he tripped and fell headlong. The

third time he fell he found that he could not immediately get up. Stunned more by the lack of movement in his legs than by the force of the fall, Teleman lay prone, able to move only his head. The few minutes of running had taken him well away from the vicinity of the tent. He lay now in a blank white desert where the only movement was the aurora borealis dancing solemnly overhead. After several minutes during which the cold penetrated his furs with ice-fingers, he was able to get to his knees and, using the carbine as a crutch, pull himself to his feet.

Teleman staggered forward again at a shuffle, leaning heavily on the carbine. But to his mind's eye he was running as swiftly as an arrow. Only a few more hours, he thought happily to himself, and he would reach the naval station—well ahead of the others. Once there, he would tell them all that had happened in the past two days, tell them that both Americans and Russians had violated their territory. Maybe they would even let him go along when they went out to round up the intruders.

Now he was strong and fresh again. The territory unreeled beneath his feet as he bounded over the snow. On the horizon was the low bulk of the naval base and the slender stems of gun barrels thrusting out toward the sea. He was so close, he thought, that he could stop and rest awhile, for there was no sense in arriving so out of breath that he could not tell his story. He stopped and sank down in the snow. Only a few minutes rest and then he would finish the last half mile. The brilliantly lit base area was now clearly visible, even if it was a few feet above the ground. That would make no difference. He could jump that high. Funny, these Norwegians, that they should paint the buildings and the compound a bright green. It was a naval base . . . it should be blue. . . . Folsom came completely awake the instant Gadsen burst through the tent flaps.

"Off to the west, about a dozen men . . . a mile out." Folsom was already shrugging into his parka as McPherson grabbed up his pack and twisted to wake Teleman. "Goddamn," he bellowed.

Folsom swung around and stared at the empty sleeping bag. "For Christ's sake, where the hell has he gone?" he roared. Gadsen popped his head outside and then back in again.

"Wherever it is, we ain't got much time to look for him. It's going to take these bastards about ten minutes to get here."

Folsom stood stock-still in the center of the tent, his mind churning furiously as he tried to decide what had to be done next. "All right, leave everything here but the carbines and ammunition. Outside and keep low so they can't see us." The three men crawled quickly outside into the bitter air and huddled close to the ground. Folsom pulled the binoculars to his eyes and examined the approaching Russians. There were six men spread out into a skirmish line almost half a mile long, both ends beginning to curl around to flank the tent. Quickly he swept the horizon north and then south. Turning to the east, he scanned the snow carefully to the horizon, but saw no sign of any second party closing from that direction.

In the meantime McPherson had been searching the snow around the tent. He raised an arm and motioned the others to join him, then pointed at a line of tracks leading south.

"I'll lay odds that's our boy."

"Okay, south is as good a direction as any now. We go get him," Folsom ordered, his angry voice gritting through clenched teeth. "What the hell do you suppose got into him anyway?"

Neither Gadsen nor McPherson replied, and in moments, hunching low to the ground, they were running south along the line of tracks. McPherson had unslung his pack and was dragging it after him in a vain effort to wipe away the trail they were leaving. If anything, the temperature had fallen even lower in the past five hours. As the men ran they left long streamers of frozen breath hanging in the crystal air. Above them the multicolored aurora borealis glimmered and writhed across the northern sky and Folsom again felt the strange, nagging sensation that he had forgotten some vital point. But as his body began to tire after the insufficient three hours of sleep, he found himself concentrating to the exclusion of all else, on running.

They stopped after ten minutes and threw themselves prone in the snow to rest and check on the Soviets. Through the glasses Folsom could see that the Russian troops were less than a hundred yards from the tent. The northern and southern ends of the line had circled until the tent was in the center. They were lying prone in the snow while two soldiers were crawling up to the tent. Folsom rolled over on his back and waited for his ragged breathing

to smooth. In the ten minutes the three had been running they had covered perhaps one mile at a half trot, half run. All three were severely winded, but at least, Folsom thought, they had put enough distance between themselves and the tent so that they could now go on without being spotted in the fitful light.

"How far do you think Teleman managed to get?" he asked McPherson.

"I doubt if he could have gone much farther. I'm surprised we haven't found him yet. He was in pretty bad shape when we stopped. We'll be lucky to find him alive," McPherson finished bleakly.

Folsom swore savagely. "The old man will have my head if we don't." Gadsen, looking miserable, rubbed his face with gloved hands. "I don't see how the hell he could have gotten out of that tent without me seeing him," he muttered.

"Hell, how were you to know that he would take off? You weren't watching him. You were watching for the Russians. If there is any fault here at all, it's mine. We should probably have rigged up something to wake us . . ." Folsom shook his head. The "whatif" line of excuse-making was a waste of energy. He stood up and took a last look at the Russians through the glasses, then swept the east once more. The two scouts had almost reached the tent. He knew it could not take them much longer to find out that their quarry had flown the coop. Whether they would automatically assume that the Americans had left ahead of them or would discover their tracks was a toss-up. In either case he wanted to get as far away as possible. Nothing had shown on the eastern horizon yet, but somewhere out there another Russian party was approaching. He wished to God he could get in touch with Larkin. Suddenly he felt completely inadequate to cope with the situation.

"Come on, let's go," he said quietly, starting south again along the parallel set of tracks that Teleman had left.

Teleman's tracks were becoming more and more irregular as they trudged on. Shortly they came upon the spot where their quarry had first fallen. The depression in the snow, almost invisible in the uncertain light, showed that he had fallen cleanly and gotten up again without hesitation. Not daring to pause, the

three sailors pushed on. Now the pace that Folsom had set was beginning to wear heavily. Their breath was coming in gasps of exhaustion, their half run, half trot beginning to flag. When they reached the second indentation in the fresh snow surface Folsom waved them to a halt. Gasping for breath and leaning heavily on their carbines, they knelt in the snow. Finally, after a few minutes, McPherson dragged himself forward a few yards and came back with Teleman's insulated canteen. The three looked at one another and with the same thought were up and running at once. Within the next few hundred yards they found his carbine, the lightweight pack, and finally the spot where he had fallen the third time.

Folsom looked around wildly but the horizon ahead was bare. In the past few minutes the aurora borealis had grown in intensity, but its wild gyrations made visibility even poorer. All three were gasping hoarsely for breath, barely this side of collapse themselves. But not once did they stop to consider their own bodies. The thought uppermost in their minds was: If they were this bad off, how much worse was Teleman?

With a hoarse command from Folsom, they started forward again. By now they had come three miles from the tent. The tent and the Russians were lost in the gloom on the northern horizon. For the first time since he had landed on the. North Cape, Folsom began to hope for a resurgence in the high winds that had buffeted them all through the day, or better yet, another blizzard. Given either to wipe out the last traces of their trail and they might win yet. But the cloudless sky offered the hope of neither. They were running again, running with the desperation of exhausted men who must run to save their lives and that of a comrade. Under the eerily lighted sky they raced on across the snow-covered expanse of the tundra plain in pursuit of the staggering track of the delirious pilot.

Once they stopped for a brief rest and Folsom searched the horizon with the binoculars. There was no sign of pursuit in any direction. But he knew that condition would not last. Then they were off again, to stop almost immediately. Gadsen had seen it first, a lump of rags huddled into the snow.

Complete and utter silence had descended over the vast reaches of the North Cape. Along the shore the storm-raised combers

continued to pound against the rock with monotonous regularity. But inland nothing moved on the plain of snow. It was as if the cold had frozen even the air into immobility. Folsom knelt down by Teleman's body and turned him over slowly. He pushed back the neck flap, pulled off one of his own gloves and felt for a heartbeat.

"I'll be damned. He's still alive," he said wonderingly. "You're kidding," Gadsen said, dropping down beside him. "How the hell could he be?". Folsom shook his head and rebuttoned Teleman's neck flap. "You've got me. Now, how do we get him out of here?"

McPherson shrugged out of his pack and reslung his rifle. "I'll carry him."

The strident sounds of the battle alarm echoed through the ship. No practice situation now; each crew member understood fully that this was the real thing. Lieutenant Commander Bridges, strapped into the seat of the executive officer's console, watched the battle lights flick from amber to green as each station reported in. A hard knot of both fear and excitement was building in his stomach as the track of the submarine, relayed to his console from the large bridge display, began to move steadily towards the battle cruiser.

"All stations manned and ready, sir," he reported, as the last light, the security room, turned green.

"Thank you, Mr. Bridges," Larkin said calmly. "Bring her around on a course of op° and ten knots, rig for silent running. All ECM to on."

Bridges punched the heading into the computer console and stabbed down the ECM gear switch. The computer control net within the ship allowed either the captain or the executive officer to control the ship during battle stations, thus avoiding the delays encountered in relaying orders through the helmsman and then to the engine room. Larkin still preferred to sit aloof on his high seat and give orders, leaving it to the executive officer to handle the ship. No provisions had been made for controlling the ship from any other location, nor was there need. In nuclear sea warfare there is no such item on the shipwright's bill of materials as armor plate. And conventional weapons were of no value against the U.S.S. Robert F. Kennedy, as she was well ,protected by her speed, defensive weaponry, and ECM gear. A direct hit on the bridge would not matter. A hit with nuclear weapons within 500 yards would destroy her utterly. Within one mile, a direct hit would probably kill the entire ship's complement with radiation. Larkin had not moved his eyes from the holographic map display since the Russian submarine had turned toward them and begun to run out to sea, directly away from North Cape Island, where it had lain since early that afternoon. Since 1500 the RFK had tried in vain to maintain a radar and sonar watch on the submarine, but its proximity to the rock walls of the cliffs edging the island had created a maze of conflicting signals. All during the long afternoon and evening, the feeling that the Russians had indeed landed a second party had grown. Now, with the submarine moving for a third time, it could mean either that the Soviet commander had realized his mistake and was moving to land a third party ashore between Folsom and the naval base, or that the RFK had been spotted. Long, agonizing minutes passed with the speed of a glacier's tread as the submarine increased its speed to twenty-two knots on a course that would bring an intercept in less than an hour. Finally, after twenty minutes, the submarine came about to a course paralleling the west coast. Larkin let loose a sigh of relief that was lost in similar sounds from the other eight men on the bridge. The submarine was still unaware of their presence. But an even greater dilemma now presented itself to Larkin. His theory, that the submarine was moving down the coast to drop the third shore party as close to the unsuspecting naval base as it dared, from which they would then work their way back to meet Folsom, was confirmed.