North Cape

"Is he still there?" Larkin asked. think so, sir, the transceiver is still on position fix and—" The radio operator was interrupted by Teleman's faint voice. "Will shoot… flare…" Teleman pulled the pack to him and fumbled through the contents. His hands were so cold they refused to work, and in an agony of frustration he dumped the canvas bag, scattering the contents. Grawling painfully forward, he got to his knees again and scrabbled through the snow for the VERY pistol. After a few moments his fingers encountered the leather holster and he drew it toward him. He sat back against the rock and, using both hands, wedged the grip between his knees. Then he pushed' the restraining clip forward and pulled the breech open. With his teeth he pulled a cartridge out of the bandolier fastened to the bolster, transferred it to. his hands, then into the pistol. Teleman sat back, exhausted by his efforts. For a minute he sat, gathering strength. Then he hunched himself around until he was pointing in the direction of the sea and tilted the barrel of the pistol up to a steep angle. He forced two fingers through the trigger guard until the pistol went off. The flare arched up and quickly lost itself in the falling snow. Five seconds later Teleman saw the flare explode as a bright flash of light that began slowly to drift down. Even through the snow he could trace its crazy undulations as the tiny parachute was shaken and thrown from side to side by the wind. It landed in the snow not fifty feet away and Teleman stared stupidly at it as it sputtered and hissed to extinction.

As he sat watching the flare he heard Larkin's voice calling over the far-away transmitter saying that the flare had been seen. He sodded his head in reply and, as the last of the flare died away, slipped into unconsciousness, still staring at the spot where it had landed.

CHAPTER 14

Five minutes later and Teleman would have seen the Robert F. Kennedy moving majestically through the thirty-foot waves less than a mile offshore, rolling and pitching certainly, but less than would have been expected with a conventionally designed ship. Her rounded deck, almost flush with the water, gave the appearance of a half-submerged submarine as she slipped through the waves. Her deep wing-back bridge, canted aft, seemed to flow smoothly into the rear deck and thence into the sea, with no perceptible change in structure.

Above, the leaden sky glowered down on equally leaden seas. Larkin, standing on the narrow catwalk from which hours before he had fought to turn the ship from the rampaging sea, raised his face to feel the thick, wet flakes filtering down and grimaced as they melted on his upturned face. Both he and Folsom had come out onto the catwalk for a few moments of privacy while they discussed various means to reach the downed pilot.

"I have never seen the temperature rise so quickly after an Arctic storm," he said. "If this keeps up, we'll have rain in another hour."

Folsom's face was clouded with worry as he surveyed the sky, the seas, and the dimly seen cliffs to port.

"I only wish I knew what the hell it meant," Larkin growled. The battle cruiser was maneuvering off the cliffs at less than six knots. The waves, marching in rank down from the Great Barrier two hundred miles to the north, first were lifted by the narrow continental shelf then flung forward across three miles of shallows until they smashed into the base of the;cliffs on the

Norwegian North Cape — the first obstacle in two hundred miles. The waves pounded into the rock as if attempting to smash it from their path, as though an entire continent did not lie behind. As the waves recoiled from the shock against the stone, they curled under themselves and swarmed back out into the depths, creating a maze of undertows and crosscurrents that could easily be disastrous to a landing party. This close to land the winds had dropped into the mid-forties, but their velocity, coupled with the roll and pitch of the ship, was far too high to permit the launching of the helicopter the RFK carried. Now, less than a mile off the cliffs, this was as close as Larkin dared bring the great ship. Radar examination of the coastline indicated sheer rock sloping steeply to the sea. The point of land opposite was a fierce line of rock wall. The waves piling up in thirty-foot breakers indicated that little or no beach existed. Larkin was now debating whether to try farther down the coast or attempt the certain suicide of the helicopter. The pilot had volunteered, but Larkin, knowing that it was a measure that could only be tried as a last solution, had rejected the offer.

He sighed deeply and pulled' his hood tighter against the icy wind. "Mr. Folsom, take her down the coast at eight knots until we find a spot to land." Folsom nodded. "How far do you want to go?"