North Cape

"I'm afraid we are going to have to stand farther out to sea until these waves let up."

"I was afraid that the seas were going to force you out farther," Folsom replied: For a moment there was silence as the two men tried to think of what to say next. Larkin continued to stare through the forward ports at the heavy snow thrashing past as the battle cruiser moved through the waves at eight knots. Folsom, hunching over the radio, listened to the wind's keening beyond the tent walls and felt the loneliness of being cut off from help in the face of the enemy. The other two caught the mood and silence' enveloped the tent until Folsom said, 'Well, it looks like we are stuck here awhile. I'll set two-hour radio watches for routine checks,"

"Fine. We'll keep you informed. Out."

Several minutes later the tent flaps parted and Folsom crawled out and stood up. The wind moaned through the treetops with force enough to whip the powdery snow into twirling gusts. Vaguely he had in mind a short hike for a good look at the area, but the snow, falling heavily, and the wind, backing and filling through the trees, had created a ground blizzard. He changed his mind. It would be too easy to become confused and lost in the closely pressing trees. Instead, he rounded the tent and headed for the line of cliffs half a mile distant.

The snow overlay provided treacherous footing among the frozen grass hummocks of the tundra. The powdery snow had not settled and frozen enough to provide firm footing as yet. He wondered just how far the muskeg extended. If for some reason they had to run for it, it would be bad enough with three healthy, rested men, but damned near impossible with the exhausted pilot. Less than a hundred feet from the tent he stopped and decided not to go any farther. The wind had freshened slightly and in a few minutes time the snowfall had almost. doubled. He had seen this happen before and knew that for the neat few hours they were in for a heavy blizzard. As he turned back, retracing his dimly seen footsteps quickly before they were covered by the falling and drifting snow, he thought of the heavy blizzard with gratitude. The Russians, should a capture party be landed, would not be able to move either. Once back in the tent, he organized the watches, checked on the sleeping Teleman, then settled into his own sleeping bag and was asleep in seconds.

The snow continued to fall heavily during the long night. Folsom, had taken the second radio watch but the RFK reported nothing new. The ship's detector systems had so far uncovered no trace of movement in the vicinity of the North Gape: land, sea, or air. They had been, however, monitoring radio traffic and Larkin gave him an abstracted report. The Russians were seriously considering attempting the rescue or capture, depending on how you looked at it, of the downed pilot. Other than that, most of the transmissions had been in a new code which the ship's computers had as yet been unable to break. The transmissions had been recorded and relayed to Virginia, but so far they had had no word on what they contained. Folsom signed off with an uneasy feeling that something big was brewing. He only hoped that they would have some warning before it happened. The close-woven mesh of the nylon tent fabric was covered with snow. Even without the snow, the mesh did not allow much in the way of air circulation. The outside temperature had dropped to 35° F as the wind had all but disappeared, but inside the tent it had become stifling. When they had opened a tent flap, the warm air had immediately rushed out into the night, leaving the inside of the tent as cold as the outside. The three men had tried to keep the tent free of snow, but the blizzard was so heavy that it was almost useless to climb into parkas and boots and work for twenty minutes to brush away the snow. Folsom, lying in his sleeping bag after his second watch, was restless and wide awake. He groaned and rolled over, trying to ignore the closeness of the air, thinking longingly for the very first time of the mind-deadening desk job he had left in the Navy Department to serve aboard the RFK.

CHAPTER 15