North Cape

He glanced around and saw Teleman staring at him. Folsom's eyes widened in surprise and he waved a hand in greeting. Teleman continued to stare at him, too tired and fuzzy to do more. Folsom finished the report quickly and signed off. Then he crawled back to the sleeping bag in which Teleman lay.

"How do you feel?" he asked as he reached into the sleeping bag for Teleman's arm to take his pulse. In contrast to the rapid, fluttery 166 beats per minute that he had exhibited several hours ago, his pulse had now slowed to 93, above normal, but probably due to the drug residues remaining in his system.

"Beat," Teleman said weakly.

"Other than that?"

"Nothing. I think I could… sleep for a week."

Folsom grinned at him. "Yeah, I bet you could." He looked around at the sailor still folding up the radio and called him over.

"I want you to meet one of your helpmates. This character has an itchy trigger finger, or at least thinks he does," Folsom amended, grinning. "He's our chief gunnery officer — an empty title as we have no guns except for a one-inch popper for salutes. We stole him from the SEALS just for jobs like this. His name, and this you won't believe, is Beauregard Hubert McPherson, which probably accounts for the majority of his, fierceness," Folsom added.

McPherson grinned sheepishly and said, "Hello," his big, warm hand all but engulfing Teleman's.

Teleman looked up into the large, round face hanging over him like a second moon and smiled feebly, but did not find the strength to reply. Folsom saw that he was still exhausted and he and McPherson backed off.

"Okay, get some more sleep. We'll make the rest of the introductions later." Teleman nodded once and then was sound asleep. The two sailors looked down at the sleeping form and both shook their heads at the same time. "I'll bet that guy has really been though hell," McPherson murmured. Folsom was silent a moment, then: "Yeah, and I bet he'll go through more before we are out of this."

CHAPTER 16

Beauregard Hubert McPherson, Chief Petty Officer, United States Navy, and former member of the SEALS, the naval version of the U. S. Army Special Forces, shifted the AR-18 carbine to his left hand, and with his right eased himself down into the slippery defile leading to the beach. Half sliding, half climbing, he went down through the thick snow from rock to rock until he reached the beach. Once there, he did not hesitate, but turned east and began loping down the beach in an easy, ground-covering jog. The snow, whipped by the wind into swirling curtains, was heavier along the water's edge than it had been above the cliffs, which was just what he wanted. Not only would the thick snow shield him from anyone approaching, but it would also serve to cover his tracks completely, something he could not depend on the drifting snow to do above the cliffs. He pushed on steadily for two hours, often having to climb over rock piles washed into weird positions by eons of waves and Arctic storms. Once he had to reclimb the cliffs when the beach, often little more than a narrow thread, ran out. As he trotted he kept a sharp lookout toward the sea, even though the snow was so heavy that visibility was zero after fifty feet at best. But McPherson was a careful man. He had fought with the SEALS in Vietnam five years before, raiding into the delta in small parties to perform kidnapings and assassinations of leading Viet Cong terrorists. They brought the same type of terror to the Viet Cong that the V.C. had used so successfully against the South Vietnamese. After Vietnam had come assignments in Thailand and Cambodia, and, finally, the famous raid into China to rescue the crew of a United States Intelligence ship captured on the high seas.

McPherson, in short, was an expert on survival under the worst possible conditions and had proven it time and time again. A SEAL had been assigned to the U.S.S. Robert F. Kennedy at the request of the Secretary of the Navy, who had been far-sighted enough to realize that a SEAL's talents might be needed at some future date. The pilots of the A-17 recon aircraft were the most valuable commodity in the world. Standing orders to the RFK, the Remote. Mission Control Point as she was known by the twenty or so men privy to her actual missions, were to get back the pilot of a downed aircraft at all costs, although McPherson was not one of those few who knew the exact nature of the missions that Teleman performed.

But even so, he continued down the beach at an easy run, heading for a point of land some eight miles west of Varangerfjord, which he and Folsom had estimated the Russians would reach by 1100. It was 1030 now, and he still had approximately two miles to go.