North Cape

Teleman nodded again, barely aware of what Folsom said. His mind was wrapped in a warm haze that not even the bitter cold of the Arctic could penetrate. Folsom's words meant nothing to him… he was suspended in a sort of limbo through which he floated not caring what happened to him. But when Folsom's arms went under his to help him to his feet, the haze failed and he was suddenly back in the hell of cold and wilderness. Gadsen cut the thongs that held the snowshoes on, then *collected the four pair and tied them onto his pack. He said nothing and neither did the others. Each man was conserving every last bit of energy he possessed with all the avidity of a miser. Each knew that to expend even the tiniest fraction could mean the difference between reaching the base and freezing to death within sight of it.

The four men struggled on, pushing as far into the tundra as possible before stopping for the night. Teleman continued to move mechanically in the semi-daze that had overtaken him earlier, but the rest had refreshed him somewhat and he was now able to stumble forward by himself. He had long ceased to feel the cold as such, to feel it as anything but an iron pain clamped down upon his entire body. His heart, he was dimly aware, was beating at the same trip-hammer rate that had alarmed him during the final moments of flight. Every movement was sluggish in the extreme, and he no longer thought about the damage being done to his body by the impossible stress being placed on it by the intense cold and the bone-breaking task of hiking twenty-five miles through subzero cold. He longed for the warm hospital bed and the intensive care that normally followed each flight. Instead he moved in a world of his own, in which the glimmering moon and the pale stars beginning to show as the clouds were slowly torn to pieces by the aftermath of the storm were a blur overhead. He had even stopped concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other. His subconscious had now taken over the task of moving his legs in proper rotation. He was only hours from death and he no longer cared.

CHAPTER 18

Larkin paced slowly back and forth before the insulated windows fronting the dimly lit bridge, apparently oblivious to the scene around him. At eight consoles, eight technicians sat hunched before the banks of instruments. The atmosphere was heavy with depression. Nothing had been heard from the shore party for nearly twelve hours. During that time the shadowy Soviet submarine had moved slowly out of the Porsangerfjord and rounded the point to slip carefully down the northern coast of the island at a depth of sixty feet.

The RFK, standing twenty miles offshore, had long since run out of the freakish waterlayer conditions that had expanded her sonar range earlier in the day. In fact, reverse conditions were now in effect. The RFK's sonar gear had an operational echo-ranging capability of thirty-eight miles under optimum conditions. Now she was able to pick up firm signals only at a maximum of twenty-two miles. Beyond that the decreasing signalto-noise ratio wiped away any traces of the target. In spite of the trouble with the sonar gear, they had been able to follow as the submarine had moved twice from the southeastern end of the island in Porsangerfjord to its mouth on the western side, and then out into the Barents Sea to proceed slowly down the coast as if searching out a landing site. They passed the point of beach where the American party had landed, and continued down the coast. At first Larkin had thought, as the submarine had come to a stop to lay off the coast with only the sail showing, that they were examining the terrain. Now he was not so sure. The sub had remained surfaced for twenty minutes, long enough to have launched a raft. If indeed a second party had gone ashore they would logically have landed several hours travel up the coast from where Folsom and his men were. Larkin had no firm idea of just how fast and far they had traveled, but his last radio contact with Folsom, several hours after they started out, had put him a mile west of where the sub came to a stop. By the time the submarine had arrived off the coast in the late afternoon, Folsom would certainly have moved several miles farther west. Evidently the Soviet commander had misjudged the Americans' rate of progress.