Red Ice

We assembled the kayaks just aft and in the lee of the conning tower. Rapidly, the kayaks took form and absorbed our watertight bundles of equipment. We clicked through assembly and loading like a well crafted breechblock with finely fitted tolerances. The mechanism showed a single flaw. Lutjens—in Chamonix’s boat—seemed to be an uncontrolled swarm of thumbs. The weight of the risks of a mission seemed to fall all at once during the last twenty-four hours before a launch. You became so intent on trying to visualize the future that you forgot the present. It was not unusual for even crack troops to become punchy with anticipation.

The sub’s deck left little freeboard, and its guardrails had been removed. One moment the elegant German was standing next to his kayak, the next moment a comber running the length of the deck swept him off his feet and the deck.

Chamonix lunged for him, but had no play left in his safety harness. Someone tossed a line, but by then Lutjens had disappeared under the submarine. Moments later, bits of stained neoprene bobbed in the submarine’s wake.

“Why wasn’t his harness fastened?” Alvarez demanded. The big Cuban sighed as if his worst suspicions had been confirmed. “How could it happen? Not another accident.”

“That Judas-Jonah is still with us,” said Wickersham glumly. He worked his bicep. “I don’t like it, not a bit.”

Chief Puckins interrupted, “I can’t figure it out, either, but one thing’s for sure. If we don’t launch pretty damn quick, the Russki radar is going to draw a bead on this boat.” He drew his hand across his throat.

Matsuma and I eased into our kayak. The old Japanese fisherman took the bow seat, and I the stern seat with the rudder pedals. I waved “all clear” to Dravit and in seconds the submarine began to submerge. The rush of white water tossed the kayaks around mercilessly, but our spray skirts kept us dry. The submarine slipped like a shadow beneath the waves, carrying Henry Dravit, former Royal Marine, and Keiko Shirahama, onetime Ama diver, away—perhaps forever.

“One man dead for sure in exchange for one man’s possible rescue. At best, there can be no net gain,” Chamonix called over the darkness.

I steered a course based on the sub’s last fix. Matsuma suggested course modifications to guide us through the large chunks of free-floating ice.

“I don’t fight to balance any books,” I returned. “Those are the values of someone else’s vocation.

“I fight to bring hope,” I added, addressing no one in particular.

CHAPTER 21

We had severed the logistic umbilical. For the next ten to twelve days, we could forget any outside support. As a small covert force we would be hard to detect, but if detected…

Our kayaks dodged floes as needles of wind-driven spray tormented the paddlers. My use of an azimuth was of secondary value, the real navigation rested in Matsuma’s hands until we reached shore. In March, much of the pack ice began to break up, he had assured me, and the great tidal range and strong currents along this stretch of coast left it navigable to within one or two miles of land.

March weather varied as unpredictably in Siberia as it did elsewhere. Though Siberia averaged only twenty inches of snow a year, a great part of this figure fell in March. March temperatures were generally milder than deep-winter temperatures, but they could plunge to sixty below without warning.

Matsuma and I held the lead position. The synchronized flutter of our double-bladed paddles moved us briskly up and over the rolling black waves. The seawater, which dripped from these paddles, or which splashed over the decks, froze in sheets down the length of our seventeen-foot craft. As we approached land, free ice became more plentiful. Clear passages through the ice fields became narrower and narrower, fanning into small, wandering channels, which forked like branches of a tree. Matsuma showed an unerring instinct for picking the fork that meandered toward pack ice. Then, for a quarter of a mile, we manhandled floes with our paddles to clear a path. Finally, we reached pack ice. There we climbed out and hauled the kayaks onto the ice. We portaged a mile, then hit a belt of open water. Once again we slid the kayaks into the sea. The belt was only a few hundred yards across and then we were back on pack ice. Before us lay disjointed piles of ice in pressure ridges. Here, a false step on seemingly secure ice could flip a man into water far colder than his dry suit provided for.