Page 151 of Enemy Within
Chief Garcia lunged for the Chicken Switches, the bright-red toggles that controlled the air inHonolulu’s ballast tanks. Her forward tanks were gone, crunched in the collision. Hell, her forward half was gone, by the sound of everything. The Russian sub had ripped free and torn half ofHonoluluwith it, but that was her ticket to freedom.
Air whooshed out of the stern ballast tanks, blasting into the sea with the roar of a freight train. Lurching,Honolululeaped forward, rising like the cruise missile the Russian sub never launched. She rocketed for the ice, seven thousand tons of metal racing for the surface.
“Brace for impact!” Anderson roared. “Sound collision alarm!”
For the second time in an hour, men and machines tumbled in the Conn. Anderson held on to the railing and to Faisal, holding the young man tight. Faisal, in turn, gripped him, their feet locked together, barely staying upright as the deck tilted almost vertical. They both gripped the overhead handles, hanging like subway riders on a train out of control.
Boomer’s voice rang out, shrill and tight. “Ice cap is ten feet, Captain! We’re going to punch through!”
If they still had their bow, the curved, reinforced nose of their boat, they’d punch through with just some dents and a story to tell back home. But missing their bow? With half their ship shorn off? They’d be lucky if they didn’t pulverize against the ice. Anderson squeezed his eyes closed. His thoughts went straight to his son.I never got to tell him I married the president and the first gentleman.
They hit the ice like a car slamming into a crash test wall. It barely slowed them down. They all turned into test dummies, flying forward and back, thrown from their chairs, their perches. Anderson hit the deck hard, rolling into Faisal. Metal screamed and collapsed, shredding again. Lights winked off,Honolulu’s power plant giving up the ghost for good. Even the battery battle lamps winked out. But, above all that, the unmistakable sound of ice shattering, cracking apart, breaking before them, drowned out everything.
Honolulushuddered and rocked, and then the sound of metal sliding on metal tore at their eardrums. Anderson cursed, and everyone covered their ears.
Slowly, inexplicably, the trembles stilled. Movement stopped. They couldn’t even feel the bob and sway of the sea.
Anderson exhaled shakily. He called out the names of his crew, waiting for grunts and groans, answers in the darkness. Everyone accounted for. An absolute miracle. Would he be so lucky with the rest of his crew? Hands grabbed him, helped him stand. Flashlights winked on. He saw Faisal’s blood-covered face, inches from his own.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Anderson growled. “Abandon ship. Security detail onto the ice first.”
Wherever they were, whatever had just happened, they were surfaced within Russian territories, in Russian ice. What would greet them outside? A firing squad? Or something else?
Doc struggled to hold Coleman up. Coleman’s skin was pale, almost the color of ice. Anderson pointed Faisal toward his surviving crewmates and then strode out of the Conn.
He would lead his crew onto the ice, into whatever awaited them there.
67
Kara Sea
JACK CHASED AFTER MADIGAN, redlining the engine on his snowmobile. Sergey clung to his waist, leaning forward as they tried to push the snowmobile just that much faster.
Something rose on the ice ahead. A beacon, a strobing light spinning in the low-hanging gloom. Beside the beacon, a red mound squatted on the ice. It looked like a tent. Snow had blown against one side. It had been there for a while.
“His escape!” Sergey bellowed in Jack’s ear. “The ice is thinning out here. That Russian sub of his! It will pick him up here!”
“No, it won’t.” Jack throttled the engine, pushing the snowmobile as hard as he could. Beneath his hands, the machine shook, trembling as it flew across the ice, blasting over crevasses and almost skidding out of control.
Madigan reached the beacon first. He slid to a stop, jumping from his snowmobile and drawing his weapon. Kneeling down, taking cover behind his snowmobile, he opened fire on Jack and Sergey.
“Hold on!” Jack bellowed. He jerked the snowmobile to the left and then to the right, zig-zagging fast across the ice. Ethan had told him once, racing through the training grounds at the Secret Service training center at Rowley, that a zig-zag pattern was the best way to survive someone shooting right at you. He jerked hard to the left again as bullets slammed into the ice.
A shot whizzed by his head, a whistle followed by a wet smack. He turned hard to the right, but the bullet had already landed.
Sergey tumbled from the back of the snowmobile and hit the ice, rolling over and over in a long slide. Red stained the ice beneath him until he came to a stop. He didn’t move.
Jack whipped around. “Sergey!” Nothing. No movement.
For a moment, he was torn. Go to Sergey? Or finish this, once and for all?
Where was Madigan going? If that sub appeared, he’d be gone again, in the wind. Their best chance to put him down was here and now.
Jack spun back toward Madigan and gunned his engine. He leaned low over the snowmobile and zeroed in, riding a straight line. Bullets slammed into the snowmobile’s frame, his treads. It jerked beneath his hands, shuddering violently. A few more seconds, only a few more seconds.
He slammed on the brakes and leaped free, feet from Madigan, before Madigan’s final shots tore through the front controls, the windscreen, and shredded the saddle. Jack hit the ice hard, rolling as he struggled for the breath that had been knocked from him. He moved as he gasped, rising to his knees and unshouldering his rifle.
Ethan. Be like Ethan. Move like Ethan.He raised the rifle and fired, chewing through the ice surrounding Madigan.
