North Cape

by Joe Poyer

  CHAPTER 12

  Folsom stared pensively out the starboard port, watching the storm-thrashed waves towering on either side of the ship. Only rarely now did they break over the bow to come dashing down the length of the ice-smooth deck. He became aware that Larkin had come onto the bridge and had moved over• to stand behind hint

  "The seas seem to be easing somewhat"

  "Yes, sir. We aren't taking such a pounding now. The repair crew .has managed to reweld the cover plates in the bow section and rig a couple of beams to help hold it in place. I don't think we'll have any more trouble, from that quarter at least"

  "Then there are small things to be grateful for." Larkin smiled. "You have managed quite well, Mr: Folsom. I must say that I am proud of both you and the crew." Larkin delivered this rare compliment in a matter-of-fact voice, but Folsom was deeply touched by it.

  "Thank you, sir. Although you might want to modify that when you hear about the condensers."

  Larkin chuckled. "Expecting a rocket were you? I read the report when I came up. Don't worry about it. As you know, man does not always triumph over machinery," he quoted solemnly. "There was nothing else you could have done. And I think the auxiliary condensers can handle the cooling system for now."

  He paused and stared out at the waves. "What have you de• cided about using the boost engines?"

  uh, nothing really, at least at the moment. I didn't "Well, think . . ."

  '"Come now, you are the executive officer. You probably know this ship and her engines better than I do. Do you think she could handle seas like this under emergency power?"

  Folsom hesitated a moment before answering. "Yes, I think maybe she could," he said thoughtfully. "Ordinarily I would suggest that we go farther under the lee of the Cape.

  We might find easier waters there. The only thing that worries me is whether or not the hydrofoils could stand the pounding. In and out of the water so much . . . shorter seas would be a lot easier on the struts."

  Larkin rubbed his mouth and chin. "Go in closer to the coast . . . I don't really know.

  Most of the charts for this area are not accurate. This coast hasn't really been thoroughly re-charted since the Germans did it in 1941. The coastal shelf is full of reefs. . . . How close in would you want to go?"

  "At least five miles."

  "Five miles!" Larkin exclaimed. "That puts us inside Norwegian waters."

  Folsom nodded. "I know, sir, but anything less would do us no good. That's why I don't think we should try. The Norwegians probably Wouldn't raise a fuss if they spotted us.

  But, if for some reason they did, the investigating board would have to examine our logs and there would be no way of concealing the fact that we did violate Norwegian waters without permission.

  "We can gain a few extra knots by coupling the boost engines to the main drive shafts anyway."

  Larkin nodded assent and turned away to cross to his high seat. He sat down and scanned the readout dials that presented the status of every vital portion of the ship. Both Larkin's and Folsom's panels—identical in every way—were to the Robert F. Kennedy what Teleman's PCMS console had been to • the A-17.

  "All right, Mr. Folsom," he said finally, "let's play it that way."

  The Robert F. Kennedy came to the rendezvous position hike an icy ghost. Every external fitting that faced the sea and wind was covered to a depth of three feet with gray, rock-hard ice. Long rills ran along the length of the weather deck, covering every shroud and stay and the lower reaches of the single antenna mast protruding from the superstructure. Only the upper, working portion of each antenna was clear due to its own independent electric heater. The RFK was streamlined like no other ship had ever needed to be. Instead of the block-like superstructure characteristic of modem destroyers and cruisers, the RFK's bridge was built in a V and sloped aft. Her fore and after decks were free of the usual cannon turrets and other protuberances and the weather deck ran smooth from bow to stem in a gentle line except for the superstructure. At the same time, the sides of the deck curved, from a center line formed by a ten-foot walkway, downward to meet the hull. But now the ship resembled nothing as much as a child's plastic toy boat covered with ice.

  Larkin ordered the ship into a station-keeping pattern and re-.. duced speed to eight knots, only enough to maintain steerageway in the heavy seas. The RFK came about to fight the seas around a four-mile rectangle, with the legs into and running from the waves.

  On the bridge, Folsom glanced warily at Larkin, standing before his console, his eyes glued to the radio operator's hunched back as he sat ears straining under the earphones to catch the slightest whisper of sound over the VHF-FM frequency. Folsom knew Larkin was extremely worried. Knowing the full story and the knife-edge schedules the reconnaissance aircraft had to keep to, he was worried as well. Minutes before they had received a transmission from the refueling tanker, maintaining his assigned rendezvous position two hundred miles to the west. Everything was waiting, the stage set for the final scene. But where was the leading actor? Larkin shifted his weight from one foot to another., Imperceptibly at first, the motion of the ship was becoming rougher as she turned into a crosswind run. Larkin noted it with a sharp glance at the gyroscopic-driven indicator and immediately turned back to face the radio operator.

  Teleman was less than four hundred miles from the North Cape when he decided that perhaps he had pushed his luck as far as it would go. His fuel readouts were showing barely enough left to reach rendezvous, but the single, remaining engine was certainly not acting like there was. Twice, within the space of two minutes, the engine had coughed like, an old man on a cold winter morning and then resumed its steady drone.

  Teleman had never

  experienced a fuel shortage in the A-17 and he was at a loss as to how to diagnose the malady.

  He was still maintaining a steady twenty-two thousand feet deep in the top layers of the Arctic storm. So far he had not been spotted by the searching Russian aircraft, but the radar screen was showing them strung out like pickets in a fence. They were putting out quite a bit of effort to greet him, he thought, but it was one honor that he would be happy to do without.

  Teleman ran a correction bug-hunter program through the computer directed at the fuel readouts. Nothing showed up and he tried to relax; telling himself that if anything had been wrong the computers would have spotted it. He had almost convinced himself when the engine shuddered again. This time the unevenness persisted, the engine's RPM's dropping quickly until he thought he was going into a flame-out condition. At twenty-one thousand RPM, they caught again and the compressor came back up to the proper rev level. If he was running low on fuel, he figured, it was probably due to the increased drag from the damaged tail section. He had been checking on it steadily for the past hour, watching larger and larger chunks peel lose. Added to the fuel problem, he was now worrying about how much longer the entire aft fuselage was going to hold together. Of all places he did not want to eject, he could think of few that ran second to the top of Norway in the middle of an Arctic storm. If he was lucky, a wandering Lap might find his body, perfectly preserved in its thick coat of ice, several years hence.

  Leaning back as comfortably in the acceleration couch as he could after six straight days he stared at the instrument panel and the various displays trying to decide how soon to raise RFK to transmit his information. He was so tired that the various• displays and panels full of readout dials and verniers refused to focus into concrete entities. Instead they were all running together into a fuzzy, jumbled mass of softly glowing colors. He was so tired that he knew if he 'closed his eyes not even the last trumpet would be loud enough to wake him.

  When the engine failed a fourth time and the RPM's fell and', kept on falling, he decided, enough, and threw the radio transmitter switches.

  'Target One, Target One, acknowledge."

  The communicator buzzed on Larkin's console. He snapped it on with an impatient motion and acknowledged sharply.

>   "Captain, this is the communications room. We are receiving an in-clear radio message from identity Beatle—"

  "What the hell?" Larkin roared. "Did you say Beetle?"

  "Yes, sir, he's coming in on no Mo. and his voice is funny . . . kind of slow and broken."

  "All right . . .",Larkin was thinking fast. Obviously something had gone wrong. The recon aircraft was already fourteen minutes-late and now 'he was transmitting over an open channel, in-clear. "All right," he repeated. "Pipe him up here and acknowledge."

  Almost instantly, the bridge speakers burst into life with a rumble of static.

  "Target One, Target One, acknowledge."

  Much longer, Teleman thought, and it would not matter. Already he could see several radar blips that he knew to be radio monitoring aircraft beginning to form a triangulation pattern.

  "Target One, Target One, come in you blasted idiots. What the hell do . . . you think is going on up here?"

  Teleman followed with a long string of profanity. If nothing else, that should convince them that he was an American.

  "Identify yourself." The message was short and in the clear. "Target One, Target One, stop playing games. This is Beatle!"

  The eleven men on the bridge swiveled almost as one to stare in surprise at their captain.

  In a year and a half of these mysterious missions around the world this was the first time that anyone except Larkin had heard the hushed voice that came in at periodic intervals.

  The marine guard started forward, hesitated, as if not knowing ,what to' do. Then training took over and he strode over to Larkin's desk. Larkin ignored him. He was now concentrating on the speaker and his communications officer acknowledging the call.

  The bridge operator had still not recovered from the unexpected shock and sat staring at his captain with a quizzical look on his face. Folsom moved to stand behind Larkin, he too ignoring the flustered marine.

  "Quit horsing around down .. there, I'm . . . In

  ." "Target One, here, Target One here,

  status quickly." Larkin's voice was tight, the strain evident. He knew as well as did Folsom

  that this could be a Russian trick to draw them out, to establish radio fix down which a salvo of missiles could streak at any moment. The radar operator came to suddenly and with a half-choked shout swung back to his screens.

  "Bandit . . . jumped over . . . Finland. Tail . . . surface badly-shot up . . . losing altitude . .

  . fuel almost gone . . . bandits waiting . . . stand by for transmission . . . this channel."

  "Beatle wait until within usual procedural range. Repeat,, wait until within usual procedural range."

  "No good . . . cannot last that long."

  .Teleman stopped, breathing deeply with the effort. The warm, comforting hands of sleep were again closing around him. He had to shake his head several times before he could focus his thoughts enough to even wonder why the PGMS was not compensating.

  Then he saw why. The single-minded computer feedback systems were convinced that he was jeopardizing the mission. The flashing MISSION ABORT sign was flickering at him. If he had. not over-ridden the controls earlier, the computer would probably have disregarded the threat of the Soviet fighters and decided Whether or not to run for home at top speed or trigger off the destruct bomb carefully packed away in the center of the aircraft.

  Now he was becoming aware that his heart was beating like a trip hammer. His vision had closed to a narrow tunnel that encompassed only the instrument panel. How much more of this total body-system abuse he could take before his heart quit or he had a stroke he did not know. He knew only that he must get the message through to the RFK

  that the Russians had the optical tracking system.

  "Target One, do not interrupt . . . prepare to receive . . . transmission. Bandits are onto . .

  . ball game . . . all in transmission . . ."

  "No," Larkin shouted. °We have a tanker on the way. He can reach you in less than fifteen minutes."

  If he could have, Teleman would have laughed. In fifteen minutes he could very well be dead, from several causes, not the least of which were Soviet interceptors.

  "On my mark . . . five seconds to transmit . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .

  transmit."

  Over the radio Teleman could hear the squeal of tape decks

  spinning madly as twenty-six hours of constant speed recording on sixty-eight channels was transmitted. Then he leaned back exhausted. His job was done. The strain of the mission and the almost constant skirmishing with Soviet interceptors in the last eight hours, with only a few minutes sleep at a time, and the overload of drugs in his system caused a stultifying lethargy that was interrupted only by his heart rate. His portion of the task was indeed finished. And so was he. It had been twenty hours since he had more than a few snatched hours of drug-induced light sleep, with the rest of the time occupied in intense mental and physical' concentration, again prompted by drugs.

  The A-17 began to fall off and he brought it back with difficulty. The tail section was beginning to vibrate badly again as he lost altitude into the storm, threatening to come loose somewhere aft of the cockpit at any moment. The engine coughed once more and resumed its dull steady murmur. The emergency reserve tank levels were pushing well into the danger zone now.

  "Can you hold for tanker?" Larkin asked again. The familiar voice, was high pitched over the radio, rumbling faintly with storm-induced static.

  Teleman brought himself upright with difficulty. "No . . . fuel almost gone . . . not even reach you . . . sorry about clear message . . . no difference . . . bandits onto everything . . .

  so don't worry . ."

  Teleman stopped abruptly. He was beginning to ramble and every second he continued to talk brought the Russians that much closer. "Approximately ten minutes . . . flight left . . .

  losing al. titude ... down on . . . coast . . . destroy . . . plane."

  "You can't," Larkin almost shouted. "Try and make it .. ." Then he realized the futility of what he had been going to say. At five hundred miles an hour, that meant almost forty minutes or more to the ship, and with only ten minutes of fuel left—idiotic, he told himself savagely.

  Teleman's voice came again, weaker and weaker as he talked: "I'll come in low . . . over coast . . . eject . . . plane . . . destroy."

  Larkin, standing on the warmly lit bridge of the RFK, could picture the lonely man in the cockpit of his damaged aircraft. He would be going slowly through the motions of setting the timer on

  the self-destruct charge. As soon as he ejected, it would begin to count off three. minutes.

  If Teleman did not eject within five minutes of setting the timer, it would go off anyway, with enough force to blow tiny pieces of. the aircraft over a five-mile area. Larkin figured quickly on a scratch pad, glancing from the Doppler distance readout to the radar operator, shaking his head.

  "Target One, here. We are getting a position fix on you and will track you down. I'll bring the ship in and pick you up as soon as the storm subsides enough to get a helicopter or boat in."

  Even as Larkin spoke the radio operator handed him a decoded note, which he read through and then handed to Folsom to read.

  "The hell . . . you will.. Teleman muttered. "Get . . . those tapes back."

  "Sorry, I've just been directed to pick you up. Obviously they are going to' want to hear about the bandits and fast. All overflights have been suspended until they can talk to you.

  "

  Teleman was now down to ten thousand feet. He glanced at the ground control panel to see the storm-thrashed tundra and forest sliding by below. He laughed bitterly. "If . . . I get . . . out... this . . . be . . . miracle. Good-bye."

  There was a sudden silence as Teleman's 'voice disappeared. Only the hollow hissing of static marked the open channeL Feeling strangely empty, Larkin strode to the radar console and, resting a hand to support himself against the violent motion of the ship on the
back of the operator's chair, watched the screen intently. Coordinates were fed directly into the radar equipment from the communications room, but the operator, listening to The flow of words and numbers, made minute final changes in frequency, pitch, and direction.

  Abruptly, he swore and sat back. "Hell, that does it. We've hit a dead area . . . it must be almost two hundred miles wide."

  "Easy now," Larkin said. He leaned over to point to the white patch of light obscuring a large part of the screen. "Narrow your scope down to encompass this patch. That's the ECM equipment he carries. He will show up in a moment."

  The operator could not resist a muffled expletive. Ten minutes passed slowly while the white blur continued to fill the radar screen. Finally the radar operator muttered, "What the devil kind of equipment does he carry for God's sake . . . sir," he added.

  'Better that you do not know any more right now," Larkin chided gently. "Just keep your eye on that . . ."

  As ha spoke, the obscuring patch of light disappeared, and there, toward the center of: the screen, was an intense white dot, flickering in and out of scale with a steady pulsation. It appeared to be nearly two hundred miles southwest of them, which would put it somewhere close to the coast of the North Cape. At least Larkin hoped it would. It would be all too easy in this miserable storm to miss the coast and drop into the ocean.