"I'm going to bring her around ninety degrees to port."
"We have no other choice," Ybarra agreed solemnly.
"A few might survive if we crash on land. Near impossible to pull off a water landing on high waves in the dark, even by an experienced pilot.
And if by some miracle we set her down intact, no human dressed in street clothes could last more than a few minutes in a freezing sea."
"We may already be too late." The U.N. delegate from Mexico nodded at the instrument panel. The red fuel warning lights were flashing across the board. "I fear our time in the air has run out."
Rubin stared in astonishment at the telltale instruments. He did not realize that the Boeing flying 200 knots at 1,500 meters ate up the same amount of fuel as it did when flying 500 knots at 10,500 meters. "Okay we head west until she drops from under us."
Rubin rubbed his palms on his pants legs and gripped the control column.
He had not taken command of the aircraft again since climbing over the glacier's peak. He took a deep breath and pressed the "Autopilot Release" button on the control column. He was too unsure of himself to slip the Boeing into a bank with the ailerons so he used only the rudder controls to gently crab around in a flat Turn. As soon as the nose came onto a straight course he felt something was wrong.
"Rpms dropping on number four engine," said Ybarra with a noticeable tremor in his voice. "It's starving for fuel."
"Shouldn't we shut it down or something?"
"I don't know the procedure," Ybarra replied dumbly.
Oh, dear Lord, Rubin thought to himself, the blind leading the blind.
The altimeter began to register a steady drop. The airspeed indicated a decrease too. His mind strained beyond reason, Rubin tried to will the plane in the air rather than fly it.
He also tried to fight time as the distance between the plane and the sea slowly, relentlessly narrowed. Then, without warning, the control column began to grow sluggish and vibrate in his hands.
"She's stalling," shouted Ybarra, his stoic face showing fear at last.
"Push the nose down."
Rubin eased the control column forward, fully aware he was hastening the inevitable. "Lower the flaps to increase our lift!" he ordered Ybarra.
"Flaps coming down," Ybarra replied through pursed lips.
"This is it," Rubin muttered. "We're going in."
A stewardess stood in the open cockpit door listening to the exchange, eyes wide with fright, face pale as a sheet of paper.
"Are we going to crash?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
Rubin tensed in his seat, too busy to Turn. "Yes, dammit!" he swore.
"Strap yourself in."
She spun and nearly fell down as she raced back to the main cabin to alert the other flight attendants and passengers for the worst. Everyone realized there was no putting off the inevitable, and thankfully there was no panic or hysterical outcry. Even the prayers came softly.
Ybarra twisted in his seat and stared down the aisle. Kamil was comforting an older man who was shaking uncontrollably.
Her face was completely calm and seemed to bear a smiling expression of contentment. She was truly a lovely woman, Ybarra thought. A pity her beauty would soon be erased. He sighed and turned back to the instrument panel.
The altimeter was falling past two hundred meters. Ybarra took a great risk and increased the throttle settings on the three remaining engines.
It was a useless gesture born of desperation. The engines would burn their last few gallons of fuel at a faster rate and die sooner. But Ybarra wasn't thinking logically. He could not sit and do nothing. He felt he had to perform one final, defiant act, anything, even if it meant hastening his own death.
Five tormenting minutes passed as one. The black sea reached up to clutch the aircraft.
"I see lights!" Rubin blurted suddenly. "Dead ahead!"
His eyes instantly flicked up and focused through the windshield. "A ship!" he cried. "It's a ship!"
Almost as he shouted, the plane roared over the polar Explorer, missing the radar mast by less than ten meters.
The crew of the icebreaker had been alerted by radar to the approaching aircraft. The men standing inside the bridge involuntarily ducked as the airliner, exhaust from its two straining engines screaming like an army of banshees, swept overhead toward the Greenland coast to the west.
The roar filled the electronics compartment, and it emptied like a lake through a split dam. Knight took off for the bridge at a dead run with Pitt and Giordino right behind him. None of the men manning the bridge as much as turned as the captain burst past the door. Everyone was peering in the direction of the receding aircraft.
"What in hell was that?" Knight demanded from the officer on watch.
"An unidentified aircraft nearly ranmied the ship, Captain."
"Military?"
"No, sir. I caught a quick glimpse of the lower wings as she flashed overhead. She bore no markings."
"A spy plane maybe?"
"I doubt it. All her windows were lit UP."
"A commercial airliner," Giordino suggested.
Knight's expression became vague and a trifle irritated.
"Where does the pilot get off, endangering my ship? What's he doing around here anyway? We're hundreds of miles off commercial flight paths."
"She's losing altitude," said Pitt, staring at the blinking lights as they grew smaller in the east. "I'd say she's going in."
"God help them if they set down on this sea in the dark."
"Strange he hasn't turned on the landing lights."
The watch officer nodded his head in agreement. "Strange is the word. A pilot in trouble would surely send out a distress signal. The communications room hasn't heard a peep."
"You tried to raise him?" asked Knight.
"As soon as they came at us on radar. No reply"
Knight stepped to the window and gazed out. He dnimmed his fingertips thoughtfully for no more than four seconds. Then he turned and faced the watch officer.
"Maintain course, continue the grid pattern."
Pitt looked at him. "I understand your decision, but I can't say I applaud it."
"You're on a Navy ship, Mr. Pitt," said Knight sternly. "We're not the Coast Guard. Our mission takes first priority."
"There could be women and children on board that plane."
"The facts don't spell tragedy. She's still in the air. If the Polar Explorer is the only hope of rescue in this part of the sea, why no distress call, no attempt to signal us with his landing lights, no sign of preparations to ditch? You're a flyer, you tell me why the pilot hasn't circled the ship if he's in trouble."
"Could be he's trying for land."
"Begging the Captain's pardon," interrupted the watch officer, "I forgot to mention the landing flaps were down."
"Still no proof of an immanent crash," Knight said stubbornly.
"Damn the compassion, full steam ahead," Pitt said coldly. "This isn't war, Captain. We're talking about a mission of mercy. I wouldn't want it on my conscience if a hundred people died because I failed to act.
The Navy can well afford the time it takes to investigate."
Knight tilted his head toward the empty chart room, closing the door after Pitt and Giordino entered. "We have our own mission to consider,"
he persisted calmly. "We Turn off course now and the Russians will suspect we found their sub and home in on this area."
"Solid point," Pitt acknowledged. "But you can still send Giordino and me into the game."
"I'm listening."
"We use our NUMA helicopter on the aft deck and you supply your medical people and a couple of strong bodies. We'll chase the aircraft while the Polar Explorer keeps running search lanes."
"And Russian surveillance? What will their intelligence analysts make of it?"
"At first they won't see it as a coincidence. They're already probably trying to paint a connection. But if, God forbid, the plane crashes, and p
roves out to be a commercial airliner, then at least you'll have a legitimate reason for turning off course to launch a rescue mission.
Afterward we resume our search pattern, fake out the Russians and gamble on turning a disaster into a windfall."
"And your helicopter flight, they'll monitor your every move."
"Al and I will use open communications and keep a running dialogue of our search for the downed mystery plane. That should pacify their suspicions."
Knight's eyes turned downward, staring at something beyond the deck.
Then he sighed and raised his head to look at Pitt.
"We're wasting time. Get your bird untied and warmed up. I'll see to the medical personnel and a team of volunteers."
Rubin made no attempt to circle the Polar Explorer because of the almost nonexistent altitude and his sad lack of flying talent. There was every chance he would stall the plane and send it cartwheeling into the rising swells.
The mere sight of the ship had ignited a small glimmer of hope in the cockpit. Now they had been sighted and rescuers would know where to look for survivors. A small comfort, but better than none at all.
The black sea abruptly turned to solid pack ice and, magmfied by starlight, whirled crazily beneath the windshield. Rubin almost felt as if he were sledding through it. With the final impact only minutes away, it finally occurred to him to order Ybarra to Turn on the landing lights.
The Mexican feverishly scanned the instrument panel, found the marked switches and flicked them to "ON." A startled polar bear was caught in the sudden glare before he vanished beneath and behind the aircraft.
They were hurtling over a dead, frozen plain,
"Mother of Jesus," murmured Ybarra. "I see hills on our right. We've crossed overland."
Luck's pendulum had finally swung in Rubin's favor. Ybarra's hills were a desolate range of mountains that swept above the jagged Greenland coast for a hundred miles in both directions. But Rubin had somehow missed them and miraculously manhandled the descending Boeing into the middle of Ardencaple Fjord, He was flying up the narrow inlet to the sea below and between the summits of steep sloping cliffs. Luck also conjured up a headwilld, which gave the aircraft added lift.
The ice seemed close enough for him to reach out and drag his hand over it. The lights reflected a kaleidoscope of shivering colors. A dark mass loomed ahead. He gently pushed the right rudder pedal and the mass slid away to his port side.
"Lower the landing gear!" Rubin shouted.
Ybarra wordlessly complied. Under normal emergency landing procedures it was the worst possible action to take, but in their ignorance they unwittingly made the correct decision for the terrain. The landing gear dropped from their wheel wells and the plane quickly lost speed due to the added wind resistance.
Rubin gripped the control wheel until his knuckles turned ivory, and he glanced down directly at the ice flashing past. The blazing crystals seemed to be rising up to meet him, spreading as they came.
Rubin closed his eyes, praying they would come down in soft snow instead of striking unyielding ice. There was nothing more he and Ybarra could do. The end was approaching with horrifying speed.
Mercifully, he did not know, could not know, the ice was only one meter thick, far too thin to support the weight of a Boeing 720-B.
The maze of instrument lights had gone crazy, and the lights were flashing red. The ice rushed out of the darkness. Rubin had the sensation of bursting through a black curtain into a white void. He pulled back on the control column and the speed of the Boeing fell away as the nose rose up for the last time in a feeble attempt to cling to the sky.
Ybarra sat terrified. Oblivious to the 320-kilometer-an-hour airspeed, frozen in shock, he made no attempt to yank back the throttles. Nor did his dazed mind think to cut the electrical switches.
Then the impact.
On reflex, Rubin and Ybarra flung up their hands and closed their eyes.
The tires touched, slid, and gouged twill trails through the ice. The port inboard engine buckled and was torn from its mounts, madly gyrating into the darkness. Both starboard engines dug in at the same time, caught and twisted the wing away in a shrieking, mangled mass. Then all power was lost and the lights went dark.
The Boeing careened across the fjord's ice sheet, shedding pieces of protesting metal like particles behind a comet. It smashed into a pressure ridge that had been thrust up when the pack ice collided. The nose gear was crushed back against the forward belly, tearing into the hell hole. The bow dropped and plowed through the ice, crushing the thin aluminum plates inward against the cockpit. At last the momentum fell off, and the crumpled plane, distorted and dismembered, came to the end of its shattering journey. It came to a stop just thirty meters short of a jumbled group of large rocks near the icebound shore.
for a brief few seconds there was a deathly silence. Then the ice made a loud series of cracking sounds, metal groaned as it twisted against metal, and the battered aircraft slowly settled through the ice into the frigid water.
The archaeologists heard the Boeing fly up the valley too.
They rushed out of their hut in time to catch a brief look at the plane's outline reflected in the ice glare by the landing lights. They could clearly make out the illuminated cabin windows and the extended landing gear. Almost immediately came the sound of shrieking metal, and a scant instant later the vibration of the impact carried through the frozen surface. The lights went dead, but the protest of tortured metal continued for several seconds. Then, suddenly, a dead silence swept out of the darkness, a silence that overpowered the dreary moan of the wind.
The archaeologists stood in disbelieving shock. Stunned, frozen immobile, immune to the cold, they stared into the black night like haunted statues.
"Good lord," Gronquist finally muttered in awe, "it crashed in the fjord."
Lily could not conceal the shock in her voice. "Horrible! No one could have survived uninjured."
"More than likely dead if they went in the water."
"Probably why there's no fire," added Graham.
"Did anyone see what kind of plane it was?" asked Hoskins.
Graham shook his head. "Happened too fast. Good size, though. Looked to be multi-engine. Might be an ice recon patrol."
"How far do you make it?" asked Gronquist.
"Probably a kilometer, a kilometer and a quarter."
Lily's expression was pale and strained. "We've got to do something to help them."
Gronquist took a visual bearing and rubbed his unprotected cheeks.
"Let's get back inside before we freeze, and form a plan before we charge off half-cocked."
Lily began to come back on track. "Gather up blankets, any extra warm clothing," she said brusquely. "I'll see to the medical supplies."
"Mike, get on the radio," Gronquist ordered. "Notify the weather station at Daneborg. They'll spread the word to Air Force rescue units at Thule."
Graham made an affirmative motion with his hand and was the first one inside the hut.
"We'd better bring along tools for prying any survivors from the wreckage," said Hoskins.
Gronquist nodded as he yanked on his parka and gloves. "Good thinking.
Figure out whatever else we'll require. I'll hook up the sled to one of the snowmobiles. We can pile all the stuff in that."
Five minutes ago they had all been asleep. Now they were throwing on cold-weather gear and hurriedly rushing about their respective chores.
Forgotten was the enigmatic Byzantine coin, forgotten was the warm comfort of sleep; all that mattered was the urgency of getting to the downed plane as quickly as possible.
Returning outside, head against a sudden shift of wind, Gronquist dashed around the hut to a small snow-covered shed that protected the project's two snowmobiles. He kicked away the ice that had formed around the bottom of the door and pulled it open. Inside, a small oil heater struggled with all the efficiency of a candle inside a freezer to keep the interior air twenty degre
es above the temperature outside. He tried the starter buttons, but the batteries were badly drained after months of hard use, and both engines balked at turning over. Cursing in vapored breaths, he removed his heavy gloves with his teeth and began yanking on the manual pull ropes. The engine on the first snowmobile caught on the fifth attempt, but the second played stubborn. Finally, after -two pulls (Gronquist counted them), the engine obstinately coughed to life.
He hitched the tongue of a large sled to the rear catch on the snowmobile whose engine had had extra time to warm up. He finished none too soon, as his fingers were beginning to Turn numb.
The others had already stacked the supplies and equipment outside the entryway to the hut when he rode up. Except for Gronquist, they were all bundled up in down-filled jumpsuits. The sled was loaded to the top of its sideboards in less than two minutes. Graham passed everyone a heavy-duty flashlight, and they were ready to set off.
"If they crashed through the ice," shouted Hoskins above the wind, "we might as well forget it."
"He's right," Graham shouted back. "They'd be dead from hypothemiia by now."
Lily's eyes turned hard behind her ski mask. "Pessimism never saved anybody. I suggest you big jocks get a move on."
Gronquist grabbed her by the waist and lifted her onto the snowmobile.
"Do what the lady says, boys. There're people dying out there."
He swung a leg over the seat in front of Lily and cracked the throttle as Hoskins and Graham raced for the idling snowmobile in the shed. The engine's exhaust purred and the rear tread gripped the snow. He cut a sharp U-Turn and took off toward the shore, the sled bouncing along behind.
They swept over the uneven ice-covered stones of the beach onto the frozen fjord. It was dangerous going. The beam from the single light mounted in front of the handgrips wavered over the ice pack in a crazy jumble of white flashes against black shadows, making it nearly impossible for Gronquist to see any pressure ridges until they were plowing up and over them like a lifeguard boat through heavy surf. And no amount of driving skill could prevent the heavily laden sled from veenng and seesawing in their wake.