Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [132]
Vitaliy stood up and shook himself awake, then shuffled into the galley to get the water started for his morning tea. The temperature was just above freezing—what passed for a warm fall day. No new ice had formed overnight, at least nothing his boat couldn’t crush or bypass, but the decks were coated in an inch-thick layer of frozen spindrift, something he and Vanya would have to chop free, lest the boat grow top-heavy. Capsizing in these waters meant almost certain death; without immersion suits, a man could expect to be unconscious within four minutes and dead within fifteen, and while he had enough suits aboard for everyone, his passengers had shown little interest in his explanation of their use.
His charter party was awake, struggling to stamp their feet and fling their arms across their chests. They all lit their cigarettes and moved aft to the boat’s primitive head facilities. All ate the bread and ice-hard butter set out for breakfast.
Vitaliy gave it an hour to get the day started, then he fired up his diesels and backed off the gravel beach on which they’d spent the night. His charts were already laid out, and he headed east at ten knots. Vanya spelled him at the wheel. They listened to an old but serviceable AM radio, mostly classical music beamed out from Archangel. It helped pass the time. There were ten hours of steaming remaining to their destination. About 160 kilometers. Ten hours at ten knots, so said the chart.
“That doesn’t look good,” Vanya said, pointing off the starboard bow.
On the eastern horizon was a line of swollen black clouds, so low they almost seemed to merge with the ocean’s surface.
“Not good at all,” Vitaliy agreed. And it would get worse, he knew. To reach their destination they would have to pass through the storm—either that or go far out of their way, or even ground the boat and wait it out.
“Ask Fred to come up, will you?” Vitaliy said.
Vanya went below and returned a minute later with the leader of the charter group. “A problem, Captain?”
Vitaliy pointed through the window at the squall line. “That.”
“Rain?”
“It doesn’t rain here, Fred. It storms. The only question is, to what degree? And that mess there, I’m afraid, is going to be bad.” Worse still for a T-4 slab-sided landing craft with one meter of draft, he didn’t add.
“How long until we reach it?”
“Three hours—a little longer, maybe.”
“Can we weather it?”
“Probably, but nothing is certain out here. Either way, it’s going to be rough going.”
“What are our alternatives?” asked Fred.
“Return to where we just overnighted or head south and try to get around the edge of the storm. Either option will cost us a day or two of travel time.”
“Unacceptable,” Fred replied.
“It will be dicey, going through that—and you and your men are going to be miserable.”
“We will manage. Perhaps a bonus for your trouble will make the inconvenience more palatable?”
Vitaliy shrugged. “I’m game if you are.”
“Proceed.”
Two hours later he saw a ship on the horizon, heading west. Probably a supply ship, coming back from delivering her cargo of oil-drilling equipment to the new oil field discovered farther east, up the Lena River, south of Tiksi. Judging by the ship’s wake, she was making her best speed, obviously trying to outpace the very storm into which they were headed.
Vanya appeared at his side. “Engines are fine. We’re locked down tight.” Vitaliy had asked him to prepare the boat for the impending weather. What they couldn’t do was either prepare their guests for what was to come or prepare for what the sea might do to the boat. Mother Nature was fickle and cruel.
Earlier, Vitaliy had asked Fred to have his men lend a hand in de-icing the boat,