Page 91 of Enemy Within

And then the second ice ridge came up, steeper and deeper than before. And the third, like a knife trying to gut them.

In minutes, they were back to navigating their way through an underwater maze, dodging cleavers of plunging ice, underwater spires that seemed as tall as skyscrapers, and blind alleys that led to choke points. Anderson kept diving the boat deeper into the dark depths, until the first groan sounded along the hull.

At Ethan’s side, Jack exhaled shakily and scooted closer. Ethan welcomed it. Across the Conn, Sergey was pale, almost translucent. He could see a thick ring of white around the entirety of Sasha’s eyes.

“Conn, Sonar. I’m picking something up…” Boomer’s voice trailed off. In his corner, he frowned at his screen, shaking his head.

“What is it?”

“It doesn’t make sense.” Frustration strained Boomer’s voice. “It could be our own echo. Or it could be an organic. I’m not getting clear signals. It’s irregular, but that could be the ice.”

“How close is this mystery object?” Anderson growled as he made his way to Boomer’s screen.

“The signal is bouncing off the ice, Captain. What I can hear, I can’t understand, and from what I can see, I can’t get a good bearing. It could be all the way under the North Pole.”

Anderson glared at the screen. A snow of noise, of barely comprehensible lines, dots and dashes streamed across the display, and on the far-right side, a faint, barely there pulsation. Like a shooting star, there and then gone. And there again. Natural sounds were random, noise that could numb the brain. Machines, on the other hand, were reliable. Predictable. Rhythmic. His lips pressed together. “You seesomething, Boomer.”

“Yes, Captain. I think I do.”

“Keep an eye on it. I want to know the instant this thing twitches.”

Boomer nodded, and Anderson moved back to his position in the center by the periscope stand, his eyes flicking over every station, every screen.

“Captain, another ice keel ahead. Range, three thousand yards. This one is massive, sir.” Boomer squinted at his screen. “And, if that object exists, it’s beyond the ice keel, sir. Or it’s our reflection coming off this huge sheet of ice. If you turn into the dive, I can get us a better picture. Or, we’ll know we’re looking at our shadow.” Boomer had his hands over his headphones, and he hunched in front of his display, trying to divine meaning from the mess on his screen. Overhead, the navigational display showed a thick red band plunging down from the ice, dangerously close and angled on their starboard side.

“Helm, five-degree turn to starboard. Heading zero-seven-zero. Ahead slow.” Anderson glared at the screens, and around him, his men became tense again, windup toys keyed to the last screw.

Boomer kept listening and kept staring at his screen, frowning hard.

Ethan closed his eyes and let out a breath. He tried to uncoil his muscles, tried to physically relax. His body felt like a spring, coiled and ready to burst. He thought he could hear the noises coming through Boomer’s headphones, popping, humming, hissing noises that made his bones itch. Beneath all of it, a deep, rumbling thrum and patter, almost like a heartbeat.

“Boomer, what the hell are we hearing?” Anderson’s bark broke over the Conn. “Is this our own echo?”

Ethan’s eyelids snapped open. At his side, Jack tensed, his body going rigid as they felt the raw intensity of the Conn ratchet up, and smelled the stink of adrenaline letting loose into veins. On the sonar display, a shattered mess of red lines appeared in the dead center, incomprehensible, but close.Damnclose.

Anderson was silent for exactly one second. Ethan watched his eyes narrow, his lips flatten.

“Emergency deep! Take us down to the depths! Dive,now, Roller!”

The deck slanted immediately, Roller plunging the ship into a steep dive.

“Captain!” Boomer’s voice was like lightning, crashing over the deck. “Contact! Jesus Christ, it’s a Russian attack sub! Hostile contact, designate Sierra One!” He piped the sonar noise he was hearing up to the captain as the displays went red, solid lines of cascading maroon flashing as alarms wailed. From the speakers, Ethan picked out a sizzle, the sound of an electrical plant on a nearby submarine, water rushing over a hull, and a rhythmic swish of a turning propeller. On the nav display, a flattened oval appeared, crimson bright and taking up almost the entire space between the ice keel and the ocean floor below.

The silhouette of a submarine.

“Dive!” Anderson shouted. “Get us underneath that sub! Make your depth two hundred sixty-five!”

“Captain, ocean depth is two seventy-three!”

“Two hundred and sixty-five feet! Donotovershoot!”

At the helm, Roller’s eyes went even wider, bulging like he was a character in a bad cartoon. His planesman went white as a sheet, not even breathing, but he moved automatically as the alarms wailed and shouts broke over the deck.

“Conn, Sonar!” Boomer hollered over the klaxons. “It’s anAkula-class sub! They’re turning toward us!” A new alarm sounded, a high-pitched wail. “They’re flooding their torpedo tubes!”

“Engines ahead full!”

“Captain, we’re going to hit bottom!” The nav officer gripped the railing behind the periscope until his knuckles went white.