Chapter 53
Sharpe decided to keep his distance from the spectacle playing out between the Russians and the Chinese.
He doubted he could be of any practical help, and inserting himself into the fray wouldn’t do his passengers any good.
Holding in place was also probably the best way to help Kasey and Chen get as far away as they could.
Sometimes, the best move is no move at all.
Watching the aftermath of the horrific collision unfold, he noticed that the Russians were more organized—an unpredicted development since they had taken most of the casualties.
He saw three bodies laid out on the ice, all of which had been pulled from the water.
Two crewmen in a tiny inflatable boat were on the far side of the Aurora, banging on something with a hammer.
Whatever they were doing, it had a distinct air of hopelessness.
The sub was resting at a strange nose-down angle.
The base of her sail was submerged, and part of the rudder was visible.
Twenty crewmen milled about on the ice, caring for the wounded and glaring at the Chinese ship.
He wondered how many had been on board the Aurora. Fifty? A hundred? How many had survived? Sharpe hadn’t formed any particular bond with the Russian captain, but having faced his own recent disaster, including loss of life, he felt a pang of sympathy for the man.
The timing of the disaster wasn’t lost on Sharpe.
He had seen Chen working on Sky Fire minutes before the crash, and he wondered if the two were related.
Probably, he surmised. After being told by Kasey that similar technology might have brought down his airliner, the concept of making an icebreaker go rogue was well within the bounds of this new reality.
It also meshed perfectly with what happened next: Kasey and Chen had disappeared in the ensuing disarray.
Sharpe’s eye was drawn to movement at a midway point on the ice.
A wave had sloshed onto the ice sheet not far from the passerelle.
He soon realized what had happened. A second lead had formed, perpendicular to the existing one.
It seemed to be widening, as was the original gap.
For whatever reason—perhaps the force of the pileup?
—the ice was moving. The passerelle had been left behind in all the chaos, forcing crewmen to slide down the sub’s hull or simply jump to reach the safety of the ice. Now it was in danger of falling in.
On pure instinct, Sharpe began running toward the lead.
Several times he lost his footing on the slippery surface, but mercifully, he didn’t go down.
He was nearly there when the far side of the passerelle dropped into the sea.
The edge on the near side began sliding, and he launched himself toward it.
He glided on his stomach like a seal, skidding over the ice, and his outstretched hand gripped the last corner of the ramp as it dipped into the water.
Sharpe dug in with his toes to keep from gliding any farther, and his face ended up inches from the edge. He squirmed backward, thankful that the ice shelf was thick enough to support his weight. He had a good grip on the edge of the passerelle and so started to haul it in. Then he froze.
Conflicting thoughts began lurching through his mind, a fusion of the vastly altered situation around him. The Russians, the Chinese, the destruction. The state of his own passengers. Kasey and Chen. No matter how he worked the variables, he kept arriving at the same solution.
Sharpe let go of the passerelle and watched it sink into the ink-black sea.
Empty-handed, he rose to his feet and stood still for a moment.
He was completely out of breath, his lungs burning from the cold.
He surveyed the scene of the collision. No one seemed to have noticed his scramble to save the ramp.
Everyone was too busy recovering bodies, tending to their ships.
The loss of the passerelle would be noticed, but not for some time.
With the lead widening, it would simply be one more complication for the Chinese and the Russians to deal with.
He walked back to the shelter, and as he arrived, a brutal gust swept past, throwing a gyre of snow.
The wind and cold were incessant, but his upgraded clothing helped—for short exposures it dialed down the misery.
He kept going until he reached the cargo hold, where his gaze was drawn to a canvas tarp he had discarded twenty minutes earlier.
He had originally discovered it when he and Kasey were conducting their treasure hunt.
The size of a bedsheet, the tarp had been covering a consignment of machine parts.
Because it was greasy, he’d tossed it aside at the time, reckoning it was of little use.
Now his mind had changed. He could use it to help cover Kasey and Chen’s escape.
Following their tracks for about a quarter mile, he then laid down the tarp and began sweeping it back and forth, obliterating their footprints, along with his own.
In some areas the footprints were deep, the snow having compressed, and it took considerable effort to erase them.
He worked all the way back to the fuselage, paying particular attention to the first fifty feet of the trail.
Now, looking over his work, Sharpe saw that their tracks were barely visible, a hazy runner of white. They would soon be further obscured by windswept snow. It wouldn’t hold against a concerted search, but at the moment the Chinese were fully distracted by damage control.
Sharpe once more studied the two wounded ships.
One was on the verge of sinking, the other severely disabled.
Their crews were scrambling to respond, but it seemed pointless.
All of them, whether they realized it or not, were subject to the same fate of his own little group inside the fuselage—survivors in need of rescue.
He reckoned both of the vessels had already sent distress calls.
Help would be on the way very soon. Would the Chinese be the first to arrive?
The Russians? Canada had to be in the mix, owing to mere proximity.
Sharpe didn’t care who it was. At some point in the next twelve hours, rescue would arrive and all the poor wretches who’d been stranded on this sullied patch of polar ice would be saved. Finally, his passengers would be safe.
All, that is, except for two, one of whom is injured.
Kasey and Chen might have escaped, but would they be safe, out there alone, against the elements and without shelter?
The thought gnawed at him. Regardless of who they were and why they had been on his plane, they remained his passengers; his responsibility. Too many had already died.
With his sense of duty tugging at his mind, Sharpe’s thoughts veered in an entirely new direction, one that quickly ventured onto dangerous ground. But no sooner had it ventured onto that ground than he committed to a course of action.
There were countless variables to weigh. Critical risks to evaluate. His gloved thumb tapped his thigh in agitation.
What he had come up with really was a bad idea. A monumentally bad idea. Even so, he knew he had to try it.