It is not easy being an unprotected man in a polar sea. It was arguably less easy being a cold-water fish on land. Few creatures get to experience both; the L.A.S.E.R. divers were among the chosen ones.
Thomas Bryan and the six other divers were in full gear. In addition to the wet suits, compressed-air cylinders, weight belts, and buoyancy compensators, they carried packets of thermal explosives, spear guns, and climbing gear. The pitons and lines were necessary because they didn’t know what kind of tangle they might find below. They might be required to hang on to rock or ice projections against the current or at odd angles. All of that, plus the flippers, made movement in the helicopter cabin and on the rubberung extremely difficult.
Lieutenant Black, Ensign Galvez, and Major Bryan carried one thing more. They had waterproof packs loaded with C-4 and detonators. These could be used on ice or rock; they would be used on the submarine if it could not be salvaged.
It was quite a group, Bryan thought. Armed with explosives, determination, state-of-the-art gear, and virtually no knowledge of their target.
The team descended as the last one had, in shifts. One person went into the sea while the next person waited in the middle of the ladder. Bryan would be the last one in the water. If there had been any last-second instructions from Corpus Christi, or a change of heart from the rear admiral, the major wanted to be there to receive it. As deep as they were going, into waters as cold as these, communications could become iffy.
There were no sickbed confessionals from the rear admiral. Bryan turned his back to the sea and went down the ladder. He felt this particular officer would understand if they were forced to blow up the submarine. That wouldn’t make it any easier, but at least there would be someone to share the pain.
The plan was to dive as far as they could as quickly as they could to leave as much time as possible for a rescue. They would be descending close to the ice that had slid from the shelf, hoping it would lead them to one or both of the submarines.
Lieutenant Black was in the lead. Each diver had a small, powerful halogen headlamp on top of his hood. Visibility was only about twenty-five feet in these waters, less than a quarter of what it was in warm-water dives. Particulate matter did not disintegrate as quickly in the icy waters, preventing both sunlight and portable illumination from penetrating very far.
The team descended headfirst in a wide-angle V-formation. Only Black and the two outermost divers, Gabriel and Bryan, had their lights on. The formation allowed them to follow the leader and at the same time look out over as much of the sea as possible. The presence of the ice was at once reassuring and intimidating. Reassuring because it was a road map to the surface. Intimidating because it was big and obviously unstable, composed of surprisingly rectangular slabs and irregular chunks piled in a chaotic heap. Bryan was immediately concerned that using thermal devices anywhere near the base of this could bring the entire mass down. Grains of ice and air bubbles created by the recent collapse and sustained by the gentle currents circulated around the chunks like insects. Each of them kicked off a little of the halogen light, creating a strange firefly effect. More people were in the water than fish. Perhaps that was a result of shoreline predators or perhaps the collapse, but their absence added to the unearthliness of the scene. Fish provided color and there was none, save for the magnesium-white glare of the “fireflies” and the ivory-white faces of the ice. Beyond that there was only blackness.
The group descended quickly. Each of the suits was equipped with a wireless computer, worn on the wrist and connected to the air tanks and communications systems. It had an audible alarm in case the tanks were compromised; it also had a thermometer, a compass, and a depth gauge. The maximum safe depth for an in-and-out scuba dive was 130 feet. Below that, a decompression stop was necessary before returning to the surface. Underwater pressure causes the nitrogen in a diver’s air to separate and enter the body’s tissues. A stop allows this nitrogen to gas off through the circulatory system and be exhaled by natural respiration. Failing to do that will cause nitrogen bubbles to form when normal pressure is restored, similar to removing the top from a bottle of soda. These bubbles prevent oxygen from reaching the brain, causing disorienting nitrogen narcosis. They also block airflow to the joints and organs, resulting in “the bends.” A diver who ventures below 200 feet risks injury from the pressure itself. Any deeper than that and the diver could be crushed. The twin layers of air and water in the L.A.S.E.R. suits would give them some leeway in terms of depth. Bryan had established a maximum depth of 175 feet. If the submarine was lower than that they would have a problem conducting any kind of recon. It shouldn’t be, though. According to sounding charts from a Russian expedition in 1978, the maximum depth this close to shore was 170 feet.
The team had just descended below 125 feet when Lieutenant Black reported, “I’ve got something.”
A moment later Bryan saw it, too. And the mission, however unpleasant one of the alternatives had been, no longer seemed quite so clear-cut.