her hand to her mouth she shouted, “No!” The trawler’s forward progress increased the windchill factor until her eyes watered with tears.
“He won’t turn!” Stratman bellowed. “Get down from there! Get down and prepare for collision!”
Whirling around, Abby clung to the spindly pole on the bow of the Argonaut. She shook her gloved fist at the catcher. “I won’t let you kill my whales! Turn back!” Her voice cracked with a sob as she watched the black bow raise up and then, in slow motion, come down. Each forward thrust brought them closer and closer. Abby saw the crew of the catcher in the forward turret where the huge, ugly harpoon sat ready for firing at the endangered humpback whales. Her whales. The humpback population had been estimated at one hundred fifty thousand at the beginning of the century. Now, less than fifteen thousand were still alive. This pod wasn’t going to join those who had already died, not if Abby could help it.
She screamed at the approaching vessel. “You won’t kill them! You won’t!” Twisting around, Abby stared at the fleeing pod of whales. The catcher was almost within firing range. The Japanese had never rammed a SOWF vessel or inflatable Zodiac. Never! Captain Stratman was a cautious man, and to this she attributed his terror. The Japanese would never risk an international incident or the bad press resulting in running down a puny trawler. Or would they? It was a David-and-Goliath situation.
Her attention had been snagged by another sound other than the constant roar of the ocean, the laboring chug of the Argonaut’s pressed engines and the howling wind. She had never seen such an odd-looking helicopter in all her life. It was dark green, with a red star painted on the fuselage. That was right: Captain Stratman had said he’d picked up Soviet ship-to-ship talk this morning. At dawn, she’d seen the ghostly group of what Stratman said were Soviet destroyers shadowing the Japanese whaling fleet.
The helicopter had no weapons visible, so Abby tore her gaze from it and centered her attention on the whaler bearing directly down on them. The Japanese were in international waters and had as much right to be there as the Soviets, and right now were her main concern. For five days she’d dogged the heels of the whaling fleet, disrupting their bid to kill the pods of humpback whales that came north at this time of year with their newly born calves from the Revillagigedo Islands near Baja, Mexico or from Maui. The Japanese didn’t care whether their steel harpoons punctured the side of a nursing cow, struck a calf or any other member of the family.
The Argonaut crew consisted of only four people, one a SOWF photographer who was taking photos of the event, and the other, the first mate to Stratman. Abby saw both men running toward the bridge, struggling into their life vests. She’d left hers on the bridge as the survival suit was too bulky anyway. With a life vest over it, she’d barely be able to turn or do much of anything. The brackish waves were growing higher. She clung to her perch on the bow and continued to wave her fist up at the whaler. The gesture was a language anyone could interpret, no matter what country they came from.
Spray slammed up against the Argonaut, drenching Abby. The water was chilling, like a slap in the face. Her long, naturally curly hair was stiff with salt and frozen to her suit. Wiping her face, she blinked. It was then she realized with awful clarity that the catcher wasn’t going to turn aside as it had previously. Abby’s grip tightened around the pole. She heard Stratman’s cry of warning torn away by the wind as he jerked the wheel of the Argonaut to starboard. The trawler lurched, hung up on a wave.
Her eyes widened enormously as she watched the tall, knifelike bow of the catcher lift upward. Mouth dropping open, Abby suddenly realized that when it came down, it would come down on the trawler. She anchored to the spot, stunned with the realization that she was about to be killed.
She crouched, clinging to the pole, turning away as the catcher bow came down upon them. No! Oh, God, no!
* * *
“NO!” ALEC BLURTED. His cry had been utterly spontaneous, but he couldn’t help himself. He watched the deadly ballet of the two ships as they slid downward into the same trough of water and collided. At the last second, the trawler had heaved starboard to try to soften the impact of the collision. A cry clawed up Alec’s constricted throat and stuck there as he watched the catcher’s bow strike the port side of the Argonaut in a grazing motion. The violent impact tossed the woman off the bow and high into the air.
Alec dropped the binoculars as he rose, tense and disbelieving, his gaze riveted on the woman. She had struck the water a good fifty feet away, her red hair like a flame against the gray-green sea.
“Rescue her!” Alec snapped to Mizin. “Get down there and get her!”
“But, Comrade Captain,” Mizin began helplessly, “Captain Denisov hasn’t given us permission to—”
Whirling around in the cramped confines of the Helix, Alec growled, “I’m giving the order, Lieutenant!” His decision could easily mean an international incident. Alec knew that no one, not even his friend Misha Surin, from the public-affairs office in the Politburo, could save him from being sent to a Siberian labor camp for making this decision solely on his own.
Suddenly, he didn’t care. He’d been playing it safe and cautious all his life. This woman, who had displayed such incredible courage, deserved better than a death in the icy sea. She had no life vest, and that survival suit she wore could drag her down into the sea in minutes. If she didn’t drown, she would die of hypothermia within thirty minutes.
Zotov quickly slid the door open, and a cold blast of Arctic air filled the confines of the helo. Alec stood tensely at the door as Zotov expertly guided Mizin verbally toward the floundering woman. The pilot dropped the Helix fast, and Alec clung to the air-frame door, his feet spread apart for maximum balance. The wind from the double rotor blades was whipping up the grasping, hungry fingers of the sea all around her.
Alec leaned out the fuselage door, the cold air numbing his features. His eyes widened as he saw blood covering part of the woman’s face as she struggled to keep her head above water. “Quickly!” he snapped at Zotov. “Get the collar lowered quickly!”
The bright orange collar was placed on a hoist hook outside the door and lowered. It swung and twirled wildly beneath the Helix, caught in the air turbulence created by the aircraft. Alec leaned out, the blasts from the rotors pummeling his body like punches from a boxing opponent.
Abby couldn’t scream, she couldn’t even cry out; sea water funneled up her nostrils and then burned down the back of her throat and into her vulnerable lungs. Though she was dazed, the freezing water kept her semiconscious. Awkwardly, she flailed around, the drenched survival suit pulling her downward, always downward.
Barely aware that the Soviet helicopter hovered nearby, Abby struggled weakly. The water was stealing what little heat was left in her body. Her flesh was numb; she felt nothing. Die…I’m going to die, she thought disjointedly. It was so hard to push upward, to keep her head above the water. The stout leather boots she wore were becoming heavier by the second, constantly tugging at her from below like hands pulling her down into the icy depths.
A huge wave caught her and she cried out. Too late! Water streamed into her open mouth and she went under. Every movement stole more of her eroding strength, but Abby fought back. She broke through to the surface, gagging, and weakly tried to focus on the helicopter now hovering thirty feet above her. Blinking the salt water from her eyes, she saw two men leaning out, lowering something she didn’t recognize.
The collar landed ten feet away from her and floated on the water. She looked up to see one man, leaning out of the helo at a dangerous angle and gesturing for her to swim toward the object. Coughing violently,
