Beaman saw that the last of his team was aboard the car. Time for him to go. He broke from his hiding place and dashed across the open ground. The train was starting to pick up speed as more of the cars topped the grade and headed down to the other side. Beaman had to run all out, moving as fast as he could in the heavy gear to try to catch the ladder.

It was right there in front of him. He reached out to grab it and made ready to leap up onto the bottom rung.

He never saw the rock before it broke loose under his foot as he tried to push off for the jump. He tripped and started to stumble. The heavy steel wheels squeaked as they turned mere inches away from where his feet were dragging. Beaman tried to keep his grip on the ladder, tried not to lose his hold and sprawl beneath the wheels.

Someone reached down and grabbed the big SEAL commander by the collar, hauling him up to safety by sheer strength.

Beaman rolled onto the car platform, gasping for air, more from the realization of how close he had been to getting himself sliced in half than from the exertion of the run. He nodded his thanks to Hall, the SEAL radioman. Hall waved him off.

“Wasn’t anything,” he mumbled.

“You just saved my ass is all,” Beaman said.

“Hell, I just didn’t want to have to explain to the chief why I let you get run over,” Hall growled, then turned to join the others stowing their gear amid the stack of pipes on the swaying flatcar.

Joe Glass braced himself against the pitch of the sea. The icy spray poured over the top of the sail. If it weren’t for the bright orange survival suit, he knew he would already be soaked to the skin and numb from the cold. The suit at least kept him more or less dry. It was still damned cold and so dark he couldn’t see the bow of the Toledo fifty feet ahead of him.

It had been sixteen hours since he had sent the message for help. They had raced across the Norwegian Sea to arrive here, just outside the twelve-mile territorial limits of Iceland. Doc had done everything he could for Oshley, but it was easy to see that the quartermaster’s only hope was to get to a hospital.

Glass and Doug O’Malley stood shivering in the bridge cockpit. The low steel coaming provided little protection from the crashing seas and none from the biting cold. The hatch at their feet was shut to keep the cold seawater out of the control room below. They were alone out here on the wind-driven sea, connected to the warmth below by nothing more than the thin thread of a microphone.