Grunting back to life, I forced myself onto my knees and crawled over to where the rope was anchored. I tugged repeatedly in an attempt to free the knot, only to grow frustrated.

Screw it, you don’t need it. Leave it for the next schmuck.

Regaining my feet, I removed the climbing axe from my backpack, squeezed myself between the chasm walls, and set my spiked boots, pushing my way up the parallel rockfaces.

Grunting, wheezing, leveraging myself up three feet at a time.

Keep your moaning to a minimum. If one bear-dog was out there, then there must be others.

I reached the summit more quickly than expected and listened before I climbed out.

Before me were my own snowprints, matched by those of the bear-dog. I followed them to the remains of the rope, then pulled myself up the incline through the waist-deep snow until I was again standing at the base of the mountain.

Checking my GPS to make sure I was heading southeast, I set off at a steady pace, my toes aching with the cold.

How much time had elapsed since I activated the sensory device? Twenty minutes? An hour? Was the damn thing even working, or had it been swallowed by the crevasse?

Vostok rumbled overhead, startling me.

I picked up my pace.

I limped the last half-mile. The first sensory device was there, but no Ben. Without waiting, I worked my way down the slope to the white fog bank.

Able only to make out the tracks directly in front of me, I made my way slowly through that blinding mist, each step bringing me closer to the warmth of the sub, making me want to run. I held each breath in anticipation, knowing that another bear-dog could be locking onto my scent and sounds, stalking me through the fog.

I listened for its telltale growl and heard only the ice sheet crackling. And then a yellow mist blossomed into a humid, sulfurous belch, and I froze.

It was the crevasse. The opening encircled the entire base of the mountain. Had I not smelled the sulfur, I surely would have fallen in.

I backed away and followed the chasm until I located a narrower gap that I could safely leap over. Then I continued down the snow-covered slope, wary of each step.

Another fifty paces brought me beyond the fog. Before me were the ice-laden waters of the bay. My spirits rose when I saw the Barracuda’s external lights on the shoreline, my homing beacon. Detouring around a herd of sea elephants, I darted from one rock formation to the next, doing my best not to stir the four-ton beasts.

And then I stopped. Not far from the sub was a figure, waiting in ambush by a snow-topped boulder. From this distance I couldn’t be sure what it was.

Slowly, quietly, I removed the flashlight from my backpack and aimed the beam.

“Ming?”