“Thanks. Looks like you'll get your wish about us leaving the Faroes.”

The cruiser began to peel away.

But before the Danish ship could veer off, the Sea Sentinel made a sharp turn and drove toward the cruiser's exposed side like a water- borne guided missile.

Sailors lined the cruiser's decks and frantically tried to wave off the advancing ship. The cruiser blew short, rapid warning bursts of its horn. Voices squawked over the radio in Danish and English.

Seeing that the ships were within seconds of disaster, the sailors ran for their lives.

In a last desperate attempt to avert a certain collision, Ryan put all his weight into the wheel. He was still hanging on when the ship smashed into the side of the cruiser. The Sea Sentinel's sharp bow pen- etrated the steel hull plates like a bayonet, then slid off the moving ship in a horrendous shriek of tearing metal.

The Sea Sentinel wallowed in the ocean like a dazed boxer who had just taken a hard right to the nose. The cruiser was struggling to keep afloat, as thousands of gallons of water poured in through the gaping hole in the hull. Crewmen scrambled into the lifeboats and prepared to lower them into the cold sea.

Therri had been thrown to her knees by the impact. Ryan helped her to her feet, and he and the others in the pilothouse dashed down to the deck. The panicked TV people, seeing that they were now part of the story rather than covering it, were trying to get someone to tell them what to do. People were bruised and limping.

Someone was screaming for help, and crew and press people were extracting a bloody body from the metal mush that was all that was left of the bow section.

Ryan shouted orders to abandon ship.

With all the yelling and confusion, no one looked up to see the hel- icopter wheeling high above the ships. The chopper circled a few times like a hungry buzzard, then headed off along the coast.

NUMA 4 - White Death

3

Off the northern coast of Russia

TWELVE HUNDRED MILE S southeast of the Faroe Islands, the search-and-survey ship William Beebe lay at anchor in the frigid waters of the Barents Sea. The letters NUMA were embla- zoned on the 250-foot-long turquoise hull. Named after one of the pioneers in deep-sea exploration, the Beebe bristled with muscular cranes and winches capable of hoisting entire boats off the ocean floor.