The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

twenty knots, but failing, despite full cruising power on her engines. The sky
was overcast, with occasional breaks in the clouds for the full moon to peek
through. The storm was actually breaking up, but the wind was holding steady at
sixty knots and the seas were still increasing somewhat. It was a typical North
Pacific storm, both officers had already decided. Nothing about it made any
sense. The air temperature was a balmy ten degrees Fahrenheit, and the flying
spray was freezing to ice that impacted the bridge windows like birdshot in duck
season. The only good news was that the seas were right on the bow. George M was
a freighter, not a cruise liner, and lacked anti-roll stabilizers. In fact, the
ride wasn't bad at all. The super structure was set on the after portion of the
ship, and that damped out most of the pitching motion associated with heavy
seas. It also had the effect of reducing the officers' awareness of events at
the forward end of the ship, a fact further accentuated by the reduced
visibility from flying spray.
The ride also had a few interesting characteristics. When the bow plowed into an
especially high wave, the ship slowed down. But the size of the ship meant that
the bow slowed quicker than the stern, and as the deceleration forces fought to
reduce the ship's speed, the hull rebelled by shuddering. In fact, the hull
actually bent a few inches, something difficult to believe until it was seen.
'I served on a carrier once. They flex more than a foot in the middle. Once we
were – '
'Look dead ahead, sir!' the helmsman called.
'Oh shit!' the Second Officer shouted. 'Rogue wave!'
Suddenly there it was, a fifty footer just a hundred yards from the George M's
blunt bow. The event was not unexpected. Two waves would meet and add their
heights for a few moments, then diverge . . . The bow rose on the medium-size
crest, then dropped before the onrushing green wall.
'Here we go!'
There wasn't time for the bow to climb over this one. The green water simply
stepped over the bow as though it had never been there and kept rolling aft the
five hundred feet to the superstructure. Both officers watched in detached
fascination. There was no real danger to the ship – at least, they both told
themselves, no immediate danger. The solid green mass came past the heavy
cargo-handling masts and equipment, advancing at a speed of thirty miles per
hour. The ship was already shuddering again, the bow having hit the lower
portion of the wave, slowing the ship. In fact, the bow was still under water,
since this wave was far broader than it was high, but the top portion was about
to hit a white-painted steel cliff that was perpendicular to its axis of
advance.
'Brace!' the Second Officer told the helmsman.
The crest of the wave didn't quite make the level of the bridge, but it did hit
the windows of the senior officers' cabins. Instantly, there was a white
vertical curtain of spray that blotted out the entire world. The single second
it lasted seemed to stretch into a minute, then it cleared, and the ship's deck
was exactly where it was supposed to be, though covered with seawater that was
struggling to drain out the scuppers. George M took a fifteen-degree roll, then
settled back down.