My Only One

“Yes, sir.”

Mizin continued to circle the Helix downward, and Alec was able to focus on the woman at the bow. Unconsciously, he held his breath. Her hair was long and thick, like a horse’s silky mane. But it was her face that made his pulse quicken in an uncharacteristic beat. She reminded him of a fox, her features clean and sharp. Her forehead was broad, with slightly arched eyebrows framing narrowed eyes. He wished momentarily that he were close enough to see their color. Was she the daughter of the sea or the air? Would her eyes be green or blue? He laughed at his romantic side, which he normally kept carefully closeted from the military world, though his curiosity ate away at his frivolous wondering.

Perhaps it was her mouth, set with challenge, or that slender, oval face with that small chin jutting outward that intrigued him most. There was no apology in any line of her body, her fist raised over her head at the approaching catcher that dwarfed her.

Little Fox, you are in great danger. That bear of a Japanese ship will crush you. A fox never takes on a bear. A bear always wins. Lowering the binoculars, Alec frowned. His straight black eyebrows drew together momentarily. Puzzled that a woman he didn’t even know could create such a powerful, unbidden response in him, Alec sat there digesting the discovery.

“That Japanese whaler isn’t going to back off!” Mizin cried out, swinging the Helix around so that they could fully view the coming collision.

“Any word from Captain Denisov, yet?” Alec snapped, getting out of the nylon-webbed seat and moving forward, hunkering between the pilot and copilot’s seats.

“Nyet. They’d best hurry with an answer.”

As he gripped the back of the two seats, Alec’s scowl deepened. “Lower, Comrade. I want that Japanese catcher to be fully aware of our presence. Perhaps he’ll back down if he realizes there is a witness to his premeditated murder.”

Mizin deftly swung the Helix to the starboard and dropped it to three hundred feet. “I can fly up to his bridge windows.”

Alec tendered a tense smile. Mizin would do exactly that—the pilot known for taking chances. “Nyet, Comrade. This will do.” Why hadn’t the captain of the Udaloy answered them? Didn’t Denisov realize time was limited? In another few minutes, the collision would occur. Placing one knee on the cold metal deck, Alec lodged his shoulders between the pilots’ seats to steady himself as he watched the unfolding drama.

“Look at the activity aboard the Japanese ship,” Mizin said.

But Alec had the binoculars trained exclusively on the red-haired woman.

His heart picking up in a painful beat, Alec watched mesmerized as the powerful bow of the whaler sliced forward, within a quarter mile of the trawler. “Call the Udaloy again! Tell Captain Denisov that a collision is inevitable. I must have an answer now!”

“Yes, sir!”

Get out of there, Little Fox! You’ll be the first to be killed. Run! Alec’s intake of breath was unexpected when the red-haired woman suddenly turned and lifted her face in their direction. Her eyes were a vivid blue, the color of lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. They were filled with the fire of challenge and anger. Alec’s mouth stretched into a disbelieving smile. “She’s not even afraid….”

He hadn’t even realized he’d spoken aloud until it was too late. He was instantly sorry. His comment was completely unmilitary. The woman returned her attention to the catcher. Alec watched in shock as she climbed onto the farthest point on the bow, her arm around the short spike of wood to steady herself in the angry sea. What was she doing? Didn’t she realize what was going to happen? Anguish serrated his chest. The sensation was white-hot, galvanizing. Alec froze, the binoculars pressed hard against his eyes, every shortened breath he took, a slicing agony. The red-haired woman would be killed—instantly.

* * *

“ABBY! ABBY! THAT JAPANESE ship ain’t gonna turn!”

Abby heard the hysteria in the voice of Captain John Stratman across the bullhorn. She turned, watching as the old salmon-fishing captain violently gestured for her to come back to the wheelhouse that was situated amidships the Argonaut. The wind was freezing and the spume slapping against the trawler’s bow flung upward and drenched her survival suit with the seawater, which instantly froze into a thin coating of ice on her clothing.

Cupping 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, Abby tried, but her arms were leaden. The suit felt like encasing concrete. And the sea was stealing the last of her body heat until no matter what her barely functioning brain screamed at her, the signals just didn’t reach her muscles.

“She’s going to go down!” Zotov screamed at Alec. “She’s too weak to swim to the collar!”

With a curse, Alec watched the woman’s waxen features. When her eyes rolled back in her head, he knew she’d lost consciousness. He tore off his helmet, then his parka. There was no time to unlace his heavy black leather boots.

Turning to Zotov, he screamed at him above the roar of the helo, “I’m going to jump. I’ll get her to the collar. You lift us both up!”

Zotov nodded jerkily, his eyes huge.

It was a thirty-foot drop into the ocean. Alec’s alarm increased as he saw the woman slide beneath the surface for the last time. Taking a deep breath, he leapt from the helo.

Abby’s last coherent thought before she surrendered to her watery grave was of the man tearing the clothes from his body. When he removed the helmet, she could clearly see his taut features: a lean, intense face with dark brown eyes that seemed to burn with some undefinable inner light, hair cut military short and the color of the black walnuts that each autumn fell from the trees around her apartment in Alexandra, Virginia. Just the anxiety, the care building in his eyes, made her try one last time when she realized he was stripping off unnecessary clothing to jump out the door to save her.

With the last of her strength, she lifted her hand above her head as the sea jerked her downward. Her icy glove stretched upward in a silent plea of help. It was the last thing she remembered.