Polar Shift Read Online Free Page A

slept?”
    â€œIt’s nighttime. We’re on the open sea.” Karl shoved a dark blue life jacket at Kovacs and slipped into a similar jacket.
    â€œNow what do we do?”
    â€œStay here. I want to check the lifeboat situation.” He tossed Kovacs a pack of cigarettes. “Be my guest.”
    â€œI don’t smoke.”
    Karl paused in the open doorway. “Maybe it’s time you did.” Then he was gone.
    Kovacs spilled a cigarette from the pack and lit up. He had quit smoking years ago, when he got married. He coughed as the smoke filled his lungs, and he felt dizzy from the strong tobacco, but he recalled with delicious pleasure the innocent debauchery of his college days.
    He finished the cigarette, thought of lighting up another but decided against it. He had not had a bath in days, and his body itched in a dozen places. He washed his face in the sink and was drying his hands on a threadbare towel when there was a knock at the door.
    â€œProfessor Kovacs?” a muffled voice said.
    â€œYes.”
    The door opened, and the professor gasped. Standing in the doorway was the ugliest woman he had ever seen. She was more than six feet tall, with broad shoulders straining the seams of a black Persian lamb coat. Her wide mouth was painted in bright red lipstick, and, with such heavily rouged lips, she looked like a circus clown.
    â€œPardon my appearance,” she said in an unmistakably male voice. “This is not an easy ship to get aboard. I had to resort to this silly disguise, and a few bribes.”
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œNot important. What is important is your name. You are Dr. Lazlo Kovacs, the great German-Hungarian electrical genius.”
    Kovacs grew wary. “I am Lazlo Kovacs. I consider myself to be Hungarian.”
    â€œSplendid! You are the author of the paper on electromagnetism that electrified the scientific world.”
    Kovacs’s antenna quivered. The paper published in an obscure scientific journal had brought him to the attention of the Germans, who kidnapped him and his family. He said nothing.
    â€œNever mind,” the man said genially, the clown smile even broader. “I can see that I have the right man.” He reached under his fur coat and pulled out a pistol. “I’m sorry to be rude, Dr. Kovacs, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you.”
    â€œ Kill me? Why? I don’t even know you.”
    â€œBut I know you. Or, rather, my superiors in the NKGB know you. As soon as our glorious Red Army forces crossed the border we sent a special squad to find you, but you had already left the lab.”
    â€œYou’re Russian ?”
    â€œYes, of course. We would love to have you come and work for us. Had we been able to intercept you before you boarded the ship, you would be enjoying Soviet hospitality. But now I can’t get you off the ship, and we can’t let you and your work fall into German hands again. No, no. It just wouldn’t do.” The smile vanished.
    Kovacs was too stunned to be afraid, even when the pistol came up and the muzzle pointed at his heart.

    M ARINESKO COULD hardly believe his good luck. He had been standing on the S-13’s conning tower, oblivious to the freezing wind and spray that stung his face, when the snow cleared and he saw the enormous silhouette of an ocean liner. The liner appeared to be accompanied by a smaller boat.
    The submarine was riding on the surface in heavy seas. Its crew had been at battle stations since sighting the lights from boats moving against the coast. The captain had ordered the submarine’s buoyancy reduced so that it would ride lower in the water and thus evade radar.
    Reasoning that the ships would never expect an attack from shore, he ordered his crew to bring the sub around the back of the convoy and run a course parallel to the liner and its escort. Two hours later, Marinesko turned the S-13 toward his target. As it closed in