by David Poyer
He progressed several feet in, before he came to something unexpected.
In the blackness he encountered a collar or fitted inner sleeve of what felt like smooth plastic. He explored it with his fingers. His nails found a thin seam, then another, opposite the first. It was a sabot, to support the forward body of the weapon within the straight sides of the barrel. Once it was launched, the halves would drop away into the sea.
Im hesitated. How far did the sleeve extend? To the inner door? But he had to remove friction, so the missile could slide out once the tube was flooded. They’d discussed ejecting it in the usual way, but decided that would be unwise. Even without an engine firing signal, a torpedo could run a hundred yards on launch impulse alone. In a murky, unfamiliar harbor, it would be all too easy to lose.
He exhaled, and forced himself ahead once more. Into the sleeve. Within the sabot. Now his greased shoulders were bound all around by the solid cold grip of the dense smooth plastic. He wriggled another inch forward, pushing with his toes. Then another.
He pushed again and didn’t move. His toes skidded on the rough metal, and he felt nails bend and then tear off as he kept digging in, trying to force himself forward. Then he thought better of it, and tried to back out.
His toes scraped, but found no purchase. His arms were locked inside the narrow bore.
He tried again to push ahead, and couldn’t. Tried to back out, and didn’t budge.
He was locked in, a greased plug of muscle and flesh and bone.
He lay unable to move, barely able to breathe, right arm stuck out in front of him into the dark. His heart squeezed on itself, then fluttered in his chest. He started to struggle, but made himself stop. An officer of the North Korean People’s Army Naval Forces did not panic. Not even a traitor to the Homeland.
A faint shout outside, ringing, as if he was trapped inside a bell. He couldn’t make out the words. He dug his toes in again, but succeeded only in tearing another nail. He could feel the tube around him tilting, too. They were flooding the forward tanks, putting her bow down.
He felt something move against the soles of his feet and instinctively drew them up. But it kept moving and in another second he felt it again. For a moment he didn’t know what was going on. Then he did, and screamed shrilly in the closed lightless plastic that enclosed him.
They were forcing him up into the tube, using the missile as the ram. The resilient smoothness against his bleeding toes was the rubber plug that had been behind it, and now was ahead. Preventing the sharp edges of the cavitation disk from cutting him; or more likely, protecting it from his kicking feet, if he panicked. He screamed but it kept pressing against his feet, as both he and the sabot, locked together, slid slowly deeper, following his choked cry, into the echoing darkness ahead.
“I don’t like this,” Lenson said, but he was looking at his watch again so Rit read it as: I don’t enjoy listening to hear him scream, but it’s okay if you shove his ass in there. Rit almost made a crack about it, but didn’t. He was in deep enough. Maybe if he could bring this off . . . they’d practiced this back in Norfolk, him and the Korean. Im hadn’t had any problem then; all he needed now was a little help.
“How are you going to get him back out?”
“Just pull the torp back out again. I mean, the Shkval. Only now, he’s got the lands greased, and with the down bubble you’re putting on the bow, we flood to sea, open the outer door, and out she slides.”
“But how are you going to get him out? He’s crammed down there.”
“He’s not ‘crammed,’ there’s plenty of room. We used to crawl inside to grease the tubes all the time, boats I was on. Yeah, it’s uphill, going backwards, but that’s why he’s got that line around his ankle, Commander. We can reel him back out again.”
What he didn’t say was that there was a chance, not much of one, but still a chance, that if the air pressure rose as they were essentially shoving a piston down the cylinder, the outer door might pop. Air could leak out around it; they were designed to hold against outside pressure, not from inside.
In that case, Im might get a little water in his face. Rit didn’t think it’d be enough to matter. But if it was, just put a strain on the line, and he’d pull right out.
“Put your shoulder behind this, Commander,” he said, getting ready to shove again. The nose and the first quarter of the missile was already inside the tube. “Sooner we get him down there, sooner we can get him back.”
Im’s doubled knees were scraping the inside of the tube. The rough bronze was flaying him alive. He tried to fight, to push back with his outstretched hand, but could not brake the steady force against his lower torso. He shouted and it rang in his ears. He screamed again, tearing his fingernails now as he tried desperately to stop being wedged deeper in with every second. A sharp edge of something unseen sliced into his chest. His feet were being pushed over what felt like rusty metal rollers on the bottom of the tube.
Now he couldn’t breathe. His lungs had no room to expand in the crushing embrace of the sleeve. He fought desperately but the inexorable pressure increased.
Something hard yet flexible jammed itself against his sideways-turned head. The tube of lubricant. He’d dropped it in his struggle. Now he couldn’t bend his arm back to pick it up again. He skidded forward. The grease on his shoulders was stripping off as he advanced. He twisted but couldn’t move. He screamed but only deafened himself.
They couldn’t hear him now. The whole length of the weapon was between them. He was more buried than in a coffin, entombed not beneath dirt, but solid bronze and steel and plastic, tons of metal and explosives plugging him in.
They shoved again and his outstretched hand came up against something curved and solid, and even colder than the plastic that locked him in.
He panted shallowly. At least he could go no farther. The smooth outward curve his outstretched fingers glided over was the outer door. Beyond it was only the sea. In a moment they’d start pulling him back.
Then the thing under his feet shoved yet again. He fought, but it was useless. His head was slowly forced against his curled up hand. His elbow locked against his cheek and the tube wall.
The pressure was still increasing, and suddenly he realized why. They were ballasted down forward. The bow must be nearly beneath the water. And the whole weight of the weapon was pressing against his feet; compressing him against the inner door. He fought like a trapped cat to keep his weight off it, to keep from pushing it outward, but couldn’t get a purchase.
A thin cold spray tickled his face. He panted, eyes straining into the utter dark. Waiting for the next shove. For the spray to increase, and spread around the circumference of the seal.
A faint whine penetrated the metal around him. After a moment he recognized it as the prop of the swimmer delivery vehicle, outside. It ran for several seconds. Then descended the scale, like a portable drill winding down as it ran out of charge.
He had more pressing problems. He lay for several seconds, feeling the tantalizing tickle as the spray played over his closed eyelids. He tasted it. Salt. Sea. Rubber. The same dank smell as the exposed, mucky banks of the Yalu he’d waded along years before.
Something tightened around his ankle. It was the retrieval line. He flinched, then hastily searched around with his head. His lips contacted the tube of lubricant. He bent his right wrist back as far as it would go, then farther, and finally got his fingers on it. The cap was off. He splurted a glob where he judged the lower land should be and rubbed it over every metal surface he could reach with the side of his wrist.
The smooth rubber that had been pressing on the soles of his feet retreated. He could move his toes now. The air was cool on them. The line tugged again. His leg extended, pulled by it. He panted, eyes closed. In another moment they’d start pulling him out.
Another yank, and the bight of the line slipped over his ankle, and, before he could react, over his foot and off.
He lost control then and fought the
walls around him. His back flexed against it and he screamed and screamed. But no one could hear him. No one could reach him. He was trapped. They’d leave him here, face downward, in the slowly flooding tube.
He stared into the dark, no longer feeling the stinging spray in his wide-open eyes, trickling down his face, slowly building toward his mouth, his nose, as he lay helpless.
There was no point in screaming anymore.
Dan looked at his watch again. Sweat broke under his wet suit top. Maybe he should get the others in the water. Stay here himself with just Carpenter and Im. If the patrol came, at least some would get away.
“Oh, shit,” Carpenter muttered.
He looked up to see the loop of line drop out of the tube. It glistened with lubricant. Carpenter bent to stare inside. “Uh, Commander—”
Dan pushed him out of the way and aimed his Maglite up the lumen of the barrel. Dimly, at the far end, twelve, fifteen feet in, he could just make out the bottoms of Im’s feet. The white cotton socks were stained dark. Blood? He couldn’t be sure, not enough light was getting that far down the tube, the bronze walls soaked up the beam. “Who tied that knot, Rit? Was it you?”
“A bowline. I know, you’re gonna say why not a slipknot. But a slipknot slips.”
“Let’s not argue. We’ve got to get him out of there.”
“Commander?” Henrickson said, from back by the hatch to compartment two.
“Not now, Monty. Look around. We need something like a boathook. Something we can snag his feet with.”
But even as he said it he realized nothing short of a gaff hook, stuck through flesh, would get the Korean out of there. Even as he thought this he was feeling behind the missile, fingers looking for the cord. When he came up with it he felt instantly why it had slipped. It was greasy as hell. He unlocked the bowline and started to strip the knot out, then changed his mind and swapped ends on it and put a slip knot and a keeper in the other end and left the bowline where it was.
They couldn’t leave Im in there much longer. He must be going nuts. He certainly would be.
Then he realized, even as he stripped his skivvy shirt off, that there was only one way to get him out.
“Commander. Commander!”
“Give me the other tube of that shit, Rit. It’s the only way.”
A voice behind them said, “You’re not going to get him out, Commander.”
Dan turned his head to Kaulukukui, who looked grim. The big Hawaiian held a silenced pistol. “Stand aside, sir.”
“You stand aside, Sumo. I’m not fucking shooting him!” Dan finished greasing his shoulders and positioned himself in front of the opening. He held the slip knot up in one arm, then raised the other up, too. “Run the weapon in and push me in front of it. Just like we did with him. Only don’t use the plug! I’ll hook my foot over the cav disk and you can pull me out. Then we’ll take a strain on his line.”
“What if it slips off again?”
“We’ll do it over. Until we get him back out.”
He felt frantic, imagining himself in there as Im was, hopeless as Im must feel. Carpenter, Henrickson, and Kaulukukui were all protesting. He said over his shoulder, “Get ready to extract. All the pubs, all the software. We just can’t take the fucking hardware, that’s all. Let’s just all get back without getting caught, all right?”
They were still talking, trying to get their hands on him, when he put both arms into the opening. He had to get the Korean out of there.
Then he stopped. Overcome by a sudden memory. Another time he’d pushed his way into a dark tube. A cable tunnel. In Baghdad. Under the Tigris River. With guys in front of him, guys behind, water in the lowest section . . . Five had gone in, four had come out. . . .
No. Not this time.
Gathering every ounce of courage he owned, he climbed in.
Only he didn’t. He got his arms and upper body in, only to hang up. “Fuck. Fuck,” he muttered. He hung there, kicking. How ridiculous he must look, ass sticking out into the torpedo room, but the thought was followed by a panicked horror.
Hands on his belt, hauling him out. He staggered and felt the razor edge of the cavitation disc slice his back open. Carpenter was yelling in his ear, “Wait, sir. I got an idea. The outer door.”
“The what? The outer door?”
“Yessir. We’re ballasted down. That outer door’s about fifteen feet below the waterline now.”
“So?” Dan rubbed his shoulder where the lands had bitten, feeling blood slick on his back. “What about it?”
“That’s seven pounds per square inch. Differential between outside and inside?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Henrickson. “But won’t that—”
“Shut up, Monty. What are you saying, Carpenter?”
“I’m saying, if I open the outer door, it’ll blow him back into the compartment.”
“You’re shitting me,” said Kaulukukui. “It’ll drown him.”
“He’ll die in there if we don’t. If he can hold his breath for two seconds he’ll be back here in the torpedo room. There’s no place else for him to go.”
“Can’t you blow him out with air?”
Carpenter said, “Sure, we could blow him out. Eject him. But then he’ll be out there in the dark, under the pier, with his eardrums blown in and his orientation shot. That’s when he drowns.”
“I think he’s right,” said the SEAL.
Dan frowned. “But isn’t opening the inner and outer doors at the same time, uh, interlocked? Impossible?”
“I can jam this fucking kluge no sweat, Commander. This isn’t like one of our setups, where it’s idiotproof. Butt end of a wrench right”—he pointed—“right here’ll do it.”
“And that won’t flood the torpedo room?”
“Shouldn’t.” Carpenter spread his hands. “If we only crack it a smidgeon, use the hand crank, not the hydraulics, and close it right away. But if the fucker jams, yeah, it might.”
Dan rubbed his shoulder. A desperate measure, but he had no choice. No. He had one. To let Kaulukukui shoot the Korean.
Screw that. “The rest of you, back to the control room. Get your shit topside to extract. Just Carpenter and me.” He turned to the submariner, who was staring at the interlock, rubbing his hands. “Okay, Rit,” he said. “Do it.”
Im was lying in the dark, holding his head up against the top of the tube. His mind was a bright moth fluttering against a darkening window.
Then he heard the grinding. He opened his eyes, but only got more spray in them. He blinked, helpless.
Another fine cold spray tickled the other side of his face.
He blinked it away and listened to the grinding, like something turning and turning next to his ear.
The next moment his whole body convulsed. A last despairing effort to unlock itself from the grip around it. But he still couldn’t move, not a millimeter.
They were opening the outer door. The grinding was the transmission shaft slowly revolving outside the tube. The grating of the worm gear going around, that drove the segmented arc that pivoted the door outward, at the same time the shutter door slowly retracted—
Pinned, helpless, he took one last breath.
With terrible suddenness the water drove around the disengaged edges, past the gasket, and struck him in the face. Its power was overwhelming and it propelled him backward so fast he couldn’t register what was happening. Skin and clothes tore on the lands. Two red-hot needles drove into his brain as his eardrums imploded and water drove into his skull.
Then in a gush of water and light he was staggering backward from the tube, a weird high keening in his ears like the angry spirits that haunted graveyards. Hands grabbed him. Water poured from the open tube. The Americans were slamming it closed, twisting valves. He made sounds but couldn’t hear himself. His legs jerked. The commander was shouting, mouth open, but nothing came over the keening. It went on and on. Iron spears were forcing their way up behind his eyeballs. He clapped his hands over his
ears and suddenly everything inside him wanted out. He bent over and vomited into the water.
“Get him aft, Sumo, aft,” Dan snapped.
“You want me to crank this outer door shut? Or leave it open?”
He stared at the foaming flood that was pouring in, two feet across, trying to compute what to do. They had the pubs, everything out of the safes. Wenck had the fire control software downloaded. If they had pubs and software, maybe they could do without the missile. That was what Chone and Pirrell needed to fox it. So: forget running it out through the tube, forget the tow line to the SDV. If they got out now, they just might beat the returning patrol.
He opened his mouth to snap orders, but one more thing occurred to him. He’d thought of planting a charge on one of the torpedoes, to sink the sub and cover their action. But there weren’t any torpedoes here. Just letting it sink wouldn’t be quite as final, but it’d still take the threat out of circulation for months, if not years. And maybe by the time they raised the bodies they’d be so decomposed . . . Not a nice image, but it might cover their tracks.
“Want me to close this outer door, Commander?” Carpenter asked again. Dan came back to see the analyst and the sonarman staring at him. Sumo and Im were back in the other compartment, with the SEAL giving the Korean first aid aft of the watertight door. The water was foaming beneath the deckplates. Unless he was mistaken, the deck was taking on an even more ominous lean.
“Leave it open. Sumo! How’s he doing?”
“Deaf, but he’ll live,” the SEAL yelled back.
The water roared in faster as the bow sank and the pressure increased. The solid pillar of froth and murky sea jutted out into the room, streaming over the weapon, which vibrated as it hung on the chain hoist. We can still pull this mission out of our ass, Dan thought. Im might be deaf, but he wasn’t dead, and eardrums grew back. All they had to do was get out. He took a breath to give the order.
