scene was replayed on the opposite side of the torpedo room-The I-411
was clearly not anticipating battle when the Swordfish surprised and
sank her.
But Dirk wasn't interested in torpedoes. Methodically, he drove
Snoopyto the Prow f ^e torpedo room, then systematically swept the ROV
back and forth across the bay, slipping a few feet toward the stern
with each pass until he was satisfied that every square foot had been
viewed.
"No sign of the canisters or their crates. But there is a second
torpedo room below where they could have been stored."
"Can you get Snoopy down there?" Summer asked.
"There's a floor hatch for loading the torpedoes, but I don't think
Snoopy is going to lift that open. I may know of another route."
Scanning the room with Snoopy camera lens eye, he spotted the rear
hatch door that led to the chief's quarters. The hatch door was still
open and Dirk maneuvered the ROV through it a few seconds later.
"Over there," Summer said, motioning to a corner of the monitor.
"There's a ladder that looks like it leads to the deck below."
Dirk danced the ROV around a mass of debris and down an open hatchway
in the floor. Dropping down to the deck below, Snoopy sniffed out the
doorway to the lower torpedo room and- entered the second bay of
warheads. Though slightly smaller due to the more tapered sides of the
submarine's hull, the bay was an exact duplicate of the torpedo room
above it. And just as they had seen once before, the camera showed all
ten of the deadly Type 95 torpedoes resting peacefully in their racks.
Though near the limit of the self-coiling tether that provided Snoopy
its power, Dirk carefully maneuvered the ROV around the full confines
of the room. The camera showed a full complement of torpedoes in the
bay but nothing else. The empty room glared back at them vacantly.
"It would appear," Summer said, shaking her head with disappointment,
"that there are no eggs to be had."
As Dirk carefully guided the small ROV back to the Starfish, he began
whistling the old Stephen Foster standard "Swanee River." Summer
looked at her brother with abashed curiosity.
"You seem awfully happy, given that the biological bombs are missing in
action," she said.
"Sister, we may not know where they are, but we sure know where they
ain't. Now, if it was me, I'd want to keep those eggs close to the
hen."
Summer took a second to digest the comments, then her face brightened
slightly.
"The deck hangar? Where the aircraft are stored?"
"The deck hangar," Dirk replied. "And the Swordfish was even kind
enough to leave the door open for us."
Once Snoopy was secure in its cradle, Dirk activated the main thrusters
and the Starfish shot off down the deck of the submarine to the second
torpedo blast. The detonation hole was easily large no ugh to allow
the Starfish to drop into the interior, but the 11.5-foot ijarneter of
the hangar was just fractionally too tight to allow any room for the
submersible to maneuver any farther. Dirk studied the gash in the
aircraft hangar before inching the Starfish into the opening. The deck
had been blasted away in pockmarked sections, leaving step-through
holes that led into the dank bowels of the submarine. Dirk slowly
guided the Starfish lower until he spied firm decking near the forward
edge of the gap that was large enough to support the submersible. Out
of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the airplane propeller they
detected earlier was hanging just to his right. He gently eased lower
until the Starfish's supporting skids tapped onto solid decking.
As he powered off the Starfish's thrusters, a momentary silence
filled The submersible. Together, they peered down the enclosed hangar
that stretched in front of them like an endless tunnel. Then the quiet
was broken by a muffled metallic clunk than rang through the water.
"Dirk, the propeller!" Summer shouted, pointing out the bubble window
toward the right.
The mounting bracket that held the spare three-bladed Seiran bomber
propeller had long ago corroded in the salt water yet against all
reason had somehow maintained sufficient integrity to hold the heavy
blade onto the wall for sixty years. Not until the stirred waters from
the Starfish's thrusters blasted against it did it decide to give up
its mission and crumble from the wall in a rusty glob of dust. As the
bracket fell away, the heavy propeller dropped straight to the deck,
landing on the tips of its lower two blades with a clang.
But the show wasn't over. They watched in helpless fascination as the
propeller fell forward, its upper blade skimming just in front of the
Starfish's bubble window, inches from Summer's face. It appeared to
move in slow motion as the force of the water suspended the movement of
the steel blades. A secondary clang echoed through the water as the
blade and nosepiece hit home, the entire assembly dragging across the submersible's right robotic arm and falling onto the front
skid plates. A cloud of brown sediment rose and obscured their vision
for a moment, then, as the water cleared, Summer noticed a small trail
of dark fluid rising up in front of them, as if the Starfish were
bleeding. "We're pinned," Summer gasped, eyeing the heavy propeller
lying across the front skids.
"Try the right arm. See if you can lift the blade up and I'll try and
back us out," Dirk directed as he powered up the thrusters.
Summer grasped the joystick and toggled it back to raise the arm. The
metallic appendage began to rise briefly, then fell away limp. She
repeatedly toggled the joystick control back and forth but there was no
response.
"No good," she said calmly. "The blade must have cut the hydraulics.
The right arm is as good as amputated."
"That must have been the fluid we saw. Try the left arm," Dirk
replied.
Summer configured a second joystick and applied power to the
submersible's left mechanical arm. Working the controls, she tried
stretching the arm across the viewing window and down to the fallen
propeller. Since the left arm was both smaller and shorter than the
right arm, it allowed for less maneuverability. After several minutes
of bending and twisting the arm in various configurations, she finally
worked the claw to a position where she could grab the edge of the
propeller blade.
"I've got a grip, but it's at an awkward angle. I don't think I'll be
able to exert enough pressure," she said.
Pushing at the controls, her words fell true. The arm attempted to
pull the propeller up but nothing budged. Several further attempts met
with the same result.
"Guess we'll have to barge our way out," Dirk replied, gritting his
teeth.
Applying full-throttle power to the thrusters, he tried to elevate
the
Starfish and slip back and away from the fallen propeller. The
electronic thrusters hummed and vibrated violently as they clawed at
the water with all their might, but the weight of the
propeller was
just too great. The submersible sat still as a rock while its
thrusters beat the water madly, kicking up a dirty cloud of silt around
them. He adjusted the thrusters forward and backward, trying to rock
their way out, but it was no use. After several fruitless attempts,
Dirk shut off the thrusters and waited for the brown cloud to settle.
"We'll just needlessly burn up our batteries if we continue to try and
slide out," he said dejectedly. "We just don't have enough thrust to
pull ourselves away from the prop."
Summer could see the wheels churning in her brother's head. It wasn't
the first time she had been trapped underwater with Dirk and she felt
reassurance knowing that he was with her. Just months before, they had
nearly died together off Navidad Bank when their undersea research
habitat had rolled into a crevasse from the force of a killer
hurricane. Only the last-second arrival by her father and Al Giordino
had saved them from a slow death by asphyxiation. But this time, her
father and Giordino were a thousand miles away.
Out of the murky darkness, voices of the past began to whisper. The
long-dead crew of the I-411 seemed to call out to Dirk and Summer to
join them in a cold, watery grave a thousand feet under the sea. The
silent black sub exuded a morbid sense that sent a shiver up Summer's
spine. The stirred waters around them calmed and they could peer again
into the depths of the hangar. She could not help but dwell on the
fact that they were lodged in an iron tomb for dozens of brave Imperial
Navy sailors. Forcing the macabre image from her mind, she tried to
refocus her attention on the logical demands of their situation.
"How much time do we have left?" Summer asked, the desperation of their
situation beginning to sink in.
Dirk glanced at a row of gauges to his side. "We're fine until the scrubbers give way to the loss of battery power. It'll be lights out
in about three hours, then another hour or so for the air to go. We
better contact the Sea Rover." His voice was muted but
matter-of-fact.
Summer activated the communication system and called Ryan on the Sea
Rover but was met with silence in return. After several additional
attempts, the receiver crackled in her earpiece.
"Starfish, this is Sea Rover. We do not copy, please repeat, over,"
came a faint and fuzzy call from Ryan.
"Our com signal must be blocked by the submarine's bulkheads," Dirk
said. "We can hear them, but they can't hear us."
"I'll keep trying in case they can pick up sporadic signals."
Summer continued calling for another ten minutes, speaking in a loud,
clear voice, but received only the same frustrating reply from
Ryan.
"It's no use. They can't hear us. We're on our own," Summer finally
conceded.
Dirk began flipping switches on the console, shutting down all
nonessential electronics in order to conserve battery power. His hand
came to the controls that powered Snoopy and he hesitated.
"Any objection to taking Snoopy for a walk?"
"We came here to explore the hangar, so we might as well finish the
job. We still need to determine if the biological weapons are aboard
or if there's any evidence they've been removed."
"My thoughts exactly," Dirk said as he powered up the tiny ROV.
Grasping the controls, he worked the vehicle out of its cradle and over
the fallen propeller, then elevated it to eye level in front of the
Starfish. Ahead lay the long dark shaft of the hangar stretching into
the gloom toward the conning tower. He quickly toggled the ROVs
thrusters forward and Snoopy sailed into the darkened hangar.
Both their eyes shifted from observing the illuminated ROV out the
viewing bubble to watching Snoopy's field of vision on the color
monitor as it moved away from the submersible. The hangar appeared
empty at first, but, as Snoopy moved forward, silt-covered objects
began
materialize. The camera lens glided up to a large encrusted mound
ositioned on a platform to one side, beyond which several large
cab-nets protruded from the hangar walls.
"A spare aircraft engine," Dirk remarked as he aimed Snoopy's eyes at
the long metal block.
"I'll bet those are storage bins for other spare parts and mechanic's
tools," Summer added, pointing at the image of the cabinets.
"No doubt there's a floor jack in there somewhere," Dirk lamented,
knowing there was no way of retrieving any tools that might aid their
escape.
Slowly he led Snoopy down the cavernous hangar before nearly driving
the ROV into a grouping of thin metal sheets hanging vertically.
Backing up the camera, Dirk identified the structure as the tail
assembly of an airplane, with the tip of the vertical stabilizer folded
down, as well as both horizontal stabilizers. Swinging Snoopy ahead
and to the side, they could clearly see it was part of the fuselage of
an Aichi M6A1 Seiran float plane
"Wow," Summer murmured, impressed by both the size and condition of the
twin-seat bomber. "Hard to believe they could fold up a plane and
slide it in here."
Dirk led Snoopy alongside the fuselage for a side view of the craft.
The camera showed that the wings were still attached to the fuselage
but folded back toward the tail like the wings on a duck. Faintly
visible beneath the silt, they could still make out the familiar red
Japanese meatball" insignia painted on the wingtips.
"It's still amazing to me that they could store, launch, and retrieve
aircraft from a submarine," Summer pondered.
"Just roll the fuselage out onto the forward deck, raise the tail
stabilizers, bolt on the wings and floats, and launch it off the
catapult. A trained crew of four men were capable of assembling and
launching a plane in under thirty minutes."
"I guess it's a good thing these big Sen Toku boats weren't around
earlier in the war," Summer replied.
Dirk kept Snoopy nosing forward through the hangar. Gliding past the
fuselage, the cameras revealed a pair of the plane's giant pontoons
strapped to a wooden pallet on the deck. A blast from the ROV's
thrusters dusted a layer of silt and mud off one of the pontoons,
exposing a forest green paint scheme on the topsides and a shark gray
tone on the pontoon's belly. A similar camouflage paint pattern would
be found on the wings and fuselage.
Once past the pontoons, the hangar grew empty for several feet as the
ROV passed through a separate open compartment. Like its beagle
namesake, Snoopy sniffed along, gingerly examining each silt-covered
object or debris item carefully via the touch of Dirk's fingers. A set
of low-slung racks gradually grew out of the darkness on either side of
the hangar holding what Dirk immediately recognized as torpedoes. Four
of the metallic fish rested in each rack, aerial torpedoes that at
thirteen hundred pounds each were much smaller than the massive
submarine-launched torpedoes found belowdecks.
Dirk and Summer stared at the monitor, straining to see evidence
of
additional armament. But no other weaponry was visible. Dirk turned
and noticed Summer peering at her watch, grimly cognizant of each
minute that passed.
"Let's keep going. There should be at least one more plane in here,"
Dirk said, trying to keep her mind off the inevitable. The ROV again
moved through a vacant compartment before emerging into the next hangar
section. Seconds later, the tail and fuselage of a second Seiran
bomber emerged into view, complete with folded wings. Just beyond was
its matching pair of floats, strapped to the deck by cables. An
assortment of wall-mounted tool bins followed and then twenty feet of
empty space. Snoopy finally bumped up against the giant round hatch
door that led to the submarine's forward deck.
"Well, that's it," Dirk said solemnly. "We've covered the length of
the hangar and no sign of any aerial bombs other than the torpedoes.
Summer said nothing for a moment, subconsciously biting her lower lip
in dejection. "Well ... there was no indication of a forced entry
anywhere, nor did the silt appear to have been disturbed anytime
recently. Perhaps they were destroyed in the torpedo blast?"
"Could be. There's still a small section of hangar behind us we could
take a look at."
Dirk quietly steered Snoopy back toward the submersible, reeling in its
dangling electronic power cable while it progressed. The cockpit fell
silent as brother and sister contemplated their predicament. Dirk
silently cursed their bad luck and failure to locate the aerial bombs.
Dirk Pitt18-Black Wind Page 24
