by Tom Hron
A gaping hole lay across the deck where the steel plating had been blown off. Next, the cameras looked straight down into the sub’s interior. Bent and torn metal were everywhere.
“Can we get through that with the ROV?” asked Harry.
“No, we will use the submersible now,” answered Shawki, “but we have found the Black Dragon, I really think so.”
“Can you work at this depth? It’s over three hundred meters.”
“Yes, with a dry suit and a rebreather,” said Shawki in a slow voice. “I have done it before.”
“I want to go along,” announced Alexis with a step forward. “There’s plenty of room for me in the submersible.”
Harry glanced at both of them, then at the captain who had stayed on the controls on the other side of the bridge, keeping the ship steady with its bow thrusters. Are you willing to stay, he asked him, because it might be daylight before we get back? The captain answered that it might actually be best to stay, rather than using the ship’s lights to recover a submersible at night, which would warn everyone of their presence.
In less than an hour Harry, Alexis, and Shawki were in the water with the submersible, leaving Joe behind to keep an eye on the captain and crew, just in case. Acquiescent, he’d said that he didn’t like to swim all that much, let alone dive, so they could take Alexis if she wanted to go. There’s nothing down there that I want to see anyway, he’d added. His staying onboard had made good sense, and so all three had climbed in and rode the submersible overboard on the end of a long davit, a hair-raising experience in itself, particularly in the dark. The Capricornio would stand by until they had resurfaced and called on the radio.
Switching on the interior lights, Harry watched the inky sea break against the pressure hull’s bubble and then turn motionless as the submersible dropped below the surface. Alexis’s eyes widened as they sank and lost all sense of movement and balance in the black water. Wiping her face with her hands, she dried the perspiration on her cheeks and forehead and started breathing in short bursts with anxiety pinching the skin on her nose.
Harry triggered the intercom. “Take it easy because we’re safe in here.”
“It feels really weird, as if we’re sinking in an old Bell helicopter, like the ones you see on the old M*A*S*H reruns.”
“We can still leave you behind.” He had to ease the tension and get her to relax, since they might need her later.
“No, I’ll be fine. Just give me a moment.”
Shawki keyed the microphone in the diver’s lock-out chamber, the cramped, windowless, helium-saturated hollow behind them that he would exit once they had reached the Dragon. “I can hear you hyperventilating way back here already,” he said. “You will be unconscious by the time we reach the Dragon and then being afraid won’t matter much to you.”
“I said I’d be all right!” Her breathing then slowed, letting the acrylic bubble fill with electricsounds, the echo-sounder’s ping, the intercom’s buzz, and the thruster’s hum. Dark water lay in every direction.
Shawki called from the diver’s chamber again. “Harry, how deep? Can you see bottom yet?”
“I haven’t turned on the lights yet, so there’s no bottom, but we’re at a hundred meters.”
“Three hundred meters is very dangerous, and I won’t have much time.”
“Now who’s sounding afraid, and what would your crew say back in Bahrain? They dive twenty meters just by holding their breath.”
“Diving for pearls with a weighted rope is one thing but using a rebreather is quite another. Do you realize what happens to a human down here?”
“I said I’d do it.”
“No, diving is my business and you have never worked this deep before. Besides, you are much better with machinery than I am. We will stick to our plan.”
Alexis’s eyes widened once more. “You guys have a plan? Sure could have fooled me. We didn’t even know where the Dragon was a couple of hours ago.”
Shawki’s voice quickly filled the intercom. “You are the one who got us into this. Harry and I would be back in Bahrain drinking duck farts if it weren’t for you. This had better work out.”
“I thought you Moslems weren’t supposed to drink, and what, in God’s name, are duck farts?”
“What I do when I’m at home is my business completely, at least if I’m discreet, and besides the emir owes me.” Then he laughed when it seemed like he might be finished. “A shot of Crown Royal floated on layers of Kahlua and Baileys. We Bahrainis use them as aphrodisiacs.”
Harry made a face. His friends were acting silly to ease the fear they felt, a common occurrence when people were under extreme stress. His own heartbeat had started to pound a little. They needed to pay attention to the sonar’s color imaging because the submarine had to be close. “Quiet down, you two,” he ordered. “Alexis, turn on the halogens. The sub should be dead ahead.”
“How deep now, Harry?” Shawki’s voice sounded higher-pitched.
“Almost three hundred meters.”
“Pray the sea gods will spare me.”
White clouds of microscopic plants and animals, called sea snow, see-through jellyfish, their stingers hanging down like snakes, and iridescent shrimp floated by in the bright lights, finally giving them a sense of motion. Pink anemone, orange sea cucumbers, and red starfish littered the bottom. Flounder and cod, started by the submersible, finned off and left muddy trails behind. They were in SeaWorld.
“I see something on sonar,” said Alexis. “It’s on my right.”
“Off starboard,” answered Shawki. “When will you ever learn?”
“Hey, this is the first time I’ve been at sea, let alone underwater. How should I know?”
“Harry, we should have left her back in New York.”
“Shut up, you guys, we’re getting close. Shawki, get ready.” He turned twenty degrees starboard with the joystick in front of him and slowed to one knot. An enormous shadow loomed just ahead. They were the first humans since World War Two to see the U-1113, and after all their frustrations they had finally found the wreck.
“What do you see, Harry?” asked Shawki. “Did you find it?”
“Yes, but let me climb up a little. The hull looks good and there’s very little damage. No rust either. So far it’s looks like we’ve gotten lucky.”
“Don’t bet on it,” said Alexis. “You two seem to have a big penchant for trouble.”
“She’s right, Harry, although she certainly isn’t the one to talk. The sea is a very unforgiving place. I know because I grew up swimming with sharks.”
“I’ll be careful—now let me look around. We’ll be safe as long as we stay inside.”
He steered toward the stern of the sunken submarine, paralleling the port side, climbed a few feet, and drove along its deck. The cold water of the Atlantic had kept the U-1333 in almost perfect condition, absent the rust seen on most shipwrecks. Grouper and yellowfin tuna swam nearby, attracted by the lights and sounds of the submersible.
The conning tower came into view, and he passed on the starboard side, searching for the damage they’d seen earlier. Motoring along the deck once more, he passed a battened hatch. He next saw where the deck had been blown off, fifty feet from the bow, leaving an opening into the hull.
“Shawki, I found it. The torpedo blew off the topside decking as we saw with the ROV. I think there’s room for you in the hole it left behind.”
“Can you stop alongside? That will give me more time.”
“Roger, but let me get up there first. I can’t tell how level it is from here.”
Electric sounds hummed inside the hull again, accenting all the tension. Harry inched down and stopped the thrusters when the submersible had reached the damage. There was a muffled silence, then the blasting sound of seawater filling the diver’s chamber.
All of a sudden Shawki flattened himself on the bubble, clutching it like Dracula. Alexis screamed, startled by his unexpected appearance in front, dressed in a black
dry suit, diving helmet, rebreather, and flippers. “Damn him,” she said, “why must he scare the daylights out of me?”
Harry smiled wryly. “Relax, he’s just having a little fun and also wants us to see that he’s clear of the thrusters.” Shawki was the most knowledgeable diver in the world and few people knew how to stay alive at nine hundred feet, sucking helium rather than oxygen. They watched him disappear with a deepwater flashlight inside the submarine.
“Shawki, give me a radio check, will you?” called Harry after a minute.
“Five by five,” Shawki answered.
“Anything interesting in there?”
“Let me finish searching, okay?”
Glancing at his watch, Harry saw that it had only been a few minutes. A large grouper swam up to the bubble and looked in. He rechecked all the pressure gauges.
He then suddenly saw it, another submersible at the bow of the Dragon.
“Shawki, get back in here fast. We got company.”
“What?”
“Get back in here right now!” He saw the other submersible start their way. Alexis screamed over the intercom.
He saw the other submersible’s manipulators reach out, and one looked as if it had a drill on the end of it.
CHAPTER 24
THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
The submersible attacked them like an enormous one-eyed nymph, its hooks reaching out for its helpless prey, and for a split second Harry saw his life flash before his eyes. He couldn’t abandon Shawki, and he couldn’t maneuver his own submersible and its two manipulators simultaneously. Alexis would have to be a quick study or they were doomed. Rocking the joystick backward, he danced away from the attack. “Grab the arms,” he shouted, “and get ready to fight them.”
“What about Shawki?” She quickly grasped the manipulators and for practice ran them in and out, then in a circle.
“We’ll be no good to him if they put a hole in our pressure hull.” He watched the other submersible square off over the hole in the Dragon. There were two men inside.
“What are they doing?” The scream in Alexis’s throat had faded and now she sounded almost calm.
“Looks like they think possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Facing in, he orbited them like a helicopter. “They want the Dragon for themselves?”
“Shawki can’t get out with them blocking the hole.”
“I know. Somehow I have to get them out of there.” He feigned toward them, then backed off. “Do you think you’re good enough with those arms to keep them from using that drill?”
“I’ll try.”
“Not good enough.” He gave her a scientific look. “We’ll pop like a paper bag if they put a hole in us.”
She took a breath. “Hey, I can do it. My life depends on it too. Go!”
He circled even faster, and when it looked like the other submersible was a half-second slow, he charged straight in. The combined manipulators sounded like a motorcycle wreck when they hit each other, and like a veteran shortstop Alexis caught the one with the drill bit and forced it back. Next, both submersibles grappled like giant crustaceans fighting to the death, one gaining a little, then the other. White bubbles, waspy electric motors, and violent motions filled the underwater bleakness around them, and back and forth they went, each trying to force the other into the seabed.
Harry saw that he’d taken on more than he could handle, since the other submersible had more power. “Whatever you do, don’t let go,” he warned Alexis. “We’re in big trouble.”
“There’s room for Shawki to get out now,” she cried.
He keyed the underwater radio. “Shawki, get the hell out here. We got problems.”
“I’m almost out but don’t have much time left.”
Alexis glanced at Harry. “What’s he talking about?”
“He can only stay at this depth a little while, then he has to decompress or the bends will kill him.” He saw the two men were grinning in the opposite bubble, since they were winning the shoving match.
Like a frightened seal, Shawki streaked out of the Dragon and alongside the second submersible, where he started cutting a high-pressure line with his survival knife. “Get ready to let go,” he radioed. “They will have to jettison their batteries as ballast to save themselves.”
All of a sudden there was a burst of red bubbles as the line ruptured. “They are losing hydraulic fluid,” he called as he swam off to one side. “Any second now, they will try to resurface.”
Harry watched the men across from them turn colorless when they saw Shawki and the sudden stream of red fluid outside of their window. They instantly opened their manipulators and jettisoned their batteries, and the moment Alexis released her manipulators they shot up like a cork. She threw up her arms as if she’d scored a touchdown. “We beat them,” she yelled. “They don’t have any power.”
“We haven’t beaten anyone,” Harry said sharply. He then triggered the radio. “Shawki, get in here and start decompressing. We need to get back up there.”
Alexis looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone has hijacked the Capricornio. Otherwise, how could those two get here without us knowing about it?”
For a moment the opening and closing of the diver’s chamber silenced them, then they heard it pumping out seawater and regulating its pressure for Shawki’s decompression. It would be a while before his body would readjust to standard atmosphere.
“Are you okay back there?” Harry asked on the intercom.
“Yes, but I was out a little long and must wait until I’m past danger.”
“Make sure you take plenty of time,” Harry said with an anxious face. Then he keyed the intercom again. “Did you find the leprosy canisters?”
“No, the Dragon is empty, completely.”
“Someone has beaten us to it.”
“Yes, but a long time ago, I think. There is thick silt covering everything.”
Alexis looked shell-shocked. “My God, the CIA has the lepry bacillus, and they must have murdered Dewey Chambers because he found out.”
Harry paused as if he was unconvinced … or his mind was elsewhere.
“What’s the matter?” asked Alexis, still flummoxed.
“I’m not sure that’s who has it … at least not right now.” Then his voice picked up speed. “It doesn’t make any difference, because we have to somehow get back on board the Capricornio.” He started toward the surface.
“What are you planning?” asked Shawki on the intercom.
“We’ll scout around until you’re done decompressing, and then we’ll find out who’s up there.”
They climbed to fifty feet below the surface, then stayed at that depth and surveyed the silvery-blue expanse above them. There was a large inflatable boat moored alongside the Capricornio and another just like it beside the submersible that Shawki had disabled, which had surfaced a few hundred feet away from the ship. They made another pass to confirm they hadn’t missed anything.
“Shawki, how much time before you’re ready to come out?” asked Harry.
“A few minutes.”
“All right, get your diving gear ready for me. I’ll sneak aboard the Capricornio while Alexis and you attack their submersible on the opposite side. Do everything you can to create a big diversion.”
“Let me go, okay?”
“No, it’s my turn, and besides you need more rest.” He raised his voice a little. “Now get ready to trade places.”
Alexis held the submersible steady while both exchanged places by worming through the hatchway separating the pressure hull from the diver’s chamber. When he was sealed inside, Harry kicked off his shoes, pulled on Shawki’s rebreather and flippers, and asked to be taken up nearer the surface. Don’t forget, he cautioned again, make everyone believe the threat is on the far side of the Capricornio. Then he flooded the chamber, opened the outside hatch, and swam out. The ocean’s reflection almost blinded him as he watched Shawki steer the submersible away. He rolle
d over and searched for the ship.
It only took a few minutes to reach the inflatable boat he’d seen moored to the Capricornio. Staying underwater, he assessed its length, the number of men it might have carried, and if anyone had stayed behind in it. He gave its keel a hard shove and watched for some reaction, but there wasn’t any. Next, he slowly raised his head above the surface, looked around, pulled off his mask, and listened, though the ship’s pumps and generators were too noisy to hear much of anything. Peering around, he saw the inflatable was tied to the boarding rungs on the side of the ship’s hull. With two inflatable boats in play, he estimated at least a dozen men had raided the Capricornio, probably right after its crew had launched Alexis, Shawki, and him two hours earlier. He shed his diving gear, let it sink, and started climbing the rungs. Now there was no turning back.
He thought the last six inches it took him to get his eyes above the ship’s side was the longest distance of his life, and then the scene almost made him want to pitch into the ocean again. On first glance, he counted eight Africans with Heckler & Kocks holding the ship’s deckhands under guard. Where’s the compulsory Kalashnikovs? he wondered with gallows humor. Then he saw the reason, a professional who apparently knew that Heckler & Kocks were better firearms, a man in a Honolulu shirt with the longest eyebrows he’d ever seen.
Suddenly, a collective shout went up and everyone ran to the opposite railing.
It was now or never, he told himself, since it was clear that Shawki and Alexis had attacked the crippled submersible on the other side. He vaulted onto the deck and ducked behind an A-frame stanchion, then underneath the main trawl winch. Now what? he wondered, since his only weapon was Shawki’s survival knife. Damn, he wished he could see what was happening on the other side.
The man in the tropical shirt swung around and shouted in Crioulo at the Africans, the same language the Capricornio’s crew spoke. A half-dozen of them quickly climbed down into the inflatable and raced off, clearly to help rescue the besieged submersible belonging to them. Harry waited for the two remaining gunmen to turn their backs. He didn’t care if the ship’s deckhands saw him when he jumped out, since they would recognize him and keep their mouths shut. The two Africans still guarding the crew and those who he didn’t know about were his big worry. Joe and the dogs, the Capricornio’s captain, and some crewmembers were missing, so it made sense they were locked up somewhere or under guard down in the engine room. Leastwise he hoped that was the case.
