BLACK COBRA (Aaron Quinn thriller series, No. 2)

by John Avery

  Aaron saw his chance and leaped out from behind the torpedo rack, sinking the 3-inch blade of his pocket survival knife deep into Uri’s back. Uri lurched forward, blood spewing from his mouth, reaching desperately behind his back trying to identify the offending object.

  The girls recoiled in horror and struggled against their bindings.

  Aaron had hoped to pierce Uri’s heart but had hit a lung instead. He pulled the knife out with a stiff jerk and drove it deep again. This time blood gushed over the knife handle and Aaron knew the blade had hit home. He braced himself and gripped hard, pulling his knife free, as Uri splashed lifeless into the rising seawater.

  Breathing hard and soaked to the skin, Aaron stepped back and wiped the blade on his thigh. The girls stared at him in disbelief.

  He quickly folded the knife into his pocket and then scrabbled around underwater for Uri’s gun, whacking it on his thigh several times to remove any excess water.

  “I’m taking us to the Captain's Cabin,” he said to the others. “We’ll be as safe there as anywhere until I figure out what the hell to do.”

  Then, at last, to their infinite relief, he cut the girls loose.

  Naval Base Point Loma

  San Diego

  Chapter 58

  Commander Adam Byrd stood on the bridge of the nuclear submarine, USS Hampton. He checked his wristwatch. 8:50 p.m.

  He waited as the massive cruise ship Neau Islander slowly cleared Ballast Point, and then, at precisely 9:00 p.m., he maneuvered his billion-dollar vessel, along with its priceless cargo, the President of the United States, carefully out into San Diego Bay.

  Suddenly the boat’s chief sonar operator’s eyes went wide as something unexpected came into his headphones. For a second he thought it was a submarine.

  “Sir, I think you need to hear this,” he said.

  Byrd stepped over and put one of the phones to his ear, but as quickly as it had appeared, the strange sound was gone.

  “Sorry, sir,” the operator said. “False alarm. Something must have come loose on one of the bait barges.”

  “Stay on it, Chief,” Byrd said. “Considering who we have on board tonight, I’d rather have a hundred false alarms than no alarms at all.”

  “Yes, sir,” the operator said.

  ---

  Pankov watched through Cobra's attack periscope. “Where the hell’s Uri?” he said to Jason. “We’ll be ready to fire soon!”

  Jason had spent years in the Navy perfecting his submarine warfare skills, and he didn’t need Uri’s help.

  “We can do it without him, Captain,” he said. “The torpedo is armed and loaded in tube five. I just need to open the outer hatch, flood the tube, and prime the high pressure air system.”

  “Make it happen,” Pankov said. “Go!”

  ---

  Jason sprinted down the corridor to the Forward Torpedo Room leaving all of the hatches open behind him.

  He was shocked to find Uri Ruden’s body floating in the rising water, and that Aaron and the girls were gone, but he quickly gathered himself and prepared tube 5 for firing. “Fire when ready, sir!” he shouted down the corridor.

  Pankov checked the scope. The Hampton was dead ahead.

  “FIRE!” he shouted back.

  “Firing, sir!” Jason shouted back.

  Jason pulled the chrome firing lever and there was a low shudder as a blast of compressed air forced the torpedo out of tube 5 just as the weapon’s self-propulsion system kicked on.

  Pankov braced himself for a nuclear explosion and certain death, using a stop watch to count it down. Based upon the range, he was expecting the rocket propelled nuke to impact the Hampton in under four seconds.

  Three ...

  Two ...

  One ...

  Nothing!

  Pankov was horrified. Had they missed?

  He waited a few more seconds, but he knew it was true: Through one evil stroke of incomprehensibly bad luck, the shot had been a colossal dud.

  ---

  The USS Hampton’s chief sonar operator’s eyes went wide again. But before he could react, his eardrums were split by a huge metallic BANG! as the massive nuclear submarine was impacted by a heavy foreign object. The brutal hit shook the entire ship, knocking dozens of seamen off their feet and echoing on for several seconds.

  “All stop!” Commander Byrd shouted from the bridge. He remained steady and calm, not wanting to cause a panic. He grabbed hold of the periscope’s training handles and took a quick scan around the area.

  ---

  The President and his agents were off somewhere touring the sub and he wasn’t hooked up to his safety line yet. He grabbed hold of an overhead pipe to keep from hitting the deck, looking around nervously as his Secret Service team jumped into high alert.

  ---

  Commander Byrd took his Executive Officer aside. “What the hell was that?” he said in a near whisper. “Did we hit something?”

  “I think something hit us,” the XO replied. “And it struck our port side, Captain, from inside the bay. Perhaps it was a shark or a dolphin, sir.”

  Byrd gave him a look that said, Please tell me my XO’s not that stupid ...

  “Damage report!”

  “No damage to report, sir!” was the reply.

  “The President?”

  “The President is unharmed, sir!”

  “Sonar! What was that?”

  “I-I don’t know, Captain,” the operator replied, still shaking, his ears ringing. “It came out of nowhere. It sounded like — a torpedo.”

  “If someone is firing at us they’re shooting blanks,” Byrd said.

  “By the sound of it, it had to weigh close to a ton, sir,” the operator said.

  Byrd paused for a moment, looking at the sonar operator. “Let’s say it was a torpedo, Chief. Where would it have come from?”

  “From under the bait barges, sir,” the operator said.

  “Is there even enough room under there for a submarine?” Byrd asked.

  “That's on the bay side of us, Captain,” the XO said, stepping in confidently. “Anyone hiding there would never have gotten past us in the first place.”

  “You’re probably right, Commander,” Byrd said. “But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that they did. Could they hide something as big as submarine under the bait barges?”

  “It’s highly unlikely, Captain,” the XO said. “An older diesel, maybe. But we haven’t seen one of those in these waters for several years. And we would certainly have detected them as they entered the bay.“

  Byrd pictured the old Russian submarine, b-39, moored at the MMSD at the east end of the harbor, but he quickly filed the thought away with all of his other ridiculous ideas. It did, however, make him wonder: “What if it was a diesel-electric,” he said. “Our enemies are buying them up like they’re going out of style. I’ve heard the Iranians have seventeen of the damn things.”

  “But don’t you think we would have heard them, Captain?” the XO said, stressing his earlier point.

  “There’s no doubt that the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine warfare capabilities are the best in the business, Commander,” Byrd said. “However, as you know, with variations in the underwater topography, ambient noise generated by marine life and merchant shipping, and changing salinity and temperatures, all of which alter how sounds propagate, it is still very difficult for us to combat diesel-electric submarines running silently on battery power. Hell, with all the other noise in the bay, it’s like trying to detect a single taxi cab in downtown Manhattan.”

  Captain Byrd knew he had made his point, but he also knew how important it was to him and the rest of his crew that this VIP cruise come off without a hitch. His sub appeared to have sustained no significant damage, and the minute they returned to port he would have the exterior of the hull inspected to confirm. As for the enemy sub? He chose not to believe there ever was one. And he knew they needed to get moving again soon, if they were to have any chance of com
pleting this all important drill.

  He took his Executive Officer aside again, speaking in a low voice. “I think under the circumstances we should just file this incident in the ghost file.”

  “I have to agree, Captain,” the XO said. “What else can we do, with the goddamn President on board and all?”

  “Easy, Commander,” Byrd said. “He is our Commander-in-chief, don’t forget.”

  “Sorry, Captain,” the XO said. “I guess the stress is taking its toll. It won’t happen again.”

  “See that it doesn’t, Commander,” Byrd said.

  ---

  Suddenly the agent with the carnation appeared on the bridge, frantic for information. “What was that horrendous sound?” he demanded, looking at Commander Byrd as if he had been personally responsible. “I was with the President, and we were very close to the source. It was deafening.”

  “Nothing unusual, Agent,” Byrd replied calmly, sharing Fagan’s disdain for Secret Service agents. “Just the hull shifting under pressure. It’s very common at sea. Nothing to worry about.”

  The agent’s eyes narrowed. That was pretty damn loud to be a hull shift, he thought. But he knew he had no choice but to pass Captain Byrd’s explanation on to the President. He turned and headed off to give his report.

  ---

  Byrd picked up a mic and his entire crew heard the following over the intercom: “This your Captain speaking. I know that what just occurred onboard the USS Hampton may seem strange or even frightening to some of you. However, I can assure you that everything is under control. We are professional submariners, and we shall act accordingly. Proceed with the Emergency Nighttime Surface Drill. Captain out.”

  He replaced the mic.

  ---

  Jason was just outside Cobra’s Forward Torpedo Room. He shouted down the corridor to the Control Room. “What the hell happened, Captain? Did we miss?”

  “You loaded the wrong goddamn torpedo!” Pankov shouted back.

  “That’s impossible,” Jason shouted. “Uri loaded the damn thing himself!”

  “Obviously he screwed up!” Pankov yelled. “Now shut up and load the live one, damn it!”

  Jason knew it too late, the flooding was getting worse, and the USS Hampton was probably long gone anyway. Purely out of curiosity, he went back to take a look at the torpedo that was still on the rack.

  But what he saw there was not the conventional weapon Uri had described. It was a forest green torpedo with the markings: VA-111 Shkval.

  It was a goddamn nuke!

  That’s why Fagan was fighting with Pankov when I shot him, Jason thought miserably. He found the nuke. He knew that Pankov and Uri were planning a damn suicide mission!

  Chapter 59

  Aaron knew he had to make his move. He figured his mother, Katya, and Brandy were safer with him than alone in the Captain’s Cabin, so he gathered them together and moved cautiously out and down the corridor toward the Control Room.

  ---

  The flooding was out of control, now, and even Pankov knew they had to abort the mission. But in his crazed state he was certain they could pick up where they left off at a later date — if only he could save his beloved submarine.

  “Forget the torpedo, Jason,” he yelled down the corridor. “Blow main ballast. Flank speed! We need to surface!”

  Jason heard him, and did his best to make that happen.

  ---

  Aaron had the girls wait in the corridor while he entered the Control Room alone. Pankov was hunched over the helm trying desperately to make something happen. He looked up briefly — Aaron stiffened and started to go for his knife — then returned to the controls, ignoring him.

  Aaron gestured to the others, hoping that they weren’t too deep and that he and the girls could climb the ladder to the fin hatch and escape.

  He felt a shake and heard the sounds of Cobra’s propellers struggling to drive the sub to the surface; but her old batteries were weak and the electric motors were unable to overcome the weight of the seawater filling the pressure hull.

  Suddenly the sounds stopped, followed by a low, metallic groan, like the bellow of a great, iron demon from a cavern in hell. The submarine drifted slowly downward, tilting slightly on its side before hitting the mud on the bottom of the bay with a tremendous WHUUMPP!

  Aaron and the girls were knocked off their feet, splashing into water that was now almost knee deep.

  Pankov held on and managed to remain at the helm, his hair wet and falling in his eyes. Chilling seawater sprayed in from every direction with a deafening roar.

  Aaron stood and helped the girls to their feet. “Can’t we surface?” he shouted to Pankov.

  “Didn’t you hear that?” Pankov yelled back. “We’re on the bottom! The engines have quit! The electrical has shorted out! We’re taking on water like a sieve, and we have no compressed air to blow ballast! A damn cinder block would have a better chance of making it to the surface!” He turned away and put his gun to his head.

  “No!” Katya cried, running to him.

  POP!

  The lead entered Pankov’s right temple, followed by a gush of blood, and he fell backward into the rising flood.

  Katya watched her father sink beneath the churning waters, never to breathe air again. She turned and looked at Aaron, her eyes filled with the kind of horror only a grieving daughter could know, and then she collapsed in his arms.

  Aaron held Katya close, looking desperately at his mother. He had hoped that before they died, she would learn the truth: that her only son had not been killed but had lived through the crash after all. He knew in his heart that that was all she’d need to snap her out of the amnesia and bring her back where she belonged ... with him.

  But they were running out of time.

  Chapter 60

  Brandy stood in the back of the Control Room, staring blankly at the others. Her dress was drenched and clinging to her skin like tissue paper, and she was in a state of shock. Along with everything else that had happened to them tonight, this was too much to take on.

  Suddenly a hand closed over her mouth and another gripped her arm, and she was hauled violently down through the watertight hatch leading to Compartment Two.

  ---

  Brandy struggled with all of her strength as Jason pulled her down the corridor and threw her into the Captain’s Cabin; but instead of hurting her, he backed her against the wall and kissed her passionately on the mouth.

  Frightened and confused, Brandy kissed him back, and for a brief, glorious moment she thought he really meant it. Everything else in her chaotic world vanished, as she lost herself completely in him.

  But then came a frightening, sickening, excruciating pain in her abdomen. A pain like she had never known or begun to imagine. She opened her mouth to scream, but Jason covered it with his hand, using the other to yank his knife out of her stomach. He stepped aside to avoid the gush of blood, and then let her fall on the bunk where she lay looking up at him.

  Why did you do this Jason? she pleaded silently. What could I possibly have done that would make you do this?

  Jason looked down at her, seawater dripping from his hair and clothing. He wiped the sharp blade on his wet thigh and turned to leave.

  He stopped and looked back at her. “Before I go,” he said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  Brandy saw the evil that was coming and her eyes narrowed. Let me die in peace, you sick bastard.

  “My last name isn’t really Beckham,” he said. “I assumed that name after being kicked out of the Navy. My birth name is Souther. I’m Johnny’s brother.”

  Brandy stared at him, utter disbelief momentarily masking her pain. But what Jason had just told her was far too cruel to be a lie. The bastard had lived a lie, and he would die a liar ... but for once she knew he was telling the truth.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you as well, Jason,” she said. “You’ll never be half the man your brother was.”


  Jason faked a smile and then turned and left the room.

  Brandy tried to sit up and call for help, but she was far too weak and only managed a feeble moan.

  Chapter 61

  Aaron held Katya tightly, not knowing how to comfort a girl who just witnessed her own father’s suicide.

  He turned to look at Brandy, who’d been standing by the open hatch where they had come in, but she was gone.

  “Keep Katya here with you,” he said to his mother, handing Ekatarina to her, and then he ducked through the hatch into Compartment Two.

  ---

  Aaron splashed down the corridor, quickly checking each of the rooms, and when he checked the Captain’s Cabin he saw Brandy lying on the bunk with a wound to the stomach, blood soaking her dress and the blanket on which she lay.

  Of all the people on earth, there was no one she would rather have seen walk through that door. She managed a weak smile and held out her hand, speaking just above a whisper.

  “Aaron ...”

  Aaron squeezed her hand, and then he pulled off his shirt and used it to help stop the bleeding, but Brandy’s face was pale; she had clearly lost a lot of blood already. All he could think to do was make her as comfortable as possible. He sat next to her on the bunk and took her hand. “Lie still, Brandy. You’re going to be all right.”

  She looked up at him and spoke in the calm voice. “People used to ask me why I was always attracted to the weird ones,” she said. “I never really knew how to answer that question.”

  Jason did this, Aaron thought, and a rage unlike any he had ever known swelled in his breast.

  She squeezed his hand. “I love you Aaron,” she said.

  He looked at her for a long moment. “I love you, too, Brandy.”

  “Katya told me about your ordeal with Johnny Souther,” she said, “and that answers a lot of my questions about you. But there’s something you need to know about me.” She turned and coughed into the blanket. “My name’s not really Brandy Fine. I-it’s Barbara Fischer. Johnny renamed me after we first met.”