Hassan frowned. “There is nothing for me in Morocco,” he whispered. “Besides, Bettencourt will not let me live in peace. You know that.”
“Vitaly?” said Jonah, turning his attention to the Russian helmsman.
“You shoot Vitaly if he leave?” Vitaly said with a grim smile. “Again?”
“Hell, I might shoot you for staying,” said Jonah.
“You are terrible captain.” Vitaly shook his head as if Jonah was a great disappointment. “But I take my chances with Scorpion. She good ship. I stay.”
“Good,” cracked Jonah. “Because I know fuck-all about sailing this thing.”
Jonah started to speak again, but Dalmar interrupted, his solemn baritone filling the engine room. “I am with you in this. We will rain destruction upon him. Blood for blood, for the doctor’s beautiful mother, for my people. My men and I will provide whatever support we can whenever you need it.”
Hassan spoke up, his voice barely a whisper. “Charles Bettencourt has no right to do what he’s doing. He thinks everybody is too stupid, too poor, or too weak to oppose him. I’ve lost my cousin and my mother … and for”—his voice broke—“for what?”
“We can’t bring back what was lost,” said Jonah. “But we can show the world who Charles Bettencourt really is.”
CHAPTER 19
Vitaly increased the tempo of the Scorpion’s engines, slowly throttling up to one-quarter reverse. The submarine reverberated and shook, a spear vibrating deep within the belly of the sunken World War II transport ship. The Scorpion shifted but didn’t retreat, structural members of the broken shipwreck moaning as they chafed against the steel skin of the submarine. Hassan shivered, it sounded like the pipes of a discordant church organ.
“Mother-fucker!” yelled Jonah, slapping the back of Vitaly’s chair in frustration. “Rudder! Rudder! Vector that engine thrust!”
“Nyet!” protested Vitaly. “We come out with least resistance with direct reverse! Your plan will wedge us, kill us all!”
“Listen, you Ruskie fuck,” said Jonah. “This isn’t my first time stuck in the Richard Thompson. We need to wriggle our way out. A straight reverse thrust will create too much friction.”
“I disagree,” said Vitaly. “You make worst captain.”
“I’m not asking you, I’m fucking telling you,” retorted Jonah. “Start shaking the Scorpion’s ass until we pull our nose out of this goddamn wreck. If we run the batteries to zero with your bullshit, I am going to use my last moments in this glorified sewer pipe beating the ever-loving shit out of you with a fucking wrench. I’ll just keep beating and beating and beating until I fucking asphyxiate.”
“Yob tvoyiu mat,” grumbled Vitaly. He complied with the order, harshly jamming the rudders back and forth as the engines roared to full power. The Scorpion shifted back and forth by the stern, unable to pull herself free.
Jonah and Vitaly’s exchange barely registered as Hassan sat behind them on the deck of the command compartment. He leaned against the bulkhead, knees pulled nearly to his chin, alone in his thoughts.
Maybe it wouldn’t matter if they freed themselves. Maybe it’d be better to take his chances in the lockout chamber, make one last push for the surface as nitrogen narcosis numbed his mind and quelled the grief. The doctor fixated on the image of his mother splayed out in ankledeep wastewater, eyes open, heart slammed to a sudden stop by electrocution. He had lost her, then found her, only to lose her again, and the grief the second time around was infinitely worse.
Everyone had left him alone as he prepared her body, removing her wet, filthy clothing, washing her face and hands as best as he could. He wrapped her from head to toe in the last of the clean white sheets. The first layer he arranged like a wedding dress from a long-forgotten picture. The second he bound up like a funeral shroud. Sewing her into the sheets with one careful stitch after another, the doctor kissed her forehead for the last time. Finishing his work, he’d realized he couldn’t bear to place her in the freezer with the other bodies. He instead placed her in her bunk, closing the curtains behind as he left.
Hassan’s attention snapped back to the present. With a scraping, metallic groan, the Scorpion pulled loose, shuddering as she reversed out of the shifting wreckage. Beams and deck plates rained down from the SS Richard Thompson James, slamming against the steel hull one after another, until, with one last wobble, the Scorpion slipped free and retreated into unobstructed waters.
“Straight back,” commanded Jonah. “Maintain full power to rear thrust. Leave the rudders alone.”
“So we live,” said Vitaly, frowning. “Hooray for us.”
“Aren’t you glad I’m not beating the shit out of you right now?” asked Jonah.
“Yes, yes. Very glad.”
“Nicely done,” congratulated Hassan. Despite his admiration, the doctor’s budding trust in the American was not without its reservations. Jonah still had a disconcerting habit of presenting a plan with unassailable confidence, then behaving with just as much surprise as everybody else when it actually worked.
“Vitaly, seriously, good work,” said Jonah. “I couldn’t be more pleased. I’m going forward to check the rest of our motley crew.”
“Who is number one helmsman? Who is best of best?”
“You are,” answered Jonah, pretending to kowtow as he backed his way out of the compartment. “I bow before the skills of the master. Now there is a certain pirate I’m trying to keep an eye on—I’ll be back in a moment. Set a westerly course towards the coast, silent running.”
“You still worst captain,” said Vitaly, smiling as he punched in helm instructions. “Now go check on our pet pirate while I steer submarine.”
Yes, go check on the pirate, thought Hassan, pulling himself to his feet. While Hassan had no idea how to approach Alexis or what to say to her after his mother’s accident, he didn’t relish the idea of Jonah giving her too much attention. He would have to talk to her sometime, but hoped to put it off for as long as possible. It was all just too confusing … too painful. In the meantime, he was confident Jonah would keep an eye on Dalmar.
Hassan wasn’t quite sure what to make of the massive Somali yet. The ready-to-kill, ready-to-die attitude was perhaps heroic on some level, but Hassan sensed there was something deeper, more complicated at play. He waited until Jonah was well out of hearing range before taking a seat next to Vitaly at the pilot’s console.
“Don’t worry about Jonah,” said Hassan. “He’s … he’s an asshole.”
“Yeah, asshole. But our asshole. So maybe I don’t mind so much. And he right this one time.”
“But that doesn’t mean your idea wouldn’t have worked.”
“Maybe,” said Vitaly. “Maybe not. I more happy to be alive than correct, no?”
Alexis walked into the command compartment, wiping sweat off her forehead. Hassan glanced in her direction, then riveted his gaze firmly at the deck, unwilling to make eye contact. Maybe she needs to see Vitaly. Maybe she will go back to the engine room. Uncomfortable, Vitaly rose from his seat and busied himself on the far side of the compartment with his back to the pair.
The tank-top-wearing engineer stood for a moment, one hand playing with the stiff fingertips of the welder’s glove on the other hand, waiting for the doctor to acknowledge her. When he didn’t, she sat next to him in Vitaly’s seat, staring at him until he looked up at her.
“I need to talk to you.” Her voice was serious, halting. “About Fatima.”
“You needn’t say anything. Everyone’s been very kind.”
“It’s important.”
“Alexis, there’s nothing—”
“Could you shut up for a minute?” She leaned forward cupped his chin, forcing him to look at her.
Hassan nodded, silenced by her outburst.
“I know your mother didn’t exactly take to me during the short time we knew each other,” she began. “She knew somehow that I … I could feel her watching me. Knew she didn’t approve. But she w
as your mother. When we were being hit with those depth charges, there was smoke and fire and electrical discharge. Things were going very wrong in the engine room. Worse than you knew. Your mother came in to help. She said Jonah sent her. Hassan, she was incredibly brave, did everything I asked, but then, we got hit hard and lost computer control. I needed to bypass the control system to switch to manual mode. I thought the electrical panel was dead. I told her to open it for me.”
Hassan squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. If couldn’t see her talking, maybe the words wouldn’t matter.
“I should have known it was still electrified.” Alexis looked down at her lap. “I didn’t check first. She didn’t know what she was doing. She wouldn’t have known the risks. I’m just so sorry.” She put her face in her hands and sobbed quietly.
After a moment, Hassan put his hand on her knee. “She was a scientist. She was not inexperienced with dangerous equipment.”
Alexis wiped the tears from her cheek and choked back another sob. “But … I can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop seeing her face. Hassan, it’s my fault. It should have been—”
“Don’t you dare say it,” he whispered, his voice rough-edged with grief and anger and … and he didn’t know what else. “Don’t you dare say it should have been you.”
She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears.
“But it’s my fault—”
Overwhelmed with conflicting emotions, he sprang to his feet and towered over her, his face crimson with rage. “Why are you even still here?” he demanded.
Alexis stared up at him, eyes wide.
“I all but kidnapped you!” His voice got louder with every word. “Every second you are in my presence, your life is at risk. You have no business here. None! Go home, go back to your real life.”
Without thinking, Alexis jumped up, whipped off the welder’s glove, and slapped him hard across the face.
“Nobody talks to me like that!” She gripped the glove like a vise in one hand and pointed at his chest with the other. “You don’t get to yell at me. Ever. Or make decisions on my behalf. I got left on the Conqueror by accident. So what? You were just as surprised as I was. You’re not a mystery, Hassan. I could tell instantly that you were doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. So maybe I wanted to tag along at first, have myself a little adventure. Run away with a beautiful doctor on a stolen yacht, and go home with, I don’t know, a story none of my friends could beat when we talked shit at the hometown bars. But I’m not fucking stupid, no matter what you think.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.” His voice dropped as his hand unconsciously touched the bright red mark on his face.
“But that was before Charles Bettencourt nearly succeeded in murdering all of us. And you want me to leave? Now?”
“I don’t want you to end up like—”
“You know the second I get off this submarine he’s going to come looking for me. None of us are safe while he’s still out there. You just don’t want me to be your fucking burden anymore.”
Hassan threw his hands up in frustration and turned his back to Alexis, unwilling to trust himself to say anything more.
“Fine,” she said. “Screw you, too. I’m sorry about your mother, whether or not she thought much of me. But next time you talk to me like that, we are done.”
The doctor didn’t sit back down again until the sounds of Alexis stomping away long since subsided.
“Ouch,” said Vitaly, interrupting the silence. “That was brutal.”
“Don’t pile on,” Hassan mumbled.
“She care about you,” said Vitaly, ignoring the doctor’s command.
“She’s just trying to stay alive like the rest of us.” Hassan’s whole body felt hollowed out, arms and legs like empty appendages. Despite Jonah’s courageous words, everything seemed so doomed. Maybe it was a fool’s errand after all, and he the fool. People like him and Alexis didn’t get happy endings, not with a man like Bettencourt chomping at their heels.
Avoiding Alexis would be difficult given the small size of the submarine, but becoming further entangled was not a good idea. He shook his head and started to walk away.
“Wait,” said Vitaly. “Don’t leave. I must show you important thing. Dive chamber has video feed, recorded to central computer. I think you should see this.”
“There’s a video recording of my swim outside of the sub?” asked Hassan. “When I disabled the transmitter?”
“No, no,” said Vitaly. “There is video of when you return to diver chamber. Is very important you see.”
Hassan didn’t want to see and said so. He was still acutely aware of the aftereffects—sore rib cage, lingering cough, the awful sensation that he hadn’t quite expelled the last of the seawater from his lungs. Regardless of his feelings, Vitaly cued up the video feed on his terminal screen.
The single screen held two feeds. Fatima swayed from side to side, staring at the flooded, open lockout chamber. Bright white inside, it was open to the complete darkness of the abyss. Hassan registered a pang of shock and hurt seeing the images of his mother.
Out of the darkness, he saw himself swimming towards the light, convulsing, the autonomic response of his lungs forcing his abdomen to violently contract and spasm. The doctor wasn’t swimming so much as he was crawling through the water, ineffectually flailing his hands, reaching for anything to drag himself inside. The lack of sound in the video served only to make the events more horrifying. He wanted to look away but couldn’t. He watched the tears stream down his mother’s face. She’d seen the convulsions, the missing pony bottle, the broken flashlight dangling from his wrist.
In the video, the doctor found a handhold on the outer rim of the chamber, dragged himself inside and struggled to close the outer door. He watched himself take a massive lungful of air, his mouth sucking in seawater, eyes rolling back into his head as he seized up. The exterior slammed shut but did not lock. His mother struggled to reverse the sequence, failing. She tried again and again, hands shaking, tears flowing like a burst pipe.
Then Fatima screamed, silent over the pre-recorded video feed.
Alexis scrambled up the interior boarding ladder to the chamber behind Fatima and shoved the older woman out of her way. The engineer ran through the same sequence. When it failed, Alexis ripped off the panel cover. Sparking wires dangling, she touched leads against each other until water expelled from the chamber, draining into unseen vents in a massive, foamy whirlpool. On the screen, Hassan lay dead on the deck.
So this is what it’s like to have an out-of-body experience, he thought as he stared at his own drowned corpse.
Alexis pulled open the heavy interior door the chamber and squeezed in. There was barely enough room for her and the collapsed doctor. The young woman listened for breath but found none. She checked for a pulse and shook her head in frustration. Fatima buried her head in her hands.
The young Texan straddled the doctor’s body and pounded on his chest with both hands, trying to restart his heart, force the seawater from his lungs. She leaned over his cold, motionless body and her lips met his. Air rushed into his lungs, his chest rising.
Watching the video, Hassan unconsciously touched his lips, as if he could detect some tiny residual sensation of her lifesaving breath. On screen, his entire body contracted with enough force to throw Alexis into a bulkhead. The doctor continued convulsing, pink-flecked foam gathering at his lips.
Decompression sickness, he thought, diagnosing the symptoms with clinical precision. Systemic pain, pink-flecked foam from the lungs, it couldn’t be anything else. To reach him, Alexis had been forced to initiate a rapid, dangerous decompression. All of the gasses that had saturated into his blood and tissues were now expanding inside the doctor’s body like a shaken soda can, gathering in his joints, bloodstream and spine.
On the video, Alexis sealed the inner door and ordered Fatima to re-engage the pressurization sequence. Alexis winced, her ears popping as the pressur
e inside rapidly built, slowing the doctor’s unconscious convulsing. Fatima tried to ease the pressure build-up, but Alexis urgently waved for her to speed it up, faster, fast enough to save the doctor’s life.
The pressure leveled off and Alexis held the breathing doctor in her arms like a limp rag doll. His skin was still blue from the cold and lack of oxygen but he did not shiver. She zipped down half of his wetsuit and felt inside his armpits.
She’s checking core temperature, he realized. She knows I’m hypothermic.
He watched as Alexis unzipped the rest of the wetsuit, slipping his naked body out of the neoprene. Vitaly looked slightly away from the screen, preserving some modicum of modesty. Alexis stripped off her wet tank top to a sports bra. Pulling off her cutoff shorts, she rolled the doctor’s inert body onto her own, holding him in her arms, rubbing his skin, warming him with her own body heat.
Mercifully, Vitaly killed the video feed. It presumably continued for hours as Fatima and Alexis fought the hypothermia and pressure sickness. All Hassan remembered was waking up in his own bunk.
“I show you this,” said Vitaly, turning to look at Hassan, “because if someone feel this way about me, I would want to know.”
Hassan opened the door to the armory in the far stern of the submarine. He’d hoped it was empty; somewhere he could spend a few hours sorting medical kits alone with his thoughts.
“It’s the butcher come to see me again,” Dalmar said, looking up. The pirate sat cross-legged on a towel he’d draped over the deck, a disassembled assault rifle laid in front of him.
“I see you’re making yourself at home.”
“Indeed,” said Dalmar as he reassembled the freshly cleaned and oiled rifle. “Home is in the company of my friends and brother.”
“Aren’t your friends and brothers back home? In Somalia?”
“My men are in Somalia,” said Dalmar. “My brother is here, with me.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It’s simple, very simple,” said Dalmar. “Your Captain Jonah saved me at the risk of his own life. This makes him my friend.”
The Wrecking Crew Page 28
