“Alive?”
“Well, no,” Matt said. “Two of them died on the way up, and the other twenty had decompression problems. But they obviously hadn’t been trained in the method.”
“Neither have these guys,” Beth said with a wave toward the Chinese sailors. “Neither have I.”
“That’s about to change. All right, listen up. Sam’s going to tell us how to make a free ascent through the forward escape trunk. Lien, I want you to translate and tell your men exactly what he says.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It ain’t complicated,” Sam said, “but there’s certain things you gotta do. The main thing is, you got to slowly let air out of your mouth as you go up. That’s important. If you keep your mouth closed, you’ll rise too fast and get the bends, or if you panic and really hold your breath, your lungs could burst or you could shoot up out of the water like a rocket.”
“Good God,” Beth said.
“But the other side is, if you let the air out too fast, you’ll stop rising and sink back to a level where the pressure in your lungs is the same as the water pressure. And that’s where you’ll stop. If that happens, don’t panic. Here’s what you do. Just pull yourself up the buoy cable until the water pressure decreases and then you’ll start to rise again. So the trick is, let it out slow and steady. If you do that, you should have a smooth ride up to the surface.”
“Any questions?” Matt said.
Silence.
“Okay, Sam. Let’s get started. Start sending them up by twos.”
Sam pointed to the two Chinese sailors who looked the youngest and motioned them forward. Everybody else stayed put. The sub shifted a few more degrees to starboard. In the deep silence, Matt heard the clank of the inner hatch, then the flooding of the trunk with seawater. He heard the outer hatch open and the life rafts being shoved out, followed by the two sailors. The trunk was drained and the process repeated until the Chinese crew was out of the boat.
“Okay, Skipper,” Sam said, coming back into the control room. “Everybody’s out. Why don’t you and the young lady go next? Charlie and me can go last.”
“I can’t do it,” Beth said.
“Sure you can,” Matt said.
“I didn’t have a normal childhood. I studied all the time. I never learned how to swim.”
“You don’t need to swim,” Matt said. “All you’re doing is floating to the top.”
“You go. I can’t do it.”
“Sam, you and Charlie go next,” Matt said. “We’ll bring up the rear.”
Sam hesitated. “You’re coming, ain’t you, Skipper?”
“Of course.”
“That shelf we’re sitting on,” Sam said. “It ain’t gonna hold forever.”
“We’ll be right behind you.” Matt stood up, pulled Beth to her feet, and followed Sam and Charlie into the forward torpedo room. Beth watched Sam pull Charlie up the ladder inside the escape trunk and close the bottom hatch. She stared at Matt as the sound of rushing water filled the compartment. When Matt heard the outer hatch close, he opened the drain valve. He motioned with his head. “Come on. Why should they have all the fun?”
“I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Sure you can.”
“You go without me.”
“Beth, if you don’t go, I don’t go. And if we don’t go, the world’s going to miss out on some great kids.”
Beth stared at him. “Do you mean . . .?”
“We belong together, for Christ’s sake, even the old Chinese housekeeper saw that. Now come on.”
Beth let out a sigh. “That’s an offer I can’t refuse.”
Matt helped her up into the escape trunk. He felt the sub groan and shift to starboard again, this time about 10 degrees. They had to get out of the trunk while it was reasonably level or not at all. Ignoring the pain in his side, he stood at an angle astride the lower hatch and dogged it tight.
“Okay, this is an air bubble flange. All you have to do is stand under it while I flood the compartment.” He reached for the flood valve, then said, “It shouldn’t be too cold. We’re not that deep, and we’re on the equator.” He opened the valve and stood with her under the flange while seawater poured in. He watched the gauge, waiting for the pressure in the trunk to equalize with the pressure outside. In less than a minute, the water was up to Beth’s neck. She looked too frightened to speak. He gave her his best, most reassuring smile.
“Okay, take a really deep breath. Here we go.”
He opened the outer hatch, took Beth by the waist, and swam her through the opening, up toward the light. As soon as his feet cleared the hatch, the sub rolled to starboard and drifted from sight in a cloud of silt and bubbles. Matt heard the screech of the buoy cable unwinding as the sub drifted lower. When the cable ran out, the sub would pull the buoy down with it if she were still falling. Matt felt a huge relief to be out of the sub, but now they were really in danger. They had to get up quickly.
He put Beth’s hands around the buoy cable and motioned her up. Facing her on the other side of the cable, he rose with her in the dim light, hoping she could see the amount of air he was exhaling as a guide. A stream of tiny bubbles emitted from her mouth. She seemed to be picking up on it. They rose together, the cable steady in his hands. Each length of his body was about six feet. He’d climbed what he estimated to be about sixty feet when he felt the cable begin to slip through his hands. The sub was still falling, and the cable had run out.
Looking up, he saw the yellow buoy coming down at them. He looped his arm around Beth’s waist and tried to pull her away from the cable. He felt a thump and saw a blur of orange go by, knocking Beth from his arms. She went limp and began to fall, bubbles pouring from her mouth, drifting down into the abyss. Matt dived after her and caught her by the hair, the pain in his side excruciating. He put his mouth over hers to stop the air flow from her lungs. Holding her in one arm, he kicked up, and they began to rise again. He could feel her lungs expand as they rose. He took his mouth from hers for an instant, allowing her to release some air.
They rose toward the light, repeating the process. Just as Sam had said, the higher they rose, the more the water pressure decreased, and the more the air in their lungs expanded. With no cable to measure his progress, he wasn’t sure how much farther they had to go. He looked up and estimated another seventy or eighty feet. He wasn’t sure Beth could make it. A body appeared, suspended in the water like a huge sodden rag doll. Rising past it, he felt a stab of pain. It was young Wen, the first sailor they’d encountered on the sub. A large bubble emerged from his mouth and billowed upward, rising with them. He could see sunlight gleaming on the water and the dark shadows of the life rafts. Rising faster than they should, he broke the surface, gasping.
Holding Beth’s head up, he blinked the water out of his eyes and started toward the nearest raft. Sam was in the bow, already paddling toward them. He reached down and pulled Beth up, then helped Matt onto the raft. Matt bent over Beth’s motionless body, applying CPR. The Chinese sailors stared in silence.
Working over Beth, Matt saw the ocean in turmoil about 300 yards off. He held his breath. The black sail of a submarine slowly broke the surface. Anything but Chinese. He saw the numbers 7-1-6 on the sail and choked back a sob. It was the Salt Lake City, a tiny little piece of America. He stared at it, unable to speak. His strategy had worked. The U.S. had come out for a look. As the hull rose out of the water, officers appeared on the bridge and sailors appeared on deck with lines to throw.
Despite the pain in his ribcage, Matt kept up a constant rhythm. “Come on, baby, come on. We’re almost there.”
He felt a line come across the raft, felt it go taut, hands pulling them toward safety. As the raft drew closer to the black hull of the sub, Sam placed a broad hand on Matt’s shoulder, his old friend unable to say what was obvious.
“No.” Matt kept up a constant rhythm. “We’re not leaving her. I promised I’d bring her back.”
The Chinese sai
lors scrambled aboard the sub. Charlie and Sam stayed with Matt. Sailors from the sub looked solemnly down from the deck above. Sam was looking at him with moist eyes.
“Come on, Skipper. We gotta go.”
“I can’t leave her, Sam. I can’t.”
Matt heard a gurgling sound. A little geyser of seawater erupted from Beth’s mouth. She rolled to one side, coughing up more water. She opened her eyes and blinked at Matt. She stared at him for what seemed like a full minute without speaking.
“Are we there yet?”
Matt pulled her to him, tears running down his face. He turned her to face the cheering American sailors on the deck of the sub. Holding her too tightly, he pressed his mouth to her ear.
“We are now,” he said in a choked whisper. “We’re home.”
“Morning, sir,” a seaman who looked too young to be away from home said, peering into the wardroom. “We’re approaching the outer islands. Captain would like to know if you’d like to join him on the bridge.”
Matt had thought he’d sit this one out. Coming home from the sea was usually a joyful occasion, but seeing Kaohsiung would be bittersweet - there was nothing for him to come home to. Still, it was nice of the captain to offer. He nodded.
“Tell him thanks, I’ll be right up.”
He drank off his coffee and, clutching his taped-up rib cage, squirmed out from behind the table. Walking forward, he could feel the excitement in the boat. The crew seemed animated, everyone talking, making plans. They’d gone out and come back - alive. He remembered the feeling.
He climbed the ladder to the bridge, wincing at the pain in his side. The chief corpsman had diagnosed him with two broken ribs and had taped him up so tightly he could barely breathe. With the burns on his hands bandaged, he felt like a mummy. Being so constricted would have bothered him before, but after his near-death experience on the Romeo, and almost a week of running submerged on the Salt Lake City, his claustrophobia had simply disappeared.
“Morning, Captain,” he said, blinking into the sun.
“Hey, Matt. How do you feel, buddy?”
“Healing fast.” He started to say, “I’d forgotten how good the chow was on these boats,” and thought about poor Francisco.
“Kaohsiung will close the loop for us - this is where we came in, but I thought you might like to see the entrance to the harbor from the sea again.”
There was no more beautiful sight than coming into port. The sad part was he’d be seeing a stretch of empty dock when he got there.
“I appreciate that.”
The captain looked at him and shook his head, his eyes sympathetic. “I can’t imagine losing my whole ship and crew. I just can’t fathom what that would feel like.”
They cruised in silence through the Taiwan Strait. Rounding the northern tip of Chichin Island, the sub eased into Hsitzu Bay, the narrow channel that separates the smaller island from the island of Taiwan. Gradually, the docks of Kaohsiung came into view. A motley array of ships sat lazily in a row, groaning against their lines.
Matt looked at everything except his old dock space. If he didn’t see it, he couldn’t feel the pain.
Closer, now, he took a grudging glance. There was already a ship moored to it. Bastards hadn’t wasted any time filling it up.
Lucky them. The ship was about the same length and displacement as CoMar Explorer. Hell, it even had the same lines. He followed the lines from the bow to the stern. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Without asking permission, he grabbed the captain’s binoculars and focused on a damaged area on the port side, near the stern.
My God.
Matt stood on the dock, looking up at the bow of CoMar Explorer. Even with rust stains running down her sides and a slight list to port, she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. How in God’s name did they . . . ?
“I still can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Beth said.
“I told you there were some good men there,” Sam said.
“Hey!” someone shouted from the main deck. “It’s Matt!”
Gene Harvey leaned over the rail. “Skipper! Sam! Where the hell you guys been?”
Matt sprinted up the accommodation ladder and found himself mobbed by his crew. He stood on the quarterdeck grinning like a fool, trying to shake hands with his bandaged mitts, barely able to speak.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when we pulled in,” he said. “How did you do it?”
“It wasn’t by-God easy,” Scootchy Carter said.
“Thank God for Scootchy’s rat teeth,” Doc Miller said. “He gnawed right through that duct tape. Damn near chewed my wrist off.”
Scootchy said, “Time we got those seacocks shut, flooding was so bad the pumps were barely able to keep up with it. Like to never got here.”
“Yeah,” Gene Harvey said. “Thought we’d never see Kaohsiung again.”
Matt felt something brush against his ankle. He looked down at a small yellow dog squirming around his feet.
“I find on dock,” Francisco said. “We call him Traveller Two, okay Boss-man?”
People were always discarding puppies on the dock. Matt grinned a bit sadly at the little mongrel as it scampered away, and nodded.
“Gray Wolf been around?”
“No have to worry about Gray Wolf,” Francisco said. “We got job.”
“Yeah,” Scootchy said. “That towing bid you submitted a month ago came through.”
It was a towing contract with a major offshore drilling company with operations on the coast of southern California. It would keep Connor Marine afloat for a while, hopefully long enough to snag a contract that would pay off his debt to Gray Wolf.
“Are we ready to go to sea?”
“We will be in a week,” Scootchy said.
“Good,” Matt said. “We’ll shift our home port to San Diego.” He nodded to Sam. “Take her over when she’s ready.”
“Sure, Skipper. Where you going?”
Matt looked at Beth. “I’m taking Beth home, like I promised. Then I’m going to get that tax lien off the ship. We’re going home, boys.”
The black SUV with government license plates turned onto West Executive Avenue, then made a hard right into a short drive that led to a guard shack. The entrance to the basement level of the White House was directly ahead, under a canopy. The guard checked the driver’s ID, ran his finger down a clipboard, smiled into the back seat, and waved them through.
Matt unbuckled his seat belt and glanced at Beth. “I still don’t get this.”
She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. You’ve been invited to meet the president, that’s all.”
“You mean we’ve been invited.”
“No, no. I’ve known him forever, he was at our house talking to my father before he even ran for president. It’s you he wants to meet.”
“Why?”
“Well, gee, let me think. You’ve just averted a major economic catastrophe for the U.S., not to mention a war. Maybe he’d like to say thanks.”
Matt glanced down at the new black shoes, white shirt, silk maroon tie, and navy blue suit.
“I feel like an idiot in this getup.”
“You look very handsome.”
He took her hand and helped her out. In a simple black dress with a short string of pearls and matching earrings, she was a head-turner. Her hair was still short, but it looked glorious. And even if it hadn’t, no one would get past those beautiful brown eyes long enough to notice. They’d avoided discussing Matt’s last-ditch proposal on the sub, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the two of them to see where it would lead. Matt had ordered CoMar Explorer’s home port moved back to San Diego, and Beth had applied for a teaching job at UCSD. With her credentials, Matt was sure she’d get it.
“All right, let’s get this over with.”
A familiar-looking man in a dark business suit started toward them.
“Beth. How nice to see you again. It’s been a long time.”
“Hello
, John. It has, indeed.” Beth waved her hand toward Matt. “John, I’d like you to meet Matt Connor. Matt, this is John Bolling, White House chief of staff.”
Matt recognized him from the Sunday talk shows, a short, plump man with a florid face who’d once been governor of Colorado. Alexander Forrest had needed a man with Bolling’s toughness to help clean up the mess in the White House the previous administration had made. Matt shook hands, surprised that the president’s right-hand man would personally come out to greet them.
“It’s an honor to meet you.”
“The honor’s mine - we’ve been hearing a lot about you lately.”
A Secret Service agent wearing a flesh-toned earpiece and a loose-fitting coat handed Matt and Beth passes, then motioned them through a metal detector. Matt followed Beth through without incident and wondered about the pistol that had saved his neck so many times. Where was it now? He’d turned it over to the captain of the Salt Lake City right after they’d been fished out of the water off Sumatra.
With Beth trailing behind, looking at the artwork, the chief of staff steered Matt toward the southeast corner of the West Wing, pointing out bits of history along the way. He opened a door directly opposite the Roosevelt Room and ushered them into the Oval Office. Like most Americans, Matt had seen a hundred pictures of the room, but nothing prepared him for this. Sitting behind the desk with a phone to his ear was the president of the United States.
Alexander Forrest shifted the phone to his other side and waved them in with one hand while making notes on a legal pad. Everyone, from the president on down, was dressed appropriately. The women staffers he’d seen on the way in all looked professional, and the men wore coats and ties, even in Washington’s summer heat. The blue jeans and pizza crowd had gone out with the previous administration. He was glad he’d let Beth talk him into some new clothes. He stood quietly before the fabled desk made of wood salvaged from HMS Resolute, as awed as a child seeing the inside of a cathedral for the first time.
The room wasn’t as big as he’d thought it would be. The opaque windows behind the president’s chair gave a surreal edge to what he could see of the White House lawn. Probably bullet-resistant. The president’s desk looked clean. A few file folders, a schedule of the day’s appointments, an intercom, and an ordinary-looking telephone that Matt assumed was anything but ordinary. The president finished his call, dropped the handset into the cradle, and smiled.
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