Nighthawk (NUMA Files 14)

“I can’t imagine a Russian agent being stowed away on a refrigerated agriculture ship I chose at random,” he replied. “And even if we were that unlucky and someone up there did pass our location to the Russians, what are the odds they would have a Typhoon submarine within a few hours’ sailing time of our location?”

“Astronomically low,” she said. “The few Typhoons they have

left spend most of their time in port, and when they do sail, they rarely venture far from home.”

Kurt knew that, too. He also knew the Typhoons were in the process of being retired from service. “By all rights, that sub should not be here.”

“Maybe we should worry about it another day,” Emma said. “They’ve already scanned the debris field with their sonar. If we’re lucky, they’ll bring their salvage fleet out here and spend a few days recovering aircraft parts off the bottom before they realize this wreckage doesn’t come from the Nighthawk.”

Kurt was one step ahead of her. “That’s just it,” he said. “I think they already know.”

His hand went back to the console and he raised the volume on the hydrophone. A new sound was emanating from the dark, a pulsing noise that sounded more like water running through a pipe.

“Bow and stern thrusters,” he said. “They’re keeping station out there in the dark. I suggest we go find out why.”

16

Are you afraid they’ll see us?” Emma asked, commenting on their stealth approach.

“Submarines like the Typhoon don’t have windows to look through,” Kurt said, “but they might have cameras or ROVs and submersibles of their own to deploy. They also have passive listening devices that are highly sensitive. Hugging the bottom will absorb any sound we make.”

They both fell silent and Kurt continued tracking toward their target by making small adjustments to the hydrophone. When a rock formation appeared on the video screen, he weaved around it. When they came to a slope of sediment piled up against a wide ridge, he put the Angler into an ascent.

They tracked the slope upward and came over the top.

“Look,” Emma said.

Kurt looked up from the screen. An eerie blue glow loomed in the distance.

With enough light to navigate by, he switched off the UV system and retracted the Angler’s namesake boom. Continuing over the ridge and down the other side, they approached the lighted area.

From a distance, the glow was nothing more than a shimmering orb of water, dark blue in color and revealing no details. As they moved closer, it turned green, and eventually took on a yellowish tint similar to natural light.

Because of the total darkness surrounding them and the weightless state of the submarine, it felt as if they were approaching a strange planet in the depths of space.

As they closed in, Kurt cut the throttle and allowed the Angler to drift. “Our friends have set up shop.”

The glowing orb had become a swath of daylight that ran for several hundred feet. It was cast by row after row of high-powered floodlights on the underside of the Typhoon. The bulk of the huge submarine remained hidden in the inky black water, but the seafloor beneath was lit up like a stadium. The reflected light illuminated the underside of the Typhoon and the maroon-colored paint the Russian Navy preferred to use below the waterline.

Several pod-like shapes were visible beneath the keel.

“Divers in hard suits,” Kurt said.

They were descending toward the seafloor like tiny probes dropped from an alien vessel. Their destination was a large concentration of wreckage, including an upturned wing and the T-shaped tail of a large aircraft.

“Vertical stabilizer,” Emma said. “Fuselage section over there. And that looks like an engine pod. I told you this wasn’t the Nighthawk.”

A clanking sound came through the hydrophone and then a hiss of bubbles.

“Pressure door opening,” Kurt said. “Most likely, the lockout room where those divers came from or a compartment from where they can release an ROV.”

More clanking sounds rang out through the hydrophone and a narrow slit of light appeared in the underside of the Typhoon. It grew wider as a pair of huge doors in the bottom of the hull drew back from each other. They locked in place, leaving a hundred-foot opening in the bottom of the submarine. As Kurt and Emma watched in amazement, a huge clamshell bucket descended from the center of it, its jaws stretched wide.

The bucket crashed into the wreckage with abandon. Sediment swirled in the light, and as the hydraulic jaws closed, the screech of rendered metal cried out through the water.

Kurt watched intently as the tail section of the aircraft was hauled up into the open bay of the submarine. “The Russians have built a submersible version of the Glomar Explorer.”

The Glomar Explorer was the most famous salvage vessel in the world. Built by the CIA, using the celebrity status of Howard Hughes as a cover, it had performed its secret task once, and only once, pulling most of a sunken Russian submarine off the bottom of the Pacific in 1974.