Pacific Vortex! (Dirk Pitt 1)

March, deciding that opposition was useless, hesitated a moment to screw up his courage, and then plunged into the forbidden gloom of the air lock compartment. Pitt waited outside until March could get his bearings from what little light filtered in from above. When he had his hands firmly on the air valves, March nodded and Pitt dropped beside him and tightened down the hatch.

The escape compartment was a tubelike chamber built right into the hull of the submarine. It could hold six men and was designed so that the crew, escaping from their stricken ship, could enter, seal the interior hatch, and then flood the chamber by way of an air-release valve. When the water pressure outside equaled the pressure inside and the remaining air was dumped off, the escaping men merely opened the exterior hatch and rose to the surface. In the case of Pitt and March, they were going to reverse the process by draining away the water and then entering what Pitt hoped would be a dry interior.

Madness was the only way March could describe it, sitting in the total blackness of the chamber, pure madness. It would have been much simpler to open the interior hatch without screwing around in the dark confines of the chamber. Why waste time in the useless exercise of trying to pressurize, when the sub was filled with water? All they were going to find was a murky interior filled with bloated, rotting corpses. They’d both be dead too if they didn’t hurry; he expected to go on his short supply of reserve air any second now. Madness, he thought despairingly again. It seemed impossible, but he imagined himself sweating. Then he turned the valve.

The air hissed softly into the chamber and water began draining away. It must be a dream, March told himself. It couldn’t possibly be happening. His body let him know of the drop in pressure and, even though he couldn’t see it, he knew his raised hand had passed above the water level. Then he could feel slight waves gently lapping at his face. If the mouthpiece from his regulator hadn’t been clenched between his teeth he would have gaped in speechless bewilderment. Fighting off the shock and taking a firm grasp of his senses, he fumbled for the waterproof switch he was certain was in the vicinity of the air-release valve. He skinned his knuckles in hurried groping before his fingers touched the rubber switch. Then he raised it, throwing light into the escape compartment.

March was numbed at what he saw. Pitt stood in front of him, leaning against the bulkhead in relaxed indifference to his surroundings, his face mask already tilted up over his ebony hair, his mouthpiece hanging across his broad chest. He stared back at March through green eyes that seemed to twinkle in the glare while the lips beneath the hardened bronze face twisted at the corners in a grin.

March spit out his mouthpiece. “How could you have known?” he gasped.

“An educated guess,” Pitt said casually.

“The lights, the pumping pressure,” March said dazedly. “The nuclear reactor must still be operating.”

“It would seem so. Shall we have a look?”

To March, Pitt’s glacial calm was astounding. “Why not?” he said. He tried to sound casual but his words came out like a hoarse croak. The water was completely drained away now and he gazed downward at the interior hatch of the Starbuck.

They removed their air tanks, face masks, and fins in the certainty that if there was breathable air in the escape chamber, there had to be breathable air in the sub itself. March got down on his knees in the inch or so of water left on the interior hatch, and began twisting the handwheel. This one gave easily; tiny air bubbles foamed around the lip of the cover as air vented from within the sub. He leaned down and sniffed the escaping air.

“It’s okay.”

“Crack it some more.”

March spun the handwheel until a small rush of air splashed through the puddle at their feet. Then the pressure equalized and water gurgled away beneath the hatch. March felt a despairing apprehension; there was no mistaking this time the icy sweat that seeped from his pores. He eased the hatch cautiously up on its hinges and quickly turned aside. There was no way that he was going to enter that unholy crypt first. He needn’t have worried. Pitt rapidly slipped past and dropped down the ladder and disappeared from view.

Pitt found himself in the well-illuminated, cramped, and empty forward torpedo compartment. Everything seemed neatly in place as though the owners had temporarily left to play cards in the ward room or grab a late afternoon snack in the crew’s mess. The bunks tiered aft of the torpedo storage were tightly made up; the brass plaques on the circular rear doors of the tubes shined brightly; the ventilation blower hummed at normal speed. The only sign of movement was Pitt’s shadowy form making its contorted way across a bulkhead wall. He stepped back to the escape hatch and looked up.

“Nobody’s home. Come on down and bring Barf.”

He could have saved his breath. March was already descending the ladder carrying both Barf and the camera case. He handed Pitt the carbon dioxide gun and furtively glanced around the compartment. His fear gave way to astonishment when he saw that Pitt wasn’t fooling about the vacant compartment.

“Where is everybody?”

“Let’s find out,” Pitt said quietly. He took Barf from March’s hand and nodded at the camera. “That your security blanket?”

March finally forced a tight smile. “I’ve got eight more shots left on the roll. Commander Boland might like to see what we’ve discovered. He’s not going to be too happy about our breaking and entering.”

“Hell hath no wrath like a commander scorned,” Pitt said. “I’ll take full responsibility.”

“They must have seen us enter the escape hatch from the TV monitors,” March said uneasily.

“First things first. I’m counting on you for a personally guided tour.”

“I served on an attack sub. The Starbuck is an engineering marvel none of us even dreamed about five years ago. I doubt if I could find the nearest john.”

“Nonsense,” Pitt said loftily. “If you’ve seen one submarine, you’ve seen them all. Where does this lead?” He pointed at an aft bulkhead door.

“Probably a companionway running past the missile tubes to the crew’s mess.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

Pitt unlatched the bulkhead door and stepped over the sill into a compartment with seemingly the same dimensions as the Carlsbad Caverns. It was vast-at least four decks high, a labyrinth of heat exchanger tubes, drive syst

ems, generators, boilers, and two monstrous turbines. A powerhouse, Pitt thought; one of those gas and electric company powerhouses that burst at the seams with nightmare upon nightmare of piping and machinery. As he stood there amazed at the immensity of the room, March brushed past him and slowly, almost hypnotically ran his hands over the equipment.

“My God,” March exclaimed. “They did it. They actually combined the engine room with the reactors and set them in the forward part of the ship.”