“Yeah, that’s not adding pressure,” Linda replied, never taking her eyes off her computer screens.
She released more ballast, her fingers featherlight on the joystick and throttle. She made tiny corrections as the opening loomed larger and larger.
“You’re doing great,” Juan said from the copilot’s seat.
Foot by foot, the gap narrowed until the Nomad was directly below the ship. They could hear the quiet hum of her revolutionary engines and the sluice of water through her drive tubes.
Linda slowed the Nomad a fraction, so that it drifted back to the aft part of the moon pool, the submersible’s rear fins and propellers less than a foot from the opening. “Here we go,” she said, and dumped the remaining hard ballast, a hopper loaded with a half ton of metal balls.
The Nomad popped up and broached the surface. Though roiled like a cauldron because the Oregon wa
s making three knots, the water in the pool was motionless in relation to the submersible. The mini began to accelerate forward. Linda kicked on emergency reverse thrust as the little sub quickly crossed the pool, which was barely twice the sub’s length. An inflatable fender that spanned the width of the pool had been lowered to the water’s edge for just such a contingency. The sub hit it so softly that it barely compressed.
Pairs of feet slapped down on the top of the Nomad as technicians attached lifting lines to the submersible’s hardpoints. Below them, the doors were already closing. Linda let out a relieved sigh, flicking her wrists to ease the cramping.
Juan patted her shoulder. He could see the strain in her eyes. “Couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“Thanks,” she said tiredly. She cocked her head as if listening to a voice in the distance. “I think I hear my bathtub calling me.”
“Go ahead,” Juan said, sliding back off his seat and leaving a puddle on the dark vinyl. “You’ve more than earned it.”
The team was waiting under the hatch when the Nomad was set onto its cradle and the outer lid popped open. Despite the fact he was still dripping on the nonslip floor, Juan let his team precede him out of the mini. A tech handed him a headset without being asked. “Eric, you there?”
“Right here, Chairman,” Eric Stone said from his place in the Operations Center.
“As soon as the doors are closed, take us up to eighteen knots. How long before we clear the strait?”
“Two and a half hours, give or take, and it will be another fifteen hours to the rendezvous coordinates.”
Cabrillo would have liked to have the torpedoes and all the technical information Eddie had pirated from the computer off the ship as quickly as possible, but the timing to meet up with the USS Tallahassee, a Los Angeles Class fast-attack submarine, had to be carefully coordinated to avoid spy satellites and the chance of a nearby ship spotting the transfer.
“Okay, thanks. Tell Hali to keep a sharp ear out for military chatter coming from Bandar Abbas. If he gets anything, wake me in my cabin.”
“Will do, boss man.”
Max was overseeing the removal of the rocket torpedoes from under the Nomad, working a chainfall himself to lower them onto motorized carts. Eddie had already placed the computer drive loaded with information into a waterproof hard case.
Juan slapped one of the weapons with his palm. “Five million apiece, plus another million for the information off the computer. Not bad for a day’s work.”
“You should call Overholt now so he knows we nabbed two of these babies and doesn’t have a heart attack when he gets our bill.”
“A shower first,” Juan said. “Then I’ll call him. You turning in?”
Max glanced at his watch. “It’s near four-thirty. I think I’m going to stay up and help out with the rest of the work to put the ship back in order. Maybe enjoy a sunrise breakfast.”
“Suit yourself. Good night.”
THE TERM POSH originated during the time of the British Raj in India, when passengers booking ships to their imperial postings in Bombay or Delhi asked for portside cabins on the way to India and for starboard cabins on the return to England. This way, their rooms were always on the shaded side of the ship. Booking agents shortened “Port Out, Starboard Home” to POSH, and a new word entered the English language.
Cabrillo’s cabin was on the port side of the Oregon, but the angle the ship sailed relative to the sun allowed light to stream through his porthole and made his suite swelter despite the air-conditioning. He woke bathed in sweat, momentarily disoriented about what had roused him until he heard the phone ring a second time.
He glanced at the big wall clock opposite his bed, as he yanked his arms free of the twisted sheets. It wasn’t yet eight and already the sun was a torture.
He lifted the handset. “Cabrillo.”
“Chairman, it’s Hali. The jig is up.”
Juan did some mental calculations as the news sank in. The Oregon would be clear of the strait by now but wouldn’t have ventured very far into the Gulf of Oman. They were still very much within Iran’s military sphere of influence.