Juan gave Golov a mocking salute. Then with a nod to MacD, who was balanced on the railing alongside Eric, he threw the raft canister overboard at the same time that they jumped. The life raft inflated automatically when it hit the water. Juan gently lifted Gretchen’s limp body over the side and dropped with her into the Baltic Sea.
—
Golov watched as Cabrillo and the others with him were swept into the Achilles’s frothing wake.
“Captain, I must insist that we go,” Kravchuk said as he joined him on the bridge wing. “The Achilles is doomed.” The XO waved his hand at the fire raging through half the vessel.
Kravchuk was right. It was only a matter of time before the unchecked fire reached the fuel tanks.
Golov tore himself away from the sight of Cabrillo and the raft receding behind them, no doubt thinking they had successfully escaped.
But for Golov, this wasn’t over yet. He had one more card to play. An ace.
“We’re abandoning ship,” he told the XO. “Ready the submarine for launch.”
SIXTY-SIX
Large wind-driven swells made it a challenge for Juan to reach Gretchen. With powerful strokes, he finally made it to her, latched her vest to his, and swam toward the large yellow life raft, bobbing on the sea, twenty yards away.
As he swam, he saw the Achilles slow to a crawl. Several figures jumped overboard, but no lifeboats or additional rafts were launched. He thought he saw a splash in the dark space between the yacht’s twin catamaran hulls. He couldn’t be sure.
He scanned the water and spotted two orange life vests ahead of him near the raft. Those had to be Eric and MacD. Juan swam toward them harder, knowing that neither of them would have the strength to pull themselves into the raft once they reached it. He knew the Oregon was behind him and had to have seen the raft deployed. Max would be racing to pick them up.
The fire aboard the Achilles reached its apex. Huge geysers of flame shot into the sky, throwing off thick clouds of black smoke. The fuel tanks finally succumbed to the heat and exploded, annihilating the stern of the majestic yacht and blasting away shards of steel, fiberglass, gold, mahogany, and crystal. The bow, still on fire, settled into the water at a steep angle and seconds later disappeared from view. Except for an oil slick and floating bits of debris, the Achilles was gone.
Juan reached the raft. “How is everyone?” he asked MacD and Eric. He could see now that it was octagonal, with a weatherproof canopy to shield occupants from the sun and rain.
“Going swimmingly,” MacD said with a forced grin.
Eric coughed up some water. “I could sleep for about three days.”
Both of them looked ashen but in good spirits.
“I think shore leave for the entire crew has been well earned,” Juan said as he untied Gretchen’s line. He hauled himself into the raft, pausing to catch his breath before pulling Gretchen in with him. Then he pulled up MacD and, finally, Eric, who cried out when a wave hit them and caused his leg to bang against the lip of the raft.
Juan checked Gretchen. She was still unconscious. He brushed the hair from her face and swaddled a reflective blanket around her to keep her warm. Frustrated that he couldn’t do more for her, he lay back in exhaustion and triggered his mic. “Max, can you read me?”
Max’s voice came back garbled and indistinct, the result of damage to Juan’s comm system.
“Juan . . . you seen . . . coming to . . . sonar . . .”
“Max, if you can hear, tell Julia to get the medical team ready. We’ve got casualties.”
“Juan . . . it’s coming toward you . . .” He could now hear that Max’s voice had an urgency that he wasn’t expecting.
He peered out of the canopy’s opening, expecting to see the Oregon coming toward them. Instead, he saw a disturbance in the water, like the wake of a ghost ship. Moments after that, a black fin pierced the surface as it rose.
No, not a fin. A conning tower.
It was the Achilles’s submarine. And it was charging straight toward them.
The conning tower hatch flew open and there was Golov, maniacally grinning at Juan as he brandished an assault rifle.
Juan momentarily thought about dumping everyone overboard and diving under the water, but there wasn’t enough time and he didn’t think the others would make it back to the surface. All of their weapons had been discarded when they jumped into the water, but he still had the .45 ACP Colt Defender in his combat leg. He drew it and found the raft’s flare gun, which he wielded with his other hand. Neither was a match for a high-powered assault rifle at this distance.
Golov seemed to agree with his assessment and waggled a finger at Juan when they were a hundred yards away, well out of effective range of his pistol. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and waved good-bye to Juan.
Before he could fire, someone from inside the sub grabbed Golov’s attention. He yanked the rifle away from his shoulder, called down into the sub, then looked to his left in horror.