“Sir?”
David cleared his throat, arranging a plan in his head. “We keep quiet. Let them think they’ve won.”
“Then when do we act?”
“Once we know Kirkland’s on his way here. Away from his ship. Isolated.” He sat up. “Then we end it. You take his ship, jam all communication, and leave Jack to me. As long as I have the woman, he’ll come to us.”
Rolfe nodded. “Very good, sir. But what about Cortez?”
David grinned, unfolding his hands. “It seems we still have a bit of housecleaning to do tonight.”
11:14 P.M.
Grumbling, Cortez climbed down the ladder to the docking level.
The lowest tier was divided into three sections: the large docking bay; the pump room, with its quad of six-hundred-pound hydraulic ram pumps; and a small control room with neighboring storage facilities, called “garages.” The DSU’s armored suits were currently stored here.
Cortez crossed to the control panel. The board was automated. Push one button and the whole docking procedure would run smoothly. The bay would pressurize to match the outside water. Once done, the doors would open, allowing a sub egress or ingress; then the doors would close again.
Or so the blueprints suggested.
After dropping Karen off in her cabin, he had been informed by one of his technicians that there was a problem with the docking board. He thought about leaving it to one of the technicians, but no one knew the Neptune’s systems as well as he did. And with a call out already to his friend at Los Alamos, he was full of nervous energy.
Crouching by the control panel, Cortez slipped out a tool kit and quickly had the board open. The problem was easy enough to discover. One of the pumps had burned out a fuse. A minor problem. The docking bay could still function with the three remaining pumps, but it would slow things down.
Cursing the nuisance, Cortez made sure his toolbox held the proper fuses and entered the empty bay. The two subs—the Perseus and the Argus—were currently topside. In preparation for tomorrow’s evacuation of the sea base, both subs were being dry-docked and examined. Empty, the bay looked like a large warehouse, the walls lined by thick water pipes.
Toolbox in hand, he crossed toward the far side. It was a simple repair.
As he walked, he sensed that he wasn’t alone. Some primitive intuition of danger tingled his nerves. He slowed and turned, saw movement outside the bay door, a twitch of shadows.
His heart thundered in his chest. “Who’s there?”
He studied the door and the tiny observation window over the control station. No one answered. No one moved. Maybe it had been his imagination.
Slowly, he turned and continued walking toward the screw plate on the far side of the room. Already on edge, his nerves jangled warnings. His ears were keen to the smallest noises. All he heard was his own footsteps.
As he neared the far wall, a loud clang rang across the bay. He gasped with shock. With his heart now in his throat, he swung around. The bay’s hatch was closed. He watched the latches wheel tight.
“Hey!” he hollered. “I’m in here!”
He dropped the toolbox, pushed up his glasses and hurried across the bay. What if he got locked down here all night? The others were counting on him.
Halfway across, he heard a high-pitched hissing from overhead. He looked up in horror. He knew every inch of this place, every sound and wheeze of the great station. “Oh, God…no!”
The docking procedure had been engaged. The room was pressurizing.
He ran toward the door. He had to let someone know he was in here. Then movement caught his eye. Through the observation window, a head came into view. Cortez knew that face and its twisted, condescending smirk.
Spangler.
This was no accident. Cortez stumbled to a stop. Already, the pressure grew in his ears. Unchecked, it would build to match the outside depths—over a thousand pounds per square inch.
Cortez spun. Spangler must have been the one who had damaged the pump’s fuse—a trap to lure him down here. His only hope was to disable the remaining pumps’ engines. If he could remove the other three fuses…
He crossed toward the far wall and the abandoned toolbox. As he did, the pressure climbed in the room. It was getting hard to breathe. His vision narrowed. Gasping, he struggled onward.
Pain exploded in his head as his eardrums ruptured. He cried out, his hands flailing up, knocking his eyeglasses off. Blood ran down his neck.
And still the pressure built.
Stumbling, his vision dimmed; lights danced at the edges. Falling to his knees, he fought for breath. He collapsed to one hand, then another, as the pressure crushed him. Unable to breathe, he rolled to his side and fell. On his back, he was blind now, his eyes forced too deep into their bony sockets.
His fingers scrabbled at the floor, begging for mercy.
The large weight on his chest continued to grow. A flood of fire pained him as his ribs began to break, collapsing, ripping lungs that could no longer expand. And still the weight grew.
He quit struggling, releasing control. His wife, Maria, had given her life to the Neptune project before she died. It was somehow fitting that it should take his life, too.
Maria…honey…I love you.
Then at last, as if sighing out a final breath, his consciousness fled and darkness took him.
11:20 P.M.
Through the observation window, David stared out at the sprawled and broken body of the former research leader. He watched the man’s skull implode under the pressure, brain matter splattering out. As a diver, he had always known such a danger was faced by all who challenged the depths. But to witness it firsthand…
David turned away, swallowing back a twinge of queasiness. Horrible.
Rolfe stood by the control board. “Sir?”
“Flush this toilet.”
His second-in-command obeyed, flooding the bay.
19
Man o’ War
August 9, 5:02 A.M.
USS Hickman, East China Sea
Admiral Houston stood on the stern deck of the destroyer, the USS Hickman. Dawn had yet to rise, but to the south, fires raged, lighting the entire horizon.
He had never seen the ocean burn.
The nuclear strikes had been clean and decisive, destroying missile and air support installations along the blockade’s front. Batan, Senkaku Shoto, Lu wan: unknown to most of the world, these tiny outlying islands would soon become synonymous with Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Already, American forces were moving in to shatter the remaining blockade.
But not the Hickman. It was limping with the wounded back to the refuge of Okinawa. His right arm in a cast, Houston was counted among the injured. He had survived the sinking of the Gibraltar, escaping the ship just before the rain of missiles had torn her apart. Many had not. The dead and missing numbered in the thousands, including the C.O. of the ship and much of his command staff.