Final Option (Oregon Files 14)

“I hate to break it to you, but it has become a bit ripe in there,” Cabrillo said, pointing inside the chamber. “Let’s close it up so we can leave.”

The only thing Bradley wanted to retain from his ordeal was the notebook. He pocketed it and stepped into the air lock while Cabrillo unpacked what he’d been carrying. It was another drysuit and helmet.

“How did you know it would only be me in here?” Bradley asked.

“I didn’t. Figured I might have to make multiple trips. Have you ever used heliox?”

“Once.”

“I hope the suit fits, because we don’t have any other options. MacD looks about your size.”

Bradley started putting on the suit. “MacD?”

“The guy who was wearing this suit until a few minutes ago. He’s back on Nomad, helping clear off the rear escape trunk. Besides, we only have room for two at a time in our air lock.”

None of this was making any sense to Bradley, but he didn’t have much choice but to go with Cabrillo.

He’d finished gingerly pulling his suit over his broken arm when they heard a loud ping.

“Was that from your sub?” Bradley asked as Cabrillo handed him the helmet.

Juan shook his head. “That’s from the Barosso. We need to get out of here.”

The corvette on the surface had just scanned them with their active sonar.

* * *

—

Captain Tomás Vega, the Barosso’s commanding officer, doubted that his sonar officer really had heard a scraping noise coming from the Kansas City, but he couldn’t take the chance that something else was down there. He was responsible for the nuclear sub until the U.S. Navy arrived and he wasn’t going to give his country a black eye by letting something happen to it before the Americans could attempt a rescue.

“Anything on the scope?” Vega asked the sonar man.

“Contact bearing two-seven-five!”

“Identify.”

“Small submersible. Unknown origin. It has moved away from the Kansas City.”

Vega turned to the communications officer. “Radio the U.S. Navy. Find out if they have any ships or subs operating in the area.”

After a minute, the comms officer said, “Negative. The U.S. says they don’t have anything close to us.”

“Then we have to consider an unknown sub hostile,” Vega said. “Put some distance between us and the

Kansas City.” He looked at the weapons officer. “Prepare to fire an anti-submarine torpedo.”

40

Juan’s mind was racing as he tried to put himself in the Barosso’s captain’s shoes. They would likely consider a strange sub hovering near the Kansas City a threat. That meant the Nomad was in danger, and it was defenseless.

When Juan had squeezed past the SEAL Delivery Vehicle to get access to the air lock, he had noticed that it was equipped with two mini-torpedoes.

The dry deck shelter air lock was nearly full of water when Juan said to Bradley, “Does that SDV work?” Their helmets used acoustic transducers for underwater communication.

“The batteries should still be charged,” Bradley said in a chipmunk-pitched voice now that his lungs were full of the heliox.

“Have you operated one before?”