Standing on the bridge of the submarine with Captain Ziyax, Graham was nearly consumed with anger and impatience, though he let none of that show. It had been nearly two hours since al-Hari had returned to the Distal Volente to get their crew squared away, secure the transferring crew of the Shehab, and ferry over the repair supplies and consumables. And still the forward-loading hatch had not been closed.
Every minute they remained out here increased their risk of discovery, though the sonar and radar officers reported no targets within twenty kilometers. But there was always the risk of a chance discovery by an American or British satellite.
The interior spaces, machinery, and electrical and electronics systems aboard were only marginally better than the hull. But nearly everything worked or seemed to be repairable. The officers seemed competent; at least they appeared to know their jobs, although their resentment had become palpable the moment they’d been informed that their captain was being replaced by an infidel.
But anger was a useful tool to mold a ragged mob into a cohesive crew, Graham thought. It was a tool he’d used often.
Though not for himself. He needed to remain calm, in control, superior, the leader of men, no matter how badly he wanted to lash out at all of them; bastards who had allowed his wife to die utterly alone.
Graham keyed his walkie-talkie. “What’s your situation?” he radioed tersely.
“Five minutes, Captain,” al-Hari responded. He was still aboard the Distal Volente with two other Iranian submariners.
“Trouble?”
“La,” al-Hari came back. No.
Graham pocketed the walkie-talkie and picked up the boat’s communicator handphone. “Sonar, bridge, has anyone taken notice of us?”
“Bridge, sonar. My display is still clear, sir.”
He switched to the radar-electronic support measures officer. “ESM, bridge. What’s it look like?”
“Nothing hot within one hundred kilometers,” the young Iranian officer responded. He was one of Graham’s. “Three minutes ago, I picked up something very briefly, but it was way east, and high. Probably Egyptian air force, and it turned away from us toward Israel.”
“Keep your eyes open, Ahmad, we’ll be running on the surface for most of the night,” Graham ordered, then he switched to the control room which for the moment was being manned by Ziyax’s XO. “Conn, bridge.”
It took several moments for al-Abbas to answer, and he sounded surly. “Aywa.”
Graham’s anger spiked, but he held himself in check. For now he wanted to get under way. He would deal with the lieutenant commander later, though not much later. “Prepare to get under way.”
“Submerged?”
“Negative,” Graham said. “We’ll run on the surface for as long as we can. But I want the boat prepared for sea in all respects, including emergency-dive procedures.”
“Aywa.”
Graham replaced the growler phone in its cradle beneath the coaming. Ziyax had been watching him closely.
“Assam is a good officer,” he said.
“We’ll see,” Graham replied. Al-Hari and the last two Iranian submariners appeared out of the darkness in one of the rubber boats from the Shehab. The Distal Volente’s gig had been winched back aboard the freighter and would remain there.
He looked up. The sky had gone cloudy and the night had become even darker than it had been at midnight. But there wasn’t much time until dawn, when they would have to submerge, and he was seething because of the unexpected delay. He wanted to be as far away from here as possible before daybreak.
Graham turned to Ziyax and fixed the man with a hard stare. “I suggest that you counsel him. If he or any of your officers decide they’d rather not cooperate, there will be a solution that will not be much to their liking.”
“Does that include me?” Ziyax asked.
“Especially you, Captain,” Graham responded.
The Libyan watched the rubber raft approaching. He nodded toward the Distal Volente. “What about the rest of my crew? Are they to be returned to Ra’s al Hilal? It wasn’t in my orders, nor was it made clear to me. I was told that you would explain where they were to be taken.”
“They cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of any Western intelligence agency, or Mossad.”
“Yes, I understand this,” Ziyax said. It was obvious that he was beginning to suspect that something drastic might be about to happen. “Of course they can be held on base until your mission develops.”
Graham said nothing, watching as al-Hari and the two crewmen reached the submarine, scrambled aboard, and deflated the rubber raft.
Al-Hari looked up and nodded before he went forward to the loading hatch, and disappeared below, closing the hatch behind him.
“They can be taken to one of your training camps in Syria,” Ziyax argued. “They would be safe from capture there.”
“We can’t take the chance, Captain,” Graham said, taking the walkie-talkie out again. “I’m told this was Colonel Quaddafi’s suggestion, actually.”
“Place them under arrest,” Ziyax implored. “Give them a chance. They could join the jihad.”
Graham switched channels, and glanced with supreme indifference at the Libyan captain. He held out the walkie-talkie. “They were your crewmen. Would you like to do it?”
“This is monstrous,” Ziyax said, backing away.
Graham depressed the Push-to-Talk switch, his eyes never leaving the Libyan officer’s.
The sound of a muffled bang came across the water to them, and then three others in rapid succession. The first explosive device had been placed directly beneath the mess where the Shehab’s crew had been locked up. It was a bit of common decency that al-Hari had insisted upon.
“They’re not our enemy.”
“But they could betray us,” Graham had explained, though it had been unnecessary for him to do so. Al-Hari would cooperate now, no matter the task. But sometimes it was interesting to see how far a man would go for his petty little feelings of squeamishness.
“Yes, they must die, Captain. But not by drowning,” al-Hari argued. “Every submariner hates the thought of drowning more than anything else.”
“As you wish,” Graham had magnanimously agreed.
Now everyone aboard the Distal Volente was dead, and the ship immediately began to settle, bow down, her bottom ripped open by three explosive charges that had been placed very low in the bilges.
The growler phone squawked. “Bridge, sonar.”
Graham picked it up as he watched the freighter sinking. “Bridge, aye.”
“There were four small explosions close aboard, sir,” the Libyan sonar operator reported excitedly.
“Insh’allah,” Graham replied, and he couldn’t help but chuckle as the Distal Volente disappeared.
A large gray object popped to the surface a few meters from where Captain Subandrio was treading water. Other bits and pieces, the remains of his ship, appeared farther away in a widening trail of oil slick.
He could just make out the humpbacked form of the submarine one hundred meters away, and although he had been raised in a Buddhist home to have tolerance and forbearance for his enemy, he swore he would have his revenge. For that he needed to survive, and to remember exactly what he’d witnessed out here tonight, and for the past days since Tunisia.
There’d been four explosions, which he’d felt in his chest through the waterborne shock waves, and his ship had sunk in a remarkably short time.