He activated the light on his watch and checked the time: four minutes remaining.
Maddock scissor-kicked into motion along the side of the ship toward the stern work deck. He swam underwater as much as possible to reduce the noise and chances of being seen, and because it was still a fast stroke. Even so, the ship’s long body seemed to stretch out forever in front of him, almost as if it grew longer each time he surfaced for a breath. He began to worry. If he was not out of the water when the explosive detonated, his body would be subject to the concussion waves. And this time he wasn’t even wearing a wetsuit.
He swam faster, eyes open in the darkness, seeking the blurry form of the monstrous hull lest he stray too far out into the lagoon or even worse, stray beneath the ship. He suppressed the strong urge to stop and look at his watch. Just kept swimming like he was in a race against an invisible opponent. Before long he could hear the shouts of men and he knew he was approaching the stern work deck. He began to look for the boarding ladder.
Up ahead, still an Olympic pool length away. Again Maddock resisted the urge to check his watch and pushed on. He swam harder than he ever had in his life, even during BUDS training. Told himself not to look up, not yet, he wasn’t there yet. He forced himself to count to thirty before checking his progress.
…28 Mississippi…29 Mississippi…30 Mississippi…
He raised his head, and there it was: the iron rungs set into the side of the ship, maybe fifty feet away. And just beyond that, the shadow of an airplane limned against the moonlit sky, hanging half over the rail. With Bones hopefully still undetected inside.
Maddock swam to the ladder and began to climb, his first priority to get himself out of the water where he would be much less vulnerable to the underwater explosion. When he had climbed about halfway up the side of the ship he stopped and consulted his watch, hanging there like a rock climber on the side of a huge, smooth face.
00:04…
Four seconds to detonation. Maddock braced for impact, careful not to let his body touch the ship itself, only contacting the rungs.
He closed his eyes and held his breath.
Chapter 31
Maddock counted down to zero and gripped the rungs on the side of the ship.
Nothing happened.
He turned his head to the right, as if to look down to where he had placed the bomb and witness an explosion so small that it hardly had any effect here. And then he felt it.
The bomb exploded, a tongue of fire bursting out of the side of the ship. He heard the muffled boom and felt the vibrations in his hands and feet as he clung to the ladder. He held on tightly, not sure how bad it would get, but after five more seconds, when the rumbling had ceased, he focused his attention upwards.
The work deck. Bones. It was time to move. He was certain the ship had been crippled, though couldn’t be sure how bad the damage was at this point. Regardless, many men would be focused on responding to it, and then fixing it. This was the distraction he had sought, his opportunity to act.
Panicked shouts filled the air as Maddock monkeyed up the rungs. He slowed as he neared the top and looked to his left toward the model plane. He saw it, though not where he remembered it to be relative to his position. Either the crew had already moved it while he was gone, or else the blast must have moved it, because now it hung much lower to the water, and closer to the rungs, too. He was actually looking down into the cockpit, and…there was Bones! Still in the cockpit but now in a kneeling position, looking around.
“Bones!” Maddock called out in a strong voice that was less than a yell. He forgot about the cover name, deciding it no longer mattered. His SEAL partner still knelt in the model plane, looking about, but not back to Maddock. “Bones!” He tried again.
This time he saw Bones’ head whirl.
“Over here!” Maddock waved an arm in the darkness from his position on the ladder. This time Bones locked in on the source of the sound and spotted the darkened human form hanging from the side of the ship.
“Maddock? If that’s you give our ops signal.” Maddock flashed a series of hand signals, almost like a gang sign, that he hoped Bones could make out well enough in the dim light.
“What happened?”
“I made up with our friend Shankey. Tell you later. We’ve got to get moving.”
Bones looked up at the deck of the ship. “I think we are moving.” Indeed, the ship had a pronounced list to it now, and it slowly continued to lean into the water on their side. Maddock found it hard to believe the little bomb had done that much damage, but his placement had been strategic. He looked down at the water, noting the angle. He knew that although it started slowly at first, when a ship finally did sink it happened quickly, and one did not want to be in the water with it when it did. The suction of the massive object sinking below the waves had been known to bring men down with it who were not actually trapped on the vessel. Not to mention the possibility of being crushed by the ship itself as it capsized.
“Can you get out of that plane? What’ve you been doing in there all this time?”
“Catching up on my sleep. Get out to where? Overboard?”
“No. Bones, it looks like this thing is going down.”
“Maybe if we jump ship now and swim for the island, we’ll be clear before it sinks. It’s either that or we climb back aboard, but what for?”
Maddock shook his head in the darkness and pounded a fist against the steel hull. How had their mission become so derailed? It was hard to accept. So hard that he made a split-second decision, a rash one, to re-board the ship and take advantage of the chaos to make one more try for a sat-phone. That was the whole point of the explosion, anyhow.
“To make our call.”
Bones was silent. They both knew that if enough time went by the Navy would come looking for them, but with the way things were going there was no guarantee they’d last that long. And an even more uncomfortable thought struck Maddock as he hung there: would the Navy come for them if they didn’t make a call? Because no call meant that things had gone south, and if things had gone south, it might not take much for some top brass to want to wash their hands of the matter; smallpox indeed. If they did manage to make the call, on the other hand, they’d be on an aircraft bound for home in about six hours, their Amelia Earhart contraband safe and sound.
To Maddock’s surprise, Bones stood up in the cockpit of the hanging replica.
“Be right there.” And then he dove from the plane into the water, pushing off of the model, sending it rocking backward to swing from its cable. Maddock tensed, turning around to see where Bones landed. But Bones was a SEAL, and he gave no trace of his presence until his dark-skinned arm thrust out from the water to hook through the first rung. He began to climb, pausing once to point upward, a sign for Maddock.
Go!
Maddock started to climb, attuning his senses to the ship’s deck. A lot of shouts came from farther down the ship where the damage was, but as far as he could tell the stern work deck had emptied out. Nevertheless, he stopped at the top rung and slowly raised his head until he could peer over the rail at the deck. It was empty. He looked down and saw Bones nearing his position on the ladder. He waved him on and then jumped onto the deck of the ship for the second time that night.
Bones joined him a few seconds later, both of them dripping water onto the deck. “Where to?”
Maddock pointed across the deck, over to the lifeboats they’d hidden behind earlier.