Moments later two more torpedoes struck; their impact was almost simultaneous and the collective effect orgasmic. The magazine of the cruiser, packed with its lethal ordnance, ignited, blowing the mid-ship part of the vessel into thousands of pieces of flying metal and flesh.
The submarine secured to the cruiser on the lee side of the first torpedo’s impact was not physically affected but the second and final detonation totally consumed the conning tower and mid section of the heavily laden craft. The commander, still clutching his map case, was blown cart wheeling high into the air to fall unconscious into the sea over one hundred metres away.
The submarine literally folded in two, snapping the relatively feeble mooring lines, and sank quickly to the ocean floor some sixty metres below.
The cruiser, ripped into two grotesque shattered hunks of twisted iron, sank within minutes, the two halves going into a gradual dive, spewing a great stream of debris as it plunged. Then, gripped by the ferocious current, the separate sections drifted, rolling and skidding towards the subterranean cliff where the buckled submarine had become lodged. One of the sections of the cruiser paused briefly, then gracefully slipped over the edge. It wouldn’t stop until it hit the bottom of the ravine, over one thousand metres below the surface. The other half remained precariously balanced on the very edge of the chasm.
The US Attack Class submarine surfaced within minutes of the two vessels vanishing below the waves.
The scene as the commander peered over the brim of his dripping conning tower was horrific; dozens of pitiful charred carcasses littered the sea, drifting amongst dozens of singed life vests and other flotsam. The first sharks were already nudging the silent corpses, testing for resistance before tearing them apart.
There were only two live survivors to be found in the weak morning light.
“OK, Bring them on board before the sharks get them, then let’s see what we’ve got!” the Texan voice drawled. The two men, both still unconscious, were dragged not too gently aboard. One appeared to be a deckhand from the cruiser. The other, the enemy submarine’s commander, his leather map case still looped around his shoulders. The recovery crew prepared to lower the survivors gently through the open hatch in the foredeck.
Below the surface, the Japanese submarine was settling into its rocky grave; the ocean silt disturbed by its arrival was already clearing in the powerful current. A mixture of bubbles and oil continued to stream from the torn and fractured hull. There was no longer any sign of human movement; the remaining seamen had already choked their lives away inside the shattered tube.
A number of sharks were assembling and peering inquisitively at the new arrival. Several cruised silently around the wreckage, casually tasting the new flavours disturbed by the intruder.
Suddenly, as if in a final act of rebellion, the last dry electrical circuit flashed a weak arc of current. The bow tube opened silently, the release control operated effortlessly and its special self-seeking torpedo ejected gracefully from the one remaining undamaged tube. Its electric motor hummed happily, the propeller thrashing eagerly at the water. Speeding away in a cloud of bubbles, the deadly missile arched upwards in a gentle turn as the powerful current made its presence felt. Suddenly the auto-sensors detected its prey; the torpedo responded, corrected its direction slightly and then raced greedily to the kill.
The sharks, panicked by the rush of compressed air from the dying submarine, retreated well out of sight in a flash of acceleration.
The sonar man in the American submarine screamed into his microphone, “Torpedo launch Sir. One hundred metres and closing!”
The captain looked instinctively into the water surrounding his boat, shouting into his own head set at the same time, his senses numb with the reality.
“All ahead full. Give me a direction?”
“Oh God!” was the reply and the last human sound he was ever to hear. The torpedo struck the hull a few metres from the bow, exploding in the torpedo room. The chain reaction from the blast disintegrated the whole forward section of the craft, killing everyone in there and in the adjoining control room. The remains of the boat dipped forward, rapidly filling with water.
Amidst screams of panic, the surviving men scrambled frantically out through the rear hatches and the remains of the shattered conning tower. Within seconds, the submarine listed and began to sink. Like her former targets, she was so badly mutilated that she could no longer resist the inevitable ingress of the sea and vanished quickly below the waves.
The sharks, initially scattered by the explosion, soon recovered their courage and angrily returned to examine their latest tormentor.
Cruising at a safe distance around the newest settling hulk, they gradually formed into a large shoal as oil and bubbles continued to escape erratically from the dead tube. Warily, the beady-eyed predators circled, waiting patiently for their chance to examine the latest visitor to their hostile environment.
Soon their senses noted the wonderful taste of blood, followed by a familiar splashing in the water from the roof of their world: that wonderfully tantalising sound of creatures in distress. Inquisitive, some cruised gracefully to the surface, where closer cautious examination revealed the mighty feast awaiting them. Blood from the many wounded seamen poured into the water caressing their senses like a pre-lunch appetiser; soon there was more much more blood.
The screams of the terrified dying men fell on deaf ears. There would be no help, just a horrifying nightmare as the struggling survivors were systematically picked off and ripped apart.
Later that evening a native dhow heading home from its fishing ground slowed and stopped. The water was littered with hundreds of seagulls picking over the multitude of flotsam from the combined tragedies.
The collection of empty life jackets from lost vessels of all nations were all too common a sight these days and had no obvious value to the fisherman. One rather different floating object, however, caught his sharp opportunist eye. Reaching down with the boat hook, he pulled a leather map case from the water; the strap had somehow looped around an empty wooden packing case and remained afloat. He had no idea of its real purpose nor did he care.
“It may be worth something in the market,” he mused as he opened the flap. There was nothing inside; he hung it indifferently over the lifebelt by the wheelhouse door to dry and resumed his journey.
Almost sixty years later Oscar Nippon, an ageing Japanese businessman, sat with his younger friend and partner Greg Sing at a quayside café on the Singapore waterfront sipping cold mint tea. Oscar was tall and slim, a striking looking man in his early sixties. It was just over a year since they’d sat at the same café celebrating their safe arrival in Singapore following their hair-raising escape from Manila after completing their successful ‘Treasure Hunt’ for a great hoard of gold and platinum. Now, amazingly, they had finally completed the legitimate sale of the precious metals they’d so successfully spirited out of the Philippines.
Their hunt for ‘Yamashta’s Gold’ had been a long and tragic story, involving a costly and painful tangle with some of the Syndicate’s most ferocious and violent enforcers. On top of that, they’d also had to fight off the cunning attention of corrupt local officials as well a traitor from within the legitimate law enforcement agency SONIC (Special Operations National and International Cooperation).
The purpose of their informal meeting today was essentially symbolic and to acknowledge that their promise to the partners, murdered by Syndicate agents, had been fulfilled and “possibly to exchange ideas for their own individual plans for the future” as Greg teasingly suggested.