Gunnar places the prototype’s control helmet on his head and activates the optical display, then adjusts the small eyepiece over his right eye so he can see. Functioning similar to that of an Apache chopper pilot’s helmet, the headgear is linked directly to the minisub’s external sensors located in the Hammerhead’s snout. An image appears in Gunnar’s right eye—the interior of the dry dock, now filling with water.
The three passengers feel the sea lift the neutrally buoyant craft away from its skid. Moments later, the outer hatch of the docking chamber opens, exposing them to the Atlantic.
Gunnar throttles up the minisub’s pump-jet propulsor and accelerates out of the Colossus.
“Wolfe, can you hear me?”
Gunnar flips the toggle switch on the ship-to-ship. “Go ahead, Commander.”
“Come to course two-seven-zero. The Goliath has detected us. She’s abandoned the Vengeance and is running at forty knots. We’ll give chase, but this is your race.”
“Understood.”
Viewing the underwater world with his right eye, the control console with his left, Gunnar presses down on the foot pedals and sends the steel Hammerhead racing after the Goliath.
David retrieves a CD from his satchel and places it into a hard drive he has rigged to the prototype’s control console. “You need to get us within—”
“I know, I know, two hundred yards. This thing better work.”
“It’ll work. just drive the boat.”
Gunnar rockets the prototype past the enormous starboard wing of the Colossus, the faster minisub racing ahead of the 610-foot behemoth doing sixty knots.
Sonar pinpoints the Goliath, three thousand yards ahead.
Two thousand yards—the minisub closing fast.
Fifteen hundred yards—the minisub passing through a stream of bubbles.
Seven hundred yards—and now Gunnar can make out a dark mass looming ahead. “I can see her … damn, she’s big.”
Three hundred yards. “I’m approaching her starboard wing.”
“Stay beneath her, or she’ll sideswipe us like a fly.”
Gunnar adjusts his course, dropping beneath the steel leviathan.
Two hundred yards. “Now, David, now!”
David activates the acoustical beacon, the high-pitched sonic clicks reverberating like dolphin-speak throughout the sea.
One hundred fifty yards—the minisub tossing within the behemoth ray’s turbulence.
“David—”
“Give it a chance.”
One hundred yards. Gunnar weaves in and out of pockets of current, struggling to keep his vessel steady.
Then, without warning, the five monstrous propulsion units simply shut down and the Goliath slows to a crawl.
Aboard the Colossus
“Conn, sonar, confirm. The Goliath’s engines have shut down. The ship is slowing to drift. Fifteen knots … ten …”
Commander Lockhart glances at General Jackson. “So far, so good. Chief, take us in, make your course—”
A sudden shudder, as if the ship has run aground, followed by a chorus of groans as computer consoles begin lighting up like Christmas trees.
Lockhart grabs the 1-MC. “Damage control—”
“Conn, engine room, propulsors two, three, and four have shutdown.”
“Conn, electronics. Main computer’s not responding. Backup systems are down as well.”
“Conn, reactor room, we’ve got a major emergency. Both primary and secondary cooling circuits on reactors three and four have shut down!”
“Can you scram the reactors?”
“Negative. We’ve tried, but the computer’s gone haywire, it keeps overriding our commands. All backup cooling systems have failed, and the fuel rods are continuing to heat.”
“Can you shut it down manually?”
“Still trying, but the controls have overheated.”
Lockhart’s skin tingles with fear. “Chief, how soon to a meltdown?”
“Ten minutes … maybe. Pipes are bursting everywhere, we’re ankle deep in radioactive water. Fuel rod temperature just passed thirteen hundred degrees, the paint’s burning on the outer plating.”
“Get your men out of there. Seal off the compartment. Chief of the Watch, emergency blow, all main ballast tanks.”
“Belay that order,” Jackson says, pulling the captain aside. “Commander, technically, this vessel does not exist. Do you understand? You cannot surface her.”
Lockhart grits his teeth. Thinks. We’re still over the continental shelf. “Chief, how deep is the seafloor?”
“Nine hundred thirty feet.”
“Very well. Emergency descent, set her down on the bottom. Radio, launch distress buoys. Commander Terry, give the order to abandon ship. I want every crewmen in escape suits in three minutes.”
Aboard the Hammerhead minisub
Gunnar maneuvers the minisub beneath the inert Goliath. As he glides beneath its massive propulsion units, a square of luminescent yellow light appears up ahead, growing larger as the enormous doors located along the stingray’s belly open, beckoning him to enter.
David grins from ear to ear. “Told you it would work. Now take us inside and let’s finish the job.”
Gunnar pulls back on the joystick, guiding the prototype up through the opening and into the flooded chamber of the hangar bay. He sets the vessel down upon the decking closest to the forward wall of the compartment and waits for the bay door to reseal and the chamber to drain, his heart pounding with adrenaline.
The reverberations of hydraulics hum beneath them as the hangar bay closes. High pressure air shoots into the compartment as several dozen ramjet pumps situated beneath the decking suck seawater from the chamber.
The water drains quickly. Bright overhead lights ignite, shining down through the sliver of aqua blue Lexan glass located above Gunnar’s head.
And then the lights go out.
“David?”
“Relax, G-man, a minor glitch.”
“Maybe.” Gunnar frees himself from his harness, then removes a pair of ITT Generation-5 night-vision glasses from a side compartment of his console. He adjusts the glasses over his eyes, the interior changing from black to pea soup green.
Reaching above his head, he unseals the dorsal hatch. A whoosh of air as the hatch pops open and the cabin equalizes. He hears water dripping against an otherwise silent backdrop.
Gunnar leaves the OICW weapon beneath his seat and releases the safety of his M-4 carbine. Quietly, he climbs out of the minisub, gun drawn, his eyes searching for movement.
Left, right, center—nothing. Murphy’s Laws of Combat: If your attack is going really well, it’s probably an ambush.
Rocky jumps down from the minisub, fanning out to Gunnar’s left. “All clear. David, do your stuff.”
David remains in the minisub.
“David, let’s go—”
A sudden flash of steel, and Gunnar’s world goes topsy-turvy as one of the monstrous robotic claws snatches him about the knees within its six-foot-long tripod pincers. Lightning smooth, inhumanly graceful, the mechanical hand pivots 180 degrees around its wrist and rises, whisking him upside down and away from the deck with gut-wrenching force.
The carbine clatters to the floor.
The hangar lights flash on.
Gunnar tosses aside the night-vision glasses and looks around, helpless. He sees Rocky hanging upside down from the other mechanical hand, and then, from across the hangar, a slight figure steps out from behind a huge generator and walks toward him.
From around the perimeter, seven more men appear, their Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles drawn. One of the Arabs collects Gunnar’s carbine.