Through the headset connected to the Motorola radio clipped to his vest, he said, “We’re already forty minutes late. What’s the problem now?”
“Trying to squeeze the second med bag in,” Davis reported. “Not gonna fit.”
Ideally, he wanted as much redundancy as possible. According to the saying on the teams, “Two is one and one is none”-which meant two or three of everything, extra batteries, plenty of mags, flashlights, radios. But space was so limited this time, and there were some things they absolutely had to carry. A second complete medical bag, though it could prove to be critical, wasn’t at the top of his list of priorities.
“All right, give me the second bag and I’ll go through it.”
With the Dallas floating on the surface, they moved back and forth in the DDS attached to the sub’s forward escape hatch. The DDS allowed the operators to prepare for the op in a dry environment, but it gave them very little room to maneuver. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than trying to load the SDV in the water, with tanks on their backs.
Crocker set the second med bag on the metal floor of the DDS and started tearing through it. As he did, the pilot and the copilot ran a final check.
“O2 tanks?”
“Check.”
“Backup rebreathers?”
“Check.”
“Level on the lithium-ion?”
“Fully charged at nine-point-nine-nine-five.”
“Backup battery?”
“Charged to the max.”
“Sonar?”
“Working.”
Crocker removed everything except two SAM splints to stabilize broken bones, four rolls of tape, four chest seals with one-way valves so that air could escape but not enter the pleural lining, four packs of gauze, tourniquets, pressure dressings, IVs, and fluids. He tossed the rest of the gear down the forward hatch to one of the sub’s sailors. Then he repacked the med bag so it was about half its previous size.
He passed it to Davis. “Try it now.”
Davis stuffed the bag and his big body into the sled-shaped SDV and came out a minute later flashing a thumbs-up.
“That should do it, then.”
Davis, on his hands and knees, got into Crocker’s face. He said, “Boss, I don’t care what these tight assholes say. You and I can drive this crate ourselves.”
Crocker couldn’t help but smile. He knew what Davis was doing-lobbying to be included on the mission even though there wasn’t any room. “Sorry, Davis,” he said. “Not this time.”
“Fuck all, boss, I just don’t feel good about you going out there without me to watch your flank and run comms.”
“I appreciate that, buddy. I need you to helo back to the Carl Vinson and stay with Min, and monitor us from the tactical ops center.”
“Aye, aye, boss. Call me if you need me. I’ll parachute in. Good luck.”
The man in front of Dawkins with the red mole on his chin was using a direct ophthalmoscope to examine Dawkins’s eyes and test the reflexes of his pupils. He didn’t tell him that he was looking for signs of a stroke.
“Doctor, can I ask you something?” Dawkins asked.
Finding no evidence of a major neurological event, the doctor picked up a small syringe from the table behind him that was filled with a yellow dye called fluorescein. He swabbed the inside of Dawkins’s forearm with rubbing alcohol and inserted it.
“Why are you doing this?”
The doctor didn’t answer. Nor did the young aide who stood behind him watching. Dawkins felt the liquid enter his vein and waited for its effect. He didn’t know whether it was an amphetamine, a truth serum, or some medicine to get him to sleep.
He told himself to stay as still as possible. That had been his default defense since he was a kid. Like the time his father had scolded him for taking apart the living room stereo, and he stood perfectly still on the carpet, looking down at his sneakers. He understood that movement in his current circumstance wasn’t good. It would bring completion, and completion could bring horror and death.
Now the doctor rolled an elaborate device in front of him and maneuvered Dawkins’s head so his chin rested on a metal bar in front of a lens.
The aide said, “Keep you head still, Mr. Dawkins.”
A light flashed in front of him, blinding his right eye. For a split second he saw Nan standing in front of him in a white slip. He heard the click of a camera and willed himself to register only immediate impressions-the scrape of the chair across the floor, the diffuse quality of the light, the smoothness of the metal bar under his chin, the creases in the doctor’s face.
The configuration of the SDV made it impossible for Crocker to sit up comfortably. Instead, he had to lean forward and drop his head. He sat shoulder to shoulder with Sam, his knees pressed into the space between Suarez and Akil in front.
I fucking hate these things, he said to himself, wondering how he could endure three and a half more hours of this. The twenty-one-foot-long aluminum alloy submersible looked like a flattened torpedo with an open top. Beyond a thin aluminum partition the pilot and copilot sat before a panel of glowing dials that indicated Doppler navigation sonar, speed, heading, depth, and distance traveled. The pilot used a joystick to control vertical and horizontal angles by manipulating the forward bow planes and aft elevators. All the electronic instruments were sealed within watertight compartments. But the rest of the interior, crew, and passengers were exposed to the ocean water, which hovered at around fifty-six degrees. Crocker kept a close eye on that measurement, because given the operators’ inability to move their limbs, long-term exposure to temps below fifty could produce symptoms of diver degradation and hypothermia.
It helped enormously that underneath his 5mm triple-stitched wet suit, he wore a specially designed “smart” suit made of a polymer membrane that adapted to changes in the air or water temperature. It had been developed at the Natick Soldier Systems Center specifically for SEAL use in a wide variety of environments.
While he breathed through the regulator connected to the SDV’s compressed air supply in tanks behind him, the vehicle’s electronic engine pulled them through the ocean at 18 knots (21 miles an hour) at a depth of 10.5 feet.
Crocker glanced at his watch, which read 2156, and spoke into the mike embedded in his silicon/plastic Oceanpro dive mask: “Tiger One, this is Deadwood. What are we looking at in terms of EST?”
“Deadwood, EST to the lovely vacation destination of Keno currently stands at 0109,” Naylor responded in code. “That breaks down to approximately three kilos, thirteen mikes traveling time. Sit back and enjoy the ride. The stewardess will be by soon to take your drink order. Dinner service is available at any time by simply reaching out and grabbing any of the sea life that swims past. Over.”
“Roger, Tiger One. We got shit we need to get done. Can’t we kick this baby up any faster? Over.”
“Deadwood, that’s a negative. Remember, half the fun is getting there.”
“Forget the fun part. You got this crate cranked up to max?”
“Pedal to the metal, Deadwood.”
He busied himself by checking to make sure his depth gauge was attached to his belt, along with dive gloves, MK3 underwater signal flares, strobe light, dive hood, and M4 combat knife. At his feet sat ScubaPro Jet dive fins, a laser target designator, TAC-200 diver swim board, and a waterproof pack that he could strap to his shin to carry his pistol, a specially modified AK-47 with suppressor and extra mags. A Draeger LAR V rebreather unit waited in the cargo space should it be needed, along with a larger waterproof backpack with med pack, grenades, mags, chemical canisters, batteries, MREs, a water bladder, comms, and Dragon Skin tactical vest made from overlapping silicon-carbon-ceramic disks and capable of stopping 7.62.x51 full metal rounds fired at an impact velocity of 2,810 feet per second.
Everything accounted for and in place. He checked his watch and saw that a mere fifteen minutes had passed.