“Tom!”
“What is it?”
“I’ll be damned, but I think the submarine’s not missing.”
“It’s not?”
“No. It’s just hidden very well.”
Sam ran his hand along the cold, invisible steel, as he and Tom descended on the port side of the hulking dormant submarine.
At the base of the indiscernible object, he dug his hands deep into the sand and covered the top of the submarine with it. The sand scattered over the clear surface, slowly revealing the shape of the submarine’s conning tower.
He ran his hand along the hull on his way down to the seabed, making certain that he didn’t accidentally crash into an invisible exterior of the naval predator. He grabbed some more sand and started back toward the sail deck, hoping to discover the USS Omega Deep’s registration plate — and definitive proof that he had the right submarine.
Sam thought about the horrible task he’d been given. He needed to destroy the submarine, there was no doubt about that, but first he had to be certain.
His gaze extended outward, along the sandy seabed, across a small coral reef that caught his attention. It was a colorful mixture of deep reds, greens, and purples. Vibrant and exuding life. His right hand felt for the homing beacons in his BCD storage pack.
What a terrible waste.
Behind him, he heard Tom yell, “Holy shit!”
Sam snapped his head around, instinctively reaching for his knife, as though it might protect him from a shark or something.
Instead, he was confronted by a much larger predator — the USS Omega Deep.
Her Omega Cloak, a technological masterpiece had been unraveled like a magician’s cape, revealing her in all her glory.
And confirming that someone was still aboard.
Sam followed Tom down to the port side of the massive sunken sub. He watched as Tom swam out in front of him, dwarfed by the scale of the black monster that lay silent on the seabed. The submarine was matte black, and its exterior fuselage featureless. Sam noted the absence of the usual rubber anechoic tiles which reduce sound reflection and transmission. Somehow though, the whole ship seemed to still absorb light completely.
The divers approached the stern of the submarine and located the escape trunk hatch. Unlike its predecessors, the Omega Deep was fitted with two escape trunks, one on each side — each with horizontal access doors in place of the vertical escape chutes fitted to previous craft.
Tom shined his flashlight inside the narrow opening before going inside.
Sam said, “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“No. But I don’t think I could live with myself if I don’t. A third of the crew is still missing. I have to know the truth before we destroy what should have been my father’s legacy.”
“All right. I’ll come with you.”
“It’s all right, Sam. Prepare the magnetic homing beacons. I’ll be back out within a few minutes.”
Sam followed him inside. “No way. We go together. You’ve got ten minutes. Not a second more.”
Inside, there was a backlit numerical keypad which lit up red when a hand was close by. Sam entered the override code supplied to him by the secretary of defense’s office and the keypad color changed from solid red to flashing green. The pad flashed while the escape trunk filled with water, equalizing the pressure gradient on both sides of the door. After two minutes, the number pad turned solid green, and the escape hatch opened outwards.
Tom ushered Sam in with a wave of his gloved hand and Sam entered the lockout trunk. A ten by six-foot room, the escape trunk can accommodate 22 swimmers without gear, or 10 fully-loaded Navy SEALs. Sam smirked at Tom, who somehow managed to fill most of the rest of the space with his massive frame, weapon, and diving kit. They closed the hatch and locked it off. Sam operated the pump switch on a simple control panel to empty the room. The two men stood and doffed their headgear as the water around them drained out of grates in the floor. Once the hatch was empty, they relieved themselves of their dive gear completely and checked the status of their weapons.
Sam pulled night vision goggles for both of them from his pack, and they placed them on checking the ambient light settings. With a nod to Tom, Sam killed the lights in the hatch and they unlocked the door, opening it outwards on the count of three. They came out as two, one high and one low sweeping their carbines in opposite directions through the sections of fire to clear the immediate egress point. Using hand signals, Sam indicated Tom loop around the far side of the ordnance racks and meet up at the distant end of the room.
The air was thick with moisture, smelling of musty condensation. There were small puddles here and there under the racks of storage in the center of the room. The room was empty of other people though — that much was clear from the outset.
In the same fashion, the pair cleared room after room in the forward section of the submarine, finding everything intact and as it should be.
“The forward section of the boat’s been flooded at some point,” Sam said, relaxing a little and switching on the overhead lighting.
Tom removed his night vision goggles and ruffled his own messy brown hair. “Yeah, the starboard escape trunk door’s off, and the chamber’s a mess. Some kind of firefight.”
“Cause of the sinking maybe?”
“I’d say boarders more likely.”
“No one here now. What do you think?”
“I think we should clear the rest of the ship.”
They moved back to their insertion point, replaced their night vision goggles and started clearing the rest of the boat. It was as if the crew had just stepped out for a moment, leaving everything as it was. Bunk racks were tightly made with personal effects stowed under the mattresses. All ancillary systems were functioning, and there was power to all areas of the submarine. Sam was surprised at the headroom inside the newly built vessel. The last submarine he had been on was an Ohio class which had an ever-pervasive ceiling height of six feet, at the maximum. The Omega Deep had ample height for your average professional basketballer.
They kept the lights off and moved through the ship room by room. The command center was empty with all systems on standby. The pair moved forward again, into the nuclear reactor room. The systems all indicated in the green, and in perfect order. Using his override login again, Sam ran a diagnostic on the batteries and backups, all of which showed operational and on standby.
He was at the reactor’s main interface console when he felt it. The uneasiness of being watched. Tom knew it too. Sam sensed him take two steps back and flick the safety on his carbine. Sam slowly moved his hands to his own MP5.
“You won’t be needing those, gentlemen. I’m the only other living soul on this vessel at the moment.”
In night vision, the specter of the emaciated, heavily bearded old man was all that much eerier. He had a heavy, fatigued shuffle, and was leaning heavily on the apparatus surrounding the companionway. The man made his way into the glow from the monitor in front of Sam. With facial features negative in the green glow, hollow black eyes with iridescent white irises that stared out into the gloom.
“Dad?” Tom asked.
“In the flesh,” the old man answered.
Chapter Fifty
Tom took his father’s right hand in a firm grasp.
There was strength in Commander Bower’s return grip, but it was borne of tenacity and emotion, not the latent power Tom was used to feeling there. The skin of the hand was dry, raspy and tough — Tom could sense the bony features. He looked his father in the eye and placed his other hand on the commander’s left shoulder — it was the closest they ever got to a hug.