Matthew increased the range and decreased the angle of the transducers. “We’re working on it.”
On the edge of the horizon to the starboard bow, a vessel appeared.
Elise flipped the radar monitor around to the side. “We have a battleship on the horizon.”
“Where?” Matthew asked.
“Starboard side. Approximately two miles out.”
Svetlana said, “Any idea whose battleship it is?”
“Not a clue,” Elise replied, turning the monitor to face her. “You’re the surveillance expert. What do you think this is?”
Svetlana glanced at the radar monitor. “That’s a French, La Fayette Class Frigate. But I can’t imagine what it’s doing here.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Matthew said. “It’s coming around to meet us.”
The French Frigate raced toward them.
Matthew picked up the mike for the VHF radio. “Unidentified battleship, this is the Maria Helena. We’re an American-owned civilian salvage ship, currently on a search and rescue mission, do you need our assistance?”
Svetlana rolled her eyes but remained silent. The French Frigate was nearly ten times their size and practically an indestructible battle-tank on water.
Like her, the French Frigate remained silent as it steamed across the horizon until she was perpendicular to the Maria Helena.
Veyron stepped up onto the bridge. “Anyone else notice we have a French La Fayette class frigate on our starboard?”
“It came to our attention,” Elise said.
Genevieve raced up the steps to the bridge, breathing hard. “There’s a…”
“We see it!” Matthew said. “Veyron, you’d better prepare the countermeasures.”
“I’m on it!” Veyron shouted.
Genevieve said, “I’ll prepare the torpedoes!”
Svetlana turned to Matthew. “Countermeasures and torpedoes? I thought you were a civilian vessel?”
Matthew shrugged. “Sometimes we work in some pretty unfriendly locations. Consequently, we have a pretty advanced weapons and defense system.”
Svetlana swallowed. “I doubt it’s going to do anything against a Frigate.”
“Yeah, I don’t suppose they will,” Matthew replied. “I’m still hoping an outright confrontation can be avoided.”
Toward the forward third of the Frigate a 100 mm TR automatic gun rotated on its turret 90 degrees until it lined up square with the Maria Helena.
“Diplomacy’s out!” Svetlana shouted. Fear rose in her throat. Her heart pounded in the back of her head. “What weapons have you got?”
She didn’t hear a reply.
Instead, the 100 mm TR automatic gun began to fire.
The barrel lit up with flame, as its multipurpose artillery pieces fired at a rate of 78 rounds per minute.
Svetlana closed her eyes, accepting her death.
But it didn’t come.
She turned to Matthew, “What the hell happened! How could they have possibly missed?”
“Don’t look too relieved. It was a ruse. A holographic distraction!”
“What?”
Matthew said, “The La Fayette’s not real.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. That submarine must still be out there.”
Svetlana scanned the horizon.
She placed the headphones on her ears and listened. Instinct taking over, she instantly turned the array of sounds into useable information, giving her a visual image of the submarine nearby. She closed her eyes and listened.
In the distance, she heard the blast of a torpedo entering the water, followed by the whir of its electric propeller, and the closing of the submarine’s torpedo hatch.
A moment later she spotted the torpedo.
It was half a mile away, running just below the surface, it could have been a shark if it wasn’t running so damned fast.
Matthew responded surprisingly quickly.
He depressed the mike for the shipboard PA system and said, “We’ve got a live torpedo approaching at 270 degrees!”
Veyron shouted back. “Countermeasures in the water!”
Svetlana glanced out the portside, where an AN/SLQ-25 Nixie torpedo decoy raced to meet the incoming torpedo.
She grinned and held her breath.
What sort of civilian salvage vessel carried torpedo decoys?
The torpedo wasn’t to be distracted. Instead, it glided past the decoy, undeterred, racing straight for the Maria Helena.
Svetlana said to Matthew, “You got anything else in that bag of tricks?”
Matthew set his jaw with disbelief. There were tiny tremors where all color was gone from his face. He depressed the mike to the shipboard PA system. “The torpedo’s gonna hit us hard. Everyone off the boat!”
Svetlana opened her mouth to argue. Her eyes darted from Matthew to the incoming torpedo. The sight confirmed what she already knew — they had run out of time.
They had seconds to get off the Maria Helena.
Elise was already out the starboard door.
Svetlana followed at a sprint.
Matthew shouted, “Jump!”
Svetlana Jumped.
Behind them, the torpedo ripped through the Maria Helena’s hull.
By the time Svetlana’s feet touched the water, the time-delay detonator fired and the torpedo exploded. Its blast ripped through the Maria Helena as though it’s steel bulkheads were made of plastic.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Genevieve’s head broke the surface first.
She ran her hands through her short brown hair, wiping it out of her eyes. She opened her eyes. Parts of the Maria Helena were scattered throughout the sea for hundreds of feet. The bulk of what was left of her hull was now being pulled down by her stern. Gone. After braving some of the worst storms in history, their trusted ship had made her way to the bottom in a matter of seconds. The ship had been Genevieve’s home, her reprieve from a previous life of violence, and a place she shared with a crew who were closer to her than her own family.
A moment later, she spotted with relief, the heads of the rest of that crew as they surfaced and Svetlana, the Russian spy — who, by now, she had to admit, was unlikely to have been involved in the attack.
If there had been more time, she would have wept. Instead, her blue eyes gazed on a surfacing submarine, less than half a mile away. Squinting, she spotted someone on the conning deck. He gripped something in his hand. It was too far away to see it clearly, but she had no doubt about what it was and what the submariner’s intentions were. If there had been any doubt, it was removed a second later, when the machinegun opened fire.
Seawater sprayed into the air where the shots fell short of their desired targets.
There wasn’t time for a debate about their options. In fact, they didn’t have any options. On the surface, they were unable to defend themselves. Even if they had weapons, they would have been of little use against a nuclear submarine.
Genevieve shouted, “We have to reach the Omega Deep!”
“It’s nearly sixty feet down!” Svetlana said. “It’s too deep!”
“There’s emergency regulator mouthpieces attached to compressed air inside the lockout trunk,” Genevieve said. “If we can reach that, we’ll be all right.”
Another round of shots fired closer.
Genevieve started hyperventilating.
Svetlana said, “Sixty feet it is then!”
A third set of shots raked the water, progressively approaching their heads.
Genevieve took one last deep breath and dipped under the water.
She kicked hard all the way to the bottom. Sam had marked the top of the lockout trunk with a red marker, so that it could be spotted, despite the Omega Cloak.