Выбрать главу

Three minutes later, it shifted again.

Sam imagined it was like trying to thread a needle. Only, in this case, the eye was the width of a football field, and the thread was nearly half the field wide and twice as long.

He flooded the lockout trunk.

When the internal pressure equalized with the outer seawater, the lock-out trunk hatch opened.

He adjusted his buoyancy control device until he was neutrally buoyant and swam out the horizontal escape trunk.

The Omega Deep was moving slowly. Less than four knots, as it weaved its way through the narrow-submerged valley. He prayed the larger Typhoon class submarine trailing them would have to reduce its speed even more.

Sam stared at the ground below.

The Omega Deep steered to port, its bow thrusters whirred into life, as the massive vessel turned on its axis, to slip through the hair-pin turn.

Below him, Sam saw the entrance to the grotto that he’d spotted earlier.

He swam down, taking refuge inside the dark opening.

Once there, he removed the two magnetic homing beacons from his buoyancy control device and waited. It was a total of eight minutes before he spotted the round bow of the Typhoon class submarine.

He waited.

The enemy submarine looked massive in the narrow valley. It edged slowly toward the hairpin, making the maneuver almost at a complete standstill.

Sam swam round its swollen steel belly and placed the two magnetic homing beacons to the side of the predator’s hull.

The beacons turned from red to green, confirming they were armed.

Sam let go and watched as the enemy submarine slowly pulled away. He’d done all that he could do. Now it was up to the weapons team on board the USS Gerald R. Ford to do the rest.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

On Board the USS Gerald R. Ford

The weapons officer said, “The Omega Deep’s on the move, ma’am.”

The secretary of defense looked up from her laptop. This was it. Her heart leaped into her throat. “How can you tell?”

“The homing devices we gave Mr. Reilly just became active, and they’re moving.”

“You’ve located the coordinates of the signal?”

“Yes.” The weapons officer showed her on the bathymetric maps the Maria Helena had made when Sam had first surveyed the area. “The signal is coming from inside this narrow valley, here.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Why are they heading deeper into the remains of the 8th Continent?”

“We don’t know ma’am. The signal’s going to pass the region that the Maria Helena charted within another ten minutes.”

“Can you get a lock on them?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What speed is she doing?”

“Four knots.” The weapons officer then explained, “The channel is so narrow, the Omega Deep’s having to make very slow maneuvers.”

She sighed. “Interesting. What are they trying to do?”

“We don’t know. And we’ve no way of knowing for certain if we’ll maintain our line of sight to the target once they get much farther.”

“All right. If she’s moving, she’s no longer under our command.”

The weapons officer asked, “What are your orders, ma’am?”

Her emerald eyes flashed with defiance. “Fire with everything you’ve got!”

“Understood, ma’am.”

The secretary of defense stood up from her desk at the back of the bridge. She casually wandered to the port side and stared out the windshield.

The ship rang out with the constant ring of the automated warning bell — meaning that torpedo doors were opening and the torpedoes were now live — and on the port side of the hull four torpedo bay doors opened.

Inside a total of four separate Mark-32 shipboard torpedo launchers — armed with three Mark-46 torpedoes — rotated 80 degrees silently and trained at its target.

Her mouth was set hard, and her eyes flashed defiance. She felt tears come to her eyes. She blinked them down, telling herself that she was sorry for the loss of the Omega Deep and the substantial technological advancement that the submarine represented. But in her heart, she knew that she was mourning the loss of the crew from the Maria Helena.

“Goodbye, Mr. Reilly.”

In the shallow water, long strips of whitewater remained where the torpedoes raced toward their target.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

On Board the Arkhangelsk

James Halifax glanced at the sonar monitor.

The lines in his face seemed to deepen and darken in the bare light. His mind was twisted in a battle of logic, unable to accept the inevitable outcome. There were four torpedoes approaching his submarine simultaneously. They were inside a narrow valley, with nowhere to maneuver. And they could release just two CATs.

The Countermeasure Anti-Torpedoes could only take out one torpedo each. The math came out the same way no matter which way he looked at it.

They were going to be hit.

The question was, could they sustain such a hit, and survive?

His rational mind knew the answer, but eons of evolution have made it difficult for the human mind to be rational when it comes to determining their own demise.

Halifax said, “Weapons! Deploy the remaining CATs.”

“Understood, sir. Launching the remaining countermeasures.”

“Pilot!” Halifax watched the sonar monitor where their CATs and incoming torpedoes were on a collision course. “On my mark, I want you to turn full starboard rudder.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Ballast,” Halifax shouted. “On my mark. I want you to blow everything, let’s see if we can get some cover in that reef.”

“Aye, sir.”

Halifax watched as two of the incoming torpedoes detonated on impact with the two CATs.

“Pilot, full starboard rudder.”

“Aye, sir. Full starboard rudder.”

Halifax shouted, “Ballast. Full blow.”

“Aye, sir. Full blow.”

On the sonar monitor, he watched as the remaining two torpedoes rounded the nearby explosion, undeterred, and dipped into the channel, in preparation for their final run.

What the hell happened?

There was nothing more he could do.

It was as though his submarine was emitting a homing beacon, to which the two torpedoes were now locked.

Halifax gritted his teeth and gripped the grab bar on the side of the command center.

There was no reason for it.

He knew there was no way the torpedoes would miss their mark now. It was impossible his submarine could withstand the hit.

Halifax opened his mouth to scream.

But the sound never had the chance to escape. In a split second, the first torpedo ripped a hole through the hull, followed two-thirds of a second later by the second one. Their time-delay explosion, fired a full second later, causing the submarine’s hull to implode.

Chapter Sixty

Open Waters, 8th Continent — Two Months Later

USS Gerald R. Ford’s bow sliced the water of the South Pacific Ocean at a cautionary 10 knots. At 110,000 tons, the aircraft carrier, seemed almost indifferent to the large seas, as her bow cut through the water.

It was a little after midday when the aircraft carrier appeared to reduce speed for no more than a few minutes, before picking up its original course, and head toward New Zealand, to participate in a series of war games. In the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean, such a deviation in course and speed was nearly imperceptible. Yet in that time, a single yellow object was discarded into the deep water below.