He was either aboard.
Or he’d elected suicide over capture and was now at the bottom of the sea.
“Spread out,” he told the men. “We search this ship from stem to stern, every inch of the damn thing. Unless our little flyboy decided he was better off in paradise, he’s on board this yacht. We’re going to find him, and we’re going to kill him. That’s a direct order. I’ve no intention of taking him alive. Go.”
Hawke grabbed Stoke’s sleeve.
“Stick with me. We’re going directly up to the bridge. I want to check something out.”
There was an exterior metal staircase, four flights, that led directly up to the bridge wing outside the entrance to the wheelhouse. Hawke, followed by Stokely, took the steps two at a time.
They reached the top and burst inside, weapons at the ready.
“Cardboard cutouts,” Stoke said.
“Yeah.”
There were five of them. One at the helm, and two on either side.
“He’s playing for time,” Hawke said, disappearing down an illuminated staircase that led to the interior of the deck below. “C’mon, old-timer!”
The staircase ended at a small corrugated steel platform, semicircular with a railing. More steps led down from it. It was virtually pitch-black, with a faint reddish glow visible far below.
“Say something, Stoke. Loud.”
“Something!” Stoke shouted as loudly as he could.
The word reverberated, echoing loudly within the steel hull.
Hawke snapped on the powerful light on his M-16. Stoke did the same. The two brilliant white beams pierced black nothingness beyond and below. He’d known there was something odd about the vessel the instant he’d seen it. Now, he knew. Cygnus was an empty shell and nothing more. But why? What was the point?
“Where the hell is everybody?” Stoke said.
“Locked out. I’m sure all the hatches and doorways are sealed shut. Just in case somebody got curious. Let’s go down and find out where that red light is coming from.”
Fifty-three
“Navy Blue, this is Big Red One,” Hawke said. “Call off the search. The only way inside the hull is an internal staircase inside the wheelhouse. This entire vessel is an empty shell. No decks, no propulsion, no systems, no crew, no one aboard. We’re going down to the bilges. There’s some kind of light down there we want to check out. Post guards on deck all along the portside rail. The bad guys aren’t done yet. They might well be gathering inside the wall for an assault on this vessel. Stony, come down here and take a look. Ask Mr. Brock to keep me informed of any unpleasant developments within the citadel.”
“Affirmative. Five minutes.”
Hawke and Stoke each put fresh mags in their M-16s before they began their descent. There could well be an unfriendly reception committee waiting down in the bowels of the ship. Hawke didn’t mention it to Stokely, but he was also concerned about the possibility of IEDs, pressure-sensitive explosives under one or more of the metal steps they were descending. Every step they took could mean instant death. Or, not.
In any case, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
Reaching the bottom of the staircase safely, they found themselves in a darkened room. The SureFire lights on their weapons revealed a sizable space full of all kinds of equipment. A massive, humming generator dominated one bulkhead. A large air compressor was still running, and there was a control panel where numerous systems could obviously be monitored.
“Damn,” Stoke said.
“What?”
“I just tripped over something.”
Hawke lowered his beam to the deck. Covering the surface was a mass of writhing snakes, thick black cables of all shapes and dimensions that disappeared around a bulkhead to their left.
“You thinking what I’m thinking, boss?”
“No doubt. Let’s see what’s at the other end of these cables and I’ll be able to answer your question more definitively.”
They moved cautiously around the bulkhead and discovered a long dark corridor. The cables ran along the floor and disappeared through an open hatchway.
Red light was emanating from whatever lay beyond.
The two comrades quickly moved toward the light and ducked their heads to step through the hatch.
“Holy shit,” Stoke said.
“Precisely my thinking,” Hawke said.
It was a submarine pen. An empty submarine pen.
A large rectangular opening cut into the keel in the bottom of the hull, with black seawater sloshing up onto the surrounding deck, the deck strewn with countless disconnected but live cables, hissing and spitting fire in the dampness.
The submarine was gone and Darius was aboard it.
“Lost him, boss. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe not,” Hawke said, ripping the battle radio from the Velcro on top of his black battle helmet.
“ Blackhawke, Blackhawke, Blackhawke, this is Big Red One.”
“This is Blackhawke, First Officer speaking; go ahead, sir.”
“Is Captain Carstairs on the bridge?”
“Affirmative, sir. He’s standing right here beside me. Hold on.”
“Carstairs.”
“Laddie, Hawke. Target slipped the noose. You now have a minisub in the water; judging by the size of the pen and the electronic support systems, she’s a Koi class Chinese two-man, no more than twenty meters long. Powered by proto-lithium batteries so you won’t pick up her screw signatures. You have our coordinates. The sub is probably on a heading from the mouth of the marina en route to the Strait of Hormuz and out of the Gulf. Alert the sonar officer. Tell him the minisub will present a very small, faint picture on his screen. Easy to miss. If you get a contact, initiate hot pursuit. The second he’s within torpedo range, destroy him.”
“Affirmative. What’s your exfil situation? Do you require assistance?”
“Negative. We have taken minimal casualties. We have not yet found the machine. We will continue search-and-destroy mission. We’ve posted guards on the patrol boat. If we need a hot extraction, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Understood. Blackhawke, standing by on channel eleven, sir, over.”
“Good God,” Stollenwork said, making his way into the pen. “An escape sub. Of course. Rather clever, actually.”
“He’s got a lot of help,” Hawke said, a droll expression on his face. “A higher intelligence. What the situation up there?”
“It’s not over. They seem to be regrouping inside the wall. A large force. I think they intend to storm this yacht, in the belief they outnumber us.”
“Not a belief,” Stoke said. “A fact.”
“Stony, order your second in command to position Blue and Red teams on every Cygnus deck, taking cover with direct line of sight on the gate. They’ll be at their most vulnerable funneled up at that exit point. Concentrated fire there will, at minimum, slow them down when we make for the patrol boat.”
“Aye, sir,” Stollenwork said, then raised his radio and repeated Hawke’s orders to his number two up on deck.
“Stokely, I noticed a hidden indentation in the bulkhead to our left when we reached the first platform down from the bridge. There’s no way Saffari could have negotiated three steep flights of narrow stairs in his manned aerial vehicle. I’m guessing there’s a hidden elevator opening in the hull, directly onto the dock. It would make more sense in escape mode. Go back up and check it out, would you? I need a word with Stony.”
“Done,” Stoke said over his shoulder, sprinting up the staircase.
“Stony. You took the lab out. But we’re not leaving here without destroying that bloody machine. Blackhawke can take out Saffari’s sub if he stays within her sonar perimeter. She’s got torpedo tubes fore and aft. We’ll find him and sink him somehow.”