They had barely twenty minutes more on the oxygen supply, but they needed all the diesel they can get. Nicolai and Borodin dived with a pipe to the nearest boat, they hooked it up with the pump in their ship and sucked two drums from the dead U-boats’ tanks.
11
This time Major Juan Santiago did not dream. He woke with a start, disoriented, but feeling a lot better. Then he heaved, retched, and vomited bile. He grimaced at the orchestra in his head. It was a blinding headache that pulsated in his left eye.
He saw white and red dots floating across his vision.
When he looked down at his hands, there were red blotches like hives on his skin. He sighed.
"It didn't work, Doctor," a voice screamed in his head.
He pulled the talkie out of his pocket. He got the admiral with one tap.
"Santiago?"
Yeah, be shocked, you cocksucker. Out loud, the major said, "We are coming."
"What?" the admiral snarled. "Who's we?"
"The Americans are coming in a U-boat."
"No!"
Santiago was still sick. He sounded sick.
The major sounded half himself, his voice was hollow and distant. Admiral Huebner called his exec.
"We have an emergency. Get the crew ready for attack."
"Who are we attacking, sir?"
"The Nazis."
At fifty meters, they were still in the deep dark end of the ocean, under the secret facility.
The first to notice the oxygen drop when they had gone a hundred and thirty meters was Olivia. She was at the porthole photographing a porpoise that had joined the U-boat travel for the past two minutes. The creature was magnificent. Its underbelly was white and the rest of it blue. The porpoises’ beady eyes watched Olivia, and it seemed to grin at her.
Olivia started coughing. Behind her, Ted Cooper dozed on a crate of tools. So Olivia thought she was probably dehydrated. She went back to watching her new companion. Soon Olivia felt tightness in her throat.
"Guys, I can't hold breath…"
Then Cooper jumped up. "Oh my God, she's infected! We've got to quarantine her."
Peter and Nassif looked at each other. Frank Miller poked his head through the cabin. He had changed his clothes into a red jumpsuit. He asked Nassif to attend to Olivia.
"Don't touch her!" Ted Cooper yelled. "She's sick."
"Shut up, Ted," Peter snapped.
Nassif held Olivia and made her sit with her back against the wall. He asked her to breathe slowly and relax.
"Take just enough gulp of air at a time," he soothed.
Olivia nodded. Her head had begun to swim. She heard Miller's voice, saw his face appear before her. It was blurry.
As if from a distance, she heard Nassif talking to Miller, Ted Cooper still yelling.
"It's the oxygen level," Nassif said. "She's not sick."
"What're you talking about?"
"We have just enough oxygen for the next few minutes," Nassif explained. "If we don't get on the surface, we'll all die."
Olivia continued to suck as much as she could. Her chest pumped.
She heard Cooper say, "She's taking more than everyone else doing that."
Santiago found that he could open the metal door from his side.
He stepped into the cylinder-shaped corridor. It was deserted. He heard a commotion coming from the cockpit area. Then he started feeling dizzy too. He turned left and started down a short corridor with portholes on the side. He took a glance at the blue water. They were still under. Awesome.
Santiago followed the sound of the hum down to the engine room. It was hot, the odor of diesel fuel filled his lungs, decreasing further the short supply of oxygen in his blood. He reached out and pulled a random wire loose.
The major quickly stumbled out of there.
"Five minutes more," Nassif announced.
"We have to go up now," Peter said. He coughed.
The biologist, Anabia, was already sweating, and lolling at the console. The others have all taken their seats on the floor, waiting. Even Ted had lost his brash bravado. The oxygen counter was almost gone of green color; it was near red.
"Just pull up, Nassif, please."
Olivia started dragging herself across the floor. "John…" she called.
Peter saw her through a mesh of haziness. Quickly, he dropped on the floor and held her hand; Olivia grabbed him with the last of her strength. She was sobbing with her eyes closed, gasping for air.
"John, I failed you…" she cried. "I'm sorry, John."
"No, you didn't fail me, Olivia. You have to be strong, Olivia. Hold on just a little longer. You are almost home."
Olivia smiled then; she turned over on her back, hands still attached to Peter's. She saw clouds and stars on a bright day. The clouds floated past; they were beautiful. John rode on the clouds; his face was shining because it was the sun itself.
She heard the cry of the porpoise outside the boat. She turned her head towards the shriek. Lights were pouring through the porthole.
Olivia reached for the light hovering over her; it was a glorious white light, and she was not gasping for breath anymore. She could take as many gulps as she wanted in this new and beautiful place with all the views and porpoises that talked.
"Wake up, Olivia." Someone slapped her face softly. "We are safe now, wake up."
Peter's face was there, not John. She breathed and sat up. Daylight streamed through the porthole; it filled the cabin. She wasn't dead or dreaming.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"On Earth."
She smiled at Peter Williams.
The first chills hit Peter not long after they surfaced. He pulled his jacket closer even though it was considerably warmer in the cabin of the old boat. Nassif asked if he was feeling alright.
Peter said he was.
When the engines suddenly sputtered to death, Nassif concluded they had run out of fuel. Nicolai and Borodin raced down to the engine room. They checked the tanks and found they had only used up half of the supply.
They began an investigation. Borodin found the wire that supplied one of the valves with water, like a car's carburetor. It had been pulled clean out of the pipe. He replaced it and then restarted the engine.
It roared back to life, and the boat rocked again as it moved forward. The two Russians congratulated each other.
Borodin looked down and saw what looked like vomit. And footprints.
"Someone pulled the valves in the engines," Borodin confided to Miller.
"Watch the professor."
"Which one?"
"The stupid one."
Borodin nodded.
The question of extraction was raised by Ted Cooper. He griped about having a plan B all the time and how not having one is going to screw the team eventually. Miller said it wasn't a problem.
He brought out a satellite phone from his pocket. It was a small one, advanced and tactical.
"What, you had that all this time!?" Ted said.
"Come on, man. Miller, we could have called for help with that," Peter said.
A frustrated argument followed the discovery of the phone. Miller raised his hand for quiet.
"I'm sorry I kept this from you all," he said. "This was plan B. Besides, I couldn't let it be stolen or broken after what happened to the first one. I have a watercraft nearby that I will contact. We are covered."
They shared a sigh of relief.
Major Santiago was on his talkie too.
"Sir, they have a ship nearby waiting to extract them."
"Location?"
"Miller didn't say."