The boat plunged almost vertically. Olivia screamed as she fell through the air and landed on Peter, where he crouched.
Soon the U-boat leveled up.
More shots pelted the water around the boat.
Itay Friedman didn't find the major in the storeroom where he had been quarantined. Friedman went down to the engine room. He aimed his gun as he went. Upon submerging, dark had descended on the boat again. It was especially most ominous in the engine room. There were two portholes on both sides, but they were nothing but dark eyes.
Leveraging on the noise of the engines, Itay bent his knees, looked for an ambush, and hid behind the diesel tank. He waited.
The major had heard him coming. He had taken a wrench that Nicolai had left behind during the repairs. He nodded his time. He was not within hearing distance of the click of Friedman's gun as the bodyguard took the safety off.
Santiago stepped out of hiding. He bent forward too, two military men.
Friedman's gun prodded his forehead in the dark. Santiago parried and lashed out.
The U-boat disappeared from the sonar of the destroyer. The admiral ordered depth charges to be dropped in the water.
"Aye, aye, sir."
"And make it four."
"Sir?" The exec thought it extreme.
"Drop them now!"
Four charges were dropped. When they exploded, the U-boat rocked and blipped back onto the sonar.
"Now, give me two missiles," the admiral said.
Miller hustled to Nassif.
"We have torpedoes! Torpedoes! Don't we?"
Awakened, Nassif checked the chart. There were four torpedoes on the log. But were they in the docks? There was only one way to find out.
She locked on the approaching destroyer. He screamed, "Fire in the hole!"
Miller said, "You didn't have to, it isn't a battle—"
The ship rocked suddenly, throwing everyone off balance. It balked, the engines pulled, and the ship dropped speed.
They heard a whoosh, like when a bottle loses its cork.
"Fire away." Nassif staggered up to see the two torpedoes leaving the ship. Two hadn't made it.
The team joined him at the sonar to see the progress of the projectiles. Two blips moved towards the advancing ship. Olivia's heart pounded in her chest. She gripped Peter's hand tightly.
It was a silent collision on the U-boat’s sonar, but a crashing encounter on the sea. One of the torpedoes missed the ship by a mile off. The other found a home in the hull not far from the engine room but close to the tanks.
The explosion rocked the ship. It shuddered.
Admiral Huebner held on to the railing around his post. A cruel sneer on his face, he screamed in anger.
"Control, report status!"
The exec read off an instantly prepared report. "Extensive damage to the hulclass="underline" two pumps are totally ruined, there's a deep gash in tank 5, and we may lose engine room in a short time."
"Shit."
He fumed. "And the missiles?"
"Intact, sir."
"Good, cos we are going in full throttle."
"Sir, we are taking in water—"
"This is war, do what you have to do!"
"Yes, sir."
The storm blew away, but the members of the crew of the U-boat were underwater and unaware of their good fortune. Miller happened to try the long-distance phone again, and he got a clear transmission.
"Lock on to us now," he said to whoever was on the other side. "And watch out for a renegade Argentine Admiral."
"How are we doing, Nassif?"
Nassif said things were not as bad for the U-boat as it was for the destroyer. On the sonar, the image of the battleship had dropped far behind. And a new image had appeared on the screen.
"Mr. Miller?" Nassif stammered. "We have more company."
Olivia moaned. Will their troubles ever end? She rummaged through the deck and found a plastic bag. It was not like any she had ever seen. Nazi plastic bag, she thought.
Olivia put her notes and camera in the bag and tied it with twine from her hair. She wrapped the bag in a parka she found on the ship too.
"Getting prepared for the end?" Ted Cooper asked her.
"You should too."
"No, ma'am, this is ending the same way for us all."
Olivia glanced at the man, some of her loathing for Ted Cooper in it.
"Yeah, we are in the middle of the Pacific. The closest land is where we just left. And there is nothing back there but death."
Olivia ignored the man and went over to Peter.
Itay Friedman took five punches in the face, blinding him momentarily. His gun was knocked off just as he was bringing the butt down on the major’s head.
He dropped to a crouch and drove his shoulder into Santiago, throwing them both off the ground and landing on the oil-stained metal floor. The major locked Friedman in a chokehold. They rolled on the slippery floor and stopped the hot, humming engines again.
Friedman picked the major up by his feet and pushed him against the engines; a massive fan belt cut the major’s back, and he yelled in pain. His hands slackened around Friedman's neck, and the bodyguard threw a left hook into the major's throat.
Santiago let go and fell forward. Friedman landed one more on the jaw that knocked the major out.
He then restrained the man.
As Itay Friedman left the engine room, he noticed that the vessel had decreased in speed. He went to the diesel tank and saw to his dismay that the fuel was just about exhausted.
He came back to the restrained major, who was now recovering. With the help of the ambient lighting, Friedman found his gun where it had fallen.
"What now, hm?" Santiago asked the bodyguard.
"We have run out of fuel."
"And space. Admiral is a mad man, he's coming to get you people."
"Yeah."
Itay Friedman shot Santiago in the head.
The first U-boats that the Nazis made experienced fluctuating capacities as they surfaced and submerged. It was the case that when submerged, they expended more energy capacity. Consequently, they consumed more fuel. At the time, the threshold for the weight of each U-boat did not allow them to carry more than half a ton of liters of diesel at a time.
The U-boat that the expedition traveled in carried far below its capacity, and had submerged more times than the available fuel could sustain.
Nassif watched as the indicator went from green to red in a short time — the engine was now running on reserve. He reasoned that if the boat did not go back to the surface soon, they would lose power, go down, and perish.
"We have to go up now," he declared to the crew.
They murmured. The destroyer was closer now. Whereas on the sonar, the other ship, which Miller was now confident would rescue them, was still far off. Worse, it may likely not make it in time before the destroyer fires at the U-boat again.
Nassif appealed, "If we don't, we will drown."
"Do it," Miller said.
With the last drops of fuel, Nassif coerced the vessel upward; the engine sputtered, then it picked up again, and up the boat surged. The team held their breath as the surface of the ocean came into view. Olivia thought it was so beautiful. She opened the plastic bag and brought out her camera.
Through the lens, she saw schools of fish scatter about as the boat came through the choppy waves, and how they looked like the ones she has seen in works of art.
Then the picture seemed to be moving out of focus. Confused, she dropped her camera. The boat was not going to make it. The U-boat was falling back into the water, its engine whining to a halt.
Olivia sat down hard.
Nassif to the team, "Looks like today, we won't make it."