“What fuck was that?” Vitaly wheezed as he clutched his ribs and watched the withdrawing boats.
“They can’t possibly be letting us go — can they?” asked Hassan.
“You think they chase us more?” said Vitaly.
“We cannot surrender again,” said Dalmar. “It would be very bad for my reputation.”
“Can somebody turn me around?” Marissa’s voice was muffled from underneath a face full of wet, soggy hair. “I can’t see what’s happening behind me.”
“Guys?” said Alexis, staring at the rest as she pointed at her own face. “What did he write on my forehead?”
“It’s a location,” Jonah said as he and Dalmar sat Marissa up. He still wasn’t sure what to make of what had just happened — but he recognized the format of the numbers.
“We can all see that they’re goddamn coordinates,” Marissa grumbled. “Coordinates to where?”
“I think North Korea again?” Vitaly tilted his head, putting his face inches from Alexis.
“What does he want us to do?” said Hassan. “He can’t possibly ask us to return to DPRK waters — not after stealing their citizens and leaving a burning hovercraft on the pack ice.”
“Easy now, Doc. It wasn’t that bad of a cockup, was it?” said Jonah. “We’re still floating, aren’t we?”
“Are you quite serious?” asked the doctor. “If our last sojourn wasn’t a cockup, I have little idea what the word means.”
“We wouldn’t even be in this mess if Jonah hadn’t blown up a goddamn North Korean hovercraft,” complained Marissa.
“Let me remind you that we’re out here on your milk run,” said Jonah.
“Maybe he wants us to avoid those coordinates in the future?” suggested Alexis. “Like when you get pulled over on the highway for speeding or whatever, but they let you off with a warning?” Everyone — even Hassan — groaned.
“I think we go back. We will take these North Koreans by surprise,” said Dalmar. “They would not expect us to return so soon.”
“But why?” repeated the doctor. “What do the Japanese want from us?”
“Maybe pick up cargo? Extract spy?” said Vitaly.
“I’m all for speculation, but could someone please get me out of this fucking tape first?” Alexis began to pull the sticky duct tape off as Marissa tried in vain to blow her soggy hair out of her eyes. She moaned in protest at each painful tug.
“Do not forget the possibility of assassination,” added Dalmar. “Perhaps he asks we kill a man… or many men.”
“Or maybe just some routine observation?” Alexis looked up at Jonah hopefully as she freed Marissa’s ankles. “You know, from a safe distance and all?”
Jonah just sighed, as though recalling a series of especially grim memories. “I think I’ve got this down in broad strokes,” he said. “These guys are not telling us a goddamn thing for a reason. They want us to stick our neck in the noose and see what happens.”
“What will become of the refugees?” Alexis asked. “I hope we didn’t just deliver them to a DPRK concentration camp.”
“Not much chance they’ll be worse off.” Hassan pulled Alexis to her feet and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Japan won’t return them to North Korea; that much is certain. Perhaps the ones with living relatives in the home islands might stay. The rest will undoubtedly go into South Korea’s refugee rehabilitation program.”
“The yakuza are going to be pissed,” Marissa said, frowning. “So much for getting paid, much less ever seeing Tokyo again. It’ll be years before I can stay at the Imperial Hotel.”
“So what we do now?” asked Vitaly.
“Let’s get below decks and scoot the hell out of here before the Japanese Navy changes their minds.” Jonah turned to Vitaly. “Make a course for North Korea. Let’s see what they want from us — no way that whatever’s out there is worse than what we’ve already been through.”
CHAPTER 8
Hassan felt as though he’d barely breathed in the hours since leaving the Japanese fleet behind. With his refugee patients gone, the doctor knew he should occupy himself sterilizing and cataloging his medical instruments, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave Jonah’s side at the nerve center of the submarine. The command compartment was lonely, half-empty. Alexis had made her way back to the engine room, while Marissa and Dalmar tried their best to sort through the picked-over chaos of the crew quarters and galley.
Jonah had assigned Hassan to the communications and hydrophone console, leaving the doctor to occasionally report the whispering acoustic signature of a trailing Japanese submarine. The Scorpion was not difficult to follow; Jonah had given Vitaly the cryptic order of running ‘silent, but not too silent,’ instructions the Russian actually seemed to understand. But the Japanese submarine behind them remained no less than a spear at their back, pushing them ever forward into hostile waters.
Vitaly enlarged a nautical map on his computer screen, roughly plotting out the approximate location of the Scorpion as she approached the rocky coastline of North Korea from far beneath the waves. Their new destination was nearly to the hermit kingdom’s southern border, far from the pack ice of the north.
“We re-enter North Korean waters about now,” whispered Vitaly. “I clear baffles? How you say, check our six?”
Jonah shook his head. “Let’s not piss anyone off,” he said. “If the Japanese are still following us with one of their subs, we have to let them… I don’t want to give anybody the idea that we’re trying to shake a tail.”
“Clear baffles?” asked Hassan.
“We have a blind spot behind our propellers,” said Jonah, jabbing a thumb towards the stern of the submarine. “Passive sonar won’t pick up anything in their acoustic shadow. Clearing the baffles means shaking our ass a little to see if anyone’s still back there.”
Marissa stuck her head in the command compartment. “We inventoried the galley. It’s not looking good. We’re basically down to condiments, and even most of those are completely gone. But for some reason, they left the mayo completely untouched.”
“We’ll just have to tighten our belts for now,” said Jonah. “Let’s assume this assignment is a short one, and then we can slip into the Philippines for a clandestine resupply once we’re done. It’s only a few days’ sail from here. And then we’ll be back at sea again, fat and happy, presumably heading for a destination far, far away from here.”
“If we’re not in prison,” said Marissa.
“Or a torpedoed wreck,” added Vitaly.
“Maybe somewhere warm next time?” suggested Hassan.
“Let’s get a definitive GPS fix before our final approach,” said Jonah, ignoring the dour predictions. Hassan felt an uncomfortable sick feeling in his stomach as he unconsciously adjusted the holstered Beretta pistol in his waistband, trying not to think of all the terrible ways their mission could go wrong.
“Aye Captain. Surfacing for GPS fix,” said Vitaly as he adjusted the depth planes with his computer console. The submarine shifted upwards almost imperceptibly as it rose, climbing a hundred feet through the water column to kiss the surface, a single thin antennae rising above the swells. Vitaly’s maps shifted slightly as the plotted position of the submarine updated automatically. Their location confirmed, the submarine began to descend once more into the quiet depths.