“The sound is gone,” said Hassan. “I can’t hear it anymore.”
“It has dropped from my sensors as well,” confirmed Vitaly.
“Give us another five hundred meters distance to be safe, and then bring us out of the trench,” ordered Jonah. “Are we close enough to see our destination?”
“I believe yes, Captain,” said Vitaly as the submarine silently ascended through the waters towards the stormy surface of the North Korean coastal sea.
“Good — bring us to periscope depth,” said Jonah. He pulled the optic from the ceiling by the handles as a small electric motor quietly whirred to bring the upper lens above the whitecaps. Jonah projected the periscope image onto the screens surrounding the command compartment, displaying an intimidating North Korean coastline of sheer rocky cliffs tumbling into the sea below. One massive swell after another slammed into the towering cliffs, disintegrating into foamy white spray.
Vitaly gave a long, low whistle at the savage display.
“Are we headed straight for the coordinates?” asked Jonah.
“Aye, dead ahead.”
“How far out?”
Squinting at his maps, Vitaly measured the distance out. “Less than half mile? Very close, Captain.”
“Well, that’s a problem,” said Jonah, tapping on Vitaly’s nautical charts with one finger. “Because according to this map, the coordinates aren’t coastal — they’re inland.”
Hassan glanced back up at the video monitors. Inland? How was that possible? The rugged coastline wasn’t exactly abundant with safe harbors.
“Coordinates are coordinates,” shrugged Vitaly as he stared up at the screen. “I check them myself. What we do?”
“I just don’t see how we can get over those cliffs,” said Hassan. “We wouldn’t even be able to get an inflatable raft to the rocks below without being dashed to pieces. And if we reached the cliffs, how could we possibly ascend them? We’re smugglers, not mountaineers.”
Jonah squinted, a small smile spreading across his lips. “Full stop. Give me a single ping,” he said. “Low frequency — minimum power.”
Vitaly nodded, inputting the command into his console. The engines slowed and died, complete silence falling within the command compartment. A single resounding ping emanated from the nose of the Scorpion, rippling as it spread into the sea. The reflected sound was sucked up by the submarine’s sophisticated sonar system, painting Vitaly’s screen in vivid green terrain data.
“Ty che, blyad?” exclaimed Vitaly, pointing at his own screen.
“English!” demanded Jonah. “You are literally the only person here that speaks Russian.”
“I say, ‘What the fuck?’”
Hassan could see it now, too. The green polygons of underwater bathymetric terrain data showing the underwater cliffs were interrupted by a perfect hollow archway just wide enough for a submarine. It was too perfectly formed to be a natural sea cave or lava tube. There was no doubt about it. There was an underwater entrance built into the cliffs.
“That’s what I thought,” announced Jonah, now wearing a grim smile. “It’s a hidden submarine base. We’re going in. Vitaly, make for the entrance — dead slow.”
The electric engines of the Scorpion slowly hummed to life, and the submarine pushed forward towards the mysterious entrance as angry waves swirled above. Hassan winced as they approached the final few feet to the passage, half expecting an abrupt impact against the base of the cliffs.
“Give me external cameras and running lights,” ordered Jonah. Several feeds leapt to the command compartment screens, showing the Scorpion from various angles as she maneuvered the short, pitch-black, sixty-foot tunnel into the earth, the submarine’s exterior lights the only illumination against the blasted rock.
“We have open ceiling,” said Vitaly, pointing to the conning tower feed. They’d made it inside the hidden base, the impossible blackness of the submerged tunnel now giving way to a massive chamber, sheer rock walls rising to a concrete dome thirty feet above.
Hassan realized he was starting to get his bearings on the horseshoe-shaped structure, eyes drifting to the length of the tunnel as it disappeared around a gentle curve to exit once more into the ocean. Hassan doubted any pilot could reverse out through the entrance. Even a pilot as skilled as Vitaly. The route was one way only, and he could only hope the other end was clear as well.
The Russian brought the submarine to a gentle stop at the underground mooring below thick concrete pillars, galvanized ventilation ducts, iron pipes, and endless bundles of black electrical wiring above them. Yellow-tinged halogen lights shone from above and below the waterline, stage-like in their blinding effect. A few flickered, dying unattended. Above it all was a single, fading red and blue North Korean flag painted against the uneven concrete of the ceiling, the emblem crumbling and ignored.
“I have bad feeling, Captain,” said Vitaly.
“Worse than usual?”
“Da. Very worse than usual.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that same feeling,” said Jonah. “I was expecting a North Korean welcome wagon of one sort or another. Where the hell is everybody?”
“Maybe it is abandon?” asked Vitaly.
Jonah shook his head. “Somebody is keeping all these lights on. This base might be partially decommissioned, but it is definitely not abandoned.”
Hassan bent over the nearest console and interrogated a suite of environmental sensor subsystems. “No radiological or chemical anomalies detected thus far. Wait… I’m getting something.”
“What’s the word, Doc?”
“Carbon monoxide concentrations are quite high. I’m reading over 6,400 parts per million, an atmospheric concentration of point-oh-six-four percent.”
“Doesn’t sound like much.”
“And yet extremely hazardous to human health. Exposure at these concentrations would lead to headache, dizziness, and nausea in under two minutes. Convulsion and complete respiratory failure in less than twenty. Followed by death, naturally.”
Jonah frowned. “That’s some seriously sour air. Like someone left the car running in the garage with the door closed.”
“It’s an imperfect metaphor — but essentially correct, yes.”
“My uncle die that way,” said Vitaly. “He die as he live — drunk behind steering wheel.”
Jonah glanced at Vitaly and turned back to Hassan. “We’re not talking about just one overlooked lawnmower are we?”
“No,” answered Hassan, scratching his head. “It would have taken an entire fleet of idling trucks to fill up a facility of this size with such a concentration.”
“Could the carbon monoxide have come from an accident? A fire, explosion, gas leak?”
“Certainly. A substantial fire could contaminate even the largest of sealed facilities barring proper lockout and ventilation procedures.”
Jonah sighed and ran his hands over his face in frustration. He was tired — no, exhausted. “It’s clear we’re supposed to be here — the Japanese made sure of that,” he said. “It’s the why that still scares the shit out of me.”
“What should we do?” asked Hassan. “Should we wait for further instructions?”
“I doubt any more instructions are coming. Round up the crew. Let’s not sit here with our dicks in our hands waiting for something to happen. I’ll put together a landing party. Vitaly—”