Jonah said nothing for a few moments as he waited for her to lapse into silence. “Give me a few minutes to speak with my crew in private,” he said. “I’ll see if I can come up with something.”
Freya looked around at the three one final time. None spoke. She turned without saying another word, casting a look at Jonah over her shoulder as she walked down the corridor back to the cabins. Jonah watched her go, waiting until the last hatch shut before he returned his attention to Hassan and Alexis.
“So, how about we get the fuck out of here while we still can?” he said.
“Oh, thank God,” said Alexis, breathing a sigh of relief. “I thought for a second you were actually considering going after this Himura guy.”
“No way,” said Jonah. “It’s not that I’m totally above a little revenge. But the way I see it, the Scorpion is beat to shit and so are we. Yasua Himura deserves a bullet as much as anyone I’ve ever known, but I don’t see how Freya can think we’re in any position to deliver it.”
“Agreed,” said Hassan. “But there must be another option besides simply turning tail — can’t we remain in Tokyo, tell the Japanese government what we’ve learned? The carnage of the helicopter carrier is a drop in the ocean when compared to the war we’ll soon witness if Japan and North Korea go at it. And by fate or happenstance, we, and we alone, have the only proof that it’s all based on a lie — we have both the identity of the perpetrator and the means by which he strikes. He has betrayed and killed his own countrymen, slaughtered sailors and civilians alike. We have a moral responsibility to tell the truth and exonerate ourselves in the process.”
Jonah shook his head. “Do you really want to roll the dice with a bunch of bureaucrats and politicians? This conspiracy dates back decades, and we still have no idea how deep it all goes. I’d be up for dropping a few dimes, but not until we are far, far away from here. My crew is my first responsibility, moral or otherwise.”
“You and I both know it will be too late by then.”
“There’s no way staying in Tokyo works out for us,” said Alexis. “Even if the government listens instead of sinking us on sight, we’re all still looking at indefinite prison sentences. No thanks.”
“Been there, done that, got the T-shirt,” said Jonah. “Not looking for a second stay anytime soon.”
“What about Marissa? Should we be worried that she’s in yakuza hands?”
“She’s always had a well-honed instinct for self-preservation,” said Jonah. “I doubt she would have placed herself in any true danger. We’re just going to have to trust that she can take care of herself. In the meantime, let’s get the fuck out of here while we still can.”
Hassan cleared his throat and tilted his head towards the corridor. Jonah and Alexis turned to see Sun-Hi standing in the open hatchway, her face aghast. He didn’t know how much she’d heard, but it’d been enough. Jonah could hardly bring himself to look at her. He could already see it in her eyes, the suffering that her country would soon face.
“Sun-Hi—” started Jonah, but it was already too late. She turned and fled back down the corridor before he could shout another word after her.
“I feel like shit,” said Alexis. “She shouldn’t have learned about the decision this way. We should have sat her down, talked to her one-on-one. She’ll never trust us now.”
“Wouldn’t have changed a goddamn thing,” said Jonah, his voice low. “We can’t realistically do anything about the coming war, and Himura’s not our goddamn problem. We’re leaving and that’s final. The only discussion I want to hear at this point is where we should lay low.”
“Perhaps Buenos Aires?” suggested Hassan.
“Good enough for fleeing Nazis, good enough for me,” said Jonah. “You pick that out of a hat or something?”
“I checked a map — it’s nearly opposite to Tokyo on the globe. It’s the furthest we can possibly flee by ocean.”
“Still might not be far enough,” mused Jonah. “But we’ll give it a go. Specifics can come later. My immediate concern is getting the fuck out of Tokyo Harbor. In fact, I have an idea on that—”
“But we’re not going to like it,” said Alexis as she crossed her arms again. “We all know how this part goes.”
Jonah just grinned. “The way I see it, we just had an escape route handed to us on a silver platter. Trying to sneak past the fleet and into open waters would take the Scorpion’s computers running at full tilt plus every dirty trick we can muster up — and even then it’d be a straight coin toss as to whether we could pull off a getaway or not.”
“But everything is broken,” said Hassan. “How can we possibly slip past the fleet?”
“That’s the thing. We don’t,” said Jonah. “We follow the fleet out to sea, stay underneath them. I took a look at a few of their hulls during my dive. They’re a hodgepodge of military and commercial ships — our propellers will be inaudible beneath all that engine noise. Their minesweepers and helicopters will be running a perimeter while underway, but they won’t be looking for a submarine that’s been within their midst since before they even left port. Our batteries won’t make it the whole way, but we can raise the snorkel and charge them each night in the stern wake of the larger ships. It’s risky, but I think we can do it. We’ll make our escape once the convoy hits North Korean waters.”
“And if shooting starts?” asked Hassan.
“More ambient noise for us to hide in. It’d only make it that much easier to slip away.”
“It’s like we’ve just witnessed the full Jonah circle,” said Alexis, her eyes wide with amazement. “So insanely stupid it actually becomes smart again.”
“You figure our electric engines have the range to keep up with the fleet?”
Alexis scratched her head. “Hard to say for certain— we relied pretty heavily on the computer system to manage the battery banks. But we had a full charge before things went to shit, so they should last a few hundred miles at cruising speed, minimum. We’ll have to pop the snorkel up regularly for a crash re-charge to eighty percent. I suppose the heavy storms should give us decent enough cover. I’d have to ask Vitaly what he thinks and go over the numbers together, but I’d guess he’d be willing to give it a shot.”
“Good,” said Jonah. “Keep your ears open and let me know if you hear the fleet on the move. We’ll leave the harbor when they do. In the meantime, I’m going to go change into some proper clothes. Someone once told me I look like a misshapen condom in this wetsuit. Speaking of which, we’ll have to figure out what to do with Freya. But I’m willing to leave that particular albatross alone for the moment.”
Jonah didn’t know how long he’d been sitting alone in the forward section, eyes glassy as he stared at the smoke-stained bulkhead before him. It could have been hours; his broken ribs had a way of accelerating time, his brain throttling all perception of the world around him as it dealt with his aching body. He’d deliberately taken his last painkiller more than ten hours ago, swallowing the pill dry before carefully slipping the half-full bottle back into Hassan’s dwindling medical kit.
The bulkhead hatch behind him opened as Sun-Hi let herself in. She wordlessly sat beside him and neatly divided the remaining portion of her partially eaten MRE, parsing out a broken cracker, a few bites of a BBQ sandwich, and a handful of chocolate M&M’s. Jonah took them without argument and the two ate in silence.
“Why are you here?” she said, looking up at him from behind her thick dark bangs.
“I’m letting Freya brood in my cabin uninterrupted. Just needed a place to sit by myself and think for a while.”