Cheetah stood five and a half feet tall. Jake noticed small bumps on his wetsuit that indicated lean muscle underneath.
Wiry guys are scrappy, Jake thought.
Tiger stood over six feet tall, and his shoulders spanned nearly as wide. He stared at Jake with an arrogant smugness.
Shit, he’s big, Jake thought.
“Mister Cheetah and Mister Tiger,” Jake said, “climb back up the ladder and guard topside. The rest of you put your sunglasses on.
“Mister Renard, go to maneuvering,” Jake said. “We already control it. You’ll be safe there.”
Jake sent Renard, the only other hijacker who could navigate the submarine, to the engine room as insurance in case he took a bullet while taking the Colorado.
“You can do this, mon ami. I have the utmost confidence in you,” Renard said.
“At this point,” Jake said, “you have no choice.”
Renard left Jake with four commandos.
“Okay. You guys — over there.”
Jake pointed, and as commandos hid behind cabinets, he stepped deeper into the missile compartment.
Containing little more than manholes bolted over missile guidance innards, the compartment’s upper level was a barren land. Jake expected no company but threw his voice into a forest of missile tubes.
“Rover!” Jake said. “This is the duty officer. Is the rover watch in upper level?”
Relieved by the silence, he snapped a handset from a brass cradle. He telephoned CAMP, the control and monitoring panel, one deck below.
“CAMP,” a watchman said.
“CAMP, Duty Officer,” Jake said. “Have the rover report to your station. I want to talk to both of you on my way by.”
While Jake marched back to Kao’s team, he heard the watchman’s voice crackle over the missile compartment announcing circuit.
“Rover, come to CAMP.”
“The rover should be at CAMP soon,” Jake said to the masked commandos. “When I secure the two men there, I’ll give the signal.”
“In two minutes, we move regardless,” Kao said. “There are silencers on these weapons for a reason.”
Gym bag in hand, Jake scurried down the staircase to the missile compartment’s second level.
Wide orange tubes containing missiles twenty-three and twenty-four stood before him. He stepped around them and passed equipment that controlled the temperature and humidity within each missile’s housing.
Near an alcove between towers of electronics, a boot from the CAMP watch, Missile Technician Second Class Joseph Ellen, rested in Jake’s path.
“Did the rover acknowledge?” Jake asked.
“Yes, sir,” Ellen said. “Here he comes now.”
A man with sandy blond hair turned the corner around tube one. Over his bell-bottom trousers, he wore an olive web belt with a forty-five-caliber pistol and two clips.
Jake knew that Sonar Technician Second Class Welch was happier sitting in front of the displays in the Colorado’s air-conditioned sonar room than marching around the missile compartment. His frown revealed his frustration in being interrupted from his rounds.
“What’s up, sir?” Welch asked.
“Not much,” Jake said. “I just need you and Ellen to go stand over there.”
Jake withdrew his pistol from the gym bag and pointed at a towering electronic cabinet.
“What the fuck?” Welch asked.
Jake pointed the barrel at Welch. He put his free hand into the bag, pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and slid them across the deck.
“Welch, put this around your left wrist,” Jake said.
Shaking, Welch picked up the shackles and obeyed.
“Now stand next to Ellen. Run the cuffs through the metal bar and put the open end around Ellen’s right wrist,” Jake said. “Toss that pistol into the outboard.”
Welch’s weapon bounced off the hull’s insulating lagging and clinked against pipes on its way to the bilge.
Jake picked up a microphone and signaled Kao.
“Rover, come to CAMP,” he said.
Kao whispered orders.
“Mister Jaguar, lower level,” he said. “Mister Leopard and Mister Panther, third level. I will handle second level. Move!”
As Kao swept through the compartment’s second level, he glanced between the tubes and caught a glimpse of Jake’s handcuffed prisoners on the other side. He high-stepped over bunking racks that protruded into the passageway.
Checking for stray crewmen, he brushed each rack’s privacy curtain aside with the silencer of his M-16 rifle. Finding no one, he reached the forward bulkhead of the missile compartment.
Jaguar, like the other commandos, had just graduated with the latest class of Taiwan’s Para-Frogmen special forces.
A deck below Kao, on the third level, Jaguar watched his compatriots, Leopard and Panther, trot down a corridor between the missile tubes that separated the crew’s bunkrooms.
Alone, Jaguar scanned the empty machinery space before hopping down a steel ladder into the submarine’s depths.
His bare foot touched the cold steel deck plates of the compartment’s lower level. He stared down a central walkway lined by gas-generators, man-sized cylinders of explosives used to jettison and launch Trident Missiles.
Seeing no activity, Jaguar trotted along the centerline corridor. He passed each missile tube and gas generator in hypnotic repetition, listening to the rhythmic cadence of his footsteps echoing through the bilge under his feet.
The commando passed between missiles one and two and stopped at the watertight bulkhead of the forward compartment. Pipes, hoses, and valves wove a tangled mural around him. Jaguar found the endless mechanical jungle of the Colorado alien.
Squatting below a ladder, he leaned his rifle against his thigh and waited until he saw Leopard’s masked face above. Leopard offered a thumbs-up, indicating that he and Panther had found no one in the crew’s bunkrooms.
The eleven-man team of Kao’s men, Jake’s Colorado accomplices, and Renard controlled the engine room and the missile compartment. Only the forward compartment and a few dozen tired men separated them from control of the submarine.
Ducking through a machined circular door into the forward compartment, Jake turned into the missile control center. Towers of aging computers spanned the dimensions of a racquetball court. Two sailors sat at panels that directed the launching and guidance systems.
“What’s up Mister Slate? We heard the rover paged twice,” Missile Technician First Class Brady asked.
“I found him. You guys alone?” Jake asked.
“Yes, sir. Everyone who’s not on watch should still be in the crew’s mess.”
“Good. Now get up,” Jake said and pulled the pistol from behind his back. “I’m stealing the ship — with some help.”
Jake sensed the all-black image of Kao in his wetsuit, ski mask, and sunglasses slide beside him and raise a silenced M-16 rifle.
Jake tossed a pair of handcuffs to Brady.
“Cuff yourselves together.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Brady said.
Jake aligned his pistol’s rear and barrel sights with Brady’s thigh and squeezed the trigger. A kick recoiled at his wrist, a silencer whined, and crimson splashed from dark blue trousers.
“You bastard!” Brady said.
“He’s serious. Just do what he says,” the other sailor said while tightening the cuffs around his wrist.
“Good,” Jake said. “Now step outside with my colleague, head to CAMP, and cuff your free hands like Ellen and Welch.”
Jake moved deeper into the forward compartment and yelled for the final watchman.