“Only a still frame, sir, if you want it done fast and with clarity.”
“Then get a still life of this vessel loaded into the primary three-inch launcher. Mark the message for the Chief of Naval Operation’s eyes only. Launch it ASAP.”
After giving him a tongue lashing in front of his crew, Lin had returned Lieutenant Yang to his post as the Tai Chiang’s executive officer.
Lin listened to him over his headset.
“Simrad acoustic detection,” Yang said. “Bearing zero-one-three,”
“Identification!” Lin said.
“Integrators are processing — probable American submarine!”
“This is a trap! Extending starboard torpedo nest.”
“Sir,” Yang said, “we just received infrared detect on a mast correlating with Simrad detect, range three miles based upon periscope height and Simrad return. The American submarine is shallow.”
“Engaging with the cannon,” Lin said. “Taking manual gun control.”
Lowering his OBA breastplate to the control room deck, Jake pulled out his wallet. He dropped it to a desk and withdrew account access codes.
“I’m going to pop my head up through the hatch and call my bank, Pierre,” he said. “The wireless phones from the Custom Venture were global accounts. They should work from here. Let me know when you’re ready to make your calls.”
“That will settle our finances, but what of our escape? Your friend is not yet here,” Renard said.
“Grant should be here in less than an hour, but just in case, keep loading up our sea bags for the life raft.”
A crack echoed throughout the control room. Jake peered through the periscope in time to watch the second explosion from the Tai Chiang’s cannon.
A cubic obelisk spat three-inch shells from a thin barrel in front of the Tai Chiang’s bridge wing. Every second, the gun popped a round into the sky. Smoke from the end of the barrel wafted over the Tai Chiang’s bridge.
“What the hell are they shooting at?” Jake asked.
“Not us,” Renard said. “That’s all that matters at the moment.”
The flash from the cannon’s muzzle gave Brody ten seconds of warning.
“Lowering number two scope,” he said. “Helm, all ahead flank. Left five degrees rudder, steady course one-four-zero. Diving officer, make your depth nine-zero feet.
“Weapons officer,” he said, “shoot tube one.”
Brody’s orders hung in the air as the first round from the Tai Chiang zipped behind the Miami’s sail. The weapon’s fused warhead exploded underwater three hundred feet away.
The shockwave shook the Miami. Five seconds passed and five more rounds exploded as the Miami dived toward the bottom of the hundred-foot sea.
As the ship heeled over, Brody checked a weapons display and verified that his torpedo swam for the Colorado.
As each pressure wave from the cannon shook the windows of the Tai Chiang’s bridge, Lin sited his rounds like an archer adjusting for wind.
His first five shots passed long. As the Miami’s periscope slipped underwater, he commanded the ship’s combat system to pull back on the gun’s distance. The next five rounds were better placed.
The sixth shot grazed the top of the Miami’s engine room, rebounding and exploding five feet above. The pressure wave ruptured the Miami’s hull and opened a three-foot gash. Water poured in.
The next shot punctured the hull. As the projectile’s nose compressed, its fusing mechanism waited a fraction of a second before detonating the warhead within the Miami’s interior. A wall of air, compressed to the density of steel, expanded in the Miami’s engine room.
The explosion crumpled heavy panels and baked men in the maneuvering control center into unrecognizable mounds against buckled walls. Flesh vaporized as the blast expanded, and the ocean inundated the Miami through the hole ripped in its hull.
CHAPTER 33
The ocean erupted. Water whipped turquoise by air and bioluminescence sprayed toward the sky.
“They’re shooting at a sub!” Jake said. “Shit! It’s probably the Miami. It’s emergency surfacing.”
“Your friend has found us, but the Tai Chiang has found him,” Renard said.
Jake forgot about his personal battles and walked to switches that controlled the Colorado’s ballast tank vents.
“What are you doing?” Renard asked.
“Submerging to drag the Tai Chiang under with us.”
“We have no time to shut the hatches!”
“They’re sitting ducks,” Jake said. “I can’t let this happen. I have to do something.”
“Did you not hear me?” Renard asked. “The hatches are open! You’re not submerging, you’re sinking our ship!”
Jake flipped switches and opened the vents to the Colorado’s ballast tanks.
“This ship’s already a tomb,” he said.
Renard blew smoke from the corner of his mouth.
“Very well,” Renard said. “You’ve made your decision, and the clock is ticking, mon ami. You have a plan?”
“Put a jacket on and grab a shotgun,” Jake said. “Follow me out the forward hatch. We’ve got a life raft to open. ‘Plan B’ is now in effect.”
“‘Plan B’—designed in the case that your friend did not arrive — assumes that we evade on a life raft. Correct?” Renard asked.
“Yes,” Jake said.
“But does it consider that the Tai Chiang might be hostile?”
“The Tai Chiang is going to be tied to the Colorado and underwater in ten minutes. If not, that’s what the shotguns and rifles are for.”
The tug at Jake’s sleeve marked the first time Renard had volunteered to touch him. The Frenchman’s knuckles were white, and Jake saw fear in his face.
“Jake,” Renard said, “I disapprove of ‘Plan B’.”
“You’ve got a better idea?”
Renard released Jake’s sleeve.
“No,” he said. “I can only pray that you’re still charmed.”
Jake yanked a parka from McKenzie’s hands and put it on. It smelled stale and felt heavy and warm. He climbed a ladder through the lower of two hatches. Crouched over the lower hatch, he braced his footing and reached for the upper, twisted it open, and salty air chilled his face.
“Scott, hand me that rifle and get these sea bags topside. Pierre, follow me up with a shotgun.”
Jake lifted himself through the hatch and felt the Arctic cold envelop him. He whispered to Renard as his silvery head emerged.
“Give me your shotgun.”
“Are we going to kill them?” Renard asked.
“I don’t know.”
Shivering under his parka, Jake skirted the sail as the Tai Chiang’s gun muzzle repositioned for another volley half a football field away. The Colorado had already slipped two feet into the ocean and was pulling the Tai Chiang over.
As Jake rounded the back of the sail, four Taiwanese sailors working in an opened hatch came into view. Two of them held a canvas cloth that bulged with the weight of a conical warhead. Beyond them, three missile hatches dangled above the water on their massive hinges.
Jake pointed an M-16 rifle at the men, whistled, and pointed to the deck. The sailors lowered the warhead. Jake then pointed toward the Tai Chiang and returned his hand back to the barrel stock.