The men darted down the Colorado’s back. Two more men jumped from the missile hatch, dropped their tools, and sprinted after their comrades.
Jake knelt by the forward doomsday buoy nest. Renard helped him shove a metal covering aside.
“Hurry! The water’s rising,” Jake said.
McKenzie dropped a canvas bag by Jake’s feet and helped the other two men pluck the yellow life raft from the nest.
“Stand back!” Jake said.
He yanked a cord. Compressed air hissed, and the raft unfolded. Two plastic paddles lay strapped in the center.
“Detach the cover, grab your weapons and those sea bags, and get in,” Jake said. “The water will come to us. Be ready to paddle away so we don’t get sucked under.”
The eighth through tenth rounds from the Tai Chiang’s gun missed. Lin realized that he was shooting behind the submarine and ceased fire. He tapped the battle control station. The gun swiveled, and Lin awaited input from infrared sensors that would paint the submarine better than his naked eye.
He gazed through the bridge window and saw smoke rising from a hole in the Miami, then glanced at his infrared display. Shining white light highlighted the wounds ripped in the Miami’s engine room.
He tapped the battle control station and watched the cannon barrel steady. Three shots rang out at the surfaced submarine but landed short. Lin scanned the infrared of the Miami again and instructed the gun to shoot a degree higher.
A voice crackled in his headset.
“Sir,” Yang said, “the ship has a four-degree list.”
“Adjusting the cannon!” Lin said.
The barrel of the weapon recoiled three more times. Smoke blew by the windows.
“Sir, the list is now six degrees,” Yang said. “The weapon is missing because of the list.”
A lookout from the port bridge wing popped his head through a door.
“Captain, the work team has been forced at gunpoint to abandon the missile load.”
Lin saw Jake and his men boarding an inflatable raft, his work team sprinting across the deck, and the waterline creeping up to the Colorado’s missile deck.
“We’re being pulled under,” he said. “All hands lay to the cleats. Cast off all lines!”
Lin watched the Colorado’s engine room and missile compartment hatches swallow the sea. A whirlpool swept one of his sailors down the missile compartment hatch.
Men on his bridge wing balanced against a list that had accelerated past thirty-degrees. They tried to untie the line, but with the line under tension and the cleats in the frigid sea, they could not. One by one, they plunged into the water.
On the Tai Chiang’s bow, a team of sailors fell into the sea with a flailing line snaking behind them.
At least one group of these imbeciles understands line handling, Lin thought.
The ocean had swallowed all but the Colorado’s conning tower sail as three mooring lines dragged Lin under. The Tai Chiang creaked around him as water pushed against its watertight windows. He thought about trying to escape through the starboard door above.
As he reached for his seat straps, he heard a nylon line snap. Another line popped, and the bow swiveled.
Counting on the last line to yield under the strain, Lin smirked, began programming a torpedo to attack the Miami, and waited.
Jake paddled with all his strength. McKenzie grunted beside him as Renard glued binoculars to his face.
“What do you see?” Jake asked.
“The Colorado is almost gone, and the Tai Chiang is ninety degrees over, but the lines are snapping.”
“Fine,” Jake said. “Let them come for us. Reach into those bags and break out the rifles.”
In passive mode, the Miami’s torpedo sought the loudest mechanical noises in the ocean — the rhythmic harmonies of the Colorado’s dying reactor plant.
Frigid streams flowed through the mechanical forest of the engine room. Water had risen to the compartment’s middle level, but fluid still flowed through pipes, and pumps continued to rotate. The Colorado’s reactor plant churned out the sustaining power it needed in its waning moments to keep itself alive.
Salt water seeped into electrical circuits. Breakers popped open and the ship turned dark. Reactor circuitry de-energized, causing control rod drive mechanisms to release the neutron absorbent rods into the core.
Within the confines of the dry, watertight reactor compartment, the Colorado’s core shut itself down.
Homing in on the sounds of the Colorado’s dying reactor plant, the Miami’s torpedo detonated above the submarine’s hull.
The ADCAP torpedo vaporized the steel above the Trident’s engine room. The compressed energy of the heavyweight torpedo expanded into the engine room, vaporized metal, and sent the Colorado to the ocean floor.
Lin held the battle control station for support and listened for the last mooring line to snap. He never heard that sound, nor did he hear the ADCAP explode fifty feet behind his head.
The torpedo’s blast transformed water into a superheated gas, and its energy vaporized the Tai Chiang’s hull. The shock wave compressed steam to the density of steel, pounded the interior of the small warship, and pulverized Lin.
The scattered molecules of DNA evidence of Lin’s existence settled with the warped and gutted hull of the Tai Chiang on the sea floor.
CHAPTER 34
Brody scanned the horizon through the periscope. The ocean had swallowed all evidence of the Colorado and the Tai Chiang, but a bright orange blob caught his eye. He switched to high power and settled his gaze on tiny forms in a life raft.
Brody doubted he would understand what had compelled his protégé to steal the Colorado, but he would never have another chance to thank Jake for saving him from the phantom warship. Trusting that fate would administer whatever justice Jake deserved, Brody allowed the man who had saved his life twice to escape.
“Should I raise the other periscope to help you look for contacts, sir?” Parks asked.
“No,” Brody said. “There’s nothing out there, and there’s nothing we could do about it if there were. This ship’s entire crew should be committed to damage control, restoring propulsion, and caring for the injured.”
“We’re doing all we can, sir,” Parks said. “I’ve seen to it. But don’t you think we should look for survivors?”
Brody sighed.
“Any man who survived our torpedo — and that’s a big ‘if’—is freezing to death in the water right now. We’re three miles away, and we can only make three knots. No man could possibly survive an hour in this sea. Turning back would be useless, and since our pumps aren’t keeping pace back aft, we need to head to shore to save our ship.”
Jake shivered, but dry clothes and parkas kept him and his two companions alive. He raised a bridge-to-bridge radio to his mouth.
“Cut your engines,” he said. “You’re close enough. We’ll paddle from here.”
In his trawler’s pilothouse, Mercer raised his thumb.
Jake lowered the radio, grabbed a paddle, and leaned over the lip of the raft. He dipped the paddle into the water.