“This will require some luck,” he said.
The Leviathan’s hull came into view, reflecting just enough light for discernment. The ROV hit it and bounced off. Salem drove it upward again.
“There’s the rudder,” he said. “Damn, I can’t get it. We’re moving too fast. Aiming for the stern plane…”
He heard the ROV crash against the Leviathan’s stern plane. He kept maneuvering it, hoping to get it close to the propeller. The last image the ROV sent was a shot of a swishing blade.
“Perhaps we should pray,” Hamdan said.
“I already am. Silently.”
Salem waited for seconds that seemed an eternity.
Then, the cacophony began. He heard nylon netting abrading the Jammal’s port hull rear door and thumping and bumping the Leviathan’s stern.
“What’s happening?” Hamdan asked.
“I sent the remote vehicle on a suicide mission with the harness of a trawling net attached to it. If all goes well, my brother, one hundred meters of netting is emptying from our port hull and wrapping itself around their propeller.”
Hamdan’s eyes opened wide.
“And then what? Will they try to shake loose?”
“We’re trusting that they’re humanitarians,” Salem said. “A net may be attached to a trawler that would be pulled under if they drive away. A good submarine commander knows this and will stop and come shallow to evaluate.”
Hamdan raised his sound-powered phone to his mouth.
“Thank you, Asad,” he said.
“What did he say?” Salem asked.
“He said the Leviathan is slowing.”
Thirty minutes later, Salem became anxious. The Leviathan had drifted to a dead stop, tried to free itself by running its screw in reverse, and repeated the back and forth effort three times.
“When will they give up?” Hamdan asked.
“At least they’ve come shallower. We’re at one hundred meters, right?”
“Yes. That was Asad’s last report.”
The world tilted and dumped Salem against the lockout chamber’s rear door. Hamdan grabbed piping to steady himself and work the phone.
“Asad say’s we’re losing suction,” he said. “Their maneuvering is too radical.”
“Tell him to hold on as long as he can.”
“He wants to talk to you.”
Salem pushed his facemask behind his neck and slipped Hamdan’s phone over his ears. Asad’s voice seemed distant and electronic but anxious.
“They’re driving up steeply,” Asad said. “I’m not sure if we’re holding. I’ve lost most suction readings.”
Salem lifted the mouthpiece.
“What’s their intent?” he asked.
“Apparently, breaking free of the net is more important than—”
“What’s wrong?” Salem asked.
“We’re slipping free. Damn! What do we do? We didn’t plan for this!” Asad said.
“Steady us. Flood our ballast to control our ascent. And make use of our high-frequency sonar and short-range cameras to watch for the Leviathan. Trust that the information you need is there.”
Salem felt the Jammal become steady and level at twenty meters.
“We can see just enough light,” Asad said. “We have both cameras, following the Leviathan’s last course.”
“They couldn’t have gone far,” Salem said into his mouthpiece.
“It depends on how effectively our netting seized their screw. I suspect they’ll be shallow or surfaced. Either way, we’re searching at the right depth.”
“How’s our battery?”
“Ten percent,” Asad said. “It will drop rapidly as we search and chase. We can catch them, but we won’t have much battery to stay with them unless we reattach.”
“If they’re on the surface?” Salem asked.
“To remove the netting? Then we’re in good shape and will find them soon.”
“Do your best,” Salem said.
He lowered the microphone and lowered his head.
“To come this far and fail…”
“Hana?” Hamdan asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re afraid of failing?”
“We need divine intervention. Just a little.”
Uncertainty caused Salem to feel his fatigue and anxiety. He slumped over in his wetsuit, consumed with rapid-fire thoughts paralyzing his mind until he heard Asad’s excited voice.
“Leviathan, bearing zero-two-zero!”
“Get us in front of it,” Salem said, reenergized. “Hamdan and I are going to swim out.”
“I can put you in front of their conning tower, but we have to hurry,” Asad said. “Our battery is nearly gone.”
“We’ll prepare our gear and leave on your mark.”
Salem pulled the mask over his face and pushed the breather into his mouth. Hamdan handed him a sarin nerve agent canister, which he clipped to his belt. Three canisters later, Hamdan handed him a nine-millimeter pistol with a silencer and extra ten-round clips sealed in a waterproof bag that he slipped into a pouch on his waist.
He also strapped suction cups to his wrists and over the knees of his black wetsuit and clipped twenty feet of elastic cord between his belt and that of Hamdan.
Hamdan equalized air pressure to the depths above the Leviathan, and he opened and shut valves letting a calculated amount of seawater into their lockout chamber. Water rose to Salem’s chest as he pressed the phone’s ear muff to his ear and lifted the mouthpiece.
“We’re ready,” he said.
“Almost there,” Asad said. “They’re at periscope depth and dead in the water. We’re at five meters.”
“That’s perfect. Let me know when we’re—”
“Go!”
Salem hung the phone on its latch and twisted a valve, and seawater glided up his mask. Hamdan opened an overhead escape hatch and pulled himself into the Mediterranean Sea. Salem followed, stopped, and closed the hatch.
He kicked past the Jammal’s thrusters and rode the beams of setting sunlight toward the Leviathan’s bright green tower. The rope between himself and Hamdan slacked as the soldier reached the welded ladder rungs on the submarine’s conning tower.
His breathing slowed when he saw Hamdan lock his belt to a rung, and he accompanied the soldier as a limpet on the Leviathan. The Israeli submarine remained motionless, testing his patience until he realized that its crew solved a problem for him by waiting until sunset to surface.
Two Hamas soldiers in wetsuits startled him as they landed on the tower’s higher rungs. One held a bag of meter-long aluminum bars wrapped in cloth. He withdrew the bars and screwed one into another like a pool cue. He continued until he had a long pole, which Hamdan held from the hull while attaching one of his sarin canisters to a hook on its tip.
Salem checked his SCUBA gear and noted fifteen minutes of air. A final soldier who had passed through the Jammal’s lockout chamber joined the team with a spare tank on his back, ready to buddy-breathe with those losing air.
The depths turned dark as the sun’s rays reflected off the swells and the rising silhouette of the Leviathan’s snorkel mast caught Salem’s eye. He thought he felt the submarine vibrate with the perceptible sound of a diesel engine, but only the ship’s gentle rise confirmed that the Israeli vessel was snorkeling and routing air into its ballast tanks to float to the surface.
He pushed off the ladder rungs to the submarine’s deck and placed his sneakers on its anti-skid walking surface. Above, the tower rose into the darkening night. Then his head pushed through the surface. To conserve his tank, he turned it off and breathed the humid evening’s air. Beside him, Hamdan did the same.