Brody sighed and softened his tone.
“Something will go wrong. A nuke will land where it’s not supposed to, someone will get pissed, and someone will fire back harder.”
“I’m not risking American lives,” Rickets said.
“It’s a foregone conclusion. You can’t let Taiwan go nuclear and expect to contain it. You’re not controlling anything. You’re opening Pandora’s box.”
“No!”
“Let me invade!” Brody
“Gentlemen!” Renard said.
Brody looked to the monitor and saw the Frenchman cradling a cigarette beside his cheek.
“What?” Brody asked.
“The Taiwanese Minister of Defense has given the patrol craft authorization to use tactical nuclear weapons. The decision is made, the order is given, and it is not yours to rescind.”
“This is insanity,” Brody said.
“Limited theater escalation is sane,” Renard said. “This is a rational solution to a complex problem.”
“God help us all when this goes awry,” Brody said.
“We are all men of action,” Renard said. “We accept and manage the gravest of risks.”
“Don’t try to compare me to you,” Brody said.
He stood.
“Are we done here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Rickets said.
“Excuse me.”
Brody stormed out of the secretary’s office, reflecting if he should resign his post or give the order to invade Taiwan before Rickets could stop him.
CHAPTER 9
Jake braced himself against a metal rail as the deck heeled underneath him. Henri stood by his side during the turn.
“There’s no way they heard us,” Jake said.
“What?” Henri asked.
In past challenges, Jake’s comment would have been a catalyst for tactical interplay with Pierre Renard. Upon Henri’s ears, useless. He missed Renard.
“Nothing,” Jake said. “I’m trying to run behind the islet to shake the torpedo.”
“Shall I relieve Jin?” Henri asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Jin, oversea the plot.”
The Taiwanese officer stood and slid to the table in the room’s center. Henri walked to the ship’s control station and sat.
A piercing and repeating beep pelted Jake’s head. He pointed to the active torpedo seeker alarm and yelled.
“Silence that damned thing!”
Jin twisted and reached over a Subtics monitor, and the beep subsided. He bent over the plot, absorbed the image, and looked up.
“Torpedo has passed our countermeasures,” he said. “Impact in three minutes.”
Jake turned his head toward a monitor framing a miniaturized rendition of the battle scene.
“Right,” he said. “We’re not getting away.”
“We are dead, then?” Jin asked.
The omen from his brother Nick sliced Jake’s mind.
“Prepare to abandon ship,” he said. “Everyone gets off in two minutes. That’s an order. No heroes.”
Jin reached into the overhead for a microphone and extended its coiled cord towards his chin. He passed word on the ship’s loudspeaker.
“Walk the ship and make sure everyone is getting off,” Jake said.
Jin darted by Jake on his way aft.
“Henri,” Jake said. “Prepare to surface.”
Henri’s eyes became black defiance.
“Use the hydrazine line,” he said.
Jake tapped his memory for the concept of Henri’s science project and found no tactical relevance.
“Trust me,” Henri said. “I designed it for this very purpose, primarily.”
“Torpedo defense?”
“Yes,” Henri said. “In the Azores, the prototype line defeated a torpedo.”
“No,” Jake said. “I can get us off this thing.”
“It will work, Jake. And you can still abandon ship if it doesn’t.”
Remy, earmuffs extending his wide head, announced that Jake’s avenging weapon had discovered its target. The news was fleeting nihilistic justice drowned in his rising curiosity in Henri’s invention.
“How do I use it?” he asked.
“Will you trust me to execute maneuver?” Henri asked as he stood. “For the sake of brevity.”
“Yes,” Jake said. “Attention in the control room. Henri has the conn. I retain the deck.”
Henri traversed the small room and stepped up to Jake, who leaned back to yield a line of sight between the Frenchman and the monitor. A Taiwanese sailor wearing a life vest moved towards Henri’s vacated station. Jake nodded and pointed, and the sailor sat.
“Right ten-degrees rudder,” Henri said. “Steady course one-zero-five.”
The deck shifted as Jake glanced at the monitor. A sharp green glow traced the Hai Ming’s future path over the hydrazine line’s eastern edge.
Jin returned wearing a life jacket and bearing word that the crew was stationed for a blitz exit. Remy updated Jake with an estimate of two minutes to torpedo impact.
“We’ve got to be on the surface in one minute to evacuate if this doesn’t work,” Jake said.
“We are shallow,” Henri said.
“This has to work,” Jake said.
“It will.”
Seconds ticked through Jake’s mind like a dirge. The thought of growing old with his wife glowed within him, mortal terror coaxing the concept’s allure.
“All stop,” Henri said.
“You’re slowing?” Jake asked.
“To keep us near the activated section of the line.”
The surreal grip of illogic tensed Jake’s spine as he let a French mechanic retard his flight from a torpedo. His tactical intuition inverted, he sold out to Henri’s plan.
“Does this work if we’re surfaced?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” Henri said. “I see your point. We will slow more quickly.”
Jake pointed to a seated Taiwanese sailor.
“Blow the main ballast tanks.”
The sailor rotated two nobs upward. High-pressure air roared through wide pipes, and the deck pressed against his heels. The submarine surfaced and rocked.
Jake watched a green crosshair icon glide over the charted position of Henri’s defense line. The Frenchman reached up and flipped a switch.
“Activating the hydrazine line,” Henri said.
“That’s it?” Jake asked.
“The fathometer is the system trigger.”
“Using the backup fathometer frequency?”
“I knew you’d never use it intentionally.”
Jake glanced to Remy and saw his toad-shaped head nod.
“He hears the gasses mixing,” Henri said. “The line is activated. It’s just a matter of seconds before the adequate pressure builds.”
“Now it either protects us, or it doesn’t,” Jake said.
“Any second now,” Henri said.
“Just in case…”
Jake reached for the microphone above, detached it, and moved it to his lips.
“All hands abandon ship. No life rafts. There’s no time and no need. Get off the ship!”
“I’m staying,” Henri said.
“Very well,” Jake said. “Jin, lead the crew off.”
“I will stay,” Jin said.
“No,” Jake said. “The men need a leader. Jump first so they follow you in.”
The room expelled all inhabitants except for Jake and the Frenchmen. Before Jake could expel the sonar expert, thunder rumbled through his steel shell world, and a swath of acoustic fuzz etched itself on a monitor.
“Hydrazine and sodium azide are mixing,” Henri said.
“So, we just wait and drift?”
“Yes,” Henri said. “The torpedo should perish in the disruption above the line.”
Jake turned his chin toward Remy.
“Do you hear anything?”
“A lot of hissing,” Remy said. “But no torpedo.”
Jake waited for the torpedo to reappear and end his life. Beside him, Henri appeared mesmerized in thoughts hewn between life and death. Jake remembered that talking helped deal with the slow moments of terror where fate unfolded its unavoidable mortal verdict.