“Open the drain valves,” he said. “Bring water into this doomed coffin of a submarine while I neutralize those who might oppose us.”
Sliding his hand into his pockets, he grabbed the hilt of his knives. He considered Park, nestled in his forest of computers, and he decided that nothing would distract the hacker. He would begin by killing the others.
He walked forward to the electric control panel, turned the corner, and spied his two seated victims. His commando training became adrenaline-instinct.
Refusing to overthink his tandem kill, he stepped to the closest man and drove an underhanded thrust through the overall fabric covering his belly. The wound might prove nonfatal, he reflected, but the lower torso presented a large target, hard to defend and easy to hit, and it incapacitated his victim.
As the man fell to the ground, Lu twisted his torso, raised two blades, and lunged. The man raised his arms in defense while standing, and Lu’s daggers carved flesh wounds.
He flailed his blades across the man’s forearms, slicing red lines until he saw an opening below an elbow and backhanded a tip through the coverall stitching and between ribs. The man doubled to his side, and Lu finished him with a slicing motion through his jugular vein.
He turned and noticed the labored breathing of his first victim, doubled over on the deck. He eased the man’s passing by maneuvering a blade between ribs and through the back of his heart.
His weapons concealed in his pockets, he smelled splattered blood in his coveralls as he marched aft toward Park. Relieved that the hacker ignored his approach, he moved to within arm’s reach of his neck.
“Park,” he said.
“What?” Park asked.
“Look at me.”
The young computer geek lifted his chin toward Lu, who sliced a rapid red line through his Adam’s apple.
Park lowered his gaze to his computer screen and extended his fingers towards the keyboard in what Lu thought resembled some bizarre hope of finding an undo function. The young man then grasped his throat and curled forward, his laptop following his carcass to the deck.
Alone with his accomplice in the engineering spaces, Lu slid the knives back into his pockets and walked forward toward the door.
Its round shape appeared large, supporting his desire for the pressure difference on its opposite side to seal it shut via force over its surface area.
He unlatched the handle and pushed. It didn’t budge. Lowering his shoulder into its steel mass, he drove his sneakers into the deck and strained with his legs and back. The door cracked open, and he felt the whistling rush of air from the forward spaces jetting over him. Yielding to the force, he let the door shut itself and reset the latch.
His companion crept up beside him.
“You have blood all over you.”
“It makes no difference, does it?” Lu asked.
“Are they dead?”
“Yes,” Lu said. “We are alone. But I can still open the door, slightly. A team of men on the other side might succeed.”
“The differential pressure is hardly fourteen kilopascals. It will reach twenty-five within minutes. At that point, there will be no opening the door. The latch will break off before it would open.”
“Regardless,” Lu said, “I will stay here and hold the latch shut, in case a random crewman happens by.”
“That is the only thing that could stop us now. I’ve opened drain valves for the diesel seawater and propulsion motor cooling systems. It is a slow infiltration of water, but it is enough to sink this ship.”
“The estimates say that we need an hour before the ship could not recover from the water ingress, correct?”
“Correct. At that point, not even blowing ballast tanks would matter. Even if the ship does reach the surface, the continued inflow will eventually sink it.”
“You’ve shut all valves that would allow pumps to suck water from the engineering spaces?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then all that is left is to secure the shaft so that the ship has no propulsion to drive to the surface.”
“It’s best to wait until they notice the water weight.”
“How will we know they’ve noticed?” Lu asked.
“I’m sure they will call to ask.”
“Then we appear to have a successful plan in motion,” Lu said. “Will you show me the influx from the drain valves? Excuse my curiosity.”
“Follow me.”
As his accomplice turned, Lu stepped forward to finish the final step in his mission. He grasped the hilts of both pocketed blades, flexed his arms, and drove steely death into the back of the other saboteur’s lungs.
Walking over the corpse, Lu glanced between floor gratings and saw shiny surface oil dancing atop the dark water rising in the bilge. The smell of seawater became noticeable, but he wondered if he fooled himself.
He fixed his eyes on a section of drain line from a refrigerant cooling system that opened above the waterline. As the sheen surface tickled the vertical copper drain pipe, he knew the water level was rising.
CHAPTER 34
Chan watched from the corner of his eye as Gao gathered input from animated sailors. He disliked the look of concern in his executive officer as he approached.
“What’s wrong?” Chan asked.
“The ship control station reports that he’s needed excessive pump usage to move water from the after trim tanks. Apparently, we’ve been getting heavier aft, taking on water, gradually.”
“What does the engineering watch say about it?”
“The engineering spaces aren’t responding,” Gao said. “I’ve sent a man to investigate. I fear a possible casualty, possibly a refrigerant leak or a fire, that has incapacitated the staff back aft.”
“Send messengers throughout the forward compartments and have everyone be ready to don forced air masks.”
“I will pass the word, sir.”
After Gao disappeared, Chan decided to come shallow to get closer to the clean air above.
“Helm,” he said, “increase speed to five knots.”
Watching the speed gauge, Chan awaited the slight increase in ship’s speed. Instead, he noted the down-counting decimal inching toward three knots.
“Damn,” he said. “We’re losing propulsion. Get us up by pumping water overboard from our trim tanks, and use an aggressive up angle to use what momentum we have.”
The Romeo angled upward while it slowed against Chan’s will. The jettisoning of water weight from the tanks enabled its climb, where it stalled at forty meters depth.
When Gao returned, his words numbed Chan.
“We can’t get into the engineering spaces,” he said. “There’s a differential pressure across the watertight door, and it’s too great for us to open it. We would rip off the door handle before we could. However, I saw no sign of fire through the portal glass.”
A sickness billowed in Chan’s stomach as he walked to the ship’s control station and looked over a sailor’s shoulder.
“There’s no fire,” he said. “A fire would heat the air and make the pressure higher in the engineering spaces. But it’s lower, and I verified this with evidence. The after high-pressure air banks are at abnormally elevated levels. Someone has been compressing air into the banks.”
“Why?” Gao asked. “That’s wasteful.”
“To create a vacuum in the engineering spaces,” Chan said. “Patiently, while we weren’t paying attention. To create a differential pressure across the door of just a few pounds per square inch. Just enough to prevent us from gaining access to the spaces.”
“This is nonsense, sir.”
“Is it? We’ve lost communications, propulsion, and access to the engineering spaces, and we appear to be slowly taking on water.”
“Slowly, sir. That’s my point. If someone is working against us, why not inundate the engineering spaces by opening the hatch or overriding interlocks to torpedo tube doors?”