“There are atmosphere-sensing kits in the engineering spaces, are there not?”
“If this ship is true to our homemade submarines, as it should be, then yes.”
“It is. We sold the North Koreans this vessel, and there is no reason they would store the kits elsewhere. Measure cyanide levels in all compartments. Have the men with limited air gather in the cleanest space.”
Chan straddled a corpse and looked over the shoulder of a sailor at a weapon control screen. He saw what he wanted.
“Our salvo is active,” he said.
A sailor nodded his confirmation, and Chan returned to the sonar operator’s shoulder. One incoming weapon angled away, but the other maintained its course toward his Romeo.
“Increase speed to flank,” Chan said.
“Battery life is now fifteen minutes,” Gao said. “Speed is increased to thirteen knots.”
A sailor with a glass tube and rubber suction bulb entered the compartment and announced that the cleanest air in the submarine was in the control room.
“Have the men with limited air gather here,” Chan said.
A half dozen men crammed into the crowded room, and Chan recognized risk as the cost of command.
“If I pass out or die,” he said. “Surface, ventilate, and take down that corvette.”
He knelt and lifted the mask from his deceased predecessor. As he plugged it into the ship’s emergency air line, he welcomed the high-pressure hiss. He drew in a breath, removed his mask, and pulled the straps of the new one over his head.
While he cracked the air tight seal with his finger, he coughed his lungs empty and forced air from his mask. He released the rubbery seal to his face and inhaled from the header.
His world turned a dizzy red, and his legs felt wobbly. But he stood and he breathed. After calming himself with multiple breaths, he barked his order.
“Find masks and plug in,” he said.
“Our lead weapon is in terminal homing!” Gao said.
“Excellent,” Chan said. “Estimated distance to nearest incoming weapon?”
“Seven nautical miles. We will make it, sir, if we retain propulsion.”
The ocean grumbled and boomed.
“The corvette is no longer a problem,” Chan said.
“Shall we surface, sir?”
“Wait until we’ve cleared distance from the corvette. In case they have called for assistance, I want to be far away when we broach.”
“We no longer hear incoming active seekers,” Gao said.
“That’s encouraging but not definitive,” Chan said. “We will maintain flank speed for three more minutes.”
Chan waited with a patience that surprised him as the incoming weapon diminished into a ghost.
“Slow to three knots,” he said. “Listen for incoming weapons. Line up to snorkel and ventilate all compartments while charging batteries.”
The deck rolled into the balls of his feet.
“What’s next after ventilating, sir?” Gao asked. “Time with a mast exposed on the surface is time at risk.”
“Agreed,” Chan said. “We head toward the nearest friendly waters until I’m sure no hostile assets are tracking us. Chart a course for Qingdao.”
While the Romeo bobbed at shallow depth, Chan listened to the grumbling engines. The twin diesels sucked air through the induction mast, dragging it through the compartments en route to their intakes.
Chan squinted through his mask at the periscope optics but could see little. Gao appeared before him, reddened skin and sweat outlining his face where his mask had been.
“The air is clean, sir.”
Chan tore off his mask and glued his eye to the periscope. The dark horizon became discernible. He rotated in slow circles, unsure of what he hoped or expected.
His stomach sank and his heart raced. He saw a mast on the horizon, and a sick intuition suggested that it belonged to a South Korean destroyer.
CHAPTER 6
Air whipped Jake’s cheeks as the black void swallowed him. His lungs froze as his jumpmaster yanked at his flanks and dislodged him from their tandem connection. He tucked and rolled, finding relief in the softness of the dirt.
He pushed himself prone, steadying his world. His muscles knotted as the billowing parachute cast a translucent veil over the moonlit horizon. As the sprawling canvas jetted toward a cliff, its wires entangled the jumpmaster’s leg.
Jake rose and sprinted toward his companion, who dragged his free boot on the ground while slashing a knife at his damning cords.
Diving, Jake grabbed the man’s waist, rolled, and felt the thump of his helmet hitting a stone. He fought the anger of the gale to spare the man who had guided him through a high-altitude jump with a twenty-mile glide to a tiny rock in the East China Sea.
Through combat fatigues, dirt abraded his leg. As the landing zone’s edge approached, he prepared for a fateful decision to relinquish his partner to his death.
He fell back, and the world became silent. Panting, he rolled forward to see his freed companion reclining before him. Wind whipped the parachute up, fluttering it and pumping it like a jellyfish before driving it below the cliff and into the sea.
Jake helped his partner to his feet and served as a crutch to the limping soldier. After a few steps, separated by a language barrier, he reached an agreement with the man that reaching the lighthouse required a piggyback ride.
Adrenaline coursing through his muscular mass, Jake found his companion an ethereal load while trudging through the earth. He paused, reached under his passenger’s thigh, and tugged him higher up his back.
While walking, he mulled over the debate gnawing at him since leaving Michigan. He felt drawn to the allure of leading a frontline warship into combat, but part of him hoped to find a crew on the submarine competent enough to handle affairs without him.
When he reached the lighthouse, a bulb shone on a man in slacks and dress shirt who rendered Jake a smile.
“It has been a while,” Henri Lanier said.
“Henri, my friend,” Jake said.
Henri reminded him of a reserved version of Pierre Renard with an uptick in dignity and impeccable penchant for dress. The aging submarine mechanic kissed the air by Jake’s cheeks.
Repositioning the jumpmaster on his back, Jake lifted the oxygen mask at his chest.
“Where can I dump my gear?”
“In the lighthouse.”
“And my new friend?”
“Also in the lighthouse. There is no place else.”
Jake followed Henri into the circular structure and left his companion on a chair. A keeper approached, exchanged words in Mandarin and nods with the injured man, and gestured for Henri to join him.
The keeper and Henri slid a desk and kicked back a carpet. The Frenchman knelt and pulled open a trap door. He started down steep stairs cut into stone, and Jake followed his silvery hair into darkness.
Florescent lights revealed crude, jagged cuts into rock. Jake’s legs ached as he stooped.
“I imagine this resembles the tunnels the Koreans used under the demilitarized zone.”
Jake’s words echoed through the tunnel.
“Probably,” Henri said.
“Not meant for a man of my height,” Jake said.
“Nor mine. Pace yourself. It’s a long way to the submarine pen.”
Ten minutes later, Jake slouched sore shoulders and saw metal plates blocking the level ground ahead.
“What’s that?”
“They force a zigzagging path through the final meters to reach the pen,” Henri said. “To slow infiltrators.”
“Clever.”
“Thank the South Koreans,” Henri said.
“Installed in tunnels under the demilitarized zone?”
“In addition to sealing them with concrete, at least for the ones they know about.”