After wiggling through the plates, Jake watched Henri punch a code into a console by a steel door. The Frenchman shouldered the door open to a control room no bigger than Jake’s suburban living room.
Jake entered and latched the door behind him. Windows at the far wall revealed a cave hewn by nature, with fingers of stalactites, expanded and shaped by explosives.
Halogen lights bathed a concrete dock beside which rose a black conning tower. Jake recognized the Hai Ming as the Taiwanese version of the familiar Scorpène class. Nostalgia of past deeds rose within him, yielded to anxiety of uncertain dangers, and evaporated with Henri’s voice.
“We have a problem,” the Frenchman said.
“What is it?” Jake asked.
“From the looks of it, a drone. There’s a satellite photograph from the United States with a note from Pierre.”
Jake crouched while Henri pointed at the screen.
“This oblong object in the water,” Henri said. “It surfaced for several hours before sinking. It probably was intended to sink more rapidly but suffered a malfunction.”
“Looks like a torpedo, but torpedoes don’t surface, unless they’re exercise weapons. This thing’s got to be an acoustic drone.”
“Pierre agrees,” Henri said. “So do the American analysts.”
“It’s Chinese, right?” Jake asked.
Henri lifted a sheet with black text toward his nose. Jake watched his eyes scan Renard’s note.
“Pierre suspects that a Chinese submarine launched it and then abandoned it to its mission. It likely searched around the island on a repeated route for days, if not weeks.”
“They know we’re here,” Jake said. “Shit.”
“Not necessarily, he says. The Chinese at least suspect our presence within the island. However, their drone technology is inferior. The drone would have been challenged to hear one of our submarines.”
“I’m not sharing your optimism,” Jake said.
“This islet has always had a military presence. It may just be a precaution on the part of the Chinese.”
“And there’s been no sign of Chinese submarine activity around here?”
“Nothing.”
“They could have laid mines around the island, if they figured out we’re here.”
“There are no mines, Jake. Divers check the shallows frequently.”
“But not the steep drop off. You can’t check there for mines.”
Jake sensed himself panicking worse than he had while facing greater past perils. Henri stood straight.
“We have an acoustic array around the island.”
“That’s comforting,” Jake said. “I’m a little on edge.”
“I see. It’s unlike you.”
Jake thought of his wife.
“I have someone I want to go home to this time.”
“I know,” Henri said. “Pierre warned me.”
“Warned you?”
“Yes. You are trying to convince yourself that you would enjoy a quiet life. We have all tried it. Pierre, Antoine, Claude, myself. But it is folly. Once you taste the adventure, you cannot reject it.”
Jake tucked Henri’s musings into his memory’s recesses and sought a distraction to the Frenchman’s sharp philosophical insight.
“Why don’t we have a defensive minefield?”
“The Taiwanese could not lay one,” Henri said. “The act of laying would have risked suspicion of our presence, and the detonation of a mine would have confirmed it.”
“Forgive my pessimism,” Jake said. “That’s looking like the wrong decision.”
Jake followed Henri down a staircase to the chiseled ledge of rock serving as a wharf and marveled at the brutal elegance of the waterfront.
The Taiwanese had packed spare weapons, fuel tanks, and electronic cables into carved recesses. Fed by fuel and lubricant lines, a diesel generator whirred with air ducts running into the rock ceiling.
“How’d they get all this down here without the Chinese knowing?”
“The cutting took two years,” Henri said. “Once the rocks were carved, the concrete and wood arrived aboard submarines. So did any machinery too large to appear appropriate for the lighthouse and encampment.”
Jake looked again at the diesel.
“This is cannibalized.”
“Indeed,” Henri said. “Lifted from the last of the Guppy-class submarines in the Taiwanese order of battle. So are the pipes and tanks.”
A tank raised in recessed shadows came into Jake’s view. Piping connected its underbelly to a centrifugal pump with a discharge line kinking into the water.
“What’s that?” he asked. “It’s big enough to be spare diesel fuel, but I question the pump and pipes heading into the water.”
“That’s the hydrazine,” Henri said. “Across the basin is the sodium azide.”
“I’m not following.”
“I see that Pierre did not explain the hydrazine line,” Henri said. “I designed the system for him, and we tested a prototype in the Azores. It’s a defense system of pumps, pipes, and chemicals. It shares structural supports with the hydrophone system.”
“So, on our egress route, just before the drop off to deep water,” Jake said, “you have an underwater piping system running at the edge of the shallows, carrying something called hydrazine.”
“Hydrazine and sodium azide, isolated from each other, of course. Only when activated will the compounds react.”
“React and blow up?”
“React and gasify,” Henri said. “Like an airbag, only there’s no airbag. Just the shallow water above. The piping has release valves and aeration holes running its length. The system creates an instant curtain of bubbles.”
Jake frowned.
“Countermeasures on steroids,” he said. “Either that or Alka-Seltzer for whales. Why?”
“It’s quite useful in many circumstances.”
Jake wanted to spin the idea of a bubble curtain throughout his imagination, but he considered it distracting.
“Looks to me like Pierre’s letting you play with science experiments,” he said. “Let’s see the ship.”
Jake’s boots tapped concrete as he trailed Henri onto the dock. An aluminum gangway echoed with his steps and carried him to the back of the black submarine where his soles gripped rough steel.
Orienting himself on the warship spurred his awareness. He realized that the ship pointed toward the cavern’s solitary, submerged exit.
“How’d they turn the ship around?” he asked.
Henri pointed toward the deep, dark end of the cave.
“There are capstans on the far wall,” he said. “It takes nearly half an hour of line handling, but it is a rather simple exercise to complete.”
“And a smart design to turn the ship around on the way in,” Jake said. “Allows for a quick exit.”
“Not too quick,” Henri said. “Lest you drive the submarine into the island. The exit is completely submerged and gives scant room for error. Fortunately, the ship’s formal captain, who will be your executive officer functionally, is an expert at piloting the egress.”
“I can’t wait to meet him.”
“Well then,” Henri said. “Turn around.”
Jake turned, and a diminutive man in a Taiwanese lieutenant commander’s uniform extended a hand. Jake shook it and noted pimples, thick glasses, and a goofy smile. The officer looked too young for his role.
“Jake,” Henri said, “allow me to introduce Lieutenant Commander Yangyi Jin, commanding officer of the Hai Ming.”
“Consider me your executive officer, Mister Slate” Jin said. “I will follow your lead. My command is a formality.”
“Sure,” Jake said. “That’s how it worked last time. If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your experience in hunting submarines?”
“I’m an expert with drone operations. I handled them in three successful anti-submarine missions.”