“Good point.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll share how you found the submarine.”
Jake remained ignorant of the events that had allowed him timely proximity to the Malaysian target. Had an American submarine trailed it? An Australian submarine or possibly Japanese? Or could it have been pure satellite surveillance or some technology he had yet to consider?
He accepted that he wouldn’t know, but he trusted the CIA officer who had orchestrated the capturing and sharing of the information — Olivia McDonald.
Olivia — the CIA officer who had ended his vagabond fugitive life. The one who had become his lover, his captor, his confidant, his battle partner, his friend, and then his memory.
He had wanted her to stay a memory as she rocketed up the CIA’s career ladder and became arrogant — even hedonistic in her success. But she had resurfaced in Argentina, driving regime change while he once again advanced her career by commanding his friend’s personal Scorpène submarine in the 2017 Falkland Islands conflict.
Then, three months ago, he had found himself talking to her about stealing a Malaysian Scorpène submarine. The theft would double his friend’s mercenary submarine fleet’s abilities, earn him and his colleagues hundreds of millions of dollars, and redeploy the ownership of land and resources within the oil-rich Spratly Islands.
She had used her growing, darkening power within the intelligence community to place him atop the targeted warship.
“If I knew how the information flowed to me about that submarine’s location,” Jake said, “I’d be fearing for my life. That’s the sort of clandestine shit I try to avoid.”
“Maybe you are wiser than you behave.”
“Thanks, I think. Anyway, you have the hard part now, getting us close enough.”
“It’s not that hard. It just needs a little skill and patience.”
“But you don’t have all day,” Jake said.
“How fast is it sinking?”
“I figure a meter every ten minutes,” Jake said. “But there are variable factors that can make it accelerate the wrong way. No need to delay.”
“It’s difficult to take station on a moving vessel, but it can be done.”
“How close do you need to get?” Jake asked.
“Thirty meters,” the commander said. “The dive team can handle it from there. But I intend to get within fifteen to simplify their work.”
In unnerving silence, Jake watched the frigate’s bow barrel down on the orange light. He clenched his jaw to stifle the urge to usurp the giving of engine and rudder commands.
As the prow dipped into a wave, the ship rolled, and Jake feared the frigate and the submerged treasure before it would collide.
“Right full rudder,” the commander said. “Starboard engine stop.”
Jake agreed with the instruction, but as a young Filipino rotated a wheeled helm and slid an engine order telegraph from its ‘flank’ to its ‘stop’ setting, the actions seemed incomplete.
As if hearing his mental protestations, the commander issued his next order.
“Starboard engine back two-thirds,” he said.
The Gregorio del Pilar shook with a violence that threatened its ancient hull. It twisted and drifted sideways, its forward advance and lateral transfer setting it parallel to the undulating orange aura.
“All engines ahead one third,” the commander said.
“Nice,” Jake said.
“I don’t know why you ever doubted me.”
After a minute, the commander slowed the frigate to four and a half knots, matching the pace of the pulsating light and the cubic buoy that appeared under it with each flash.
“Do you see any reason to wait?” the commander asked.
“No,” Jake said. “Send them.”
“I need to keep the ship on station and avoid colliding with the submarine,” the commander said. “But you need to observe the action from the monitor as you give commands. One of my lieutenants is already on the line, waiting for you.”
Jake turned to a closed-circuit television feed that showed men on the fantail through night vision. Two emerald-hued forms slipped over the side, out of sight, and into the water.
He lifted a sound-powered headset from its cradle and slid it over his ears.
“Jake here,” he said.
Olivia McDonald and the CIA security experts at her disposal had agreed to let him use his first name with the Philippine crew. Since he had officially died ten years ago stealing an American Trident missile submarine, all trails of evidence leading to his identity hit dead ends.
“Switching to diver camera,” the lieutenant said, the circuit deepening his voice as it clipped its higher tones.
The monitor before Jake glowed with the empty white sphere of LED lighting probing the oceanic void beneath the waves. Then the lead diver swam into view, his fins whipping swirling vortexes. The thin opaqueness of the buoy’s tethering line appeared in the distance as the diver’s gloved hand groped it for guidance.
“Yeah, I see them now,” Jake said. “That’s the buoy line, right?”
“That’s correct, sir,” the lieutenant said.
On the back of the diver’s hand, Jake saw a round disk with a thick edge running its circumference.
“What’s that on his hand?” he asked.
“It’s a suction cup, sir. He will rotate it to his palm to hold himself to the submarine. Both divers have them.”
The first swimmer reached the mast and began to crawl down its length. The image became a white light swallowed by surrounding nothingness as the second diver reached the mast and allowed the camera to point in a random direction.
When the camera steadied, a bird’s eye view showed suction cups helping the lead swimmer walk hand over hand along the submarine’s deck. Then the image pointed into random nothingness again as the second diver crawled down the conning tower to join his partner.
Upon reaching the deck, the second diver aimed the camera at his comrade who propped a level tool on the straight steel. The bubble steadied off center.
“That looks like about half a degree down,” Jake said.
“I agree,” the lieutenant said.
“That’s tending to drive the ship downward and explains part of our problem about why it’s sinking.”
“It possibly explains the entire problem, sir.”
“Maybe. Let’s solve it. Send the divers to the forward vents.”
“Yes, sir.”
After a minute without visual insight, Jake saw the image steady again. It showed the lead diver running a gloved finger over the smooth fairing between the vent and the deck.
“Confirmed,” he said. “The forward ballast tank vents are shut.”
Although caution made submarines operate with closed ballast tank vents to allow emergency surfacing, Jake welcomed the confirmation.
“The team will proceed to the grating,” the lieutenant said.
The camera flopped as the diving duo progressed along the side of the submarine. For the first time, the image showed the hose trailing behind the second swimmer.
“The team is inserting the air feed now,” the lieutenant said.
“Got it. Don’t run it until I tell you.”
“No, sir.”
Underneath the vessel, the image steadied again with a close-up of the lead diver’s hand. With the suction cup returned to the back of his hand, he grasped a horizontal bar of the ballast tank’s underside grating. The water flowing under the submarine dragged the swimmer on an upward angle.
Beside his hand, a grapnel held an air hose that ran between bars and into the tank.
“That’s good,” Jake said. “Run the air.”