“The air is running,” the lieutenant said.
The undersea image lacked insight into the physics of the operation, but Jake trusted that air pushed itself into the tank with a pressure of one hundred pounds per square inch. The gas rose to the top of the tank, settling under the closed vents and expelling water through the bottom grating.
Jake expected the air to make the submarine lighter and elevate its nose. With the grapnel holding the feed, he watched the divers combine their free hands to press the level tool against the vessel’s underbelly and film its tilting as his hopes became reality.
Minutes passed, and the bubble started to budge. When it showed two degrees up, the lieutenant betrayed his impatience.
“Should we stop now?” he asked.
“No,” Jake said. “Keep going to four degrees. That submarine is moving slow, and we need more upward driving force.”
“I understand, sir. Four degrees,” the lieutenant said.
“What’s happened to the submarine’s depth?” Jake asked.
“It’s gone up half a meter since we started.”
“Good, but not good enough,” Jake said. “After you get the submarine to four degrees of up angle, send the dive team to the middle ballast tank.”
While waiting, Jake turned his attention to the commander.
“How’s the navigation going?”
“This is tedious. You may not have noticed, but I’ve given a dozen engine and rudder commands to keep a constant distance to that vessel.”
“I heard you,” Jake said. “But I wasn’t paying attention. Can you keep it up all night?”
The commander looked at a clock.
“Night is about to end. Sunrise is in three hours.”
“I’m hurrying,” Jake said.
The lieutenant’s voice from the headset startled him, and he looked to the monitor showing the undersea image.
“The submarine is at four degrees of up angle.”
“I agree,” Jake said. “Send them to the middle tank.”
He watched as the divers repositioned themselves amidships and forced air into another ballast tank with the grapnel and air hose.
Minutes later, lookouts reported the head valve’s broaching, and then they announced the induction mast’s rise.
“It’s coming up fast,” the lieutenant said. “It’s going to be surfaced soon.”
“Twenty more minutes, per my estimate,” Jake said.
He turned to the commander.
“Is the infiltration team ready?” he asked.
“They’re aboard the helicopter already. We’ll cut through the hull and gain access within minutes of it surfacing.”
Confident that the fentanyl-derived gas remained potent in the vessel’s submerged, unchanging atmosphere, Jake expected no resistance. But he couldn’t be sure.
“Are you using stun grenades and tear gas?”
“Of course,” the commander said. “The men are professional warriors and have trained for this mission. They will carry side arms to neutralize any resistance as they see fit, but I’ve ordered the most humane entry possible.”
“Thank you. I don’t know how many more deaths my conscience can take.”
Through a side bridge window, Jake watched the helpless submarine push aside cascading sheets of water to reveal its conning tower and then, minutes later, its forward deck. As the helicopter hovered overhead, a commando wearing a rebreather and mask rappelled to its deck, followed by a second man.
With impressive speed, the warriors shaped military explosive plastic into a circle atop a hatch. They stepped away, trailing a detonation cord, and then wisps of gray smoke wafted over the freshly cut steel.
Positive pressure within the submarine shot the disk of severed metal upward, and as it crashed against the deck, the men lobbed stun grenades and teargas canisters into the hole.
As reinforcements rappelled onto the prize, the lead pair aimed rifles into the exposed compartment. Then the submarine swallowed the commando team, and the helicopter veered away.
“You’d better get ready,” the commander said. “You’re in the third wave.”
“The second wave is medics, right?”
“Correct,” the commander said. “To anesthetize the Malaysian crew in case they wake up.”
“And to offer medical attention as necessary.”
“Yes, if necessary. If it eases your conscience.”
Jake left the bridge, turned corners, and descended stairs towards the wardroom. Despite cleaning efforts to keep the ship sanitary, the passageways betrayed the frigate’s age with a lingering damp mustiness. The wardroom door creaked open with the lethargy of a centenarian who wished for its time on earth to end.
The first face that greeted him from a seat at the room’s dining table warmed him. He welcomed the sight of his right-hand man, the retired French submarine mechanic, Henri Lanier.
“What news?” Henri asked.
“The commandos are in the submarine. Medics go next. Then us. Are you guys ready?”
Seated near Henri, his engineer, the wiry Claude LaFontaine, and his sonar expert, the squatty Antoine Remy, nodded.
“Good. I take off in ten minutes. You guys will be going in about thirty.”
“You should change, Jake,” Henri said.
The beige khaki pants and white collared dress shirt that his French companions wore had become their mercenary navy’s de facto uniform.
“No, not me,” he said. “I’m going in first with self-contained air. But thanks for reminding me to get a new rebreather. I’ll see you guys on our new submarine.”
Alone in the helicopter with its flight crew, Jake watched the surfaced submarine bobbing next to the frigate, proving that the commandos had remembered to flip the high-pressure air switches to blow all the ballast tanks dry.
Once above the vessel, he rappelled to its deck. He then knelt and placed his fingers on the cut metal to descend between the jagged edges before he slipped into the submarine.
The familiar confines of a Scorpène-class control room became a cramped myopia through the blinders of his facemask. Rifles remaining behind the backs of the Philippine commandos confirmed his expectations that the Malaysian crew had succumbed to the gas and had offered no resistance.
As medics administered intravenous anesthetics to the incapacitated crewmen, the slow breathing of the unmoving men reminded Jake of a morgue for half-dead zombies.
He stepped to the panel that controlled the ship’s ventilation and waited for a signal from a medic. Sucking from a rebreather, a medic crouching beside an unconscious Malaysian sailor shook his head and raised his palm.
Jake lowered his hands to his sides to signal agreement to wait. He watched the medics creep to the last four men in the room who had fallen beside seats facing the liquid crystal displays of the Subtics tactical system. After the final injection entered the last vein, the nearest medic nodded and gave Jake a thumbs up.
Twisting a knob to start an intake fan, Jake heard air flowing into the ship from the induction mast. He then leaned and reached for a second knob, turned it, and felt the deck rumble through his feet as a low-pressure blower stirred to life in the engineering space.
Jake needed the blower to inhale clean air into the submarine and push gasified toxins out an exhaust plenum atop the conning tower. Wind swishing through the plastic-cut ingress hole helped clean the atmosphere, and he risked a breath.
He inhaled, and the room started to spin. Dropping to a knee, he popped his mouthpiece against his tongue and drew in deep breaths. A commando shook his head and laughed with his eyes while he attached a ladder to the escape hatch.
As he gathered his senses, Jake watched another commando assist with the ladder, climb it, and disappear into the late morning darkness. Helicopter blades became audible, and then the commandos returned into the ship with a body harness. They dragged the closest Malaysian sailor to it, wrapped its belts around him, and wiggled their comatose captive through the ingress hole as a wire pulled him up.