As Cahill pondered the inconvenience of a makeshift freighter shell wrapped around his ship, a Taiwanese naval officer marched down the steps. Shadows covered the man’s stern face.
“I dislike his demeanor,” Renard said.
“He doesn’t look happy.”
The officer spoke English with a thick Mandarin accent.
“Mister Renard, I have an urgent message for you.”
He extended an envelope.
“What does it say?”
“I am sorry. It’s above my security clearance, but I will wait here in case you need my assistance with a response.”
“Thank you,” Renard said.
Cahill watched the Frenchman balance a Marlboro between his fingers while he tore open the envelope and then read the sealed paper’s contents. His respect for Renard grew as he watched his mind digest weighty news in a fleeting instant.
“This changes our timing,” Renard said.
“What’s going on?” Cahill asked.
“An update from Miss McDonald. Apparently, the United States Navy has been kind enough to keep an eye, or an ear rather, on our latest adversary. An Akula-class submarine deployed from Avacha Bay and is heading in our direction at flank speed.”
“Shit.”
“There’s no indication of its mission, but I would bet that it’s to track the Goliath.”
Cahill felt his adrenaline rising.
“Why track me? Why not just blow me out of the water outright? Who the hell would avenge me?”
“Don’t be so certain that Jake and I wouldn’t, even against the Russians. But you’re right that this is a grave risk. You must deploy sooner than I’d planned, carrying the Specter.”
“How the hell did they know about us?”
“I’m afraid that a side effect of success is that people start watching my moves with increased scrutiny. The home porting of the Goliath and Specter at this location is a general secret, but it’s not to the Chinese.”
“But even if the Chinese shared that information with the Russians, how do they know that we’re going to attack them in Crimea? How could they guess that we’re intending to attack them at all?”
“They can’t, unless Miss McDonald suffers from a traitor in her midst. My suspicions are that the Russians have instead enjoyed intelligence from the Chinese, who watch this islet like hawks. They’re aware that we’re gearing up for a mission, and they’re going to watch us with paranoid curiosity.”
“I can barely outrun an Akula. What’s me speed advantage surfaced? A knot or two? Parity? Bloody hell, Pierre, I can’t afford to submerge at all, or I’ll lose the tail chase.”
“That’s why you’ll have to trust your camouflage.”
Cahill looked again at the piles of external hull sections.
“If the Chinese are watching this islet, how do you expect me to escape without me cover being blown?”
The glint in the Frenchman’s eye instilled Cahill’s confidence.
“I said they watch this islet like a hawk. What I didn’t tell you is that we have countermeasures to spring you free.”
“I can’t wait to hear more. But with all this Chinese and Russian attention and Jake being far away, are you going to trust Henri to command the Specter?”
“He has been learning tactics over the years. But, no. All new information considered, I think it best that an expert commander handle the Specter on this egress.”
“Me? I’m still learning about the class of ship, although I’m sure I could handle it and trust Liam with the Goliath.”
“No need,” Renard said. “I’ve commanded a few submarines during my career. I’m sure I remember how. Until we can clear prying Chinese eyes and make you look like an average freighter of no interest to the Akula, the Specter is mine.”
CHAPTER 4
Cahill pressed his tennis shoe into the last temporary external tube.
“Feels stable,” he said. “They’re all mounted rock solid. But that’s forty holes you’ve drilled into me ship for extra weapons, and I’ve lost count of how many you’ve drilled for your camouflage.”
“Two-hundred and forty-two,” Renard said. “I estimate thirty minutes for an eight-man crew to remove them all. But you can sever each stanchion and each weapons tube mount with the explosives that are mated to them. The stanchions and weapons are on different circuits for severing their mounts independently.”
“I can blow them all with a command from the bridge?”
“Yes. I needed to equip you with a rapid method of shedding your baggage and exoskeleton, so to speak. But you’ll need to remove each bolt manually to rid yourself of the stanchions completely.”
He knew the Frenchman had considered the structural integrity of the modifications. So he jumped to his next concern as he waved his hand at the scaffolding.
“Do you know what all this has done to me acoustic signature?”
“I regret that I do not. You’ll have to use the Specter to take sound cuts when you’re at sea.”
“I figured. Are you sure you don’t want me to just use the Goliath the way you designed it? Let me sprint away from danger while I can and submerge when I can’t.”
“You’d be too vulnerable in the Suez, and you may need the camouflage while you traverse the other chokepoints.”
“Okay,” Cahill said. “I have to agree with you, but I don’t have to like it. I know it’s weird coming from a submariner, but I feel claustrophobic.”
As he traced stanchions from bolts drilled into the Goliath to a section of scaffolded hull, the suspended bulkheads surrounded him like bath tub.
“I believe that you should keep the facade as long as you can, possibly until you’re within torpedo range of the bridge,” Renard said. “Of course, if your cover is blown prior to then, the rules change.”
“Agreed, mate.”
The Frenchman exhaled smoke.
“Let me be more clear. If your cover is blown prior to the Suez, I’m aborting the mission. You must pass through the Suez Canal in disguise. If you cannot, then the Russians would have no question about your destination, and they would sink you while you’re trapped in its tight channel.”
“Then let get me out of here before that Akula arrives.”
“Right. The facade hull is complete except for the crossing sections that will join the containers in covering the Specter. You’ll have to submerge the Goliath in the center of the basin and then drive under me for the loading procedure.”
“The basin is deep enough?”
“I had it dredged.”
“Okay, mate. But once that’s done, is the egress tunnel tall enough to squeeze through with all the containers?”
“I had it expanded higher and wider. All is ready. We only need to execute.”
Cahill stood at the corner of the bridge that jutted from the Goliath’s starboard bow. Through the polycarbonate windows that interlaced steel bars backed and reinforced, he glanced at the Phalanx system on the left half of the ship.
“Lowering the Phalanx,” he said.
He tapped an icon, and the white-domed close-in weapon system sank into the ship’s port bow. Hatches rolled shut for a watertight seal.
Liam Walker, his executive officer and a former sailor from an Anzac-class frigate, kept his eyes on a status screen.
“The Phalanx is stowed,” he said.
“Very well,” Cahill said.
He flipped through camera angles that looked beyond the exterior of the facade.