The geek frowned. “That’s an unusual request.”
“But we track military assets and passenger vessels all the time. It won’t raise red flags, will it?”
“No, it won’t. Just give me a couple minutes.”
“Okay. Call me back.”
She minimized the window and picked up her phone. The beast reminded her to order dinner and prepare for a long night.
It also reminded her to apply her contriving mind to a backup plan, in case the Frenchman failed, of finding a way to turn Renard’s loss into her gain.
CHAPTER 5
The colonel stood atop the Goliath, underneath its unique domed bridge. Interlaced steel supported transparent tiles of polycarbonate windows, allowing him a hemispherical view. Cacophonic chirping chimed its chorus, the limpet swarm’s shrill shrieking shredding his severing nerves. “How long will those accursed things blare?”
Beside him, the commander appeared to have accepted the annoying noise. “It could be days, I’m afraid.”
“They’ll drive me mad.”
“You’ll get used to them before we can pry them off.”
“And when might that be?”
“Tomorrow after nightfall, if you still believe we must.”
“You’re optimistic about me staying sane that long. The noise is running through my bones.”
“You could find relief in the port hull.”
A sideways glance showed the silhouetted central cargo bed and then the starboard hull’s twin. Farther aft, the largest crossbeam provided the solitary tunnel between the catamaran’s halves. “Has anyone gone across yet?”
“The sergeant sent a commando across.”
“What’s he found?”
“I have no idea. He departed over fifteen minutes ago, and I haven’t heard any reports since.”
The colonel realized the vessel’s size and shape hindered communications as his team located and adapted to the sound-powered phones. Frustrated, he focused on the benefits of his unique, captured prize. “What systems are working?”
“Most them, as best I can tell.”
“Then start with what’s not working.”
“Weapons aren’t working.”
“Of course not. Those are locked out except where we can invoke manual overrides.”
“Sonar is running, but only passively.”
“Does this ship even have active sonar?”
“It has side-scan sonar systems, and those are locked out. More importantly, the tactical radar system is locked out, too.”
“That’s disappointing, but not a surprise.”
“I’m sure I could energize our navigation radar, but that would give away our position more than it would benefit us.”
“Keep it off.”
As if spurred by the reminder of the Goliath’s electronic blindness, the submarine commander lifted night vision binoculars to his face and scanned the circular horizon.
The colonel looked into the blackness with his naked eye. “What are we looking for?”
“Trouble.”
The colonel studied the horizon and the low stars. “Okay. I’m not sure what trouble looks like.”
“It must look much like the hostile aircraft you search for when you’re carrying a rifle behind enemy lines.”
“I’m used to looking for low-flying aircraft as black objects on the horizon, unless I have night vision, which lets me look for engine heat.”
“That’s what I’m doing, sort of.”
“Why ‘sort of’?”
“You’re used to objects moving sideways across the horizon. But whoever’s coming for us knows exactly where we are and will come straight for us.”
“That’s almost impossible to see.”
“That’s why I’m looking. If you want to help, you could grab night vision binoculars from the hooks at the back of bridge. They have a low-magnification search mode.”
“I’ll get us some help.”
The colonel hovered his finger above an icon on a screen that promised to send his voice throughout the entire ship. “Have you tested this yet?”
The commander lowered his optics and glanced down. “Yes, that will work.”
After lowering his finger, the colonel announced his request into an overhead microphone. “Does anyone know where the sergeant is?”
The bulldog’s voice rang back. “I hear you, sir. I’m in the engine room.”
“I need two more sets of eyes up here on the bridge.”
“Everyone’s spoken for. There’s even one guy in the port hull. You’re out of bodies.”
“I don’t need two guys watching the propulsion motor.”
“I can agree to that. I’ll send one man forward.”
“Good enough. Take care of it.”
The colonel hit a muting icon to regain his privacy. “So I can barely see any aircraft that are coming for me. But I can’t submerge without cutting my speed by more than half, which would allow the submarines to catch me.”
“Right. The best estimate is that this ship can sustain twelve to thirteen knots submerged with both propellers and all MESMA plants running.”
“And we can’t use the Phalanx close-in weapon system.”
“No. We can’t use any weapons now. All weapons and offensive sensors are locked out for lack of a physical firing key that’s hanging around Terrance Cahill’s neck.”
“Is anything working from a tactical standpoint?”
“Just the passive sections of Subtics — listening on sonar and sniffing incoming radar energy.”
The colonel reflected upon the deviations from his planned hijacking. The loss of two commandos during the infiltration amounted to an annoyance, but the rapid helicopter response to place tactical teams on the submarines had unsettled him.
Compounding his concern, his sonar expert reported a new threat over the bridge’s loudspeaker. “Incoming torpedo, this time from the Wraith.”
The commander aimed his voice upward. “Very well. Do you have a time to impact?”
“I’m not sure how this system calculates it.”
“Calculate it by hand and manually update the system.”
The colonel found his men’s calmness about another incoming torpedo juxtaposed with the danger he sensed was coming, but he considered panicking pointless. “It’s going to catch us, isn’t it?”
“Those two big black blobs behind us on the horizon are the Specter and the Wraith. Anything they shoot will hit us, no matter what we do.”
“Then why are we bothering to run from them?”
“I want to escape their torpedo range. The more time they have to ruminate over what we just did to them, the more likely they are to get angrier and shoot something with a big warhead.”
With his naked eye, the colonel thought he saw an opaque orb oscillating over his opponent. “Look at the Wraith.”
His accomplice swung the optics. “That’s a helicopter.”
“Damn it. A gunship?”
“No, it’s just a transport vehicle. It’s dropping people onto the Wraith.”
“But does it have guns?”
“I can’t tell from this distance. It might.”
“Keep an eye on it.” The colonel remembered the incoming weapons. “What’s the chance this latest torpedo already has explosives?”
“Small. I expect it to be another limpet weapon to mark our port hull.”
“That will double the amount of these maddening sirens. Can’t we just submerge and disappear?”
The commander lowered his optics and glared. “With limpets on our hull?”
The colonel became a scolded child but stuffed away the shame to profit from the submarine expert’s advice. “I mean if I get the MESMA plants running and go faster than the submarines. Eventually we’d be far enough away from all danger to send swimmers over the side to pry off those monstrosities. Then we’d be submerged and undetectable.”