Then, an undersea sun rose.
Blinding lights from multiple angles illuminated the Goliath’s cargo bed. Like an escaping prisoner in a guard tower spotlight, Cahill was exposed, stunned, and vulnerable.
Marking from memory the locations of the transport vessel’s lights and cameras, he knew he was visible. He wanted to enable his voice transducer and warn his partner, but wise words of advice eluded him.
Would he compel his buddy to crawl faster? Could he tell him to hide? No, there was no option but to hope the prying eyes within the Goliath missed him.
They didn’t.
Sensing a shift in the flowing water, Cahill looked over his shoulder and saw the stern planes rolling to their full dive position. “Shit.” With his transducer off, his voice went nowhere. Then he probed his mask for a switch, toggled it, and called out in an amplified voice. “They see us!”
The legionnaire’s amplified response reverberated off the port hull. “Yes. Keep moving.”
With the nearby attentive ears aboard the Specter and the Wraith, Cahill expected his sonar technician comrades to overhear the desperate conversation.
Gravity thwarted his balanced crawl as the crossbeam angled down. His ears began to hurt as the depth and pressure increased.
Then the Australian’s world moved forward, and he slid backwards. He and the legionnaire pressed their chests to the crossbeam to stabilize themselves.
Cahill grasped the problem. “They’re using the rudder. They’re taking us deep and trying to shake us loose.”
Fearing the pressures awaiting him at the Goliath’s one-hundred-meter limit, he welcomed the ship’s leveling less than halfway down. Wondering why the hijackers spared him the deepest depths, he recalled they lacked a definitive knowledge of the ship’s formal limit.
They couldn’t know the dome’s pressure tolerance, and an ignorant but wise hijacker needed to stop short of its capabilities. The beam tilted from right to left as the huge ship began ascending again, and then the crossbeam reversed direction with a rudder shift, knocking Cahill’s voice transducer against steel.
He started sliding off the tunnel’s back, and he kicked his flailing fins to push himself forward. But his chest slipped down the sheen steel, and he forced his forearms into the metal, seeking decelerating friction.
As he looked to his companion, he noticed the commando lacked the leverage to hold them both to the ship. Fearing he’d slip away and become a chopped sacrifice to the Goliath’s propeller, he cried out. “I’m slipping!”
With impressive agility, the commando rolled to his side and pressed his fins into the crossbeam. Their connecting line slid over the smooth metal but tightened, giving the Australian the stability he needed to brake with his waist dangling in the abyss.
Scrambling for a toehold yielded nothing, and Cahill stopped struggling. As he tried to catch his breath, he heard screams echoing from the blackness.
Failing to understand the French words, he recognized the scared shouts coming from the bottom pair of divers. Their voices started ahead of Cahill, fell silent, and then rose again underneath him as their white conical beams cut swaths below the ship.
As the lights turned away, the Australian heard a final exchange between his dislodged teammates and the elder legionnaire. Then the white orbs of the swimmers receded into the darkness.
Doubting his decision to swim, Cahill hoped his companion knew what events were unfolding. “What happened?”
“They slipped off. They dived under the propeller.”
“So now what?”
“The helicopter gets them.”
“What about us?”
“We finish the mission.”
The crossbeam leveled as the Goliath ceased ascending and began another descent. Despite a rapid rudder turn jerking the tunnel, Cahill flipped a fin over the edge and pulled himself up.
But as the transport vessel dipped downward again, the commando fell over the crossbeam’s forward edge, and his weight tugged the Australian’s gut. Fearing he’d topple over the same edge, Cahill whipped his legs back below the crossbeam’s trailing side.
The connecting line cut a forty-five-degree angle over the tunnel, one man’s fall precluded by the other’s torso against the beam, and the Australian struggled to move. “I’m pinned down.”
“Can you move to me?”
Cahill groped and kicked, but he closed the distance to the commando by only inches. Lacking leverage to slide the line, he exerted himself, and when his stomach ached, he rested. “I can get there, but it will take time.”
“We have until our air runs out.”
“You said we had plenty of air.”
“That was before we are caught.”
“How long?”
“I can’t see. Maybe fifteen minutes.”
With the Goliath’s resistance slowing Cahill’s progress, its engine room seemed inaccessible. He kicked and strained again, but he made less ground. “This is taking too long.”
“You have maybe ten minutes working that hard.”
As the crossbeam angled up again during the next ascent, it started shimmying back and forth. Cahill recognized the constant cycling of the ship’s rudders exacerbating his situation. He became a dangling limpet again as gravity and water flow pushed him back. Seeking hope in his partner’s new position, he noticed his companion pinned to the crossbeam’s forward edge. “Can you move?”
“No. But you can. Let go and swim back.”
“What?”
“Let go and swim back close to engine room.”
After envisioning the physics, Cahill risked it. He quit kicking and lifted his forearms, freeing himself. The line rose from the metal and aligned with the fluid flow, leaving him two meters behind the beam. He kicked and pulled forward, reaching the tunnel’s back edge. With his companion facing him from the other side of the crossbeam, the Australian spoke despite his labored breathing. “I can hold here.”
“You’re stuck. We’re stuck.”
“There must be a way.”
“No. We give up.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
Cahill expressed his idea to mitigate the failed sabotage attempt. “Flood the tunnel.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. It won’t cripple the ship, but it divides and conquers the crew.”
“Okay.” The commando groped behind his back and then pulled a small charge upward. He extended his arm and slapped the explosive down against the metal. The dolphin-mountable device’s magnetic field held it on the crossbeam while the commando tapped its manual trigger and then wiggled away from the explosive. “Get ready.”
“For what?”
“To swim up.”
A pop stunned Cahill as a black hole replaced the bomblet. Then the commando pushed himself up and over the crossbeam, freeing the diving pair into the water above the Goliath.
“Up! Up!”
Cahill kicked and pulled, but the commando outpaced him, tightening their connecting line. Assisted upward, he continued striving for the surface.
Then his buddy’s light met his face, and Cahill slowed.
The legionnaire issued an order. “Stop!”
“Why?”
“The bends. Must wait.”
Cahill was frustrated with his swimming endeavor and wanted to breathe fresh air. “How long?”
The commando swam to him and examined his dial. “You have maybe six minutes left. We use it all. I lend you mine if needed. We need a minute here. Then nine meters higher. Then another minute.”
“Not sure I’m going to like this.”
“Don’t need to like. Need to live. Get back to submarines and work on next plan.”