Beside him, Henri listened in patient silence.
Next to Cahill, the American tapped a stylus on a dark section of pixels to vent his apparent annoyance. “Fine. Terry, he’s going to explode if he doesn’t explain himself in gory detail in French.”
“It’s okay, mate. You’d better let him talk. I’ll stretch me legs a bit and come back.”
Cahill strolled to the toilet and then relieved himself. After a detour to the crew’s mess, he sat at a dining table and massaged his aching muscles. Careful to avoid exacerbating his soreness, he released his legs, stood, and headed back to the control room, reminding himself to hide the persistent pain from his peers.
Around the central table, he sensed a renewed vigor, especially in Jake. “You won’t believe it.”
“Go on, Jake. Try me.”
“After hearing all the details, his idea’s brilliant.”
“Brilliant? Really?”
“Well, it’s better than ours, and I had to give it a lofty label to protect our egos.”
“If it’s that good, I can’t wait to suit up.”
After hearing the elder legionnaire’s plan, Cahill agreed in its viability.
Before dusk, he would swim to his ship again.
Eager to join the boarding team, he hated waiting, but he welcomed the time for a refreshing nap.
He retreated to his rack to rest. Fatigue overpowering anxiety, sleep came faster than he expected.
When he awoke five hours later, he dangled his legs over the side of his mattress. He lowered his bare feet and stifled a grunt while straining his abdomen. His toes touched the deck, and then he shifted his weight to his heels and stood to assess himself.
His stomach and loins had stiffened, and he struggled with his first step towards his sink. Sharing the stateroom with the Specter’s usual executive officer, he crept to avoid waking Henri from his slumber in the lower rack. The deliberate movement required careful muscle control and worsened his suffering.
After brushing his teeth, he grabbed his slacks from a hook on the door and then stepped into them. He lifted his white shirt from the hook, passed through the doorway with care to avoid disturbing the sleeping Frenchman, and then slipped his arms into his sleeves in the passageway.
Aromas of fennel and saffron mingled with diesel particulates, and he stuck his head through the galley door to examine the cook’s effort. Famished, Cahill salivated upon seeing pots of bouillabaisse, but he delayed gratification by continuing to the control room.
The staffing seemed sparse, with Jake as the lone man he’d known prior to last evening’s outing. With his efforts to recapture the Goliath behind him, the American appeared satisfied in his exhaustion. “Good afternoon, sleepyhead.”
“You look ready for a nap of your own.”
“I’ll pass out after lunch.”
“I’m starved, but I can bog in to that fish stew real quick and be back here fast.”
“Sure. You won’t have much to do. The Omanis took over the towing honors while you were racked out.” Needing to find the obscure status icon, Jake tapped through several menus to arrive at the anchor.
“Stowed nice and neat.”
“Our anchor’s right back where it belongs, at least until we reach Jiwani. Renard called his buddy, Admiral Khan, and he verified there’s nowhere to tie up. So, I’ll be dropping anchor again right inside Gwatar Bay.”
With the day’s original destination being Karachi for repairs, Cahill found the decision logical to drag his ship into Pakistani waters. “That’s the most anchor usage any submarine’s ever had in any given day in years. I guarantee you that, mate.”
“Yeah. At least I don’t need it on the Goliath anymore. The Omani patrol boat sent divers to tie onto its cleats with nylon ropes. We’re towing it the right way now.”
Shaking off sleep, Cahill recalled the planned actions that had occurred during his rest.
To avoid stranding the Specter’s anchor on the transport vessel upon grounding it, Jake had transferred its towing to the patrol boat. When the seafloor had risen enough to disallow the Goliath’s pulling the Omani craft under water, Renard had permitted the exchange. And, as a precaution against the unwanted resuscitation of the huge ship’s propulsion, divers had mounted to each engine room explosives which either submarine could trigger with a sequence from its bow-mounted sonar.
“That’s why we’re moving so slow.” Cahill glanced at the speed gauge showing four knots, mirroring the struggle the small Omani craft faced in pulling the Goliath.
“We’ve still got about three hours before we ground the Goliath. So you’ll have a few hours on watch before I send Henri and Julien up here to handle things. Get some food inside you and get back up here.”
“Did the Omani dive team weld the Goliath’s hatches shut?”
“Yeah. Just enough to prevent them from opening. They said it was quick and dirty work, but the hijackers won’t be escaping unless they blow their way out.”
“Don’t jinx it, mate. God knows what they’ll be willing to do when they finally realize the game’s over.”
Cahill returned to the mess deck where he grabbed a bowl of stew and sat at an empty table. With a couple engineering sailors as the room’s only other occupants, he assumed the rest of the crew had eaten and was resting.
He powered through his late lunch, satiating his hunger more than enjoying the tastes of Marseille. After depositing his empty bowl by the scullery, he went back to Jake and relieved him.
With a lone technician at the sonar consoles and Henri’s backup at the control panel, the room felt sparse. Cahill checked in with both sailors and verified the quietness of the Specter’s situation.
He then stepped to the central chart to visualize the scene.
The Omani patrol boat leading the formation towards the western Pakistani wrestled the submerged Goliath forward, and the surfaced submarines trailed them. A second Omani craft mirrored the transport ship’s undersea trek, guns aimed towards its submerged position to prevent the unlikely use of its railgun. From the distant east, a Pakistani corvette approached to represent its country’s interests.
Time moved slowly as the task force approached the coast. After a couple hours, Cahill’s moment to suit up for his final swim approached, and the legionnaire came for him. “Half an hour to go in the water.”
“That’s true if the grounding happens on time.”
“How close are they?”
“Twenty minutes. In fact, we should watch it. Let me raise the periscope.” Cahill stepped to a console and sat, and then he tapped icons to raise the optics. The Omani patrol boats came into view driving towards the sandy Pakistani beach. Farthest from Cahill, the towing ship pulled two nylon lines that lowered its churning stern, and then the ropes became rigid and yanked the vessel to a stop.
With a thick French accent, the lone seated sonar operator, Noah, confirmed Cahill’s suspicions. “The Goliath just hit the bottom. It was a smooth landing on the sand.”
“That’s great news. Can you hear any activity on the Goliath?”
“Nothing. It’s been quiet inside for many hours. Just a little noise here and there. Nothing important.”
Cahill tried to recall the present tide but remembered its irrelevance. The one-foot variance between tidal extremes in Gwatar Bay simplified the grounding. The Goliath might rise and fall, but with its bows buried in the sand, it was stuck.
He tapped another sequence of pixels to unmute his microphone. He then aimed his voice upward, frequent use of the radio allowing his informality.