“You can’t be serious?”
“We don’t have an abandon ship plan on the Specter for nothing. Don’t worry, commander. My guys will have you off the boat with at least a minute to spare before it blows up. Which reminds me.” Jake raised his voice. “Henri, pass the word for everyone to prepare to abandon ship.”
“I was wondering when you’d give the order. I’ll pass the word.”
His face pale, the rider shook his head.
Jake scowled. “What’s wrong, other than turning ourselves into a torpedo sponge?”
“We’re flirting with death.”
“I don’t like it, but it comes with the territory.” Jake hated it. Exhausted by the torment of another self-inflicted bout of mortal terror, he wondered if death offered a peaceful alternative to his life’s endless cycle of boredom and horror. He lied. “After you do it enough times, you get used to it.”
“If this works, we’ll be detainees or maybe prisoners of war.”
“Again, it comes with the territory, and Iran’s better behaved than you might think with this sort of thing.”
“You’re basing that on their treatment of Americans. Your crew is French, and you’re French enough to fake it.”
Overhearing the conversation, Henri chuckled. “As long as he doesn’t talk.”
Jake grimaced. “Bite me.”
“Come on, my old friend. Your mastery of French is as impeccable as your courage in the face of danger. Your accent, however… not so much.”
Dread rising under his cavalier veil, Jake continued to mask his fear to instill his team’s confidence. “Bite me.”
The rider remained somber while resisting the lighthearted mood. “French captives will be a new issue for Iran. I’m American, which could help matters, except that I’ll ruin any chance of plausible deniability about this being a joint US-mercenary operation.”
Jake saw value in an American naval officer’s presence within his future group of detainees, but his mission was protecting the United States — not his team. “It’s up to you, but you’re welcome to put on our fleet’s uniform and pretend you’re one of us. I think Claude LaFontaine’s got a build pretty close to yours.”
Accentuating the rider’s point, his Texas drawl came thickly. “You want me to pretend I’m French? If anyone’s got a wretched American accent, it’s me.”
“We’ll try not to talk.” During a silence he found uncomfortable, Jake realized the gunships over Cahill might seek the Specter after its surfacing. Unsure how such a confrontation might unfold, he wanted his encapsulated anti-air weapons available. “Henri?”
“Yes?”
“Swap out tubes five and six with Sidewinders. Have the guys hurry and make all the noise they need. Get me at least one Sidewinder ready in five minutes.”
“Five minutes will be tough.”
“Push them.”
“I will.”
Beside the Specter’s commander, the American officer grunted. “Encapsulated Sidewinders. A ship that can carry submarines underwater. Abandon ship procedures as business as usual. It’s so bizarre, but it’s logical. We don’t consider any of this in our navy because everything’s predicated on never being found. There’s no need to exchange weapons. But you mercenaries have turned it into a business.”
Jake smirked. “Guilty as charged.”
Commander Martin sighed. “You know, Mister Slate, I didn’t have much time to think about this assignment to your ship. I’m the only post-command submarine officer who speaks French. So, I was ordered out here, and I have to admit, I didn’t like the idea of working with mercenaries.”
Jake grunted. “And now that you’re getting the chance to be a torpedo sponge, you must be loving it.”
“Not loving it but respecting it. You and your crew have got some balls — big brass ones.”
“You’re handling it well enough, yourself. Today, you’re part of the team.”
“It’s an honor. And I’ll take you up on that offer to go into spy mode. Where can I get some clothes from Mister LaFontaine?”
CHAPTER 19
Sanity eluded Causey like an itch beyond reach. Moving forward through the water, as opposed to dragging himself backward over mud, provided a scent of normalcy. But everything else was wrong.
The deck plates beneath his sneakers tilted upwards with his hull to provide gliding lift below his flooded compartment, he commanded his ship from his engine room’s watertight door, and divers turned underinflated garbage bags into balloons in his flooded compartment.
Worst of all, he sprinted for his life.
But he wasn’t sprinting. An Australian commander of a mercenary transport vessel sprinted for him, leaving him helpless on another man’s back.
But it wasn’t a sprint. The Goliath’s underwater limits combined with the drag on the Indiana restricted the evasion to a light jog of twelve knots.
Standing beside his commander, the diving officer attempted optimism. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, sir.”
The Indiana’s commander shook his head. “I never bank on luck. That loud creaking made the shot easy, and we’re louder than a hurricane with all the jagged edges on the Goliath. Mister Cahill needs to get us out of here.”
The Australian’s voice rang from the central laptop. “I’m working on that, commander. And you won’t believe the asinine idea me mate just proposed.”
After Causey’s recent run of bad luck, he thought he’d believe anything. “Try me.”
“Mister Slate just offered to sacrifice himself to the torpedo.”
The Indiana’s commander thought he’d let a nuance of Australian English confuse him. “Did you say he’d sacrifice himself?”
Cahill was nonchalant. “We’ve done this a few times before, him more than anyone. I suppose I’ll tell you about the highlights of our history, once things settle down.”
The concept unnerved Causey. “You’re talking about it like a standard operating procedure.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying it, but it more or less is. I’ve taken two hits in me port bow. Jake once gave up a submarine to save a Burke-class destroyer, though that was before I was on the team.”
Waiting for others to solve his problems twisted Causey’s stomach. “So, what can I do to help?”
“The most useful thing you could do is update your abandon ship procedure. We normally prepare life rafts, lifejackets, and small arms. But with our position in Iranian waters, I’m not sure if the presence of small arms would backfire.”
Causey scowled. “You just said Mister Slate was sacrificing himself. Why would I need to abandon ship?”
The Australian’s smile was sardonic. “You’re in the care of Renard’s Mercenary Fleet now. It’s what we do when all else fails. Best to be ready.”
The Indiana’s commander glanced at a laptop showing a tactical rendition of his world. A trailing heavyweight torpedo loomed five minutes behind him, and a crew of French strangers raced to take the proverbial bullet for him. “Alright, what about the small arms? If we end up doing this, you’d say to go with our hands raised in hopes of diplomacy?”
“That’s my guess. And it’s only a guess, mind you. I’m not getting any guidance from above.”
For a second, Causey thought the Australian referred to prayer, but he realized he meant Renard’s data feed. “I’ll bring the small arms. We can always throw them overboard if the Iranians want to show us hospitality.”
A shadow overcame Cahill’s face. “Bloody hell. We shouldn’t have to be debating this. I’m tired of playing stupid games with these mongrels. Jake doesn’t need to bother. We’ve still got time to surface and evade.”