Unbelievably to Dane, Bones instantly scrambled to life and went for the latch that would open the hatch and deliver them sweet air.
“Wait!” Dane rasped, but it was too late. Bones could no more be stopped from opening that hatch even though their sub was now airborne than a starving dog could restrain itself from gobbling down a bloody steak dropped in front of its nose. Bones leaned over the seat and Dane heard a clicking noise. Immediately he felt the rush of cool air.
Then the sub reached the apex of its airborne arc and began to fall back to the ocean. It canted over and splashed down on Dane’s side, drenching him with water as the sea invaded their cockpit. They’d landed almost upside-down and with the hatch open. Dane knew from his training that usually this type of situation was the result of a botched sub launch. But regardless of the cause, he was all too aware that it was a potentially deadly position that he had been trained to avoid at all costs.
His feet sloshed in water as he turned to Bones. “We gotta get out. Now!” Bones made a move to grip the edge of the sub and nearly lost the fingers of his right hand when the dome hatch came slamming back down under the force of the water currents. He withdrew his hand just in time. Then the hatch opened again, closing and opening like an angry clam as they drifted.
Dane didn’t see how they would escape without injury. But the water was up to his waist now, so he was preparing to take his chances when suddenly Bones reached down to the cabin floor.
“Bones, you okay?”
He could see the strain on Bones’ face, and then the nuke appeared in his lap as he lifted its weight from the floor. “Help me,” he said, hefting the bomb up toward the rim of the sub’s cabin. Dane moved over to the co-pilot’s seat and together they wrangled the heavy device onto the edge of the cabin such that it prevented the hatch from closing all the way.
Water swirled about their shoulders.
“Go, Bones. Slip through!”
Bones stared wide-eyed for a second at the hazardous cylinder propping the flapping dome open, then squirmed out through the slim space into the ocean. Once through, he treaded water, holding the bomb in position while Dane squirmed through after him.
Dane looked around. The TV expedition’s Ocean Explorer was in the same spot, looking busy with their salvage operation. Much closer by was their trawler. He saw no other activity. Their mini-sub was rapidly filling with water and would soon sink back into the depths from whence it came. Dane knew that even in their weakened condition, he and Bones would be able to make the swim back to their boat. Their BUDS school experiences had seen to that. That wasn’t the problem.
He eyed the nuke, still wedged in between the sub’s frame and the dome hatch. It was far too heavy for even both of them to tread water with. The thought of losing it now after all they had been through nearly made him sick.
“Bones. We need to get the bomb.”
Chapter 21
“Bomb’s way too heavy to swim with,” Bones sputtered, still weak from his ordeal in the oxygen-depleted submersible.
“I know,” Dane said, eyeing their boat about two hundred feet away. With the trawler’s autopilot system maintaining a fixed position, he and Bones were drifting in the opposite direction from the boat. He knew they had to do something, and fast. There had to be a way to float the nuke…
Dane peered inside the rapidly flooding cabin. Submersible, flotation…buoyancy…He mentally ticked through all of the sub’s systems and still came up empty on how to use them to save the nuke. Then the sub wobbled precariously, and he saw it: a snatch of orange behind the seats.
Life jackets!
Like all seagoing vessels, even submersibles were required to carry them aboard. Dane gripped Bones’ shoulder.
“I see PFDs inside. Going in.” Before Bones could reply Dane took a deep breath and squiggled though the hatch held open by the nuke. Inside the cabin his head was underwater. He opened his eyes to a blurry cockpit and the sting of saltwater. He pulled himself by feel back to the seat where he’d seen the life preservers. The sub knocked over to the right once and he had to reorient himself. Then he saw the blurry patch of orange and reached a hand out. He yanked on it but it stuck, secured in place by some kind of restraint. He slid a hand along the front of it and located a clasp. He undid it, pulled again, and a personal flotation device came free.
He swam up so that he could put his head up to the dome in the hopes of securing a breath. He managed a half gulp of air before the entire cabin gave in to the ocean.
Sub’s flooded!
Any second now, the underwater craft would succumb to the depths.
Dane returned to the PFD area and saw the remaining blotch of safety orange. He reached out and grabbed this one, which he liberated. Both PFDs in tow, Dane pulled himself back over to the open hatch, where he was relieved to see the nuke still in place, Bones’ hands supporting it from outside. He slithered back through the open hatch, the dome bruising his lower back on the way out.
Outside the sub treading water next to Bones, Dane wrapped the first life jacket around the nuke and cinched it down tight with the straps. By the time he finished the sub was four feet underwater.
“Better grab it,” Bones cautioned.
“Let’s go,” Dane said signaling with a thumbs-down for Bones to swim under with him. Forcing the PFD under, Dane wrestled it down to the sub and managed to tie it to the first PFD. Then he saw Bones strong-arm the nuke out from under the hatch. Dane clutched the nuke also and the two SEALs kicked back up to the surface.
Even with both PFDs attached to the nuke, it still wanted to sink. But with both Dane and Bones gripping the bomb and kicking, they could just manage to keep it afloat.
“The boat,” Dane coughed, nodding in the direction of their trawler. They began to kick, heads going underwater after each breath they took. But they kept kicking, and when Dane looked up some time later, he saw their boat’s stern welcoming them. They swam to a ladder and Dane climbed aboard while Bones cradled the nuke in the water, supported by the ladder. Climbing up with the nuke would be too difficult in their weakened state. Dane searched the work deck and came up with a long, stout rope. He brought it to the stern and dropped it down to Bones, who tied it around the nuke and knotted it.
Dane hauled the nuclear weapon aboard their boat. He and Bones rushed it inside the cover of the lower cabin area where they secured it beneath a pile of fishing gear.
The SEALs high-fived one another. “To the wheelhouse,” Dane said.
They ran up the stairs to the cockpit. Inside, Dane quickly took out the satellite phone.
He lit the thing up and dialed the number Epson had made them commit to memory. As instructed, when the line opened he input their latitude and longitude coordinates, followed by their speed and heading. He heard a synthesized voice: “Your information has been recorded,” and then the line went dead.
“Do we sit and wait knowing the Russians could blow us out of the water any second or get out of here under our own power even though it’ll change our position?” Bones asked.
In answer, Dane disengaged the auto-pilot and flipped the hidden switch to activate the secret twin engines. He set them on a course due east at full throttle.
As they left the site, they looked over at the Ocean Explorer, where an arresting sight awaited them.
Suspended by an A-frame crane, the space capsule Liberty Bell 7 dripped water onto the ship’s deck.
“He did it.” Bones said. “Roland Streib, that crazy bastard.”
“I hope he decodes his dimes,” Dane said with a grin.